VCCircle

Probably for lack of interesting startups in the country, VC funds are these days conceiving business plans themselves and looking for managers to run the ventures. IDG Ventures India is seeking a top-end software executive as CEO for a startup it has conceived and funded in the managed security services space. Sudhir Sethi, Managing Partner of IDG Ventures India, has put out a post on his LinkedIn account for the same. Techgigger has more details.

Hat tip to VC Circle reader Pukhraj Singh. He writes in: "It's a services-based company. This could be really interesting as only a few big outsourcing players had ventured into managed security services space, but due to the confidentiality and legal issues surrounding this industry, things didn't work out well. Outsourcing security has been under a constant debate and is considered to be lagging behind the mainstream security market by 3-4 years. Would be interesting to see how they work all this out and cap on the opportunity."

By the way, the job details are here:

--Build leadership position in a global service niche play for managed security services

--Achieve revenue of $100 million in 6 years with a PAT of 20%

--Build ecosystem for innovators, application developers, and developer community and solution providers

--CEO will report to board

--Interact extensively with the board in ascertaining and in many ways evolving the business plans

--An engineer-MBA from a reputed institute would be the education background

--Attractive compensation plus significant options

--Location: Bangalore

--Targeted joining date is Oct 2007

Apply here.

Here is another high level exit from ICICI Securities, once used to be India's leading investment bank. J Niranjan, the head of investment banking, has left ICICI Sec to join CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets as a Managing Director and Co-Head of investment banking. He will be based in Mumbai. Niranjan's exit is significant for ICICI Sec since he has spent last 17 years at the firm.

ICICI Sec had recently lost two senior executives - Mehul Savla, head of equity capital markets, and Amrish Baliga, head of private equity, joined JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank, respectively. Another key functionary Anuj Bhargava, the head of the business restructuring advisory group, had also moved out to parent ICICI Bank.

The exodus at ICICI Sec could be part of the recast the firm had gone through recently. In April this year, the Corporate Products and Investment Banking Group of ICICI Bank was renamed as the Global Investment Banking Group (GIBG). And the investment banking business of ICICI Securities was shifted to GIBG, while i-Sec was left with only equity markets and research.

Related:

ICICI Bank Recasts Investment Banking Biz; ICICI Securities Left With Equity Markets And Research

Churn At ICICI Securities

ICICI Bank To Compete With ICICI Securities For Investment Banking Mandates?

It seems Sequoia Capital India is backing George Zacharias, former Managing Director of Yahoo India, for a remote infrastructure management startup. This bit of news is however yet to confirmed by either Sequoia or Zacharias. VC Circle has emailed KP Balaraj, Managing Director of Sequoia in India, to confirm the news.

Zacharias himself has told Agencyfaqs that he is planning an IT startup, and nothing in consumer internet space. He is being quoted by the portal as saying: “The time is right to do one’s own thing. We (the founding group) are in the process of incorporating a company in the IT space.” The new venture would be unveiled in a few weeks, and it will be a technology company, the portal reported. Sources said that a few of his ex-colleagues at Yahoo India and Sify too are expected to join him.

Meanwhile, a commenter on this site also notes that Zacharias is backed by Sequoia, and it's not a consumer internet startup.

Sequoia has done a similar thing earlier too - picking the entrepreneur first and then back his venture whatever it's. They backed Naresh Ponnapa, a former top honcho of Hindustan Lever, even before the business plan for Indecomm Global Services was written. Now the Bangalore-based company employs about 1,400 people in business process services area such as office automation and so on.

Remote infrastructure management seems to be a good opportunity - considered a $70 billion opportunity, and there is still scope for more startups in that area. Only yesterday, Wipro announced the acquisition of an IT infrastructure management company Infocrossing for $600 million. In India, there are several companies like HCL Technologies (through HCL ISD) and Microland present in this area.

In a significant development, George Zacharias has quit as the MD of Yahoo India, an official release from the company said. Zacharias is "moving on to pursue his own entrepreneurial interests". Keith Nilsson, VP – International Emerging Markets, based out of Singapore, will step in to head Yahoo India (Editor: Probably as a temporary measure). Zacharias will be with Yahoo for the next 4-6 weeks to ensure a smooth transition.

During Zacharias' time, Yahoo India was active in investing in Indian internet companies with two deals in one year. In 2006, Yahoo India, along with Canaan Partners, invested $8.6 million in BharatMatrimony Group, a consumer internet company with six websites under its belt. It also recently picked up 35 per cent stake in online advertising network Tyroo.

