StartupDunia » VC India

Madhouse founders starting Morpheus Venture Partners

pranav — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:52:10 +0000

WATBlog reported yesterday that Sameer Guglani and Nandini Hirianniah, founders of DVD rental company Madhouse.in (acquired by Seventymm), are starting a YCombinator like incubator called Morpheus Venture Partners, to assist other early stage startups.

Ashish has a good QnA with them about their latest venture.

At this point, it looks like the incubator will be more targeted towards mentoring, strategy and advise for startups as opposed to seed funding the startups.

Our primary value add to the startup teams is the advise, mentorship, guidance, access to the right network, creating opportunity to meeting relevant people, team strategy, product strategy, launch strategy, fund raising strategy (intros and more), getting the right advisers onboard with the right kind of terms, etc.

In the current scenario, there is definitely a lot of need for such an entity. Someone, who can closely work with other entrepreneurs and help them get off the ground and get the ball rolling.

At the same time, I cant help but reminisce about a similar effort called DreamzHunt, that was launched in early 2007 by a Chennai based business group called SGS. The idea was to launch a competition where the top 3 teams will be selected and receive a funding of $20k - $100k for 15% stake in the company. The effort fizzled out and it seems that only 2 teams were selected out of all the applicants. Thus far, I havent seen any update on how those two teams are doing. Or if SGS ever invested the quoted amounts in the ventures. If you have any updates about DreamzHunt, leave a comment below and let me know.

However, based on Sameer and Nandini’s entrepreneurial success, I’m more optimistic and wish them the best with this new venture.

Comments

July 9, 2008, Gaurav commented: The model where you get n number of teams and then select top2 or 3 wouldn't work very well. Its not like you have to select top x% doesn't matter if they have the right _stuff_ to get _there_. They might as well add OBC and SC/ST quotas. Also the valuation (like 15%) can't be set up front for all the selected teams. Morpheus sounds interesting and something that Indian Internet space badly needs.
July 10, 2008, Ankit commented: Its a great initiative and is much needed in India. However, just like any other venture its success will depend about how the founders execute their vision... Morpheus guys are better equipped for success as they have been entrepreneurs themselves....

Expedia acquires TravelGuru stake - No Deal

pranav — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:37:52 +0000

Nikhil has an update from TravelGuru CEO Ashwin Damera that ongoing rumors of Expedia acquiring majority stake in TravelGuru for $17 million are mere speculation and that no deal has been signed.

Just like everyone else reported, a $17 million for a majority stake would be just like a desperate deal. Something seemed very odd about the numbers.

Comments

July 2, 2008, Sonia Malhotra commented: $17 million for majority stake in travelguru was unbelievable at the first stage only. Travelguru acquired desiya for $25million & after that getting valued was something not possible. Thanks for clearing out the rumour Sonia Malhotra www.GhumiChale.com India's First Hotels Comparison Engine

TravelGuru acquires Desiya for Rs 100 crore ($25 million)

Inventus Capital launches $125 million fund for early growth Indian companies

pranav — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:24:19 +0000

Inventus Capital Partners are planning to invest $1 - 10 million in 15-20 early stage, technology focused companies in India. Investors include Kanwal Rekhi, John Dougery based in Bay Area while Samir Kumar and Parag Dhol will be based out of Bangalore.

via release

Internet is taking off in India, says Avnish Bajaj

pranav — Thu, 29 May 2008 02:48:03 +0000

Avnish Bajaj, co-founder and MD, Matrix partners India, has an interesting interview in Outlook Business. A few interesting excerpts from the interview:

Q: What did the successful guys (Internet companies) get right?

A: Well to begin with, focus. If you just go through the players and see who has done extremely well versus those who have not, youâ€™ll see the difference. The ones who stuck to what they did best and didnâ€™t try to do too many at that time, have worked.

Q: What are you seeing as other promising emerging businesses?

