In a bid to bulk up its India portfolio, Steadview Capital pumps in an investment worth $85 million in SaaS major Freshworks. This is Steadview's ninth investment in an Indian privately-held technology company, which is valued at more than $1 billion. Other than this, the firm has already invested in Ola, PolicyBazaar, omnichannel Nykaa and Lenskart, among others. .

In November, Chennai and San Mateo-based Freshworks had announced that it had raised $150 million in a new round of financing led by its existing investors, which valued it at about $3.5 billion.

The secondary transaction by Steadview Capital involved buying out some of Freshworks' early angel investors. The investment firm, which has pumped over $500 million into 20 Indian private tech companies over the last two years, will continue placing bets at the same

pace in Asia's third-largest economy, and may even increase the same over the next two years.

"Overall, Steadview has $2 billion invested in India including both private and public companies and is very excited about the opportunities in the country," says Ravi Mehta, Managing Director.

The firm, which manages assets over $2.5 billion globally, has been one of the most active tech-focused investors in India in the recent past, having invested an estimated $1.2 billion till date, making India the largest recipient of its capital.

Steadview's core thesis has been to invest in fast-growing companies with a market cap in the range of $100 million-$1 billion, which are either market leaders or oligopolies in their respective sectors, and with the ability to write a first investment cheque of up to $100 million.

"We also view Covid-19 as an opportunity to back our companies more strongly. We have added to three of our portfolio companies recently - Nykaa, Chargebee and Observe.ai. At the beginning of the year, we had made an investment in Freshworks. So, we have been fairly active through this period as well," Mehta mentions.

This comes at a time when investors, across stages and sectors, have largely slowed their activity, as they wait for the economy to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and the nationwide-enforced lockdown.