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THE TIMES OF INDIA, KOLKATATHURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2018 9
CONSUMER CONNECT INITIATIVE
Moderated by Subranshu Sanyal,CEO, IIM Calcutta InnovationPark, panelists for the first
session included Nikheel Kamble,investment principal (West BengalFund), SIDBI Venture Capital Pvt Ltd;Ajay Lakhotia, partner, Fosun RZCapital; Digvijay Singh, COO, IndianAngel Network and Sohil Shah, AVPIntellecap Impact Investment Network.As pointed out by Sanyal, about 75 %of startups fail due to premature scale-ups. As per Sohil Shah,“Entrepreneurs should be well pre-pared before gearing up for a scale-upand define their trajectory in order to
identify their place in the market.However, the onus of guiding them lieson investors, networks, funds too whenit comes to supporting startups.”
As per Digvijay Singh, “ Speaking ingeneral, scaleups are all about bridg-ing gaps and figuring out the optimalmarket reach. With improving infra-structure, the east is surely becominga fertile ground for innovative ideas.My excitement is due to the fact that Iwill be seeing interesting propositionshere with high execution focusedentrepreneurs. That will create sus-tainable businesses in India, therebycreating job opportunities.” As per
Lakhotia, “Investors need to look forinertia once they’ve attained marketvalidation.”
Sanyal also mentioned how scaleupssometimes fail even after ticking allpossible boxes on paper. According toSingh, “Clash of interest betweenfounding members and mismatchbetween product-market treatment arecertain factors that lead to such deba-cles. The possibility of investors bull-dozing founders cannot be ruled out aswell. The key is to be flexible inapproach and aligned to solutions.”Talking about social entrepreneurship,Shah said, “The challenge for socialentrepreneurs is to create wealth forstakeholders and at the same time cre-ate an impact. It would be wise forbudding entrepreneurs to distinguishbetween users and customers, more soin a social space.”
Highlighting the role of investors,Lakhotia added, “ A cofounder with acomplimentary mindset who is ready tostick by you through thick and thin isan integral aspect of a successful col-laboration. In a market with ever-changing dynamics, one cannot affordto lose agility.”
As Sanyal summerised, team build-ing and HR is a big challenge when itcomes to scalability. Often, lack ofknowledge and poor strategy act ashuge impediments.
Moderated by SameerKarulkar, senior vicepresident, Brand
Capital, the panelists for thesecond session included GirishShivani, executive director andfund manager, YourNest AngelFunds; Ashwin Srivastava, Co-founder, Idein Ventures;Vikram Duggal from UnitusSeed Fund and ChaitanyaRamalingegowda, investorrelations, LetsVenture.
Talking about value addition
of investors, Karulkar said,“Value has different connota-tions in different contexts.When one wants to give orreceive value, one must learnto take other perspectives intoconsideration.” As per GirishShivani, “Often, first timeentrepreneurs don’t realisehow difficult it is to scaleup.It’s in the investor’s inherentinterest to help aspiring entre-preneurs smoothen out thistransitional space. Focus
should be on building humancapital and involvement in cru-cial aspects of the company.”As per Srivastava, the wholeaffair is a function of specifics.“Different investors have different needs. Is an investorresponsible enough to addvalue apart from money? That is the question,” he said.“Strategic investment is theway to go. Allowing better fall-backs as opposed to the go bigor go zero attitude,” assertedSrivastava. According toChaitanya, “At an early stage,entrepreneurs often lack clearperspectives. With minimuminterference and maximumfacilitation, an environment foraffordable loss should be cre-ated.” On similar notes,Duggal said, “ The entrepre-neurial ecosystem needs moreenablers for encouragementand support.” As Karulkar con-cluded, “Scaling up is also let-ting go of limitations andinhibitory approaches. Pastthe initial phase of survival,working towards consolidatinga customer base is important”The session was followed byfelicitation of the panelists.
