Dotcom: What's Hot!

STATS & STRATS
What's Hot!

Downturn or not, moolah is flowing into hands that have proved safe so far. But yes, there's no dearth of sad stories too.

Team BT

Goodbye Standard

You Are M (URM)

Nowhere, Now Here

Touch & Play

"We Are A Small Operation"

And we thought venture capitalists were dead. Now, ICICI Ventures, the VC arm of the financial powerhouse ICICI, has pegged the total corpus of India Advantage Fund-its largest fund yet-at about $150 million.

"We are currently talking to several overseas and domestic institutional investors," says Renuka Ramnath, MD, ICICI Ventures. Reports suggest that the fund would be looking at both early stage and later stage funding which fall in the private equity space. ICICI currently has about 12 funds, with a total corpus of about $250 million under management.

Here's another dotcom inching closer to the next stage of investment. Pension management and payroll administration asp, India Life, is in the final stages of negotiations with some international financial majors (it won't name them) to rope them in as strategic investors. Company sources say a portion of the money raised will be used to fund the company's overseas expansion plan mainly in the Asia-Pacific region.

Ashok Reddy, Director, India Life: Kicking

This would be the second round of funding in India Life. In the first round, View Group, a US-based VC focussing on India specific investments, acquired a 45 per cent stake in India Life. The remaining 55 per cent stake is with the promoters, Manish Sabharwal and Ashok Reddy.

Renuka Ramnath, MD, ICICI Ventures: Capital moves

Now, only if life was as easy as in India Life. If market buzz is to be believed, eVentures India, the VC fund promoted by the Softbank-ePartners-Ispat combine, might become the first Indian VC to shut shop in the aftermath of the dotcom meltdown. eVentures India has started downsizing its operations and restructuring its investments, following a decision by its promoters not to invest any more in the fund.

This development comes nearly 10 months after the UK operations of eVentures closed down because of a decision by Softbank to freeze all further investments.

The grapevine has it that Hughes Escorts Communications Ltd (HECL) has joined hands with Commerce One India for setting up e-marketplaces, shelving its initial tie-up with Ariba. Gate2Biz, Commerce One's e-infrastructure partner in India, will be shifting its data centre from Mumbai and host it out of HECL's new data centre at Gurgaon, near Delhi. Gate2Biz will also provide broadband services to its customers.

Goodbye Standard
The latest in a long list of high profile new-e obits.

Bugsy turned to Shifty and he said, ''Nix nix. I wanna stick around awhile and get my kicks.''
Elvis Presley (Jailhouse Rock)

It did more than just stick around. No wonder, the end, when it came at last, turned out to be pretty stunning. After a three-year whirlwind run covering the ups and downs of the lords of the net, The Industry Standard magazine has now ended its life as just another entry in that deadly dotcom obit site with an unprintable prefix, f*****company.com.

The Industry Standard was a victim of the same forces that hurt the companies it covers. Launched in mid-1998, the print magazine grew by leaps and bounds, fuelled by a growth in interest in the technology-driven economy. In fact, in 2000, the magazine set an all-time publishing industry record of 7,558 advertising pages (for the year). The most voluminous issue of the magazine was more than 300-pages thick, but recent issues struggled to reach more than 90 pages. Standard Media did try to pull things back by discussing a revival with its board, including majority owner International Data Group, but the discussions broke down and death came calling.

So on August 17, the company, affirming industry rumours, uploaded this message on its site: ''Today, we turn our dagger around and point it at ourselves.'' The company will ''maintain its online editorial coverage while it seeks a buyer,'' but only a skeleton crew of six to 20 employees out of the original 180 will remain.

NEW TECHNOLOGY
You Are M (URM)
It's personalisation, silly. And a biz model too.

Chirag Patil, CEO, Net4Nuts

What's URM?

URM (Universal Resource Management) is a technology that provides the end-user with a single log in convergent interactivity. We, at Net4Nuts, will be the unification force which fetches information from disparate sources and information service providers; intelligently synthesising the data, the URM service then delivers this information to any device specified.

And what does that mean...

With URM an individual only needs one password to enter the customised world. The rest is a one-time effort wherein the user specifies choice of device, location, sequence and requirement for procurement, management and/or delivery of information.

Fine. But the name Net4Nuts...

Well, with its infinite database, the Net today is driving us Nuts. We provide the solution, URM, both through the asp mode as well as a licensed product.

-Roshni Jayakar

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