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Exclusive: There is good news for early stage entrepreneurs in India. Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Silicon Valley's leading venture capital fund focused on early stage companies, is setting up on the ground presence in India. DFJ, as it's popularly called, is moving one of its directors Mohanjit Jolly (pictured; bio here) to Bangalore to its soon-to-be-set up India office. Jolly has confirmed his move to India's tech capital in an email to VC Circle, and he said he would be in India in early September.

The move is significant since this is the first time DFJ having a physical presence. Jolly recently moved to DFJ from Garage Technology Ventures, a seed and early stage venture capital firm founded by Guy Kawasaki. Jolly was a managing director at Garage, where he worked with over 30 companies such as LeftHand Networks, PureSight (BCGI), Kaboodle and SimplyHired.

Past India Investments

DFJ has been investing in India on and off, though. It has made the initial investment of $2 million in online DVD rental company Seventymm, and made several co-investments in firms like online ad network Komli (along with Helion Venture Partners), and $20 million in Bangalore-based electric car maker Reva (along with Global Environment Fund). The other Indian entrepreneurs backed by DFJ include Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail, Pavni Diwanji of MailFrontier, and Pankaj Shah of 4info.

DFJ has allocated $75 million for investing in India over the next three years from its Fund IX of $600 milion. An India specific fund is not on cards yet. In late 2005, Tim Draper, the founder and managing director of DFJ, had said that the firm would look at launching a $200 million fund for India. He had also said that the firm would look at early stage opportunities in India.

Global Push

It's not just India on DFJ's radar. The firm is also looking at entering other countries like Turkey, Russia, Japan, Korea, and Israel. Early this month, DFJ announced that it's partnering with Esprit Capital Partners, a top tier European venture capital firm to form DFJ Esprit in Europe.

In fact, over the last 16 years, DFJ has created a collaborative network of venture capital partnerships. The firm now has more than 120 venture capital professionals, stationed across 30 cities in the US, Asia, Europe and South America. It has some $5.5 billion in capital commitments spread over 22 funds. Some of DFJ's successes include Hotmail (acquired by Microsoft), Chinese search engine company Baidu ($109-milion IPO), Skype (acquired by Ebay), United Online, and Overture (acquired by Yahoo).

DFJ's earlier international foray was led by a joint fund called DFJ ePlanet Ventures formed in 1999-2000. They had a $650 million global fund, and their investments included China's Baidu and Skype. But the two firms decided to split in 2006 and go solo in in their international investing forays.

Who Will Follow Suit?

You can see more Silicon Valley based venture capital firms setting up shop in India. The most immediate candidates to have on the ground presence in India will be Norwest Venture Partners, Greylock Partners (which recently debuted in India with an investment in payment company TechProcess), and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Norwest, which has already invested $70 million in five Indian companies, is likely to set up office in India as early as September. Reports also suggest that NVP may station three partners in the country.

Update: Jolly informs that Sateesh Andra has also joined DFJ in India as a Venture Partner. Andra, currently based in Hyderabad, has spent some about 15 years in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur. He founded Metrikus (acquired by Persistent Systems) and co-founded Euclid (acquired by e4e). The DFJ team will also include a couple of analysts in the future. "Of the current Fund IX which is $600 milion in size, $75 million is allocated for India over the next three years (between investments and reserves)," Jolly says.