Ohio-based seed capital investment fund LaunchHouse, has launched a new LaunchHouse Accelerator program to bring innovation to Ohio by inviting the world’s brightest entrepreneurs to participate in a 12-week Accelerator program. Selected teams will receive $25,000 in funding and will be surrounded with experience-based lab sessions, world-class mentors from their specific industry, an innovative work environment, dinners with successful entrepreneurs, and networking with mentors.   The deadline to apply is July 1, 2012 and the program begins September 3, 2012.   The Accelerator is modelled after the nation’s best incubators, like Y Combinator and TechCrunch . To apply, entrepreneurs need to be in a tech-related field with a team of two or three co-founders. Ten teams will be selected for the 12-week program in September. Teams will relocate to Cleveland, OH for 12 weeks to work in LaunchHouse’s 23,000 square foot Silicon Valley-esque space. Its furniture and colorful, collaborative work space promotes genius and impromptu brainstorming sessions, day or night, with awesome, like-minded people.  Accommodations will also be sponsored by LaunchHouse. The LaunchHouse Accelerator program aims to help entrepreneurs take their ideas to validation during the length of the program. LaunchHouse’s development methods are customer-centric, meaning that from the very beginning you are engaging your market. At the end of 12 weeks, each team will present to local and national Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors on our Showcase Day on November 28. Applicant can be of any of the following categories technology – [examples: data, SAAS, healthcare software, security, storage] internet – [examples: e-commerce, gaming, advertising, social networking, media, search, enabling tech] mobile – [examples: applications, communications, gaming, monetization] From the applications received 30 companies we will be selected to attend the Techie Unconference on July 18, 2012. The Unconference will be held at the Shaker LaunchHouse facility, and will be an opportunity to pitch to mentors, venture capitalists and the LaunchHouse team. (Overseas entrepreneurs do not have to attend the un-conference.  They will be interviewed via webcam) LaunchHouse will select 10 teams from the 30 who attend the Unconference. These teams will participate in the 12 week LaunchHouse Accelerator program & will receive $25,000. TEAM CRITERIA  Teams must be: Comprised of 2-3 co-founders Able to devote 100% to starting a business Ready to relocate to Cleveland during the program Think you have got a good tech idea? Then apply here to be part of the LaunchHouse Accelerator program. –  Chandan Raj

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

Today’s roundtable marked our 125th Free session. We’ve come a long, long way, offering these free consulting sessions consistently for some years now. Through the last couple of weeks, you have learned about some wonderful opportunities that our corporate partners, A&N Media, ELance, and BlueSnap have been creating for entrepreneurship development. A&N Media is offering a series of 1M/1M scholarships to entrepreneurs in Britain to stimulate entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom. With a reach into 130 million consumers, their channel will offer a significant go-to-market opportunity for entrepreneurs looking to bring B-to-C products to market. Please note, that while the Scholarships are for UK entrepreneurs only, the channel opportunity is more broadly available to 1M/1M entrepreneurs. More  here . Also, BlueSnap and Elance are offering 12 scholarships to entrepreneurs working on digital commerce and subscription businesses. The deadline for applications is May 11. More  here . PopUpShopUp Today, the first presenter, Steven Lucero from London, England pitched  PopUpShopUp , a platform for managing pop-up events around the world, mostly in major cities that are sponsored by various brands. Steven expects brands to pay either a flat fee, or a per-attendee fee for pulling together sizable pop-up events. However, as it stands, his assumptions have not been validated yet. I shared my concerns about the scalability of a business model that requires selling £5000 events to brands on an ongoing basis, and then managing these events (including physical management). While selling an audience for pop-up events is their primary value proposition, Steven needs to think through the business model alternatives, as well as validate what the customers have appetite for. Active NMS Next, Uma Sundaram from Alpharetta, Georgia, pitched  Active NMS , a self-correcting network management technology. Uma has been trying to raise money for almost three years, but has not succeeded. Unfortunately, the assumption that concepts can be funded simply doesn’t hold true anymore. Also, given how crowded the network management space is and how little customer engagement she has, I am not surprised that Uma has not been successful with investors yet. There is serious competitive analysis, positioning and market sizing that needs to be done ASAP on this idea. Meanwhile, I suggested that Uma use NineSigma to explore if she can get some projects in her domain of expertise. Inteleserv Then, Pramod Kumar from Kerala, India, pitched  Inteleserv , a service for helping consumers learn how to use their smart phones. Pramod wants to create a crowd sourced knowledgebase of how phones, apps, carriers, etc., interact and help consumers get a great deal more leverage from their phones. The app that he is proposing is not easy to build because the content effort is quite significant. There are serious costs involved, and it is not clear to me how Pramod would build enough of a knowledgebase on the new models of smartphones and continue to service the customers from Kerala. The carrier interactions are simply not available to test. You can listen to the recording of this roundtable  here . If you want a deeper relationship with me, you are very welcome to  join the 1M/1M premium program . If you have any questions about the program, please, first study the website, especially  What to expect from the 1M/1M premium program  and the  FAQs . If you have additional questions, please email me, and I would be very happy to respond. Please note that I work exclusively with 1M/1M entrepreneurs.

