Recently, when four students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) approached Ratan Tata, expressing their desire to work in India and help solve a grassroot-level problem here, Tata did not connect them to the Tata Trusts which together invest Rs 340 crore every year to solve social problems. Instead, he plugged them to Paytm, an e-commerce company in which Ratan Tata made a personal investment this March.
Similarly, R Venkataramanan, the one man who has screened, consulted and led every one of Ratan Tata’s 10 personal investments in startups including six in e-commerce over the past 12-15 months, is not a hot shot investment banker, but a trustee on many of the charitable trusts set up by the Tata Group. Half-a-dozen entrepreneurs who Tata has invested in told ET that Venkatramanan was with Tata in every one of their meetings.
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