StartupCentral

Some news for healthcare entrepreneurs. The Piramal Prize 2010 is inviting applications from high-impact business models and ideas that address India’s healthcare crisis. There are two categories — emerging ventures and established organizations. The winner in the emerging ventures category, who must be less than three years old, will receive structured funding worth Rs 10 lakh and additional support such as office space, mentoring and access to further funding. The awards are a joint initiative of the Piramal Foundation and CIIE at IIM Ahmedabad. The last date for applications is August 15.

Updates on networking for startups, entrepreneurs and anybody interested in entrepreneurship: Read the full story

This is probably a mere coincidence, but it is an interesting one. The Startup Guy, Vijay Anand, has just unveiled a new venture. He calls it The Startup Centre, an initiative that aims to create a physical community centre for entrepreneurs and the associated universe. Anand dubs it the ‘open incubation model’.

Some may recall that around June last year, Anand stepped back from his role as chief evangelist (he prefers the term ‘çurator’) of startup showcase forum Proto.in to work on a new project. The Startup Centre is the second initiative launched this month by a founding member of the startup unconferencing movement that kicked off in India just a few years ago. Last week we talked about the launch of HeadStart Ventures, started by HeadStart Network Foundation co-founder Kallol Borah. Proto.in and HeadStart Network Foundation are now established startup showcase forums here. Their success seems to have begun to spawn new initiatives, led (not surprisingly) by their alumni, to take the development of the startup ecosystem to the next level.

Chennai will be the venue for The Startup Centre’s launch Read the full story

When Kallol Borah wrote in last week to introduce his latest venture, HeadStart Ventures, I was a bit confused. Borah also happens to be a co-founder of the HeadStart Network Foundation, a not-for-profit entity which hosts the popular startup showcase event HeadStart. The two, it turns out, are not related and there is some acrimony brewing on that front. But Borah’s new venture, whose primary activity will be to seed startups from a proposed Rs 25 crore angel fund, is inspired (quite literally) by his experiences with the other HeadStart (where he continues as director). Taking lessons from his past experiences, he aims to plug some of the “gaps in the startup and innovation ecosystem” with his angel fund.

Though it will compete with organized angel investor networks such as Mumbai Angels and Indian Angel Network, HeadStart Ventures’ functioning style will be a cross between an incubator and a venture capital firm. Individuals who want to invest in the fund will be required to make a minimum commitment of Rs 50 lakh. Each individual investor will become a limited partner in the fund. While Rs 25 crore is the target corpus for now, the founders have not set a hard cap yet on the final fund size. It will have an investment committee which will vet and close deals. This will be supported by an operations team which will be involved in activities such as workshops and managing mentors and industry partnerships. Borah and his co-founders will man the operations team and probably also be on the investment committee, though he says, “I think we will end up having a different set of people on the committee.” Read the full story

Now why do perfectly nice people have to get cocky and spoil it all? The organizers of Proto.in, which hosts its next edition on January 23 and 24 in Bangalore, have come up with a feature called PitchCamp! — “Learn the inside scoop on how VCs (venture capitalists), corporate partners and journalists think.” writes Proto.in curator Vijay Anand. Impressed that the organizers actually have the scoop on how journalists think and will be passing on that wisdom to young entrepreneurs.

January is also the month when the two rival startup networking conferences — HeadStart and Proto.in — go head-to-head. Last year they had their respective events on the same days. This year better sense seems to have prevailed. Not much available yet on the agenda and speakers at Proto.in — badges for bloggers are available on the blog — but let’s hope, getting into journalists’ minds aside, the event continues with the good work of showcasing startups from diverse sectors.

My head is spinning with all the activity that has been happening this week around startup networking. The event I have been most clued into is Headstart in Bangalore. Arpit has been blogging away non-stop on it and Aditya has been sending in entertaining Twitter notifications. Catch his updates here.

Haven’t heard much on Proto, which is also currently underway. I’m waiting for the event to hold its next edition in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, friends from IIT Bombay’s E-Cell wrote in over the week with an update on the final leg of Eureka! 2007. The finalists will be awarded on February 10th at the Entrepreneuship Summit 2008. This is going to be a one-day power-packed event and the new thing this year is a VC Pitch. Investors to catch at the pitch include Mayfield Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Trinity Ventures. Start-ups who want to be shortlisted for the pitch will have to submit their entries by Sunday (January 20th). And yes, you will actually get to raise money via these pitches.