VC Firm in India

SIPA -- Silicon Valley Indian Professionals Association ([email protected])
Sun, 17 May 1998 17:16:22 -0400

Hello Folks,

I know what you guys are thinking. Here is a person who had promised
to contribute once a week to the VentCap group and has not been heard
of for three weeks. How can we be expected to contribute when the
person who makes the initial promise fails to keep it ?

Well folks your concerns and question are completely legitimate and
here is my explanation.

I was caught up in exams(this is all the more challenging since me and
academia have never been known to see eye to eye).

But turns out that my absence was a blessing in disguise. A lot has
happened in the past three weeks regarding our Ventcap group, which I
want to share with you'll. These are things, which honestly I had
never acticipated and which threaten, positively, to take our SIG to a
different level. So enough of the introduction and let's get down to
facts:

1) I got a call from a lady named Dianne Jacob, who represents a seed
capital firm Onset Ventures. She had heard about SIPA in a recent Wall
Street Journal magazine and visited our website to check out the SIPA
homepage and also the VentCap homepage. She was quite impressed with
the workings of SIPA and introduced her firm as being on the lookout
to fund new ventures and also talk to individuals, who may have as
much as an idea , which requires funding. She added that while her
firm does not specialize in refinancing they are always on the lookout
for new ideas. Additionally Onset Ventures has two founders, one who
specializes in software and one whose main purpose is hardware. These
two persons would like to make a presentation to SIPA and specially to
the Ventcap group. The presentation tentatively planned towards the
end of June, would be held in a location in the Silicon Valley and
would cover, among other things topics such as networking time, then
they would make a presentation, ex. How to Write a Business Plan or
explaining the process of getting involved with a VC, followed by a
Q&A session. The two principals are also open to organizing a
workshop.I have spoken to Rajesh, our President and he is going to
chip in his bit on the organizational logistics, etc.So now the only
thing remaining is a show of hands. I would like a response from all
of you'll as to how many of you'll can make it for this event. The
more of you'll that show up the more likely that a firm like Onset
Ventures, may be in a position to do funding for all you budding
entreprenurs. So please respond at your earliest convienience and I
can do a head count. Also please pass this message to all your friends
and associates. But please only genuine parties. We want to avoid
having numbers for the sake of being there. After all if Onset
Ventures is taking time to put together a presentation let the
presentation be to potential interested parties. So please respond.


2) I have recieved e-mails from the receipients of this group ranging
from a) Wheteher I knew of any potential funding for ideas to b) My
purpose in running such a VentCap group.

While I appreiate these e-mails, since they indicate an interst in our
SIG, I would like to respond in general to these e-mails:
Firstly for people looking for potential funding, well the
presentation we are potentially organizing with Onset Ventures, as
mentioned above, is a great opportunity for you'll to seek possible
sources of funding.
Secondly as to why I am doing this. Well before I answer that just a
bit about what I did prior to coming to the Bay Area. I admininstered
(ran the operations) a mutual fund in Toronto. While doing that a germ
of an idea was born, that if we can have mutual funds which invest in
equities, bonds, real estate etc., looking for a rate of return, then
why not have a mutual fund, which forms a pool of money from potential
investors(even amounts as low as $100), to invest in start-up's and
seek a return on investment. Hence the bottom line is the business
potential of the project. I'm sure you'll have at some time in your
life seen or heard of the concept of a "Chit Fund" "Committee" or a
"Kitty." Well precisely except that those pools of funds would never
invest in start-up's and my concern is why not? After all irrespective
of the future of IPO's, it is common knowledge that a lot of mutual
fund companies invest in IPO's and get out of it quickly afer making a
10 to 15% return. So the concept I am thinking about is not new and it
has been around for a while.So that then is my dream of one day seeing
the creation of such a fund.

3) Finally on speaking with Rajesh today we came to an understanding
that maybe we should organize informal networking luncheons once a
month for the Ventcap SIG, in a restaurant in the Valley. So again I
would like a show of hands for this and once we have an adequate
number ( even 5 would suffice to start with) I can go ahead and
organize these luncheons with the help of Rajesh . So please respond
at your earliest convienience to my e-mail address given below.

Well so much for now and using a terminology from my tennis days, THE
BALL IS TRULY IN YOUR COURT NOW.

I feel a positive feedback from you'll will propel our SIG to heights
I had never imagined before.


Vivek Kumar
e-mail: [email protected]
tel: 415-951-7526