Venture Garage conducted the second leg of the FY2019-20 edition of the Find Your Investor (FYI) programme in Bengaluru, in association with Kotak Mahindra Bank (Kotak) at the WeWork Galaxy, Residency Road. FYI is all about unlocking the zeal within entrepreneurs to showcase their revolutionary ideas to investors and raise capital to scale their dreams. Over 20 investors representing Inventus Capital, Artha Venture Fund, SRI Capital, Orios Venture Partners, RPSG Ventures, Multiply Ventures, SEA fund, Xiaomi India, Tomorrow Capital, Speciale Invest, Sprout Venture Partners, Ankur Capital, Venture Highway, and some angel investors interacted with over 100 enthusiastic start-up entrepreneurs building next-generation technology-enabled businesses.
From over 100 entries, a set of shortlisted 20 start-ups also got to pitch one-on-one to investors in a speed dating format. There were multiple start-ups offering the latest tech-enabled products in SASS, offering various solutions to enterprises, AI across B2B and B2C, and content-based commerce spaces at the event. Some of the start-ups that received an enthusiastic response from the investors work in areas such as:
- Business Management Tool for 200 Million+ Independent Professionals Globally “Shopify” for service sector
- AI Augmented Sales Assistant- improve efficiency and formalise credit among SMEs
- SaaS-based Solution provider for sales, distribution and online trading for FMCG, telecom, pharma and retail
- SaaS platform for AI-enabled demand optimisation
- Building world’s first posture eco-system (health and wellness)
- Audio Quora for Next Billion Users, in regional languages
- AI system that helps the driver in the driving process and enables safe and relaxed driving
Further, Kotak conducted a session on banking for start-ups, which covered aspects such as a start-up focused current account, credit facilities, and making the road just a little bit easier with a customised suite of banking solutions for start-ups. Enthusiastic participation from the audience included queries around start-up current accounts and non-collateral loans.
Puneet Kapoor, Senior Executive Vice President, Kotak Mahindra Bank said, “Venture Garage’s Find Your Investor programme is proving to be one of the key fund-raising platforms for start-ups with strong participation from both investors and start-ups. We are delighted to play our part in supporting the dreams of entrepreneurs. The Kotak Start-up Current Account is customised to meet the unique requirements of start-ups and help entrepreneurs scale their businesses and manage their day-to-day business needs efficiently.”
The Kotak Start-up Current Account comes with a host of features such as no balance commitment for the first 12 months, customised payment and collection solutions to suit each start-up’s business model, corporate salary accounts for employees, special forex pricing, cost-effective payment solutions and trade forex solutions.
A one-hour panel discussion was moderated by Vinod Keni, Growth Partner at Artha Venture Fund. The participants were Parag Dhol, Managing Director at Inventus Capital India; Abhishek Goenka, Head and Chief Investment Officer at RPSG Ventures; Mayuresh Raut, Co-founder & Managing Partner at SEA Fund; Alok Bardiya, Venture Advisor at SRI Capital; Bhushan Patil, Founder at Multiply Ventures and Vinit Bhansali, Vice-president at Orios Venture Partners.
Parag Dhol, Managing Director at Inventus Capital India said, “The good part of a VC’s job is the amazingly smart, and knowledgeable people one gets to meet often.”
Mayuresh Raut, Co-founder & Managing Partner at SEA Fund said, “We are betting on the large number of software professionals who have spent a couple of decades working for software services giants and global innovation centres and are now starting off on their own. Ecosystem builders like Venture Garage help us deepen the pool and provide access to more founders.”
Yana Korshunova, an angel investor came down to India for the event from Russia, and is now actively exploring investments in Indian start-ups. She has already made her first investment in Pesopie, a video social commerce platform enabling micro influencers to build their own brand.
A half-hour fire side chat moderated by Vivek Kumar, CEO, Venture Garage included Osborne Saldanha from Xiaomi India and Yash Dholakia from Tomorrow Capital. Xiaomi tends to focus on and build expertise in a few sectors – fintech, content, commerce and IoT. Tomorrow Capital is a $100-million fund backed by the Lodha Group that invests across stages from product launch to Series A in consumer businesses. Tomorrow Capital is especially excited about businesses in education, finance, retail, packaged goods, health and wellness and consumer brands. The chat focussed around what these investors are looking for in start-up founders, what are the no-noes from an investment perspective, and the fact that investors such as Xiaomi and Tomorrow not only bring capital to start-ups but vast international networks and deep understanding of building large and successful businesses.
FYI has become the go-to platform for new-age entrepreneurs to interact one-on-one with investors, enabling them to meet the right investor(s) and equipping themselves with tools to build large, scalable businesses.