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

Singapore-based startup business ShopSpot Pte Ltd announced today that a group of angels and business entrepreneurs in Thailand led by Kris Nalamlieng has agreed to invest an undisclosed sum to fund development of ShopSpot’s mobile peer-to-peer commerce platform. In its own words, ShopSpot “makes selling stuff as easy as sending a tweet”. ShopSpot launched its mobile app on the IOS platform on April 18. Within twelve hours, it had reached number five in its category. Now with over 1,500 downloads, hundreds of items listed for sale and real deals taking place every hour, ShopSpot is rapidly taking hold in Singapore and Thailand which have never previously had a made-for-mobile online marketplace. “The cash element of this investment will allow us to focus on shaping the great user experience that will make ShopSpot a leading force in mobile commerce worldwide,” said Natsakon Kiatsuranon, co-founder and CEO of ShopSpot Pte Ltd. “But this investment is about more than cash. Our ambition is to do for mobile commerce what Instagram has done for photo sharing and what Twitter did with micro-blogging. We’re at the start of a long journey and we know that the experience, contacts and advice that our new investors can bring will prove invaluable.” Kris Nalamlieng commented “Our group is really impressed by Natsakon and his team for their creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, and their ability to convert conceptual ideas into applications quickly. We hope that our support will encourage more youths from Thailand to work with JFDI in the future.” The investment follows ShopSpot Pte Ltd’s participation in the JFDI–Innov8 2012 Bootcamp, a business accelerator program that takes companies from idea to investment in 100 days. ShopSpot is the second startup participating in the bootcamp to announce an investment ahead of the bootcamp Demo Day for which over 100 accredited investors have already confirmed attendance on 4 May 2012. Co-founder and CEO of JFDI.Asia Hugh Mason said, “ShopSpot is one of the most focused startup teams we have encountered in South East Asia. The rigour with which they have followed the Lean Startup Methodology at the heart of the JFDI bootcamp program has really paid dividends. They de-risked their proposition to investors, proving that they have a product that fits a large market need. This investment validates both ShopSpot and the method that produced it. We believe that this company will continue to attract investor interest, long into the future.” Please visit their website, for more details -  http://www.shopspotapp.com/ About JFDI-Innov8 2012 Bootcamp The JFDI–Innov8 Bootcamp is the first digital startup business accelerator in the Asia Pacific region to apply a model pioneered and proved successful by organizations including TechStars and Y-combinator in the USA. Bootcamp participants are provided with S$15,000, intensive mentorship, workspace and the chance to pitch to international investors at the end of 100 days. The JFDI-Innov8 Bootcamp 2012 is operated by JFDI.Asia , the first Global Accelerator Network member in South East Asia, and sponsored by key partner, SingTel Innov8. http://bootcamp.jfdi.asia  

