McKinsey's India Venture 2000 logs ideas rush

McKinsey's India Venture 2000 logs ideas rush
Business Standard, 9 Feb 2000
By Vivek Law

In less than a fortnight after its formal launch, McKinsey's pro-bono project-India Venture 2000- to convert ideas into a commercial reality has seen 2,000 teams (each with 1-5 members) with ideas seeking funds.

That's not all. More than 250 top professional from India and abroad have agreed to coach these ideas and take them to position from where the venture capital funds will take charge.

A McKinsey spokesperson told Business Standard that some of the key professional who have agreed to be a coach the participants who get short listed include 30 Silicon Valley-based professional, 15-20 top lawyers and 20-25 leading venture capitalists. Some of the names are
K Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Infosys Technologies, SR Ganesh of TCS, BV Jagdeesh of Exodus, Alok Kejriwal of C2W, Sourabh Srivastava of Infinity, AV Jayachander of ICICI Ventures, Pradeep Kar of Microland,
Nirali Sanghi of indiaparenting.com and Sanjeev Bhikchandani of Naukri.com.

"The response has been simply overwhelming. We launched the campaign only on January 26 and it is still a week away from closing. More than 2,000 teams comprising of both individuals and some Corporates as well have registered their ideas with us. These will now be shortlisted and this list be finalized be February 29. Then, the shortlisted
Candidates will through an automated process choose their coach. We expect several business plans to be ready by April 15.After this, the plan will be handed over to a venture capitalist for required funding and further hand holding." said Mckinsey spokesperson.

"The response has been from a mix of young students especially from IITs as well as corporates with turnovers in the vicinity of even upto Rs 500 crore. There are a lot of corporates who are in various processes of implementing plans for e-business and have applied to us to seek professional advise from the coaches", the spokesperson added.

"We wanted to create a virtual market where people with ideas could meet people with the right skills to implement these ideas. This seems to have been achieved with so many persons accepting the role of a coach and considering that they would need to invest their time, which is so critical to their business, shows the commitment," said the spokesperson.

Mckinsey in now planning to put in place a training programme for mentors to young professional. It is planning to jointly hold this with the Indus Entrepreneurs group which comprises of Silicon Valley based venture capitalists.

Interestingly, the ideas have not emerged predominantly from the metros but have from across the country, which indicates that the e-revolution is now catching on.

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