[ This article has been contributed by Suraj Mandada, our Community Builder from Pune]
Event Details:
Event Coverage:
The discussion revolved around fund raising in today’s environment. The panel was mix of entrepreneurs who have raised funds in the current environment and early stage VC/Angel investor firm Seed Funds from Mumbai.
Entrepreneur panel included Mr. Gagan Goyal, CEO of ThinkLabs TBC, Mr. Vikram Vora, CEO of MyDentist and Mr. Abrar Sheikh, CEO of Squakee TBC. Seed Funds was represented by Mr. Mahesh Murthy. Mr. Shailesh Vikram Singh, Executive Director of Seed Fund, coordinated the discussion.
The discussion went on very well and had a packed house of around 250 enthusiastic audiences. The audience included existing and aspiring entrepreneurs and working professionals from different backgrounds like IT, Healthcare, Architecture, and Mobile Applications.
The discussion covered many insights about do and don’ts about fund raising. Some important issues discussed were:
> Understanding from investors on the role of sector/opportunity/team.
> How should an entrepreneurs approach investors.
> Is the market risk averse, too little money for too many deals, too much money but lack of quality deals.
> The role of various macro factors like regulation, politics etc. E) Where and what do you expect going forward.
Entrepreneurs on the panel shared their views which were quite diverse and meaningful in the sense that they contradicted lot of myths about the process of fund raising and about the investors. Audience participated positively in the discussion by throwing many questions to the panel.
Most interesting thing of the discussion was that all of panelists were from Mumbai and not from Pune. It was later explained that one of the purpose of event was to strengthen the association between TiE Pune chapter and investor community of Mumbai.
Welcome address was given by Mr. Santosh Abraham, TiE Pune member and Vote of Thanks was given by Mr. Vishwas Mahajan , TiE Pune President and Lead Volunteer.