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

I met entrepreneur Pankaj Dugar at our office last Saturday. Before the meeting, I went through his LinkedIn profile  (as most of us do these days) to find this, Computer Science at Dartmouth, MBA at Harvard Business school, Director of Investments and M&A at Cisco, Consultant at McKinsey. Not bad I say. Not bad at all. I gather up my best to hold an intellectual chat, as I picture him walking in with an air of self-confidence tinged with arrogance. But what transpired was totally different; I met a simple, affable guy with a belief in an idea and an infectious enthusiasm. What naturally followed was an amazing conversation.  Catch the excerpts of my conversation with Pankaj below along with the product review- In conversation with Pankaj Dugar. You are based out of Bangalore, when did you come back from the states? Hmm… 3 years ago actually. I was working with Cisco when I came back. You had the best jobs knocking at your door, why quit and startup? It’s one of those decisions that come from the gut. There isn’t any logic that points or pushes one to take this step other than the gut. It is a leap of faith; something I had to do (smiles) Why Treetle? Treetle is something I came up because of a personal need. I have changed 3 houses in 3 years and this hasn’t been an easy process. We recently shifted as we changed schools for our kid. I’ve talked about at length on my blog as to why Treetle but to put it in brief, I love playing golf and biking. I had formed groups where I used to stay but it fell apart again when I moved and I was staring at the wall again as I had no company to do what I wanted to. There had to be an easier way to find like minded people. And hence, Treetle. Product Review- How does Treetle Work The sign up is easy as it is with most of the new offerings these days. An easy signup is like a cardinal rule to ensure smooth user adoption. Once you sign in, a simple easy to navigate UI greets you. The different tabs are Events, Clubs, Connections, Messages and Notifications. The screenshot has the clubs tab activated. There are three main results for your interests. For instance, if you like Photography, you’ll be shown: Photography workshops/events around you Photography clubs started by fellow Treetlers. People sharing the same interest. You can form your own events or clubs too but as soon as I say this, one word stands up, “Spam!” But no, Treetle has good preventive measures here. You can form a club or event only after you verify your mobile number. The verification process is swift. Once you’re done with that, you can form your club. Getting people on the platform will be the catch here but going by early numbers, hardly three weeks into the soft launch with no publicity, Treetle has generated traction. To start off with, Treetle is restricted to people in Bangalore but after the initial trial, it’ll be opened throughout India. Coming back to the conversation, who is your target audience? Simply put, anyone with an interest or passion who wants to find other people in his or her neighbourhood with similar interests.  That said, two sets of people will benefit tremendously from this People who’ve had a “life event” such as becoming new parents, moving to a new city, newly retired, etc. because their routine is thrown in a flux and they need to find new things to do and/or people to do it with People with very specific interests who can’t easily find others nearby with the same interest such as a parents who home-school their children, P.G. Wodhouse fans, or calligraphists. We feel both of these are very under-served markets today.  Our belief is people will use the platform initially for these reasons and then include their broader interests once they start seeing the benefits. How will Treetle make money? Very early days to talk about revenues but we’re a nine member team as of now and being funded late last year has helped us concentrate on the product. Once we penetrate the market, we intend to open up various revenue streams including merchant clubs, e-Vouchers we sell for our partner merchants, sponsored clubs and events, and maybe ads. We will never, ever, charge regular users or non-profit/NGOs for creating clubs on, or organizing events through, Treetle. We have another interesting concept called ‘ Appreciations ’. Suppose that you’ve organized an event and a friend of yours who attended it likes what you had done. He can go back to Treetle and give you ‘appreciation’ points along with a small amount of goodwill credit, which is essentially money. You can use these credits, to buy an e-Voucher. We’ll have a cut here from the sellers side.  The buyer will always get the full value of the e-Voucher. ‘Appreciations’ seem interesting, they’ll serve other purposes too. Absolutely! Appreciations are like a badge of honour, which is displayed on your public profile.  The more ‘appreciations’ one has, the more credible the person becomes, and it is more likely  that his or her club or event will have a greater turnout as people would know that the person does indeed organize something good.  It’s a very healthy, and meaningful, incentive on Treetle. Great! What are your expansion plans? Any plans to go global? Yes, but not right away. We’d be focusing on India first before we spread our wings. We have a broad 12-18 month plan right now to go global. There are other players in the market doing similar things. Are you aware of it? Of course!  There are a number of ways people connect these days to plan their offline activities.  Email lists and niche, single-interest websites are popular.  The problem with emails is they’re tough to stay on top of, and tend to get buried under other emails very quickly.  Single-interest websites are excellent but if I have multiple interests, then going to multiple websites for each interest makes for a very non-uniform experience.  Our offering is very complementary to niche-websites since we allow them to build a very targeted audience on Treetle (since Treetle is where users will come), and can easily redirect them to individual websites for more information. There are still other players in the market who offer a platform similar to ours, but our operating model is very, very different – it’s completely free to use, for starters.  We also provide healthy incentives, which creates a feel-good factor, and friendly competition!  We continue to add features and tweak the UI based on the tremendous user feedback we’re getting so our site looks very different than it did three weeks ago when we launched! Fantastic, that’s great to hear. It has been good talking to you and it’s fantastic to see people like you entering the startup scene. I’d like to wish you all the best with the Treetle. Thank you. It was nice to share our story (smiles). Try out Treetle here . If you like this, you might want to check out what action network, Votodo does.

