Indians have finally understood 'mobile first', says Qualcomm Ventures' Madasamy

Qualcomm Ventures, the venture investment arm of Qualcomm Incorporated, held the fourth edition of QPrize, its seed funding competition in Bengaluru on May 24, 2014. The competition is open to entrepreneurs across China, Europe, India, Israel, Korea, Latin America and North America with a goal to identify and fund the industry’s next promising, early-stage technology companies.

[caption id=“attachment_86052” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Reuters[/caption]

Karthee Madasamy, Vice-President and Managing Director, India and Israel, Qualcomm Ventures spoke to Firstbiz about QPrize, technology ideas and the road ahead for mobile startups.

FB: Qualcomm Ventures just finished the fourth edition of QPrize, your seed funding competition. Can you tell us about its genesis?

Madasamy: We started in 2009. Funding in general was quite poor. Companies that get hit in such times are very early stage companies and we found that globally there was a dearth of funding. Also, each geography has its own interesting issue.

In India, funding available back then was generally lower and investment for early stage product companies was practically non-existent. Typically, early stage funding is not a function of venture capital firms. We wanted to figure out how to help such companies.

We started with one investment a year thinking it would be easier to manage as compared to a full seed program and also to understand for ourselves if we could do seed investments. So we started with four geographies-India, Europe, China and US and in the bargain were able to unearth underlying needs of the ecosystem.

We saw downstream people like angel investors and networks who looked positively at the program because it gave them a filtered pool of candidates to evaluate. A big reason they don’t make product technology investments is because they don’t know how to evaluate them and this made their job easier.We got a lot of support from the ecosystem and entrepreneurs, so we decided to expand it with all our learnings.

Today we are present in seven geographies- Brazil, Korea, Israel, China, India, US, South East Asia. In India, we decided to fund more than one startup. One of the goals of the program was to help these companies become big. For them to become big, they will need to raise more capital and receive mentorship from leading people.

We realized that getting a VC early on will help them automatically. So, this year we got Accel Partners on board to jointly fund startups. Now between Qualcomm and Accel we can do a Series A easily.

FB: Any observations on the changing nature of applications over the four editions of QPrize?

Madasamy: The quality of entrepreneurs has improved substantially. By this I mean, the entrepreneur’s maturity to solve problems and build a product that fits into the gaps in the market. They are now tackling global challenges. Entrepreneurs today have the confidence to compete with startups in the Valley.

On the ideas front, we are seeing a mobile platform, internet services where mobile is a dominant element and enterprise software as prominent sectors. Alongside, there is a foray into verticals- healthcare, retail, education- solutions for specific areas of different industries.

This year there has been more active focus around verticals. Concurrently, Bengaluru still dominates in terms of number of applications for 30 percent of 454 entries we got this year were from here followed by National Capital Region (NCR), and then Mumbai, Chennai, Pune together that came in third.

Two years ago, we got most applications from first-time entrepreneurs, now I see a lot from those who’ve failed once.

FB: Any macro predictions for this year vis-a-vis technology ideas coming out of India?

Madasamy: I think people have finally understood ‘mobile first’ in India. So I would see internet services companies that target mobile as well. We’ll see a lot more of that - be it ticketing, or next generation of services.

In-app engagements or tools for application developers are also springing up in large numbers and is quite an unaddressed area. Then application platforms connecting offline and online in India- anything that is sensitive to India’s problems has scope for lot of growth.

Finally, technology influencing needs of specific verticals like say solutions for a sales force of a pharmaceutical company- we are going to see more of this for sure.

FB: There has been a surge of venture capital investments in mobile startups. Do you see this as a boom headed for a bust?

Madasamy: There is always excitement and sometimes more capital goes in to a specific sector. However, I do not see that happening in the mobile space as it did in e-commerce three years ago.

In 2005, mobile VAS was an area everyone looked at till they realized that India was not ready. So I’d say entrepreneurs and investors are both realistic on capabilities of mobile today in India. People have woken up to the scope of mobile and how it can help expand business and scale up faster.

I won’t say there is hype but people are waking up to its potential. Whether it gets over-funded or not we will have to wait and see. In fact, given the reach of mobiles and smartphones in India currently, I personally feel this area is under-funded.

FB: Any comments on product startups India is producing. How many have the potential to go global and become disruptors?

Madasamy: It’s all a process- you’ve got to go through cycles and figure out things. Today, we have a much better ecosystem to create such companies. For instance, Freshdesk started here, has gone international and is generating revenues. In terms of quality of ideas, I’d say they are all good.

We are bullish as the ecosystem is evolving to address that. On the question of how big a company can become- only time will tell. But the process is set in motion in the right direction and entrepreneurs are operating in the right set up today.

_Regional Winners:_Chennai-based Demach Software India Private Limited

_Runner-up:_Mavin Technologies

Mumbai-based LivQuik Technology (India) Private Limited was the QPrize One97 winner and Pune-based CarIQ Technologies Pvt. Ltd. was the QPrize Persistent winner.