Startup funding Stats on Who got the funding recently. pg.

11

Incubators and Investors list. pg. 15

Startup Events Events in November. pg 8

10 commandments of entrepreneurship. pg 5

The Agni
Ultimate guide to Indian startups

State of E-commerce Boom in India

Factors influencing E-commerce Boom in India. pg. 12

Sbuzz

The weekly Twitter chat to connect Indian entrepreneurs. pg. 9

Learn about marketing tips to make your product or company launch a success. pg 3

How to launch your startup to success?

Cover Story

VC funding

List of active VCs and angels in India. pg. 14

How to start your restaurant?

The permits and tools required to start your own restaurant. pg 10

| to subscribe to this magazine, mail us at balaji@theagni.com | | website: http://www.theagni.com/ |

Launch of the new startup & SME focused magazine - the first such in India. First Edition Our focus will be to identity & discover new Indian startups, and help the ecosystem with data, stats and analysis. We will also feature social media and web development related articles that will be relevant to startup and SME entrepreneurs.

CONTENTS

3. Launching Your Startup

Learn how to launch your startup to success.

5. 10 Commandments of Entrepreneurship

From expecting failure to focusing on execution learn the top 10 commandments.

6. 11 Cool new startups

11 cool startups that got launched in September and October.

7. Top 15 tech tools for startups

From marketing to web design we cover the top tech tools for startups.

Ultimate guide to Indian startups

The Agni

8. Startup Events

We cover the top startup related events in November and December.

EdITorIAL TEAm
Balaji Viswanathan Mahalakshmi Radhakrishnan
If you want to write for us, advertise or collaborate with us, do reach out: B 904, Cheddah Heights, 41 LBS Road, Bhandup (W), Mumbai - 400078 Phone: +91-7738145072/8 balaji@theagni.com www.TheAgni.com
Copyright 2011 Agni Innovation Labs

9. Sbuzz - Weekly Twitter Chat.

Summary of Sbuzz - weekly Twitter chats target to Indian startups.

10. How to Startup your Restaurant Business

Get the list of permits and marketing tools that will useful for your restaurant business.

11. Startup Funding

Learn the startups that got funded in September and October.

12. State of E-commerce of India

India is seeing an unprecedented e-commerce startup boom and we will go in to the factors influencing the startup boom.

14. Venture Capital in India

Learn about Venture funding and list of VCs and angel funds active in India at the moment.

15. Investors & Incubators

We cover some of the startup accelerator programs and incubator programs in India.

Cover Story

LAUnCHIng YoUr STArTUp

Learn how to Launch your new product/startup to a Great success

Your startup launch is the first day you will show your baby to the world and let the public have a hand at your stuff. A good launch can do great things to your brand & build enough momentum to cut marketing & sales expenditure drastically. Remember the lines on the day before iPhone and Sony PS II launches? You might not get that far for your product (!), but you still could generate a lot of buzz without spending too much if follow these ideas.
5. Set up your blog and post interesting content related to your product. Post the broad issues faced etc. Include me dia to display the human side of your company photos of your team, office, videos of fun events, etc. 6. Create a splash page you could use launchrock with a signup form 7. From your small network created in the previous steps, get a few target users to sign up for the alpha/beta. 3. Cultivate relationship with bloggers and media persons in your field. Here are some tips to cultivating the blogger relationships. If you could get bloggers like Robert Scoble to get interested, the idea could spread like wildfire. 4. List your startup in Angel List, StartupLi.st, CrunchBase, Listio.

Goal

now:

build

kick-ass

product that people will love

6 months before the launch

1. Get started on Twitter know the influencers in your area and connect with them. Post content related to your field and build reputation. 2. Participate in hackernews and hackernews india discussions and earn karma points. 3. Get active on forums, Quora on topics related to your product. Answer questions and be a good samaritan. 4. Get a good brand name and register your site. You could use nameninja to brainstorm on the brand name.

