The Venture Capital Scene in India

Two weeks ago the TiE Group hosted John Doerr, Ram Shriram, and Ray Lane in Bangalore. It was a nice interactive session with the three very knowledgable gentlemen.

It was also a reminder that the VC industry (if I can call it that) is in its infancy in India. There is no true VC at least for companies looking at entry level financing. This leads me to question the very definition of a "Venture Capitalist". Most of the VCs in India are looking for mature (read as "low risk" investments). While this is fine, most of them seek cheap publicity from the newspapers by calling themselves VCs who help small and entry level businesses. However their private persona is very different than their public persona. Approach them as a small company and they'll treat you like a fly. Take for example a leading VC who got featured in Business India. Their entire interview was full of (sic !) prose that justified the cause of early stage funding.. blah..blah etc. However a friend of mine who has a fairly well established company but was looking for some entry funding found out that there was a LOT OF DIFFERENCE between what they said in the magazine and what they say in private. He was out of there in 5 minutes. He swears that he'd rather deal with banks than VCs. At least they don't have two faces.

As I said before, thats fine, but can we please stop this hypocrisy?