Udhay, thanks for the update on Bangalore.
You say, "VCs here apparently prefer to find later stage
companies rather than early stage companies. This does not
necessarily have anything to do with what they SAY they will fund,
y'understand. This may be changing, though. And about time, too
companies rather than early stage companies. This does not
necessarily have anything to do with what they SAY they will fund,
y'understand. This may be changing, though. And about time, too
It is interesting that you mention that "
I think that change is starting to happen...at least that is what I have discovered in my interviews with them. Also, many of the new India-based VC funds have a Bangalore office which is an interesting development. Plus, many of the US-based companies that want an India strategy invariably end up in Bangalore (with Hyderabad as a close second).
For instance, two Bangalore-based companies recently got a huge infusion of money. OnMobile got about $28 million, which I think maybe one of the biggest investmments and Seventymm. VAS
type of companies are mushrooming in Bangalore from what what I can gather. There are a whole bunch of telecom and mobile start-ups or established companies in Bangalore.
Funding for early-stage companies might ease up a bit when you consider the amount of money that is available in Inda.
Also, there might be a few product companies under the radar...I would not be surprised if some kind of product company is spun off from either Wipro or Infosys.
BTW, your friend who came up with that cretive way to recruit people in a pub was recruiting for a telecom company five years ago :-)
Kamla
Udhay Shankar N <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Manar Hussain wrote: [ on 12:46 AM 10/12/2006 ]
>Lol. Well that's good to hear. Is it mostly focused in Bangalore as
>hinted? How involved in that scene do people here consider themselves
>to be? Anyone able to give a flavour of what it's like?
I do consider myself part of the scene - I've been involved with
Bangalore startups as founder, employee, investor, consultant, and
"advisor" (which is the same as consultant, only you don't get paid).
That said, the startup scene is certainly not confined to Bangalore.
It just happens to be the only scene that *I* have an intimate knowledge of.
The startup scene here is considerably different from Silicon Valley
- some of the factors that lead to this are:
* The 800-pound gorillas of teh local software industry are all
services companies, and this has implications for where people look
for employment
* the BPO boom means that many (most) VCs like to fund BPOs rather
than product ideas
* Many (most) VCs here apparently prefer to find later stage
companies rather than early stage companies. This does not
necessarily have anything to do with what they SAY they will fund,
y'understand. This may be changing, though. And about time, too.
You may also find it useful to look at
http://silk.arachnis.com/anthro/ which contains a few anthropological
studies which touch upon, inter alia, the Bangalore startup scene.
We have various observers and participants of the Indian startup
scene on this list. Would you folks like to comment?
Udhay
--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
