VC Deals In Digital Media In 2006

In the year 2006, Indian digital media business witnessed as many as 26 venture capital deals publicly announced. That has brought in about $175 million in VC money alone in 2006.For a compilation see ContentSutra.

Master resource list from IAMA

Under agreement to share information on resources, Indian Innovators Association hosts Don Kelly' favorite Internet based assistance resources for entrepreneurs/independent inventors. See them at http://www.indianinnovatorsforum.org/resource.htm

Hepta Fluropropane

The Centre for Fire, Explosive, and Environment Safety, a defence laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), has developed a new gas called Hepta Fluropropane for firefighting systems. This gas would soon replace Halon gas, currently used in fire fighting systems for critical infrastructure. The DRDO has passed on the technology for this Halon alternative to Mechvac Fabricators (I) Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based engineering firm.
Source: Businessline

Helion Venture Partners

Helion Venture Partners is a stage independent, India-focused venture fund, investing in high growth technology powered businesses. Sanjeev Aggarwal(DEC, i-flex, Daksh fame), Ashish Gupta(Junglee fame) and others raised first fund, of $140m. Investments made-JiGrahak Mobility Solutions, makemytrip.com ,

Siemens Venture Capital (SVC)

Siemens Venture Capital (SVC) is the corporate venture organization for Siemens AG. The goal of SVC is to identify and fund investments in emerging and innovative technologies that will enhance the core business scope of Siemens, particularly in Information and Communications, Medical Solutions, Automation and Control, Power, Automotive Technology and Transportation Systems, and Lighting.To date, SVC has invested 700 million euros in more than 100 start-up companies and 30 venture capital funds mainly in the U.S., Europe and Israel. SVC is located in Germany (Munich), in the U.S. (San José, CA and Boston, MA) and is active through Siemens regional units in Israel, China and India. Siemens Venture Capital is focusing on technologies that overlap with Siemens’ activities: Information Technology, Medical Solutions, Automation and Control, Power, Automotive and Transportation Systems, and Lighting.
(Automation & Control)
Industrial automation and RFID systems
Wireless technologies for industrial applications
Networked machine control
Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)
IT in industrial automation and building technology
(Transportation)
Automotive electronics and embedded systems
(Power)
Energy management
Alternative power technologies
(Water and waste water treatment technologies)
(Medical)
Imaging Technologies
Molecular imaging and optical imaging
Imaging agents and markers
Diagnostics
Laboratory and Point of care
In-Vitro
Computer aided diagnostics
Medical database and data mining technology
(Horizontal Technologies)
Intelligent sensors and actuators
Nanotechnology
Security technologies

Interested- send yr business plan today .

July Systems Awarded Patent for Rights Managed Peer-to-Peer Distribution of Mobile Content

Founded in 2001 by Ashok Narasimhan & Rajesh TS Reddy , July Systems with headquarters in Santa Clara, CA and Global Product Center in Bangalore offers smart mobile content retailing solutions. It recently secured US patent for `Authorized distribution of digital content over mobile networks'. What is the significance? Heard of `Song catcher' offered by Airtel licensed in from S Korea. It is patents like the one July has got that form the backbone of killer applications.

Chinese companies unveil video players with homegrown DVD technology

Technology Review reports that China's top electronics makers on Wednesday (6th Dec 2006) unveiled dozens of video players made with a homegrown DVD format in a campaign to promote a Chinese alternative to foreign technology. The DVD format, known as EVD, is part of state-backed efforts to create standards for mobile phones and other products and reduce dependence on foreign know-how and possibly reap licensing fees if they are adopted abroad.EVD, or Enhanced Versatile Disc, was first released in 2003, but an effort to promote it was dropped in 2004 after the players failed to catch on with consumers and producers squabbled over licensing fees.Now Chinese electronics makers have revived the campaign on a massive scale, saying they plan to switch completely to EVD by 2008 and stop producing DVD players. Electronics makers, film studios and retailers are promising to sell EVD discs and players.The move also adds a new twist to rivalry between the HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc next-generation video standards being promoted by competing groups of U.S., Japanese and European companies.

This brings to light the structural chasms in Indian road map to develop Products. Standards as strategic tool have little appreciation in our country, Indian global business houses are comfortable with free ride on the standards wagon of Europeans, US and (now) Chinese consortiums.

lensless imaging system

QinetiQ has secured a two-year $5.0m research contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in support of its Large Area Coverage Optical Search While Track and Engage (LACOSTE) programme. This will investigate using first-of-their-kind sensors, like lensless imaging, to provide persistent tactical surveillance and precision tracking capabilities. Another disruptive technology in offing?