A: One would be online real estate classifieds sites.The other one which will emerge is, and we have also invested in that segment, local classifieds.The other opportunity where something has to work is the consumer side of the auto sector.

Q: As investor, what areas specifically are you actively looking at?

I think the Internet is finally beginning to take off in India. It starts with access and weâ€™ve seen massive broadband rollouts in the last few years. Once access is in place, applications follow. We are actively looking for good gaming type of companies. I actually believe there is some opportunity still in financial products. Overall, if we believe that a product or service has even a 50% chance of succeeding, weâ€™ll look at it.

So, if you’re an entrepreneur with an idea related to gaming and looking to raise funds, you know whom to contact first .

Comments

May 29, 2008, shabbir husain commented: what's consumer side of the auto sector all about?
May 29, 2008, Kunal commented: Consumer side of the auto sector is something like an Auto Zone. Something on which you can buy new/used vehicles or auto parts.
May 29, 2008, pranav commented: @shabbir, I can only surmise what Avnish meant, but probably something like auto classifieds, carfax, carsdirect etc. ? might fall into the consumer side of auto sector...
May 30, 2008, Shabbir Husain commented: From the outset of it, seems like specialized classifieds, which is not major deal. However there has to be something lucrative about it, cause i have heard of it many a times from entrepreneurs etc ... Thank you Pranav and Kunal.
June 6, 2008, Imran Jankhwala commented: Letâ€™s suppose if India touches 100 million internet lovers in next 5 years then internet could be a good platform for advertisers to promote their products/services in to the eyes of Indian viewers. I think to do the same above Indian government support would be necessary to expand broadband connections in rural/semi urban areas. Also it is required to have online presence of all the major corporate in to Indian internet media by launching of new portals/services so that this activities might connect Indian consumers to internet for spending more time on it.

VC funding in India drops by 27% in Q1

pranav — Thu, 22 May 2008 23:34:32 +0000

Venture capital funding in India for the first quarter dropped by 27% as compared to the 4th quarter. Overall, $99 million was invested across 16 deals while the median investment size was $4.1 million. As compared to this, $135 million was invested in the fourth quarter across 17 deals.

As per the report, VC activity is steady and the drop merely reflects deals of smaller size. 67% of all VC investment ($67 million) went to seven consumer - business services companies.

ClearTrip’s $26 million round was the largest deal.

via release

App Development in exchange for equity

pranav — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:40:07 +0000

Josh@RRW has profiled an interesting startup called Prototype Invest. The company is a unique kind of early stage investment firm.

Instead of providing capital in exchange for equity, the company provides programming and design skills to interested entrepreneurs. This would be particularly helpful to build a prototype for entrepreneurs who, have the idea but dont necessarily have have the needed technical-programming skills. “Think of us as a Venture Capital firm providing software, web applications and guidance, instead of money”, is how they describe themselves. In return, they take a small equity stake in the company.

The idea is pretty unique in terms of what one would expect from a investment firm. Whether the concept is successful and the idea is disruptive - we’ll have to wait and see.

What do you think - would such a model work ?

Comments

April 28, 2008, Azeez commented: Actually I'm looking for this kind of people who will do this work and take stake ..I'm googling all the way and At last its here.I'm engineering student studying my second year ..I think I've a cool idea its not web2.0 weird stuff ..Could U pass me their contact details ..Bye
April 29, 2008, naman commented: well the idea is unique but being different works in marketing a product or service. who would want to give a stake in a company just for getting a software developed. why would i not hire somebody instead. if my idea is really disruptive and has everything required than why in the hell would i share my gains. they are lots of guaranteed government schemes for financing startups.
April 30, 2008, Raghu commented: Outsourced product/prototype development for startups seems to be gaining popularity. May be you guys already know.. GlobalLogic has launched a service called 'Version 1.0' specifically with the above objective... http://www.globallogic.com/indus_diff/ver_overview.shtml
May 5, 2008, pranav commented: @naman you give up equity stake even if you go in for VC funding. This is similar, only difference being that instead of capital, you get access to the product / software.

