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12 Indian-origin persons in Forbes' Midas 100 list

January 28, 2008 16:35 IST

As many as 12 Indian-origin persons have made it to a list of 100 dealmakers with 'Midas-touch' prepared by the renowned business magazine, based on the value of the companies these people have taken public or sold in the past five years as well as the capital and involvement it took to get there.

People of Indian origin seem to have developed a habit of making it to the Forbes magazine -- this time it is for making investments in start-up companies and then selling off their stakes with handsome gains.

As many as 12 Indian-origin persons have made it to a list of 100 dealmakers with 'Midas-touch' prepared by the renowned business magazine, based on the value of the companies these people have taken public or sold in the past five years as well as the capital and involvement it took to get there.

Ram Shriram, a founding board member of Internet search giant Google, has been named at the third position in the renowned US-based business magazine's Midas 100 List.

The list has been topped by L John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, whom Forbes has described as the "mentor and money man to founders of Google, Amazon, Intuit and Sun Microsystems."

Shriram, who currently runs venture capital firm Sherpalo and made a fortune by making early investment in Google, has moved up one position from his fourth rank last year. He has also invested in travel portal Cleartrip and Internet-based photo service provider Xoom.in, in addition to online money management firm Mint.com.

Shriram is accompanied by 11 other persons of Indian origin on the list, including Navin Chaddha (10th) -- an IIT graduate who heads India investments of Mayfield Fund, and well-known venture capitalist Vinod Khosla (70th).

Chaddha, ranked 58th in the previous year's list, has successfully managed deals like IL&FS Investsmart and India Infoline in financial services space and Provogue in fashion.

Others on the list are Aneel Bhusri (16th), Parag Saxena (31st), Arjun Gupta (51st), Rob L Soni (58th), Deepak Kamra (69th), Raman Khanna (74th), Ravi Adusumalli (77th), Shirish Sathaye (82nd) and Rob S Chandra (96th).

Bhusri was formerly vice chairman at business software firm PeopleSoft and sold off stakes in start-ups like Data Domain, OutlookSoft and Polyserve.

Software engineer Arjun Gupta worked as a consultant at global giant McKinsey and founded TeleSoft Partners in 1996. According to Forbes, his major deals include Salesforce.com, Sierra Design Automation.

Vedanta Capital's Parag Saxena has invested in sectors ranging from wireless to biotech and has successfully raised $1.4 billion fund -- New Silk Route.

The report further added that Delhi-born technology investor Deepak Kamra of Canaan Partners has tapped into telecom and software markets with successful IPOs Acme Packet and SuccessFactors. Having led Canaan Partner's foray into India, Kamra also bought stake in matrimony Web site BharatMatrimony in 2006.

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