Global Themes

Presentation on VC activity in India at London

Shared some slides at the India Investment Opportunities Forum in London yesterday.

View more presentations from Shantanu Bhagwat.

I also talked about some of my investments (Myntra, Innoviti and ElementsAkademia) in India.

It was a good interactive session. I felt the mood is turning upbeat (although less so here in London and in the US).

ChIndia Rising – Panel Discussion

Just a placeholder/note to myself to transcribe my notes/points from the panel discussion at “ChIndia Rising“, Cass Business School last month. I hope to get around to doing this in the next few days.

*** PANEL DETAILS ***

Will the Rising Tide Lift All Boats?

Here the panel will explore in an interactive Q&A session the challenge to the developed world, how to participate in Chindian Growth, the investment challenge, the legal challenge and how to create new opportunities

Panel to include:

Professor Jaideep Prabhu
Professor Bradley Barnes
Manoj Ladwa
Shantanu Bhagwat

June 26th, 2009 Posted by Shantanu | China, Conferences and Panels, Globalization, India | no comments

Notes from Emerging Markets Seminar @ Imperial

Some notes from the “Emerging Markets” seminar on opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs (part of the IED Best Practice encounters series) at which I shared a panel with Prof. Gerry Geirge and Prof. Chris Toumazou:

For the UK, India is now as important as China; Exports to China are £5.2bn vs £4.1bn for India
There appears to be a significant correlation between “relative inequality” and entrepreneurship i.e. higher relative inequality leads to higher entrepreneurship (- as in the case of US perhaps?)
Education in general (esp. tertiary education) is a big opportunity in India (I’m glad about my latest angel investment!)
Chris mentioned how the future of healthcare and medicine is personalised drugs and disposable technology
I made some deliberately provocative statements; the main one being “Why this century might be India’s century”; Mentioned India’s 3-D Advantage
Gerry shared some very interesting slides on R&D linkages between Indian institutions and their international counterparts; I hope these slides are up on the website soon
I also liked Gerry’s slide about FDI as % of GDP that showed a sustained increase in FDI into India (vs. a reduction in FDI in China). When you couple this fact with the growth in GDP in India, you realise the dramatic impact that this flood of money had between 2006 – 2009

I shared a couple of slides (see below) as a preface to my observations:

Emerging Markets Imperial Apr 09 Final

View more presentations from Shantanu Bhagwat.

April 30th, 2009 Posted by Shantanu | China, Conferences and Panels, Emerging Markets, Entrepreneurship, India, My Presentations | one comment

Feeling the chill in Goa

Just back from an exhausting and intense 10-day visit to India, part of which was taken up by the Capvent VC/PE Conference in Goa.

I shared a panel on “New Media” with Rajesh Sawhney of Reliance Entertainment and Harel Beit-On of Viola Private Equity…and talked briefly about Enqii and an Indian start-up that I am very enthused about (it takes Out-of-Home advertising to a new level – leveraging the ubiquitous cycle rickshaws that you see across large parts of India – more on them later)

Interesting conversations on the sidelines and during the panels…but the “chill” in Private Equity was unmistakable – even as Goa seared at 33 degrees…

India seems to be holding up better though…and the sentiment is mildly optimistic…not least because of a rebounding stock market that has jumped 40% in the last three months - as it recovers from its multi-year lows.

I also concluded my latest personal investment – in an Indian start-up which I believe is very attractively positioned in the education sector in India. It is called Elements Akademia…Check them out.

Somewhat related posts:

Feel the Shanghai sizzle…in Mumbai

Feeling the heat in China…

April 14th, 2009 Posted by Shantanu | Conferences and Panels, Venture Capital | one comment

Summary notes from Digital Business India

Earlier this week, I chaired a panel discussion in London at Digital Business India.

Some key points that emerged from the various discussions were:

Huge opportunity emerging in digital media/ digital business (probably the fastest growing market globally)
Specific sectors of interest include education, animation, production, advertising & branding services
Doing business is not easy and challenges remain
Very attractive opportunity to leverage the large (and rapidly growing) mobile user base*

I hope to add more flavour to these notes later on…

* India added about 15million new mobile subscribers in Jan ‘09.

March 7th, 2009 Posted by Shantanu | Conferences and Panels, Entrepreneurship, India, Tech & Innovation in Asia | no comments