Winners to be flown to the United States to meet investors.
The American Bazaar today announced a competition for India-based startups as part of its multi-city US-India Startup Forums. The winners will be invited to the United States to make their pitches before US investors.
“American investors continue to be intrigued by the energy and the robustness of the Indian startup eco system,” said Asif Ismail, Publisher of The American Bazaar. By hosting the startup competition and the Forums, The American Bazaar wants to be the bridge between the US investor community and the Indian startup community, he added.
The deadline for submitting detailed business plan is August 26, 2016. Finalists will be announced by midnight IST, Friday, August 30, 2016. The initial screening will be done by a panel of judges including Dr. Mahesh Joshi, Director of Research & Practice at George Mason University’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Dr. Satyam Priyadarshy, President of TiE DC and Chief Data Scientist at Halliburton; Sri Peddu, Managing Director of Powerhouse Ventures; and Vinson Palathingal, chairman of the board of Accubits Technologies.
The finalists will make presentations at the inaugural US-India Startup Forum in Delhi on September 1 and in Bangalore on September 3 before a panel of judges, investors, entrepreneurs, business leaders and the general audience.
The plan must be an original idea for a business that has not yet reached cash flow positive financial status.
The competition rules are posted on the site: http://abevents.americanbazaaronline.com.
US investors are bullish about Indian startups.
“India has all the ingredients to create a stable and sustainable stream of next-Gen entrepreneurs,” said Prashanth “PV” Boccasam, a General Partner at the Bethesda, MD, -based Novak Biddle and one of the investors attending the Forums. , said. “We just need to lead and execute – and get out of the way!”
Dr. Eugene Flood Jr., the Managing Partner of Next Sector Capital, which is based in Durham, NC, said “Indian startups offer two attractions” to his firm.
“First, many of the problems or opportunities in the health, natural resources, energy areas require cutting edge technology,” he said. “India has a deep bench of human resources steeped in science and engineering. Additionally, language and cultural issues working with Next Sector’s management team will be fully manageable. Second, the markets in India are obviously, large and growing, so the opportunities to address issues in the “impact” space are numerous.”
Next Sector, which is in the process of raising a first fund of approximately 1$ billion, will explore putting 15% to 20% of the capital to work in Indian companies, Dr. Good said.
The forum will cover a wide range of topics ranging from the Indian technology ecosystem to the global trends.