Guruji.com targets Rs 20 crores revenue by 2009

pranav — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:40:08 +0000

Guruji.com, the Indian search engine, has started monetizing traffic by adopting a pay-per-click revenue model and is hoping to make $5 million (Rs 20 crores) by end of 2009 - early 2010.

Guruji received a first round funding of $7 million from Sequoia Capital and Suvir Sujan (Nexus India Capital) and is looking to close a second round of $10 million in the next couple of months.

via BS

Comments

May 29, 2008, vidushi commented: Hi Pranav, where did u get this info on guruji.com from ? plz reply on my email id thanks
July 1, 2008, Sourav Mukherjee commented: Hi, friends Guruji is based on the concept "Think Global,Act local".Well this is a gud start for the search engine market in India.But for the timebeing they can't compete head-to-head with Google. Regards Sourav http://www.indiatourismhub.com

Helion Venture Partners closes second fund of $ 210 million

pranav — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:35:22 +0000

Helion Venture Partners has closed a second fund of $210 million. The first fund was raised in late 2006 and totaled $140 million.

They also plan to expand focus into high growth sectors like retail, education and and finance - basically, expand beyond the Internet and mobile space.

Here’s what Ashish Gupta, MD Helion VC, had to say in a DNA India story:

“Across the board, most VC funds have at least a couple of investments in the internet and mobile space. But the rate at which these investments have taken place has been slower than what everyone had made it out to be. It has not lived up to the hype or caught fire very quickly”

I guess, that’s one of the rationale behind expanding the focus.

Cleartrip gets $18.5 million third round funding

pranav — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:24:47 +0000

Cleartrip has raised an additional $ 18.5 million in a third round of funding led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. DFJ provided $ 10 million in the round while the rest came from the Mahindra Group and the earlier investors.

This brings the total investment in Cleartrip to $ 30. 2 million.

via release

Comments

March 1, 2008, Priyank commented: Hi Pranav, Its a pleasure to write to you. I don't know if you are part of Cleartrip, but i would surely like to understand the pattern of deployment of the money that has been raised by Cleartrip. Just a brief about me, I am working as an Investment Manager with a venture capital fund which is focused towards investing in socially beneficial small and micro enterprises. Thanks for your consideration...
March 7, 2008, ram commented: Hi Priyank, there are many such portals in India. Can you please share your contact details / email ID ?
July 28, 2008, yatra commented: there are many such portals in India...? Can I get to know such portals..?

VCs pump $928 million in 2007 in India, a 166% YoY jump

pranav — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:12:49 +0000

VC’s invested $928 million in 80 deals in the Indian market last year. This is a whopping 166% increase over last year - in 2006, a $349 million was invested in 36 deals. 48% ($384 million, 38 deals) of the $928 mill went to IT companies, business-consumer-retail got $346 million (30 deals), healtcare got $100 million (7 deals).

Median size of the round was about $9 million in 2007 as compared to $8.7 million in 2006.

via release.

VentureBeat also has a spreadsheet with the segment wise breakup.

iXiGo gets funding from BAF Spectrum

pranav — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:51:30 +0000

Travel search aggregator, iXiGo, has received its first round financing from Singapore based investment firm, BAF Spectrum. The size of the funding was not revealed. The funding will be used for marketing and scaling up operations.

William Klippgen, Executive Director at BAF Spectrum, will join iXiGo’s board.

Comments

March 6, 2008, Bhanu commented: Money down the drain - given the margins in this business - they can hope to only make money in 100 years. Only chance is that they create enough traffic to get bought out..

Chakpak gets funding from Erasmic Venture Fund

pranav — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:05:24 +0000

Probably this is old news. But I dont remember reading about it anywhere.

