TiE-Canaan Entrepreneurial Challenge 2008

Canaan Partners and TIE come together to launch the second edition of the TIE-Canaan Entrepreneurial Challenge

Canaan Partners, a global venture capital firm, and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE), an organization which
has been at the forefront of nurturing entrepreneurship worldwide, today announced the launch of the TIE-Canaan Entrepreneurial Challenge, a business plan competition open to early stage entrepreneurs from across the country.

Entrepreneurs from across India will have an opportunity to compete for business mentoring, access to early stage investors and recognition in the second edition of this unique business-plan contest.

To compete in the challenge, participants will need to download and submit their applications from the website: http://www.tienewdelhi.org/canaan/. The deadline for submission of the business plan applications is May 12, 2008.

Introducing the challenge, Alok Mittal from Canaan Partners said, “The Indian market offers an exciting opportunity for new business ideas to grow in to successful businesses. We strongly believe that initiatives like the TIE-Canaan Entrepreneurial Challenge will act as catalysts for aspiring and early stage entrepreneurs to come forward with their business ideas and be provided strategic insights by experts to enable them to grow.”

“We saw a great response when we introduced the challenge in 2006, and have incorporated feedback from those participants, jury members and partners towards making this years challenge more engaging and useful for the participants,” Alok added.

Eight (8) teams will be shortlisted based on their potential scale of the business, the strength of the team and sustainable differentiation in the business model. These shortlisted applicants will be invited to participate in the final round in the month of June (2008) which will see them presenting their plans and ideas in detail to an eminent jury of the country’s leading entrepreneurs and corporate heads. At this
stage the shortlisted participants will gain valuable inputs and be mentored on their plans by these jury members.

This year’s jury will include Pramod Bhasin (CEO & President, Genpact), Raman Roy (Chairman, Quatrro BPO Solutions), Saurabh Srivastava (President, TIE Delhi), Sanjeev Bikhchandani (co-founder and CEO of
Naukri.com), Mahesh Murthy (Partner, Seedfund) and Alok Mittal (Managing Director, Canaan Partners India).

About TIE Canaan Entrepreneurial Challenge:

The TIE-Canaan Entrepreneurial Challenge was introduced in 2006 and saw as many as 104 applications from promising entrepreneurs across the country. An eminent jury of successful entrepreneurs including the likes of Pramod Bhasin, Raman Roy, Saurabh Srivastava, Mahesh Murthy and Alok Mittal worked closely with the shortlisted participants to select Vegayan Systems, Six DEE and Infozech Software as the winners. The winners were hosted by INSEAD, one of the most renowned schools of entrepreneurship, where they conducted a case study workshop on the global potential of their plans at the Singapore campus of INSEAD.

About Canaan Partners

Canaan Partners invests in visionary entrepreneurs and provides them the networks, insights and operational guidance required to build high-performance technology and healthcare companies. For 20 years, they have taken an active and committed role in the companies in which they invest, and have completed more than 67 mergers and acquisitions and 51 IPOs. With $3 billion under management and a worldwide footprint, the firm's technology team is committed to catalyzing the growth of innovative companies in the digital media, communications & mobility, enterprise and clean tech industries. Among its successes are DoubleClick, the leading online advertising solution, Match.com, the most popular online dating site in the world, CommerceOne, the company that pioneered and brought B2B ecommerce to the masses; Capstone Turbine, first to market and world's leading producer of commercially viable microturbine energy products; and VOIP equipment supplier Acme Packet, which was one of the top ten performing IPOs of 2006.

Other Canaan technology investments include SuccessFactors, Active Networks, Blurb, Dexterra, Tremor Media and GroundWorks. Canaan has offices in California, Connecticut, India and Israel. For more information visit:
www.canaan.com

Editorial contacts:

Genesis Burson-Marsteller
Vivaan Gideon
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Sadaf Khan
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