Goal

now:

work

on the riGht

product idea that excites your beta customers

1 week before the launch

1. Build a great landing page that has a clear call to action signup/phone number to contact/buy the product etc. 2. Optimize your site well as new customers might not be too patient for the site to load. 3. Do basic SEO for your site to bring customers through search. 4. Test your product well a lot of times people dont give a second chance. Find out critical bugs and scalability issues.

3 months before the launch

1. Start attending started related events keep building networks & exchange business cards. Make your brand YOUknown. Here are some startup related events. 2. Spend some time to design a smart business card that stands out and use the back of the card with a 3 point pitch about your startup.

Cover Story

5. Setup Google Analytics in your site and monitor your site daily. Track visits, bounce rate, traffic sources, time spent on site etc. 6. Learn to use social monitoring tools like howsociable to track your brand across the social media. 7. Write a good press release. A press release is a content that a media could use directly for their story. It is written in third person and talks about your product, team and advantages of your product. 8. Setup your Facebook page. Get your friends and contacts to join it. You might want to use Facebook ads to kickstart the fan building process. 9. Create viral content emotive stories, videos and pictures that people could share in social media easily. 10. Create interesting infographics and slides on content related to your product (stats, benefits, user demographics, comparison to existing products) to post in your blog. You might be able to use the newly launched Visual.ly to create the infographics if you dont have a create artist.

11. Tease your twitter followers with tweets that gives them a preview of the product in a fun & entertaining way. Without going overboard, give a bikini reveal enough to keep it interesting without exposing everything. 12. Create fun contests (quizzes, social games, etc) for your twitter & facebook fans throw away a few freebies. 13. Write personally to bloggers give exclusives for the big ones- give them a compelling story. Bloggers like to write interesting content and make your story a coherent and a powerful one. Request them not to leak the story till your launch day. 14. Collect a list of all email contacts you and your team knows. Keep these in your CRM or at the least in a single CSV file. 15. Prepare a video demo of your product and record interviews with the team and your initial customers post them on your youtube channel. Keep it short and fun. 16. Create a kick-ass presentation of your product covering the problem, your solution, benefits etc post them on your blog.

Goal

now: choose the riGht launch date ideally in the middle of the week without any impendinG holidays and other major product launches.

Launch day
1. Post the howtos, presentation, videos, any testimonial you received from your beta users in your blog. Make your blog the central repository of everything related to your product. 2. Schedule two dozen tweets (you could use tools like Hootsuite for scheduling) to go every hour each covering a facet of your product with an appropriate URL in your site. 3. Start mailing to all your email contacts. Use a tool like mailchimp to send and track the emails. 4. If you are an internet startup, post your site link in Killerstartups and these 36 other websites. 5. Submit links in hackernews and hackernews india. 6. Get your team tuned to the social media and be alert to receive feedback. Monitor your site metrics traffic, load etc. Respond to email queries as fast as possible. After the launch thank all the bloggers who have covered your event. Listen to your customers and keep updating your product.

If you need further help launching your startup do contact us for our premium services. Mail me at: balaji@theagni. com
W h I L E W E C A N N O T b E C OM E L I k E ST EV E j O b S , T h E r E I S A L O T W E C A N L E A r N F r OM h I S p r O D U C T L AU N C h E S

