Jack Ma's 'disappearance' may hit Indian firms in long run

NEW DELHI: Call it a double whammy. First, reports surfaced in August last year that China's Alibaba Group has put on hold plans to invest in Indian companies amid geopolitical tensions between the two nations. Now, the "disappearing" act by Alibaba founder and owner of fintech venture Ant Group, Jack Ma, may have left top-notch Indian digital firms flummoxed. According to US-based PitchBook that delivers data on private capital markets, Alibaba and its affiliates Alibaba Capital Partners and Ant Group (earlier known as Ant Financial) invested more than $2 billion in Indian companies since 2015. Overall, in the last five years, Chinese investors (including Tencent) have poured in over $5.7 billion into the Indian start-up ecosystem, according to data from Venture Intelligence. The companies where Alibaba Group via its fintech ventures have invested in include digital payments platform Paytm, online food delivery platform Zomato and BigBasket. (IANS)

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