Sabeer Bhatia Plans Silicon Valley Clone In India

Sabeer Bhatia, co-founder of the Hotmail e-mail service, plans to raise $550 million to start a high-technology project in India modeled on Silicon Valley.

The finance will come ``from a combination of my personal funds, other investors operating in real estate in India and external real estate funds that are interested in investing in India,'' Bhatia said in an interview to Bloomberg News from California today. ``This is plenty for us to get started.''

Project Nano City will be located in northern India and draw as much as $20 billion when complete and yield returns of four times as much, Bhatia said today, without specifying a timeframe. Unlike China-style trade zones and outsourcing centers in India, Nano City will focus on advanced technologies and top-draw jobs, he said. The focus will be on drug research, computer software, nanotechnology and energy research.