India's growth potential

In the recent few days, I'm pretty much disappointed with what economists forecast for India. I'm not disappointed at Indian growth, rather, I'm disappointed at the skills of the economists : P. I don't know whether they understand the whole picture and take all the information into account of what is happening to India. The other day, I found an economist's article totally questioning the India's growth statistics just on the premise that the growth of services is unusual for a growing economy, and he just had the East Asian economies in mind, when saying that. I also read a gazillion articles of why people should invest in China, and why India is overheating, India will be affected by slowdowns, India is just IT & outsourcing centric, blah blah blah. Let me get around to my own understanding of what is happening.
First, the obvious. India's IT & BPO are having extraordinary growth. At this rate, the IT exports alone would cross $60billion in 2010 and the overall revenues might get closer to $100b. A lot of people are worrying about the rise of China and other players, lack of quality engineers in India and rising pays and these are all honest fears. But, these fears are not all big enough to rock Indian boat, and Indian entrepreneurs are smart to see through innovative solutions. They plan to buy out a number of foreign operators in the competing countries, giving them both expanding market & foreclosing competition, and their greater clout could lead to more technology exchange and capital for investing. By aggressively entering cheap Tier-II & III cities, having dedicated massive training programs to train cheaper non-engineering workforce, they can effectively blunt many of the cost-based fears, and by better market diversification and innovation they have also broadened their approach.
For most Indian economic focusers, their prediction ends here and they are myopic enough not to look ahead. The following ones are going to be the trailblazers that are going to outsmart the Indian IT growth and overshadow them in the next decade.
1. Telecom - By far this is going to be the strongest sector for India in the next decade. In the last three years, our teledensity tripled and now we add 7 million mobile phones a month. At this rate we would move from our current presence of 180 million phones to over 250 million by 2007 and over 500 million by the end of this decade. This would place us head-head with China, and overtake US. Already, VSNL & Reliance's FLAG Telecom's hold the world's largest backbone telecom networks, (undersea cables & fiber optics handling most of Pacific & Atlantic lines) and this greater domestic clout will lead to greater buy outs in the saturated markets & bring more technology to India.
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Increasing Telecom clout would also lead to two major developments. First, is the growth of India as a major electronics player. To produce 500 million phones and for peculiar needs, major telecom companies are already increasing their massive presence in India in production, and such stellar demand for these devices would place us closer to China & Taiwan on electronics industry, using the same strengths in IT growth - good design knowledge, better English understanding & now backed by world's one of the largest markets. Second, the greater teledensity would enable better information exchange and ease of trade and commerce, and would lead to a stellar growth in a lot of sectors, particularly in rural areas that are the focus of cellular expansion from now.
2. Metals & Infrastructure - While analysts always crib about the India's faltering infrastructure, not much of a note is taken when a single state (one of the poorest) secured over 40 deals for investments in this core sectors worth a whopping $100b in a year. Given cheap labor, low cost of procurement and abundance of resources, 100 billion might be worth half a trillion in this state of Orissa. And, with that Reliance is planning to build a 12GW plant (world's largest single power plant), POSCO, Mittal & Tata for massive steel capacity expansion, stunning Aluminum expansion by Vedanta industries et al. and port and road/rail link expansion by a combination of players. Since, this is a poor state such developments can lead to stunning growth and these players are already building a city focused on health care & IT.
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Similar to Delhi Metro, a lot of other expansion is expected to happen in city metro systems for almost all major cities including Pune & Bangalore, and this would pump billions of dollars in a decade & growth activities. Indian Railways has also emerged a strong company in the last couple of years and eyes on a massive expansion, including modernization of Railway stations with Private participation, Container privatization, electrification etc. A number of road ways projects are moving at a breakneck pace, and in aviation India became the largest customer for planes in the last couple of years, and dozens of new airlines have started or staring by 2010 and airports like Delhi's & Mumbai's are going to get agreat facelift. All these might get in over $300 billion in the next couple of years, and if government plays right it would push India's manufacturing, construction sectors to new heights.
3. Banking & Finance- Though often ridiculed, the government owned banks have moved a great deal in the last decade. From being indifferent and lethargic, their employees have increased their zeal in expanding further. Indian banks are among the healthiest in Asia with the lowest Non Performing Assets, and greater branch coverage. With the sector opening up due for 2009, a huge growth is waiting to happen when new foreign banks will emerge and modernize the practices and the Indian banks would have a great footprint abroad. Public banks like Canara Bank, State Bank & Bank of India are aggressive on a massive expansion both in India and abroad along with private guys like ICICI & YES bank. With greater diversification into equity trading, investment banking, Indian banking sector is expected to grow leaps and bounds with their current strength and with that India's core sector will be pushed up, as they are the largest lenders & employers. Also, innovations like Microcredit are earnestly explored causing a potentially great rural expansion. India's strength with a huge number of finance & commerce students will not just lead Finance BPO expansion, but also massive stock & financial sector in India.
