Released on = February 20, 2007, 7:38 am

Press Release Author = Vijay

Industry = Telecommunications

Press Release Summary = IIM Ahmedabad's Centre for Innovation Incubation and
Entrepreneurship & Entre Club Present

Press Release Body = IIM Ahmedabad's Centre for Innovation Incubation and
Entrepreneurship & Entre Club Present


IIMA Annual Venture Conclave 2007

Organized for the first time in 2006, the Annual Venture Conclave at IIMA aims at
bringing together VCs, Entrepreneurs and budding start-ups together on a common
platform. The day-long event (10AM-6PM) consisted of talks regarding various aspects
of venture planning by Venture Capitalists, legal issues involved in setting up and
sharing of venture experiences by famous entrepreneurs. The event concluded with a
Panel Discussion. Apart from the speaker sessions and the panel discussion, the
event took the next step in bridging the gap between budding entrepreneurs and
potential investors through closed-room sessions where the entrepreneurs discussed
their plans with potential investors.

The objectives of the event were three-fold:
. To provide students and budding entrepreneurs an opportunity to meet and network
with VCs & investors and get feedback on their business ideas.
. To facilitate the sharing of first-hand experience with students, by entrepreneurs.
. To provide an opportunity to incubatees/entrepreneurs to pitch their plans to
potential investors for funding (close to 12 shortlisted teams would be discussing
their ideas)

Among the distinguished panel of speakers were Mr Vishnu Varshney (CEO, GVFL), Mr
Alok Mittal (Canaan Partners, Band of Angels), Mr. Mahesh Murthy (Passion Fund), Mr.
Shravan Shroff (Shringar Cinemas), and Mr. Vijay Shukla (ValueFirst Messaging) among
others.

The past few batches of IIMA have seen many students rejecting fat domestic and
international packages to take the plunge into entrepreneurship. As this
entrepreneurial spirit is demonstrated every year by the students, Entre Club (the
student entrepreneurship club) and the Centre for Incubation Innovation and
Entrepreneurship (CIIE), are striving hard to do everything possible to grow and
strengthen this culture among students. Last year, Sarath Babu created news by
starting his catering business. This year, it is a group of four students who have
created a buzz by their decision to venture into a business of lingerie production
and retail, rejecting the option of joining multinational companies with fat
packages, two of them being dollar salaries paid to students of top European and US
B-schools. These recent developments can be taken as a good sign as the IIMs have
often been criticised of not creating enough entrepreneurs.

The annual VC conclave this year was organized with the partnership of Indian Bank.
Entre Club hopes to grow it in terms of reach and network in the coming years.




Web Site = http://www.vfirst.com

Contact Details = Contact:

Vikas Nair
5vikasn@iimahd.ernet.in
+91-9979429270

Pranay Gupta
5pranayg@iimahd.ernet.in
+91-9924102269