Sunday, December 30, 2007

Misc. year end/start stories

Top 10 Chip Stories to Watch in 2008

Deal Radar 2008: Kayak Consolidates Travel

Are 'Anywhere' Applications Getting Somewhere?


Four Wheels for the Masses: The $2,500 Car

IIT Kharagpur alumnus develops an online food ordering service for web surfers in India

Hats off to Priyanka!!! Here's a link to an article covered by Economic Times India on her venture - www.hungrybangalore.com

An online food ordering service for web surfers
19 Dec, 2007, 0223 hrs IST,Anjana Alex, TNN


In 2006, when Priyanka, a senior software engineer at Ketera, approached a venture capitalist for some help with a business plan, discouragement was what she got. He told her it was best if professionals start their own business when they are 30+. The young generation, according to him, was not mature enough to take business decisions.

If Priyanka had paid heed, then this tech town would have had to wait for a few more years for hungrybangalore.com.

A premier online restaurant ordering service for the hungry web surfer, it allows you to place orders or make reservations online at participating restaurants for free. Your order is then immediately sent to the restaurant where it is prepared accurately and made available to you at the time and date you specify. You may choose to pick up your order for carry out, have it delivered at your place, or have it ready at your specified time to dine in depending on your preference and the services of the restaurant.

“We always felt a need for an online food ordering system when we worked late at office or on weekends. And with traffic conditions worsening day by day, people prefer to eat at home. It’s also difficult to find tables at peak time if one lands up at the restaurant without any reservation,” says Priyanka.

Thus, hungrybangalore was to serve as an interface between restaurants and their customers and also to ease the ordering process. With menus, reviews and maps available online, it becomes very simple to order food for home deliveries or for just booking a table. And as Priyanka points out, ordering or booking through the internet cuts out any chance of miscommunication between the user and the person who receives the order at the restaurant.

Moreover, the user is provided with a single platform to order across different restaurants in the city.
So why did this IIT Kharagpur alumnus and software veteran quit her cushy job for this plunge? “The young IT crowd is much more confident of themselves than ever before. The media has played a very important role in highlighting the success stories of young entrepreneurs and this inspires a lot of individuals to take risks and start their own firms. This, together with the IT boom and the disposable income that acts as savings in the initial stages of a start-up, has added to a lot of IT professionals choosing to become entrepreneurs,” she says.

Started off with 15 restaurants in July 2006, hungrybangalore today has tie-ups with 150 eating joints across town and the website gets around 1,500-2,000 hits everyday. The website also offers several other interesting features such as recipe videos, dabba services, diet tips and special offers. And if you still have second thoughts about ordering online, a scroll down the testimonial section will definitely change your mind.Thinking back about that venture capitalist’s advice amuses Priyanka. “At this stage, after a year, when we have been growing steadily and when there are so many young entrepreneurs around running successful businesses, it seems funny if we would have really given even a second thought to what he said.”

So the next time you want to entertain a dozen friends or want to reserve a place for business lunch, or just want to be sure that the restaurant doesn’t mix up your order, you know where to go. www.hungrybangalore.com - any restaurant, any time!

IIT Kharagpur alum develops travel site for Indian masses -- provides ability to search both flights and trains

I personally checked the site (http://www.90di.com/travel/), and it was awesome! Planning my travel to places with no direct airplane connectivity was horrible. But now, 90di allows users to plan either train journey, or an airplane journey, or a combination of both. Moreover, they direct you to the website of the original carrier for final booking, much like kayak.com in US.

Here's the background of Mr. Khusnood Naqvi:
Co-founder/ Programmer/ Director

Khushnood is a computer programmer and aspires to develop useful Internet applications in his, this new, avatar of an Entrepreneur. In the past he has developed and architected lots of applications and products in various areas. Some of these are in the area of: BPM/Workflow Engine; Telecom monitoring tools and applications; Insurance domain applications; PKI based security products; Credit card processing systems; and also contributed to the design of some Internet applications in the Web 1.0 days! His prior work experience has been with Infosys, which exposed him to all the diverse domains (mentioned above) and also various generations of technologies. Over the last 2 years of his stay there, he had been playing the role of a Principal Architect. Khushnood holds a Bachelors of Technology degree in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering from IIT Kharagpur.



Here's a past article on the site

Bangalore: The explosion in the private airline business and the emergence of many budget carriers has opened India’s skies to thousands of its citizens.

But there are lakhs for whom this is still unaffordable — or who can think of an air trip only when combined with a journey by a cheaper mode. So far they have been denied the advantages of an Internet -based service.

Now three engineers in Bangalore, have come together to close this gap: Khushnood Naqvi, Kiran M.S., and Abhinit Kumar, all formerly employed at Infosys, recently launched a company, Ninety Degree Internet Software. Their flagship offering is an India-specific travel search engine — www.90di.com — which aggregates information from Indian Railways as well as all airlines in India. Most usefully , it allows travellers to create an itinerary based exclusively on train or air — or a combination of the two. The data base covers over 4000 Indian places — and the strength of the search facility lies in its ability to suggest all possible ways to get from here to there. Users can view various option, even call up a map to trace the rout. They can then ‘mix and match’ rail and air links and work out a combination that fits their purse.

In many respects the rail search facility is an improvement over anything offered by the Railways themselves and a few trials searches by this correspondent threw up many alternatives that would have been difficult to track down by reading the time tables. The site is also very useful if air services connect only part of the proposed trip: For example it will suggest the fastest connection from Delhi to Kottayam: by air to Kochi and then the best rail connection from there.

Mr. Naqvi, Ninety Degree’s Director, told The Hindu that the web resource does not do the booking — it lets the user finalise the itinerary and then provides links to the online booking facilities of the individual airlines. For train bookings the link leads to the IRCTC page which is India’s busiest e-commerce site. 90DI is a starkly simple-looking but feature-rich resource that will ease the hassles of travel planning for many of us.

