Most venture capitalists do not back ideas but entrepreneurs do. Ideas can get modified in market place and business plan may change. VCs look to back an entrepreneur, said R Ramaraj, Senior Advisor, Elevar Equity, a venture capital firm.

Most great innovators and researchers may not want to be entrepreneurs. Then comes the first major challenge on how to get an entrepreneur and innovator together. Most entrepreneurs think they have passion for their idea. To get that bridge between a great idea and great entrepreneur, and then taking the product to market is the first challenge because ‘we back entrepreneurs,’ he said at the First Deshpande-Gopalakrishnan Symposium at IIT Madras.

The second issue is about time line. It’s a long-life span between an idea in a lab and revenue generation. It involves prototyping, validation, making samples, testing, certification and even regulatory approvals. This cycle is usually not in the view of VCs because structurally a VC has limited time span for investment. They come in when there is a commercialisation opportunity, he said.

Ramaraj said today for entrepreneurs there is more opportunity of funding not only from alumni and angels but also from corporate venture capitals and crowd funding that have started to encourage and support ‘great’ ideas. However, one mindset shift that is needed is outcome-based research, he said.

Prashanth Prakash, Partners, Accel Partners, a VC firm, said a global context has now emerged and entrepreneurs have an opportunity to partner not only with people in Bengaluru but also in other global centres. Two networking corridors (Boston-Bengaluru and Silicon Valley-Bengaluru) have emerged for cross-border networks to collaborate through fugal way by leveraging strengths of each other. “The border less innovation that we are starting to see is quite exciting,” he said.

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