Company Building Workshop in Bangalore

By siliconindia staff writer   |   Tuesday, 20 July 2004, 19:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
BANGALORE: So you have an idea. And the expertise to bring the idea into a product. But these two alone are not enough. The rise of the Silicon Valley in the U.S. was due to the fact that people with ideas met up with people with money. The rest was history. Venture funding is a norm in the U.S., where venture capitalists play a dominant role in helping technology entrepreneurs build their companies, get customer traction, and nurture the startup to an IPO or an acquisition, building wealth for all. For the first time in India, a practical workshop on starting a company is going to be held on the 27th and 28th of July, at the Leela Palace in Bangalore. While funding has been seeing growth in India in the last few years, the siliconindia Venture Summit is the first of its kind that will bring venture capitalists and entrepreneurs together for an intense workshop-style session. Firms like Pequot Capital, Kodiak Ventures, Charles River, Intel Capital, SoftBank Asia, and the IFC are representing their companies in this two-day conference. “There is a lot of mystery around funding in India,” says Amish Jani, VP at Pequot, who will be attending. “This conference should be able to demystify the funding process. How you slice equity defines the future of the company.” Other issues include clarity on when to seek funds, and what happens at every round of funding. “Technology and people are a given. What we would like to make the entrepreneur understand is that funding happens around milestones—and these milestones are market-driven,” says Subhash Roy of Kodiak Ventures, another delegate to the conference. The unique part of this conference is the closed-door presentation session, where select private companies will make their business case to the venture capital panel, inviting comments, tips, and advise to refine their business plans towards fruition. “Rejecting an idea does not mean it is bad, it is just that the idea in that context does not represent a business,” comments Sujit Banerjee at Nokia Ventures. “This is probably the only platform where entrepreneurs can walk up to a venture capitalist and pitch his or her business—without any appointment,” observes Harvi Sachar, founder and CEO of siliconindia, the publishing company that is organizing this event. “In the U.S., meeting a venture firm is not that easy today. Helping the Indian entrepreneur meet the venture firm creates the ideal breeding ground for the next Google, Hotmail or Juniper from India.” A key panel in this conference will be one on “building a global corporation,” by leading attorney firm Pillsbury Winthrop. “It is good to be informal when you start small, but when you start looking at global markets, your company structure needs to be robust and mature,” says Shantanu Surpure of the firm. “We think Indian companies have great potential in tapping world markets, and towards that, need to structure themselves to world standards.” The session is aimed at CEOs of all companies. For more information about the summit contact 080-25588944 or log on to https://www.siliconindia.com/events/vc