PuneConnect gears up to showcase best start-ups from Pune

For start-ups in India Bangalore is the Silicon Valley, but Pune that has been number two for product start-ups has beaten the southern city in certain sectors, say findings of an upcoming report.

Pune is ahead of Bangalore when it comes to start-ups in enterprise technology, clean-tech and life-science, says the finding of report 'Think Pune' to be released at PuneConnect 2014 and researched by Maneesh Bhandari of centre for innovation incubation and entrepreneurship (CiiE) India at IIM-Ahmedabad.

"This is the first time that CiiE is doing something which is outside of IIM-Ahmedabad. The reason is we have had some start-ups from Pune using the CiiE and IIM-A's accelerator programme. With interest being generated from several incubators in Pune, we are also looking at taking our success journey with Accelerator at IIM-A to Pune," said Bhandari.

PuneConnect in its fourth year, is the biggest events from start-ups in Pune to showcase their products, ideas to the bigger eco-system that consists of Angels, VCs, industry players and the student community. The event is flagship platform of Software Exports Association of Pune (SEAP). Some of the successful start-ups from Pune include, Druva, PubMatic, Sapience Analytics, among others. The popularity of the event can be gauged from the fact that participation have increased almost four times since 2011. According to Gaurav Mehra, ex-president SEAP, in 2011 the received only 20 applications, compare this to 2014 were PuneConnect has received 115 applications of which 65 have been selected for showcase.

"Over the last three years we have also seen the start-up eco-system nature in Pune with entrepreneurs addressing not just tech issues. The teams have matures with average team experience is of 7-8 years and age group varies in mid-to-late 30's with young engineers. And more importantly, we see entrepreneurs having a clear line of sight on raising funds," added Mehra.

Of these 65 companies 45 are early stage start-ups, and 20 will have equal participation from leading companies of Pune like QLogic and companies that are beyond the start-up phase and have made their presence felt in global markets like Sapience.

PuneConnect will see 100 senior executives and investors participating along with over 500 audience. The PuneConnect 2014 will be different also as the event will get more streamlined and will see much more collaboration with industry associations like Nasscom, Software Technology Park of India (STPI), TiE and others.

SEAP through PuneConnect is also making sure that it builds Brand Pune by helping local technology companies establish business networks with other industry verticals through its programs and working with ecosystem partners. "Pune is perhaps the only city that has manufacturing sectore, technology players and the universities within reach. We want to create a platform that will allow customers to look at Pune start-ups for future tech needs," said Ashutosh Parasnis, president-SEAP.

The platform will also make sure that start-ups come to know all the possible platforms available for them such as incubators like CiiE and Clairon, mentoring programmes like TiE Nurture.

PuneConnect 2014 will be held on November 8.