Ideas|Products|Startups|VCs

WhistleTalk, a social recruiting company, today announced an investment of $400K by Hyderabad Angels. The investment was led by Hyderabad Angels member, Raghu Bathina.

Whistletalk is founded by Vinoo Chacko and Ajay Nema, both worked together at Citrix before starting their venture.

WhistleTalk is a referral hiring application that enables company employees and hiring managers to use their social networks to find the right talent for the right job. The company’s matching and virality engine ensures that right opportunities reach the best candidates at the earliest. As openings are referred by friends, even passive candidates are more likely to apply. Job seekers are further motivated because all applications are employee referred. For the company, getting qualified candidates who already know about their company and at a significantly lower cost makes eminent sense.

“Social recruiting is a huge global opportunity. Companies worldwide are struggling to attract good talent. Globally, we see a trend of smart companies leveraging the influence circles of their current employees to find future employees,” explained Raghu Bathina, a Hyderabad Angel and Director at WhistleTalk. “WhistleTalk is out to revolutionise the way organizations find talent,” he added.

Ajay Nema, Co-founder and CTO at WhistleTalk said, “Given a job description, WhistleTalk uses a highly scalable, distributed computing engine to search thousands of profiles in real time and recommend relevant applicants, reachable through the social network of each employee.”

“We like to invest in companies with great teams that are addressing real world problems with unique solutions,” stated Srini Koppolu, President of Hyderabad Angels. “We appreciate how the WhistleTalk team is taking an innovative approach, empowering employees and job seekers to improve referral hiring.”

“We are excited to have the support of investors like Hyderabad Angels. The willingness of these successful serial entrepreneurs, to mentor and to guide us has been priceless,” said Vinoo Chacko, an ISB Alumni, WhistleTalk Co-founder and CEO. “Everyone wins with WhistleTalk: employees earn a referral bonus from their respective  companies, applicants find access to hidden openings till now known only to current employees and organisations quickly hire the best talent. WhistleTalk was launched just 60 days ago and we are excited with the response from both companies and jobseekers to our solution.”

-Hitesh, vcBytes

If you are an entrepreneur, there is high probability of you meeting a VC and discussing about your venture and business plan. VCs, you must remember is a group of individuals that are seeking to make profitable investments in fast growing companies.

Beside focusing your attention on the unique qualities of your business, spend some time and work on the anticipated return on investment. VC firms often want to see companies that will produce returns in excess of 30% per year on a compounded annualized basis.

Lets look at the common questions VC asks an entrepreneur -

How much capital do you need? – This is one of the most imperative questions asked by a venture capital firm. They want to know how much of their capital will be needed to bring your business to profitability (if it isn’t profitable already). They will also want to know how these investment funds will be used, and if additional rounds of capital will be required.

Who is your competition? – This is also a highly asked question from VC firms. Every business has some form of competition. Discuss the competitors in your industry, how their product/service is similar to yours, and how your product is intrinsically better or more usable than that of the competition. Present the SWOT analysis.

Entry Barer ? – VCs are not keen in venture which have low entry barer which implies that this business model can be replicated easily. So as an entrepreneur you should be in full command to highlight why your business model is not easily be copied and how much time it would take for a newcomer to do so. VCs are keen to know if you can have patent protection on your product or your business process.

What is the current state of venture? – VCs are keen to know the current state of your venture to understand better the progress of the venture and also where funds will be utilized. Gone are the days, simply having a great idea does not cut it anymore. Venture capital firms want to see that you have something tangible to offer rather than just a good business plan or business concept. Prior to raising venture capital, you should try to move the business along as far as possible.

Do you currently have paying customers? – Paying customers definitely brings credibility to your product since VCs perceive it as a validation for the product and would like to talk to your customer to understand their viewpoint about the product.

Founding Team Experience? – VCs look for dynamic and extra ordinary founders to back them, a great leader can develop a very good business from an ordinary idea. They will want to know if you have the proper educational background, experience, and contacts within your field to make your venture successful and profitable.  Keep your biography and your senior management team profile handy.

How will i Exit? - Lets get this very straight VC never do charity, they are business folks and would like to see a hefty return of their investment, nothing less than 7x. They would like to exit the venture either by company’s IPO or strategic sale of their equity to a large company or a PE firm.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Nexus Venture Partners, an early stage venture capital fund, announced today that it is launching a seed stage program called “Nexus Seed” which will help build a stronger entrepreneur ecosystem in India.

Nexus Venture Partners will use the Nexus Seed program to identify and fund high potential entrepreneurs who are building technology and Internet companies. Through this initiative, Nexus will invest Rs. 20 lakhs to 2 crores ($50k-$500k) each in up to 50 companies over the next 5 years. Entrepreneurs are encouraged to submit a summary of their plans to plan@nexusvp.com .

Nexus Venture Partners is the leading venture capital fund in India with total fund size of $320 million. Apart from investing in early to early growth companies, Nexus has also been incubating and investing in seed stage companies since 2006. These include Sedemac, Scalarc, Vdopia and several others. Many of these companies have gone on to raise further financing and build leadership positions in their markets.

Speaking about the seed program, Dr Naren Gupta, Managing Director of Nexus Venture Partners said, “We are excited to launch this platform to identify and assist entrepreneurs passionate about building leading companies to serve Indian or global markets. This will enable selected entrepreneurs to get access to expert help as well as seed stage capital which they can use to refine the concept and reduce some of the early stage risks.”

Deepti, vcBytes.com

Greylock today announced a new $20 million seed fund. This announcement was made by Reid Hoffman a founder of Linkedin and partner with Venture capital firm Greylock Partners. It was announced by him in TechCrunch Disrupt a annual Startup event conducted by TechCrunch.

This fund is affiliated with Greylock for small scale investment into startups. It comes from the $575 million fund and each partner can invest small portions of it as they see fit without committee approval.

Good news for Indian startups is this fund will cater to them also since Greylock partners operate in India and Arvin Babu is partner overseeing the investments in India. Indian startups can look up to him for granting the seedfund. Recently in India Greylock Partner invested in Taggle, a group discount portal.

Four companies have been funded by the seed project so far, though recipient companies wish to remain secretive.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com