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CyberMedia’s Pradeep Gupta

Kamla Bhatt — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:04:24 +0000

CyberMedia is South Asia’s largest specialty media company that was founded in 1982, when IT and tech industry was still in its infancy in India. Earlier this year I caught up CyberMedia’s chairperson Pradeep Gupta at the Pan-IIT Global Conference in Santa Clara, Calif. CyberMedia’s mix of publications includes Dataquest, Voice & Data, PC Quest, BioSpectrum among others. The company also operates the popular CyberMedia Dice job board. Pradeep is an angel investor, and is also actively involved with his alma mater: IIT, Delhi. He also sits on the board of Kaleidoscope Entertainment, a movie production house that produced films like Bandit Queen and Mangal Pandey. Pradeep has an undergraduate degree in engineering from IIT, Delhi and an MBA from IIM, Calcutta.

Tags: CyberMedia, Pradeep Gupta, Dataquest

Mayfield Fund’s Navin Chaddha, Part 1

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 19:17:35 +0000

Mayfield Fund’s Navin Chaddha is a serial entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. Recently, Navin’s name was included in the prestigious Forbes Midas List top 100 dealmakers in 2007.

I caught up with Navin at the Pan IIT Global Conference to find out how he transitioned from being a successful serial entrepreneur to a venture capitalist. Navin was the founder and CTO of VXtreme, which was acquired by Microsoft and eventually became Windows Media. He then went on to co-found iBeam Corporation and was the CEO of Rivio.

Navin has been actively involved in investing in India for the past 10 years. As managing director at Mayfield, Navin is leading their India strategy. Earlier this year Mayfield invested in India-based Tejas Network, and Navin joined the board of the company. Besides Tejas Networks, his other Mayfield investments include Mimosa Systems, Seedfund and WinChorus.

Tags: Mayfield Fund, Navin Chaddha, Pan IIT Global Conference, VXtreme, iBeam, Rivio, Tejas Network, Mimosa Systems, Seedfund, WinChorus

Umang Gupta On Entrepreneurship, Part I

Kamla Bhatt — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:02:57 +0000

Umang Gupta is CEO of Keynote Systems. I caught up with Umang at the Pan IIT Global Conference in July and talked to him about entrepreneurship and what it takes to do startups and run your business.

Umang wrote Oracle’s first business plan and went on to co-found Gupta Technologies and take it through a successful IPO. Gupta Technologies was the first client-server SQL relational database for PCs. But, after Gupta Technologies went IPO the company took a different route, and Umang stepped down from the board in 1997.

Umang is an active investor and advisor to a number of Silicon Valley start-up companies. He served on the Board of Trustees of Mosaix, a publicly held call-center systems company from 1997 to 1999 until its sale to Lucent Technologies.

Tags: Umang Gupta, Keynote Systems, Oracle, Silicon Valley, Mosaix

Mayfield’s Kevin Fong on Investing in China, Part 2

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 22:50:41 +0000

Mayfield Fund’s Managing Director, Kevin Fong, heads their firm’s China-based strategy and investment.

In Part-2 of our conversation, Kevin talks about investing in China and the synergy between India and China. He thinks the two neighbors have a lot in common and is quick to point out that there could be some challenges that might stall this synergy.

I asked Kevin, what he would change in China if all he had to do was wave a magic wand? Tune in to find out what Kevin has to say.

China and India are two of the fastest growing economies in the world, and many investors have their eyes trained on these two Asian neighbors.

This interview was recorded at the Pan IIT Global Conference in Santa Clara in July 2007.

Tags: Mayfield Fund, Kevin Fong

Mayfield’s Kevin Fong on Investing in China, Part 1

Kamla Bhatt — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 07:12:39 +0000

Mayfield Fund’s Managing Director, Kevin Fong, heads their firm’s China-based strategy and investments. I caught up with Kevin last month at the Pan IIT Global Conference to find out about the company’s investment strategy in China and how it all started. What are some of the things we don’t know about investing in China?

Kevin has been with Mayfield since 1988. His past investments include Alantec, Crescendo Communications, Legato, Latitude, Mobile 365, Redback Networks and Tasman Networks. Kevin currently sits on the boards of 3PARdata (where he serves as non-executive chairman), Cemaphore Systems, Fultec, Hammerhead Systems, Mendocino Software, ONStor and Velocity11.

Tune back in to listen to Part-2 of our conversation.

Tags: Mayfield, Kevin Fong, Pan IIT, 3PARdata

Hemendra Godbole on Pan IIT Conference

Kamla Bhatt — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 01:22:01 +0000

Hundreds of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) alumni and faculty congregated in Silicon Valley for the 3-day Global Pan IIT Conference 2007.

Spekers included Jeff Immelt of GE, Arun Sarin of Vodofone, Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures, Rajat Gupta of McKinsey, Senator Clinton (via satellite), Umang Gupta and others.

