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US $45 million dollar JumpStartUp Fund launched

WhiteArrow News Service

The launch of the US$ 45 million dollar JumpStartUp Venture Fund Base Station for Entrepreneurial Capital was announced in Bangalore today. The Principals are Kiran Nadkarni, Sanjay Anandaram, and K. Ganapathy Subramanian.

The JumpStartUp Venture Fund is a private, professionally managed VC fund styled along the lines of a Silicon Valley VC firm. It has been initiated to provide smart, high quality early stage capital to new and young companies in the technology and technology-enabled sectors, primarily in India. Hardly any VC firm in India is focused on early stage opportunities. The market for seed and early-stage venture capital is extremely under-serviced, says Kiran Nadkarni, adding The Fund will bring in an aggressive, innovative, long-term outlook to the seed/early stage sector with each investment being on average no more than a US$ 1 million. JumpStartUp will look for ventures that have superior management talent, can create entry barriers, have a clear exit strategy and are targeting large market opportunities.

JumpStartUp is backed by an investor team comprising of top professionals from Silicon Valley and top institutions from Asia, Europe and the U.S. The institutional investors in the JumpStartUp Venture Fund include, among others, Singapore based Vertex Group (www.vertexmgt.com), National Science and Technology Board (www.nstb.gov.sg), EDB Investments Pte Ltd. (EDBI) (www.edbi.com), the investment arm of the Economic Development Board of Singapore, and California based Silicon Valley Bank (www.svb.com). In addition, the fund has a number of well known individual investors from companies like Exodus, Cisco, Yahoo, Netscape, Sun, Infospace, vJungle, Nortel, Intel, Junglee/Amazon, apart from partners of U.S. VC firms. Some of these individuals include B V Jagadeesh (Co-founder of Exodus), Jay Sethuram (Founder of Cerent, Siara, StratumOne), Jayshree Ullal (VP & GM Cisco), and Bill Draper (venture capitalist).

Focus Areas

Specifically, JumpStartUp will focus on providing early stage capital to companies in the Internet space, IT Services, Intellectual Property and Click & Mortar businesses.

In Internet Businesses, JumpStartUp will primarily focus on investing in B2B areas such as Supply Chain, Application Service Providers (ASPs), and Infomediation/exchange services and specialized vertical portals. In IT Services, focus will be on business models in professional services in the areas of development, support, and integration services. The fund will back companies in the areas of e-businesses, CRM as well as in the emerging areas like broadband and convergent technologies.

Intellectual property is a rapidly emerging segment in which JumpStartUp will target companies in the areas of semiconductor IP and system level tools, utilities, embedded and higher level applications for appliances. According to Sanjay Anandaram, The IP segment plays to the strengths of India. These are technology focused operations as opposed to being marketing focused. They are also not capital intensive businesses. This will provide entrepreneurs an opportunity to create technology out of India.

The Click and Mortar segment is another area of focus of JumpStartUp. These companies will straddle the physical and virtual worlds and will be led by teams with strong understanding of branding, distribution and logistics.

The Real Difference

The Principals bring over 30 years of cumulative experience from the worlds of venture capital, IT and high tech startups in India and the U.S. They have participated in over 100 early stage deals and have been responsible for creating in excess of $ 1 billion in value entirely through early stage investments. Their solid understanding of the early stage landscape and unique set of complementary skills and experiences will be the real differentiator.

K. Ganapathy Subramanian, says The Fund will focus on backing professionals who have a deep understanding of the market and/or technology, and the passion, urge, and energy to start, build and grow businesses. Adds Sanjay Anandaram, JumpStartUp will work with partners such as incubators, lawyers, accountants, recruiters, marketing and technology experts to identify markets, put together quality teams and create and build start-ups in India.

Advisors

The Advisors to JumpStartUp consist of seasoned professionals from India and U.S. Some of the Advisors are Mohan Vishwanath, VP Yahoo! Everywhere, B.D. Goel, till recently Executive Vice President of Products and Services of Neoforma, Rajeev Motwani, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University, Maneesh Dhir, VP & GM Netscape-Sun Alliance, Pradeep Kar, Chairman of Microland Group and Ajit Balakrishnan, Chairman and CEO of Rediff.com.

About the Principals

Kiran Nadkarni: Kiran has been a pioneer in the Indian VC industry and brings over 14 years experience in early stage investing. He has managed three funds through their entire life cycles and provided handsome returns to investors. He is on committees of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Over The Counter Exchange of India (OTCEI) and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). He was also the founding chairman of the Indian Venture Capital Association. Since 1995, Kiran was with Draper International, a San Francisco based venture capital firm which pioneered Silicon Valley style early stage investing in India. At Draper International, Kiran was responsible for initiating deals such as Rediff.com, Geometric Software, Neta and Yantra. Prior to joining Draper International, Kiran was with ICICI Venture (then called TDICI), the venture capital subsidiary of ICICI, which he founded in 1986 and was the President of until 1994. Some of his successful investments include Praj Industries, VXL Instruments, Mastek, Microland, Sun Pharmaceuticals and Hical Magnetics. He also spent over 9 years in ICICI as part of its early team and 4 years with the Kirloskar Group. Kiran is a Chemical Engineer from IIT-Kanpur and also holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management Studies from the Bombay University.

Sanjay Anandaram : Sanjay brings over 10 years of international infotech industry experience spanning India, U.S., Far East, the Middle East and Africa. He has strong experience of a range of technology businesses and brings operational experience in corporate business development, OEM partnering, technology project coordination, sales and channel marketing. Prior to JumpStartUp, Sanjay was a Founder and Director of business development of Neta Inc., a venture capital backed Silicon Valley startup founded in 1997. Neta developed internet personalization software which was acquired by Infoseek (now Go.com), a leading internet portal. At Neta, Sanjay researched and wrote the business plan, developed the competitive market positioning, established alliances with companies such as Netscape, coordinated beta customer programs, and was actively involved in venture capital discussions and in M & A matters. Before Neta, Sanjay spent over 8 years with Wipro, Indias leading IT company in India and the U.S. While with Wipro, he created several new businesses and business models in areas ranging from system software, turnkey product design, networking to system integration and application software. Sanjay is an Electrical Engineer from Jadavpur University and an MBA from IIM-Bangalore.

K. Ganapathy Subramanian: Ganapathy has over 10 years industry experience including 6 years of life cycle experience in venture capital industry with a specific focus on IT. Prior to JumpStartUp, Ganapathy served as Group Manager of Private Equity Investments (IT) at ICICI Venture, India's leading venture capital firm. He has handled over 30 technology companies and has actively served on the Boards of several of them. Ganapathy played a lead role in the formulation and implementation of the Software fund, one of the most successful domestic funds in the country. At ICICI Venture his portfolio included several successful companies including Kale Consultants, VXL Instruments, SQL Star, Indigo, RS Software and Planetasia.com. Prior to ICICI Venture he worked for Marico Industries Limited, Mumbai and Southern Petrochemical Industries Corporation Limited, Tuticorin. He brings with him strong technology due diligence skills and a thorough understanding of the global software industry. Ganapathy is a Chemical Engineer from REC Trichy and an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur.