The Venture Intelligence Blog

Arvind Singhal of Technopak has an article in the Business Standard comparing India and China. Both got their independence around the same time, had similar scale of economies and challenges, and then both lost a few decades due to misplaced ideology. China started its reform process in 1978, while India did it in 1991. Yet, today, even the most optimistic on India would not claim that India in 2022 will be where China is in 2009. If a single word can explain the difference between China and India.., it is “audacity” in case of China, and lack of it when it comes to India. At different stages in its history, Chinese rulers have dreamt audaciously and executed their dreams resolutely and ruthlessly. At different stages in Indian history, the rulers have chosen to negotiate, compromise, take the path of least resistance, or have left things to divinity. Post-Independence, we have even misinterpreted the Gandhian notion of austerity to justify our very “small” thinking, and have taken sh...

At a time when Education has become the hottest sector for private investment, Raghav Gupta of Technopak Advisors highlights, in an article for Business Today , the key issues to evaluate when venturing into this field. Market Assessment: A pragmatic assessment of the “catchment” in each segment of education is important, from the standpoint of achieving required student enrollment, before planning an investment. The catchment (in this case the travel time to and from the institute) for a pre-school student should be 30 minutes, for a K-12 day school 60 minutes, and for a residential school, this would be five hours. Demand for a vocational training institute originates from within city premises, with few students travelling across cities for enrollment. A university or a higher education institute would ideally attract students from all parts of India as well as South Asia, the Middle East and Africa and, therefore, matters would be being dictated by the quality of education on offer...