Incubator

MoDemo, HeadStart, Proto: It's show(case) time, folks

Posted by Namitha Jagadeesh at 
Here's a welcome break from all the recession news. The season of start-up showcases has begun again. Nominations are now open for Proto.in and MoDemo , while the nomination process has come to a close with two others - HeadStart and the Tata-NEN Hottest Start-ups . Over the next six weeks, these will (hopefully) bring to light a few dozen start...

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Mumbai terrorist attack: VCs in south Bombay unhurt, AVCJ postpones annual conference

Posted by Namitha Jagadeesh at 
Encounters are on at the Taj Mahal hotel and Nariman House as I write this, while the Trident and Oberoi have been evacuated. The Trident is home to global venture funds such as Norwest Venture Partners, which set up India office last September, Battery Ventures, which set up office this year and IDG Ventures India, which initially had only a Bangalore...

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Start-up funding may get hit at root, as endowments suffer

Posted by Namitha Jagadeesh at 
Start-up funding may now be hit at the root source of capital, as US university endowments, which contribute significantly to the pool of money venture capitalists raise, suffer. Universities are looking to sell off parts of their equity portfolio privately, as their investments through endowments take a hit from the market, reports The New York Times...

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Maharashtra, Delhi, AP top e-commerce activity (and other curious facts): eBay India report

Posted by Namitha Jagadeesh at 
Online auction platform eBay, Inc is a popular platform for digging out consumer e-commerce trends that range from interesting to just plain weird . So eBay's India transaction census guide released today makes for an interesting read, especially since it provides comprehensive state-wise segmentation of top items bought and sold in the country...

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Start-up profile: Bed of roses, at a steep price though

Posted by Sanat Vallikappen at 
Starting off as a wholesale dealer and exporter of flowers, Laxmi Lobo (45) has now transformed herself into one of the first ports of call for anyone looking to buy flowers online. Spring Blossoms , founded by her in September 2004, was an answer to the lack of exclusive Indian florist websites that paid special attention to the design of bouquets...

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Solar co Azure Power closes series-A from Helion, Foundation Capital

Posted by Namitha Jagadeesh at 
Delhi-based solar energy company Azure Power has closed undisclosed first round funding from Helion Venture Partners and Foundation Capital . Incubator had first reported the deal in October. Azure is an independent power producer, that is, a privately held company that generates power that can be sold to public utilities (like BEST) or end users. Helion...

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Did Internet help win the elections?

Posted by Namitha Jagadeesh at 
What role did the Internet play in the recent US presidential elections? A pretty big one, according to this article on the New York Times' blog Bits, which argues that Barack Obama's use of the Internet in his presidential campaign has changed US politics, drawing parallels to John F Kennedy's use of the televised medium in the 1960 campaign...

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The Sensex, my mother and me

Posted by Sanat Vallikappen at 
With the BSE Sensex going below 8,000 last Monday, the stock markets have come a full circle for me. I started tracking the Indian equity markets in mid-2005 when I joined my previous employers, DNA. Though I saw Sensex 7,000 whizz by (it happened on June 21, 2005 and DNA's first edition came out only by July), the first opportunity I got to write...

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Candover's gymming strategy

Posted by Sanat Vallikappen at 
Candover, the Euroupean private equity group that set up its India office a couple of months ago, and its Asia office in February 2008, is hoping to leverage the connections some of its European portfolio companies have built in the region. See the full article on Candover’s Asia entry here . “The companies that we’ve invested in Europe, typically have...

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It pays to be networked - Admob, LinkedIn announce fresh funding in downturn

Posted by Namitha Jagadeesh at 
Two Silicon Valley companies - Admob , a mobile ad network and LinkedIn , a professional networking platform have announced fresh investments in the last two days, perhaps the two largest rounds of venture funding announced since the US market meltdown last month. Admob has raised $15.7 million in third round funding from Sequoia Capital (which made...

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Challenges for an Indian company in emerging markets outside India

Posted by Namitha Jagadeesh at 
We ran this story in Mint today on young Indian companies in IT and telecom services looking at markets such as Middle East, Latin America and Africa for expansion, rather than the US or UK. As the developed economies slow down, it is expected that more Indian companies will head to emerging markets that may be a few years behind India, but growing...

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Entrepreneurship pains are worth the gain

Posted by Deepti Chaudhary at 
Photo - Hemant Mishra/Mint-Bangalore The panel discussion at the TATA NEN Hottest Startups event in Bangalore on Wednesday was spiced up with instances of how Indian society takes to entrepreneurs. “There are three kinds of boards that people put at the entrance of their building -- dogs not allowed, salesmen not allowed and entrepreneurs not allowed...

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Tim Draper on India, space DNA and repealing Sarbanes-Oxley, “that stupid law”

Posted by Namitha Jagadeesh at 
Venture capitalist Tim Draper doesn’t miss an opportunity to promote a portfolio company. “I hope you’re doing all your travel through Cleartrip,” he told me a minute into our conversation - his firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson led an $18.5 million round of funding in the online travel portal last year. He’s also very vocal about free enterprise and blames...

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Fighting demons and darkness at the Cleantech Forum

Posted by Namitha Jagadeesh at 
Panel discussions at the Cleantech Group's first India Forum were peppered with references to Indian gods. First, the Minister of State for New and Renewable Energy Vilas Muttemwar, in his six-page written speech, invoked the sun god thus: "The Sun God has blessed India with a presence averaging 320-325 days in a year. I often jokingly say...

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A higher wall for Wall Street

Posted by Sanat Vallikappen at 
More than 300 years after it was dismantled (by the British in 1699), there must be a prayer that the wall along whose length Wall Street was constructed in the 17 th century and from which it takes its name, be restored. That wall had formed the northern boundary for early Dutch settlers in lower Manhattan, and served to defend them against foreign...

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