Hyderabad, Telangana, India | 3rd December 2019: Venture Garage conducted the first leg of the FY2019-20 edition of the Find Your Investor (FYI) programme in Hyderabad, in association with Kotak Mahindra Bank (Kotak) at the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT). Over 18 investors including Endiya Partners, Touchstone Equities, 50K Ventures, Tomorrow Capital, Sprout Venture Partners and Pegasus Fininvest, and over 100 enthusiastic start-up entrepreneurs building next-generation technology-enabled businesses participated in the event, which is a fund-raising platform for start-ups.
In addition to covering the nuances of raising capital, banking and legal aspects, a set of shortlisted 20 start-ups also got to pitch one-on-one to investors in a speed dating format. A small sampling of the ideas not only demonstrates Hyderabad’s foray into technology, but that these start-ups are well on their way to building next-gen India that is dreamy, vibrant and cutting-edge. Key disruptive start-ups at FYI are working on areas such as:
- Building India’s first bionic prosthetic arm
- Vernacular online mock tests with an emphasis on State Level Exams
- End-to-end omnichannel solutions for small businesses to sell across 80+ countries
- ReCommerce Marketplace: Two-way, for used gadgets (smartphones, tablets, laptops)
- FDA compliance of products manufactured by global contract manufacturers
Further, Kotak conducted a session on banking for start-ups which covered aspects such as a start-up focused current account, credit facilities and making the road just a little bit easier with a customised suite of banking solutions for start-ups.
Puneet Kapoor, Senior Executive Vice President, Kotak Mahindra Bank said, “Venture Garage’s Find Your Investor programme is proving to be one of the key fund-raising platforms for start-ups with strong participation from both investors and start-ups. We are delighted to play our part in supporting the dreams of entrepreneurs. The Kotak Start-up Current Account is customised to meet the unique requirements of start-ups and help entrepreneurs scale their businesses and manage their day-to-day business needs efficiently.”
The Kotak Start-up Current Account comes with a host of features such as no balance commitment for the first 12 months, customised payment and collection solutions to suit each start-up’s business model, corporate salary accounts for employees, special forex pricing, cost-effective payment solutions and trade forex solutions.
Vikrant Varshney, Managing Partner, SucSEED Venture Partners said, “I had the privilege to moderate a very enriching panel with esteemed investment professionals and a very engaged audience who asked so many intelligent and pragmatic queries. We are happy that SucSEED was a partner to this event that did well on parameters such as quality of start-ups and investors, participation rate and engagement between start-ups and investors.”
Radhesh Kanumury of Arka VC added, “It is generally hard to find quality B2B start-ups at events. Venture Garage did a good job at curating the pitching start-ups and ensured the right mix of B2B vs B2C start-ups particpated at FYI.”
A key highlight of the program was a fire-side chat with Mr. Rajat Ojha, CEO of Gamitronics, which focuses on theme parks, next-gen museums and bringing smart toys in the market. An active angel investor, with a keen eye for adventure and technology, Rajat commented, “Founders need to be extremely focused on building technology with a clear problem-solution in mind and then execute.” Rajat related his story of his dream and the struggles he faced along the way, which fired up the entrepreneurs to dream big and strive hard to achieve their goals.
While opening the session and equipping founders with an understanding of the psyche of venture capitalists, Vineet Sagar, Managing Partner at Venture Garage stated, “Founders must build a strong co-founding team with a focus on business models that can rapidly scale the enterprise to become a unicorn. VCs don’t like to invest in lifestyle businesses.”
FYI has become the go-to platform for new-age entrepreneurs to interact one-on-one with investors, enabling them to meet the right investor(s) and equipping themselves with tools to build large, scalable businesses.
FYI FY2019-20 is being organised in five cities – Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune and Chandigarh.
For more details on FYI FY2019-20 and to register, please visit www.venturegarage.in/fyi
