I spent last weekend at Bangalore International Exhibition Center – the venue of World Startup Expo and home to the creme de la creme of India’s startup scene. And the experience was well worth it! BIEC, to start, is tucked away in a quiet, sylvan corner of Bangalore – away from a lot of the hustle-bustle and gridlocked traffic. I had the opportunity to network with and meet some really innovative and energetic founders, as well as with fellow Angels and VCs.
Some interesting startups I interacted with:
Instantore: Tackling the ‘wastage’ problem in the Indian grocery market by enabling the buying and selling of soon-to-expire food items.
Crysp: Smart authentication for both Websites and mobile apps.Very cool technology and smart founders. I think they went on to win the award for the most promising startup.
Lumium Innovations – Not necessarily a ‘fundable’ startup but they seem to have some nice capabilities in helping early product team better define and develop their products.
From an angel investor standpoint, I learned from a couple of lawyers that ‘fall away’ right provisions are becoming more regular in term sheets – these are rights for example board seats that get taken away from investors when their stake falls below a certain threshold. This is definitely an entrepreneur-friendly provision and I believe one that is reflective of the maturing of the startup-investor dynamic in India.
Early stage investing in India 