CNBC-TV18-Enteprise INC: Story on capital raising

Here is an opportunity to be in on CNBC-TV18. My friend Isha Dalal at CNBC-TV18 is looking to talk to entrepreneurs who have gone through the experience of fund-raising for their startups and are open to talk about it. You may or may not have succeeded in raising money at the end of the efforts.

Here is the note from Isha:

I am working on a story on capital raising for entrepreneurs for our show “Enterprise INC”
What I’m essentially trying to bring out is whether entrepreneurs can effectively raise funds in this tough economic environment, We’ve spoken to investors (ranging from angel to PE) and to a company that HAS managed to raise funds recently to find out how companies can work around the inevitable slowdown to continue funding and building great businesses. What can companies do right? What could pitfalls be? Have the processes, terms and conditions of raising money altered drastically?

We’ve been looking for a company who’s in the process of trying to raise funds, that would be willing to talk to us about the capital raising process: what are the issues faced?

Do let me know if you might have any suggestions for who’d be willing to speak to us– all confidential details of course, WILL be avoided!

If you want to take it up or find out more. Please drop a mail to : Isha DOT Dalal AT network18online DOT com.

At the young turks tutorial – CNBC TV18

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Yesterday I was at the sets of the first episode of the new show on CNBC TV18 Young turks tutorial. It was shot at in the Royal ballroom at The Leela, Bangalore. The show brings young turks and power turks on a common platform, where the Power Turks share there experience with the young guns. The format is completely interactive, all of it is questions and anwers, which is really good.

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The host of the show was Shereen Bhan and power turk for the show was Nandan nilekani , he was very good with his answers which were both candid and insightful. He stayed around after the show to talk to people, I chatted him for a little bit as well.

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One dampener for me was that the crowd was slightly different than what I expected, I was expecting more “real startup” crowd, you know young guys and girls dressed casually, high energy entrepreneurs. In reality the startup crowd was in minority (I met folks from chakpak, picsquare and storzz) and majority people were from fairly set and matured businesses, well dressed in formals and stuff.
Show started slightly late, but went on well, people asked a lot of good questions and answers were equally good. There was a jazz band along with drinks and dinner after the show. The drinks session was supposed to help people network, but for some reason I saw people sticking in groups of already known people and not really looking to meet/know new people, which was kind of sad. I only managed to catch with about 3 new people, where normally in a event like this one could easily meet 10-15 new people.

I have a few suggestions for the CNBC team (assuming that show is actually to help out entrepreneurs and startups)

  • Ensure equal participation from young startups from upcoming fields like mobile, web 2.0, social networking etc
  • Get people to ask questions which are more and more relevant to companies in the younger days (when they need the most help)
  • Encourage people to mingle with new and unknown people

Overall the concept is very good and will be very interesting to see it unfold over next few months…