At HeadStart 2009, scheduled for 9th and 10th January 2009 at the NIMHANS Convention Center Bangalore, we are inviting quite a lot of corporate venture capitalists, directors of new businesses and initiatives and corporate development executives. I feel that Indian VCs are still not mature enough to handle businesses that seek to exploit ideas that are new; they are probably more comfortable handling desi versions of American ideas. Corporate venture capitalists can help with two problems here. First, they have the mandate to fund new ideas and startups. Second, and still better, they are often the best people to guide an entrepreneur through the corporate maze when he or she is trying to sell a product into the company and is trying to get a foot in.
Every entrepreneur has his own experience and his own opinions but let me introduce you to a few corporate venture capitalists and my experience with them. 
I do not remember which one I ran into first but I think it was Sony Capital who was referred to by the Sony pointman in Europe whom I was badgering to get a lead into their Japan HQ. Hiroyuki Uchida-san who used to manage Sony Capital in Tokyo explained how Sony worked, gave leads and explained Sony’s areas of interest in interactive devices, multimedia platforms and so on. Sony does have a manufacturing plant in Haryana and a sales HQ for India in Delhi but they do not handle any inbound sales enquiries there.
The next encounter in 2003 was with Schneider Electric who I was trying to sell and also collect requirements for some automation software we were implementing. 
Schneider Electric is into the plant automation and PLC business and Schneider Electric Ventures funds startups in the automation, sensor based applications and various electro-mechatronic products and applications. Jean Netter, who is the General Manager, is a very friendly man and is very responsive to new enquiries.
Interactions with Nokia’s then VP Pertti Lounamaa led to a run in with Nokia Ventures whose technical advisers helped in evaluating a product plan that we had proposed. 
I now see that Nokia Ventures has tranformed itself into Blue Run Ventures (BRV) which has an office and a partner in Delhi. There is also Nokia Growth Partners but I suppose BRV’s Vineet Buch is the person to go to if you are in India.
I did also have a run in with Motorola Ventures but before they could help me out with any directions, I found my leads from their CTO’s office. More recently, at HeadStart 2008, Jagan Rao was representing Motorola’s venture development interests and had met up with a few companies in the dedicated investor meet we held for startups.
A call from a Cisco guy in France who got an introduction to us led to interactions with Cisco. 
A senior director of technology in Cisco Systems has been my contact who introduced me to Joydeep Bose, corporate development director who manages investments in India. Cisco announced their venturing intentions in India and we hope to have them at HeadStart 2009. I suspect Cisco will deal with early stage startups but nevertheless they may be a good point to start in what is otherwise difficult terrain for startups to tread.
I will continue with this post tomorrow listing more corporate funds and business development units in otherwise difficult-to-find-a-lead-to multinational corporations. I have always used to them to find leads into business units and to understand if the stuff we were doing would be interesting to their businesses but it is not uncommon to have business units direct you to them if they themselves do not know which unit will be more interested in your product but nevertheless, they are always good to go to if you have their parent companies or businesses they deal with as prospective target users.
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