Event Report - STARTUP CITY - June 2, 2012 Bangalore

STARTUP CITY - June 2, 2012 Bangalore

The startup fever rages and nowhere in India, I suppose, it rages like it does, in Bangalore. It rages like a wild fire. It is ‘cool’ to give birth to a startup – mostly tech ones with sprinkling of services. ‘Pregnant’ entrepreneurs and ‘Impregnable’ sounding investors; both carrying the mast of ‘American dream’ garnished with secret Indian business sauces, has the chocolate charm of a new star on the movie circuit.

It was a sight of proportions at the event STARTUP CITY on first week of June at NIMHANS convention center, Bangalore sponsor partnered by siliconindia business & technology magazine.

One big auditorium was filled up with the kind of crowd that I had not expected to see in India. Just little more than half a decade ago, startup congregations in India were unheard of. Startup stories were fanned from the US shores towards Asian destinations. Once in a while a big investment by a VC firm used to make waves in media and so many would be entrepreneurs dream and drool in its enormity, secretly wishing the same to them some day. Now it is all changed and for good. Startups are in thing in the town.

The inaugural keynote was delivered by Ashok Soota of Happiest Minds. I missed it by whiskers. It must have been a humbling to hear the man who built an Industry brick by brick and showed how to monetize it.

The entrepreneurial keynote subject was ‘Concept to Success: Milestones for startups’. This was delivered by

Sunny Ghosh, CEO WOLF Frameworks (http://www.wolfframeworks.com/);

Vinay Gupta, Co-Founder & CEO Via (http://www.via.com/);

Bikky Khosla, Founder and CEO Tradeindia.com (http://www.tradeindia.com/)

Just before this, the excitement heat was generated by the panel of

Ashutosh Lawania, Co-founder Myntra.com (http://www.myntra.com/);

Ajay Chandra, CTO and Co-founder Infibeam (http://www.infibeam.com/);

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO Shopclues.com (http://shopclues.com/);

and the discussion rounded around ‘E-commerce Wave: Where does it go from here?’

In between there were marquee startups (and also the ones who have remained startups even after serious couple of years of operations) with their stalls, product leaflets, even hand-written business cards! and ever eager founder members to talk about ‘their baby’.  Some of them who could lay their voices on me were:

Akshar Speech Technologies Pvt. Ltd.(www.aksharspeech.com, www.msg2voice.com)

purplechai TECHNOLOGIES (www.purplechai.com)

Kritnu IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (www.kritnu.com)

AlphaBricks (www.alphabricks.com)

Triumph Technomate Solutions (www.triumphtech.in)

Tcop & iTrans (www.tcop.in) – Car security on Mobile/2G car security & tracking on mobile

BREDGE (www.bredge.com) – they showcased PEER – the modular enterprise productivity suite that helps realign precious resources and directly impact operating margins.

NDOT Technologies (www.ndot.in)

There were innovative partners to the events such as:

Pennyful (http://www.pennyful.in/)

VTUAlerts (http://www.vtualerts.com/) 

Overseeing all this was the booth of siliconindia, the event organizer, with volunteers sharing their business & technology magazine, by the same name. They were also selling hard bound covers like ‘India startup directory’ and similar collections. It was a welcome sight. I remember visiting so many IT / Non IT / Tech / Non Tech industry exhibitions a decade back in Mumbai and Delhi and it all felt like organized syndicate of businesses which did nothing to boost the adrenaline of a sleeping entrepreneurial dog or a dragon.

Elsewhere, in the auditorium, a panel was discussing ‘New Paths to Online Revenue: Journey of Internet Entrepreneurs’. The panel was empanelled with hot guys of startups.

Aurvind Lama, Co-founder TravelYaari.com (http://www.travelyaari.com/)

Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder & CEO, OLACABS (http://www.olacabs.com/)

Nitin Agarwal, Co-founder & CTO, Yebhi.com

Then the premium panel discussion started with ‘VC perspective: Opportunities for entrepreneurs in 2012 & Best Advice to get funded in the current environment’.

The hall was full and myriad silence seeped in to hear the wizards of funds, who told, retold and spread the gospel of good startup funding that they did and the ones they did not do or even missed the bus by not funding in them. This panel’s participants were:

Mohan Kumar, Executive Director, Norwest Venture Partner India (http://www.nvp.com/NVP%20India.aspx)

Kumar Shiralagi, Managing Director, Indo-US Venture Partner (http://iuvp.com/index.html)

Rahul Khanna, Managing Director, Canaan India (http://www.canaan.com/companies/india)

Ravindra Krishnappa, Indian Angel Network (http://www.indianangelnetwork.com/)

Sumir Verma, Merisis Capital Advisors (http://merisis.in/)

The mood was clearly in the favor of product companies and not the services companies.

There were other VCs present to hear out the business plans (read money passions)  of startup founders, in numbered rooms. 

Matrix Partners (http://www.matrixpartners.in/)

Karnataka Information Technology Venture Capital Funds (KITVEN) (http://www.kitven.com/)

helion ventures (http://www.helionvc.com/)

ACCEL Partners (http://www.accel.com/india/home)


<seedfund> (http://seedfund.in/index.html)

Inventus Capital Partners (http://www.inventuscap.com/)


IDG Ventures India (http://www.idgvcindia.com/html/home.html)

Then there was this ‘Networking Lunch’ and it appeared more focused on lunch, than networking, though I am sure to be caught wrong here, as ‘Lunch in India’ is lustrous affair – just walk-in to any Indian company at lunch time and see the ‘untold culture, unfold’. I am sure that these networking lunches succeed but someone at the back of my mind says that they get sealed in the evenings.

After sumptuous lunch in India, comes the sleep, re-invented as ‘power nap’; popularized by classic ‘3 idiots’. But that was not to be. It was time for ‘Presentation by startup companies’ which were judged by investor jury for ‘best startup company’

As noon set in giving way to evening, the CEO Conclave was discussing ‘Best Practices of building technology companies in India’. This was well attended by audience and the stage was lit with:

Kailash Katkar, Founder, MD & CEO, Quick Heal Technologies (http://www.quickheal.com/)

Manav Garg, CEO & Founder, Eka Software (http://www.ekaplus.com/)

Vivek Kulkarni, Co-founder & Chairman Brickwork India (http://www.brickworkindia.com/)

Sangeeta Patni, Co-founder & President Extensio Software (http://www.extensio.com/)

Mukul Kumar, Co-founder & SVP Engineering Pubmatic (www.pubmatic.com)

Closing keynote from Kailash Katkar was fitting note to a wonderful event that saw different kind of ‘mela (fair)’ and I have reasons to believe that someday soon in India, we will be known internationally – an entrepreneurial nation; though we have always been an enterprising nation / community but did not know its international parlance. Just find out our contribution to the world GDP in pre-colonial era, during colonial times and post Independence. Revive it folks. 


Remembering the think different commercial 'The Crazy Ones'. No explanations, why the event was held (maybe unknowingly) at NIMHANS Convention Centre, on that sunny day in Bangalore. No pun intended please.

Twitter handles: @si_events #Sistartup / @smartsitesh
Official pages: http://www.siliconindia.com/events-overview/Startup-city-Bangalore-Bangalore-Startup_City_Bangalore.html