4. Organized Retail - This is one sector that would be a killer application in the future, as they start from almost nil, and would soon have over $50 billion investment in the next couple of years. Reliance has setup a highly ambition project of over few thousand outlets & Malls, Bharti with its Wal-Mart tie-up is looking to do big, and other smaller players will try to out beat them by going early. The prospective opening up of FDI along with a greater middle class will let this sector grow by 100% in the next few years, as all these ambitious projects get along, and dozens of international bigwigs enter it. This would greatly increase the Indian revenue generation (current retail industry hardly contributes to revenue due to massive tax evasion), bring greater employment, and reduce the prices & consumer inflation (ha! We have Wal-Mart). But, to me the greatest development will be for Indian agriculture. Indian farmers hardly get a 5% of what they produce, while even with Wal-Mart squeezing American farmers get many times more than that. This is due to lowering wastage (this could be as much as 90% in India vegetables & fruits), increase farming productivity with greater technology interchange & cutting down the middleman. Thus, we might finally have our Green Revolution - II, finally.
5. Hotel & Real Estate - Enough has been said about the fact that India has just as many hotel rooms as the New York City. While this is a disgrace, see it as a potential. As 99% of the market seems to be unutilized, with proper planning the hotel industry can easily grow at 100% without reaching saturation for a long time. At least 75 International brands are eyeing India, and with proper real estate growth and better technology/infrastructure and greater tourism/business growth, this sector will add 100's of thousands of new hotel rooms in the budget and the luxury sector. Organized Real Estate will piggyback the growth of these & the retail industry. While the prime lands are at huge prices, still we have millions of hectares of lands at low prices of less than $2/sq ft, around the cities and these have huge potential for growth. For e.g. a lot of hotel industry is eyeing for the smaller city of Noida that has land at a fraction of price compared to the prime lands of Delhi. Indian Railways is also planning to share thousands of hectares of its land around the big railway stations for building hotels. A great hotel expansion would in turn strengthen the tourism industry.
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6. Healthcare & Pharma- By now you should have heard that medical costs in India are among the lowest in the world. Thus, we have a huge potential for expanding this booming industry as more and more people can now afford medical facilities leading to a huge domestic expansion, and a lot of countries are thinking about formally sending their patients to India for treatment. And, Indian pharma companies are leading a great expansion, and busy buying assets abroad and expanding R&D facilities. Thus, with greater middle class clout and prosperity, these two industries will have a massive growth as more people can get medical care, and more drug development will be done in India.
7. Auto - There was a time when blindly took outdated European car designs and manufactured small amounts of car for domestic use. The times are changing. In Chennai alone four major manufacturers are setting up huge factories, Tata Motors is world's one of the largest medium & heavy commercial vehicle producer & also eyeing for a $2000 car. In auto components, India is slowly becoming the world's largest manufacturer. With great domestic market growth & a potential for cost cutting using cheap labor & facilities, a lot of foreign majors like BMW, Nissan, Fiat are entering India, big time.
8. Agriculture - Indian agricultural productivity lags behind world standards by a factor of few times though it has some of the best climatic and land advantage than all the other major nations. If the production is too low, then the wastage (which goes as high as 90% for some products) kills whatever remaining and due to inefficient practices we are not growing more lucrative crops. As technology, infrastructure & organized retail growth are looming, this sector could close in on the international productivity standards, and this means we can have over 300% growth in the end value of what we produce, given our potential. This might take over a decade, but still if we have a potential for 300%+ growth in India's core sector in the long term, its effect on industrial consumption and Indian growth rate will grow exponentially.
As the article gets long & winding, I had to cut a lot of material and you could search online for each of the individual developments. The outcome it seems that, in spite of global slowdown India could maintain and increase growth, as the Indian core sector is starting from a very low base, and most of these developments can continue in spite of weak world consumption, as they are based on domestic consumption that is again growing from world's lowest per-capita. Though, India could possibly slow in the medium term, in the long term, it could easily maintain a 10%+ growth, as all these segments above can maintain a double to triple digit growth in the near future.
A world recession can also indirectly benefit India, when its hungry entrepreneurs can get value buy outs at cheaper prices (like how VSNL & Reliance bought out world's major telecom backbones like Tyco & FLAG). It would also hit upon the margins of international producers who might eye India for greater cost cutting, and Indian government would be more amenable to opening up to overcome the world recession. It would also make companies to look for the bigger & fast moving Indian market than the saturated world markets (like how Vodafone & Oracle are doing) and bring more investments. We benefited from the American recession of 2001-02 (it increased outsourcing and cheapened telecom assets) and I guess we could now repeat the performance.
The writing on the wall is clear: India can grow in spite of what happens in the rest of the world - receding or prospering.


