Bengaluru: RNT Associates, the privately held investment firm of Ratan Tata, and the chief investment officer’s office of the University of California have partnered to jointly fund start-ups and enterprises in India over the next 10 years.

Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons Ltd, has invested in more than 25 start-ups in the last two years including online market place Snapdeal (Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd), online furniture store Urban Ladder (Home Décor Solutions Pvt Ltd), Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd), online lingerie store Zivame (Actoserba Active Wholesale Pvt. Ltd) and many others across sectors such as healthcare, automotive financial inclusion and e-commerce.

“Though many details need to be worked out, the joint view is to encourage entrepreneurship. We haven’t pre-judged what we are going to do, or the size of investments but we are looking to invest in young entrepreneurs and believe that the University of California could provide great assistance to them," said Tata, chairman of RNT Associates.

“We are looking for interesting opportunities across sectors, be it healthcare or alternate energy, and would be funding some of the best teams and giving them the runway and opportunity," said Jagdeep Singh Bachchar, chief investment officer, University of California.

They didn’t disclose investment targets or corpus details.

Tata’s investing interests have largely been limited to companies that have raised significant amount of capital and have raised multiple rounds of funding. Tata has made small investments ranging from ₹ 10 crore in online market place Snapdeal to ₹ 10 lakh in Zivame.

Bachchar said there would be a significant number of alumni from the University of California who are in India, and are probably trying to build companies, who could also be tapped.

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