'The next Google may be from India'

'The next Google may be from India'


Naren Gupta is not new to Indian start-ups. His association with them began way back in 1995 when Draper International, an early stage US venture firm, started building a portfolio in India.
"My association with Bill Draper had me playing an advisory role to Draper International," says Gupta, reminiscing on those 20 investments of a cumulative $40 million that Draper International made in India between 1995 and 2000. The most well-known among them was its fund infusion into Rediff.

But that was then. Today, Gupta is a partner at Nexus India Capital, a venture fund started by him, Sandeep Singhal (ex-eVentures) and Suvir Sujan (ex-Baazee) earlier this year.


"This is my most active involvement with Indian companies," says this Melnopark, California-based managing director of the fund. So what got him to raise a $100 million fund for Indian start-ups? "About 3-4 years ago, I saw a dramatic change taking place in the kind of entrepreneurs coming up in India. They started coming out with break-out ideas that went far beyond call centres and outsourced services. I believe that the success of companies such as Infosys changed mindsets, and made entrepreneurs aware of what could potentially be done out of India," says Gupta.

While Singhal and Sujan are on the ground for Nexus, Gupta flies in once about every two months. "I believe that the next Google, Skype or eBay can come out of India. I don't know when or in what area, but isn't that the beauty of my job?" he says. That should explain his enthusiasm to fund Indian companies, and a list of 10 companies he is eager to meet before he returns to base in California on Tuesday.

His investments so far, in seven companies, have spanned mapping, mobile value added services, voice SMSing, web meeting software and internet infrastructure. He is bullish on such differentiated services which can create intellectual property. For example, CE Infosystems, the mapping company which got Rs 10 crore in funding from Nexus India Capital, provides maps through the internet and mobile, and also sells navigation devices for cars.

Like many others, Gupta is also gung-ho about clean technology.

Unlike most, though, he is also realistic about venture capital in India. "With so many VCs operating, only the smart ones will make money. The returns spectrum will be fairly large, and who knows, the average returns of all VCs in India could turn out to be negative," he says.
Like his partner Sujan, who co-founded Baazee.com, Gupta has also had his brush with entrepreneurship. He is credited with founding embedded software company Integrated Systems in 1980 in the US, taking it public 10 years later, seeing it through its merger with WindRiver Systems in 2000, and serving till date on the new entity's board.

So what's the general feed about India from Silicon Valley-based VCs?
"Those who are knowledgeable about India are very gung-ho. But then again, there are others who think that the skills required to operate in India are entirely different, and they would rather operate, let's say, in China," he said.

But for those like Gupta, who are already in the thick of action here, choc-a-bloc schedules are there for any interviewer to see: before any further questions could be asked, Gupta was pulled into another meeting, this time with a certain Jake - definitely not an Indian entrepreneur, but may be an important nexus to some source of funds.


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