**OT** NRI trio plans $100 million Venture Capital fund for Net start-ups
(Monday, February 14, 2000)
Bipin Chandran in New Delhi
Silicon Valley based Indian entrepreneurs P V Kannan, Sudhakar Kosaraju and Shanmugam Nagarajan plan to line up a $100-million venture capital fund targetted at the Indian Internet start-ups. There are also plans to extend the scope of the fund to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
The group of three, which would be lining up the fund corpus in a phased manner, is targetting to do the first funding by June this year. "We are in talks with some of the Indian young entrepreneurs and the first funding will happen by June this year," said P V Kannan, who has quit from the Silicon Valley-based Kana Communications, a communications software company with a market capitalisation of $8 billion, to start this effort.
The trio will also bring in funds from a host of venture capital fund operating in the Silicon Valley and other foreign institutional investors to India through this fund. Besides, there are also plans to include the like minded Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.
The group of three The fund is currently in the process of setting up its Indian office and operations. "We are identifying the location for out office in India," he told Business Standard. He also said that the company will also name the fund very soon.
As per the plans of the company it will help the Indian entrepreneurs not only with the fund but with necessary mentoring process also. In addition to this, the fund will also help the Indian start-ups to find a partner in the US from the same field.
"This partner will hand held the Indian company and help them finalise their plans," said Shanmugam Nagarajan, who would be heading the fund Indian operations. "He will also work as a mentor for the Indian company," he added.
The fund will also help the company to create a link between the US market space, too. "I, along with Kannan, will be in the US co-ordinating the US operations of the fund. We will try create the link between the US market and the Indian entrepreneurs," said Sudhakar Kosaraju.
In addition to this the fund has also come to India without a consultancy fee for the consultancy services. "We will not be charging any fee for the consultancy services that we offer," Kosaraju said.
According to the fund's plans, at the seed level the company will offer funding of half a million to a million. In the second stage the fund would offer about 2 to 5 million to the companies. "This is the practices that is followed worldwide and we would be replicating the same model here too," Kannan said.
NRI=Non Resident Indian
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