Friday, December 28, 2007

A Talent Contest We're Losing -- By Craig Barrett

Here's a piece from the Washington Post

Sunday, December 23, 2007

The European Union took a step recently that the U.S. Congress can't seem to muster the courage to take. By proposing a simple change in immigration policy, E.U. politicians served notice that they are serious about competing with the United States and Asia to attract the world's top talent to live, work and innovate in Europe. With Congress gridlocked on immigration, it's clear that the next Silicon Valley will not be in the United States.

European politicians face many of the same political pressures surrounding immigration as their U.S. counterparts, and they, too, are not immune to those pressures. Nationalist and anti-immigrant factions in several Western European countries have made political gains in recent elections and are widely viewed as mainstream. Despite the hot-button nature of immigration issues, though, E.U. politicians advanced the "Blue Card" proposal in late October.

The plan is designed to attract highly educated workers by creating a temporary but renewable two-year visa. A streamlined application process would allow qualified prospective workers to navigate the system and start working in high-need jobs within one to three months.

This contrasts starkly with the byzantine system in place in the United States, which increasingly threatens America's long-term competitiveness.

The United States relies primarily on two programs to augment its workforce with highly educated, highly skilled foreign professionals. The H-1B visa is a three-year temporary visa that can be renewed once. The employment-based (EB) green card is the program for permanent residency. Both programs serve the needs of U.S. employers seeking to fill job vacancies in highly skilled professions. Extreme shortages of visas in both these programs are well documented.

H-1B visas, which are capped at 85,000 per year, are now gone in one day, with the "winners" determined by lottery.

The EB green card program has an annual allotment of 140,000 visas; these are allocated equally across all countries around the world, regardless of population. The inflexible country quotas mean that professionals from countries such as China and India are almost always at a disadvantage, finding themselves stuck in a system -- often for five to 10 years -- in which they cannot seek promotions and raises. Spouses and children count against the quota, which has not been raised since 1990. And even though they count against the quota of foreign workers allowed to come here, spouses are inexplicably forbidden to work, no matter their level of education and skill.

The U.S. system forces thousands of valuable foreign-born professionals -- including badly needed researchers, scientists, teachers and engineers -- into legal and professional limbo for years. Not surprisingly, many are considering opportunities in competitor nations -- even those who have lived in the United States for years and have graduated from American universities.

To be competitive in the global economy, U.S. companies depend on specialized talent coming out of U.S. graduate schools. These scientists and engineers are often foreign-born, as more than half of U.S. engineering master's students and PhD recipients are international students. Yet America shuts the door on many of these highly educated graduates, forcing them to look abroad for opportunities -- and our competitors are capitalizing on our failed policies.

E.U. leaders recognize that the top minds coming out of universities in the United States and other countries can help to reinvigorate European industry and enable it to create the next wave of businesses that drive innovation and economic growth.

While its Blue Card proposal still requires approval by member countries, Europe has sent a message. It intends to aggressively pursue the professional talent necessary to compete on the global stage. The United States, on the other hand, seems intent on driving away the very same talent the European Union is rolling out the red carpet to welcome.

The writer is chairman of Intel Corp., which employs about 2,000 employees with H-1B visas among its 86,000 workers worldwide.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Intel Capital invests in Nirvanix

Intel Capital invests in Nirvanix
Intel Capital is the venture-capital division of the microprocessor giant Intel.

The company has now revealed that they have invested in Nirvanix.

Nirvanix is based in San Diego and offer scalable online storage solutions.

Intel did not reveal the amount they have invested in this company. They are expected to benefit from their Nirvanix Web Services.

Nirvanix Web Services provide third party developers with solutions to incorporate the online storage service in their applications.

Nirvanix has some other high profile investors including Mission Ventures, Valhalla Partners, and Windward Ventures.

Venture Beat Says
Nirvanix, a San Diego, Calif. storage startup, has received an investment for an amount in the “mid-single digit millions” from Intel Capital, according to the company’s CEO.

That follows an investment of $12 million two months ago, at which point the company said it had signed on 40 customers. Nirvanix directly competes with Amazon’s S3, a remote storage and delivery service for online applications like video.

For a point-by-point comparison of some features Nirvanix offers in its effort to differentiate itself from Amazon, check out the company’s own list, located here.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Canaan stepping up investments in India - Mint

Menlo Park, California-based venture capital (VC) firm Canaan Partners hopes to invest at least 25% of its $650 million (Rs2,561 crore) eighth fund in India and Israel.

The firm, which has just closed the fund, will accelerate investment activities in India next year.

“We want to develop markets (outside the US) where we can exploit our expertise and get the biggest returns,” says John V. Balen, general partner, Canaan Partners. The VC firm, which has offices outside the US in India and Israel, had invested 10% of its previous fund of $450 million in these markets. Canaan Partners manages nearly $2.4 billion.

The larger fund size combined with an increased focus on investments outside the US, will lead to more investments in India, Balen added.

The firm does not have a dedicated India corpus, and has no plans of raising one in the near future either. Instead, Canaan prefers to invest out of its global corpus for all markets. To manage an increasing number of deals, Canaan will appoint another venture partner to its India investment team in January.

Alok Mittal, Canaan’s executive director who sold his jobs portal, Jobsahead.com, to
Monster.com in 2004, is tasked with handling all investments in India.
Canaan set up its India office in Gurgaon two years ago, a few months after it opened its Israel office in December 2005. Since then, the VC firm has invested in four companies in India and two in Israel.

