Chennai: For Startups across India, siliconindia Startup City 2012 Chennai turned out to be a better as multifaceted platform allowing them to flex their muscles to warn the corporate biggies that they ought to be counted upon and in the process grab some awards.
IPintentio and Knowlarity Communications were declared the 'Best Startup Company' as part of the competition in which close to 10 startups competed for the title. The companies also had an opportunity to present their business plans in the auditorium in front of an audience, which comprised of Venture Capitalists (VCs) and entrepreneurs.
The Eminent judges who evaluated the companies were Venkatesh Peddi,Assistant Vice President, IDG Ventures, Rama Bethmangalkar, Principal Ventureast, Rahul Chowdhri-Director Helion Ventures, KA Srinivasan-CFO Ventureast, Rutvik Doshi- EIR Inventus Capital, Amit Patni-Co-Founder & Chairman Nirvana Venture. Awards were given based on the following criteria: the company overview, market opportunity, the team, solution value proposition, competitive positioning, growth plans, go-to-market plan, current status and investment opportunity.
The Inaugural Keynote was delivered by Sridhar Vembu, CEO, Zoho Corp on his Entrepreneurial Journey. Followed by the keynote there was the first panel discussion of the day which consists of panelists C.R. Chandrasekar- CEO, FundsIndia who remarked saying that - There are basically 3 revenue models in the online world - charge the customer, freemium and free. I prefer free to the customers but the business has to make money from other sources - like manufacturer in our case. Internet is a volume game and if you can get customers (with free) and revenue from some other source (other than advt.), it is a winning model.
Adhil Shetty-Founder & CEO BankBazaar.com Says "Entrepreneurs must consider monetization of their company's value proposition as a core business problem and starting point of business planning rather than only focusing on scale at the expense of profit". Moderating the panel was done by Ravichandran L- Founder & CEO Chennaionline.com and Prashant Jain-Director CtrlS Datacenters were the other eminent panelists present at the event.
Another panel discussion titled 'Concept to Success:Milestones for startups' consisted, Amit Patni, Co-Founder & Chairman Nirvana Venture Advisors says that 'The startups companies need to build a solid mentor eco-system around them from the very beginning, gather a good team, The business model should be vented and tried on a Beta stage before approaching VC, The start-ups should take focused and believe in their product or service and The business plan should be solid with back up data. The other panel members present were Kannan,-Founder & CTO from Vortex, Kailash Katkar-Founder MD and CEO Quick Heal Technologies, Jayabalan Subramanian-CTO and Co-founder Netmagic Solutions. Sam Mehta, CEO Everonn Medical Education, Director - Atlas Venturez was the Moderator for the panel.
SiliconIndia brought some of India's leading VCs to one platform to discuss on 'Mistakes Entrepreneurs make when approaching VCs and Opportunities for entrepreneurs in 2012' Rahul from Helion Ventures says As an entrepreneur, your time is the biggest wealth you have and hence spend it carefully 'Always ask yourself as to what is the right time to go for venture funding. Farther you take the company in terms of product and customer traction before getting external funding, more value you create for the business' adding. Venkatesh Peddi was also one of the panelist in this panel says, "Entrepreneurs should do a thorough research on active VCs in their sector and stage (analyze the past & recent investments by these VCs) before approaching them; this will make the overall fundraising process very productive and less painful!" He also said "Apart from the selling the vision / idea, pitch should cover aspects which are dear to investors, which includes, scalability, path to profitability and more specifically, exit potential for the investors." Venkatesh also suggested "Should not bring up valuation or other terms, in the initial conversations with VCs; objective should be to first build comfort on the business & team, and, get into valuation discussions at the later stages."
This one day interactive conference hosted a blend of startups showcasing their ideas in the exhibit area, which saw an influx of attendees who were a mix of innovators, investors, venture capitalists and it was supported by Mercedes Benz which was the Auto Mobile Partner.
All in all, it was a great platform for the startups to put their best foot forward.
