Japan-based World Innovation Labs' investor Masataka Matsumoto to visit India (ENTREPRENEUR INDIA)

Greenhouse Ventures (GHV) has announced that Masataka Matsumoto - Partner at World Innovation Labs (a Tokyo and Silicon Valley based VC and a partner of GHV Accelerator) will be visiting India this week.

While US investors have been active in the Indian start-up scene for long, it is now the turn of Japanese investors to commit significant monies and management focus to get up to speed on the India opportunity. 

GHV, an Accelerator ‘with a difference,’ was adopted very early by World Innovation Labs (WiL).Masataka is the ex- President of Yahoo Japan. He also assumed the role of senior executive of Yahoo! Shopping. He was involved in Softbank’s acquisition of Vodaphone, served as the first director of mobile business development at Yahoo, and headed Softbank’s mobile products and consumer unit.

Typically, WiL invests dollar 5 to 30 million in multi-stage startups with global appeal and disruptive potential. They also provide operational expertise and strategic partnerships to accelerate their portfolio companies' global expansion. Some of the LP’s to WiL are IncJ, Sony, Nissan, Mizuho and Benesse, among others.

“GHV Accelerator’s partnership with WiL and other Japanese investors allows us to ensure that our portfolio companies get access to committed Series A funding. Our strategy of tying up Series A capital is based on the observation that many portfolio companies of most accelerators and incubators fail to get follow-on capital required for them to scale up. The WiL partnership and connect with Japanese giants will also help our portfolio companies with their global expansion, especially in the US and Japan, the world’s 2nd largest developed economy,” said, Vikram Upadhyaya, founder and Chief Evangelist, GHV Accelerator.

Some of Vikram’s portfolio companies like Druva and Stayzilla, have been in the news recently for raising over 25 mn USD and 20 mn USD respectively.

GHV’s partners from Japan are invited to join the Pitch Day of GHV Accelerator, beginning in the week starting from 23rd February and will continue till 9th March. GHV would be organizing 3 pitch days across this time period, which would be attended by Vikram Upadhyaya, GHV mentors and the Japanese partners.

“Over the past few years, I have been in talks with several large investors and companies from Japan, and advising their boards on their India strategy. As the markets and the above-mentioned indicators emerged clearer, I noticed their 'intent’ change to ‘action’. While the likes of SoftBank have already made announcements, other Japanese giants are now rapidly making their moves in India,” added Upadhyaya.

For More Details - http://www.ghvaccelerator.com/

Source : EntrepreneurIndia. 

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With the ‘Uber’ Syndrome Catching Up, Indian Startups Should Gear Up Big Time! (IAMWIRE)

A large country like India, and one with several infrastructural challenges, offers some unique opportunities for innovators. One such opportunity area is security & safety. The Uber case that took place in December 2014, brought into focus the need for solutions around safety & security.

A technology startup headquartered in San Fransico, Uber connects passengers with taxi drivers in 200 cities across 53 countries and enjoys a valuation of over USD 40 billion just about 6 years into its inception. The success story of Uber would have been a commendable one had the Company not become synonymous with flouting safety regulations and indulging in unfair business practices in order to make a quick buck, thereby leading to legal tangles in several countries where it operates.

Unfortunately, over the past few years, there has been a rapid increase incases of sexual harassment and assault, economic harassment (e.g. not paying daily wages in time or in full), murders, etc. in India. Women and senior citizens are particularly vulnerable.As a result, safety has become a prime concern for both, individuals and the government. Going by the incident of the rape of a woman executive in an Uber cab by its driver in Delhi, the company cannot escape the liability by virtue of the fact that it is only a cab aggregator and does not directly operate any taxis. It is ultimately a taxi services company, albeit an app-based one, and therefore cannot shirk the responsibility of ensuring the safety of passengers who hire a cab through them.

