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The meeting with Mr. Rao gave us a lot of self-confidence. We had a team, a story, a few spreadsheets, a government willing to back us. Now, we said to ourselves, we are ready to talk about Venture Funding. The road to Bangalore was beautiful.
Miles of well-cared national highway that traversed mountains and rivers and sunflower fields seemed to be joyously cheering us on. Occasionally we stopped at a tea stall or a railroad crossing to listen to our own heartbeat.

Raising Venture Capital

Back in Bangalore, we commenced discussion with three Venture Capitalists. It was clear by now, that we will have to create an international look and feel for the company. It also meant higher than usual up-front foreign exchange investment in hiring the right kind of people, setting up offices overseas, investing in development of methodology and Branding. All this ruled out further discussion with a completely India based fund. Also, when choosing a Venture Fund one has to look at, other than cash, what value the partner brings. In an international business, who has funded you makes a lot of difference. The list narrowed down to two. With one of the two, we discovered, value match would be a problem. The style of the managers of that Fund did not give us the desired comfort level. Given that, we had the uncomfortable prospect of dialoguing with just one Venture Capitalist. At this time, destiny played her first card.

Sudhir Sethi, India Head of Walden, called me up and asked me to deliver a lecture presentation to 40-odd potential investees of Walden. Sudhir was a close personal friend and even before he joined Walden, he had consulted me on his unusual career switch, from working for an IT company to a Venture Capital firm. I had felt very excited about his joining Walden and had egged him on. For two reasons. First, I thought the opportunity was unusual and would give Sudhir a new career high. Two, he would work for Som Das.

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Subroto Bagchi is co-founder and Chief Operating Officer for MindTree Consulting (P) Ltd. The "Making of the MindTree" is told in the first person by Subroto Bagchi. In condensed form, it was published by Business World, filmed by InfiniTV, and aired on CNBC, IT Hour. Websites: www.mindtree.com & www.mindtree.com/subrotobagchi