Older professionals launch ventures to bring in expertise to startup ecosystem

PUNE/BANGALORE: Entrepreneurship is assumed to be a young person's game but that notion is being challenged by older professionals who are launching new ventures, bringing in a blend of experience and technical expertise to India's burgeoning startup ecosystem. Typically aged fifty years or more, they are setting up companies in sectors ranging from alternative energy to technology services and gaining support from investors who feel reassured by the wisdom of grey hair.

"I am only 72 years young and have the passion and the enthusiasm to take this business forward," said Sam Venkatesan, chairman of Vana Vidyut, an alternative energy company that he set up last year. Venkatesan, a former officer in the Indian Air Force, worked with Motorola before co-founding his first venture, Energy Plantation Projects India with Satheesh Gundappa and Murali Anur in 2005. The firm created plantations of fast- growing trees that could be harvested to produce biofuel. Spotting an opportunity to become generators, Venkatesan launched a second company, Vana Vidyut, for which he raised 18 crore from early stage investor Aavishkaar Venture.

The year-old company has signed a power purchase agreement with IT services company Cognizant, for their Chennai campus and will soon set up power plants at Mana Madurai in Tamil Nadu and Arni in Maharashtra's Yavatmal district.

Experts said many senior entrepreneurs are taking advantage of a supportive environment for startups that would not have been available to them earlier. At least 600 new ventures are set up across India every year. And in the last two years around $1.7 billion (Rs 10,000 crore) of venture capital has gone into early stage companies according to consulting firm Ernst & Young. "Many of them were lying low and have now found the right opportunity," said TC Meenakshisundaram, a managing director at IDG Ventures India Advisors.
The early stage fund has invested in online women's apparel company e-Shakti set up by a 55-year old entrepreneur BG Krishnan. "In the last year I have met at least 10 people above 50 who want to be entrepreneurs. Two years ago, I met no such people," said Krishna Tanuku, executive director of the Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship at the ISB.

This is in keeping with trends in mature markets like the US where there are twice as many successful founders over 50 as under 25 according to research by a team at the US-based Singularity University led by Vivek Wadhwa. Strong professional track-records are also a crucial factor in attracting investor support. In 2011, when Ashok Soota, ex-MindTree chairman, launched his second venture Happiest Minds, he raised Rs 250 crore from investors like Canaan Partners and Intel Capital.

Seventy-year-old Soota feels that late-stage entrepreneurs have a stable outlook that draws from varied experience. "We are well aware of what works and what doesn't." He expects his company to reach the $100-million (Rs 600 crore)mark in revenue by 2017. "We plan to go public within seven years."