The Venture Intelligence Blog

Forbes has a video interview with BVP Partner Rob Chandra in which he talks about Internet and e-commerce company valuations. He also talks about the impact created by Internet companies including Chennai, India-based Bharatmatrimony.com in which BVP invested recently. Click Here for the accompanying Forbes article. Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on private equity, venture capital and M&A deals in India. View free samples of Venture Intelligence newsletters and reports.

Startupcentral has an interview with Alok Mittal of Canaan Partners on the $45 million first round funding led by his firm for Wipro veteran and Mindtree Co-founder Ashok Soota's new IT Services venture. What do you find interesting about the business model? The business model draw for us (Canaan) was the outsourcing play. We already have a couple of portfolio companies (iYogi and UnitedLex) in that area. As far as the software services sector is concerned, in the past, significant shifts in information technology spends have created space for new companies. There is a shift taking place now in terms of enterprises in the US and Europe adopting cloud and mobility-based solutions. We think Happiest Minds has the potential to grab a large slice of this market. Will they work closely with some of your India and global portfolio companies which are in the same area? Absolutely. In fact, the founders have been very diligent about walking through both our and Intel Capital’s portfolio c...

From the Press Release: Aditya Birla Capital Advisors (ABCAP), the private equity arm of the Aditya Birla Financial Services Group (ABFSG), today announced an investment of Rs. 95 Crores from Aditya Birla Private Equity – Fund I in Alphion India Private Limited (AIPL). AIPL is the principal subsidiary of Princeton, USA based Alphion Corporation (Alphion). Alphion develops, manufactures and globally provides optical Fiber-To-The-Premises (FTTx) access systems, subsystems and integrated photonic devices. Their access systems offer optical networking solutions for the rapidly emerging FTTx market and the portfolio includes a full range of products for central office, outside plant, customer premise and network management. Alphion is a full member of the ITU FSAN group and a leader in developing key technologies for the next generation of passive optical networks. Alphion is the pioneer in developing all optical PON (passive optical network) network extension solutions to extend the reach ...

Edited excerpts from the press release: Ventureast Life Fund, an early growth and growth stage fund focused on the food and agriculture, clean environment and healthcare delivery sectors, has invested Rs.25 crores in VKS Farms , a Coimbatore-based, integrated meat processing company. Shekhar Kundur, General Partner of Ventureast, joins the Board of VKS Farms. The funding will be utilized for completing VKS's back-end operations, and expanding its retailing capability. VKS's differentiation stems from its diverse product mix of chicken, egg, meat and salt; integrated poultry supply-chain, spanning 'grandparents' to commercial birds facilities to processing to retailing; exports to over 30 countries, besides domestic presence; and state-of-the-art processing plant built to international standards. Shekhar Kundur said, “Hygienic meat retailing is the way forward in this unorganized market. With a comprehensive and efficient supply chain in place, we expect VKS Farms t...

An extract from The Economic Times profile ... His business model is simple: Veggibazaar.com takes orders online and delivers the very next day. This not only ensures freshness of the products—an essential feature of the company—but also means that he does not have to worry about bulk storage space and associated facilities, which is a huge saving. ... Since its launch, Venkatesan has pumped another Rs 1.2 crore into the company, of which Rs 60 lakh came from the couple's saving, Rs 40 lakh was raised by diluting the shares through a CA firm, while the balance was borrowed from family and friends. Venkatesan's effort is beginning to pay off. The company broke even in March this year, and has been yielding monthly revenues of about Rs 11 lakh ever since. Venkatesan says that he is now looking at the franchisee model for further expansion, both within Chennai and outside, starting with cities such as Bangalore,Trichy and Coimbatore. Venture Intelligence is the leading ...

Extract from The Economic Times profile of the mobile advertising company made famous by the recent $200 million investment that it attracted from SoftBank: On Raising Funds From Ram Shriram . There was a phase when credit cards of the entire founding team were used to just pay salaries! With little success in raising funds from sceptic Indian investors, I decided to take a flight to Silicon Valley, where our venture received positive response. Everyone believed in the power of the mobile internet. I was introduced to Ram Shriram and I was really looking at it as a once in a lifetime experience more than anything else. About 20 minutes into the presentation, Ram suddenly got up and said “Close the presentation, we are funding this. What is the execution plan?” I was in a state of shock not only because of his reaction but also because there was no execution plan to show him at that stage whatsoever. On InMobi's International Expansion. As we evaluated the market, we soo...

From The Economic Times profile Shanghvi has a conservative approach to doing business,with eyes firmly focused on cost and the bottom line. As bullish peers made ill-timed and expensive (in hindsight) acquisitions in western markets in the past decade, Shanghvi steered clear of bidding wars and oneupmanship. Instead he chose to buy distressed assets on the cheap with a view to turning them around. Taro,a financially mismanaged company whose shares were in the doldrums when Sun offered to buy control, is one such asset. Shanghvis perception of value is free of external stress factors, says the former CEO of a generics company. In nearly every major strategic decision it has made,Sun has parted ways with conventional wisdom. In the 1980s,while Indian companies were hawking antibiotics and other short-term treatments to general physicians, Shanghvi saw an opportunity in selling meds for chronic diseases to specialists such as psychiatrists and cardiologists. India has since ...

Cross-posting from the Venture Intelligence Entrevista series: Interaction with Raju Venkatraman, Founder & CEO, MEDALL Diagnostics Interview by Chandu Nair, Founder of Scope eKnowledge, followed by interaction with students and other entrepreneurs at the Department of Management Studies IIT-Madras on October 24, 2011. Highlights: The ability to "zoom in and zoom out" - As an entrepreneur, whenever the situation warrants it, you should be able to work in a hands on fashion and get involved in the details. Similarly, you should also be able to step back and focus on the bigger picture (and leave the details to others). Please click on the links below to view corresponding video snippets The motivation as an entrepreneur is not in "being the boss" - It's more about "getting to scale" (and hence the impact you can make) "There is no such thing as a right decision. You should make a decision and then make it right." The Esse...