In the ongoing technological conflict and competition between China and the United States, India’s role is becoming more and more influential—from the border conflict with China (which dates back to the 1960s) to the ban on all apps of Chinese companies, and then Some Indian entrepreneurs promised never to invest Chinese money. At the same time, various US technology giants and technology-focused investment institutions (Amazon, Facebook Silver Lake, IC, Sequoia India, Wal-Mart, Google) are rapidly injecting capital into the Indian technology industry, mainly in Jio.
Although India's recent actions do continue to verify the big topic and trend of "decoupling" on many levels , it is actually not that simple. If you look more deeply at the capital flow between the technology industries in these three countries, you will find that there are many complicated "entanglements" behind them.
In order to explore the relationship between "decoupling" and "entanglement", let's look at the corporate strategy of major US and Chinese technology companies against Indian "unicorns" (tech companies with private market valuations of more than $1 billion) investment. I only choose to look at "strategic corporate investment" because this type of investment usually only occurs when there is a long-term and close business integration between the investor and the company being invested, which has a strong signal of "entanglement". This is not to say that investors in venture capital, PE, or sovereign wealth funds do not have such considerations, but the signal is weak.
Of course, India’s huge and complex economy has only its unicorns. I focus on unicorns because they are often a leading indicator of where the technology industry in an economy is headed. From a more realistic perspective, there are enough unicorns in India now, 21 in total , so some analysis can be done; this kind of analysis could not be done five years ago.
Of course, India’s large and complex economy includes more than just tech unicorns. The reason why I focus on unicorns is because they are often a leading indicator of where the technology industry in an economy is headed. From a more realistic perspective, there are now enough Indian unicorns, 21 in total , so some analysis can be done. It would not be possible to do this kind of analysis five years ago.
Analyze "entanglement"Before analyzing the strategic investment in the Indian unicorn, let me first explain the source of the research information so that everyone can clearly know where these numbers come from. Indian unicorns come from the global unicorn list maintained by CB Insights. Information about strategic investments comes from CB Insights, Crunchbase and various media reports related to these companies. This article did not disclose any confidential information, anyone can find these figures and information through Google.
Among the 21 Indian technology unicorns, more than half of the companies have received strategic investment from Chinese technology companies, about one-third have received similar investments from US companies, and many more companies have not obtained these two channels. Get funding. The most interesting thing is that there are six unicorns that have taken strategic investment from both American and Chinese companies . They are:
- One97 (owns Paytm) — Investor: Alibaba/Ant Financial, Kernel
- Oyo — Investors: Didi Chuxing, Airbnb
- Snapdeal — Investors: Alibaba, Intel, eBay
- Zomato — Investors: Ant Financial, Apple
- PolicyBazaar — Investors: Tencent, Intel
- Udaan — Investors: Tencent, Microsoft
Because Chinese technology giants voted for more than half of India’s unicorns, I think it’s worthwhile to "divide" this group further. The above chart lists the number of strategic investments made by these Chinese technology giants in Indian unicorn companies.
Anyone who has been following the Chinese science and technology community for a long time knows that a large part of the entire structure has been divided into the "Ali department" and the "Tencent department", which is reflected in the fierce strategic investment and agency competition. For example, Didi Chuxing originated from the merger of Didi Dache (Tencent) and Kuaidi Dache (Ali), marking the truce between the two giants in the ride-sharing industry.
I believe that the tech crowd in India will also resist this phenomenon, especially considering the current “big environment”. However, there are signs that the competition between Ali and Tencent has been staged in certain industries in India.
The best example is the fierce competition between Zomato (Alibaba, because Ant Financial made a strategic investment) and Swiggy (Tencent and Meituan Comments aim to make strategic investments) in the food delivery business. India's recent friction with China has directly affected Zomato's ability to obtain Ant investment and undermined its chances of competing with Swiggy. It is worth noting that Uber sold its Indian food delivery service to Zomato with a 9.99% stake in January this year, so Uber also has a place in this competition. More broadly, Uber sold its China business to Didi Chuxing for a 17.7% stake in 2016, so Uber also has a vested interest in all of Didi's investment activities in India. But Uber did not directly appear in the fundraising history of any Indian unicorn company.
There are too many entanglements.
Whose money is "more valuable"?A company finds investment not just to get money, but more importantly, it is easier to establish partnerships with investors and gain valuable knowledge and experience from the success and failure of investors. These are easier than money itself. When a company is considering whether to invest in its corporate strategy, it is particularly important to consider whose money is "more valuable".
So from the perspective of the Indian market, should Chinese money be "more valuable" or American money "more valuable"? There are good reasons to prove that many Indian entrepreneurs believe that Chinese money is "more valuable."
In the above categories, Chinese technology companies are either clearly leading in innovation and technology (an e-commerce company), or their market conditions are more similar to India (some logistics/supply chains and financial technology).
我们仔细看看金融科技（FinTech）。虽然美国在 FinTech 方面一直有很多创新和发展，从支付和贷款到保险领域，但很多创新都是建立在围绕着信用卡的基础和用户行为上— 这在中国和印度都怎么存在。因此在中国，支付经历从纸币直接跳到了数字化现金，而其他金融产品也与数字化支付平台捆绑在一起，替代支付宝和微信支付。
印度的互联网经济与 10- 15 年前中国互联网的状况类似，印度走中国走出的这条路，同时加上自己的创新，其他印度用户的需求和习惯，是非常合理的。但是，印度如果先引进像美国那样的信用卡系统，然后在此基础上进行科技创新和发展是不合理的。
图里的“其他”（其他）包括：教育科技、广告科技、游戏、外卖送餐和清洁能源。在所有这些领域里，可以公平地说，对于一家希望在同一行业发展的印度公司而言，中国和美国各自的领先企业都具有竞争力和相当的价值。
为了专注和清晰起见，这里只分析了企业战略投资，有意没有看其他在印度很活跃的投资机构，如软银（日本）、淡马锡（新加坡）、Tiger Global，以及许多 PE 和风投基金，尽管它们都是连绵”纠缠”其中的重要部分。就连 巴菲特的 Berkshire Hathaway 也参与了这场游戏，在 2018 年投资 3.6 亿美元 给印度最大的支付产品 Paytm。因为这笔投资，Berkshire 的利益也就与阿里 / 蚂蚁金服纠缠在一起。
就个人而言，我支持所有国家都在某种程度上达到“脱钩”。如果 COVID-19 给了大家任何启示，那就是在管理一个国家时，一定程度的自力更生和资源独立是绝对必要的，从而扩大保护和照顾自己国民的基本职责。
但是，围绕“脱钩”的各种讨论太多都很黑白分明，而在某种程度上脱离了技术和商业的现状。（我最近在“东南亚与太平洋光缆网”中刚刚探讨了全球云计算的技术现状。）
在看印度 - 中国 - 美国的三边关系时，显然在能“脱钩”之前有很多需要先解开的“纠缠”。因此，我们最应该问的，也是最务实的问题是：应该花多少资源解开多少程度的“纠缠”，才能达到必要程度的“脱钩”？