Proto.in
Encyclopedia
Proto.in is India's first and largest start-up event platform which had its first edition in January 2007. The platform was started by Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
based not-for profit body The Knowledge Foundation with entrepreneur Vijay Anand as its curator and founder. The Knowledge Foundation is a not-for profit knowledge dissemination body which has had multiple events in Chennai including Blog Camp, Bar Camp, Wikicamp (inaugurated by Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company....
) and Pod Works.
Since its first event in Jan 2007, Proto.in has had 8 editions across the cities of Chennai, New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
, Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
, Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
and Pune
Pune
Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...
.
The sole focus and objective of the event is to showcase 15 of the most innovative start-ups in the country and provide them with a platform in front of an audience of investor
Investor
An investor is a party that makes an investment into one or more categories of assets --- equity, debt securities, real estate, currency, commodity, derivatives such as put and call options, etc...
s, entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
s and customers alike.
Event Format
The event format is centered around the 'Showcase'. This is where 15 start-ups take the stage one by one and demo their products for 6 minutes each. The start-ups are generally slotted into categories - some of the popular ones in the previous editions of Proto.in have been InternetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, Software, Mobile and Outliers which generally contains start-ups from a myriad set of sectors.
Event Locations
The event has been held in 7 different locations across the 5 cities of Chennai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai. It's always had a very strong link with the Academic community. The first 2 editions of Proto.in were held at IIT Madras. The 4th edition was held at IIT New Delhi, the 7th edition was held at IIT Bombay and the 8th edition was held at the Great Lakes Institute of ManagementGreat Lakes Institute of Management
Great Lakes Institute of Management is a business school located in the South Indian city of Chennai...
in Chennai.
Nomination Process
The nomination process is one where a start-up needs to complete a nominationNomination
Nomination is part of the process of selecting a candidate for either election to an office, or the bestowing of an honor or award.In the context of elections for public office, a candidate who has been selected by a political party is normally said to be the nominee of that party...
form that can be filled on the site. Start-ups are then evaluated on the basis of a broad set of criteria. The nomination panel is one which includes eminent individuals from the field including start-up evangelists, entrepreneurs, Proto.in alumni and investors.
Support Partners
Proto.in has had a broadbase of knowledge partners, mentors and advisors. NASSCOMNASSCOM
The National Association of Software and Services Companies of IT software and services related activities for use of both the software developers as well as interested companies overseas....
and TiE
TiE
TiE is a global nonprofit dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship. TiE has 54 chapters in 13 countries, with a total membership exceeding 13,000. TiE is most closely affiliated with the South Asian business community, and is recognized as an important networking forum for entrepreneurs and investors...
have been Knowledge Partners of Proto.in right from the platform's inception. The event has been supported and sponsored by a broad base of partners including the likes of Rediff.com
Rediff.com
Rediff.com India is a news, information, entertainment, and shopping portal. It was founded in 1996 as "Rediff On The NeT" and is headquartered in Mumbai, India with offices in New Delhi and New York City, USA....
, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, Airtel, Cisco
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...
and Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital is a Californian venture capital firm located on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California. The Wall Street Journal has called Sequoia Capital "one of the highest-caliber venture firms", and noted that it is "one of Silicon Valley's most influential venture-capital firms"...
. Sequoia Capital has been the event platform's platinum sponsor for its last 2 editions.
Notable alumni
From the platform's inception, approximately 150 start-ups have showcased themselves at Proto.in over its last four years. Out of the total 150 start-ups that have showcased themselves at the event, research suggests that at least 35 have shut down or have merged to form another entity. 25 have raised funding of some form.Some of the notable alumni are the following:
- Druva SoftwareDruva SoftwareDruva Software founded in 2007, has its dual headquarters in Pune, India and Mountain View, California. In March 2010, Druva received $5 Million in series-A investment from Sequoia Capital....
- Corporate PC Backup firm which has raised 5 million dollars in funding from Sequoia Capital - iXiGo.comIxigo.comiXiGO.com is a travel search engine based in Gurgaon, India. iXiGO is an infomediary that aggregates searches for flights, hotels and buses, by searching across 100 different websites to compare prices and information across multiple travel search criteria...
- sidestep.com from India. Has grown to become one of India's top five travel booking sites - EkoEko India Financial ServicesEko India Financial Services Pvt. Ltd. is an Indian financial service company, which is a business correspondent service for State Bank of India and ICICI Bank, India's top two largest banks, and provides no-frills bank accounts and deposit, withdrawal and remittance services to customers ...
Mobile payment service which has so far processed transactions worth over Rs.600 Crore - Sloka Telecom - One of the fastest growing broadband wireless product manufacturers in India
- Picsquare.com - India's first photo-sharing web-site. Acquired by Infibeam in November 2008
- iCreate.comICreate SoftwareiCreate Software is a business intelligence company based in Bangalore, India, and focused on products and services in the banking and financial services space. The company was founded in 2006 by Anup Pai, who has more than a decade's experience in providing IT solutions to the banking space...
- Fastest growing Banking Intelligence software in India. Reaching out to a global market. - Tyroo.com - One of India's leading online ad networks. Strategic sales of 35 to 50% to Yahoo in 2007
- Deskaway.comDeskAwayDeskAway is a Software as a Service application for team-based project management and collaboration developed by Synage Software Pvt. Ltd. located in Mumbai, India...
- Project management software with global reach - Tenmiles.com - Product software firm which has a variety of products including E-mail ticket management software - Helpdeskpilot and event management software Doattend
- Inkfruit.com - Crowdsourced custom T-shirt design platform modeled on threadless.comThreadlessThreadless is an online community of artists and an e-commerce website based in Chicago, Illinois since 2000. Co-founders Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart started the company with $1,000 in seed money after entering an Internet t-shirt design contest....
