A downturn in demand for housing and the shortage of debt and investor capital in the real estate business may be bad news for realtors. But, it comes as a huge investment opportunity for private equity (PE) players. Such firms say it is a good time for them to strike deals with developers facing a cash crunch for completing their projects and fund expansion. “India is a land of scarcity and due to the downturn, more opportunistic distress investments will be made now,” says Aashish Kalra, co-founder and managing director, Trikona Capital, a real estate fund management firm. PE firms have invested around $5.8 billion in real estate cos in the first half of 2008. Real estate firms have seen a blip this year as high inflation, put at 12.1% by latest government estimates, a 13-year high, and rising interest rates as well as steep property prices have turned away buyers.   more »

In a bid to spot more fundable product start-ups here in India, Palo Alto, California-headquartered venture capital firm Artiman Ventures is building its focus around what it calls an entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) programme. The firm, which likes to invest in early-stage “white market opportunities”—emerging sectors with few existing players—in the product space, is setting up an incubation centre within its office and has signed up three teamsso far. “We have seen extremely good (business plan) proposals, but very few people with exposure to product-marketing, so we want to stimulate more fundable plans,” says M.J. Aravind, a partner at Artiman, declining details on the in-house teams or the product areas they are working on. While programmes built around resident entrepreneurs are not new, it has been implemented selectively among VCs and has been a practice more common among large companies aiming to increase the reach of their technologies and services.   more »

Special lectures, courses planned for aspiring entrepreneurs. Venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) firms appear to have caught the fancy of business schools this year. Be it for creating awareness among aspiring entrepreneurs to raise funds, or merely understaning the operations of a VC/PE firm, management institutes have increasingly begun interacting with the industry. While some have announced setting up of a PE club for aspiring entrepreneurs, others are planning courses, special lectures and seminars to create awareness about the booming sector. Students of the Post Graduate Programme for Executives (PGPX) at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), will go through a course on PE in their last term between December and February.   more »