At today’s roundtable, I started with a presentation on Blue Sky opportunities in Cloud Computing based on our Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing (TLCC) research. I took the audience through five cloud-based business ideas, and discussed why they are relevant, and pointed them to the sources I derived those ideas from. For you, readers, here […]
Microfinance — about Social and Profit Agenda
There has been a swelling debate around the original intent of microfinance organizations centered around social good, and the recent “commercialization” of the model as evident in private fund raising, and promoters and PE funds making windfall gains in public markets. The article here by Elisabeth Rhyne seems to advance a great argument for the […]
Fifteen steps to an Innovation Economy
Developed by New York Academy of Sciences, The Yaroslavl Roadmap 10-15-20 describes the innovation policies, successes, and challenges of four countries—Israel, Finland, India, and the U.S.—and Taiwan Province, China. Based on analyses of how those regions developed innovation economies, and on a study of the current state of Russia’s economy compared to the priorities of […]
‘India taking leadership in the Cloud’ at the NASSCOM Product Conc
Managing a product company is becoming increasingly complex in today’s shrinking world. Product Design and Ideation, Market Fit, Operations, Deliveries, Staffing, Marketing and so on. Where do you begin? And if you’re already in business, how do you scale up? After a tremendously successful event last year, the next edition of the NASSCOM Product Conclave […]
NEN Program for Women Entrepreneurs
Here is an announcement from National Entrepreneurship Network. Please feel free to write to the below mentioned email Are you a woman entrepreneur who dreams big or do you know of one? If so, this is for you! It is a known fact that most young companies die in the first 4-5 years of their […]
Navigating through M&A
Interesting account of how Backblaze navigated through an M&A discussion, and what to watch out for, read here.
Early stage entrepreneurs will see huge opportunities
Peerzada has done a great job of reflecting our thoughts on early stage entrepreneurship, and what excites us about the Indian market. Its interesting that while we pride ourselves in being able to leverage our operating experience and help build companies, the best entrepreneurs know enough to run their businesses, and tend to involve us […]
Mobile services for agriculture
Seems like there is growing interest in mobile information services for farmers. TCS has mKrishi, Intuit had another application to get mandi prices etc, and IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd has a mobile information business with Airtel… Looks like a great application area given the number of farmers out there. The notion also extends to other […]
Canaan invests in Equitas and Naaptol
Pleased to announce our investment in Equitas, the fastest growing top-10 micro finance company in India; and Naaptol, a leading home shopping business. We are very excited to participate in high-growth consumer services opportunities, with high-caliber entrepreneurial teams.
Journalistic over reach – why are we surprised?
Finally we were able to come out and share our perspectives on our investment in Naaptol. Over past few weeks, as the news leaked first in ET, then picked by various blogs; and then a second round in VCCircle, we received several enquiries on the same. I would like to thank media persons who resorted […]
A Billion Dollar Indian Internet Company
I have always (after coming into the VC industry) heard the concept of $1 bn company while evaluating early stage businesses. “Can it become a $ 1 bn company?” has been a perpetual question. I always doubted on the concept of $ 1 bn market cap internet company out of India. However; last week our […]
Launching GrexIt – Your shared email memory
I have been working for the last couple of months building this tool: www.grexit.com. If you use Google Apps for your email, you’ll most likely find it useful. A small description of where we are trying to get at with GrexIt follows (It uses a browser plugin that we currently build only for FF 3.x): This is […]