. Raised 4 million dollars in funding from SAIF Partners, is now the fastest growing T-shirt platform in India. - Instablogs.com - Blogging media platform built out of ShimlaShimlaShimla , formerly known as Simla, is the capital city of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared the summer capital of the British Raj in India. A popular tourist destination, Shimla is often referred to as the "Queen of Hills," a term coined by the British...
, Himachal PradeshHimachal PradeshHimachal Pradesh is a state in Northern India. It is spread over , and is bordered by the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir on the north, Punjab on the west and south-west, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on the south, Uttarakhand on the south-east and by the Tibet Autonomous Region on the east...
. Become a leading global player with reach that expands across five continents. Raised 5 million dollars in funding from Indiatimes.com - DesiCrewDesiCrew-History:It was started in 2005 by Saloni Malhotra as a test project sponsored by Ashok Jhunjhunwala's TeNet group from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras...
- Based in Chennai. Has become one of India's leading rural outsourcing companies. It raised its Series A round of funding recently and has won multiple awards across India - BankBazaar.comBankBazaar.comBankBazaar.com is an online loan marketplace based in Chennai, India. Adhil Shetty, Arjun Shetty and Rati Rajkumar founded BankBazaar.com in 2008 and launched it online in July 2008...
- Online loan marketplace. One of the fastest growing in the loan's space. Raised 6 million dollars in Series A funding from Walden International - Hyca Technologies www.hyca.co.in Pathbreaking technology used to disinfect water using hydrodynamic cavitationCavitationCavitation is the formation and then immediate implosion of cavities in a liquidi.e. small liquid-free zones that are the consequence of forces acting upon the liquid...
. Emerged as the leading technology for Global Ballast Water disinfection by the International Maritime OrganizationInternational Maritime OrganizationThe International Maritime Organization , formerly known as the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization , was established in Geneva in 1948, and came into force ten years later, meeting for the first time in 1959... - Touchmagix www.touchmagix.com Gesture technology used in display advertising and marketing. The Touchmagix Floor was used at the American IdolAmerican IdolAmerican Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
grand finale in the USA - Luna Ergonomics Globally awarded technology which enables predictive texting in over 20 different languages
- Apalaya Technologies Pioneers in the field of live television on the mobile phone. Raised 7.5 million dollars in Series B of funding from Indo US Ventures, IDG and Qualcomm
- Moneysights.com Online platform that helps investors take financial decisions. Raised 270k dollars in funding from Blume Ventures and Naveen Tewari
- Efarm Sms based technology platform used to empower India's farmers. Raised first round of funding from the Mumbai Angels
Team
Under the TKF Umbrella - Proto.in is currently headed by Sudhir Syal who is also the Editor and Co-Anchor of the Starting Up show on ET NOW, the most watched show on the start-up community in India. Sudhir previously managed the strategic alliances for Sulekha.com. Before the recently concluded Chennai edition (July 2011), the event was co-headed both by Sudhir and by IIT Madras Graduate Ravi Shankar. Both Sudhir and Ravi have been a part of the core founding team of Proto.in and have been closely involved with the growth of Proto.in. Sudhir has also been the anchor of the event for the last 4 editions and has headed the nomination panel for its last 3 editions.Till the Bangalore edition of Proto.in (Jan 2009), the event was led by Vijay Anand.Till recently, Vijay Anand was the head of the RTBI incubator at IIT Madras. Today he runs the Startup Centre, a hub + accelerator for the Indian start-up community.
Most recently for the 8th edition of Proto.in Chennai. John Verbic, former Global Co-Head, ING Private Equity Group joined the core Proto.in team and served as Chief Mentor for the event.
Praise
Proto.in has been acknowledged as the best platform for start-ups in the country by a broad range of entrepreneurs and investor in the country ranging from Vishal GondalVishal Gondal
Vishal Gondal, is an India investor and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Indiagames, a global computer games developer and publisher in India. He was featured among the top 40 Indian entrepreneurs by Business Today in 2001....
, the founder of Indiagames.com to Naveen Tewari, the founder of global mobile advertising firm InMobi
InMobi
InMobi is the largest independent mobile advertising network in the world. The company was founded in India in 2007 and has business set up in the Asia Pacific region, Africa, US, Europe, and Japan...
. In his keynote address at Proto.in Delhi in 2008, Kiran Karnik
Kiran Karnik
Kiran Karnik is a prominent figure and guiding force behind the Indian outsourcing industry. He has formerly been the president of NASSCOM , and is now one of its trustees. Mr...
then Chairman of Nasscom referred to Proto.in as the Nasscom for product start-ups in the country. Proto.in has also played an active role in mentoring other start-up support organizations like Bar Camp and Open Coffee Club.
Criticism
In the past Proto.in has received criticism for backing only hi-tech product start-ups with a big focus only on web and social mediaSocial media
The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...
. This perception has changed substantially over its last 3 editions with a deeper focus , they now have a more transparent nomination process. Over the last few editions the focus has also shifted to start-ups in categories like social enterprise
Social enterprise
A social enterprise is an organization that applies business strategies to achieving philanthropic goals. Social enterprises can be structured as a for-profit or non-profit....
s, with a strong focus on technology enabled social enterprises.
There has also been criticism in terms of the Rs.10,000 nomination fee. Start-ups have found that its a high price to pay, they also believe that there is a conflict when a start-up is first selected and then made to make a payment.
Proto.in's defence has always been the same - they would like to have a start-up to have skin in the game and take the event seriously. Unlike other events, Proto.in is the only one where start-ups are provided free boarding, lodging and a stall. In Proto.in's opinion, the actual cost it incurs per start-up is Rs.50,000