Courtesy Bala

Bangalore is becoming India's capital for venture capital.

Norwest Venture Partners is planning an office in India, and that's likely to be in Bangalore. By the way, It's already HQ for Sequoia India, IDG Ventures, Peacock Partners, Mentor Partners, Erasmic Capital, UTI Venture Funds and so on.

The complete ecosystem for an entrepreneurial setup is emerging in Bangalore on the lines of Silicon Valley with the entry of global VC firms. Bangalore is already resplendent with techies, academicians, institutions and former success stories!!!!

Way to go Bangalore...

Rural India a potential $500-bn market: McKinsey Survey

According to a McKinsey survey, the RURAL INDIA would provide a market worth $500-600 billion by 2020.

At a CII annual session, Bharat Nirman, the government’s design for rural infrastructure development, was the subject of a presentation by McKinsey CEO Adil Zainulbhai, who made a strong case for increased investment in rural areas.

Zainulbhai said homogenisation of rural and urban elite was incorrect and provided a four-fold classification for rural areas. Of the 593 rural districts that the McKinsey survey looked at, 67 were classified as urban cousins, 118 as those close to rural economic centres, around 160 as able districts with a basic minimum infrastructure and 248 districts as deprived.

“We have been able to establish a direct correlation between basic infrastructure and growth drivers; areas which have minimum infrastructure have up to 30 per cent more per capita income than deprived districts,” said Zainulbhai. “Bharat Nirman is on the right track,” he added.

KKR Acquires 85% In Flextronics Software For $900 Million In India's Largest Leveraged Buyout Deal

The world's leading buyout fund Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR) has acquired India's Flextronics Software Systems (formerly Hughes Software) for $900 million. Flextronics International, which owns FSS will retain a 15 per cent equity stake in the company, while the rest 85 per cent will be acquired by KKR in a leveraged buyout. Following completion of the transaction, CEO Ash Bhardwaj, FSS President Arun Kumar, and the existing management team will continue to lead the software business. It will operate under a new name, which has yet to be decided. The acquisition is KKR's first investment in India and second investment in Asia, following its 2005 investment in Avago Technologies, the former Semiconductor Products Group of Agilent Technologies. It is also believed to be the largest leveraged buyout and technology investment in India to date.

The deal is also significant as KKR hired Michael Marks, the CEO of chip maker Flextronics, to advise on Asia and technology investments. Flextronics had acquired 55 per cent in Hughes Software (now known as FSS) in June 2004 for $226 million. After that, it delisted Hughes from the stock market.

Air Deccan IPO in mid-May likely

Deccan Aviation has decided not to rope in any private equity investors for the present and plans to hit the market to raise approximately Rs 500-550 crore, sometime in the second week of May.

The initial public offering (IPO) for 2.45 crore shares is likely to be priced in a band of Rs 200-250. Two of the merchant bankers associated with the IPO, ABN Amro Rothschild and JP Morgan, may however, withdraw from it. The issue will now be lead managed by ICICI Securities, Enam and SBI Caps.

The reason for this, according to a senior company executive is that JP Morgan and ABN Amro have other commitments in May. However, should the IPO be delayed for any reason and hit the market only in June or July, these investment bankers may once again be part of the team.

While Deccan has been toying with the idea of a preferential allotment to private equity investors, even before the IPO, it was apparently taking too much time. The company needs to bring out the public issue before May 20; otherwise it will have to file a fresh prospectus with Sebi.

