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After a hiatus of nearly two years, Lee Fixel, the media-shy former Tiger Global fund manager, known as the great bull of India’s consumer internet history, has once again invested in local startups.
Fixel, who launched his own $ 1.2 billion Addition fund in the US earlier this year, has led a $ 35 million round on Inshorts, a platform that aggregates news and information. He had first endorsed Inshorts while at Tiger Global in 2015, having paid a $ 4 million check for the startup.
Its first new venture in India comes at a time when New York-based Tiger Global has been actively investing in the country under the direction of Scott Shleifer, who took over the firm’s private equity portfolio last year. passed after Fixel’s departure. The fund’s recent large investments include those in Zomato and Byju.
Read: How Tiger’s Scott Shleifer is matching Lee Fixel’s investment pace in Indian startups
In response to ET’s inquiry, Inshorts co-founder and CEO Azhar Iqubal said the company had raised $ 35 million from Addition, SIG Global and Tanglin Venture Partners. Inshorts will use the funds to power its Public app, a location-based social network. The platform is used for local updates and events related to local business, jobs, classifieds and more, the company said.
“We are profitable at Inshorts and we raised this capital for our new Public app. With over 50 million active users and over 1 million videos being created each month on the app, Public aims to connect the local communities of Bharat and become the only one – stop solving all your local needs, ”said Iqubal.
Read: Lee Fixel to leave Tiger Global, ready to hunt only in India and beyond
A source had previously told ET that Inshorts was posting $ 13 million in revenue with $ 5 million of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Fixel’s biggest win in India came from Flipkart’s sale of $ 16 billion to Walmart in 2018. However, after the acquisition, Tiger began to shift his focus from just consumer internet companies and also started gambling in business enterprises and SaaS.
Since Addition, Fixel has invested in DLocal, a cross-border payment processor, mental health startup Lyra Health, security company Snyk, which it is the first to develop, among others.
Read also: What has led to Tiger Global’s aggressive return to India?
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