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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Green House Ventures ropes in Nasscom as partner, Google's Rajan Anandan as Mentor (Economic Times)

Gurgaon-based Green House Ventures Accelerator has brought on board Indian software industry association Nasscom as a collaborative partner and roped in Google's Rajan Anandan as a mentor to boost its year-long acceleration programme.

Through Nasscom's 10,000 Startups Program, GHV will get access to a pool of startups. "Our partnership with GHV will accelerate startups with a comprehensive array of market research services, go-to-market assistance, funding support and educational/networking opportunities, which is utmost important in post incubation and early stage companies," said Rajat Tandon, senior director, Nasscom, 10,000 startups.

"This also gives our startups the opportunity to have a global footprint." Under the tie-up, GHV will participate in the startup selection process organised by Nasscom and review applications for selecting entrepreneurs into its acceleration programme. Google India managing director Anandan, who joins as an angel investor, said, "I'm excited by what they're doing with startup ecosystem in India."

Rajan will not just mentor the accelerator startups but also offer insight on the Indian entrepreneur ecosystem. Vikram Upadhyaya, chief mentor at GHV, said, "We will also leverage on Nasscom's network of domain experts, mentors, validation of products and functions, and access to industry formation. Once a startup finishes acceleration, we will leverage on Nasscom's network for Series A investors, other than World innovation Labs."

In October last year, GHV inked a partnership with Japan-based venture capital fund WiL, which invests in disruptive startups with global appeal. WiL helps startups bridge the gap between their home markets and US markets and this partnership marks its entry into the Indian startup arena.

GHV's model of acceleration is designed to help companies ramp up growth, focus on scale, shorten time to get VC funding, and attract higher valuation. The sector-agnostic accelerator will house 10 startups at a time through a year-long programme. Each startup will get seed funding of up to $100,000 in exchange for equity of up to 20%.

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

Source : Economic Times. 

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Green House Ventures Accelerator partners with Japanese VC fund World Innovation Lab (Economic Times)

Delhi-based Green House Ventures (GHV) Accelerator, which launched operations earlier this month, has inked a partnership with (WiL), a Japan-based venture capital fund that invests in disruptive startups with global appeal. WiL helps startups bridge the gap between their home markets and US markets and this partnership marks its entry into the Indian startup ecosystem.

WiL is founded by serial technology and internet entrepreneur Gen Isayama and ex-chief incubation officer of Yahoo, Masataka Matsumoto, who will both come on board as mentors to startups housed at GHV, committing five days a month of their time together. "India today looks like what China was 10 years back and growth here will be much stronger in the next few years. We would like to fund a couple of companies from GHV if there is a strong connection to Silicon Valley or Japan. If we see benefits of cross-border mentorship and regular dialogue, the next step will be to set up a fund or facility which we can jointly run to continue our relationship," said Isayama, co-founder and CEO, WiL.

Additionally, through this partnership, WiL will be supporting growth and expansion of GHV startups in global markets, targeting Japan and the US, to help them increasing client reach, visibility and building a strong product. Post-acceleration, WiL will look closely at GHV startups to fund them as Series A investors. WiL typically invests $5-30 million in early as well as growth-stage technology and internet startups through multiple rounds of investments and will follow the same investment thesis for GHV startups.

It, however, doesn't have a pre-defined corpus set aside for GHV startups nor will it take a stake or a board seat in any startup during the programme at this point. Also, WiL will bring in their network of companies in the US and Japan to help these companies expand globally.

Alongside, it will work as on-the-ground partners with GHV for demo day, when startups pitch to investors, which will be held in Japan and Singapore. "The partnership brings an entire ecosystem in place, mentoring support, global expertise and a Series A funding opportunity for our startups. I see these three things as strong value of the partnership," said Vikram Upadhyaya, chief mentor at GHV.

"Our partnership is strategic in nature and vision is to develop a long-term engagement. If successful, we would like to take it global," said Anurag Kapoor, executive director and co-founder, GHV.

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

Source : Economic Times. 

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