Sequoia vs Housing.com spat goes viral

All is not that well in the Indian startup ecosystem. Hosuing.com, one of India’s most sought after startups and Sequoia Capital, a marquee venture capital fund, have found themselves engulfed in a hot controversy.

A leaked email from Housing.com’s founder Rahul Yadav to Sequoia Capital’s MD Shailendra Singh has given birth to this controversy. The email written on 6^th march with subject “Last Straw” has accused the venture capital fund of poaching Housing.com’s employees and being “unethical” towards entrepreneurs in general.  Apart from Housing.com, Sequoia has also invested in some of top startups like Zomato, Mu Sigma and Just Dial.

According to the mail written by Yadav, the venture capital fund is trying to brainwash his company’s employees towards starting a new incubator.

Sequoia’s Singh chose to respond to the controversy via Quora, a question and answer website. This controversy shows that all is not hunky-dory between some founders and investors in the Indian startup world.

Singh sounded deeply sad and hurt in his long response on the Q&A site.  According to Singh’s response, “My best guess is that this mail has been triggered by an offer that we made to one of the Housing employees to join us as an analyst." He further wrote, "I would still like to use this opportunity to talk about something larger and close to my heart - how will we all work together to create a better startup ecosystem in India? For us, that means not being vindictive and petty and instead being collaborative with the ecosystem - to focus on what matters in the long term. While I don't know Rahul well personally, and have only met him one-on-one once, I felt incredibly nice to read a recent article about how Housing has been one of the most active breeding grounds for new startups.

He concluded his response by writing, “At Sequoia, we consider it a privilege to do what we do - and be trusted by some of the best and brightest entrepreneurs, not just to be in their cap table, but to have a seat around the table to help set direction for their companies. I wish the Housing team and Rahul good luck."

Sequoia vs Housing.com spat goes viral

All is not that well in the Indian startup ecosystem. Hosuing.com, one of India’s most sought after startups and Sequoia Capital, a marquee venture capital fund, have found themselves engulfed in a hot controversy.

A leaked email from Housing.com’s founder Rahul Yadav to Sequoia Capital’s MD Shailendra Singh has given birth to this controversy. The email written on 6^th march with subject “Last Straw” has accused the venture capital fund of poaching Housing.com’s employees and being “unethical” towards entrepreneurs in general.  Apart from Housing.com, Sequoia has also invested in some of top startups like Zomato, Mu Sigma and Just Dial.

According to the mail written by Yadav, the venture capital fund is trying to brainwash his company’s employees towards starting a new incubator.

Sequoia’s Singh chose to respond to the controversy via Quora, a question and answer website. This controversy shows that all is not hunky-dory between some founders and investors in the Indian startup world.

Singh sounded deeply sad and hurt in his long response on the Q&A site.  According to Singh’s response, “My best guess is that this mail has been triggered by an offer that we made to one of the Housing employees to join us as an analyst." He further wrote, "I would still like to use this opportunity to talk about something larger and close to my heart - how will we all work together to create a better startup ecosystem in India? For us, that means not being vindictive and petty and instead being collaborative with the ecosystem - to focus on what matters in the long term. While I don't know Rahul well personally, and have only met him one-on-one once, I felt incredibly nice to read a recent article about how Housing has been one of the most active breeding grounds for new startups.

He concluded his response by writing, “At Sequoia, we consider it a privilege to do what we do - and be trusted by some of the best and brightest entrepreneurs, not just to be in their cap table, but to have a seat around the table to help set direction for their companies. I wish the Housing team and Rahul good luck."

VC Investment In Indian E-Commerce Crosses $1bn in 2014

The Indian ecommerce scene is growing like never before and everyone is trying their level best to reap in as much profits as possible. This rapid growth in the Indian ecommerce market has already pushed the early stage venture capital investment above $1 billion in 2014. Both the US based and domestic funds are hoping that the local startups will be able to replicate China’s technology businesses rapid growth.

All the enthusiasm of the investors has been drawn by the ongoing and growing battle between the United States big online retailer Amazon and local biggies such as Flipkart. The US retailer is currently in plans of investing around $2 billion the third largest economy in Asia. On the other hand, Flipkart is currently valued at around $7 billion, all thanks to a $1 billion funding round earlier this year.

According to figures released from Ernst and Young, the consultancy, a number of smaller deals in areas ranging from mobile application development to consumer ecommerce have also contributed in pushing the early stage VC above the $1 billion mark in just first nine months of this year. This is the first time since 2007 that India has been successful in crossing the $1 billion mark. The figure was a mere $634m last year.

According to data collected from other sources like Thomson Reuters Datastream, venture investment into Indian software, which is a category that does not include sectors such as retail or biotechnology, reaching $810m so far in 2014. This figure is a marked improvement from the 2013 $100m figure.

According to Shailendra Singh’s statement to the Financial Times, there is an unprecedented growth in the ecommerce sector. Singh is the Managing director at Silicon Valley fund Sequoia Capital, which is one of the high profile investors in Indian Startups. He also added, "There is a lot of money flooding in…but it is also coinciding with some dramatic usage statistics as adoption of technology increases, not just by consumers but also by businesses".

India has as a reputation of being the world's technology hub, mostly because of the prominence of companies such as Wipro and Infosys. Many top notch multinationals of the world also make use of the country for software development and research.

Internet usage also supports the investment boom to a large extent. By 2020, India is projected to have more than 500 million Smartphones users, which is a great sign.

VC Investment In Indian E-Commerce Crosses $1bn in 2014

The Indian ecommerce scene is growing like never before and everyone is trying their level best to reap in as much profits as possible. This rapid growth in the Indian ecommerce market has already pushed the early stage venture capital investment above $1 billion in 2014. Both the US based and domestic funds are hoping that the local startups will be able to replicate China’s technology businesses rapid growth.

All the enthusiasm of the investors has been drawn by the ongoing and growing battle between the United States big online retailer Amazon and local biggies such as Flipkart. The US retailer is currently in plans of investing around $2 billion the third largest economy in Asia. On the other hand, Flipkart is currently valued at around $7 billion, all thanks to a $1 billion funding round earlier this year.

According to figures released from Ernst and Young, the consultancy, a number of smaller deals in areas ranging from mobile application development to consumer ecommerce have also contributed in pushing the early stage VC above the $1 billion mark in just first nine months of this year. This is the first time since 2007 that India has been successful in crossing the $1 billion mark. The figure was a mere $634m last year.

According to data collected from other sources like Thomson Reuters Datastream, venture investment into Indian software, which is a category that does not include sectors such as retail or biotechnology, reaching $810m so far in 2014. This figure is a marked improvement from the 2013 $100m figure.

According to Shailendra Singh’s statement to the Financial Times, there is an unprecedented growth in the ecommerce sector. Singh is the Managing director at Silicon Valley fund Sequoia Capital, which is one of the high profile investors in Indian Startups. He also added, "There is a lot of money flooding in…but it is also coinciding with some dramatic usage statistics as adoption of technology increases, not just by consumers but also by businesses".

India has as a reputation of being the world's technology hub, mostly because of the prominence of companies such as Wipro and Infosys. Many top notch multinationals of the world also make use of the country for software development and research.

Internet usage also supports the investment boom to a large extent. By 2020, India is projected to have more than 500 million Smartphones users, which is a great sign.