Sporting spirit! When top bosses of 18 VC firms came together for a game of badminton

Investors seem to be taking a cue from the fun and informal culture of the startups they invest in. Bertlesmann India Investment, the venture capital arm of media conglomerate Bertlesmann, recently organised a Badminton League for the VC community in New Delhi. About 18 venture funds participated in the competition and Sequoia Capital's Bharat Singh and R Narayanan won the doubles tournament, beating JP Morgan Venture Capital's Sarbvir Singh and Avendus Capital's Aashish Bhinde.

Talking about the idea, Pankaj Makkar, MD, Bertelsmann India Investments, said, "People in the community not only compete with each other, but also collaborate for a lot of deals. To raise a toast to the spirit of collaboration in an interesting way, we thought why not get the VCs together to sweat it out?"

Makkar, who usually plays squash, added, "One of the venture capitalists made a good point that in this eco system you need very strong IQ and EQ. Events like these help build EQ in the ecosystem."

Tiger Global Management, SAIF Partners, Naspers, Kalaari Capital, Matrix Partners India, Nirvana Ventures and Zodius Capital also participated in the tournament.