January 12 witnessed the firstflagship event of BrandshootsVentures, the objective of
which is to expedite the startupmovement in eastern and northeastern India. While new venturesspiraling up the ladder of commer-cial success in other Indian metrosis not uncommon, the picture in theeast is not as pretty. With a view toenrich the startup landscape in thisregion, Brandshoots Ventures DemoDay was the perfect platform forstakeholders to exchange ideas andcollaborate, thereby paving the wayfor a vibrant entrepreneurialecosystem in the east. Veterans ofthe business fraternity, corporate
giants, investors and budding entre-preneurs had gathered at a pre-miere city hotel to participate in aprogramme that had several inter-esting takeaways.
Why Brandshoots?Brandshoots Ventures (BVPL) is aninitiative by The Times of IndiaGroup, along with partnersSumedha Fiscal, Infinity Group,Mayabious Group and BrandCapital, The Times Group’s invest-ment arm. Talking about the demoday programme, Bijay Murmuria,one of the directors, BrandshootsVentures, said, “The first cohort is a
mix of technology enabled new agebusiness with the core idea ofbringing innovation to everydayproblems both at the consumer andbusiness spectrums. Their businessacumen is a strong identifier ofpotential startups in eastern Indiaand we are bullish on their futureprospects.” With skilled manpower and marketresources in its arsenal, the stageis also set for scaleups in the east.Brandshoots Ventures is an endeav-
our to help enablers work towardsthe common goal of achievingentrepreneurial excellence.
Identifying Game-changersWith Startup Bengal, StartupOdisha and several other initiativesbeing promoted by the governmentwith great enthusiasm and opti-mism, high concentration of ivyleague of educational institutes andexcellent resources, eastern India
can be aptly called a future startuphotbed. In fact, many startups withhumble beginnings here haveemerged as market leaders today.
So, how did it all begin? At theinitial stage, startups were hand-picked by Brandshoots through ameticulous screening procedure.Next, a structured merit basedtraining programme was organisedto stimulate talent through mentor-ship. The programme was so struc-tured that a huge panel of investors
could identify and nurture entrepre-neurial excellence. BVPL has beenmentoring a set of nine startupsfrom eastern India for the last fivemonths. Finally, the chosen portfo-lio companies would be in a posi-tion to receive assistance to scaletheir business, including ventureinvestments as and when required.
“The eastern region boasts ofgood infrastructure and a sizabletalent pool but lacks traction incomparison to markets of othermetros. While there are pre-existingbusiness groups, new ventures arehardly visible in the horizon.Embarking on a journey to acceler-ate startups in the east, the visionof Brandshoots is to impart boththeoretical and practical knowledgeto budding entrepreneurs and cre-ate an atmosphere conducive torobust commercial growth,” saidBiswadeep Das, head of operations,Brandshoots Ventures.
Setting the tone of the event, animmensely motivating speech wasdelivered by P C Balasubramanian,president and executive director,Matrix Business Services Pvt Ltd.“Young tech minds need to beinfused with renewed energy toinspire them to make the most ofopportunities. Thanks to digitalisa-tion taking over every aspect of ourexistence, a positive impact onbusiness is certainly on the cards.A strong will to experiment coupledwith change in people’s outlook isprimarily responsible for diversifi-cation of the commercial space.”From his baby steps into the busi-ness world to fulfilling his dream ofcollaborating with superstarRajnikanth for his books,Balasubramanian’s speech wasreplete with riveting narratives fromhis personal experiences. On startup success mantras,Balasubramanian shared, “To beginwith, entrepreneurial values mustsupersede personal values.Focusing on team-building, collabo-rating with experts from variousbackgrounds teamed with customer-centric approach goes a long way inensuring long-term success. Mostimportantly, one must shed the pro-prietary mindset in order to assumethe role of a differentiator.”
Balasubramanian’s message forsuccessful startups was that of‘substantial, consistent growth witha clear path to profitability’.He alsoaccentuated the importance of anindomitable spirit to make it big. Tosum it up, his gripping speech hadseveral inspirational takeaways forthe young turks.
