KOCHI:
A two-day ‘Seeding Kerala’ will begin here on Friday, with Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan inaugurating the investment summit that will bring together leading figures in the country’s startup ecosystem besides senior government officials.
M Sivasankar, Principal Secretary (Electronics and IT), Government of Kerala, and Dr Saji Gopinath, CEO of the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), will address the opening ceremony of the event at Kochi Marriot Hotel in suburban Edappally.
The fifth edition of Seeding Kerala, which will have 80 select startup ventures from the state participating along with 200 investment experts, facilitates interaction between investors and entrepreneurs, besides presentation of startup ideas and analysis of various business models that come up during the course of the event being organised by KSUM. It is also set to host an ‘Investor Café’, providing special interaction facilities between investors and 30 startups from a national contest.
The key areas of focus will be investor awareness, investment opportunities, investment strategy, co-investment opportunities, understanding of angel investments and the associated risks, ensuring the delegates to be part of the National Angel Group, be a mentor or co-founder with startups and nurture a network with top investors, organisers revealed about February 7-8 event which aims to strengthen the HNI network in the state.
The first panel discussion will be on ‘My First Seed Round – Mistakes I Made and Lessons Learnt’. Curated by angel investor Robin Alex Panicker, it will have five speakers: Deena Jacob (Open Financial Technologies), Arjun Satheesh, Abhi K (both Carestack), Shihab Muhammed (Survey Sparrow) and Rajan Singh (Concept Owl).
Following it will be a two-hour workshop on ‘Startup Studio – Fundraising’, led by Sachin Karnik and Ashok Singh (both of Mumbai Angels).
There will be a panel discussion on ‘Where will I put my money in 2020 and beyond’, led by experts Anil Joshi, Padmaja Ruparel, Mahesh Murthy and Krishnan Neelakandan, while being moderated by Ajith Moopan. A fireside chat on Zero to $100 Million Exit: Learnings from the Journey – with the Investor and the Founder will be followed by lunch.
An afternoon panel session on ‘Opportunities in She Economy’ will be addressed by Virginia Tan, Seema Chaturvedi and Shalini Warrier. ‘Reimagining Capitalism’, ‘IPO Growth’ and ‘Brick by Brick – The Kerala Story’ feature among the other post-lunch sessions.
The weekend will see master classes on angel investing and lead angel investing, pitch for startups, an IPO roundtable and panel discussions on ‘Unicorn First Checks’ and ‘Remarkable Business Case Studies from Kerala’.
KSUM, as a 2006-founded nodal agency of the Kerala Government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state, undertakes planning, establishment and management of technology business incubators and accelerators so as to promote technology-based ventures by creating the infrastructure and environment.
