StartupCentral

Last year saw some really cool venture capital firms set up shop in India. Most of them are still getting to know the terrain here. A lot of them are backed by big money and invaluable experience in nurturing entrepreneurship. But none of this information is useful if you (the start-up) have no clue about what kind of companies or business models venture capitalists see as hot investment stops.
So, I’m taking a shortcut and linking you to the results of a snap poll that entrepreneur-turned venture capitalist Alok Mittal put out on Sunday. It’s called the VentureWoods India Venture Polls 2008 and gives you a quick and sharp take on what venture capitalists are likely to invest in this year.

What the poll concluded:

• Mobile data services, ecommerce/mcommerce, online education, online financial services are going to be the four hottest areas for tech start-ups.
• Stuff such as search and social networking are still hot but they now have competition.
• Overall, the Internet remains the big theme this year as well.
• Venture capitalists expect a minor correction in valuations (I’m not so sure about that one).
• Most investors will follow investment patterns similar to last year — my reading of that is: lots of later stage venture deals with a smattering of seed-to-early stage deals. People will innovate a bit in terms of choosing sectors and business models to invest in, but by and large, hunting in packs will be the primary modus operandi with venture capitalists.

Mittal has his own set of conclusions from the poll results (go to link above). When he’s not blogging, he leads Canaan Partners’ investments in India. His portfolio of investments for Canaan include BharatMatrimony, Cellcast and iYogi.