Entrepreneurship

10 Commandments of Entrepreneurship
1. Ideas matter very little it is all about execution. Some of the greatest companies were built on trite & simplest of ideas. So, when you start a business, dont be discouraged that others have that idea too. Just focus on how many of them are executing it chances are that none of the incumbents are executing it awesomely. 2. Entrepreneurship is not a hobby nor something you do on a vacation it is a way of life. It is not a one-night stand but a marriage. Plan to stay on it for the very long term. 3. Failure is a given and every entrepreneur must go through that ritual. And just like night & day, there could be cycles that you cannot control. So, dont be too hard on yourself and always look for opportunities. You work years to be called an overnight success. 4. No work is too low as long it is legal. You think sweeping the floor and calling up customer is too low for your CEO title? Entrepreneurship is not your cup of tea. If you do it the right way, your janitorial business could be as great as a business designing tablet devices. 5. Money is an essential byproduct to a great businesses, but is not everything. Fundamentally your focus has to be on adding value. If you add value, money will follow. 6. Marketing is not about conning the customer into giving their money. It is the foundation of a business where you develop the right product at the right price for the right market. Marketing has to be at all levels of a business. 7. Every customer is equally important whether he pays Rs. 10 or Rs. 10 million. Every customer deserves respect and service. 8. No employee is inferior to an another. You might think the guys in C suites are important than the janitors. But, the janitors could make your company stink more than your CTO. Give every employee the respect & treat them as equals even if there are different payscales & incentive mechanisms. 9. You can never grow big enough to warrant your arrogance. Be the founder whom the employees could approach and talk to easily. The larger you grow, the more humble you have to become. The greatest guys of the last millennium - Albert Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi were the most approachable and humblest persons. 10. Always Look to change the world. Always question the status quo dont take it as a given. Constantly look for opportunities to disrupt.

If you focus on addInG VaLue to your customers money wILL foLLow soon

A LWAyS L O O k T O C hA N G E yO U r WO r L D

Startup Launches

CooL nEW

11

STArTUpS
1. Programr - Pune based virtual computer institute that has online compilers for C++, Java, PHP, C#, Flex, J2EE, Objective-C enabling students to write programs & directly run it on their browser. www.programr.com 2. Snatchcode - Lucknow based startup that offers one click backup of websites. There is a free plan that gives up 1o 1 GB of space and a plus plan with 7GB of space & an undo feature for $7/month. www.snatchcode.com 3. Billbaba - NCR based startup that offers a bill reminder service for Indian consumers. They offer SMS, Facebook and email alerts on a variety of reminders on utility, phone & other services. www.billbaba.com 4. Aaram Shop - NCR based online grocery shop that offers customers the ability to order grocery online from a variety of offline stores. A sort of Justdial + e-commerce store hybrid. www.aaramshop.com

SE rV IC E S M A r k E T I N I N D IA I S C hAO T IC A N D T h I S STA rT U p A I M S T O A D D r E S S T h E I S SU E .

5. Vaultize - Pune based tech startup that provide enterprise class backup solutions to help you SMEs back up their emails, databases & other files on the cloud. www.vaultize.com 6. Chhotu - NCR based courier delivery service optimized for e-commerce stores. They take care of both delivery logistics & Cash on delivery payments to free e-commerce cos from those hassles. Currently offer services only within New Delhi. www.chhotu.in 7. Runpapa - Ahmedabad based local deals site that offers pull based group buying - consumers can identity a product they are looking for & if enough guys are looking for it, Runpapa will negotiate a bulk deal. www.RunPapa.com 8. TaskTrek - NCR based tech startup that offers communication management suite for teams in a company to collaborate better. They offer both desktop & online versions. www.tasktrek.in

9. YatriCab - NCR based travel startup that makes it easy to hire a cab online for local as well as long distance destinations. Currently offer services in Delhi. www.yatricab.com 10. Mirraw - Mumbai based startup that aims to connect fashion designers build their online presence and sell stuff online. www.mirraw.com 11. Service Sutra - Kolkata based startup that connects service providers with consumers through their virtual marketplace. Consumers can request a quote for a service and they provide the 3 best quotes from the providers. Currently they list 6 services - Finance, Packing, Media, Interior designers, etc. www.servicesutra.com If you have a startup announcement to make reach out to us. We feature the best in each issue. Contact. balaji@theagni.com

