When one of every three venture capital (VC) investments ends up as a dud,

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Reliance Technology Ventures of the Anil Ambani group claims a 100 per cent success rate. Its chief executive officer, Harshal J Shah, exults: “We don’t have a single dud in our portfolio. Our portfolio has outperformed the market in valuation terms as is evidenced by later rounds of funding in the companies we put our money in.”

Not that it has invested in many companies. It has put money in only 11 companies, each of which got between $1 million and $15 million. The deployment totals $100 million.

Though an independent assessment is not possible because the base number of funded companies is very small and also because it has not exited any of them, Shah bases his claim on the valuations at which other venture funds invested in these companies.

Nevertheless, it has been ranked 30th in the first ever listing by Red Herring magazine of VCs around the globe. It is the only fully Indian VC firm, though listed above it are at least five global firms operating in India. They are Sequoia Capital (4th) and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (5th), New Enterprise Associates at (11th), Bessemer Venture Capital (12th), Norwest Venture Partners (16th). Several others are ranked below the Reliance firm. The magazine considered, among other things, the extent to which a VC firm outpaced average returns.

A financial services practice leader at a consultancy, who did not want to be named, doubted Reliance Technology had broken the global success rate. Another specialist in another consultancy thought Reliance Technology had to be extremely lucky if it made the mark. “In a buoyant economy if you are very careful in choosing your investments and have the bandwidth to review enough investment proposals, then a 100 per cent success rate is possible,” he said.

In other words, the company’s success rate can be really tested when it exits the funded firms. But, for now, Shah wants to go global but “not everywhere in the world”. It wants to be the best player wherever it goes. “We want to be the primary place entrepreneurs come to,” he said.

According to Shah, the claimed success emanates from the number of cases it rejects. In three years, one of its senior members studied 900 cases and invested in just one. “We know how to leverage channels to reach customers and how to strike cost effective media deals. Every single business we get into must work. That’s the group ethos.”

His firm hopes to back ventures in computing, communications, media & convergence. In addition, its sectoral focus now includes businesses that leverage India’s demographics, financial services, entertainment, aerospace and defence. He gives the example of Stoke Inc, which managed to get ‘the world’s largest order for multi-access convergence gateways from NTT DOCOMO”. When 3G auctions take place in India, Shah hopes Stoke will manage to book orders from the operators.

Unlike Tata Capital, which plans to float a PE fund, or Aditya Birla PE, Reliance Technology invests its own money contributed by Reliance Capital and other Anil Ambani group companies.

Operating in the high-tech area is fraught with high risks. But, Shah’s counts among successes companies such as Yatra.com, Scalable Display Technologies, Seedfund and Dhama Apparel Innovations. “Flexibility of a company is a very important trait we evaluate. One needs to be like water, swift, flexible and melding in a way that allows you to survive,” he explains.

The company had initially worked as an investment banker for the group. It had advised Reliance Globalcom in the acquisition of the British eWave World and Vanco in 2008, and also Reliance Communications in its acquisition of the Ethernet service provider, Yipes Holding of the US. “The advisory business gave us a first-hand understanding of what companies look for when acquiring other firms in a trade sale,” said Shah.