Seems that Erasmic Venture Fund has invested in Chakpak, a Web 2.0 Bollywood portal. Chakpak appears in the list of portfolio companies for Erasmic. No specifics known about the size of the funding.

My review of Chakpak is here.

Comments

February 14, 2008, Abhishek Goyal commented: Want to see your content being ripped off http://www.avashya.com/articles/62883/chakpak-gets-funding-from-erasmic-venture-fund/ Abhishek
February 15, 2008, oneman commented: Within a year Indiafm, santabanta, bollywoodworld, chakpak will get very tough competitor... Who is a single coder, No funds, lots of web 2.0 knowledge, seo knowledge, website optimization knowledge, super fandu in HCI & usability... Keep eye on google search ranking.... He alone will beat all of top player of bollywood
February 15, 2008, pranav commented: abhishek, I've known abt avashya for quite some time now. They're trying to becoming sort of the techmeme for Indian news. thats why i dont consider them plagiarizing my content. thanks for pointing out though.

Komli owned PubMatic takes $7 milllion series A

pranav — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 14:42:08 +0000

PubMatic, the ad-network aggregator, launched by Komli, has taken a series A funding of $7 million. Investors participating in this round include Nexus India Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Helion Ventures.

TC quotes that they have 1500 beta users and the investment will help them to expand their user base.

via TechCrunch

Indian Government to launch seed fund ?

pranav — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 23:15:25 +0000

This story in BS caught my eye.

The Indian government is taking steps to float a fund to make seed capital available to entrepreneurs.Â The govt. is putting together a framework for setting up an innovation promotion council. The fund’s initial corpus of Rs. 75 crores will come from the Dept. of Science and Technology. Three entities will be involved - the govt., TiE (to rope in VC and angel funds once the seed funding is over) and ISB (where ideas will be examined and nurtured).

The idea seems to be inspired by Israel’s efforts at such incubators.

Comments

October 27, 2007, bobby commented: This looks exciting. Now we have to wait and see how well this is implemented.
October 27, 2007, Kaushalya commented: The idea is good, but in typical Indian fashion they will manage to destroy it in execution. Besides these small funds cannot make up for inherent inefficiencies in infrastructure like electricity. And then there is absurd cost of bandwidth in India. Indians who want to be successful have to move out from this country.
October 29, 2007, Ameya commented: Thats the news .... The idea is very exciting. However, this will take consume some time to be implemented. There are lot of other people who have taken an initiative in coming up with this idea. soon there will be a lot of competition in the market as entrepreneurs and investors... One such portal is www.pitchindia.com who promises to a platform for global investors and entrepreneurs.

Myntra gets seed funding from Erasmic Venture Fund

pranav — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 21:11:32 +0000

Myntra, a consumer Internet startup providing personalized gift services, has secured seed funding from Erasmic Venture Fund and a few additional angel investors. Erasmic has nominated a team member to the Myntra board of directors. Sasha Mirchandani of Mumbai Angels has also joined the board.

The funds will be used for procuring advanced technology for on-demand printing, scaling up operations and new marketing options.

