The Hindu Business Line : Silicon Valley VCs on hunt for start-ups

Thirty - six venture capital funds, a significant number of them from Silicon Valley, currently managing $5 billion, have set out on a hunt in India with a money chest of about $1 billion (about Rs 4,500 crore).

Investment portfolio

Having tasted waters in India with some good investments, they are poised to step up the tempo and are zeroing in on for investments both in start-ups, and mid-stage companies across the country.

This time around, the investment portfolio has expanded from IT and IT ES companies to other promising sectors such as animation, entertainment and media.

The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), in league with the Indian School of Business (ISB), has provided for a three-day platform wherein short-listed start up companies will have access to half a dozen VCs each at one go, something, which is not common in the VC way of functioning even in the Silicon Valley.

Start-ups

Addressing a press conference hereahead of the event to be held in Hyderabad between September 20 and 22, the President of TiE, Hyderabad, Mr J.A. Chowdary, and Mr Sateesh Andra, Convenor of the event, said one of the areas of focus would be start-ups in the semiconductor sector, which is poised to take off.

This would provide the much-needed boost to the industry.

Mr Sateesh Andra, who has himself managed to raise significant funding for Euclid, said they had identified about 20 start-ups who would get a chance to showcase their products along with business plans and seek to appease VCs to invest in their ventures.

Representatives from Kleiner Perkins, which has invested in companies such as Google and Amazon, Helion Ventures, Sherapo Ventures, Globe Span Capital and Bluestream Ventures would be among those present at the meet to interact with the participants. Some 400 of them have registered for the event.

The Executive Director of Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development at the ISB, Prof Chandrasekhar, said "the theme focus is to nurture and guide the next generation of business leaders helping them create wealth and value for India by promoting entrepreneurship."

The effort is also directed to jump start small businesses.

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