Its India investments are in Consim Info Pvt. Ltd, which owns matrimonial site Bharatmatrimony.com, remote desktop support company iYogi Technical Services Pvt. Ltd, jobs referral portal TechTribe Networks Inc. and digital media company Cellcast Asia Holdings.

Canaan’s new fund, which would be invested over the next three years, will continue to focus on core sectors, such as consumer Internet and wireless technologies, enterprise and managed services, and health care.

About one-third of its deals will be in health care firms. Canaan will also look at clean technology deals globally. In India, however, health care and clean technology will not be key areas of focus. The firm has fully committed its seventh fund across 37 deals in the three markets. Unlike many of its Silicon Valley-based peers, Canaan does not have a presence in China. Instead, it plans to strengthen its investments in existing markets before exploring others. Canaan is also looking to tap the emerging “Indo-Israel corridor”. “We are beginning to exchange between the (two markets),” says Deepak Kamra, general partner, Canaan Partners. “Israel has expertise in wireless and software security technologies, which is applicable to India.”

Monday, December 17, 2007

I-Cube Report: Indian Young User Base Spending Time Online Mostly For Information And Entertainment

The IAMAI-IMRB I-Cube report posits that, of an active user base of 32 million users in 30 cities in India, around 33 percent are Young Men, and 21 percent are College Students. In all, around 39 percent belong to the SEC A category, and 33 percent to the SEC B category. All in all, the percentage of users from SEC C towns has been gradually growing...but more than the numbers, I found the qualitative data more interesting: what do people use the Internet for? In order: E-mail, Information, Entertainment, Chat and E-commerce.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

VC Baby...

Nice video for the holiday season... http://revision3.com/rev3gazette/vcbaby

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Intel India : New Business Initiative

Intel India plans new businesses surrounding new technologies, markets & models

BANGALORE: Bringing a successful global practise to its Indian operations, chip major Intel is planning to spawn entrepreneurial ventures within its India technology centre. The core idea is to create an environment of innovation and business-building apart from pure technology. The added upside is that such an initiative has the power to retain some of its top performers from logging out of the company to jump-start ventures.

Intel’s internal business incubator, New Business Initiative (NBI), is currently executing comprehensive pilots in low-cost technology platforms and commercial launches are expected in the middle of 2008 in India. For time, NBI has been extended out of US in 2006 to India.

NBI is conceptualised around building new businesses surrounding new technologies, markets and models. Globally, the group has been incubating new businesses for 10 years with achievements such as WiMax.
Intel Capital, part of the Intel group, invests and supports several startups and ideas outside of the company. So, the internal business incubator backs those ideas that are not in the same space as those supported by the VC arm of the chip maker.

Talking to ET, Intel India President Praveen Vishakantaiah said, “We have got very good responses to the initiative internally.” Successful businesses either stay internal and complement Intel’s offerings or could be spun out as new entities. Currently, NBI is incubating two businesses in India in retail technologies and low-cost rural networks.

Engineer-entrepreneurs in Intel are working on a low-cost technology platform for kiranas and pharmacies by building point-of-sale and marketing devices like digital signage, coupons, and loyalty programs. These devices could be loaded with value-added services like billpay, mobile recharge, tickets, courier on the same platform. It is expected that service providers and consumers would be attracted to online service delivery model with offline cash payments. NBI is partnering with FMCG companies, service providers and Intel’s channel partners to support retailers.

At the same time, Intel is also looking at tune these ideas from the employees to demands of the marketplace. Mr Vishakantaiah said it has the “blue buddies” programme where it encourages its engineers to go and interact with the potential customers to understand what technology they would really require.

The other pilot is on building a rural network with low-cost, long-range WiFi technology developed in Intel’s Berkeley Laboratory. This network aims to bridge the link between villages and nearest wired network, often in district headquarters. NBI is partnering with many financial institutions and communication companies for this venture.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

News Roundup: Nov 21

How to Invest in India

Coverage Of The Kindle (Book Reader, just like what iPod is for music) Launch

The Kindle Book Reader: What was Amazon Thinking?

Dubai-based Baer Capital Plans $500M-Infra And Real Estate Fund

Media in India: Is it Prime Time?

Thursday, November 15, 2007

The Carbon Calculus

NY Times published a nice acrticle on the impact of charging companies for their carbon footprints, and price points for carbon at which alternative energy sources would become a more viable option. Many alternative energy sources such as Wind and solar would become more economical and so wouldseveral carbon-neutral fuels such as ethanol and synthesisgas. Here's the link.

Waste Management Investments in India

UTI Ventures invested Rs 32 Crore in Waste Management firm PESCO BEAM

VC Circle Reports:

The company is involved in the ‘waste management’ (waste oil recycling and recovery) and alternate energy systems. This is a proprietary deal sourced by UTI Ventures, as in no intermediaries are involved. S N Rajesh, Director, will represent UTI Ventures on the Board of PESCO BEAM.

PESCO BEAM is one of the leading manufacturers of turnkey skid mounted waste recovery and recycling plants, a release said. It has developed technologies in various environmental fields primarily in areas of waste management and alternate fuels. It is involved in the design, engineering, manufacturing and installation of equipment sub systems as well as complete turnkey plants for both waste management and the alternative fuels industry. It has customer across the globe. The company’s order book is worth $200 million.

PESCO BEAM was co-founded by Luke Staengl and A Subramaniam, both veterans in the process equipment industry. The company operates out of offices and manufacturing facilities in Virginia (USA) and Chennai (India).
Raja Kumar, CEO and M.D, UTI Ventures, said PESCO BEAM will be their fifth investment relating to alternative energy. They have invested earlier in Naturol bio energy, Shriram EPC, IND Barath Power and Shree Renuka Sugars.



Here's a link to the Social voices raised in India on waste managment

US Energy Bill Update: Will Renewables Be a Part of the Political Landscape?

