Taslima.Khan@timesgroup.com New Delhi: Inflated valuations, precarious business models and high cash burn rates of domestic startups may have put off several investors, but none of that seems to have diminished the global interest in emerging businesses here. A fresh breed of investors from Ja- pan, Russia, China, the United Sta- tes and European countries has be- en holding discussions with ventu- re funds operating in the country on co-investing in domestic busi- nesses. This could potentially ex- pand the investment landscape for startups at a time when funds are drying from existing big investors such as New York-based hedge fund Tiger Global Management and Ja- pan’s SoftBank. Among the newly interested in- vestors are venture funds, private equity funds and fund-of-funds that are scouting for mid to late-stage de- als, including in non-technology ventures, according to several in- vestment bankers and venture fund executives involved in or aware of these discussions. “There are some well-known, mar- quee and well-respected funds from the US and China who have come to India and have done India road shows, met 10-15 startups and have gone back after having met most of the large (venture capital) funds and some conversations are live out of that,” said Nitin Bhatia, mana- ging director at investment bank Signal Hill Capital. “One or two of them may announce a couple of lar- ge deals in the next few weeks.” The bankers and venture fund ex- ecutives ET spoke with declined to disclose the names of these inves- tors citing confidentiality agree- ments. Deepak Gaur, managing director at SAIF Partners, said the potential new investors are a “more diversifi- ed group” seeking to invest in late- stage companies and not necessari- ly in technology startups. “Some of these investors are talking to our portfolio companies,” he said. Vikram Gupta, managing partner at IvyCap Ventures, too, said a few of the investment firm’s portfolio companies were generating a lot of interest from international inves- tors willing to sign large cheques. “We are seeing interest from inves- tors in Japan, some European co- untries, Russia and China,” said Gupta, who was recently in China where he met about 50 investors at a business conference. That said, the new investors are highly cautious and are taking much longer for dili- gence cycles. They are also likely to be very conservative about valua- tions, said existing investors aware of the discussions. “Many of these investors will lean on the experience of venture funds on the ground here. They are certa- inly not willing to take huge leaps of faith on unit economics getting sorted out sometime in the future,” said Ashish Bhinde, head, digital and technology, at Avendus Capital. “A good six-seven funds will likely write their first cheques (in India) in this calendar year. They will start off with $5-7 million co-invest- ment deals with other venture funds and when they get more com- fortable, they would be open to lea- ding the (funding) rounds,” he said. Recently, data protection startup Druva raised money from Japan’s NTT Finance as a strategic invest- ment and Japanese payment gate- way GMO led a funding round in mobile payments company Mobik- wik. Also, Japanese venture capital firm GREE Ventures, which is rai- sing a new $37-million fund, has added India to its list of prime markets. Chinese investors, too, are signa- ling interest in Indian startups. At an event held in Bengaluru early May, about 15 Chinese firms inclu- ding Pickup Wheat (Shimai) Finan- ce, Harmony Invest, Grand (Dagu- an) Capital, Incapital, and Zhejiaug WenChuang evaluated pitches from domestic startups. J.Vignesh@timesgroup.com Bengaluru: The tinkering spaces, commonly referred to as makerspa- ces, came about to be a place where hobbyists and serious professio- nals, alike, could make or break stuff. But, over a period of time, they are not just a place to hold me- et-ups and workshops, they have ex- tended their role to do more for the startup community. “Work is evolving the makerspace and the makerspace is evolving the kind of work. Makerspace becomes a huge playground for startups be- cause all things here are affordable, entry barriers for research is mini- mised, space is provided for their exploration and different things. Startups find each other helpful. The space enables interactions by its very own nature,” said Pavan Ku- mar, CEO, Workbench Projects. These spaces, thanks to the net- work and community that they ha- ve built, give access to startups to find the right team members. “We have moved from being a tin- kerspace to becoming a community space where people are now calling Cos Get to Play and Build in this Makerspace Game, Set, Play Shashwati.Shankar @timesgroup.com Bengaluru: Nazara Games has entered into a revenue-sharing agreement with Stick Sports, a London- and Sydney-based on- line and mobile game developer to create a cricket game featu- ring Indian batsmen