The Venture Intelligence Blog

Business Today recently published a profile of Snap Networks , a Bangalore-based maker of an innovative wireless home theater audio system , which is is seeking to raise $3-5 million in venture funding. The sound system, branded Violet, consists of a set of five wireless speakers, a sub woofer, a transmitter, a micro controller and a remote control. But the coolness factor stands on two legs: one, the speakers can be screwed into a light bulb holder or plugged into an electric source with a bulb holder adapter. Michael Foley, one of India's top names in industrial design, came up with the nine-pin or trophy-like design for the speakers. Two, it delivers a home theatre feel anywhere in a room unlike the traditional 5.1 speaker set-up. "We have moved away from the conventional equilateral triangle approach used to set up a home theatre system and rely on our chips to build a circle of sound for users, so that the surround sound effect is not dimmed anywhere in the room,"...

Economic Times recently published an article on the various types of agri-businesses are increasingly attracting VC attention. In an accompanying piece , Sandeep Singhal and Manoj Gupta of Nexus Ventures, provided their outlook on the sector. The agriculture sector presents a tremendous opportunity, given its size and large-scale inefficiencies, but building a large company is not easy. It requires domain knowledge, as local issues such as weather, pests, soil conditions, and water availability, and global factors such as commodity price swings can play havoc with any plan. On the supply side, their business model has to support a dispersed network, with the support of field activities and the need to work in different languages. Depending on where they play in the ecosystem, the company's systems and processes should be able to handle large numbers of cash transactions and prevent fraud and leakage. All of this is further complicated by the need to manage risks related to governm...

Writing in the Business Standard , hedge fund manager Akash Prakash points out some of the India-specific challenges in investing into this sector. The reality is that the Indian infrastructure sector does not have the size, financial muscle and market clout to fund the infrastructure this country needs. While power projects may still go ahead, as we have 4-5 large power developers with a combined $28 billion of market cap, $27 billion of market cap has to support everything else from roads to ports, airports, sanitation, etc. Again, the needs dwarf the capital, which can be raised. ...Thirdly, markets have ignored the sector, given the poor economics demonstrated. Most infra projects/developers generate no-free cash flow, have low ROE’s and are very susceptible to project delays and policy risk. Investors are tired of projects stuck in red tape or subject to the whims and fancies of ministers. Most of the large infra projects are also seen to be disguised bets on real estate, as their...

At a time when India- and Asia-focused infrastructure funds are being announced at a rapid clip, Jay A. Yoder, Partner and Head of Real Assets at fund-of-funds firm Altius Associates, provides an analysis of the advantages and downsides of this asset class in an article published in AltAssets. Extracts: The advantages Adding infrastructure to an existing portfolio can be expected to provide investors with several important benefits, including attractive returns, moderate risk, diversification, and inflation hedging.... We believe that the best private infrastructure managers can provide net returns to investors of 10 to 14 per cent... At the same time, we expect the volatility to be moderate; somewhere between equities and fixed income. Infrastructure assets are likely to provide a good hedge against inflation. Most infrastructure-related contracts contain clauses that allow for price increases tied to inflation....Our view is that an overweight to the energy subsector greatly increas...

Deepak Srinath of Viedea has an interesting post on the subject: ...the trend that has left me partly amused and partly concerned is the rapidly growing breed of entrepreneurs who are in the “business of mentoring and incubation”. I have interacted with many such “mentors” over the last few months and barring a few exceptions most have left me with the feeling that they do not have adequate experience or skills to mentor a startup. Some of them are barely out of college themselves and many of them claim to be serial entrepreneur s (on closer inspection, it’s more like ‘serial company starters’, none of which have managed to last beyond a year). It’s extremely worrisome that young entrepreneurs with smart ideas could be signing up such mentors, giving them equity and wasting a lot of time in the bargain. A good mentor is a critical part of an entrepreneur’s journey. A few tips for entrepreneurs from my own experience – ... 2. You may need multiple mentors on your entrepreneurial j...

SCIOinspire, a provider of healthcare payer cost containment solutions, has acquired Florida, USA-based National Audit. Technology Holdings was the exclusive advisor on the transaction. National Audit is a leading healthcare claims audit and overpayment recovery services provider to large commercial, Medicare & Medicaid payers and Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs). National Audit works with 3 of the top 7 healthcare insurance payers in the United States. SCIOinspire is a premier provider of cost containment services and technology solutions to over 40 health plans including care management analytics, disease management support, underwriting & actuarial support, and third party liability & recovery services. SCIOinspire's investors include Sequoia Capital, Health Enterprise Partners and Silicon Valley Bank. Technology Holdings was earlier the sole advisor on SCIOinspire's acquisitions of Socrates (healthcare payer subrogation) and Solucia Consulting (care management ...

Edited excerpts from the Press Release: Standard Chartered Private Equity (SCPE) has invested Rs.850 million in Privi Organic s, one of India’s leading aroma chemical manufacturer and exporter. Mumbai-based Privi exports its products to over 25 countries and has established itself as a key supplier to several of the world's largest fragrance and flavours companies. This funding will part finance the growth plans of the company’s business through expansion of manufacturing facilities at Mahad, Maharashtra and also support key backward integration projects. Rahul Raisurana, Managing Director, Standard Chartered Private Equity, said, "The aroma chemicals space presents significant opportunities for Indian companies, as India emerges as a key manufacturing center for aromatic and speciality chemicals. We have found Privi Organics to be the right partner because of its strong chemistry skills and quality manufacturing strengths that are well recognized by its global customer bas...