Technology

Top 15 TECH TooLS For STArTUpS

Colloboration & Communication
1. google Apps for business Brings a whole suite of apps hosted Mail, Docs, Calendar for your organization. The free plan cover upto 10 users. apps.google.com 2. Skype The ultimate communication tool that is great whether you want to interview a new candidate or talk with a potential client. Skype.com 3. dropBox A great collaboration tool that allows you to store your documents on the cloud and sync it in all your devices - iPhone, PC, Mac, etc. Dropbox. com 4. BitBucket If you use Mercurial for source control, it lets you store, sync and manage your source code on the cloud. Bitbucket.com 5. gitHub Github lets your team colloborate on coding & manage your source code. With reasonably priced plans Github could be the ideal choice for both open source & proprietary software. GitHub.com

marketing
6. Twitter Given that majority of VCs, news reporters and business leaders are on Twitter, a startup should have this as a central part of their marketing strategy. Twitter. com 7. mailChimp Even with all the social networking tools, email marketing is still relevant and the cheapest. Newsletters allow startups to keep in touch with your potential customers and take your products to a wider audience. MailChimp.com 8. Slideshare The youtube of powerpoint slides, Slideshare allows you to take your company message to investors, clients and partners. Slideshare.net 9. getSatisfaction Marketing cannot work without satisfying your current customers. GetSatisfaction directly opens channel with your current customers. GetSatisfaction.com 10. polldaddy Poll Daddy allows you to take customer surveys and do market research. PollDaddy.com

Website design and management

11. Wordpress In the past 3 years, Wordpress has evolved into a top class CMS with the richest choices of plugins. The best way to develop your corpporate site & blog. Wordpress.org 12. google Analytics The best free tool for web analytics - Google Analytics help you track your website visits, time spent, source of traffic, and social metrics like likes. Analytics.google.com 13. gandi.net One of the best domain registers Gandi allows you to easily manage your domains and migrate to another register very easily. Gandi.net 14. Themeforest Whether you are running a Wordpress or Html site, themeforest provides the premium themes to help you with your UI/UX. Also check out other marketplaces from envito. Themeforest.net 15. gravity Forms Provides you ready made forms that can be used for your ecommerce store, customer survey or mailing list subscription. Gravityforms.com

List of Startup Events November

UnpLUggd
Nov. 19, 2011 pune More details at: http://www. unpluggd.org/agenda/

STARTUP EVENTS NOVEMBER

nASSCom gAmE dEVELopEr ConFErEnCE

11-12 November, 2011 pune http://ngdc.nasscom.in/

SoCIAL mEdIA SUmmIT

Nov. 5 and 16, 2011 10am - 6pm Chennai

TIECon, CHEnnAI
Nov. 24, 2011 - 9am - 6pm Chennai Trade Center Attracts VCs, startups and mature companies.

nASSCom prodUCT ConCLAVE

Taj Vivanta, yeshwanthpur bangalore

Nov. 9 and 10, 2011 10am - 6pm

ESSEnTIAL FInAnCE For EnTrEprEnEUrS

October 29, 2011 IIT Madras research park, Chennai

gLoBAL EnTrEprEnEUrS mEET

Nov. 4 -5, 2011 10am - 6pm Mumbai

STArTUp SATUrdAY
Nov.12, 2011 Events across all major cities in India.

AdVErTISE YoUr EVEnT HErE

AdVErTISE YoUr EVEnT HErE

AdVErTISE YoUr EVEnT HErE

Entrepreneur Chat

Weekly TWiTTer ChaT

SBUzz
Visit the Sbuzz facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/ groups/180300388702489/
T O j O I N T h E C hAT O N W E D N E SDAyS 7 p M I ST, G O T O h T T p : / / T W E E T C hAT. C OM / r O OM / SbU z z

Sbuzz is a weekly Twitter chat for Indian startup entrepreneurs to come and network with other startups, learn the trends, take advice, share office, etc. The goal is to create a strong ecosystem where information flows freely. Follow this page for more updates and everything related to Sbuzz. Share this page to get your friends in this too. Started on July 27 2011, we have been running the chat for 14 weeks on topics ranging from fund raising to hiring, sales, price discrimination etc. Each chat is of 1 hour duration and are between 7 to 8 PM every wednesday. The primary audience are entrepreneurs and it is a forum for peer to peer advice and networking. There are over 100 participants so far with each week averaging about 30 startup & SME participants. Week 1 opened with discussion on problems facing a startup - with hiring and promoting emerging as top challenges for Indian startups.