Zacharias joined Yahoo in January 2006 as MD. Prior to this, he was the chief operating officer of Sify Ltd, a position he occupied from March 2000. He was one of the old economy executives who made it big in the online space. Prior to Sify - from 1997 to 2000 - Zacharias was the President of Madura Garments, an apparel company. He has also served in Madura Coats, and Coats Tootal Lanks, a subsidiary of Coats Viyella Plc., in senior capacities. He received a B. Tech from Nagpur University in 1980 and a PGDBM from XLRI, Jamshedpur, in 1982.

It remains to be seen what Zacharias is pursuing. Since he has spent seven years in the online space, it's likely Zacharias will launch something in the digital arena. And it has to be VC-backed too. Any one knows?

Foreign fund houses are losing talent to Indian funds. JM Financial, although it recently lost a few top executives to its erstwhile partner Morgan Stanley, has snagged four senior JP Morgan staff to ramp up its institutional trading business. It has brought in Sameer Lumba, head of equity sales and Rohit Shah, VP and head of sales, trading, besides two others Rajiv Gala and Manish Dabir from JP Morgan, according to The Economic Times. It had also recently hired Ashith Kampani, formerly with Morgan Stanley, as MD of JM Financial Consultants.

The mother of all top level exits was when CLSA India lost four of its top traders to Indian broking firm India Infoline to set up the latter's institutional trading business. In May, Bharat Parajia, head of sales CLSA Singapore, H Nemkumar, country head CLSA India, Vasudev Jagannath, head of sales CLSA India and Aniruddha Dange, head of research, CLSA India, joined Nirmal Jain's outfit. They were offered huge sign-on bonuses too - nine million shares at Rs 440, while the India Infoline is currently trading at Rs 770 (baring today's 6 per cent collapse). The latest we heard is that India Infoline is now hiring people from UBS, another multinational broking house.

Similarly, Barclays Capital lost Peeyoosh Chaddha who moved to Edelweiss Capital as the co-head of AMC business in March this year. There is more to this trend, and it's likely we will see such movements more often. Headhunters attribute the trend to the entrepreneurial culture at Indian fund houses plus huge sign-on bonuses are also being dished out. Says Saket Jain, Partner of financial talent management company VitoIndia, "Fund managers are now looking at more entrepreneurial roles."

There is a huge demand for talent too that managers are jumping ship more often than before. Early this year, JM had sold its institutional broking business to its then partner Morgan Stanley for $445 million, while it retained the investment banking business. Bereft of a broking division, JM recently entered into a joint venture with Asit Kotecha's ASK Securities by picking up a 60 per cent stake for Rs 58.14 crore. And JM is looking to ramp up the staff in a big way.

JP Morgan, which was earlier in talks to acquire Enam Financial, is also not sitting idle. The firm recently hired 15 people to take its total staff to 35 in India. It beefed up its research division by hiring Shilp Krishnan from Kotak Mahindra, and Pradeep Mirchandani from Citi. For the time being, hiring is happening across Indian and foreign funds.

[Clarification: The earlier post erroneously reported that Pradeep Tagare is the fund manager of the $250-million India fund of Intel Capital. Sudheer Kuppam, the Managing Director of Intel Capital in India, Japan and Australasia, is indeed the fund manager of the $250-million fund. Tagare is part of six investment managers (2 in Bangalore and 4 in Mumbai). The error is regretted.)

Intel Capital, the venture capital arm of chip-maker Intel Corp, has appointed Pradeep M Tagare as a Director in its Mumbai office. He will be one of the six investment managers managing the $250 million India fund. He moved to Mumbai from Santa Clara, US, where he was a senior investment manager for Intel Capital. He joined Intel in 2003, and prior to that was with Xdrive Technologies Inc and Yopa.com.

I bumped into Tagare yesterday at CII's Cleantech Forum in Delhi. He said Intel Capital is going to invest in technology sectors in a broad sense, and they will follow a stage-agnostic approach - starting from seed to private equity (even private investment in public enterprises or PIPE) (see a VentureWood post of Tagare). That's a significant shift in strategy for Intel Capital since it has earlier adopted a "venture" focus. It currently has an active investment portfolio of 20 companies in India.

