TiE Entrepreneurial Summit

Mentoring Co-Partner
 

Nurturing Indian Entrepreneurship 

The TiE Summit started with the keynote address by Mr Pravin Gandhi, President, TiE, Mumbai.   Mr Gandhi spoke about the history of VC funding in India. He mentioned that the first round of funding flowing into India happened around 2000, and unfortunately, was something of a misadventure. At that time the ecosystem had not properly evolved.   Today, the investment scenario in India is very promising. The domestic market has matured and become a true consumer market. At the same time, VCs who invested in innovative companies like Naukri, have had excellent opportunities to exit. Entrepreneurial skills are now being taught at educational institutions as well.   He then went on to share with the audience that two studies have been recently conducted, to create a more conducive atmosphere for VC funding this time round:

The first was the Planning Commission Study on Venture Capital and Innovation.

The second was the TiE Stanford study on the risk capital industry in India with a focus on early stage investment.

Investment Commission Perspective

Mr Srivastava commented that we are seeing a resurgence in industry and in R&D. Our businesses know that we need to be globally competitive, access global capital. Indian entrepreneurs have also proven what they are capable of, such as our showcase IT industry, 90% of which was created by first generation entrepreneurs. In many other countries, industrialization happened when MNCs decided to set up cheap manufacturing bases there. In India, our path has been different, our economy is getting more and more services oriented, similar to the more developed economies. However, even though we have received about USD 2 Bn of funding in 2005, that grew to about USD 5.5 Bn in 2006, there are still a bunch of issues such as lack of availability of angel investors for early day funding, easy exits and no real domestic capital formations.

Nitin Desai of the Investment CommissionI I spoke about what the study had identified that the government needs to do to kick start early stage innovation and funding in India. He spoke about the considerable research being conducted at our science institutions, but not being translated into market oriented products or activities. He highlighted the need for IP creation, and nurturing the entrepreneurial culture, right from academic institutions. The creation of incubation units at academic institutions, and suggestion for giving tax breaks for investments into companies at such incubation units was discussed.

Why Mentoring Sessions?

Milagrow conducted the mentoring sessions for entrepreneurs across industries. In the mentoring sessions, budding entrepreneurs were  advised and received guidance from the experts, who shared experiences and research data.

The mentoring sessions strengthened the idea of chanelised focus of funding.