[RenewableEnergyAccess.com] After much concern about whether or not key provisions for renewable energy will be a part of this year's energy bill, it appears that tax incentives and a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) are still options on the table, according to industry sources in contact with staffers working on the legislation. Click to read the story.

Here's a little background: U.S. Energy Bill -- Early Christmas Present or Lump of Coal?

Monday, November 12, 2007

Govt to auction spectrum for 3G, Wi-Max services - Hindu

Updates:

BSNL Plans To Roll Out WiMax Services…But Will They Follow Through?

Telecom Roundup: RCom-VAS; Telecom Licences, Tariffs; CDMA Subs; 3G vs 4G


Link to the opriginal post in The HIndu BusinessLine

Also at ContentSutra:India To Auction 3G Spectrum; Introduces Phased Number Portability



Move opens doors for Deutsche Telecom, AT&T and new Indian players



New Delhi, November 12 In yet another blow to the existing GSM operators, the Communication Ministry has decided to auction spectrum for third generation (3G) mobile services and wireless broadband services through technologies such as Wi-Max.

The auction will be open to new companies wanting to foray into the telecom sector as well as established foreign telecom players. The existing operators had wanted the auction for 3G services to be limited to the licence holders.

The Ministry’s decision to open up the bidding to all players is also a move away from the telecom regulator’s recommendations that it be restricted to existing operators. The move gives a chance to the likes of Deutsche Telecom, AT&T and new Indian players such as Unitech and Hindujas, which may not get spectrum in the 2G band given the huge rush, to enter the high growth telecoms market. This means that existing GSM operators such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, after being asked to rope in more subscribers for being eligible for more spectrum for 2G services, will now have to fight it out for a piece of 3G spectrum.

As per the guidelines worked out by the Communication Ministry, 30 Mhz of spectrum in 2.1 Ghz band for 3G services is available which can accommodate between 3 and 6 players depending on whether the Government allocates 10 Mhz or 5 Mhz per operator. A decision on this and other modalities such as the date for the auction will be taken shortly by the DoT.

CDMA operators


For CDMA operators such as Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications, the Government has identified the 800 Mhz band in which 1.25 Mhz will be given to each operator. There will be no auction for the CDMA operators wanting to offer 3G services but they will have to pay an amount that is proportionate to the highest bidder in the auction for GSM players.

This is good news for CDMA players as they are currently using the 800 Mhz band for offering 2G services and, therefore, can start offering low-cost 3G services using the same equipment with minor investments. However, the DoT has not allowed the use of 1900 Mhz band and 450 Mhz band for CDMA players for now, which means that they will have only 1.25 MHz in all to offer 3G services.

In another major decision, the Government has decided to auction spectrum for Wi-Max services in the 2.5 Ghz band. Three operators would be given 10 Mhz each based on an ascending e-auction. The base price would be 25 per cent of the amount quoted by the highest bidder for 3G spectrum.

Besides the initial one time spectrum charge, an additional spectrum charge of 0.5 per cent of the operator’s annual revenues will be levied on both 3G and Wi-Max operators. Mergers will not be allowed during the first 5 years to prevent reselling or trading of spectrum. Both 3G and Wi-Max technologies will enable consumers to access high- speed data and entertainment services such as Interent Protocol TV and Video on Demand on mobile handsets. These technologies also allow the operators to offer better quality of service.


Mobile number portability in phases

Mobile Number Portability, which allows subscribers to change their operator without having to change the phone number, is finally here. The Minister of Communication, Mr A. Raja, has decided to introduce this system in phases, starting with the four metros.

This facility is likely to be available to the mobile subscribers by the fourth quarter of 2008. All the investments required to launch number portability will be made by the mobile operators.

Though the telecom regulator had recommended introduction of this system more than a year ago, the Government was facing resistance from the operators who were concerned about losing subscribers to rivals.

Al Gore's next act: Planet-saving VC

Al Gore's next act: Planet-saving VC
The recovering politician is teaming with a legendary venture capitalist and bigtime moneyman to make over the $6 trillion global energy business. A Fortune exclusive>


Also Kleiner Perkins To Zero In On Solar, Distributed Generation Space In India

Friday, November 9, 2007

What should I send investors? - VentureHacks

Here are the links to some great posts on Venture Hacks:

1. “Summarize the company’s business on the back of a business card.”

2. “PowerPoint plans greatly increase your chance of getting a term sheet, or at least the dignity of a quick no.”

3. “Nothing slows down a VC as much as a comprehensive business plan.”

Meeting with Alex Sloan, Principal, Expansion Capital Partners

I attended an informational Q&A session with Alex Sloan ('98 Johnson School, Cornell University) of Expansion Capital. He is a member of the investment committee and is involved with sourcing, closing and monitoring the firm’s Clean Technology venture investments. Prior to joining Expansion, Alex co-founded and was a partner at Blackwolf Partners, an early stage Cleantech venture capital firm.

Alex talked about the VC industry, in general, and CleanTech VC industry, in particular. Moreover, he spoke about the opportunities in VC industry for fresh MBA graduates and how to enter this industry. Some of his thoughts:

-- Get smart on something
VCs spend 10% of their time interacting with board members, 40% managing hiring issues in their portfolio companies, and rest interacting with the management to manage P&L, devise strategies, monitor sales and marketing efforts. In order to be effective in this industry you should first do these things and then teach some one how to do it (which is what VCs do as advisers to their portfolio companies). So, they look for candidates who have worked inside the industry and bring these skills to the table. If you don't have much experience, join a company, preferably big companies, with training programs, where you would be paid to learn how this industry works. No one will teach you how to analyze business later on.

