Tiger Global is Prepared to Make Additional Payments to Portfolio Leaders

Alex Cook, a partner at Tiger Global and a top lieutenant of the New York-based fund's global head for private investments, Scott Shleifer, told a group of its Indian founders earlier this month here that the fund will not shy away from issuing cheques for follow-on investments for its best-performing firms from the current portfolio, despite a slowdown in late-stage funding in India, according to sources briefed on the matter.

After his predecessor, Lee Fixel, left to start his own fund in 2019, Shleifer took over as global head of private investments. According to at least two sources familiar with Cook's meeting in Bengaluru earlier this month, Cook also discussed that Tiger Global, known for its aggressive growth stage bets in India, is looking to score more early-stage deals (seed to series A-B) and come in early in local startups.

Tiger Global, which previously backed startups such as Flipkart, Ola, and Delhivery, has given birth to multiple unicorns such as Groww, ShareChat, and Infra.Market, and has participated in large follow-on funding rounds in several late-stage startups in 2021 - a record-breaking year for big-ticket funding - at high valuations.