In fact for any business where customer security is involved, it should be built into the core of the operations rather than going the Uber way and resorting to shortcuts to achieve growth targets. As a result of this fiasco, all app-based cab services were banned in Delhi citing security issues. The ban will be lifted only if they agree to follow the rules meant for Radio Taxis.

Where Can Startups Innovate

While the government has to take necessary steps to ensure that it is able to keep the citizens safe & secure, it is not going to happen in a hurry, as India is too vast a country for the government or public infrastructure or policies or resources (security agencies, police etc.) to address these issues immediately.

And this is where I think that technology-enabled solutions can contribute significantly, in making India safe & secure. Innovators are already thinking of how to address security issues using technology. Some of these innovations could be in areas related identity verification; databases of track records of publicly accessed private individuals (e.g. cab drivers); performance and compliance tracking; reporting; alarms & alerts etc.

Software, as well as hardware products can create solutions across different types of cases, and the scale of the opportunity provides opportunities in India for tremendous cost-efficiencies to make these solutions affordable.

Biometrics and digital identity technologies are now commercially available, and inexpensive to use as one of the platforms for safety and security solutions.

Some of these solutions could be company specific (e.g. Uber or OLA may use a proprietory tool or process solution for due diligence on drivers and tracking), while a number of these solutions can be managed by third-party innovators/entrepreneurs who can offer their solutions as a managed-service offering.

Think about it. India is a developing country with a population of 1.2bn. We have 925mn mobile phone connections and a smartphone penetration of 350mn. Our GDP is 1.87tn USD and is expected to go to 3tn USD by 2020. The size of the market opportunity is large. One effective solution can make a whole world of difference to people who no longer feel safe outside their homes (or even inside). Moreover, India has the capability to create and outdo many such ‘Ubers’, keeping the integrity of the system intact.

We believe that the opportunity is real, the opportunity is NOW and the problems need to be addressed. And we also firmly believe that only technology innovations can address some of the major challenges related to security at the scale and speed at which we need to address them.

Here is what Startups can do, to avoid getting ‘Uberised’ –

• Have tech-enabled processes in place, to ensure accountability. And make it a norm. This can be critical for future collaborations
• Regular mystery audits to ensure compliance by even the ground staff
• Legal compliances and processes to ensure interest protection and liabilities of not only your company, but all stakeholders
• Gauge the risk factor – from your point of view AND also from the customers
• Have an escalation matrix, whereby customers can connect directly with you

For More Details - http://www.ghvaccelerator.com/

Source : IAMWIRE. 

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Green House Ventures Accelerator ties up with LetsVenture (Economic Times)

Gurgaon-based Green House Ventures (GHV) Accelerator has joined hands with deal discovery platform LetsVenture(LV) in a collaborative model to create easier access to capital for seed ventures.

"LetsVenture has access to good quality startups. With this partnership we will get access to good curated startups, and it reduces our time frame for evaluation since one level of curation will be done," said Anurag Kapoor, executive director and co-founder, GHV.

For startups listed on LetsVenture, this partnership gives them access to high value mentoring and increases chances of funding.

Vikram Upadhyaya, Chief Mentor at GHV, said: "We are going to look at all the startups in LetsVenture, who have the potential to grow 10x."

Founded in 2013, LetsVenture is an online platform that connects startups with investors to facilitate early stage funding and currently has over 2,200 startups and 760 investors from 19 countries registered on it.

GHV's selection criteria for startups will focus on - team, execution, capability, scalability, technology, and proof of concept.

"The idea is to partner with a lot of players in the ecosystem who can help these startups go to the next level. We're also helping GHV curate some of these startup companies," said Shanti Mohan, founder and CEO, LetsVenture. Once they have completed the acceleration program, GHV will bring them back to the platform for early funding.

GHV's program houses 10 startups at a time through a one-year long program. Each startup can get seed funded with up to $100,000 in exchange for equity to the tune of 20% at a maximum.

"We will only see actual results in a year, to know how effective the partnership actually is," said Mohan.Shonali.

For More Details - http://www.ghvaccelerator.com/

Source : Economic Times. 

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