Source Name: Venture Garage
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Venture Garage Conducts 5th and Final Leg of “Find Your Investor” Programme in Chandigarh, Supported by Kotak Mahindra Bank
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Chandigarh, India
The final edition of Find Your Investor (FYI) programme 2019-20, supported by Kotak Mahindra Bank (Kotak) was conducted by Venture Garage in the upcoming IT hub of the tri-city of Chandigarh-Mohali-Panchkula. After four super successful sessions in Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, over 100 applications were received at the Chandigarh FYI event, which is a fund-raising platform for start-ups. More than 50 start-ups and seven investors attended the Chandigarh edition, which catered to entrepreneurs from Punjab and from towns such as Patiala, Ludhiana and Mandi.
L to R:
The event was also attended by Bhavesh Gulia from YourNest Venture Capital and Dheeraj Jain from TAN Advisors Private Limited, who along with the panelists interacted with 13 shortlisted start-ups in a one-on-one speed dating format. Some of the ideas presented included:
Puneet Kapoor, Senior Executive Vice President, Kotak Mahindra Bank said, “Venture Garage’s Find Your Investor programme is proving to be one of the key fund-raising platforms for start-ups with strong participation from both investors and start-ups. We are delighted to play our part in supporting the dreams of entrepreneurs. The Kotak Start-up Current Account is customised to meet the unique requirements of start-ups and help entrepreneurs scale their businesses and manage their day-to-day business needs efficiently.”
The Kotak Start-up Current Account comes with a host of features such as no balance commitment for the first 12 months, customised payment and collection solutions to suit each start-up’s business model, corporate salary accounts for employees, special forex pricing, cost-effective payment solutions and trade forex solutions.
STPI Mohali, a government-led organisation that is at the forefront of enabling start-ups in the Chandigarh region, hosted the FYI Chandigarh programme. In a fireside chat with Vivek Kumar from Venture Garage, Ajay Srivastava, Additional Director and centre head of STPI Mohali, talked about the support STPI offers start-ups, the centre-of-excellence for AI and IOT, the launch of the neuron programme targeting start-ups that work on cutting edge technologies and the grants that start-ups can avail of.
The FYI programme was led by a 30-minute session on how to prepare for fund-raising by Vineet Sagar, Managing Partner, Venture Garage. The session covered the two main aspects of:
The investor panel discussion was moderated by Vineet Khurana of Chandigarh Angels Network and included Bhavish Sood (Modulor Capital), Neeraj Das (7 Gate Ventures), Prashant Dua (Venture Gurukool) and Amit Singhal (Fluid Ventures). The discussion included the fund thesis of each of the investors and what investors look for in start-ups, especially around teams, scalability and profitability. Various examples of start-ups were quoted as the discussion focussed on what worked and what did not work for them.
“The classic mistake is that sometimes even investors look at businesses in the early stage where we should only really be looking at the founders,” said, Bhavish Sood.
“As a fund investing between US$ 100,000-5 million, we focus mostly on innovation as the key factor as that is what leads to scale,” said, Neeraj Das, 7 Gate Ventures.
“We look at teams with some start-up experience because if the founders have had even a failed start-up, we feel that they are much better founders,” said, Prashant Dua, Venture Gurukool.
With 31 angel investments under his belt, Amit Singhal talked about the launch of his upcoming fund Fluid Ventures. He said, “A start-up itself means scalable so that is a given but we want to also look at sustainability, e.g. if it is a SaaS-based start-up, the unit economics should be profitable and they should not be selling at a loss, hoping that the client will pay more in the future,”
In the FY2019-20 FYI series, a couple of start-ups have already received funding commitments worth over Rs. 6-7 crore.
The FYI FY2019-20 series has reached out to an estimated 10,000 start-ups and over 600 investors. FYI has surely become the go-to platform for new-age entrepreneurs to interact one-on-one with investors, enabling them to meet the right investors and equipping them with tools to build large, scalable businesses.
FYI FY2019-20 was organised in five cities – Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune and Chandigarh. About Venture Garage
Venture Garage handholds start-ups to help them raise capital from its network of 700+ Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists, Strategic Investors and Family Funds. Venture Garage specializes in early-stage investments across Seed to Series B stages starting from $100K to $5mil. Established in 2015 and with offices present in Mumbai, Bengaluru and NCR, Venture Garage also manages a network of 30,000+ entrepreneurs.
For more information, please visit the company’s website at www.venturegarage.in. About Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited Established in 1985, Kotak Mahindra Group is one of India's leading financial services conglomerates. In February 2003, Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd. (KMFL), the Group's flagship company, received banking license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), becoming the first non-banking finance company in India to convert into a bank - Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd.
The Bank has four Strategic Business Units – Consumer Banking, Corporate Banking, Commercial Banking and Treasury, which cater to retail and corporate customers across urban and rural India. The premise of Kotak Mahindra Group’s business model is concentrated India, diversified financial services. The bold vision that underscores the Group’s growth is an inclusive one, with a host of products and services designed to address the needs of the unbanked and insufficiently banked. As on 31st December, 2019, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. has a national footprint of 1,539 branches and 2,447 ATMs, and branches in GIFT City and DIFC (Dubai). For more information, please visit the company’s website at www.kotak.com. |
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