Core Team

  • Dr. Rakesh Bhatia, TheCapitalNet
  • Girish Shivani, YourNest Venture Capital
  • S Nagarajan, Innovation Scaleup Advisors
  • Priya Rajan, Silicon Valley Bank
  • Vijay Menon, TiE Global

 

Email ID: [email protected]

Introduction:

Venture capital (VC) provides long-term monetary investments in exchange for equity in a business.  Awareness about VC funding is generally high among entrepreneurs and SME business owners.  There are several sources for business owners and VC investors to facilitate the equity fund-raising process.  However, VC funding may not be an excellent fit for every entrepreneur or every business.  It is up to the entrepreneur to discover alternatives to execute their business idea or scale up the venture.  Awareness and know-how on the alternative funding approaches are relatively low now among business owners.  TiE conceived the Alternative Funding Sources Special Interest Group (AFS SIG) to effectively address this gap.

Mission and Vision:

The mission of this SIG is to empower entrepreneurs and small businesses to secure capital for their venture from alternate sources (other than equity.)  Our vision is to create the shareable assets of this SIG as the “go-to” place for alternative funding options and its effectiveness acknowledged by entrepreneurs.

Charter:

  1. Develop a community of interested TiE Charter members to create and maintain the knowledge base for alternative funding options and approaches.  Create a central repository of such sources and relevant contacts within these institutions for ease of access for our members.
  2. Raise awareness of alternate sources of capital that are finding favor with entrepreneurs within our local and global network.

 

Startup Entrepreneurs and SME businesses:  

  • Discover options other than equity fund-raising to raise capital for the enterprise—to move from the idea stage to product-market-fit and beyond.
  • Share experience and learning with the community.

 

Providers of alternative funds:

  • Discover better recipients of your funding.
  • Share information about your offerings to a relevant audience.

 

Mentors/Advisors:

  • Share your experience with entrepreneurs and small businesses.
  • Learn about alternative funding sources to help your portfolio.

Core Objectives and Desired Outcomes: 

To gather information and create awareness about the non-equity-based avenues for startup funding available globally.  Some of the examples are listed below:

  • Grants (Private and Government)
  • Endowments
  • Venture Debt
  • Bank debts
  • Revenue
  • Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
  • Crowd Funding
  • Etc.

 

Our approach is to bring together relevant professionals, representatives of alternative funding sources, and the beneficiaries of alternative funding approaches to continuously enhance the knowledge base and effectiveness of alternate funding sources.

Our activities planned are as follows:

  • Identify SPOCS from various geographical regions.
  • Gather information on the identified funding avenues with the help of regional SPOCS; identify appropriate subject matter experts.
  • Structure the information by Funding type, geography, regulatory framework, etc.
  • Dissemination of information: Whitepapers, Webinars/Conference, Masterclass, Resource Center/Playbook, etc.