Virat Koh- li and Rohit Sharma. Nazara Games has an exclusi- ve mobile gaming deal with Cornerstone Sport, the agency which has the digital and ga- ming rights for the Indian cricketers. The game, that will be launched in September or October in both emerging and developed markets, will use an artificial intelligence-based sy- stem to help players acquire certain skills including styles of bowling, batting in different degrees of difficulty. “The task and challenges insi- de the game allows you to play as either Rohit or Virat, you can update these skill sets as you go along,” said Paul Collins, CEO of Stick Sports. According to Manish Agrawal, CEO of Naza- ra Games, the single player ga- me will see a high level of trac- tion from international cricket frenzy markets like Australia and the UK. “The agreement will focus on Stick Sports pay- ing us for publishing the game in emerging markets and we making a payment to them for publishing the game in develo- ped markets,” Agrawal said. Nazara, Stick Sports to Play Cricket with Kohli, Rohit Sharma Nazara enters into a revenue-sharing agreement with Stick Sports Virat Kohli. — AFP Shashwati.Shankar @timesgroup.com Bengaluru: Gaming compani- es Nazara Games, Play Games 24/7, Reliance Games, Ga- mes2Win and several others launched cricket-centric ga- mes during the IPL season; the gaming companies are increa- singly looking at live sports as an avenue for launching games, with football being the next ga- me in mind. Nazara Games’ Cricbet, a real time cricket virtual betting platform, saw a fairly high level of traction with up to 15,000 ac- tive users after 1,00,000 downlo- ads. “In terms of retention, aro- und 60% of users came back to place bets for the second match, and up to 30% of users came back for the 15th match, this re- al time virtual betting platform has the potential to be integra- ted into various sports,” said Manish Agarwal, CEO of Naza- ra Games. An individual user placed up to 38 bets during a single match, and approximate- ly 1.5% of users converted from a free user to a paid user while playing Cricbet. The company is now eyeing football as the next live game to introduce vir- tual real time betting for mobile gamers who are football fans; they will reintroduce the game during the football English Pre- miere League. Play Games 24/7 also laun- ched a virtual real time cricket betting platform during IPL. However, the company refused to comment on the traction se- en, but aims to introduce the re- al time betting platform into other live games, including fo- otball, basketball, amongst other live sports. Besides the virtual real time cricket betting platforms, other gaming companies including Reliance Games, Games2win, Moonfrog Labs, all launched cricket-centric games during the IPL. “The IPL cricket game that we launched resulted in more than . `5 crore of game play till date, end users spent an av- erage of 7 minutes on each ga- ming session every day, we even saw a high number of game in- stalls from other cricket-crazy countries like Australia, South Africa, Bangladesh and even Pakistan,” said Amit Khandu- ja, CEO of Reliance Games. After studying user behaviour during the IPL season, Reliance Games plans to increasingly lo- ok at live sports as an avenue for mobile gaming. Most of the ga- ming companies claimed that a large amount of their user base for the IPL games was urban male mobile gamers. After IPL, Gaming Startups Want to Play Ball Here Firms look at live sports as an avenue for launching games Games Begin Cos that launched cricket- centric games during IPL - Nazara Games, Play Games 24/7, Reliance Games, Games2Win 3 Cricket-centric games co launched Games - Gully Cricket, world cricket champion- ship game, and In- dia versus Pakistan Gully Cricket - Saw high levels of traction from women mobile gamers 18% Retention rate India VS Pakistan game saw at the end of two weeks Games2win IN SHORT Short format games focused on live sports is going to be a huge focus area for gaming companies, it’s a large- ly untapped market ALOK KEJRIWAL Founder, Games2win Payal.Ganguly@timesgroup.com Bengaluru: Rainmaker Ventures, which announced a fund of $50 mil- lion for early stage investments in De- cember last year, has made its first in- vestment in Mumbai-based Raftaar Technologies which runs the bus ag- gregation platform, Limo. The com- pany had previously raised a seed ro- und from India Quotient and others in April last year. The current round of $1million will help the firm strengthen operations in Mumbai. The startup founded by Siddharth Sharma, Anshul Khandel- wal and Vivek Choksi runs chartered buses for corporates as well as indivi- duals looking at solution for office commute. Other players focused on the Delhi-NCR market include Shuttl and Zipgo. Started by Sudhir Menon and Atul Hegde, Rainmaker Ventures plans on investing in six firms in the current year. “We are also looking at invest- ments in logistics, financial