I caught up with Hemendra Godbole who was a volunteer and co-chairman of the content group to find out the purpose and goal of holding this conference and also what motivates him to volunteer?

Tags: Global Pan IIT Conference, Jeff Immelt, Arun Sarin, Vodofone, Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures, Rajat Gupta, Senator Clinton, Umang Gupta, Hemendra Godbole

McKinsey’s Rajat Gupta on India

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 20:17:06 +0000

I caught up with Rajat Gupta at the Pan IIT 2007 conference in Silicon Valley last week. Mr. Gupta is deeply passionate about health and education and those were the twin topics of this conversation.

In this interview, he talks about the connection between healthcare and the economy of India. What is the connection between citizens health and economic growth of a nation? How does poor and bad health of a nation’s population impact its productivity and economic growth? How do you institute good and effective health policy and healthcare in India? What are the the challenges that India faces in the area of healthcare? These are some of the issues that Mr. Gupta addresses in this interview.

Mr. Gupta is a senior partner and a former managing director of McKinsey & Company worldwide. Mr. Gupta sits on the advisory boards of Harvard Business School and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He is on the board of trustees of the University of Chicago and is the Chairman of the Board of the Indian School of Business at Hyderabad.

He is Co-Chair of the American Indian Foundation and private sector representative to the Board of the Global Fund for Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis.

Mr. Gupta is a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation. Mr. Gupta advised McKinsey’s work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2006 he was appointed as an independent director at Goldman Sachs.

Mr. Gupta is a graduate of IIT, Delhi and Harvard Business School.

Mayfield Fund’s Yogen Dalal on IIT, India and Entrepreneurship

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:28:17 +0000

Yogen Dalal is the managing director at Mayfield Fund, in Silicon Valley. I caught up with Yogen at the Pan IIT Global meet, where we talked about IIT, Mayfield’s India strategy and entrepreneurship.

In the interview, Yogen answers some tough questions, like what to do if your venture fails, and how to handle failure, generally.

Yogen was part of Vint Cerf’s team at Stanford, working on TCP/IP protocol. There, he co-authored the TCP specification. TCP/IP is what makes it possible for all of us to use the Internet today. Tune in to find out what Yogen has to say about his TCP/IP-related work as a graduate student at Stanford.

Yogen currently sits on the boards of Affinity Labs, Consorte, Packet Design, PacketHop, Podbridge and Revenue Science. Yogen’s investments include Arbor Software, BeVocal, BroadVision, Concur, Nuance, OuterBay, Packet Engines, Snapfish, TIBCO, Vantive and Whistle.

Yogen has an undergraduate degree from IIT, Mumbai and a PhD from Stanford University.

Tags: Yogen Dalal, Mayfield Fund, Silicon Valley, Pan IIT Global, entrepreneurship, Vint Cerf, TCP specification

IT and Telecom Bring a Transformation in Rural India

Kamla Bhatt — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 01:21:56 +0000

On December 23, 2006, Dr. A.P.J. Kalam, the president of India, inaugurated the first Global Pan-IIT conference in Mumbai. The theme of the conference was: “Inspire to Involve and Transform India.” One of the early pioneers to help India involve and transform is Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, who teaches at IIT, Chennai. He also leads the Telecommunications and Computer Networks group at IIT Chennai, one of the early incubators in India that has produced many successful companies.

In 1981, Prof. Ashok returned to India after spending a few years in the U.S., and since then has been actively involved in the IT and Telecom area in India.

In this interview, Prof. Jhunjhunwala discusses how technology and Telecom can help transform India, can we become technologically the best in few areas, how can we involve the 700 million rural population in this revolution? With computers and connectivity, this change and transformation can take place. This can help the rural people offer and do services for the urban area.

Prof. Jhunjhunwala is on the board of several Telecom and IT companies in India, including Polaris, Sasken and Tejas. Previously, he was a board member of VSNL & BSNL.

Photo Credit: Hindu Business Line

Tags: Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IIT

Basab Pradhan on Gridstone Research Products and their Revenue Model

Kamla Bhatt — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 01:17:43 +0000

Basab Pradhan is co-founder and CEO of Silicon Valley-based Gridstone Research.

As a fairly recent entry into the financial services space, where Basab and the Gridstone team are focused on creating products and services for the financial services sector. The company is more than a year old and has offices in both the U.S. and India. Gridstone received funding from Charles River Ventures and Maverick Capital.

Prior to founding Gridstone, Basab was with India’s number-one IT services company, Infosys Technologies, as their head of Global Sales & Marketing. At Infosys, Basab helped the company establish its presence in the U.S., and helped acquire marquee clients.

Basab has an Engineering degree from IIT Kanpur and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. He also maintains a blog called 6 AM Pacific, and if you listen to the interview you can find out why he chose that name for his blog.

Click here for transcript.

Tags: Basab Pradhan, Gridstone Research, financial services, Charles River Ventures, Maverick Capital, Infosys Technologies, 6 AM Pacific