In fact Deccan was to bring the IPO in February, which got delayed because of a deal that the company was negotiating with Airbus. While ABN Amro and JP Morgan were comfortable with the public issue coming up in February-March, they now have other assignments.

However, sources say, the investment bankers were also not too comfortable with the pricing as indicated during the road shows overseas; they found it aggressive. At that time, the price being talked about was between Rs 300-325 per share.

The overseas investors have been a little wary of the aviation stocks because Jet Airways, which came out with its IPO in February last year, is currently trading below Rs 1,100.

However, the shortage of aviation stocks and the lower pricing should generate interest from both foreign and local investors, say merchant bankers.

Deccan Aviation incurred a net loss of Rs 19.5 crore for the year-ended March 2005, on a net income of Rs 305.5 crore. The loss for the six months ended September 2005, was Rs 72.5 crore, on a net income of Rs 328.86 crore.

The issue will result in a dilution of 25 per cent of the post-issue equity of Rs 98.18 crore and the price band of Rs 250-250 would mean a market capitalisation of Rs 2,000-2,500 crore. Jet, which trades at Rs 970 has a market capitalisation of Rs 8,378 crore.

India needs $550 bn in 5 yrs: Investment panel

Ratan Tata presents report to PM who has asked nine ministries for inputs within a month.

The high-profile Investment Commission, headed by Ratan Tata, has said that India needs to attract investments of up to $550 billion in the next five years if it wants to become an economic powerhouse.

Tata had presented the report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last month. The prime minister has now asked nine central ministries, including petroleum, power, civil aviation, telecommunications, textiles, tourism and food processing, for inputs within a month on what they intend to do about this.

A government official told Business Standard that the ministries would have to suggest measures to overcome impediments like poor infrastructure and labour inflexibility among others. Once this exercise is over, the Prime Minister’s Office will finalise the investment road map.

The commission has identified sectors like roads and highways, energy, civil aviation, textiles and garments, automobile components, real estate, construction, tourism and food processing as high priority areas.

In its report, the commission pointed out that the roads sector alone required investments of $30 billion by 2010. Given that road projects in the country are too small to attract big international players, the report has recommended that contracts be awarded on a build-own-transfer basis for projects of 300-500 km in length to attract international firms. The commission has also mooted the idea of private maintenance of highways.

Similarly, the report says that the power sector needs investments of $140 billion in five years to generate 90,000 Mw of electricity. At present, investment in this sector stands at $54 billion.

Highlighting the importance of the coal sector, the commission has said the sector needs investments of around $30-40 billion over the next decade to double production from 240 million tonnes at present.

Until now, the sector has attracted investments worth only $2.5 billion. The report also calls for major policy measures like doing away with Coal India’s monopoly on mining and sales.

The telecommunications sector needs investments of around $22 billion by 2010. For this, the report calls for putting the 74 per cent foreign direct investment norm on the automatic route.

Indian Pharma Cos are on a M&A spree..

Ranbaxy Closes Three Acquisitions In One Week

Ranbaxy Laboratories, India's largest pharma company, had last year announced raising of $1.5 billion in the form of GDR/FCCB/ADRs etc. The idea was to make some big ticket acquisition in the US or Europe. In February it lost out to Dr Reddy's Labs in acquiring Germany's Betapharm from UK private equity fund 3i for $570 million. But it seems Ranbaxy had an alternative plan. In the last one week, it made three foreign acquisitions. What are they? On March 27, Ranbaxy acquired the unbranded generic business of Allen S.p.A, a division of GlaxoSmithKline, in Italy, for an undisclosed amount. On March 29, it acquired the Romanian generic company Terapia for $324 million. On March 30, it announced the acquisition of a Belgian generic drugmaker, Ethimed NV, for an undisclosed amount. That's three acquisitions in one week. But there is more to come I am sure. And we are waiting for that big ticket acquisition of Ranbaxy

What makes Suzlon's Tanti tick?

Several Indian entrepreneurs have tried and failed to make money from the winds. Not so Tulsi Tanti, Founder & CMD of Pune-based wind energy turbine maker Suzlon Energy. Tanti (Age 47) is now #8 on the Forbes list of richest Indias with a personal net worth of $3.7 billion. His net worth is clearly a reflection of the phenomenally successful IPO of Suzlon in 2005 (which was preceeded by two rounds of private equity funding in 2004).


