Seedfund to evaluate biz plan of Mudranik, UNIAPPLY

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Seedfund to evaluate biz plan of Mudranik, UNIAPPLY

This article was posted on Feb 8, 2008 and is filed under Press Releases

Seedfund, India’s leading early-stage venture capitalist fund, has proposed to work towards funding the business plans of the two teams Mudranik and UNIAPPLY teams- IMM students- for their winning ideas on the publishing and education sectors, respectively at the i2I 2008 an annual entrepreneurship festival, organized by IIM Kolkata.

The event, which took off on Nov 24, 2007 and comprised three stages of being judged, saw nine teams battle it out for top honours in the zonal rounds of the competition for budding entrepreneurs.

“It was a tough decision to make as all teams had winning ideas which could set a precedent to budding entrepreneurs across India,” said Mahesh Murthy, Partner, Seedfund. “Finally we selected Team Mudranik for their excellence in providing a business plan on the publishing industry and Team UNIAPPLY for their brilliance (education sector). They were adjudged the winners after a lot of thought and discussion.”

In the finals, the teams presented their business plans on a wide variety of topics such as IT enabled services, Vocational training, Manufacturing and Food & Beverages. The top 9 teams from all over the nation who have been mentored by experts participated in the grand finale at The Oberoi Grand, Kolkata that took place recently before a panel of seed investors looking to make deals.

i2I 2008 was held in partnership with the Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), National Entrepreneurship network (NEN), and Seedfund, taking the original competition to a different league of its own in terms of scale, scope and seriousness. In its new avatar, i2I has divested off it’s potentially ‘academic character’ by moving away from traditional ‘business-plan competitions’ which end up reducing to essay competitions with the rush for the cash prizes and no inclination to really start up.

Seedfund, the investing partner, has funded Redbus, Printo and Carwale among others. Said Anand Lunia of Seedfund, “Even start up plans that are right now only on paper stand a chance to get funded, so people in jobs thinking of leaving to start-up as well as students seriously looking at starting up right after education can take this as a serious opportunity.”

The event saw several luminaries attending such as Mr. Shashi Tharoor, former Under Secretary General – United Nations, Mr. Arjun Malhotra, Co-founder – HCL & CEO – Headstrong, Mr. K V Kamath, Managing Director & CEO – ICICI Bank, Ms. Laura Parkin, Executive Director – NEN & Wadhwani Foundation, Mr. R Ramraj, Advisor – Sequoia Capital, Mr. Bikram Dasgupta, Chairman & CEO – Globsyn Group, Mr. Rajeev Karwal, Founder & CEO – Milagrow Business & Knowledge Solutions, Mr. Raj Gollamudi, Co founder – Bluestream Ventures, Mr. Rajesh Jog, CEO – vJive Networks, Mr. Vinayak Chaterjee, Chairman – Feedback Ventures, Mr. Sanjeev Bhikchandani, CEO –

Commeting on the event, one of the judges, Rajesh Vakil- Siemens VC, said “I was pretty impressed to see the enthusiasm of participants who came here and presented their ideas even in the absence of a cash prize. This shows their focus and passion towards entrepreneurship.”

Another feature to note was the increase in the number of women entrepreneurs presenting their ideas in the finals. “I was pleasantly surprised to see that some of the best entrepreneurs were women” said Miss Laura Parkins- NeN.

“It was amazing to see the amount of passion, the variety of ideas…we had ideas ranging from retail, travel right up to entertainment. It shows that India has moved forward from IT.” – Ajit Balakrishnan

Participants commended IIM Kolkata team for providing them with a platform to showcase their business plans. They were particularly impressed by the mentorship and the interaction with the jury panel.

Sourced From: 20 : 20 Media Pvt Ltd

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