On Week 2, we took the discussion towards tools for startups. We discussed on marketing, project management and social tools that are relevant for startups. Week 3 was one of the most popular chats, featuring a few investors and the topic was on fund raising. We had over 40 startup participants.

Weeks 4-12 dealt with various aspects of sales & marketing from social tools to corporate identity. Week 13 was about startup incubators and onWeek 14 dealt with one of the sticking points of Indian companies customer service. We talked about how to wow the customer and use them to improve the future sales.

There is wisdom in the crowds; Indian startups & investors can greatly benefit from this weekly chat that helps break ice, identify potential partners etc. Unlike a conference it places very little stress on your schedule and given the timing (7-8pm) it is ideal for people returning from work or have returned home. Since, Twitter allows mobile updates, it can suit both the commuters & the late leavers in the office.

First Edition

Ma g azine | 9 9

How To

HoW To STArT YoUr oWn rESTAUrAnT BUSInESS

A LOT OF US HAVE AM BITIONS TO S TA RT OU R OWN R E S TAU R A NT. FOR S O M E FO O D IES IT COULD BE A N IC E HOBBY A ND FOR OT H E R S IT COU LD B E A PROF ITA BLE B U S INES S I F D ONE WELL .

planning
1. Research your market and find what cuisine you want to target. 2. Follow restaurant focused blogs like Ranw. com and Chefatlarge.in 3. Create a business plan decide on pricing, target demographic profile etc. 4. Choose the right location restaurant business is mostly about location that anything less.

the two mo s t i mpo r ta nt thing s in a go o d re sta ura nt bu siness a re a ) r i gh t l o c a ti o n b) rig ht ch e f. If yo u d o n t ge t them rig ht, re s t d o n t ma tte r.

5. Get suppliers for food and utensils use seekandsource. com, indiamart.com, Justdial and Sulekha. 6. Get insured. 4 types of insurances are mandatory in India Public Liability, Product Liability, Fire Policy, Building & Asset.

8. Lift license (if lift is there) 9. Liquor license from excise commissioner (if liquor is served). 10. L-4 license from department of tourism (for star hotels). 11. Playing Music license from Indian performing right society (if music is played).

marketing
1. Become a part of national restaurant association - NRAI and join local trade bodies. 2. Get a blog and twitter account and create a buzz before opening the store. 3. Get premium listing in classified sites like Justdial.com. 4. Use deal sites like Snapdeal and provide coupons to kickstart the business. 5. Use Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare to constantly interact with your customers. 6. Get your site listed in Zomato.com that provides menus of restaurants across India. 7. Engage your audience constantly in food review sites like Foodlets

Apply for permits

1. Shops and Establishment license from state government 2. Signage license from municipality. 3. Nomination of PFA from Director of Prevention of Food Adulteration in the state. 4. Health / Trade License from Municipality. 5. Eating house license from Police commissioner. 6. NOC from fire department 7. Environment clearance from local government.

More details on permits are on NRAI.ORG website. operations

1. Hire the right chef who would not jump ship easily. A lot of restaurants hire from distant villages with a strong food culture and work hard to retain the right ones. 2. Design the right ambience make it appropriate for the audience 3. Hire the right staff and focus on customer service to the core for menial jobs you could sites like babajob.com. 4. If you are also providing home delivery consider using sites like Justeat.in.

Funding

STArTUp FUndIng
Since September 1, 2011, 17 startups have announced their funding and we find majority of these startups are in NCr region and bangalore. Mumbai falls a distant third. Education seems to be the hottest sector now and a slightly more equal distribution of funding in other startup sectors. Intel Capital, Info Edge and Seeders Ventures are the most active startup investors at present.

