Deal Radar 2008: Seventymm

I wrote about Seventymm two years back, as part of the Concept Arbitrage series. In this post, we will review how the company has progressed in the interim against its stated goals.

Financing & Exit

If you are a very early stage entrepreneur looking for financing, chances are you need a lot more than help with financing. Most likely, you need help with Positioning, as well as overall strategy. For the moment, I do not have the bandwidth to take these projects on on a pure equity basis. I do

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Trend Radar 2008: Emerging Markets

This morning, as I was doing the HP piece, it struck me how big an impact Emerging Markets are having on companies right now! “HP has done well globally, a strong reason for it to be unfazed by the slowing US economy. In 2007, 67% of its total revenue was from outside the US. In

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Incubator Funds in India: Fund Structure?

Typically, venture funds pay out 2-3% of the capital in annual management fees, and offer 20-30% in carry (profit sharing). So, let’s look at the table below of various fund sizes, and what those numbers amount to:

Incubator Funds in India: Adult Supervision?

Okay, so we are talking about designing an incubator that will give entrepreneurs access to concept engineering, engineering management, product marketing, sales, biz dev, legal and financial talent and resources that is well beyond what a small startup could ever dream of attracting. This definitely is starting to sound too good to be true! Wait,

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Incubator Funds in India: Real Estate & Infrastructure

Pretty much wherever you look to set up your entrepreneurial venture in, at this point, in India, you are looking at expensive real estate. I have heard from entrepreneurs who are struggling to rent 1,500 sq. ft of space to start their ventures up. Therefore, imagine how valuable it would be if you could sublet

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Incubator Funds in India: Legal & Financial Structuring?

Judging by the kinds of questions that show up in various entrepreneurship related blogs and forums, financial structuring, otherwise known as the Cap Table, is something entrepreneurs often need help with. Here’s a quote from Alex Osadzinski on the overall philosophy of a good term sheet: “And, I can’t stress enough that a fair deal

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Incubator Funds in India: Distribution?

Distribution Logistics can be avoided altogether if you are dealing with Internet plays, but presumably, not every entrepreneur would be working with Internet businesses, so we need to be quite creative. India’s heartland, for example, is still not easy to penetrate. Nonetheless, it can be penetrated. One of my personal interest areas is Education. All

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