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Five shortlisted new media (digital media) ideas will take shape and evolve before the watchful eyes of a panel of domain specialists, fellow entrepreneurs, corporate professionals and investors, at an incubation centre in Mumbai being set up by Gemini New Media Ventures (GNMV). The 40-seater facility will provide the physical space for entrepreneurial ideas chosen by the incubation consultancy, the brain child of former MySpace.com director for India and South Asia, Mr Deep Malhotra.
The emerging entrepreneurs are expected to start work at the facility this November. Besides taking care of hygiene factors like physical space, legal, administration, finance and human resources, and offering consulting from the industry, at no cost, GNMV promises to help entrepreneurs get initial or further rounds of funding, as the need may be. GNMV called for ideas on July 20, and 17 such ideas had been sent in till Monday. The last date for sending entries is September 17. GNMV expects a total of 150 entries. From these, 20 will short listed and their owners will be asked to presented before a chosen panel of mentors, to pick five.
Speaking to Business Line , Mr Malhotra said, “We are in the process of roping in mentors, ranging from venture capitalists, industry stalwarts, successful entrepreneurs, technology and new media specialists. The cost to the chosen entrepreneurs is zero, and it will be a plug and play environment - and a networked one at that. More important than the physical space we provide is the fact that it is a group of like-minded ideators will be working together.”
Stake
In return, GNMV will pick up stake in the new venture. Mr Malhotra expects this to be in the range of 5 to 15 per cent. The average duration of incubation, during which time each venture will be advised on product development to marketing strategy to revenue streams, is seen as three to six months.
Malhotra is part of the Mumbai Angels network, and is in talks with some angel investors to back GNMV, too. The consultancy has been floated with an investment of around Rs 4.5 crore, which includes the cost of the real estate and setting up of the facility.
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