印度蓄势引爆创业潮

    91springboard于2013年1月开业，目前已有38家公司入住，出租率为50%。这家公司提供五种套餐，最低的为每天500印度卢比（约49.4元人民币），提供10小时办公时间；最高的为每月9999印度卢比（约1235.4元人民币），可住宿，办公时间不限，而且有专人提供前台服务。

    赞丹•古普塔是入住91 springboard的创业者之一，他说自己花了几个月时间来找办公场地。他看过的地方不是会停电，就是漏水，市政当局甚至宣布其中一座大楼为危房，而另一个地方还兼做宠物店。古普塔编写了一个屏蔽垃圾信息的手机应用程序，他说：“这个地方对我来说很有价值。”

    查瓦拉指出，要想盈利，91sprinboard的出租率至少要达到80%，但他们很乐观。他们已经在考虑把业务发展到另外两个地方，同时还计划设立一笔初期投资基金。他说，和2007年开办专项咨询公司时不同的是，现在每个月都会有几家初创型公司前来询价，而且情况一直如此。查瓦拉问到：“靠直接和间接外商投资，印度的GDP还能增长多久呢？我们得在内部实现发展。”

    星期天的这次活动以喝酒比赛开场，组织活动的公司名叫Nurture Talent。阿米特•格罗弗是这家公司的创始人之一。他说，今年他们将为2.5万人举办300场活动，所有活动的目的都是帮助参与者创业。这些举措表明，印度的创业者网络正日渐成熟。

    潘卡吉•杰恩在起步期投资公司500 Startups负责审查印度的初创型企业。他说：“曾在美国科技领域打拼并创业的人来到了印度，这为印度生态系统的发展提供了帮助。”杰恩就是这些跨国流动人员中最显眼的一位——他2010年来到印度，参与创建了Startup Weekend。这是一家专门组织创业者活动的机构，目的是让他们在54个小时内组建起公司。

    联合组织人亚汀•萨库尔称，Startup Weekend在三年时间里举办了超过16场活动，“业务重点正在向较小的城市转移。”这个机构正计划为女性创业者举办一次活动。在印度，创业界仍由男性主导。在Nurture Talent举办的这次活动中，95%以上的参与者都是男性。的确，获得成功的印度初创型企业大多集中在网络领域，而且男性在印度工程行业占据着主导地位。印度理工学院（Indian Institutes of Technology）是印度的国家级工程学府，竞争力很强。在这里，入学新生中女性的比重不足10%。

钱、钱、钱

    印度上午创业者面临的最大挑战是筹集资金，这个问题的严重性甚至有可能超过基础设施。就风险投资资金而言，印度远远落后于硅谷。Nasscom提供的数据显示，2012年，美国成立了大约1.5万家由机构出资的初创型科技企业，以色列成立了约800家，而印度只成立了区区150家。

    人们正在设法把创业者、资金和资源联系在一起。Nasscom最近启动了一个名为10000 Start-ups的项目，目标是今后10年在国内设立1万家由机构出资的初创公司。首轮申请在4月初到5月末之间进行。近4千家初创型企业提交了申请，申请内容或为天使资金，或为孵化器中的一个位置，或二者兼而有之。申请企业中约70名在新德里工作的创业者应邀到91 springboard参加了和投资者的见面活动。

    据Nasscom介绍，印度的天使投资生态系统相当有活力——其中有大约1千名投资者。除了高净值个人，两大天使投资组织——Indian Angel Network和Mumbai Angels拥有数百名成员。行业网站YourStory.in提供的数据显示，2013年第二季度，印度出现了70笔风险投资和天使投资，价值估计为2.70亿美元（16.68亿元人民币）。其中，有30笔投资属于种子期投资。

    91springboard opened in January 2013 and is now at 50% occupancy with 38 tenant companies. It offers five different packages, ranging from a day package that costs Rs. 500 (~$8) for 10 hours of desk time to a resident package that costs Rs. 9,999 (~$200) per month for unlimited desk time and the services of a "live receptionist."

    Chandan Gupta, an entrepreneur who rents space at 91, says he looked for a coworking space for months. Spaces he tried to rent had issues with power outages and water logging; city authorities had even condemned one building. Another served as a part-time pet store. "I get value out of this space," says Gupta, who has created a mobile phone app that blocks spam.

    Chawla says 91sprinboard will need to reach at least 80% occupancy to make a profit, but they're optimistic. They're already looking to expand to two more spaces and are planning to start an early-stage investment fund. As opposed to 2007, when he started his boutique investment business, Chawla says he now gets several inquires a month from startups. And he sees that trend continuing. "How long will GDP growth rely on FII or FDI?" he asks. "We need to get some internal growth going."

    Sunday's event -- organized by a company called Nurture Talent -- opens with a drinking contest. Amit Grover, one of Nurture Talent's founders, says that this year, they'll organize 300 events for 25,000 participants, all on preparing participants to become entrepreneurs. Such efforts are a sign that India's entrepreneurial networks are maturing.

    "The influx of people who have experience in the tech and startup world in the United States moving to India has helped move the ecosystem forward," says Pankaj Jain, who vets Indian startups for the early stage investment firm 500 Startups. Jain is one of the most visible of these transplants -- he came to India in 2010 to help launch Startup Weekend, an event franchise that brings would-be entrepreneurs together to create a business in 54 hours.

    Over the course of three years, Startup Weekend has held more than 16 events, says co-organizer Yatin Thakur. "The focus is shifting towards smaller cities," Thakur says. In addition to events in smaller towns, Startup Weekend is looking at an event for women entrepreneurs. In India, entrepreneurship remains male-dominated. At the Nurture Talent event, more than 95% of the crowd was male. Indeed, most of India's startup success stories are online businesses, and men dominate the engineering world in India. At the Indian Institutes of Technology, India's highly competitive state engineering school, less than 10% of the entering class is female.

Money, money, money

    Perhaps even more than infrastructure, the biggest challenge for entrepreneurs in India is scoring funding. When it comes to venture capital funding, India lags far behind Silicon Valley. According to Nasscom, the U.S. produced around 15,000 institutionally funded tech startups in 2012, Israel produced about 800, and India produced a paltry 150.

    There are efforts underway to connect entrepreneurs with funding and resources. Nasscom recently launched a project called 10,000 Start-ups, with the goal of producing 10,000 institutionally funded startups in India over the next 10 years. The first round of applications ran from early April through the end of May. Nearly 4,000 startups applied either for angel funding, a spot in an incubator, or both. Out of these applications, about 70 entrepreneurs based in Delhi were invited for a meet-and-greet event with investors at 91springboard.

    India has a fairly robust angel investment ecosystem -- about a thousand investors, according to Nasscom. In addition to high net worth individuals, two prominent angel networks, the Indian Angel Network and Mumbai Angels, have several hundred members between them. In the second quarter of 2013, according to industry site YourStory.in, there were 70 venture capital and angel deals worth an estimated $270 million in India. Out of these, 30 deals were at the seed stage..