The Venture Intelligence Blog

Edited excerpts from the Press Release Quikr India, the online classifieds site, has raised a Rs. 20 crore second round of funding in led by new investor Omidyar Network and returning investor Matrix Partners India. Omidyar Network is the investment vehicle of Pierre Omidyar, founder of leading US-based online auctions firm eBay. Quikr is the Indian edition of the free classifieds portal, Kijiji, floated by eBay. Matrix had first invested in the company in February 2008. Along with the latest investment, Quikr India has also announced the appointment former Booz Allen Hamilton executive Pranay Chulet as its CEO.

Investment management firm Halcyon Resources & Management has catalysed the launch of the Halcyon Forum comprising of eminent individuals from banking, manufacturing, capital markets and services sectors, to provide advice to businesses on dealing with the economic downturn. Members of the Halcyon Forum include M. G. Bhide (former CMD of Bank of India and MD of SBI), Raghunathan Sankaran (Founder and Chairman of IndGlobal Finance), Nabankur Gupta (Chairman of Blue Ocean Capital and board member of Raymond), Urjit R. Patel (an Economist currently with Reliance Industries and formerly a Consultant to the Ministry of Finance) and Narayan K. Seshadri (Chairman & CEO of Halcyon Group). How the Forum works Companies that apply to the Forum would provide information on their businesses to enable appropriate diagnostics. The results of the diagnostic along with broad options will be presented to the Promoters/Management who will be invited for interaction with the Forum. If necessary...

August 11, 12 & 13, 2009 in Delhi. The modules of this course have been specifically designed to offer participants an overview and a broad understanding of the different milestones and processes in the investment cycle. The Foundation Course looks at: * Academic Tutorials (Fundamentals of VC/PE) * The due diligence process * Intellectual property rights * Legal aspects of private equity and venture capital * Pricing and structuring of deals * Creating value and managing growth * Building Boards * Valuation of portfolio companies * Valuation Guidelines & Reporting Guidelines * Divestments This program aims to provide participants exposure on governance and reporting guidelines in particular. At the end of the course, participants earn a Certificate from EVCA jointly signed by IVCA. For more details, please contact: Dolly Goklaney at dolly@indiavca.org

Bangalore, KA-based Anup S. Shah Law Firm, which has offices in Hyderabad and Chennai also, is to merge with AZB & Partners, Venture Intelligence has learnt. Anup Shah will bring with him two partners and about 15 associates. The total strength of AZB & Partners’ Bangalore office would now be approximately 40 lawyers, including five partners.

Businessworld has an article on the progress (or the lack of it) of the agri-initiatives of various corporate houses. Take Jain Irrigation, which derives Rs 300 crore of its revenues from agri business by aggregating 7,000 acres of farmland to grow white onions and mangoes for Cargill, the global seed company. The fruits and vegetables are processed and shipped to Cargill, which in turn supplies them to retail companies around the world. “We work with 1,500 farmers, and have been working with them from the seed input stage,” says Anil Jain, MD of Jain Irrigation. Aggregation was easy for the Jains given the proximity of farm lands to processing factories that have a capacity of 20,000 tonne per day. But what makes Jain Irrigation’s model of contract farming different is that there are no formal signed contracts with the farmers. The arrangement is based on the strong relationship built by the company by selling drip irrigation systems to these farmers. A similar business model is foll...

In an article for the Economic Times, Bureaucrat-turned-Education CEO Amit Kaushik, calls for "bold new steps" that will encourage private investments in schools. The simplest way to do so would be by allowing private schools to be held under one of two options: schools could either be operated by not-for-profit foundations as is presently the case, with the understanding that such schools would not be allowed to charge high fees and would have to include children from underprivileged backgrounds, or by for-profit commercial entities set up like any other business venture by the corporate sector. The latter entities could be treated at par with other commercial venture, subject to taxes and applicable company laws, but allowed to distribute surpluses to investors as dividends. It is not unreasonable to allow a reasonable return on investment in order to attract that investment in the first place. Naturally, schools set up by private companies would not be eligible for conces...

In a column for Business Standard , Akash Prakash of Amansa Capital, feels the rising fiscal deficit - one of the catalysts for which will be more and more schemes that send money to rural areas - will ensure that that government pushes through economic reforms willy nilly. ..the clear takeaway (from the latest election) has been that success in transferring significant resources into rural India has delivered votes. Spend large chunks of money on social schemes targeted at rural India, ensure reasonable delivery of these schemes and you will get votes. Every political party has understood this message, and this trend of increased resource transfer towards the poor through enhanced social security schemes is here to stay. For example, the NREGA outlay has already moved up to Rs 39,000 crore, this will only increase further as the scheme gets extended to urban areas and wages are maintained in real terms. There is now the imminent launch of the Food Security Act, and we will see more s...