The Venture Intelligence Blog

From Businessworld Amagi’s key message was to explain the benefits of local advertising to television channels and cable and DTH operators. In June 2008, the trio purchased a set-top box from the US for $5,000 only to realise that it used an archaic analog technology that used cables and was server-based. But they decided to make it work on chipsets and consumer digital signal processing. So, they decided to create something that would not only be easy to install but would also be easy for the DTH and cable operators to adapt their set-top boxes to. Once the technology was sorted, they had to sell the idea. The business model was simple: buy inventory from television channels and sell that to local advertisers. Amagi initially started with retail, jewellery and real estate, and currently works with regional FMCG brands and SMEs who need regional (state-wide) advertising. There are 160 million television sets in India and 600 million viewers, with cable and DTH covering close to 120 m...

Edited extracts from the Press Release: 24-hr English business news channel ET NOW has launched ‘Super Angels’, a path breaking series which will witness start-ups raising funds on national television, for the first time. The show will feature 20 of India’s most innovative start-ups and 4 of India’s most influential investors along with a national audience who will choose India’s next ‘Super Entrepreneur’. The 4 Super Angels on the show are Mahesh Murthy, Managing partner; Seed Fund, Vishal Gondal, Founder; Indiagames, Harshal Shah, Founder; Reliance Ventures and Sanjay Parthasarthy; Entrepreneur and Angel investor. The show will be anchored by Sudhir Syal, Editor; ‘Starting Up’. Every week one start-up will make a pitch to an investor; the TV audience will then be given a chance to vote for the pitch through SMS, email and Facebook. Five months, after the completion of 20 start-up pitches, the audience votes and the investor’s votes will be collated to choose the final 8 Start-Ups, wh...