High-Profile Technocrats Team-up To Form Rs 125-crore Fund For Product Startups In India

India's high-profile technocrats and investors including T V Mohandas Pai, Rajiv Mody, Naganand Doraswamy (CEO - TiE-Bangalore) as well as descendents of notable Patni family - Amit and Arihant Patni, have joined hands to form a Rs 125-crore fund, Ideaspring Capital, to back product startups in the country.

The venture fund will invest in early-stage product innovation startups, seed funding of up to Rs 3 crore and subsequent co-investment at series A stage of up to Rs 5 crore, a statement said.

Ideaspring Capital is planning to invest in only 4-6 startups a year and provide high touch 'Startup Assist' programme, it added.

The fund is backed by entrepreneurs and investors, like Mohandas Pai, Naganand Doraswamy, Prashant Deshpande, Sharad Sharma (Co-founder, iSpirt), Ravi Gururaj, Amit Patni and Arihant Patni amongst others.

Ideaspring Capital has raised majority of its investment from Indian investors with Aarin Capital as anchor investor.

"The fund will work with entrepreneurs having deep technical and domain expertise, developing early stage enterprise products in major cities across India," it said.

Intellectual property in the form of algorithms and deep technology will be a key differentiator.

"We see immense growth potential for enterprise product innovation from India and are confident that India's next wave of innovation will come from this space," Doraswamy, Managing Director and CEO of Ideaspring Capital, said.

Key areas the fund will cover include Machine Learning and Deep Learning, Computer Vision and Image Processing, Big Data Analytics, Internet of Things, Augmented and Virtual Reality, HealthTech, FinTech and other such new-age technology.

Through its 'Startup Assist' programme, Ideaspring Capital will help startups to build scale in product management, customer management and building products for a global footprint.

Ideaspring Capital will provide key interventions in aspects that include Business Market fit, product management, customer connects and connect to next level of investors.

In 2015, the total amount of investment in the startup ecosystem stood at USD 5.4 billion, Ideaspring Capital said citing VCCEdge data.

NASSCOM to slash membership fees to 1/3rd for SMEs & Startups

Nasscom, the IT industry body has planned to slash its membership fees in order to become more inclusive and easily accessible to smaller firms that have the talent and potential to become the next big thing.

The IT industry body which boosts of IT service heavy weights like Infosys and Tata Consultancy Service as its members has plans of reaching out to the smaller firms by slashing its membership fees to about a third of the current rates prevailing for the early stage firms. They even plan to shower these small firms with a host of benefits.  This could also result in the bringing of product companies with just a prototype and limited or zero revenue into its fold for the very first time.

According to Ravi Gururaj, chairman of a Nasscom council, the benefits that these small firms will receive by associating themselves with Nasscom will help them lighten the membership cost and even allow the product companies to be part of the IT body.

The membership fee for regular members in Nasscom is based on the gross IT-BPM revenues of the previous fiscal year and as far as start-ups are concerned, the subscription is based on the estimated turnover of the current fiscal year. In addition to the subscription fee, there is an annual Newsletter and mailer charges of Rs.4800 which needs to be paid.

Currently, a company with a Rs.10,000 crore plus turnover needs to pay an annual subscription fees of Rs.60 lakh to be a part of the IT body and the companies with a turnover of less than Rs.1 crore are required to shell out Rs. 15,000 for the subscription.

Nasscom is also planning on playing an enabling role in new areas such as mobile and products and Internet.

This step taken by the IT body will help the smaller companies who always wanted to join Nasscom but couldn't because of the cost factor. Earlier these companies preferred in spending whatever little money which they had on marketing or product development rather than using it for the subscription fee.  The reduced membership will let these small firms reap in all the benefits of Nasscom’s events and networking and also give them a taste of what an ecosystem can do for them.

NASSCOM to slash membership fees to 1/3rd for SMEs & Startups

Nasscom, the IT industry body has planned to slash its membership fees in order to become more inclusive and easily accessible to smaller firms that have the talent and potential to become the next big thing.

The IT industry body which boosts of IT service heavy weights like Infosys and Tata Consultancy Service as its members has plans of reaching out to the smaller firms by slashing its membership fees to about a third of the current rates prevailing for the early stage firms. They even plan to shower these small firms with a host of benefits.  This could also result in the bringing of product companies with just a prototype and limited or zero revenue into its fold for the very first time.

According to Ravi Gururaj, chairman of a Nasscom council, the benefits that these small firms will receive by associating themselves with Nasscom will help them lighten the membership cost and even allow the product companies to be part of the IT body.

The membership fee for regular members in Nasscom is based on the gross IT-BPM revenues of the previous fiscal year and as far as start-ups are concerned, the subscription is based on the estimated turnover of the current fiscal year. In addition to the subscription fee, there is an annual Newsletter and mailer charges of Rs.4800 which needs to be paid.

