Keeping Track of the Indian Scene
Posted on October 16, 2006
Filed Under Companies |
Webyantra has this to say about current VC attitudes in India.
“My sense is that VCs (in general) are not too happy with the available investment climate in India (specially amongst the smaller startups). Its almost as if, there is ‘just too much VC money,chasing too few good investment opportunities‘.”
Yes, before you can shout: “send the money over here”, he casts doubt on that claim and points to proto - a conference for start-ups due in January next year. Seems the VCs just don’t know enough of what’s going on.
Dina has a five part series on Indian web 2.0s and I was struck by the number of social networking sites going up. But then with a population topping a billion five is not many.
I was struck also by how comprehensive some of the information websites are trying to be. Look at the US and you get a website reviewing restaurants in New York (actually there are probably half a dozen of them). In India Ilaaka tries to be this and much more (more cities, more info).
Ilaaka is a bit like backfence - recruiting citizen reporters to develop information about the towns in its chosen remit. But it also covers classifieds, coffee clubs, and forums, for me an odd mix but that’s cultural difference for you.
Hooeey is another interesting site. Says Dina: “Hooeey in simple words helps your create, share, tag, search and store your browser history online and access it anytime from anywhere through your account in hooeey.”
I could go on but best that you visit Dina’s site.
I guess one impetus for much Indian Web 2.0 activity is to get the profile and wait to be bought out by a global company seeking quick and ready access to the Indian market. Is that how we think too? Well with a population of 4.5 million we’re likely to be absorbed into the global superstructure a lot earlier in the game.
That might be why Indian Web 2.0 seems a little lacking in originality but then again this area has always been about duplication (is that why it’s called Web 2.0?)
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Hi Haydn just thought i should correct you. WATblog isn’t dina’s blog though she was kind enough to quote WATblog. WATblog is owned by Rajiv Dingra (thats me!) a budding entrepreneur from India who is the founder of Jobs4Freshers.com a freshers job site in India. But thanks so much for linking to WATblog.com and im glad you liked our effort at listing india 2.0 sites