Funds to the tune of $80mn from angel investors are eyeying the social networking space in India, reports The Economic Times.  Alok Mittal, head of Canaan Partners says that the the space is interesting since it has seen large exits for VC’s globally; Avanish Bajaj of Matrix partners adds adds that they’ll invest if they find the right team, looking to address the opportunity in the right fashion, and the site shows meaningful traction.

I’m wondering if meaningful traction is possible in the case of a social net site in English. I think the opportunity in India for traction lies in social networking related to Bollywood, Cricket and local languages, and there’s always the danger of the more popular social nets evolving to include these segments. Bollywood and Cricket social nets are already there (is there much traction?). I still haven’t heard of or come across a local language social networking space.