VC Investment in India jumps 120% in Q2 2008: Bubble in making?

Advertising startups rule the VC world and ~37% of VC investment has gone in these startups.

Few interesting stats:

• India attracted $238 million in venture investment with 17 deals closed in the second quarter, a 120% increase over the $108 million invested in 12 deals during the same period in 2007.
• 7 second-round deals completed in the second quarter – total of $161 million.
• 10 seed and first round deals were also completed during the quarter, accounting for nearly $77 million in investment
• No later-stage deals were completed.

Sectoral split

• Business & Financial Services industry, which includes the advertising/marketing sector, received the bulk of investment with $131 million invested in nine deals, records on both accounts.
• Second in terms of investment was India’s Information Technology (IT) industry, which recorded three deals and $33 million worth of investment during the second quarter, a 55% decline from the $73 million invested in nine deals during the same period last year.[source]

Toastmaster’s for Startups…

I believe all startups in this world have the basic need of marketing guys in their teams for them to get business. Either you hire these guys/ girls Or you market yourself. But, startups are generally on bootstrapped budegts themselves so the first option gooes out of the window right away. So, the left out option of marketing your startups is a difficult ones as not all in this world is born with public speaking skills.

As anybody else around the world, same is the story with me. Thus, in order to become an effective speaker, I joined Toastmaster’s club. Its a beautiful platform where anyone and everyone can come and learn to be an effective speaker. I am member of South Delhi Toastmasters Club. Visit our club once and I assure your that you won’t regret it. Toastmasters currently has more than 200,000 members in 80 countries. Our club is just one of the more than 10,000 clubs located around the world.

Today we celebrated 100th. meeting of this club with families of the club members and guests. It was a wonderful evening. I have seen mostly who ever comes there atleast once or twice definitely jons the club soon.

We have meetings every Thursday evening for about 120 minutes each. Each meeting is divided into sections in which some people give prepared speeches, there is an impromptu section, jokes session, evaluation section etc. Here everybody comes for self development and thus the whole environment is very supportive.

In the end, I would say…any and all startups should have aleast one member of their members in some toastmasters club. In Delhi-NCR alone there are close to 5-7 clubs. You can join any and start benefiting from day one.