It could be a second coming for Travis Kalanick, co-founder and former CEO of cab aggregator Uber, as he has announced the setting up of an investment firm 10100 (read ‘ten one hundred’). Interestingly, this fund will focus only on companies in China and India.
These details have been revealed by Travis Kalanick himself through his Twitter handle. He goes on to say in his tweet that this new entity will take care of his investments that are of the for-profit kind as well as the not-for-profit investments.
According to media reports, Kalanick will likely invest in startups that have between 10 and 100 employees -- the magic growth stage for startups.
Travis Kalanick has also disclosed that the real estate sector, ecommerce and emerging innovation will be the key sectors for his for-profit investments in India will be directed at and large-scale job creation will be the target and objective. Under the not-for-profit ventures category investments, education will be the top priority. In addition, infrastructure will receive some attention, as the ‘future of the cities’ finds a mention in Travis Kalanick’s tweet.
Travis Kalanick is back in the news after a gap of close to a year when he was unceremoniously ousted as the CEO of Uber. This followed a series of issues the company faced over a whole year including driver complaints and court cases.
Though he left Uber as CEO he continues to be on its Board and is reported to have joined the Board of another company Kareo, that is into medical office software.
The announcement about his setting up an investment fund has not been accompanied by details of the source of these funds; however, since he is said to have sold around a third of his holding in Uber for a consideration of around $1.4 billion, in only January this year, it is speculated that a large part of these funds will find their way into the China-India focused investment venture.