Tables Turned as 12 Investors Sold Themselves to Entrepreneurs


Bangalore: Entrepreneurs and Investors are two corners of the exponentially growing entrepreneurial ecosystem. It is vital that there is a diagonal of communication between the corners. In the spirit of a more supportive and open system, NASSCOM organized a session in its recently held Product Conclave. 12 investors, including Angels and VCs, pitched in ‘Reverse Pitch’, which according to Bharati Jacob of Seedfund is a fancy name for “us telling you why to talk to us”.

It was interesting to observe the various tricks used by investors to entice the entrepreneurs. Accel Partners used their existing blockbuster portfolio of Indian as well as global startups that included giants like flipkart.com, myntra.com and facebook.com. Some investors used their ability to support startups at all stages of growth while others tried with investment team and existing networks. A few interesting key observations were made at this event like there was a clear focus on technology and technology enabled businesses. Focus on clean-tech and social sector was missing. Let’s see what do these investors had in stores for the entrepreneurs to buy:

Seedfund (Bharati Jacob) – Seedfund, which is targeting new India that is very edgy and confident, believes that a fund has a life of 7-8 years as it takes 2-3 years to make investments and next 4-5 years to exit.