The poor kirana got the stick from Sloka Telecom co-founder Sujai Karampuri at HeadStart’s Entrepreneur RoundTable in Bangalore today.”They (VCs) would rather have 60% in a kirana store than have 1% of Google…The sad reality is that Indian tech companies are not getting funding,” Karampuri said at the session. Read more here. It seems that at the root of his anger is Sloka’s inability to raise funding, despite having the “cheapest base station”. The Bangalore-based company makes wireless equipment for WiMAX and third generation (3G) networks.
I agree with Karampuri that way too many me-too startups, particularly in the consumer Internet segment, have received funding from venture capitalists in the past couple of years. And it is equally true that most of these deals took place because venture capitalists wanted to match portfolios with peers. But that is a different discussion. It is entirely unfair to pick on a business area, in this case the kirana, and imply that the opportunity for innovation is less in that area than in technology-related businesses. What then would one call Kishore Biyani’s phenomenal Big Bazaar success? It completely revolutionized the way the Indian middle class did something as mundane as grocery shopping and built a hugely scalable and profitable business. That’s innovation in the truest sense.
Most venture capitalists, fortunately, have realized that entrepreneurial innovation can be found across the great Indian landscape. They are finally getting over their technology hang-up. Technology investing will continue, no doubt. But, perhaps now it will be more discerning because the playing field has become bigger. Venture capital is no longer restricted to technology and that means less me-toos will get funded. Technology companies had better get used to competing for venture capital with their less glamorous cousins in the larger India.
Hey Snigdha,
Off Topic Comment:
The redesign looks nice, seems this blog would be another one shop STOP for Startups
May be if possible, if you can change the color of font coming in the text box(it is grey and not visible)
-Himanshu Sheth.
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Thanks and Regards,
Sneh