Earlier, Intel Capital appointed Sudheer Kuppam as Managing Director for India, Japan, Australasia and South-East Asia. Kuppam replaced Kumar Shiralagi, who left Intel Capital to join as MD of NEA IndoUS Vetures. Kuppam, based out of Bangalore, is responsible for Intel Capital investments in India, Japan, ANZ and SE Asia.

Related:

Sudheer Kuppam Appointed Managing Director Of Intel Capital In India, Asia Pac

It seems Bharat Parajia has an iconic status in the Indian institutional trading business. Former head of sales at CLSA Singapore moved to India Infoline in May, and that moved the Mumbai broking firm's stock price by some 60-70 per cent up over the last three months.

Parajia and three of his colleagues in India were hired by Nirmal Jain's India Infoline to set up the latter's institutional trading business. They were offered nine million shares of preferential equity warrants at Rs 440 as joining bonuses. Parajia alone got shares worth 2.5 million shares.

Parajia's claim to fame is that he single-handedly built the institutional trading business of CLSA in India. He was highly networked with the local broking community and fund houses in India. All told, he could move stocks and make money for his clients.

For more, read an interesting profile on Bharat Parajia in The Economic Times.

GE Commercial Finance has announced a new head for India. Vicky Bindra has been named President and CEO. He will succeed Tejpreet S. Chopra who became President & CEO of GE India in June. Bindra joins GE following a 12-year career with Citigroup where he was a member of Citigroup's Global Management Committee and served most recently as EVP Small Business and Customer Franchise, Global Consumer Group International. Prior to Citigroup, Vicky was a partner in the consulting firm, Bain & Company.

Vicky holds a BA in Finance and Accounting from St. Xaviers College and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Top managers of large media companies and telcos are leaving their jobs and joining venture-funded startups. The latest is that Rajat Jain (right), former managing director of The Walt Disney Company in India, has joined VC-backed mobile content and distribution company Mobile2win as the MD and CEO. He will also be a partner in the company. Prior to Disney, Jain had headed the sales of SET Max in India.

Mobile2win had recently seen investments from Nexus India Capital and Norwest Venture Partners. It was earlier funded by Softbank China and Alok Kejriwal of Contests2win. The founding team of the company includes Gopal Krishna and Rajiv Hiranandani.

Another biggie who has left telecom giant Bharti Airtel and joined a lesser known (although publicly listed) mobile value added services company is N V Subba Rao. The COO, eastern region, of Bharti Airtel has moved in as the CEO and President for Tanla Mobile Inc (US), the American subsidiary of Hyderabad-based Tanla Solutions. This company plans to expand globally in mobile applications, m-commerce and interactive services.

In fact, Bharti group has lost more people, not necessarily top management, to venture-funded startups. Himanshu Shukla, a manager at Bharti Telesoft, has joined SAIF Partners-backed One97 Communications as Head of Content. Earlier, Anagat Pareeh, formely the Head of Revenue Enhancement at Bharti TeleSoft, had joined One97 Communications as head of operations.

In December last year, former MTV Creative Head Cyrus Oshidar joined as a co-founder in Games2Win, an online gaming startup co-founded by Alok Kejriwal of Contests2win. Games2win is funded by Clearstone Venture Partners.

The common thread in all these - except in the case of Tanla - is that the startups are backed by VCs. It's possible that VCs have played a major role in hiring them.

Sequoia Capital India has added a new member to its investment team. It has hired Abhay Pandey, formerly head of Real Estate and Infrastructure investment banking at DSP Merrill Lynch, as an Executive Director.

With Pandey's appointment, Sequoia is likely to look at real estate and infrastructure sector in a big way. Sequoia has a $400 million private equity fund to make investments in the old economy and matured sectors like manufacturing and construction (Sequoia, along with Blue River Capital, recently funded KMC Constructions).

At ML, Pandey led capital raising for some of the largest Indian companies such as DLF's IPO and so on. Prior to ML, Pandey worked at McKinsey & Co, in Mumbai and Johannesburg.

Indian online company BharatMatrimony Group has appointed a heavy weight to its board. The company has managed to convince K B Chandrasekhar, former founder of Exodus Communications, to join as an independent director on the board. Chandrasekhar is a leading NRI entrepreneur in the US, and is currently co-founder, CEO and chairman of Jamcracker, co-founder and chairman of e4e Inc, a global technology holding company; and chairman of Aztecsoft. BharatMatrimony has investment from Yahoo and Canaan Partners.