Loading ...Interesting concept here - www.growvc.com - entrepreneurs can now raise money from the community, kiva style. And they can invest their money into other startups to diversify their risk. With some strong on-ground facilitation (and an incentive model for the same) this can work…
Thoughts?
Thank you for all comments. I’m Grow VC’s cofounder, and I can tell, India is one of the key markets for us. We have cooperation there, e.g. one of our advisors. I also would like to emphasize that our model is very new, and different from angel networks. We are totally global and it is transparent model for both directions, to investors and startups. Startups must also have opportunity to search and compare investors globally. And we all know that new solutions for seed funding are really needed. You can start investments with USD20 that has important value, when people can also practice startup investments with small money.
Our plan is also to “open” our platform, so that local or some niche communities can also start to run their own funding network on our platform. Members can belong to a local community, and then also upgrade to the global one if they want. If you interested in this option, please contact us.
I also plan to visit India in near future and hopefully meet a lot of entrepreneur and investor communities. This is something we must do together, to get this startup funding work better!
Rehan - I believe the meeting aspect is there but outside the scope of the site.
Spandana…Kiva is the model for loans..
I’m not sure how it’ll do, does one fund startups without meeting the team?
A similar model is run by Helyos Partners (http://www.helyospartners.com/ ) in Europe. They have offices in Geneva, Madrid and Luxembourg and they work closely with European centers of innovation, like Lausanne based EPFL. They started as a regular set of Business Angels and evolved into exactly the above mentioned structure by late 2008. It may be interesting to talk to them to understand their experiences, and to explore cooperation opportunities. Anyone interested in talking to them can get in touch with one of the three founding Partners - Emmanuel Fournier, or can contact me for personal introduction with him.
It remains to be seen how this will evolve…Looks like they have to do a lot of number crunching to arrive at how the returns will be split if and when the returns do come out positively….
Implementation needed in India…who will bell the cat?
That is a very good idea - except I’d prefer the money raised to be a loan versus stake as there will be a lot of them.On the other hand, isn’t this like issuing stocks of your company.All in all, a great idea
Interesting concept,
This sounds like it may help many little startups however I feel the preperation startups go through when seeking funding in the traditional methods from Angel investors or VCs is very benificial in itself. Creating a proper business plan and exploring your companies focus and goals should not be over looked.