Tag Archives: canaan

Resource for VC funding seekers: Entrepreneur Pitchbook from Canaan Partners

Just thought of sharing this excellent resource for the benefit of all startups that are raising venture funding. This is from Canaan Partners and they have created a kind of a workbook (called a pitchbook) that startups could use for getting their pitch decks in shape. Its almost like a fill-in-the-blanks exercise that everyone understands so well.

The pitchbook lends a structured approach to thinking about funding and how to build up your case for convincing those guys across the table. Different VCs may have different suggested formats, or outlooks they care for… nevertheless once you have been able to marshal your own thoughts, modifying the pitch to suit individual investors may not be far off.

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While on the issue of pitching for VC, I can’t help but bring up Guy Kawasaki’s classic “The Art of Pitching“. This deals with the actual communication style that one should adopt to appear convincing to potential investors (its not focused on the content of the pitch, rather the manner in which it should be delivered). He may not be off target… every idea needs to be sold… and there are numerous examples of good ideas failing to take off because they were not packaged smartly (either to investors or to customers)… take a look below and decide for yourself.

The Art of the Pitching

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TiE Canaan Entrepreneurship Challenge 2008 – The winners are Druvaa, Equitas & iKen

The results of the TiE Canaan Entrepreneurship Challenge 2008 are out and the top awards have gone to Druvaa, Equitas & iKen (there is no specific gradation in the prizes). The finals for the business plan competition were held today at New Delhi and the awards were announced at an entrepreneurship / startup gathering in the evening. Congrats to the winners. Iken has also been awarded the Microsoft award and a direct entry into the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program.

Some snaps from the event ….

Quick note about the three winners :

Druvaa is a 10 member startup based out of Pune and is in the data protection and backup storage space.
iKen Solutions is a software company specializing in intelligent business systems backed by hybrid AI (Artificial Intelligence) techniques. It is an IIT Bombay research spin-off.
Equitas is a Chennai based microfinance orgainisation for extending micro credit to people who are otherwise unable to access finance from the mainstream banking channels.

The jury for the competition comprised well know entrepreneurs & startup mentors – Raman Roy of Quattro, Pramod Bhasin of Genpact, Saurabh Srivastava of TiE, Mahesh Murthy of Pinstrorm/Seedfund, Sanjeev Bikhchandani of Naukri.com & Alok Mittal of Canaan Partners.

The award ceremony was preceeded by an open house discussion on entrepreneurship challenges in India. This was led by Shireen Bhan, CNBC India’s leading business news reporter.