300 Million Strong Indian Middle Class

In the previous two-part post showcasing Battery Venture’s perspective on investments in India, the 300 million strong Indian middle class and its problems were highlighted as a key target market, and hence, opportunity. So, what are the problems that the Indian middle class faces? To answer this question, one should ask another question : How did

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Investment Thesis: Ramneek Gupta (Part 1)

I had invited Mark Sherman at Battery Ventures to contribute his perspective to the series. Mark has responded via Ramneek Gupta, who wants to focus this interview on investment as it pertains to India, specifically. Battery has a major focus on India right now. SM: Please describe your background, to help entrepreneurs understand your point-of-view.

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Investment Thesis: Sumir Chadha

I interviewed Sumir Chadha, as a follow-up to the Investment Thesis series. I met Sumir 7 years back when I was doing Uuma, and Sumir was still at Goldman Sachs. Since then, he moved to Silicon Valley, and started one of the early efforts in venture investing in India, with Westbridge Capital. Westbridge was recently

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Conversation with a Reader: Technology Entrepreneurship in India

Dear Sramana: I have a different take on some of your notes. (Ref. Too Much Money, Too Few Deals) While I do agree that there are not many technology companies in India which makes VCs shy away from making such deals to rather invest in what-India-is-known-for, there are some companies out there which are fighting

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The Rise of Eastern Europe

I was in Heidelberg this week, and had a number of conversations with people making hiring decisions on lowcost software development centers. It struck me how significant Eastern Europe is becoming in this equation. The biggest concern I hear about India in general, and Bangalore in particular, is that salaries are becoming way too high,

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Inside the $250 Billion Venture Capital Industry

WSJ reports that Mobius Capital, an erstwhile star venture firm in Silicon Valley, is folding. Worldview is also falling apart, abandoning its latest efforts to raise a new $250 Million fund. These are the larger departures. Many smaller funds that had cropped up during the boom era, have folded by the dozens. Nonetheless, the flow

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Venture Capital in India

Read a longer, more comprehensive article that I wrote on the subject here. It summarizes a number of posts and series pieces that I wrote through the summer, with a 30,000 ft overview.

Yahoo Opens Wallet For India

Yahoo will co-invest with Canaan Partners in an Indian Matrimonial site, Bharatmatrimony.com. This is, likely, indicative of a trend that Yahoo will take a stake in each promising segment of the Indian Consumer Internet industry (Travel, Jobs), as well as in the emerging web and mobile content industry. For an overview of the deals done

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