Earn by solving technical problems

Do you have solutions for technology problems - many companies are seeking them and paying for promising solutions.Visit

http://www.innocentive.com/
http://www.yourencore.com/jsp/index.html
http://www.ninesigma.net/

Technology Pioneers 2007

Several Indian firms have found place on the list of `Technology Pioneers 2007' prepared by World Economic Forum.
Strand Life Sciences promoted by Dr Vijay Chandru develops algorithms and solutions in the area of bioinformatics. It helps in accelerating the drug discovery process by developing a suite of products for genomics, proteomics, and in silico biology. The products called Oyster include micro arrays, sequence analysis, and structure analysis products.
Drishtee promoted by Mr Satyan Mishra is a rural network for delivering services and related information to the village community through an ICT (information and communication technologies) Center or Information Kiosk. The Kiosks are run by entrepreneurs selected from the villages and have been designed to follow a service-delivery based revenue model.
HelloSoft Inc promoted by Mr. Krishna Yarlagadda is the world’s leading provider of VoIP technologies for wireline and wireless devices. The company enables mass deployment of low-cost, power-efficient, fully-featured multi-mode wireline and wireless devices by providing highly optimized RISC-based VoIP products with superior voice quality, QoS, and efficient call switching specifically designed for next generation end-points.

Dr. V. Prakash, new DG CSIR & Secretary DSIR

Dr. V. Prakash,Director,CFTRI, Mysore will be taking over as DG CSIR & Scretary DSIR from 1st January 2007. CFTRI as prolific innovator has developed over 270 products, processes and equipment designs, and close to 1600 licensees have availed themselves of 160 of these technologies for commercial exploitation. Millions of Indian children grew up on CFTRI developed baffalo milk based baby food and every Indian house hold use CFTRI's technologies in one form or another.

Padma Shri Dr. Prakash was born on November 23, 1951 at Mysore, India and had early education at University of Mysore and got his Ph.D. degree in 1976. After Post doctoral fellowship during 1976 to 1980 at Texas Medical Centre at Houston and Brandies University, Boston, he returned to India during 1981 as a Pool Officer of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research at CFTRI and rose to the position of Director of CFTRI, Mysore during 1994.

He has more than 150 publications in National, International journals, more than 345 papers presented in conferences and is the author of 6 books and 22 chapters in books, in addition to 38 patents to his credit including Patents in US and Europe. He has guided a number of Ph.D. students and continues to be active in his laboratory work with his Research team. Under his leadership CFTRI alone has filed 1000 patents, an unique distinction for any organization or R&D institution or industry in India and abroad.

The Government of Karnataka has honoured him with 50th Anniversary of India's Independence Golden Jubilee Award for Science for the District of Mysore during 1997 and the Karnataka Rajyothsava Award for 1996. The DuPont Protein Technologies International bestowed on him the 2001 Protein Technologist and Nutrition Award. The prestigious FICCI-2001 award was awarded during December 2001 for his outstanding contribution in Life Sciences. The prestigious National Science award of India, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in the field of Biological Sciences was awarded to him for Biological Sciences was awarded to him for Biological Sciences. During 2003 he is elected as Fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), UK.The Govt. of India has honoured Dr. Prakash by bestowing PADMA SHRI award in recognition of his outstanding service to the Nation.

Seedfund

Seedfund , smallest VC fund, is now at work and invites proposals from start-ups needing smaller amounts but heavy mentoring.The fund size is in the range of Rs 45-60 crore ($10-13 million), and they will invest any sum upto $500,000 (Rs 2.25 crore) in a venture. The fund has institutional investors like Motorola Ventures, Reliance Capital, SVB Financial Group, Sierra Ventures and individual investors like Kanwal Rekhi, K B Chandrasekhar, B V Jagadeesh and Sridar Iyengar. Seedfund’s Managing Partners include Pravin Gandhi, Bharati Jacob (ex-Infinity Venture Fund), and Mahesh Murthy (ex-Passionfund).
Source: Contentsutra.

Legacy Intellectual Property

Companies patent aggressively as a strategy and regularly discard patents that do not fit in. Delaware economic-development agency saw an opportunity in it, received 255 patents as donation from its resident firms DuPont Co. and Hercules Chemical Co. Inc and entrusted the responsibility to Center for Advanced Technology and Innovation to evaluate , assess and license. A new package for incubating firms, space+ facilities+ funds + raw technologies has emerged.
A pointer to emerging scenario in India! Should the labs donate the technologies to incubators?

Emerging Technologies in India

Cygnus Business Consulting & Research brought out a report on “Emerging Technologies in India”. This report, covers status of sixteen emerging technologies in India in terms of applications, education, research activities, patents filed in the country, major industry forums and profiles of major R&D centers. Sectors covered include Convergence,Display technology,Embedded systems (Hardware engineering), Enabling Technologies (Information Technology),Imaging technology,MEMS,Multimedia, Networking, Nanotech ,Optical technology, Photonics,Semiconductor,Speech and Signal Processing, Telecom,Technology on Indian Languages,Wireless,Smart Card,Broadband Technology, Electronic & Electrical Technology, Nuclear Sciences,Aerospace and Logistics.

