For the first time an Indian internet entrepreneur Sanjeev Bickchandani, a Padma awardee whose company owns stakes in online food delivery outfit Zomato,naukri.com and insurance market place policybazaar.com, gives cautious advice against ‘flipping’. He claims foreign funds are the new ‘East India Company’ that colonizing successful startups in India by transferring ownership overseas to skip Indian regulations and taxes. He says about 17 lakh crore of market cap has been transferred abroad after young Indian startups were forced to shift their company domicile overseas by foreign investors promising the funds they for growth. He says the outcome of such investments is very similar to the colonization of India. First, they say they will invest in the best young startups if their company shifts to domicile overseas. So that they can be exempted from Indian laws and taxes. They will access to Indian market and customers, but not the Indian government, regulations, or tax authorities. It is an institutional mechanism for transferring wealth out of India on a very large scale. In the last 5 to 7 years about 1000 startups have flipped overseas.
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