Comments on: Exclusive interview with redBus.in – India’s first vertical for online bus tickets

By: Vivek Krishna

Vivek Krishna — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:09:59 +0000

Good luck..If someone like redbus.in gets into this seemingly unorganized bus booking sector and establishes partner relationships and business models,it can be a leader in this segment. Lots of opportunity + lots of work too

By: venkat

venkat — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 06:52:05 +0000

They have done good work. But many other also doing the same work. Like customerneeds and easyticket( http://www.easyticket.in)

cheers

By: a

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 07:32:19 +0000

dopy ‘ 00 .. i like that.

By: Phani

Phani — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 07:13:02 +0000

Hey Aparna, thanks!!

By: Aparna

Aparna — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 15:57:12 +0000

Congrats Phani…..very impressive:)……would be a good idea to invest some shares in ur company:)…..all the best:)
-Aparna(dopy ‘00)

By: iLeher » No money for early stage ?- All about Internet industry in India

iLeher » No money for early stage ?- All about Internet industry in India — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 08:13:32 +0000

[...] We have asked if India is ready for web2.0 here. Also we raised our concerns about our booming internet industry here. Although we have our doubts about the industry, we are seeing a lot of money flowing into India recently. We saw guruji.com grabbing $7 million and then we saw sulekha getting $10 million and more recently we see that travelguru, the leading travel portal got $15 million. See a comprehensive list of investments here. We have stats and reports of VC firms raising billions of dollars to invest in India. New funds are coming into existence every day raising even more money. But the point to note here is that most of the investments we have seen till date are either late stage in nature or in the companies that mimic proven business models elsewhere. Some of the companies we recently interviewed like redbus here, onyomo hereand picsquare here are all still working on angel funding. These companies are more or less in early stage now. The feeling we got after talking to them was that the VCs are queued up on the sidelines. VCs don’t want to miss the opportunity when the time comes but they don’t want to move in unless they see some traction in these markets. Is it the traction or is the risk of investing in early stage Indian startups way too high? There is a lot of buzz about a maturing investment ecosystem in India with impressive exits. We saw that with the Info Edge IPO recently that is trading at 85% premium. This article here states how early stage funding has grown YOY in India listing some good examples. Still it’s not scratching the surface of billions of dollars already waiting to be invested. In the report “Is the Venture Capital Market in India getting overheated” - Evalueserve reports that over 44 VC firms are now seeking to invest more than 4.4 billion dollars in India over next 4 to 5 years but cautions that there will be a glut of VC money. It also highlights that it is not possible to invest in 150+ startups if the VCs are going to be sticking to their favorite sectors and just the late stage investments for that matter. Well, we are not saying that they should start throwing money at every startup out there. What we are trying to understand that if the VCs will be at ease with the risk levels associated with early stage funding in India, compared to rest of the world. While looking for an answer, we found a paper on “Accessing Early-Stage Risk Capital in India” by Rafiq Dossani, a senior research scholar at Shorenstein APARC. Some of the points in the paper resonate with our thinking about web 2.0 companies in India. Following points might be the reasons why a lot of early stage ventures are not getting funded. We have read similar arguments earlier in the blogosphere in some form or the other and this paper actually goes in much more depth. For the sake of discussion we will reiterate some of them1. Lack of confidence on early stage entrepreneurs. 2. Lack of weak ties network like the one in Silicon Valley. 3. IP creation and protection not clearly defined. 4. Domestic consumption and market not easily identified. 5. Govt. hurdles - redbus founder confirms this sentiment after spending a day in offices to register their company. 6. Poor internet penetration and computer illiteracy. [...]

By: Ajay Sarma

Ajay Sarma — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 07:25:39 +0000

for got to tell if other people are searching for top startups in india also take a look at the site http://www.startups.in/india and http://www.startups.in/dex .many startups to find jobs

By: Ajay Sarma

Ajay Sarma — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 07:21:40 +0000

They should market more. I am working in bangalore for nearly 4 years and have not heard about redbus. I was searching for top startups in india to find new opportunities and came across these sites. I have not heard redbus until reading here. They should advertise on local channels to get more publicity.

By: Vivek Garg

Vivek Garg — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 05:53:12 +0000

It will be a combination of both and its a better play than just the ad based revenue.

Also if Redbus pulls it, and I hope they do, they might start charging bus operators as well. Once they reach the critical mass on demand side, supply side economy will improve and interesting revenue models will show up.

By: Vaibhav Domkundwar - india 2.0

Vaibhav Domkundwar - india 2.0 — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 19:55:50 +0000

Vivek: Good point, but won’t that become more of a eyeballs and pageviews game rather than a transactions one?