Startup
WebEngage - Customer engagement and feedback tools Capricorn Gifting - Corporate gifting and promotional products eShakthi - Online apparel firm targeting US customers One97 Saankya Labs - Fabless Semiconductors

Investor
Indian Angel Network Seeders Venture Capital IDG Ventures SAP Ventures Intel Capital

Funding scope
Seed Seed $3m $10mn

Location
Mumbai

Segment
Web tools

Testing Czars - Test engineering & moIntel Capital bile applications Financial Inclusion Network & Operations Intel Capital (FINO) - banking tech platform provider Whats on India - electronic TV guides Intel Capital Duron Energy - Consumer solar products Intel Capital MyDala - Daily deals website Vienova - Education tools providers to schools Eduora - online social learning platform CarSingh - online portal for used cars MeritNation - online education assesment and learning Zomato - Food guide and restaurant directory Eye-Q - Special hospital chain Sparsha - Activity based e-learn for schools and higherl education Info Edge Helion Advisors Seeders Venture Capital Seeders Venture Capital Info Edge Info Edge Nexus Venture Partners Tempus Capital and Blume Venutres Rs. 18 crores $3.5 mn Seed Seed Rs. 20 Crores Rs. 13.5 Crores

Hyderbad Corporate gifting Chennai Ecommerce Apparel New Mobile InterDelhi net Services BangaSemiconduclore tor BangaSoftware testlore ing Mumbai Finance Mumbai Bangalore New Delhi New Delhi Bangalore Bangalore New Delhi New Delhi New Delhi Kharagpur Entertainment Energy Deals Education Education Portal Education Food Healthcare Education

11

THE grEAT EComm Boom

Box 1: Top Players
General Shopping sites
Flipkart.com Infibeam.com Futurebazaar.com

Travel Sites

IrCTC.co.in Makemytrip.com Cleartrip.com redbus.in

Local Deals

yOU k N OW W hAT I S C O O L ? A b I L L IO N D O L L A r S . INDIAN STArTUpS ArE IN ThAT MENTALITy

SnapDeal.com MyDala.com Dealsandyou.com SoSasta.com (bought by Groupon)

Apparel
I T L O O k S L I k E T h E E - C OM M E r C E VA LUAT IO N S A r E M OV E D M O r E b y T h E p O S SI b I L I T y O F A M A z O N S I N D IA E N T ry T hA N AC T UA L F U N DA M E N TA L S . M A r G I N S A r E WA F E r T h I N A N D EV E ry b O Dy I S b E T T I N G O N h IG h E r VO LUM E S . ndia is facing an unprecedented E-commerce boom. There are now over 40 local deal sites and 500 e-commerce ventures along with a plenty of traditional stores having their online version of their store. Over 40 of the Indian e-commerce ventures are funded. There is no question that there is a bubble and the market cannot have 500 general purpose e-commerce players vying for peoples attention and pockets. In the US, Amazon has consolidated its top position and is displacing both online and offline players. India might go the same route. None of the e-commerce have broken even and their marketing budgets are well above their operational profits for majority of the players. What has caused this? We will cover some of the major factors that is causing this boom.

yebhi.com FashionAndyou.com Myntra.com

Baby Goods

Firstcry.com babyOye.com hushbabies.com

Electronics
Timtara.com Letsbuy.com Taggle.com

Lingerie

OyeGirl.com zivame.com ShopImagine.com

Feature

Factors affecting the boom

by know this story has been repeated a billion times. India has a huge demographic advantage with a big chunk of its 1.2 billion people in the young age and 10s of millions are rapidly climbing up the prosperity ladder. To me this is one of the biggest innovations in the Indian e-commerce scene that is causing the sector to go through the roof. CoD enables customers to pay on delivery (just like in a traditional physical store) and has put some of the trust issues to rest. Indians are still not comfortable using credit cards online and CoD has greatly enabled bringing millions of customers to e-commerce with the financial potential but reluctant to swipe online. While Indians are still not buying products online in a big way, they are now used to buying railway tickets (IrCTC), bus tickets (redbus) and flight tickets (yatra and Makemytrip) online. by creating of habit of swiping cards online, these travel sites are increasing the number of potential customers for e-commerce sites. you know what is cool? A billion dollars. Sean parker in the movie The Social Network . THERE ARE 500 E-COMMERCE STARTUPS AND 40 DEAL SITES IN INDIA OF WHICH 40 ARE FUNDED

