The Kamla Bhatt Show: What do VC's want in India?

14:05 | Kamla Bhatt | Sep 15th, 2006 12:18pm |

What do VC’s want in India? What kinds of companies are VCs looking to fund in India? India is an emerging market for all kinds of services, and one of the biggest opportunities is in the telecom and mobile space. Since the start of 2006 a handful of start-ups in the telecom and mobile space have received investments of about $10 million each. Every month since March 2006 over 4 million new mobile subscribers are being added in India.

Listen to Jay Patel of London-based New Media Spark, a VC firm, and a director at IMImobile, a value-added-services (VAS) company in Hyderabad, India talk about how the new round of funding his company got, and also about what VC’s are looking for to invest in India.

IMImobile received $10 million INF funding in July 2006 from Pequot Ventures. Jay talks about the new funding and also about what kinds of comapnies that New Media Spark is interested in investing in India.

About Kamla Bhatt:
After a decade working in various IT companies in Silicon Valley, California, Kamla Bhatt turned to her true passion: radio. She started broadcasting on the Internet in July 2005 and became India’s first podcaster with her News About India and Talk News India shows. In March 2006 she launched her new radio show called The Kamla Bhatt Show focused on the Indian diaspora.

Kamla Bhatt has been fascinated for years by how Life, People and Ideas intersect and interact–these are the underlying themes for her show. Her focus on many things Indian is against the backdrop of India Rising - be it Bollywood remixed, IT czars, celebrity chefs, or a renewed national identity. The Indian diaspora, whether it is in the U.S. or in Singapore, is no less engaging, and is just as rich a source for interesting subjects. Having spent a good portion of her life in the U.S., Kamla is just as intrigued by the American experience as by the west’s growing interest in India.

While holding down a day job in her days in the Valley, she regularly contributed to various Indian publications in the U.S. and in India. Her writing has been published by Rediff, India Abroad, Outlook, Silicon India, Business Standard and The Telegraph.

Kamla holds a MA and MPhil degree in International Relations, and is currently working on a book project on the Opium trade between British India and China during the 19th century. She also maintains her own blog and contributes to Global Voices and Desicritics.

Kamla divides her time between Manhattan, New York, and Bangalore, India

About The Kamla Bhatt Show:
Thinking globally but acting locally, the Kamla Bhatt Show will highlight the movers and shakers of the emerging Indian economy and the Indian diaspora around the world. Passionate and provocative, Kamla will feature entrepreneurs, technologists, investors and many more among today’s generation of “Global Indians.”

This entry was posted on Friday, September 15th, 2006 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Enterprise 2.0, India, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Post to your WordPress.com blog »