Norwest Venture Partners opens second Indian office

The Palo Alto venture firm has made a second hire for its India operations, and is opening an office in the southern city of Bangalore.

US venture capital firm Norwest Venture Partners has hired Mohan Kumar as an executive director for its India operations. Kumar will be based the firm’s new office in Bangalore and will shuttle between India and the US, a company spokesman told PEO.

Kumar will focus on making technology investments in India.

Promod Haque, managing partner at Norwest Venture, said in a statement: “Kumar’s domain expertise in the mobile technology and software development sectors will be of tremendous value to NVP India.”

Kumar was earlier corporate vice president of Mobile Devices Software at communications company Motorola. In his former role, he was responsible for creating mobile platform middleware and other applications for 3GSM, CDMA & WiFi mobile phones. Before Motorola, he worked at Texas Instruments, an electronics company, where he helped set up a business unit in Bangalore. Kumar has also been an angel investor and has helped start-up companies in the areas of mobile applications, content and solutions.

Norwest Venture opened its first Indian office in Mumbai last year, and hired Niren Shah as managing director for its Indian operations. As part of its expansion drive in India, the firm is likely to appoint one more partner in the country, a spokesman said.

Most of Norwest Venture’s deals have been in India and the US, and it has also made investments in China and Israel. The firm has made four direct investments in India so far: Adventity, a knowledge process outsourcing company; Persistent Systems, a software development company; Sulekha.com, an online community and networking website; and Yatra, an online travel services company. It has also made 20 investments in cross-border portfolio companies that operate in both India and the US.