Says Forbes:
Faced with escalating power costs, this former textile producer moved into wind energy a decade ago, eventually building Asia's largest wind farm. In October listed his Suzlon Energy, in which he and 3 siblings own 70%. Expanding into the U.S., China and Australia.
Businessworld and Economic Times have published detailed profiles of Tanti and Suzlon's recent breathtaking $565 million acqusition of Belgian wind turbine gearbox manufacturer Hansen Transmissions.Says Businessworld:
This deal — the second largest ever by an Indian company — is Tanti’s biggest breakthrough ever. In the early 1990s, he was a passable entrepreneur with a Rs 40-crore textile business. But the textile mills’ power consumption was greater than the profits that they generated. So Tanti decided to set up windmills to cut power bills and discovered the wind power business. But he had no access to the technology needed to manufacture wind turbines.In 1994, Tanti acquired Sudwind, a bankrupt wind turbine company. That provided the technology base. Then, in 2000, he purchased part of the assets and technology of Airpack, a bankrupt company that made turbine rotor blades. The technology and demand for wind turbines in India (thanks to the tax incentives) helped him build a company. He ploughed on even as others like TTG Industries and NEPC fell by the wayside. In a few years, he became the market leader in India.

Some Indian Online Businesses You Can Bet Money On

Online businesses should be making a comeback in India. Currently the Internet subscriber base stays at 38.5 million (according to IAMAI), although this number is contested by one of the brightest and young researchers in India like Laveesh Bhandari (he runs a research and analytics firm called indicus) . In my opinion, internet has to grow whatever is the current base. Five years down the line, India should have a net base which can be monetised in a big way. I am sure about it. I want to take your attention to Alok Mittal's post (in VentureWoods.org) on the opportunities in Internet. Alok has built a successful Web 1.0 company, JobsAhead.com, in India and sold it to Monster.com last year. I am reproducing it below:
One thing that I have been thinking about is the set of online businesses that are ripe for indian market. In 1999-2000 the dotcom boom lasted only 3 months in India, and as such, some ideas and teams that might have had merit could not get funded. Five years later, a lot of interest is coming back. One set of ideas are clearly around “concept arbitrage” — bring and localize ideas that have been successful elsewhere. JobsAhead was an example of this, so was Baazee. Some examples of obvious holes: 1. Online consumer travel. Makemytrip got funded few months back, and I hear some others have funding too. This space is getting competitive. Are there models which people are not looking at but are valuable? A travelog site for example (check out my Leh travelog). 2. Ecommerce — there is still no amazon.com equivalent in India. I still buy most books I need from amazon, and pay $7-8 per book for shipping. And I spend around $500 per year doing this. Firstandsecond and Fabmall started with promise but (imho) succumbed to low funding and premature entry (though I believe, both sites are still there and may make a comeback). Horizontal portals are taking some of this action away, in travel, in ecommerce and so on. But, focussed brands will have potential. Would love to hear about big ideas waiting to happen in India (either concept arbitrage, or otherwise)… Any thoughts?

Five Great Internet Businesses In India One of my readers has some interesting insights into the online businesses in India. It came in as a comment but is worthy of going as a a main blogpost (I like doing that since they get a good display and get widely read). So here goes some valuable thoughts from an anonymous reader:
Too much attention has been given to IT start ups and software companies. Businesses outside of software domain, but with an online model for transacting hold the key to INDIA all round success. Sucess is bound to follow in some non IT ventures with an online model where there is: 1) Scalability 2) Faster, efficient, customer-delight service 3) The same similar offline business model sucks and customers are looking for an alternative mode of doing the transaction Five businesses growing at a fast pace in India that come to my mind are:
1) Online Trading
2) Online Recruitment Services
3) Online Ticketing Services
4) Online Realestate/Wine Websites
5) Expatriate/NRI Centric models

1. Online Trading Websites You might have seen the frenzy created by indiabulls.com and their successful IPO and the spectacular results as people embraced online investing faster rather than the offline broker relationship as it bypasses all the hassels Hdfcsec.com, Icicidirect.com, Paisabuilder.in (IDBI's new venture), Kotakstreet.com, Sharekhan.com (SSKI group) are some of the equity trading portals doing good business as equities both - primary + secondary market, options, NEW IPOs, commodity trading etccan all be done direct from ur online account. So the loop among YOU, YOUR bank account, YOUR online broker is complete. Here in US similar models like E*Trade, Ameritrade, Scottsdirect, TAIB have similar models