techno- logy and digital marketing. The qu- antum will be between $500,000 and $3 million. We would go in for additional capital when required,” said Hegde, cofounder, Rainmaker Ventures. Rainmaker Ventures Out in a Limo Firm has made its first investment in Mumbai-based bus aggregation platform Ride So Far $50 million Fund for early stage investments Rainmaker Ventures had announced in Dec last year 6 Cos Rainmaker plans to invest in this year $1 million Amount Raftaar Tech raised in current round Funds will help co strengthen operations in Mumbai ATUL HEGDE Cofounder, Rainmaker Ventures Quantum will be between $500,000 and $3 m. We would go in for additional capital when required Tech Trotter Volvo plans to roll out its first self- driving car in just four years, and the compa- ny claims it’s going to be way more advanced than what other automakers will have to offer. The car won’t require a human to super- vise it. The driver will be able to do another activity while the car does all the driving. — BI Volvo’s Self-driving Car is Coming THOMAS ROWLANDSON, Off Valparaiso LOOK, WHO’S THERE Outside interest could potentially expand the investment landscape for startups at a time when funds are drying up from existing bigwigs They are scouting for mid to late- stage deals, in- cluding in non- tech ventures $5-7 million Co-investment deals with other venture funds they will start off with When they get more comfortable, they would be open to leading the (funding) rounds This calendar year, a good six-seven funds will likely write their first cheques (in India) Some newly interested investors are venture funds, private equity funds and fund-of-funds Investors from Japan, Russia, China, US and EU in talks with venture funds for co-investing in India MAKERSPACE: WHERE THE ACTION IS Makerspace becomes a huge playground for star- tups because all things here are affordable, entry barriers for research is minimised, space is provided for their exploration and different things PAVAN KUMAR CEO, Workbench Projects in with ideas and wondering about two things — one, can we do it for them? And two, can we enable an ecosystem that will help them do it? They want our help in putting peo- ple together from different streams. Most of times, we have these peo- ple,” said Vaibhav Chhabra, foun- der, Maker’s Asylum. Startups are now wanting to use these maker- spaces as the de-facto co-working space than the traditional ones. “Startups are saying that I would rather pay cost and sit here (maker- space) rather than a regular co-wor- king space, because they constantly need access to this type of equip- ment. Real money is coming in terms of serious startups,” said Ni- hal Kashinath, founder of IoTBLR. Makerspaces are also tying up with corporates and other organi- sations to come up with unique events. For, example, ICRC tied up with IoTBLR and Workbench Pro- jects to organise Enable Makeat- hon, that was aimed at coming up with solutions to address disability. Ideas like these help in accelera- ting mere ideas into startups. In- novation is key for these players. “We are in talks with an archi- tecture college in Bengaluru. It will be an architecturally focu- sed space. This will be more academically themed with viable outputs. This will es- tablish a new community for these architects,” said Craig D’mello, cofounder, THE Workshop. The well-known makerspaces are now looking to expand to tier-II and tier-III cities. For comprehensive and insightful stories about all things startups and technology, log on to www.ettech.com Waveform is a graphi- cal representation of variables in the shape of a wave. Generally, a waveform is used for audio signals. Waveform Jargon Buster Funny to see how ppl love to hate the unicorns and yet cannot stop talking about them! I’d say - give them a break! NEHA SINGH @neha_ns Tweet OF THE DAY Quick Byte ANIRBAN BORA 936 million Active mobile connections in India in March 2016, says Trai Panasonic Will Stop Making TV Panels T ech Buzz Panasonic on Tuesday said it will close its un- profitable television screen manufacturing business, leaving Sharp Corp as Japan’s sole TV panel maker. The com- pany will stop produc- ing TV screens at its plant in Himeji, western Japan, by September. The plant, where pro- duction began in 2010, has never logged a profit. — Reuters Scientists have devel- oped an algorithm that uses DNA strands to au- tomatically build 3D nan- oparticles, which may be used in a range of appli- cations such as vaccines, gene editing tools and memory storage. Re- searchers can build com- plex, nanometre-scale structures of almost any shape and form, using strands of DNA. The algo- rithm starts with a sim- ple, 3D geometric repre- sentation of the final shape of the object, and then decides how it should be assembled from DNA, according to Mark Bathe, associate professor at MIT. — PTI Algorithm to Make DNA 3D Nanoparticles GRAPHIC: YOGEESH MH Make Way for Angels from New Shores