via release

Comments

October 25, 2007, Aditya Gupta commented: THis looks like a rip off of threadless.com. It is a welcome thing though user generated content moves to graphics design on product.
October 26, 2007, Atul commented: I Liked the idea of Myntra! i.e. of an Indian Cafepress. Low price but dont know about the quality yet. Also, atleast the graphic on the homepage should have been different from Cafepress's ;)
December 26, 2007, Reshu commented: Yes, myntra is more an Indian cafe press. Don't know about you guys, but being a NIFT student gnome.in is a lot more fun. That is an Indian threadless!
January 5, 2008, Kajol commented: One thing I did not understand that what gnome is trying to do already exist in pringoo.com and myntra.com then how gnome is better than these two strong players. Tell me one thing, what gnome offers that is not offered by these two players? Both of them have design contest and the best thing is that their prize money is way more than gnome. I would say gnome is subset of pringoo and myntra. And in this race I would say pringoo has the best UI and leading as far as numbers of features are concerned.
January 7, 2008, Reshu commented: Kajol, as a designer its all about getting a sense of achievement! Gnome doesn't print anything and everything. Myntra and Pringoo do. They don't really care whether my design is good or not. Thats just not fun for me you know! And Gnome has a monthly prize money of 50,000 right now! I don't think the other sites are that generous. :)
January 9, 2008, Kajol commented: @Reshu: So it means Gnome is only for those designers who are expert or in the field of designing for many years. Or I will say beginner or amateur designer has no scope in gnome as chances are less for them to be selected as they just started.... Hahah why such a partiality ...pringoo and myntra does not discriminate and they give everyone equal chance. And yes there is rating for designers design to filter so if you want to see design by rating then you can always do in these two sites. I will go for these two sites who encourage any designer to start their career. Gnome gives only 2000 Rs. phewwww... see this paragraph "Winners get a Gnome Club Membership, 2000 bucks & tons of freebies! :D" at http://beta.gnome.in/submit_design.php I will not vote for such a site who discriminates. Where even prize money is almost 5 times more than gnome...

Microsoft announces Startup Accelerator program in India

pranav — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:06:19 +0000

Microsoft has announced the launch of its Startup Accelerator Program in India. The goal is to provide access, guidance and support to software startup companies through an engagement plan. The plan is designed to provide the startups a technology roadmap, develop their biz-marketing skills and provide them access to VC’s.

Microsoft also announced the launch of their Innovation Framework to spur the growth of the local software economy. As part of this, the world’s first Innovation Triangle Park (ITP) will be setup in Pune.Â The ITP will focus on three main areas - skills and IP, industry partnerships and funding.

They are also organizing a ‘India is Innovation’ summit in Bangalore. The goal of the summit is to provide a meeting ground for entrepreneurs, VC’s and innovators to connect and discuss on how to take India to the next level of innovation.

via BS

This comes close on the heels of Yahoo’s recently concluded, first open hack day in Asia, organized in Bangalore. See Kamla’s blog for some Yahoo India Hack Day coverage.

Innovation and R&D in India

pranav — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:33:53 +0000

World Bank has recently published a report on India - “Unleashing India’s Innovation: Toward Sustainable and Inclusive Growth”.

Indian economy is growing at a stupendous pace. But what exactly is needed to sustain this rate of economic growth ? What does India need to do to become more competitive ? How to spur and motivate innovation and research in India ? There are just a few questions addressed in the report.

Below are some of the interesting statistics included in the report:

* Aggregate domestic R&D spending in India has never exceeded 1 percent of GDP, and 75â€“80 percent of this comes from the public sector

* Of the top 50 applicants for patents in India between 1995 and 2005, 44 were foreign firms. Only six were Indian; three of these were public institutions and one, a public corporation. Just two were private Indian firms, both in the pharmaceutical
industry. See my earlier post on patent statistics in India here

* India produces fewer than 7,000 PhDs a year in the faculties of science, engineering, and technology.Indiaâ€™s higher education system needs to produce more scientists, engineers, and other Masters and PhD graduates with skills matched to the needs of the innovation economy

* Some 2 percent of Indiaâ€™s population lives abroad. Their aggregate incomes are roughly equal to two-thirds of Indiaâ€™s GDP

* Teledensity in India in urban areas is 40 percent, compared with 2 percent in rural areas

* Less than 3 percent of the Indian workforce is in the modern private sector, while roughly 90 percent is in the informal sector.
This resonates with Alan Greenspan’s views on India as part of this latest book - “Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World”

And finally, the report also addresses the topic of early stage funding in India, by dedicating a chapter - “Enhancing Innovation Finance” to the topic.