A Billion people

by Indian standards Flipkart has been a great success story - the first Indian Internet company to clock $1 billion in valuation. Founded in 2007 by exemployees of Amazon, Flipkart has moved on to become the biggest ecommerce store in India, pioneering things such as Cash on Delivery. The success of Flipkart has infused a Can Do spirit among the Indian entrepreneurs and a Me too spirit among the Indian VCs who missed out investing in Flipkart.

Possibility of Amazons entry

The world leader in e-commerce Amazon has suggested that they will be entering the Indian market in the next 12 months. Like Apple, Amazon has a great knack of moving the market and affect consumer behavior significantly. It has been speculated that Amazon might not enter without a local partner and a few acquisitions. This has sent a few VCs and startups into a frenzy. The possibility of $100mn plus acquisitions definitely plays a part in the valuations.

Cash on Delivery

Social Networking revolution

Success of online travel sites

Even in 2005, India was a backwater in communications. but in the past 6 years, SMS, Orkut and now Facebook has & Twitter has brought the nation quite close. For startups, particularly e-commerce startups, social media is a significantly less expensive way to advertise their services and enable viral growth.

Herd mentality

people in Finance have a herd mentality and the fear of losing out the good opportunity often overtakes the fear of losing on the bad deals. In 1999, if you were not investing in dotcoms you were considered a laggard. In 2006, if you are not in mortgage business, Wall Street would have looked down on you. And the flavor of this season is local deal sites and Indian ecommerce sites.

Backwardness of Indian retail Low Barriers to Entry

Flipkart Story

With a variety of e-commerce plugins, Wordpress store themes, Cloud storage and payment gateway options it has become very easy for anybody to setup their e-commerce store for as low as rs.20000.

While Sears and later Walmart and others have introduced organized retail in the US, decades ago, Indian retail is still in stone ages and highly disorganized. just like in communications, Indians could leapfrog directly to online retail from the traditional kirana setup.

I N D IA N STA rT U p S A r E b r AV E Ly C L I M b I N G U p, bU T FAC E A U p h I L L TA Sk I N C r AC k I N G T h E E - C OM M E r C E SE C T O r .

13

Funding

Venture Capital in India

Venture Capitalists are generally early stage investors in a company who take equity stake in the company in return for capital. Unlike traditional loans, venture capital involves sharing risk with the entrepreneur and involves no collaterol from the owners. Given that most startups cannot access bank loans, venture capital is very crucial for the capital needs of the startup ecosystem. They typically take 10-30% of the equity along with a seat in the board to give the access to the capital. The concept mainly came to form in the late 1950s with the founding of Fairchild Semiconductor that in many ways ushered the creation of the Silicon Valley and the modern Venture Capital. In India, VCs are still in an earlier stage of evolution and have not had as much success as they counterparts have in the US. There are 180 registered VC firms, though majority of them are not actively investing in new companies now. For the complete list of registered VCs in India go to this website: http://www.sebi.gov.in/ investor/venturecap.html In this article we will cover some of the most active players currently.

Angel & Seed Funds

Angels are very early stage investors investing in much small amounts (rs. 5 lakhs to 2 crores) and predominantly involve more hands on involvement from the investors than a typical VC fund managed by hired portfolio managers. Indian Angel Network - based in New Delhi, IAN is one of the major players in the angel scene in India with a dozen plus investments through its various partners.

Traditional VC funds
Nexus Ventures - They are among the leaders in the Indian VC scene investing rs.2-40 crores in 6-8 companies annually. Their currently portfolio of 28 companies includes top players such as Snapdeal.

