The Industry is Yet to Evolve Date:   Friday , June 06, 2014 RVCF (Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund) is a professionally managed and privately held company and manages two SEBI registered domestic venture capital funds. Their focus of investment is startups and mid-stage companies. In a country of 1.2 billion population, the number of successful startups can perhaps be counted on fingers. However, the number is increasing, especially with a higher ratio younger population things get better. Indian Startup ecosystem is in a much better shape today than it was a decade or even five years ago. Simply put, there are more Incubators, Accelerators, VC firms, Angel Funds, Investment bankers, focusing exclusively on Startups today than earlier. Today\'s founders and entrepreneurs are much more comfortably placed in terms of: (1)Number of funding options - More Angel funds, accelerators, Investment bankers, SME exchange, better IPO market (2)Quality of Mentorship available - Increase in number, more of people who have themselves run businesses and have been through the grunge (3)Media support/Entrepreneurship Events - More number of events, print/online/TV media support (4) Patience level of investors - Failures are acceptable, acceptance that there may be rough patches (5) Social acceptance level - Society has graduated and being an entrepreneur is \'In\'! Society is more likely to accept a failed venture too (6) Willingness of talented minds to work for a startup Although above mentioned factors act as positives, on few issues there is still a need to cover a lot of ground i.e., Government regulations for Startups and Improvement in basic infrastructure like - road, electricity, water, Internet speed, banking penetration, financial inclusiveness and others. Though there are still few success stories to inspire but good part is that they are increasing. Moreover it\'s been less than a decade since VC funds became active in India; hence it\'s too early to conclude. As is the case with every industry, VC industry in India has also evolved and Investors have adapted to Indian Startup demands. Such evolution doesn\'t happen overnight, things take time. India offers great number of opportunities for entrepreneurs to tap and take advantage of. Every \'need gap\' or a problem India is facing today is a potential business opportunity. RVCF as a Catalyst RVCF being the first venture capital fund was set up in Rajasthan (and among the first few in Northern India) in Year 2002, created awareness amongst people about VC funding and encouraged entrepreneurship. Realizing the importance of a Startup ecosystem in this part of the country, RVCF encouraged setting up of an Angel Fund through a group of young HNIs and also helped setting up a start up accelerator (Startup Oasis) in collaboration with CIIE, IIM, Ahmedabad. RVCF has been a part of the VC industry for a decade now and has supported 22 companies till date. A majority of the companies were supported at early stage. Moreover, RVCF, in addition to its investments in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, has been supporting ventures in geographies like Rajasthan, UP, MP where a normal VC fund won�t usually operate. Currently RVCF is in the process of raising its third fund with a target corpus of up to Rs.500 Crore (up to $80m) and it intends to dedicate a portion to Pre-Seed and Seed Stage companies. In addition to the seed stage investments, RVCF III intends to support over all 12-15 growth stage companies through the fund. For RVCF, IT/ITEs Healthcare and innovative projects with disruptive technologies remain key focus areas.