MUMBAI: Singapore’s state-owned investor Temasek is widening its scope of investments in India, a market where it has been traditionally focused on consumer, financial services and healthcare spaces.The company will bet on areas such as industrials as the country sharpens its manufacturing play and opportunities in AI, the firm’s India executives said. The deal pipeline remains strong even though the company is factoring in near-term uncertainties triggered by the West Asia war as they vet new investments.“There will always be years where you will have some geopolitics, some external shocks that will impact the country. But we look beyond near-term uncertainties. The last two quarters of disruption has not necessarily led to us changing our investment process. India is one of the best performing markets for Temasek. And we will continue to deploy capital where we see good opportunities coming to us,” Mohit Bhandari and Ved Prakash Kalanoria, MD, India at Temsek Global Investments said in an interview.The company’s local portfolio has expanded more than fourfold over the decade with total size at $42 billion as of March 2026, they said.Temasek has deployed close to $9 billion in India over the past three years and is targeting equalling the quantum in the coming three years or so.The firm’s strategy to build its core portfolio in consumer, healthcare and financial services–sectors that are reliant on domestic consumption for growth, has paid off because it shields the firm against global macro-volatility.“Strategically, we want to invest in companies which benefit from some of the domestic tailwinds,” Kalanoria said. Temasek which snapped up a 9-10% minority stake in Haldiram Snack Foods last year valuing the company at $10 billion said that within consumer, it will look at both staples-oriented regional brands as well as those catering to discretionary spends.Temasek’s India investments span traditional and new-age companies including ICICI Bank, Eternal, Lenskart and Skyroot Aerospace.Two of its portfolio firms NSE and Manipal Health Enterprises are headed for big billion dollar public listings this year. Bhandari and Kalanoria did not comment on IPO valuations but said generally, public markets now are trading in line with long-term averages.The company which has set a target of increasing its AI-related exposure to up to 15% of its portfolio value by 2031 from 6% currently will chase AI firms building in the infrastructure and application layers.“There will be companies which over a period of time will start benefiting by being the application layer on top of a lot of services or the infrastructure layer. We will try and see if we can partner with some of those companies which are going to benefit from that trend of AI adoption,” the executives said.