Contact person: Debasish Banerjee, Senior Marketing Manager INFORMATION
TEL: 040-23430203 – 05, 23430209(D),(m) 9347004441

VC funds for North East

Worbus plans to invest in SMEs and in north east. Read the economic times news. It currently opeartes from Pune.

Structuring of venture capital investments into India

IVCA reports (4th Quarter 2006) that after a two-year lull, investors are showing renewed interest in early stage ventures. This throws up the question of the best option for an overseas investor, particularly an US investor, to structure his investment into the Indian start – up company. The report also caried an extract of paper by Sri SR Gopalan.There are two basic options :

Under the first option, (Option A) an overseas entity, often a Delaware corporation, is formed and the investors as well as the Indian founders take a stake in the US corporation. The investors get Preferred Stock while the Indian founders are offered Common Stock. To comply with regulatory requirements, founders’ stake is either through stock options or through a payment of less than $ 25,000 as permitted by Reserve Bank under the automatic route. The US Company carries out all the US based activities such as marketing and sales. A 100% sub is formed in India for delivery operations. Often an intermediary company in a tax-exempt jurisdiction is formed to make the investment from the US Company into the Indian company.

Under the second option, (Option B) the investments are made into the Indian entity, which then sets up a 100% subsidiary or branch in the US to carry out marketing and sales. In this case also, the US investor may form an intermediary company in a tax-exempt jurisdiction to make the investment into the Indian company. As per the report with maturing of exit route in Indian shore, Option B is gaining in popularity.

UTI Ventures invests USD 6 MN in Vallabhdas Kanji

Bangalore based UTI Venture Funds (UVF), the Private Equity arm of Unit Trust of India (UTI) group , has made a private equity investment worth USD six million in Vallabhdas Kanji Limited through its Ascent India Fund.VKL is part of the Rs 500 crore Kanji Morarji Group, that includes Kancor Flavours and Extracts and Auto Hangar (India). Presently, UVF manages two funds - Ascent India Fund and India Technology Venture Unit Scheme (ITVUS). Its portfolio includes Subex systems,HBL Nife Power systems, Ramakrishna Forgings.

Ruth Dreifuss asks Novartis to withdraw its Indian patent case

Former Swiss president Ruth Dreifuss joins Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and 16 other organizations asking Novartis to withdraw its case filed in India.The challenge to India's patent law arose when an Indian patent bureau rejected an application for the Novartis cancer drug Gleevec on the grounds that the company wanted to patent a "trivial improvement". MNCs want to protect even trivial improvements , charge high prices but buy peace with NGOs by giving the medicines free or at discount. But people like Sigrid Sterckx, professor of ethics and an expert on patents at the University of Ghent in Belgium, do not agree. Read the article from asia Times Online.
Read also response from Novartis.
Rep. Henry Waxman chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, joins the debate and writes to Novartis`I do not dispute your right to apply for a patent or appeal a denial. I am concerned, however, that your attempt to influence domestic Indian law could have a severe impact on worldwide access to medicines."
Indian NGOs allege that while international support is pouring in , Indian government is considering recommendation of Mashelkar committee report advocating amendment to patent act, which could favour Novartis position.

New Ventures India

New Ventures India supports sustainable enterprise creation by accelerating the transfer of capital to outstanding investment opportunities in India that incorporate social and environmental benefits.New Ventures selects SMEs in fast-growth, environmental sectors such as ecotourism, non-timber forest products and certified wood, organic foods and fibers, renewable energy, sustainable fisheries management, and clean technologies. These SMEs are seeking capital in the range of Rs.50 lacs to Rs.15 crores. The program matches entrepreneurs with executive mentors and consultants and teams of graduate business students (MBA) to improve the enterprise's business plan to present at a New Ventures Investor Forum. It is promoted by World Resources Institute and the CII-Godrej Green Business Centre with USAID under the Global Development Alliance.

`Small is beautiful' fund

Buiness Line reported that `small is beautiful' (SIB), a Rs 231-crore private equity fund on Tuesday announced investments in three companies engaged in power generation amounting to Rs 51crore. SIB has invested in KVK Energy & Infrastructure Ltd, Hyderabad for its proposed 56-MW coal-washery-rejects-based power project in Chhattisgarh. The second investment is in Shalivana Projects Ltd for their two 10-MW biomass-based, power projects in Maharashtra. The third investment is in the Chamoli Hydro P Ltd for its five-MW hydel power project in Uttaranchal. The fund is managed by KSK Energy Ventures ltd, Hyderabad-KSK will identify, invest and develop power projects to help them achieve financial closure, after which the "Small is Beautiful" fund will invest in these projects, to finance and support their operations. KSK will also act as the Investment Manager of the fund.