<div><strong><em>Paramita Chatterjee</em></strong><br><br>The startup space has been bustling with activity with Indian entrepreneurs churning out winning ideas and attracting millions of dollars in funding. In fact, there is growing chatter across the risk capital industry that the venture market is the place to watch out for!</div><div> </div><div>“What is exciting today is that this kind of a venture ecosystem did not exist five years ago,” said Mohit Bhatnagar, MD, Sequoia Capital on the sidelines of the Young Entrepreneur Conference & Event (YECE) organised by Businessworld on July 23. “If we as investors can handhold a few promoters and scale them to the next level, the contour of entrepreneurship will change in the years to come. There are great ideas floating in the market now,” he added.</div><div> </div><div>Investors who attended the Young Entrepreneur conference evinced interest in a slew of sectors including consumer, biotech, healthcare and software, apart from online and ecommerce within technology that are currently doing the rounds. “A good business can be described as one that can be scaled up rapidly and has robust unit economics in place that can help the company achieve profitability,” said Karan Mohla, executive director, IDG Ventures.</div><div> </div><div>In the first half of the current calendar year, the number of private equity and venture capital deals in the country increased to 462 from 285 in the corresponding period in 2014, as pet advisory firm Grant Thornton. In terms of value too, investors pumped in 38 per cent more at $7.1 billon in the January-June period this year. “We are always scouting for exciting business opportunities and are looking to fund in the range of $2-100 million,” said Sanjeev Aggarwal, co-founder and senior MD at Helion Venture Partners.</div><div> </div><div>Entrepreneurship in India can be classified into various categories of which these three are most common. One, businesses that ride on content. Here, promoters do not need too much of experience to begin with and therefore, the new breed of India's entrepreneurs who are typically very young and are fresh out of college are foraying in this space. Two, businesses that combine the online and offline models where experience is welcome but people can also start from the scratch. The third category is the outsourcing business where one typically would require prior experience to make a mark.</div><div> </div><div>“Our agenda is to explore investment opportunities and build relationships,” said Dev Khare, MD, Lightspeed Ventures India. “There are several India-specific businesses to watch out for and going forward, they are expected to gain traction as they exist nowhere else in the world,” he said.</div><div> </div><div>All in all, both private equity and venture capital investments in the country are here to stay. However, there is one factor that fund managers seemed wary about - high valuations riding across sectors. “The valuation game is really tricky. While certain companies are quoting high numbers, there are some who are finding it tough to even startup ,” said Sequoia’s Bhatnagar.</div>
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