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

ESPN Start Sports today announced the launch of their on-ground division Event Management Group (EMG) in India. The company has said that in India PepsiCo has signed on EMG to manage on-ground events of football league Pepsi T20 Football . “Our Event Management Group has firmly established itself across Asia Pacific with world class products designed to engage and entertain sports fans” said ESPN Software India Executive Vice-President Sanjay Kailash. EMG is also managing School Quiz 2012 which is being sponsored by HDFC. This turn of events can be a great opening for startups like Ayojak and EventNu which are active in the event space. Ayojak, a technology company enabling events, recently entered ticketing for sports events. I got in touch with founder of Ayojak, Santosh Panda to know how this would impact the startup scene. There is no direct immediate imapct but this is a positive indicator for the event ecosystem. This means that a lot of events on a big scale would be coming to India and this can only be good for players like us. Internationally, the EMG manages and promotes sporting events around Asia such as the KIA X Games Asia, KL World 5s and Guinness 9-Ball Tour.

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

We earlier wrote about the Startup Weekend Education that was held in Delhi from April 13-15. As an outcome of this event which saw 100+ registrants, 3 companies were chosen as the winners. All these ventures are very early stage startups and are in the development phase. The event saw 30+ business ideas being pitched and 14 teams were formed. There were 12 mentors to guide these young entrepreneurs and here are the top three companies at the chequered flag (or should I say the starting flag) PerfectMyEnglish An Android app which will improve one’s professional English communication skills by adapting to the persons learning needs. EdVille Loosely named as Edville, this venture looks to fill the dearth of standardized assessments by giving adaptive tests across all topics. “More than 5.5 million high school students (age 13-17) in India engage via social media. We seek to engage students by using the social gaming dynamics while providing them relevant, intellectually stimulating exercises. Students will be able to do self-assessments in topics that interest them while at the same time getting a pulse of where they stand among friends, in their city and in the world. This real-time data on where students around the world stand gives students the option of gauging their interest, giving knowledge of exactly where they need to work, giving a marketplace for getting the resource needed and targeted advertising.” say the founders. eDuWidget eDuWidget aims to be a platform independent RIA which fits a plethora of educational tools/ component within a single screen ‘box’ giving the end user an appealing platform to create and discover interactive (esp. interactive video based) educational content. The likes of TLabs, Pearson, Google, Grockit, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, edSurge, The Chimes Group, The Kauffman Foundation, Inforica, eLagaan, InterviewStreet, Cocaine, PayTM, Visual Website Optimizer and KooKoo sponsored this event and a host of other interesting startups also cropped up amongst which two are notable. Earth Lab Schools and Book Pool EarthLab Schools is an innovative programme designed to help communities use their schools as laboratories for sustainability while ‘Book Pool’ in its essence, is an online community to share used books. A user lists books that he/she is willing to part with, on the website. When another user or an NGO is interested in any of the listed books, BookPool picks up the books from the user and awards him a credit point for each book. Using credit points, one can claim a book from the online pool of books. One also builds karma by doing a great deal of social good as they reach the books starved rural India. We’ll keep you updated about these new ventures and bring their stories as soon as they see day’s light.