2. Online Recruitment BOOM or BUST, there is always demand for recruitment/job websites and niche domains to co-exist. www.dice.com is a complete IT focused job portal in US which does not have a similar player in Indian space. Naukri.com and monster.com were doing brisk business post 2001 when almost most of the sectors were in a slump following dot com bust and 9/ 11. Leading Newspapers are slowly moving into this space, like the Times of India's timesjobs.com portal

3. Online ticketing services Just imagine the pain, time involved in buying a train ticket and movie tickets for a new movie. The thought itself kills the idea of planning such an event. Now online ticketing portal by Indian railways is doing good business and quarterly sales are shooting up by more than 100%. (IRCTC) Same is the case where Movies/multiplexes are moving towards online ticket services and some players are even delivering them personally through couriers to the customers residence when they book their movie tickets online PVR Cinemas -http://www.pvrcinemas.com/pvr/index.asp

4. Wine/Real estate Our own Mahesh Murthy (Passionfund) funded an idea which was ahead of its time for the Indian markets in 2000. Wine.com does lucrative online business in US and a country like India which has taboo attached to drinking is changing fast with the Gen X taking over. Wine companies are seeing their reveneus climb northwards as evident by the results, expansion plans of Chamagne Indage, Grover Wineyards, Sular vineyards, but a good Inda centric brewery site with buy/sell/faqs/online social networking for drinkers is missing. Mahesh Murthy-funded Tulleeho is trying to fill this gap. Real estate Realestate has been liberalized and the industry is expected to be $100 bilion by 2010. The offline market is fraught with brokers, dalals, with dubious track records, unclear titles, no transparency in the entire process and real estate is branded as not a liqufiable asset like cash or shares as the entire transcation to buy or sell would take months. If this entire process is made easy and transparent, then people would flok to online space. US has some good models like zipRealty Inc., which is using the Internet in a futuristic way to buy and sell homes, cutting costs in the process >> http://www.ziprealty.com India has woken up to this potential and we see a new wave of portals from the early movers like Indiaproperties.com 99acres.com ( NAUKRI.com's realty venture) Indiaproperty.com (SIFY's new Realty venture)

5. Expatriate/NRI Centric models Hassle free Remittance services for NRIs like WesternUnion, Times of Money hold potential keeping the umbilical cord active for expatriate remittances to anywhere, anytime, anyamount (as long as it is less than $2k) in India witin 24 hours Sulekha.com >> which provides many services for Indians who entered US for the first time or for job/accomodation searches for NRIs in US Your Man In India >>> TTK group's portal which provides various services for NRIs outside INDIA, who want small things still done in India but can't ask their parents to take care of these activities as the parents may not be aware, illeterate, old, disabled etc. provide good market.

NASSCOM- McKinsey's report on Indian IT industry

NASSCOM and McKinsey's detailed analysis indicate that the addressable market for global
offshoring exceeds US$300 billion. They believe that India can sustain its global
leadership position, grow its offshore IT and BPO industries at an annual rate
greater than 25 per cent, and generate export revenues of about US$60* billion by
2010. Additionally, export growth can be further accelerated through deep and
enduring innovation by industry participants. Such extensive innovation could
generate an additional US$15-20 billion in export revenue over the next five to ten years.

Band of Angel Investors launched in India..

India's Band Of Angels Launched; Invests In A Delhi Software Product Startup Knowcross

BoA is now officially launched and has already invested in a venture - Knowcross - a hotel guest management software company in Delhi. If you want to know more about BoA and how they pick companies etc, I have written a four page feature on Band of Angels in the latest issue of Business Today magazine, which is available on stands. Venturewoods.org has given a link to the pdf copy if you are interested in reading the plain sheets. BoA, modeled on the Silicon Valley's Band of Angels, is a growing organisation in Delhi. It's already 20-member strong and has experienced entrepreneurs like Saurabh Srivastava and Mohit Goel of Xansa, Alok Mittal of Baring Private Equity, and Raman Roy (ex-Spectramind) as backers, besides accomplished pros like Arun Kumar of Flextronics Software and Jerry Rao of Mphasis. It's an interesting group to watch