Approach

We believe that people make all the difference in entrepreneurship based value creation. We have backed people who are driven by passion and a desire to excel. The rest, we are convinced, will follow.

We do not think of ourselves as venture investors but as Joint Venture partners with our invested companies. Our level of support, guidance, involvement and alignment is more representative of a closely formed joint venture setup and not a typical financial investor setup. We believe that this view of the relationship gives both Nadathur and the invested companies tremendous flexibility to make drastic changes, midway, in positioning, strategy or in any other aspect deemed important for creating value.

We believe in long term value creation and the fact that we are not a fund with a specific investment cycle gives us tremendous flexibility to focus on creating value over a longer period of time. Exit decisions are more representative of how a typical holding/group company would approach exit decision. Our structure provides us with the flexibility to invest not only at the seed/early stage but also in scaling up early/mid stage companies to IPO stage like a private equity player.

Criteria

Given the early-stage profile of companies in which we invest, we focus on the experience and capabilities of the management team as the primary determinant of success. We look for a strong and cohesive team which has the right balance of passion, vision, flexibility, realism and confidence. We expect the management team to demonstrate openness to change and willingness to course correct on the way, if need be. In addition to a quality management team, we always look for scientific or business innovation driven businesses that either target the Indian market or leverage Indian resources to target the global markets. As an active partner, we look to bring our significant business building experience to bear, in partnership with a management team open and accepting of constructive and strategic assistance. We look for management teams with whom we can have a true partnership where in personalities, work philosophy, value systems and approach are totally in sync and aligned.

Areas of Interest

Our preferred investment sectors are Information Technology, Healthcare & Life sciences and Engineering services. Because we are active hands-on partners in building the business, we prefer to invest in companies that are Bangalore, India based.

In Information Technology, we focus exclusively on seed stage and early stage investments and prefer areas in which we have expertise and/or can otherwise add value to the companies through our involvement. We prefer to take an incubation approach to our investments in Information Technology sectors by focusing on young, first generation professional entrepreneurs who are open to hands-on, collaborative nature of partnership and are willing to create the business together. Our preferred areas within the Information Technology industry are opportunities in Web Applications & Services, Software (including enterprise, security and infrastructure) & Services, Information Services, Wireless Applications, Services and Technology and other Internet Technologies.

In Healthcare and Life sciences, we consider opportunities in drug discovery & development, biotech, nanotechnology, biomaterials, drug delivery technologies, biopharmaceuticals and molecular diagnostics. While each opportunity would be evaluated on its individual merits, we would prefer to invest in companies which are synergistic to the business of our existing portfolio companies.

In engineering services, we consider opportunities in the aerospace and automotive verticals in areas such as high end Engineering Services, Maintenance Repair and Overhaul of aircrafts & engines and Manufacture of Aerospace/Automotive components using metallic and advanced components.