in|vest: Alok Mittal, Canaan Partners
Name: Alok Mittal
Location: New Delhi
Bio: Alok Mittal is Managing Director with Canaan Partners India. Alok focuses on building companies in the fast-growing wireless, technology and Internet domains.
A successful entrepreneur and founding member of Band of Angels India, Alok also seeks to foster the development of new global technologies in India. He led the technology practice at Baring Private Equity Partners, India, where he focused on IT products and services, BPO, Internet and Telecom. Prior to Baring, Alok was Co-founder of JobsAhead.com, a leading web-based recruitment business. Alok was instrumental in the acquisition of JobsAhead by Monster.com, the global leader in online recruitment. He also brings strong Telecom experience to Canaan having worked for Hughes Software Systems, the premium provider of telecom software services and systems in India. He serves on the Board of Directors of Bharat Matrimony, iYogi and Cellcast. He holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and a Masters degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Have you invested in startups meant for the Indian market before? Which ones?
Canaan’s investments targeted at Indian market are Bharatmatrimony, Techtribe and Cellcast. The other companies with significant India component are e4e, Unitedlex and iYogi.
What sectors or investment themes look most promising to you in the Indian market?
We are looking to broadly invest in early stage technology ventures including internet, mobile applications, software products, offshore services, transaction processing and so on.
What excites you most about your sector of choice in the context of India?
High growth rate of consumer markets, increasing rate of technology adoption, and vibrancy of venture-backed startups are the key factors that excite us about India. Our focus on technology is derived from our extensive experience in this segment globally.
What is one thing that Indian entrepreneurs often overlook when deciding to start a venture?
A key element that entrepreneurs would do well to factor in is the element of differentiation - not just at a feature level, but how are they able to bring significant benefits to existing and competitive offerings - especially benefits that the customer may be willing to pay for incrementally.
What are your personal interests?
My personal interests include reading (a whole bunch of diverse non-fiction), music, driving/riding. I am a moderate gadget user, with the regular ipod, palm, laptop stuff.
Connect: http://www.canaan.com, http://www.venturewoods.org, http://www.indianangelnetwork.com
[To learn more about in|vest, read the overview page and this blog post. If you are an investor with an interest in India and would like to participate in in|vest, please read the participate page as well.]
in|vest: Arvin Babu, Greylock Partners
Name: Arvin Babu
Location: Bangalore
Bio: Arvin Babu joined Greylock in 2007. He is focused on early stage company investments in India.
Prior to joining Greylock, Arvin co-founded two Greylock backed companies: Perfigo and Brience. Arvin was CEO at Perfigo, the leader in network admission control (NAC). Perfigo was acquired by Cisco in 2004. Post-acquisition, Arvin was at Cisco for over two years and led Cisco’s NAC appliance business unit to #1 market share. Previously Arvin served as CTO at Brience, a leading mobile software developer. Prior to Brience, Arvin was CEO at Webvibe, a developer of application middleware. Webvibe was acquired by KPMG Consulting in 1999. Post-acquisition, Arvin was CTO at KPMG Consulting where he led KPMG’s eBusiness technology initiatives.
Arvin holds an MS in Industrial Engineering from Clemson University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from India.
Have you invested in startups meant for the Indian market before?
No.
What sectors or investment themes look most promising to you in the Indian market?
A startup needs an ecosystem of local market opportunities (customers), partnership opportunities (GTM, M&A, OEM, etc) and great talent pool to thrive. There are some sectors which readily lends itself to consideration in the near term and some in the medium term. Near term sectors include: Solution as a Service, in which leveraging local talent pool and achieving scale non-linearly with cost based on, say, cloud computing; infrastructure solutions that can address low-margin, high-growth last mile communication needs and infrastructure solutions that allow large IT services to scale non-linearly with cost, such as virtualization management, infrastructure management, etc.
What excites you most about your sector of choice in the context of India?
Local market requirements are unique to include: lower margins, high growth/volume and tougher environmental conditions in the case of last mile solutions. These attributes impose a barrier of entry for global players but give local entrepreneurs an opportunity to achieve scale prior to going global.
What is the most important lesson you have learned from your operational experience as an entrepreneur?
I learned the ability to understand & articulate the value proposition of the solution clearly to customers. Getting the solution out as soon as possible while iterating all the way to perfection reduces the gap between expectations and reality!
Connect: arvin@greylock.com
[To learn more about in|vest, read the overview page and this blog post. If you are an investor with an interest in India and would like to participate in in|vest, please read the participate page as well.]
in|vest: a special project on One More Thing
Innovation is the central focus of One More Thing. For the short time that this blog has been alive, I’ve tried to cover a mix of topics that highlights the ways in which our lives are changing thanks to technology. Naturally, startups and investment are part of this conversation and continue to hold my interest.
The impact of what we know today as emerging markets on the innovation of tomorrow cannot be understated. The US has been a strong locus of innovation in the 20th century, but numerous views indicate that in this century, the US will not have a monopoly on innovation. It’s not that it’s a numbers game alone. In addition to countries like China and India offering much larger market opportunities, the social and cultural constraints that these countries face compel them to come up with innovations unseen in economies of abundance like the US.
I have a interest in innovation particularly in the context of the Indian market because of my ties to India. To try and do my part in advancing India-focused innovation, I am launching a special project on this blog called in|vest. in|vest is an ongoing social discovery of investors interested in India. Periodically (each week, I hope), I plan to publish a profile of a venture capitalist or angel investor looking to invest in companies targeting the Indian market. I’ll quote briefly here from the FAQ for in|vest:
Why are you doing this?
Social networks are ineffective channels to learn about and meet new people. The goal of this site is to facilitate networking among entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and anyone with an interest in startups and innovation related to India. This site is greatly inspired by Portland on Fire, a similar project done by my colleague Raven Zachary to encourage networking in the technical and creative communities in the American city of Portland, Oregon. A blogging platform such as Wordpress enables free-form and naturally flowing profiles.
You’re welcome to read the rest of the questions on the overview page.
Entrepreneurs looking to innovate for the Indian market: I hope you will find this project useful and connect with the investors who participate. In return, all I ask is that you send me names of investors you would like to see profiled here.
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