To provide funding access to budding entrepreneurs in emerging Tier 2 cities, IIM Indore and IIT Indore are co-hosting Venture-I, an angel funding competition for start-ups.
A part of the two-day i5 entrepreneurship summit that is scheduled to be hosted at the IIM Indore campus on August 22 and 23, Venture-I is open to all start-ups that are less than two years old and have not raised more than ₹50 lakh. Those with a business idea are also eligible to participate in the competition, provided they have a full time team and a ready prototype.
Venture-I
“At Venture-I, entrepreneurs can raise ₹15 lakh of angel investment just by selling a minority stake of 5 per cent of their start-ups to investors. For this, 15 finalists will be chosen to make a 7 minute pitch to investors followed by a 3 minute Q&A session. The finalists who clinch the funding will be guided, mentored and stewarded by the investors on their onward journey” Soumyadeep Chakraborty, Overall Coordinator, i5 Summit (IIM Indore), told BusinessLine. “We have received 500 applications from Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Indore, Bhopal and Lucknow and expect many more by July end,” added Chakraborty.
Some of the participating investors at Venture-I are Dr Srikanth Sundararajan, Helion Venture Partners; Digvijay Gagneja, Matrix Partners; Neeraj Gutgutia, founder CEO, Guts Unlimited and Vivek Bajaj, Director, Kredent Enterprises.
Virtual mentoring
“While start-up fever has gripped the country, this region, despite having the potential, has not seen any successful start-ups, as it is not on the funding map. Venture-I should change this. IIM Indore has many plans for entrepreneurs including setting up an incubator, virtual mentoring for those who don’t need physical space, small business and start-up clinic to help entrepreneurs who get stuck” said Professor Rishikesha T Krishnan, Director, IIM Indore.
Key speakers
The two-day event will have Dr Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Zensar Technologies delivering the keynote address followed by other speakers – Ronnie Screwvala, founder, UTV/Swades/Unilazer; Raghunandan G, co-founder TaxiForSure; Kunal Shah, co-founder Freecharge; Phanindra Sama, co-founder Red Bus, among others.
Time has been set aside for a ‘Walk with the Entrepreneurs’ where participants get to interact more closely with successful entrepreneurs as they walk around the sprawling campus. Participants will get to walk with Greg Moran, co-founder, Zoomcar; Pankhuri Shrivastava, co-founder Grabhouse.com; Anubhav Sonthalia, co-founder Sokrati Inc; Amitt Sharma, co-founder Futech, to name a few.
Some of the participating investors at Venture-I are Dr Srikanth Sundararajan, Helion Venture Partners; Digvijay Gagneja, Matrix Partners; Neeraj Gutgutia, founder CEO, Guts Unlimited and Vivek Bajaj, Director, Kredent Enterprises.