Intel Capital - A primarily tech portfolio from Intel includes investments in Indiamart and yatra. They have got a number of successful exits from their investments in rediff, Sharekhan, NIIT and perSeedfund - based in Mumbai and sistent technologies. bangalore, it has over a dozen investments and plenty of suc- IDG Ventures - An international cess stories ranging from redbus, operation with over 150 companies in its portfolio, IDG has currently printo.in, Carwale etc. invested in 15 companies in India. Seeders - A relatively new angel fund based in kolkata, Seeders has Sequoia Capital - The 800 pound been pretty active in the past cou- guerilla in the VC game, Sequoia ple of months investing in 3 start- has funded in companies like Apple, Google, yahoo, paypal, youups. tube, LinkedIn and Oracle. UnBlume Ventures - based in Mum- like their US operations, however, bai, blume ventures has over 7 their India operation seem to focus startups in its portfolio and typi- more on mature companies. Their cally invests between 50 lakhs to 2 investments include justDial, Cafe Coffee Day, Vasan Eye Care etc. crores. Mumbai Angels - Started in 2006, Ventureast - has $300mn in funds Mumbai angels has now 150 inves- invested in over 50 companies so far. tors invested in 37 companies.

Canaan Partners - Operating in Israel and US, along with India, Canaan has invested in 12 companies currently including bhart Matrimony and e-commerce company naaptol. LightSpeed Ventures - An international fund with operations in India, US and Israel, Lightspeed has 4 investments in India including the local search provider AskLaila.com.

Funding

InVESTorS & InCUBATorS

Incubator programs
CIIE Incubator and Accelerator program from IIM Ahmedabad Entrepreneurship Cell at IIT Kharagpur GINSERV, Mysore, Noida, Bangalore Jaaga.in, Bangalore National Design Business Incubator at Gujarat NRSCEL Incubator at IIM Bangalore Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at IIT Bombay STEP Program at NIT, Trichi Technology Business Incubator at BITS Pilani Technology Business Incubator at Vellore Institute of Technology Technology Business Incubator at Kongu Engg college near Coimbatore Technopark Incubator program at Trivandrum Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development at ISB, Hyderabad

Seedfund incubators Mumbai based program Start Up! - Delhi based .program for social entrepreneurs IncuCapital funding and incubation. iAccelerator Pune based startup accelerator. Gemini New Media ventures based in Mumbai.

mentoring & Accelerator programs

IAN Incubator run by Indian Angel Network IndaVest Incubator program Launchpad - Pune based program Morpheus Startup accelerator program a 4 month program for early stage startups

15

Our Services
Launch marketing
whether you are launching a new product, service or a new company we will assist in creating a buzz and help you reach the right customers.
Social Media Strategy Landing page Brochures Viral videos Public Relations Blogger relations Brand monitoring Email marketing

Web development
Websites are like buildings - not all are same; there are skyscrapers as well as slums and unfortunately most fall under the latter category. We can help you build a highly engaging website that can help you gain new customers as well as building your brand. These websites can be delivered in as fast as 24 hours and we could also setup email - @ yourname.com and document management on the cloud with Google Apps. prices start from: rs. 4500

An initial buzz can go a long way in helping your new product take-off. prices start from: rs. 5000.

Facebook & Twitter marketing

100 million Indians access the Internet regularly of which 34 million are on Facebook and a few more million on Twitter and LinkedIn. Thus social media should form an important part of any companys strategy - B2B or B2C. We can help you with building fans & engagement on Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn apart from building activity in the blogosphere. We also do analytics to monitor what your customers are talking about you and your competitors. prices start from: rs. 5000

Artwork & Corporate Identity

We can build highly engaging stationary for your company that can engage your customers online as well as offline. Some of the stuff we do: Brochure Design for potential customers Newsletter design Flyers and posters for the print media Intro videos with your logo and concept Business cards Product catalog prices start from: rs. 2500

DO YOU STAND OUT AMONG THE CROWDS?

Reach Out to us:

B 904, Cheddah Heights, 41 LBS Road, Bhandup (W), Mumbai - 400078 Phone: +91-7738145072/8 balaji@theagni.com www.TheAgni.com