To deepen early-stage venture capital, India should consider both supply- and demand-side reforms. On the demand side, besides increasing ESTD, more efforts need to be undertaken to increase techno-entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship
training should be incorporated more systematically into engineering training. Greater incentives should be provided to young scientists, engineers, MBAs, and 0ther professionals to launch technology-based companies. On the supply side, despite a significant number of major venture capital funds being created in India in the past 12â€“18 months, biases remain toward larger funds, the IT sector, and more proven business models. New efforts in seed and angel funding trying to fill the gap are insufficient. Taking into account the amount of funding available at the post-early-stage phase, the total funding available at the seed and early stage, especially under $2 million, is a serious bottleneck.

Helion Ventures invests $5.1 million in Hurix

pranav — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 14:26:03 +0000

Helion Ventures announced the investment of $5.1 million in Hurix Systems, an online publishing and e-learning company. Hurix has clients like McGraw-Hill group, Prentice Hall, Pearson Learning Group, LG etc.

via BS

Swedish incubator IQube plans India entry

pranav — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:57:19 +0000

Excited by the growth of Indian economy, Swedish business incubator IQube is looking for a partner to start its Indian operations.

IQube will focus on helping early-stage companies and entrepreneurs to grow and achieve their commercial breakthrough.

Thus far, it has invested in 71 companies in Sweden.Â Here’s how the process works — IQube takes a 10.1% equity in these firms and offers them start-up capital and free office space. It also has an option to increase its stake later to 15%. The firmâ€™s fiscal support to the start-up lasts for 12-18 months, after which the start-up company is free to explore other financing options.

via LiveMint

Some startup events and more

pranav — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:57:33 +0000

Vijay, one of the key Proto organizers, just sent out the following information about some upcoming events:

NASSCOM’s Innovation Awards 2007 - Call for Nominations

Introduced in 2004 for the first time, the NASSCOM Innovation Awards have grown into a prestigious platform.

The awards recognize organizations that have made innovation a part of their DNA and developed extraordinary and pioneering products and services. Over the past years, the awards have been presented to the winners at the prestigious NASSCOM India Leadership summit held in Mumbai, by none other than former President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.

If you are an emerging company that has chosen to do things differently and thought “out-of-the-box,” to differentiate yourself in the market, this is the platform for you.

URL: http://www.nasscom.in/innovation

The Chennai Fund - Call for Applications

The Chennai Chapter of TiE has members who have put together a fund, which is aimed at very early stage seed investments. The investment size per company could vary all the way from 20 Lakhs and above upto a crore or such (depending on the need of the company). They are calling in for business plans and for those who are looking to raise capital.

For more information, contact George Samson [gs[AT]tiechennai.org], or Raghu Raghagopal [raghu.rajagopal[AT]energeate.com ]

PS: Finalists are expected to be TiE Chennai Members.

GreyLock Partners India - Startup Advice : Advisory Day a Month

Greylock Partners India has started a ‘Advisory Day a Month’ program, wherein qualified entrepreneurs are invited to pose questions and interact with them in non-investment-pitch mode. Greylock is planning to do this on the 3rd or final Friday/Saturday of every month (starting Friday, September 21st). Each company will have a 25 minute slot (with 5 minute buffer time). Meetings can be in person in Bangalore/Mumbai or over the phone. Do get in touch with Ganesh at [ ganesh[AT]greylock.com] for more information and to book your timing.

Out of the Box Conference

If you have ever seen the TED videos, or had the fortune of being there in person, you would easily grasp what OOB is about. It is about bringing in high-calibre dynamic people who can paint a bigger vision, and share their insights on various topics. From the list of speakers, the theme seems to be circling around Entrepreneurship this time.

The conference is planned to happen in Bangalore, on the dates of 14th and 15th of September. There is a registration process and fee, so do check out the website for more information.

URL: http://www.oobconference.com

StartupDunia » VC India

Madhouse founders starting Morpheus Venture Partners

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Expedia acquires TravelGuru stake - No Deal

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