bengaluru prosus one of the biggest backers of indias internet economy with over 5 billion invested said that it is keeping cash reserves for potential ma opportunities for its portfolio and its focus is that all businesses that we have invested in come out stronger from this crisis rather than weaker as it deals with the impact of coronavirus prosus along with south african parent company naspers is the largest investor in companies like food delivery major swiggy and education technology platform byjus besides owning online payments firm payu and digital classifieds business olx which are also its core areas for further investmentsprosus for whom india is the most important market globally highlighted in an analyst call that it has 46 billion in net cash and can also raise debt if needed so we have actually a lot of capacity to do further ma without raising further funds said naspers ceo bob van dijk prosus had used the slowdown in financing environment in 2016 to initiate 2 billion merger between online travel portals makemytripibibo besides buying citrus for its payments business payu for 130 million prosus swapped its stake in makemytrip for shares in chinas largest online travel player ctrip last year one area of potential areas of consolidation is food delivery where prosus also has investments in brazil and europe besides india top executives of prosus which has invested about 1 billion in swiggy also said that they see food delivery as recessionproof but also competitors could struggle given the capital intensity i think youll see some of the weaker businesses globally struggle to survive in this new context said larry illg who heads food delivery investments at prosus swiggy competes with ant financial and infoedge backed zomato in india and the two companies have had multiples rounds of discussion for a merger in the past but issues relating to valuation and management have been a roadblock prosus also added that payu for which india accounts for over half of the business saw a 50 fall in transactions after a lockdown in india but is starting to recover it is still too early to assess the full impact to the business in india but we are confident that payu is wellpositioned as ecommerce recommences online thanks to the solid portfolio of very large etailers said dijk