-- It takes more than passion to get into the VC industry
Being passionate is great, but what value would you add to the team. Develop an understanding of the particular industry and business you are interested in. Take a particular field and narrow down your interest, for example, if you interested in tech, which area of tech? Web 2.0? then research firms that work in this industry. Who did IPO? Who is buying whom? Learn about the latest and future direction of the technologies employed.

-- If you are focused on a particular geographic area, say India:
Think about what would you bring to the VCs in India when you join them. Do you have connections in the US which they can readily use? Do you know latest technologies? Do you have a good understanding of what's happening in Indian industries, i.e. do you know local businesses? If not, take steps to develop them while you are here.

-- It's important to know how to get a product out
Operating experience is essential for a successful career in VC industry. If you have first-hand experience getting the product from idea to market, you would be better able to advise your portfolio companies when they have just 4 months of cash left!

-- Should I join consulting or banking or start-ups after the school?
It all depends on what you intend to do. If your goal is to enter VC field, it's better to work at a venture-backed startup with approx. $1M revenue and ~25 employees. Work as VP marketing, VP sales, or VP technology and gain operating experience. Company valuation is not a rocket science and is just 10% of the work VCs do. Understanding of P&L is important though. Also, advising startups is different from advising big established companies, with revenues greater than 10 million, which consultants particularly advise to.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Matrix Partners Trebles Fund Size To $450 Million - VC Circle

Matrix Partners India, the Mumbai-based venture capital fund, has boosted the size of their first fund to $450 million from the current $150 million. The fund, co–founded last year by former Baazee founder Avnish Bajaj (right) and former WestBridge Capital Partners partner Rishi Navani (left), will however retain its consumer services focus. It will only increase the ticket size to $10-30 million from the current upto $10 million, which means the stage of the companies they will invest will also include growth capital stage companies.

Here's the rest of the story.

New Ventures Says It Helped 3 Green Startups Raise $4 Million - VC Circle

New Ventures India, an organisation that helps cleantech businesses raise venture capital, has facilitated three deals in the space worth Rs 16.49 crore ($4.1 million) in debt as well as equity. New Ventures is a joint initiative of CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre and World Resource Institute, Washington DC, supported by USAID. The organisation said in a release it has helped three green entrepreneurs - Conserve HRP, HMX Sumaya and ABT Bio products - raise capital.
In 2006, NVI received a total of 56 Business Plans from green entrepreneurs across the country. After scrutiny, it selected 10 companies, who were invited to present their business plans at the Investor Forum 2006. Out of these, three companies were shortlisted for investments. Here's the rest of the story.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

24/7 Learning Raises $4 Million From Capital18, Venture Capital Arm Of Network18 - reports VC Circle

24×7 Learning, a leading Indian elearning implementation company, has received $4 million investment from Capital18, the venture capital and private equity arm of the media group Network18 (earlier known as TV18).

The investment will be used for technology innovation, foray into new markets, expansion in solution offerings, talent acquisition and capacity expansion to further consolidate its position in the rapidly growing market, a release said.

24×7 Learning provides learning solutions for corporates and institutions including higher educational institutes to harness the potential of eLearning for their distance learning programs.

Karthik KS is the CEO of 24×7 Learning. Sarbvir Singh is the Managing Director of Capital18.

Retail-Focused Startup Jasper Gets Angel Funding, reports VC Circle

Jasper, a Delhi-based early stage startup focused on retail sector, has secured angel funding from a group of US investors. The startup is in stealth mode. Jasper founder and CEO Kunal Bahl said that the company will help increase sales in a retail mall by incentivising the purchase. Retail outlets will be their partners, while the shoppers are the end customers of Jasper.

“The problem in the booming organised retail sector in India is high footfall-low conversion. We are adopting an innovative strategy to help solve this problem,” says Bahl, an engineering graduate of University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from Wharton. Bahl has earlier worked with Microsoft’s emerging markets group.

The angel investors are based in the US, and have previously backed companies such as Nasdaq-listed House Values, Yapta and Cleverset. The funds will be utilised for building an operations engine, and undertaking tactical marketing initiatives, a release said.

Interesting article on contentSutra - Andy Grove: Rich, Famous, Smart and Wrong About Drugmakers

ContentSutra has an interesting article where Derek Lowe analyzes Andy Grove's comparision between Semiconductor and drug industry in the newsweek. Here's the link to the post.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Tech I-Bank Chesapeake Sets Up India Office - reports VC Circle

VC Circle reported that the Chesapeake Group Inc., a New York-headquartered boutique investment bank focusing on mid-market companies in the IT/BPO verticals, has announced its entry into India with an office in Bangalore. The Chesapeake Group specialises primarily in buy-side representation in merger & acquisition deals and focuses on strategic deals. Siddhartha Padam, till recently a Principal in the M&A team at Infosys, will move to head Chesapeake’s Indian presence as its Principal.

Founded in 1987, the New York headquartered Chesapeake Group has affiliates in London and Paris. The Chesapeake Group claimed it has helped a number of US and Europe-based clients establish Indian operations. Its current and past clients include Covansys, Zensar Technologies, Valtech, Tech Team, Sento Corporation, Softtek, Answerthink and eIndia Venture Fund among others.

Recently another New York investment bank Jefferies had announced it India entry with a representative office in New Delhi.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Reginald Fils-Aime Cornell'83, President/COO, Nintendo of America, Inc. talks about Nintendo at Cornell







I attended a talk by Reginald Fils-Aime popularly know as Reginator today at Cornell.
Among many things, he talked about the evolution of gameing products at Nintendo, with products such as Nintendogs, Mariocart DS, Wii remote, wii sports, and wii channel. Nintendo executed superbly with their marketing message centering around "Bringing gaming back to the masses" and attracting new customers,especially females to play video games, thus expanding the customer pie.