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

Do you work late at nights? Are you the one who would have a sleepless night if you had to send in a mail at 7am? (yes, the time stamp matters). Well, Right Inbox allows this if you’re a Gmail user. You can schedule exactly the time at which you’d like to send your mail. The feature is free during its entire open beta phase. Right Inbox also allows you to send yourself a future Email as a reminder. In a recent announcement , Right Inbox now allows to track Emails! After installing the browser extension, when you go to your Compose screen you will notice an additional button labeled as Track. You may use that check-box button before you send an email to track the mail. When the recipient opens your Email, you will be notified by another email instantly. These are the kind of products that get you addicted to them so much that as soon as they’re priced, you can’t stay away from them. You’d be ready to pay for the feature and once that happens, the makers can truly stamp themselves with the confidence that they’ve made something ‘useful’. Get yourself the extension to start spying!

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

Gram Vaani Community Media was founded in 2009 by a team of young professionals with an aim to build citizen-driven media platforms that give communities a voice of their own. Working at the interface of technology, media and development, Gram Vaani is a social entrepreneurial organization that builds technological solutions for the development sector . In India, the internet penetration is 6%, while the penetration of radio, cable TV and telephony is 41%, 33% and 29% respectively. Therefore, Gram Vaani believes that their technology can help provide people living in remote areas with limited connectivity (and who are therefore excluded from the ongoing information revolution), access to critical information services. Their work builds upon several years of research on the use of voice-based technologies and on the development of innovative processes to engage citizens and different stakeholders. Most of the technologies developed by Gram Vaani tend to be voice-based, so that they can be used by even poorly-literate populations in villages and slum areas. It works with existing infrastructure in rural areas (so does not require large capital investments in new infra) and is participatory in nature, thereby closely involving the community it is being deployed in. Some of their products include, GRINS (Gramin Radio Inter Networking System): Automation system for community radio stations; mNews: Grassroots mobile-based news; and vAct: Urban citizen engagement platform. They combine and customize their platforms to suit community needs. Their open-source solutions have won international awards. Gram Vaani’s technologies are provided to organisations that would use them to maximize social benefits. This being their first consideration, price points are adjusted for the client’s ability to pay when social benefits outweigh the client’s financial strength. As a result, they have sold and deployed technologies with individuals who were interested in sponsoring technology for their home villages, with organisations having few full time employees but a large pool of unpaid volunteers, with emerging projects in conflict affected areas like Afghanistan, and many others, who would not be able to purchase comparably customized technology at market rates. “It is hard to quantify the huge financial value of community generated media, especially when it delivers many social benefits as seen in Jharkhand and Afghanistan (with mNews). As a result, pricing proportional to benefits delivered would be an unfair proposition for any single client. By working with multiple partners within a geography, we would be able to spread this benefit out, while also remaining financially viable as a business,” says