Currently, a company with a Rs.10,000 crore plus turnover needs to pay an annual subscription fees of Rs.60 lakh to be a part of the IT body and the companies with a turnover of less than Rs.1 crore are required to shell out Rs. 15,000 for the subscription.

Nasscom is also planning on playing an enabling role in new areas such as mobile and products and Internet.

This step taken by the IT body will help the smaller companies who always wanted to join Nasscom but couldn't because of the cost factor. Earlier these companies preferred in spending whatever little money which they had on marketing or product development rather than using it for the subscription fee.  The reduced membership will let these small firms reap in all the benefits of Nasscom’s events and networking and also give them a taste of what an ecosystem can do for them.

Nasscom to launch Startup-registry, for Startups to be discoverable for investors, media and government.

In order to gather information of all tech based start-ups in the country, NASSCOM will soon launch its nationwide start-up registry. NASSCOM will create a national database of tech startups and identify the areas in which they are operating.

According to the IT industry body, the registry will function as a discovery platform for media, investors, government and enterprises. NASSCOM is currently gearing up to launch the third phase of its '10,000 Start-ups' initiative. This platform will also provide the emerging start-ups the much needed exposure and an awesome opportunity to be discoverable for media, investors and government authorities.

According to R. Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM, India is soon turning into a hotbed for technology based start-ups and his organization’s ’10,000 start-up’ initiative will try to partner with all stakeholders to help India emerge as an innovation hub.

In the first two phases of this initiative which were spread over 2013, the industry body was able to attract a good 7,000 applicants.

Of these 7,000 applicants, 529 were shortlisted and finally 125 applicants received benefits like mentoring, funding, acceleration, enterprise connections, co-working spaces and showcase opportunities.

According to the NASSCOM President, the IT industry representative will use the experiences, learning from last year and even the insights it gained during InnoTrek in the planning of the third phase.

Intel, the global chip maker is all set to become the industry sponsor and collaborate with NASSCOM to turn India into a hotspot in the Internet of Things, which is a virtual representation of an internet structure with unique identifiers and power to transfer huge volumes of data over a network without any problem.

India’s most innovative emerging start-ups which are building world class products will be showcased in Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore and some European Countries this year by NASSCOM’s InnoTrek, a representative delegation of software solutions and products.

Ravi Gururaj, NASSCOM’s product Conclave Chairman also stated that his organization will focus on the NASSCOM-Google ‘girls in tech’ programme in order to increase the representation of women founders in start-ups.

NASSCOM will soon also launch a skills initiative that will focus on the tech start-up segment. It will create courses and modules which will impart skills ranging from product management and in-bound marketing to app development, user interfaces and analytics. A pilot project on this is expected to kick start in the next few months.

Nasscom to launch Startup-registry, for Startups to be discoverable for investors, media and government.

In order to gather information of all tech based start-ups in the country, NASSCOM will soon launch its nationwide start-up registry. NASSCOM will create a national database of tech startups and identify the areas in which they are operating.

According to the IT industry body, the registry will function as a discovery platform for media, investors, government and enterprises. NASSCOM is currently gearing up to launch the third phase of its '10,000 Start-ups' initiative. This platform will also provide the emerging start-ups the much needed exposure and an awesome opportunity to be discoverable for media, investors and government authorities.

According to R. Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM, India is soon turning into a hotbed for technology based start-ups and his organization’s ’10,000 start-up’ initiative will try to partner with all stakeholders to help India emerge as an innovation hub.

In the first two phases of this initiative which were spread over 2013, the industry body was able to attract a good 7,000 applicants.

Of these 7,000 applicants, 529 were shortlisted and finally 125 applicants received benefits like mentoring, funding, acceleration, enterprise connections, co-working spaces and showcase opportunities.

According to the NASSCOM President, the IT industry representative will use the experiences, learning from last year and even the insights it gained during InnoTrek in the planning of the third phase.

Intel, the global chip maker is all set to become the industry sponsor and collaborate with NASSCOM to turn India into a hotspot in the Internet of Things, which is a virtual representation of an internet structure with unique identifiers and power to transfer huge volumes of data over a network without any problem.

India’s most innovative emerging start-ups which are building world class products will be showcased in Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore and some European Countries this year by NASSCOM’s InnoTrek, a representative delegation of software solutions and products.

Ravi Gururaj, NASSCOM’s product Conclave Chairman also stated that his organization will focus on the NASSCOM-Google ‘girls in tech’ programme in order to increase the representation of women founders in start-ups.

NASSCOM will soon also launch a skills initiative that will focus on the tech start-up segment. It will create courses and modules which will impart skills ranging from product management and in-bound marketing to app development, user interfaces and analytics. A pilot project on this is expected to kick start in the next few months.