A European royal family walked into India’s startup boom with a billion dollars…
About this episode
The episode discusses the challenges faced by Lightrock, a firm backed by the Liechtenstein dynasty, in the Indian startup ecosystem.
Lightrock arrived in India with nearly a billion dollars and royal backing — the Liechtenstein dynasty's centuries-old fortune funding bets on around 40 growth-stage startups. The firm moved fast, doubled down on existing investments more aggressively than most peers, and scaled hard during the zero-interest-rate boom. Then the cycle turned. Its portfolio — Waycool, Pharmeasy, Dunzo — ran into trouble. New cheques dried up. Lightrock shifted from investor to caretaker, managing what it had rather than building what came next. A royal wager on Indian tech, still waiting for a payoff. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
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