Co-Founder , Aaditeshwar Seth . Market size: Gram Vaani has over 25 NGO clients for GRINS, including Development Alternatives, The Restoring Force, Barefoot College, Radio Active, Deccan Development Society, TERI, etc. Clients of their voice applications include Sesame Workshop, iMedia Associates, Satark Nagrik Sangathan, Delhi MCD, and several private players who have set up voice services in their rural communities. Their customers can be categorized to include (1) Rural consumers, to whom they provide easy access to information that is customized to their needs, and vertical-specific applications like distance education, agriculture consulting; (2) Corporates, with an aim of accessing the rural market, to whom they provide a platform for reaching out to the rural consumer in a targeted manner and, importantly, measure the impact of their initiatives; and (3) Government and development agencies, to whom they provide a platform for a more coordinated and targeted information dissemination of their campaigns (e.g., national rural employment guarantee scheme, AIDS awareness programs) and get feedback on their effectiveness. Their activities are supported by the Knight Foundation, USA and FITT, IIT Delhi and their partners include Nomad Networks, PATH, and the University of Washington. Starting Up: Gram Vaani Community Media is based out of IIT Delhi and presently, is located inside the campus as one of the units of Technology Business Incubation Unit. It was founded in January 2009 with a team of 3 people, which has now grown into a team of 9 people. Aaditeshwar Seth was a PhD student at the University of Waterloo when he came up with the idea of building voice based technologies to create a social media platform at the bottom of the pyramid. He reached out to his old-time classmate from school, Mayank Shivam, and to a serial entrepreneur, Parminder Singh, to build a business model behind the idea. Mayank had trained as an engineer followed by an MBA and several years of rich consultancy experience with McKinsey Inc. Parminder too had trained as an engineer and had opened several companies in the rural ICT space. Together, the three co-founded Gram Vaani in late 2008 and started operations in 2009, with an initial team of five, together with Balachandran C. and Zahir Koradia, old friends and associates of the co-founders. “We were motivated by the tremendous empowerment and accountability impact that Internet-based social media tools such as Facebook and YouTube had had in the developed world. How could we build similar tools for rural populations of developing countries such as India, where there were significant literacy challenges, social-cultural factors influencing the participation of citizens, poor Internet connectivity, and empowerment differences? Voice-based participatory technologies such as community radio and video seemed appropriate, and this motivated us to work in this space,” Aaditeshwar tells YourStory. With an initial grant of USD 200,000 from the Knight Foundation of the US, they are now close to break-even, selling their technologies and services to non-profit and government organizations working in the use of ICTs for the bottom of the pyramid populations. They are also building self-sustainability models for the various services they are running. However they had their challenges while starting up, such as dealing with the complexities of technology design for challenging rural environments and the careful understanding of community dynamics to ensure that technologies can lead to development. “Maturity of the eco-system of funding agencies, partner NGOs, government bodies, to appreciate the role that ICTs can play in development, was initially a major challenge. However, we are witnessing a much greater interest in our work at Gram Vaani these days than three years back!” Aaditeshwar concludes. Website:  http://gramvaani.org/

