Startup Investments: India Vs Silicon Valley

I came across this excellent article by Mohanjit Jolly (Executive Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson India) and wanted to share it with readers.Incidentally, I can relate to what Mohanjit is saying as we have ourselves been talking to number of VCs in India over past few weeks for our startup funding – and every VC meeting has added loads of insights to us from business perspective.The article talks at length about how investing is different in India compared to Silicon Valley and also how entrepreneurs are different in these two parts of the world !

Here is a small snippet from the article:In the US, one takes it for granted that upon incorporation and perhaps a small angel round, one can move into an office and have the basic utilities function 24×7. In India, on the other hand, if one is able to raise some initial funding, moving into a facility is a non trivial task, not to mention the infrastructure issues. Whether it’s dealing with landlords who change the terms of the contract after the contract is signed, to greasing the palms all along the way to get everything from network connectivity to electricity, getting a business up and running is tougher in India than in the US.

How very true !