My last post here on VentureWoods dwelt on the problems that early stage companies face in India and their requirements. One comment made on the post reminded me that all we are doing is analysis and seldom anything else (well, to be fair, HeadStart does quite a bit, it hosted 60 Startup Saturdays since last […]
Inviting Early Stage Ventures/ University Startups
A close friend and mentor, a member of the Management Board of one of Europe’s largest media companies and my Chairman designate, is on a private visit to India between the 8th and 14th of May. This will be his first visit to the country and we are actively exploring the possibility of investing in […]
VC investments falling off cliff in the US
Alok asked earlier about what change in behaviour we’re seeing among VCs. My own sense is that VCs in India are much more cautious than VCs in, say, the US. “No” is always a safe answer. Of course, the “venture” or “risk” part of “Venture Capital” is then drastically downplayed. Nowhere is this more true […]
NEW entrepreneurship website- entrepreneurship.org
Kauffman Foundation has started a NEW entrepreneurship website. http://entrepreneurship.org/ and resources center http://www.entrepreneurship.org/ResourcesCenter/ The website tells “In the midst of our worst financial crisis in decades, entrepreneurs will once again lead the economic recovery.” Actually, innovation and entrepreneurship (in business, social, political and military areas) are the reasons what makes USA and UK different from […]
How much funding do startups Reeaaally need ?
In the last few months, I have had the chance to sit down with a few fellow entrepreneurs and discuss business plans, thanks to me wearing my HeadStart foundation hat. I noticed a few things that were common – entrepreneurs knew their product very well but not really their target customers, most of them had […]
Brad Feld, On the Ecosystem.
Came across this blog post by Brad Feld, on his observations between VCs and Entrepreneurs and the so-called Ecosystem to speak of. It’s kinda an interesting read. Brad Feld on VCs, Entrepreneurs and the Ecosystem. Some of the highlights: I’ve long believed that the entrepreneurs are the motive force behind all entrepreneurial ecosystems – not […]
iAccelerator – Supporting Early Stage Tech Ventures
Preparing to come to India I talked with a number of Silicon Valley VCs about the opportunities they saw here. Some were bullish, a partner at MDV told me he thought there was a 30% chance the next Google would come from here, but many were taking a ‘wait and see’ approach to investing. In […]
The Startup Chat. Every Saturday 10am – 5pm.
There is a lot of knowledge that resides among people, and not everybody is able to make it to real-life meets. In an increasingly connected world, it might make sense to make use of the technology that exists. There are also a lot of folks – aspiring entrepreneurs in tier II cities who do want […]
Industry-Startup Co-innovation partnerships : What do you think ?
For the past 3-4 months, I and a couple of my colleagues at the HeadStart Foundation have been involved in creating a framework for formal collaboration between corporates and startups for jointly identifying, pursuing and executing business. The HeadStart Foundation is launching that initiative on the 9th at the HeadStart and Compute 2009 event in […]
Avenues for getting ~$1M funding in India
I am not sure if this topic has been discussed before – pls direct me to the post or if people have newer insights, it would be great to discuss. I am curious about opportunities to get funding in the $1M range for start-ups in India. 1. Most of the VCs in India seem to […]
Accel Partners raises $1B in new money
Even in this environment, there is lots of money around after all. It’s just that LPs are more cautious, seems to be the takeaway from this NYT blogpost: Who says that money is tight for venture capitalists? Accel Partners, the Palo Alto, Calif., venture capital firm behind companies like Facebook, Glam Media and MetroPCS, announced […]
Startup Saturdays across Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad : Agenda ...
There are four special Startup Saturdays across the country, ie, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad, this coming weekend 13th December. Startup Saturdays are monthly meetups organised by the HeadStart Foundation that promote interaction among entrepreneurs, advisors, investors, corporate adopters and professionals. So far, in 2008, more than 30 meet ups have taken place in India. […]