Towards the end, he talked about what, in his opinion, it takes to be successful. He said in order to be successful, people should use the duality concept - showing two behaviors at the same time:

1. You should take personal initiatives or show drive, but, at the same time, be an effective team member.
2. Do what you are passionate about, but also develop an ability to work outside of what you are passionate about. You may not always get to work on things you are passionate about.
3.Be curious, but also take stand sometimes.
4. Be strategic and look out for things you can execute with excellence, but don't be afraid of doing what has not been done before.


Here's a quick introduction of Reginald from wikipedia

On a seperate note, contentSutra has a nice article on Indian gaming industry: Casual Gaming Might Not Scale; Advertising Portals On TV Doesn’t Help

Thursday, November 1, 2007

DFJ's India foray gains momentum

Mint reported that the Menlo Park, California-based venture capital (VC) firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) has closed two deals here worth $4 million (Rs15.72 crore) in the mobile and Internet sectors, currently the flavour with VC investors in India.

Deals struck by DFJ in India:
Company/ Sector /Coinvestor (year)

1. Reva/ Electric car
Global Environment Fund (2006)

2. Seventymm (2nd round)/ Online DVD rental
Matrix leading (2007)

3. LiveMedia/ Digital signage
Angels (2007)

4. Undisclosed/ SMS advertising platform
NEA Indo US (2007)

5. Undisclosed/ IT-enabled retail for photography market
Footprint Ventures (2007)

6. Seventymm (1st round)/ Online DVD rental
DFJ leading (2005)

7. Vegayan*/ Communication infrastructure
Not applicable (2006)

8. mChek/ Mobile payments/ Angels (2007)**
Komli Media/ Digital advertising/ Helion Venture Partners (2007)**

*Business plan competition winner Source: Company data
**Investment undisclosed

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Carl Schramm, the President and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation discusses entrepreneurship at Cornell University

Carl Schramm, the President and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation,spoke to about 400 people on the Cornell campus as part of the Entreprenurship@Cornell speakers series, where he discussed the concept of "entrepreneurial capitalism" which he defines as a radically new economy brought about by a series of random occurrences in the early 1980s, such as the collapse of some of the country's top companies, the era of junk bonds and the ensuing creation of 401(K) plans to support workers and venture capitalism to create new businesses. Click here to see the text and video.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Indian Government To Announce VC Fund With TiE And ISB - Business Standard

India to launch its seed fund

Raghuvir Badrinath / Bangalore October 25, 2007

TiE will rope in VC funds and angel investors.

After witnessing a rush of early-stage venture capital (VC) funds and angel investors into the country, the government is taking steps to float a fund to make available seed capital — the earliest stage of funding a business — to entrepreneurs with innovative ideas.

This is part of an effort to have a broad programme to foster innovation and take it to global markets. For this, the government is putting together a framework for setting up an innovation promotion council. The fund’s initial corpus of Rs 75 crore will come from the Ministry of Science and Technology.

According to information, the Centre is expected to engage The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a network of early-stage VC funds and angel investors with associations in the sub-continent, and Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad.

The candidates for funding will be selected by all three. The ISB will be a forum where ideas will be examined and nurtured while TiE will bring in VC and angel funds which can take over once the Department of Science & Technology’s role is over.

AS Rao, adviser, Department of Scientific & Industrial Research (DSIR), said the fund would focus on product innovation and intellectual property-based solutions. “We intend to finalise the framework by March 2008,” he said.

The Centre will fund ideas at the laboratory or the proof-of-concept stage, that is, before the idea goes to the prototype or beta (testing) stage.

“If the idea goes forward, early-stage VC or angel investors will have the confidence to invest further. As and when these people take up positions to guide the company further, the Centre’s role will diminish,” Rao said.

According to industry analysts, the idea seems to have been inspired by the Israel government’s Chief Scientist model, which encompasses incubator and R&D programmes, besides investment grants.

“The aim of the government VC programme in Israel was to establish professionally managed VC funds. It was a $100-million programme to try and create an industry of seed- and early-stage VC funds,” said an early-stage investor.

Israel’s programme offered $8 million to any fund that met the criteria of other funds raised, professional management and focus. The funds had a five-year option to buy out the amount at predetermined conditions. The programme quickly established 10 such funds, of which eight exercised the option and bought out the government.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Intel Capital Invests In In-Store TV Network Tag Media - reports VC Circle

Here's the link to the below post:


Intel Capital has invested an undisclosed amount in Tag Media Network, an in-store television network. The funding will help “accelerate Tag Media Network’s expansion, secure new staff and strengthen its sales and marketing initiatives”, according to a release. Details of the investment were not disclosed.

According to Dan Ginsburg, CEO of TAG Media Network, since launching one year ago, Tag Media Network has a reach of over 10 million shoppers across 250 stores. It works with retailers like Spencers, Trinethra, Foodworld, and Trumart.
“The Indian in-store television market has grown exponentially in the last year and Tag Media Network has been at the forefront of that expansion,” said Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital.

Sudheer Kuppam, Managing Director for India, Japan, Australasia and South-East Asia, Intel Capital, said: “We believe in-store television advertising is at an inflection point, with organised retail set to take off and hope that our investment will help Tag Media Network to capitalise on this growth opportunity.”

Digital Music India or vJive is another Indian company in this space. It received $4.5 million funding from Matrix Partners India. Future Group (Pantaloon) has also launched a mall media company. Besides, there are startups like LiveMedia, founded by ex Nortel India chief Rajan Mehta. In-Store media space is probably getting crowded.

WiMax

Seeking alfa reported that Cisco Purchased Navini and its WiMAX Technology for $330 Million

Also here's a comparison of Wimax, 3G and Wi-Fi, and says:

"In the short term, Intel (INTC) will win big with this ITU approval of Wimax, and there will be huge changes to the wireless technology landscape going forward, with huge money won and lost. In any case, the consumer will be the eventual beneficiary of more competition in wireless space."

Monday, October 22, 2007

Sequoia Capital to invest US$ 500-600 mn. in India - The Hindu

The HIndu today reported that Venture Capital firm 'Sequoia Capital' will invest $500-600 million in Indian companies, for meeting their capital requirements for growth, in the next couple of years.

"We will invest money ranging between $500 and $600 million in Indian companies in next couple of years," Sequoia Capital (India), Associate, Ravi Shankar, told PTI here.

Sequoia Capital, which mainly invests in young companies having potential to grow, has identified various emerging sectors in the country and would address their needs.

"We have found several areas such as internet mobile, specialised retailing, telecom, KPO etc in the country which offer immense potential and we would like to focus on these areas," he added.

The firm had already invested $600 - $700 million in 40 Indian companies including Cafe Coffee Day, Idea Cellular, Paras Pharmaceuticals, shaadi.com, SKS microfinance.

The venture capital market has grown exponentially in India, Shankar said, adding "five years back, venture capital business in the country stood at $ 2 billion which has increased to $15-$20 billion at present, and it will grow further."

The firm was quite upbeat over the growing economy of the country. "The GDP of the country is growing at faster pace, indicating the fundamentals are quite strong here," he said.

Sequoia Capital presently has two offices in Mumbai and Bangalore. Besides, it also operates in the US, China and Israel.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Palo Alto-based Trident Capital invests in Nelisoft, a Pune based engineering solutions company focussed on construction sector

US-based venture capital and private equity fund Trident Capital has funded over 100 companies globally and has been actively involved in funding software companies out of India before India “was discovered by venture capital,” says Trident Capital managing director Venetia Kontogouris . Ms Kontogouris has been in the VC industry since 1989. Trident Capital has over $1.6 billion under management. Its latest investment in India, late last week, was in the decade old, Rs 65 crore Neilsoft, a specialist engineering solutions company focused on the construction sector. Excerpts:

Saturday, October 20, 2007

VC Valuations

Today, I enjoyed a discussion on the valuation techniques used by VCs, while working on a deal at the university venture fund. I also explored some materials over Internet. Here are some of the quick links:

Venture Capital Deal Algebra

Arithmetic's of Deals

Rules of thumb for the finance and venture capital industry

There are many more blogs and sites which explain these concepts more thoroughly. I'll keep updating the links.


By the way, feel free to put in your comments/advices as well.

Will the subprime mess affect Indian PE buyouts?

There's an article by Arun Natarajan, the founder of Venture Intelligence on US subprime mess, google's foray into early stage VC funds, and strength of KPOs for an IPO in the Economic Times, India. Here's the link to the original post copied below: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-2345875,prtpage-1.cms

The financial crisis triggered off the by the US subprime mortgage meltdown, is already impacting Private Equity (PE) investing in North America and Europe. And depending on how our public equity markets react, it will impact the PE scene in India too. But, the nature of the impact is likely to be very different from that in the US and Europe. Because, PE in India is quite different from Private Equity in the Western world.

While (unfortunately) there are many definitions of Private Equity, PE in the US and Europe is commonly used to refer to buyout investments and especially, leveraged buyouts (LBO) which involve taking on significant portions of debt to acquire (often) publicly listed companies - with a view to improving profitability and taking them public again (or selling them off) a few years later.

With the sub-prime crisis raging, PE firms will find it very difficult to access cheap debt from banks - and reports have emerged on how the financing for several mega deals in the US and Europe have been placed on hold.

In India, on the other hand, buyouts (let alone large LBOs) form a very small part of the PE market. Out of the 302 PE investments in India that Venture Intelligence had tracked in 2006, only 14 investments (i.e., less than 5%) were of the buyout variety. And only one of these deals - the KKR-led buyout of Flextronics Software - was valued at over $100 million. Even without including the 22% of PE investments which went to listed companies, an overwhelming 75% off all PE investments in India went into unlisted companies in various stages of their growth.

Given this context, how is the latest financial market turmoil likely to affect PE investments in India? The 2001 downturn had witnessed several global PE investors bidding goodbye to Mumbai. This time around, a key source of strength is that almost 40% of all PE investments in India originates from “India-dedicated funds” - i.e., pools of capital which have been mandated to be invested exclusively in this country.

This means that, even (in the unlikely event) of players like Blackstone and Kleiner Perkins losing appetite for emerging markets investing, there is significant “dry powder” at firms like ChrysCapital and Sequoia Capital India which has to find a home in India over the next few years.

In fact, with less competition from their foreign counterparts (including hedge funds), these India-dedicated funds which have raised their funds recently, would probably be licking their chops to investing in a climate where they could enter companies at attractive valuations compared to what has been possible over the last two years.

GOOGLE AS THE GO TO GUY

If you are a fund manager trying to raise a Venture Capital fund targeting young technology companies in India, it’s become clear that the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA should be your first stopping point. While globally, Google is known for buying out young companies or products, the online search giant seems to be playing India indirectly - at least for now. Google has invested into three early-stage VC funds - VentureEast TeNet Fund, Seed Fund and Erasmic Fund. And if that wasn’t enough, it has also joined the India Angel Network - a group of successful entrepreneurs who invest in start-ups - as an institutional member.

DEAL-MAKING ADAG STYLE In 2002, California-based “managed Ethernet provider” Yipes Communications, unable to meet its financial obligations, had filed for bankruptcy - after reportedly burning through almost $290 million in venture capital. Post its 2002 reorganization, investors like Crosslink Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, JPMorgan Partners and Sprout Group poured in an additional $94 million into the company - which seems to have paid off on July 16 when Reliance Communications subsidiary, Flag Telecom, announced that it had bought Yipes for $300 million dollar in cash. (Flag Telecom itself had filed for bankruptcy before Reliance had acquired it in 2003).

