I have a noticed a couple of things in the last 12 months both of which are probably connected. One, the quality of the business plans have improved significantly from what I was seeing 5 years ago. Be it the start up team, the idea and its articulation and the overall strategy - everything has undergone a huge change for the better. Another important phenomenon the start up ecosystem is witnessing is the rise of angels, angel funds and incubators. There was a definite gap here 5 years back and seems like that gap is filling up now. There have been about 15 that have come in the last 12 months. Follow the link to pluggedin team who have put together the list of incubators. The List.
To give some perspective about the angel ecosystem in the US - the dollar amount of angel deals totaled $22.5 billion in 2011. Some 66,230 enterprises received angel funding last year, from about 318,480 angel investors (Center for Venture Research). Compare this to India where Venture Capital firms invested about $1.09 billion over 209 deals in India during the twelve months ended December 2011(Venture Intelligence). We still have a long way to go.
One incubator that I found very interesting is the Startup village, a public private partnership with Govt. of Kerala with a INR 1000M fund. Kerala has done a wonderful job of developing tourism with their God's own country campaign. However, they completely missed the IT revolution in spite having the first technology park in the country. This is their second coming and I hope they do some serious work in developing the entrepreneur ecosystem in the state. I do have bias here since I also hail from the same state :-).
It is interesting times for entrepreneurs today, with a lot of people with global experience wanting to contribute more than just their expedience to young start ups here. The aspirations of these young start ups also represent the growing opportunity that India has to offer.This agrues very well for people who are looking to start up companies. Passion and commitment are not the only requirements to succeed, learning from people who have been there before is important and if it comes along with money that will certainly help.
To give some perspective about the angel ecosystem in the US - the dollar amount of angel deals totaled $22.5 billion in 2011. Some 66,230 enterprises received angel funding last year, from about 318,480 angel investors (Center for Venture Research). Compare this to India where Venture Capital firms invested about $1.09 billion over 209 deals in India during the twelve months ended December 2011(Venture Intelligence). We still have a long way to go.
One incubator that I found very interesting is the Startup village, a public private partnership with Govt. of Kerala with a INR 1000M fund. Kerala has done a wonderful job of developing tourism with their God's own country campaign. However, they completely missed the IT revolution in spite having the first technology park in the country. This is their second coming and I hope they do some serious work in developing the entrepreneur ecosystem in the state. I do have bias here since I also hail from the same state :-).
It is interesting times for entrepreneurs today, with a lot of people with global experience wanting to contribute more than just their expedience to young start ups here. The aspirations of these young start ups also represent the growing opportunity that India has to offer.This agrues very well for people who are looking to start up companies. Passion and commitment are not the only requirements to succeed, learning from people who have been there before is important and if it comes along with money that will certainly help.