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

We at YourStory.in caught up with Kunal Bahl, Founder of Snapdeal, for a quick conversation post the announcement of Snapdeals ’ eSportsbuy acquisition . Why sports? What prompted this acquisition? We believe that the opportunity e-commerce is addressing in India, is not around transaction substitution. Say there are a billion dollars worth of mobile phones now available in India. The opportunity is not that 10% of those will now sell online, it is that there are tons of sellers, manufacturers, brands, international and national, on one side, and there are millions of consumers who are willing to buy these products on the other side. And, the real value of e-commerce is creating those transactions and facilitating them. If you put that philosophical macro thought to the sports business and fitness goods business, you’ll know for sure that the trend is moving forward. People are now playing more sports other than cricket, people are more inclined towards being fit, people have less time, so they are owning a lot of these products in order to be self-sufficient in their fitness. And, we are also seeing that the market size of this industry is increasing rapidly. It is 2 billion now; it is going to be about 2.7 billion by 2014. That is a pretty large market size, but the supply chain side is very broken. If I ask you, where to go and find a squash ball, you might not know. But in case you want to buy a Nike shoe or a samsung phone, you still have the option of going to Lifestyle to buy these products. In the case of sports, it is totally unorganized. I remember there was a company called Royal Sporting House that began about 10 years ago and that shut down eventually. They had very limited products, maybe 10 types of squash balls, 5 types of basket balls etc. On one hand, we know that there are people who are willing to buy these products and are knowledgeable about the products; on the other hand, we also know that there are a tremendous number of sporting brands, both domestic and international and, India is one of the largest exporters of sports goods in the world. But, right now we do not have a local consumption market, as the local supply chain is completely broken. No brand or manufacturer wants to deal with 10,000 shopkeepers. There is no organized player in this space. So, I think in those kind of spaces, where the offline supply chain is completely broken, e-commerce will be where people will buy these products ; they would eventually stop buying them offline because it is too inconvenient. Let us say I go to buy a bat, the guy, looking at the car I get out of, will charge me 2,000 INR or 10,000 INR for the same. And, people trust us, they know when they shop with us that we are selling it to them at the right price. I think that plays a key role. So, the supply chain is broken, people don’t trust the price they get offline, and lastly, the origin of branded goods is questionable. There is a lot of duplicacy when it comes to branded goods offline. And, because we are taking the responsibility and working with brands directly through this acquisition, putting up only genuine brands on the site, we are able to build consumer trust. Kunal Bahl They have been doing this for a year; they have a very deep understanding about the sporting goods market; they know how people buy and how people think about buying sporting goods etc. While that may seem like a trivial thing, it is a lot more complex. When you go to their site, you will see that there are so many categories, the categorization is not all that trivial, and you have to understand each of these categories and build categorization according to that, then you have to populate it with branded products. All that takes a lot of time, energy, understanding and focus. And, those are the capabilities that they have brought to us. Over the next few months, how do you see the integration happening, between the teams as well as the sites? The integration process is already on and I can’t share too many details on what we are going to do there as of now. But, I can only say that the integration process is on and we will ensure that it runs smoothly. Are there any other categories that you are looking at for further acquisitions? Yes, we are very actively looking at more acquisitions. We are talking to a bunch of companies, and there is a lot of excitement and trust amongst the companies to work with us; we have a strong homogeneous culture that has helped us attract all the high quality talent. So, we are currently talking to different categories of e-commerce companies, and you will see us being very aggressive going forward. We have traditionally been a very conservative company when it comes to acquisitions; because for us, it is very important to meet the right teams to be able to work with them. That is the number one criteria, everything else is secondary. But, we will continue to be quite aggressive on the acquisitions front. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our readers regarding the acquisition? What was very important for us is the quality of entrepreneurs at eSportsbuy. They have done a great job bootstrapping the venture. When we push our 15 million users to buy sports goods on Snapdeal, we know, that together, we will build the largest category in that space .