A FOCUSED ACCELERATOR PROGRAMME FOR STARTUPS FROM THE EAST, BRANDSHOOTSVENTURES’ 1ST DEMO DAY WAS A PLATFORM FOR EASTERN REGION BASED VENTURES TOSYNERGISE WITH A RICH NETWORK OF INVESTORS AND GAIN BUSINESS INSIGHTS FROM APOOL OF STALWARTS ACROSS INDIA
RAVINDRACHAMARIAchairman,Infinity Group
SRadhakrishnandirector, InfinityGroup & one ofthe directors,BVPL
BIJAY MURMURIAdirector,Sumedha Fiscal& one of thedirectors, BVPL
VIJAYMAHESHWARIdirector,Sumedha Fiscal& one of thedirectors,BVPL
AKHIL BANDHUPAULfounder & CEO,MayabiousGroup & one ofthe directors,BVPL
P C BALASUBRAMANIAN president and executive director, MatrixBusiness Services India Pvt Ltd,delivering the keynote speech
P A N E L D I S C U S S I O N S
(L to R) Sohil Shah, AVP, Intellecap Impact Investment Network; Digvijay Singh, COO, Indian Angel Network;Subhranshu Sanyal, CEO, IIM Calcutta Innovation Park; Ajay Lakhotia, partner, Fosun RZ Capital; NikheelKamble, investment principal ( West Bengal Fund), SIDBI Venture Capital Pvt Ltd
(L to R) Sameer Karulkar, senior vice president, Brand Capital; Girish Shivani,executive director, YourNest Angel Fund; Vikram Duggal from Unitus Seed Fund;Ashwin Srivastava, co-founder, Idein Ventures and Chaitanya Ramalingegowda,investor relations, LetsVenture
Challenges of scaling a startup and how to overcome them
How PE/VC can create value for investee companies?
On the demo day, nine start-ups were selected to presenttheir ideas to a wide audi-
ence comprising top notchinvestors. Acing questions on vari-ous dimensions of their startups,the founders confidently presentedtheir business prospects and USPsin a competitive market.
Brandshoots supported the ven-tures in various ways like connect-ing with industry experts, fine tun-ing of go-to-market strategy withguidance from domain experts,scaling up and providing marketingcurrency to each start-up, network-ing with investors, providing tech-
nical (support for building website,app, digital marketing inputs etc)and non technical support (legal,compliances, taxation etc), etc.
The nine startups mentored byBVPL were KnwEdu (sector:edutech,a cloud based softwareservicing the academic sectorcatering to both individuals andenterprise), Dabadigo (sector:mobility,app based e-scooter rentalservice), Fincart (sector: fintech,targets large base of uninitiated/underserved investors throughROBO advisory and solves issuesfaced by financially illiterateinvestors), H-Spree (sector: health,
focuses on treating and reversinglifestyle diseases using expertapproved health charts comprisingnutritious food), Tiyo (sector:healthtech, focuses on buildingIndia’s hyper-digital network fordoctors and patients helping peo-ple locate and book doctors/clinics,patient education, etc), Delybazar(sector: e-grocery, provider of freshfish, meat, fruits, vegetables andstaples, key focus is on freshnessof fish, meat, etc which are unmetby other available channels and e-groceries), Bubble Blue (sector:education, India’s first profession-ally run integrated day-care and
pre-school chain), Scan It (sector:image recognition, app that facili-tates online shopping and retailerdiscovery using machine learning,AI and neural networks) andAlfatek (sector: 3D printing,provider of 3D printers and 3Dprinting solutions).
On Friday, 25 leading investorslike Indian Angel Network, FosunRZ Capital, GVFL, LetsVenture,IIFL Seed Fund, SMC Capital,SIDBI Venture Capital, YourNestAngel Fund, Intellecap, IdeinVentures and Kalaari Capital par-ticipated in the demo day pro-gramme.
P I T C H S E S S I O N S
Basabjit Nag founder, Dabadigo
MANAGEMENT TEAM OFBRANDSHOOTS
Avisek Saha,founder, KnwEdu
Rana Duttafounder,Tiyo
Tanvir Alam,founder, Fincart
Vishrut Jhawarfounder, Scan It
Nabonita Mukherjeefounder, Bubble Blue
Karan Kakkar,founder, H-Spree
Abhirup Basak,founder, Delybazar
EMPOWERINGENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE EAST