Interestingly, on July 20, Reliance Communications announced that it had received about $338 million by selling a 5% stake in its tower infrastructure arm Reliance Telecom Infrastructure, to a group of financial investors. That’s $338 million in and $300 million out in four days! Coincidence or clever financing?

GOING FOR BROKING

PE investors are making a firm bet that young Indians will not be spending all their pay packets at the shopping malls, but will direct some of it towards investments in the stock markets . And who would be the immediate beneficiary of this? Well, the neighborhood - or is it, the one-mouse-click-away ? - stock broker, of course. Last week’s $35 million investment by Baring Private Equity in Cochin-based JRG Securities marks the eighth such investment so far this year, compared to just three deals in the whole of 2006.

TAILPIECE

At the recent Venture Intelligence conference on IT Services and BPO, we had invited a panel of experts to answer the question “Can a KPO ever IPO?” (as against having to sell out to larger BPO firms). Chandu Nair, Founder of Scope eKnowledge, started his answer with the following memorable line: “In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly!”

(The author is Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading source of information and networking services to the private equity and venture capital ecosystem in India)

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Clean Tech -- the next big thing??

A number of investments is happening in India and the USA in companies providing clean technologies. This is one of the sectors that look promising.

Here's a recent deal: Indivision picks up 33% in Regen

Indivision, Future Capital’s private equity arm, is going cleantech. It has bought 33 per cent stake in Chennai-based wind turbine manufacturer, Regen Powertech, for $25 million, reports Business Standard. Regen has an exclusive licensee for technology know-how from Germany’s Vensys. The company plans to use the proceeds to set up a manufacturing facility to produce gearless turbines at Tada, Andhra Pradesh.
Regen was started by Madhusudan Khemka and R Sundaresh, who were earlier with the Khemka family-backed wind turbine manufacturer NEPC Micon.

Updated: Also, see this interview Clean Energy Is Going To Be Critical For India Too”: Luis Miranda (President and CEO, IDFC Private Equity)
Here are links to some good resources that will save you time:

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/home
Renewable Energy Access is great for searching companies and getting news. You can search by specific geographies, technology, etc.

Clean tech Investing
Cleantech VC Blog also includes more links to great articles.

http://www.cleanedge.com
Clean Edge is run by Joel Makower.

MORE:

For solar news, Solarbuzz is good, and you could probably subscribe to their newsletter:
www.solarbuzz.com

For good fuel cells primers, not necessarily deal news:
http://www.fuelcellstoday.com/

Joel Makower's Two Steps Forward is a wonderful blog on sustainability in business. Balanced analysis that recognizes the realities of the business world.
http://makower.typepad.com/

Biofuels:
http://www.biofuelsjournal.com/index.html

American Wind Energy Association
http://www.awea.org/

Monday, October 15, 2007

India May Receive As Much As $20 Billion In PE/VC By 2010

VC Circle, in partnership with India’s leading KPO firm Evalueserve, is serialising the latter’s latest report on private equity in India. The report titled - An Indispensable Guide to Equity Investment in India — Facts and Forecasts (authored by Alok Aggarwal, Co-founder and Chairman, Evalueserve) - examines the key trends in the industry, and forecasts how they are expected to move in the next few years.

Here is the first of the four-part series, which says India may receive as much as $20B in PE/VC investments.

Here's the second part which talks about Private Equity In India Vis-a-Vis Other Economies

Here's the third part of the Evalueserve report outlining the Hot Sectors For Private Equity Investment in India

On a related note, here's the interview of Sudheer Kuppam, MD Intel Capital, India, where he talks about ICap's investing plans.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Mark Andreessan on Career Planning

In a three part wonderful post on career planning, Mark provides great insight on the thought processes for selecting and navigating career opportunities. I recommend everyone to read these posts:

The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, part 1: Opportunity

The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, part 2: Skills and education

The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, part 3: Where to go and why

ItzCash Gets $10 Million From Matrix Partners India, Intel Capital

Original article here : http://www.vccircle.com/2007/10/11/itzcash-gets-10-million-from-matrix-partners-india-intel-capital/

Essel group company ItzCash, a multi-purpose pre-paid card, has landed $10 million funding from Matrix Partners India and co-investor Intel Capital. ItzCash will be using this fund for leading product innovation to expand the payments market, a release said. ItzCash is part of the $1-billion Essel Group (Zee Television group). This is probably the first instance of VCs funding a company started by a big business group.
It’s considered India’s first multipurpose prepaid cash card having entered the market in 2003. The card can be used to transact online as well as on mobile. It is available in denominations from Rs 100 to Rs 10,000. The company has more than 2500 affiliate merchant partners for online transactions for categories such as energy bill payments, telephone bill payments, travel, prepaid, postpaid, donations, shopping, gaming and so on.

My VC Chronicle - Why this blog

I had been thinking for a while to start blogging formally about my VC career processes and finally today I did it! I really enjoyed blogging about my MBA admission process, which motivated me to start one for my career search as well. During my past blogging experiences, I figured out that blogging has several advantages, most importantly, it helps maintain an informal diary of the steps taken and to be taken.

As I read a lot of articles and blogs about VC, it would be really nice if I can maintain a track record, which will come in handy while preparing the pitches and cheat sheets. Moreover, it could help some of my readers, the way I benefit from some of the blogs I reads (mentioned on the right hand margin).

So here I plan to post the articles about VC news in India and abroad and also share my thoughts about the recruiting processes as I go through the them. All comments are welcome!