Bangalore hackathons now on global calendar

BANGALORE: Pedigree US venture capitalist Sequoia Capital picked Bangalore to host its first ever hackathon a fortnight back. Celebrity start-up chronicler TechCrunch is bringing its hackathon-driven event — a big annual fix in San Francisco, New York and Beijing — to the city next month, as a growing list of India-born, billion-dollar tech babies are firing up global interest.

Hackathons are intense sessions where software programmers collaborate on showcasing their projects and ideas in front of potential investors and media. With more than $1 billion invested in India's emerging companies, Sequoia plans to make the Bangalore hackathon an annual affair. Over 250 teams showed up for the one-day event, beating even most optimistic expectations.

Recently, its American peer and Facebook investor Accel Partners took a new 20,000-sq-ft office in Koramangala — the coders' hub of Bangalore and the original home of Infosys and Flipkart. Accel wants to co-locate some promising tech start-ups under its roof, where the venture capitalist offers hand-on mentoring, readying them for standalone international lives.

With clear leaders emerging in the domestic e-commerce story, venture capitalists are returning to technology investing in a big way. "Any story needs a few big winners and we have sighted them in the last three-four years," says Mohit Bharadwaj, MD, Sequoia Capital. "The sheer number and energy of the local tech entrepreneurs tell us the train has just left the station," he adds.