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

Budget 2012 was expected to put a bruised and hurting economy back on the path of growth. A number of tax and policy initiatives had been proposed to foster growth and development. However, it seems that through the tax policy, the Government has dealt a big blow to all the ambitious entrepreneurs who wish to set up their own businesses, and are on the look out for investments (through angel investors). The major concern for the start up community and the investors is the amendment to Section 56 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 ( Section 56 details the instances wherein income would be deemed as income from other sources ) in the recently concluded budget. Section 56 (viib) of the Income Tax Act reads as follows: Where a company, not being a company in which the public are substantially interested, receives, in any previous year, from any person being a resident, any consideration for issue of shares that exceeds the face value of such shares, the aggregate consideration received for such shares as exceeds the fair market value of the shares: Provided that this clause shall not apply where the consideration for issue of shares is received by a venture capital undertaking from a venture capital company or a venture capital fund. Explanation.—for the purposes of this clause — (a) The fair market value of the shares shall be the value i. as may be determined in accordance with such method as may be prescribed; or ii. as may be substantiated by the company to the satisfaction of the Assessing Officer, based on the value, on the date of issue of shares of its assets, including intangible assets, being, goodwill, know-how, patents, copyrights, trademarks, licenses, franchises or any other business or commercial rights of similar nature; whichever is higher. Implications for Startups Considering that majority of the start ups obtain funding through angel investors, the above provision could be a big blow to the dreams of young entrepreneurs. Under this proposal, the government will treat all individual investments (which will also include genuine angel money) in a company as “income from other sources” in the hands of a company if the amount of investment by the individual investor exceeds the fair market value of the shares allotted to the individual investor . Such excess will be subject to tax at 30 per cent in the hands of the companies (including all genuine startups). However, it is pertinent to note that the method of determining the Fair Market Value (“FMV”) is yet to be prescribed. Another matter of concern would be the fact that the Income Tax Officers have been vested with the right to decide on share valuations. Simply put, the Income Tax Officer is given the power to reject the share valuation prepared by the company and could proceed with his own calculation of FMV of the share and further the value arrived at by him would be considered as the FMV for income tax purpose. The bias, therefore, by the tax officials is likely to tilt towards a lower FMV as it would imply higher tax collection. To add to the woes of the start ups, the government has thought it fit to empower the revenue authorities to use a free hand in determining the market price of the share. However, in what could be seen as a relief to the start ups, and as per sources in the industry, it is understood that members of the angel investment community along with a few top consultants have met officials from the Finance Ministry. While the government is unlikely to withdraw the entire provision targeted at curbing money laundering and tax evasion, an amendment stating that deals under Rs 5 crores individually and Rs 10 crores overall, will be exempt, is finding favour with the officials. Therefore, this would imply that start ups availing investments up to Rs 5 crores would not be taxed. This will solve the problem to a large extent as a majority of the angel investments fall in the bracket of ten lakhs and two crores, which is less than 5 crores. It would also be pertinent to note that the venture capital investments would not be covered under this section and therefore investments by Venture Capital Funds and Venture Capital Companies would be exempt. Other Reliefs Relief from long-term capital gains tax on transfer of residential property, if invested in a manufacturing-SME The other provision which could be of interest to the start up community would be the introduction of section 54GB. A new section 54GB has been introduced to provide relief from long term capital gains tax to an individual or an HUF on sale of a residential property (house or plot of land) provided the individual invests the sale consideration received, in the equity of a new start-up SME company in the manufacturing sector. Therefore, the introduction of this section should encourage individuals to invest in startup companies, albeit in the manufacturing sector. The introduction of this section comes as a breath of fresh air which would have received more cheers had it been extended to all sections of the startups instead of limiting it to the manufacturing sector only. Provisions relating to Venture Capital Fund (VCF) or Venture Capital Company (VCC) Presently, section 10(23FB) provides that the income of a Venture Capital Fund (VCF) and Venture Capital Company (VCC) is exempt from tax, provided the Venture Capital Undertaking (VCU) is engaged in only nine specified businesses. In a significant relief to the venture capital industry, Section 10(23FB) and section 115U are proposed to be amended to provide that the income of the VCF or VCC from the investment in VCUs would be exempt irrespective of the sector of the VCU. Doing away with the restrictions on the areas of business of VCU, would help in attracting the VC investments in various areas which are in need of funding. To conclude, one would hope that the proposed amendments would be implemented to give a much needed fillip to the aspiring entrepreneurs. The law in its current form is far from encouraging. The zeal and vision of the budding builders of our economy is in dire need of Governmental assistance to build but not shatter their dreams and aspirations of taking the country on to new heights of prosperity. However, there is still a ray of hope that all these issues would be clarified by the Finance Ministry in due course. Surely, the intention of such a law was never meant to stop investments in start ups. We certainly hope that the Government would come out with a clarification at the earliest. About the author: This article is presented by Sandeep Arinaya , a Chartered Accountant by profession and the director of Merican Consultants Private Limited, a professionally managed company providing a wide range of financial services which include maintaining the books of accounts of companies, tax and regulatory services, certification services , Company Secretarial services. Merican Consultants Private Limited serves as a one stop shop especially for start ups for all their financial solutions in the fields of accounts, tax, payroll, regulatory and other advisory services.

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat