Visualizing Funding of Companies in India

It all started with me trying to understand the funding scene in India and how companies are getting funded - at which stages, how much, from where and who are the primary investors. With this, the hunt for data started and culminated in the Crunchbase Exports(as on 1-Apr-2014). The data was structured well, but OpenRefine was used to cleanup the data - cities with typo in their names and different cases were clustered into simple buckets. Other than this, no other manipulations were done. The data, for India, mainly starts off from Jan-2005(and ends at Mar-2014) and there are a total of 1150 records contains various details of the investments made. I do not think this is an exhaustive list, but it was a good start to looking into it and getting answers to some of my questions.

Lot of cool visualizations can be done to capture the various insights from the data, but I think histograms do a pretty good job and are readable to a vast majority. Lets proceed...

The first was to understand the spread of companies across cities, and without even thinking twice, Bangalore simply wins with the maximum number of companies. A slightly distant second is Delhi(this includes Noida, Gurgaon etc - if the details matter to the reader).

It is imperative to know the funding obtained across cities, and here too Bangalore wins with 4.6B$ and Delhi comes a close second at 4.4B$.

Fortunately, Crunchbase contains the details of the funding type and the other associated details. The spread of funding - as in, the type of funding and the count of it was an interesting thing to see and followed the expected patterns of Angel being in the top-slots.

But, it is important to know how much money do these different funding types bring to the table, and the patterns just got reversed with Angels going off from the top slots. I think, it would be extremely useful if Angel occupies the top-slots - this would signify that the startup ecosystem has no dearth for money and many startups are getting benefited due to angels; it is to be understood that the quantum of money involved in one particular round of Series-b(and above) is substantially more and is not to be compared with that of Angels.

The following chart would be useful as it superimposes the number of companies with a particular funding and the sum of the money raised in that type.

Probably, the following chart would best show the point above. It average money involved in a particular fundting type and shows the average and the maximum in such a category. Seriec-C+ has an average of 45M$ and the max is 200M$ (Tokyo's SoftBank investing in InMobi); whereas Private-Equity has an average of 49M$with a maximum of 300M$ (USA's Quadrangle Group in Tower Vision).

The top investors are listed in the below viz with Tiger Global Management(TGM) being in the first slot with 718M.

But the above number starts making more sense when the reader knows that TGM has invested only in 10 rounds whereas IDG ventures has invested in 48 rounds.

Half of the investments(7.5B$ out of the 14B$ invested since 2005) are primarily coming from USA, with India itself coming a close second and many other developed nations occupying the tail.

With the above, it is an added bonus if we known when the investments came in and does this have any bearing. Though I have not yet done any correlation of when the investments came in(i.e which quarter) and the eventual success of the company, it is interesting to observe the pattern in the following chart. Q1 clearly is the winner with the maximum funding and also the max companies getting it.

And finally, if that was a histogram(bar-chart) overdose, lets use a Sankey Diagram to visualize the money coming from different countries and flowing into companies situated in different cities in India. This graph is actually interactive and width of the arcs shows the amount of money involved in the funding round and clicking on it takes to details - but for the sake of this blog post, a screenshot of it should probably end this analysis.

Click on the Image to view it in  full size.

Reads in the First Half of 2012

1. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman  By Haruki Murakami
The reading season for this year commenced with this book in late Feb/March. Though this book has been lying around with me for sometime, i never got a chance to read the entire book at one go - always read a few chapters and let it sink. A trip to Kodaikanal and loads of free time made this a very entertaining read. This is a collection of short stories form Murakami and i am not sure what more i need to review. Just read it :)

2. Sneaker Wars: The Enemy Brothers Who Founded Adidas and Puma and the Family Feud That Forever Changed the Business of Sports  By   Barbara Smit
There are books on Corporate History that impress you, and it mostly happens that you know that went with the company - for eg. Lee Iococa's or Google's - these stories are well read and the books are everywhere around. But Sneaker Wars was a totally different book. I picked up this book with no expectations, and it turned out to be impressive. The narration of the shoe industry and the bloodshed and how the dynamics work to the present day are explained in the BEST way. I would rate this book very high in my list of books read on Corporate History; the author has taken a very niche industry(which many would easily overlook) and has given her 100% research and brought the best out.

3. Swag By Elmore Leonard
This book was supposed to be a game changer in the crime fiction world. The story is about 10 rules which are called as "Ryan's Rules" and how a duo use it to get rich with the least risk; and what happens when things start falling apart. This is a nice quick read, but do not expect anything great, as the present crime fiction novels have probably taken this precedent and are much more thrilling; this book was written much earlier in the crime fiction genre and guess was the harbinger of the revolution.

4. Golda By Elinor Burkett
This was probably the best biography that i have read in sometime. The "TRUE" Iron Lady, much stronger than Thatcher or Indira Gandhi; in fact, calling Indira Gandhi as an Iron Lady having read the life of Golda Meir would be a mistake. Golda - an epitome of how a girl from very simple background grew in one of the most hostile environments , was instrumental in the birth of a new nation and went onto head the nation and navigated it through some extremely tough times. READ READ READ this gem.

5. Bobby Fischer Goes to War : How A Lone American Star Defeated the Soviet Chess Machine  By David Edmonds and John Eidinow
This was probably my first book which is related to sports. Few snippets from this excellent read which would characterize the book better that my verbiage reviewing the book:

•   Chess is the most unforgiving of Sports; there is no comeback, no second chance, from such a careless gaffe.
•   Loss to Fischer somehow diminishes a player. Part of him has been eaten and he is that much less a whole man.
•   Fisher was guilty of serial 'psychic murder'.
•   Fischer's idiosyncratic and asocial behaviour marked him as un-American for many of his compatriots.

The narration/story-telling is apt and the author has done a commendable job of portraying the life of Bobby Fischer and his sporting career.

6. Thatcher's Britain By Richard Vinen
I was led to reading this book after reading Golda, as i wanted to know more about the other Iron Lady, but it turned out to be a boring one. A dull read with an equally dull narration. You are not going to lose anything if you do not read this book.

7. The Watson Dynasty: The Fiery Reign And Troubled Legacy of IBM’s Founding Father And Son By Richard Tedlow
The Big Blue had a troubled legacy and not many know about this, and this is exactly what this book talks about. More in terms of the senior management/founder's story with the IBM than the products that came out of IBM's stables, this is an interesting read into the dynamics of the team which ran one of the Biggest companies of our generation.

8. Life of Pi  By Yann Martel (Illustrated by Tomislav Torjanac)
A simple and elegant read about the 'travails' of a boy who gets onto a boat with Richard Parker(a tiger) and loads of luck and what happens during his castaway episode.

9 . Understanding Oil Prices : A Guide to What Drives the Price of Oil in Today's Market By Salvatore Carollo
Review : http://www.businessworld.in/web/guest/storypage?CategoryID=0&articleId=409758&version=1.0&journalArticleId=409759

10. From Stonehenge to Samarkand: An Anthology of Archaeological Travel Writing   By Brian M. Fagan 
If you are into travel, civilizations and architecture, then this book would be a nice read. This is not a quick read, and its better if you have some knowledge of the different civilizations, their birth, growth and demise and how they flourished. The author narrates from the point of view of an archaeologist and hence this makes the read interesting (though not a MUST read).


11. The Artist and the Mathematician By Amir D. Aczel
A quick read into the life of Nicholaus Bourbaki, probably the greatest mathematician(s) ever, and how art and mathematics have a strong correlation. The author has done a good job with the narration of the life of Nicholaus Bourbaki(who is not much known), but the first half of the book is a dull read.

12. The Lonely Planet Story  By Tony Wheeler and Maureen Wheeler
A nice auto-biography of the birth and the growth of what is a Bible to many travellers around the world, this simple(yet long) read could have been better if the authors had spent a little more time/effort in talking more about various geographies and share some humorous insights. Nevertheless, this is still a good read.

13. Velocity – The Seven New Laws For a World Gone Digital By Ajaz Ahmed and Stefan Olander
Review : http://www.businessworld.in/web/guest/storypage?CategoryID=0&articleId=416093&version=1.0&journalArticleId=416094

14. Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance By Robert M. Pirsig
Am reading this now.

15. Imagine: How Creativity Works By Jonah Lehrer
Review : http://www.businessworld.in/web/guest/storypage?CategoryID=0&articleId=424518&version=1.0&journalArticleId=424519

16. Impeachment By Anjali Deshpande
Review : http://www.businessworld.in/web/guest/storypage?CategoryID=0&articleId=425713&version=1.0&journalArticleId=425714

17. Whiskers For The Cat And Bilderoo Is Coming Enid Blyton's Mini World series 

18. The Art of Intelligence-Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service By Henry.A.Crumpton
Review :http://www.businessworld.in/web/guest/storypage?CategoryID=0&articleId=428634&version=1.0&journalArticleId=428635
    
19. Barbarians at the Gate By Bryan Burrough and John Helyar
Am reading this now.

A blind eye to the right cause

There is a famous story of the Vanilla icecream and General Motors that used to circulate the web few years back(am sure it is still going around in forwards)....This story is a marvelous one which teaches lots of management principles and way of looking at things. Most often it happens that we look at things with a wrong perspective or due to the inherent bias we dont even look at things that matter the most - it is these simple things/details that take mammoth proportions going down the lane and bring us down. For the benefit of my readers, am reproducing the story here ..

A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors: 'This is the second time I have written to you, and I don't blame you for not answering me, because I sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of Ice-Cream for dessert after dinner each night, but the kind of ice cream varies so, every night, after we've eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. It's also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem.....

You see, every time I buy a vanilla ice-cream, when I start back from the store my car won't start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I'm serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds "What is there about a Pontiac that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?"

The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter, but sent an Engineer to check it out anyway. The latter was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn't start. The Engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, they got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.

Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man's car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes: He jotted down all sorts of data: time of day, type of gas uses, time to drive back and forth etc.

In a short time, he had a clue: the man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store. Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to check out the flavor.

Now, the question for the Engineer was why the car wouldn't start when it took less time. Eureka - Time was now the problem - not the vanilla ice cream!!!! The engineer quickly came up with the answer: "vapor lock". It was happening every night; but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock to dissipate.

As always, am not going to draw an inference out of this. Let your mind see , what it chooses to see.

The Art of Downplaying (Part -1)

It is interesting to see when you let a person win over you, though you know that you can easily win her/him.

One knows that the other person is cheating him , but he still allows the person to cheat him. The cheater is fascinated by his abilities and the bovineness of the victim; the former is elated at his win. But what lurks in the minds of the 'downplayer'!!! No one knows! He loses to win again - return back with a greater impact and totally vanquishing the opponent. Like the phoenix that burns itself to reincarnate.

The Art of Downplaying is a fascinating field of human psychology that amuses me a lot. The complex calculations of a downplayer is very crucial, as his stakes are very high in this strategy. A single mis-calculation can lead to disastrous consequences with zero tolerance of returning back in the game. It is a very fragile and contentious issue and has to be trudged with utmost care.

I also forsee this as an excellent marketing and design strategy - again, with CARE. One announces market for a product , and the same person creates a dumb product (though, he has an excellent one waiting to ambush the market) and leaves it open in the arena. Many new competitors enter the arena. They fight among themselves building more dumb products and creating a huge market in the process; but our strategist lurks in the dark - he is outcasted by others for entering the market with a dumb product and is equally ridiculed. Suddenly, he turns around and announces the advent of the next big thing and creates a market upheaval. (Timing of the launch, type of launch, period of dormancy, timing and type of the re-entrance are the most important parameters here)

Its a check-mate :)

Toxicity

Seth speaks about Toxic bosses in one of his latest posts...

".....toxic bosses are far worse than toxic employees. Because bosses are often able to define reality, at least for those in their sphere of influence, they can cause whole sections of an organization to go off the rails....."

I would like to add couple of more observations here :

I find that toxic bosses do not only cause the derailing of the system but they infuse a sense of low-morale and inferiority complex in the team (this is among the non-toxic employees.....the dumb ones remain dumb); not to mention the complete lack of direction and doing-things-for-the-heck-of-it syndrome. Now let me change my gears slightly here and direct you to what Scott Adams mentions about smarter people having lesser intercourse than dumb people ; he rationales that

"....dimwitted get so much action is that they tend to be more attractive than smart people.Hot/dumb people are more likely to mate with other hot/dumb people and produce hot/dumb kids...."

Are Toxic bosses byproducts of this observation!!!

Along similar lines... Toxic bosses recruit more Toxic employees(who are essentially dumb) and the virality spread across the entire organization.The generality of the dumbness increases ( and i dont want to think about what happens to the future state of the organization).

Check out Seth's post on Toxic Employees too ;)

Getting crazy - Thought Process Entanglement!

Yesterday night i was reading about quantum entanglement and a little about how the superposition of states lead us to an almost infinite amount of number-crunching.Then I was reading about Galiliean Motion and the concept of space and time, and objects(points) too. Today was also mentioning the same to one of my pals online.

Later in the day when I was reading about DOM and distributed objects online w.r.t EJBs , then suddenly the 'Objects in EJB' led me to ponder for a second about Galilean Physics and the notion of Objects!

Fingering!

The Red Pill taker

The cliche goes :
" There are 2 kinds of people :
( i ) who look at things and ask '- Whats the cause for these to be in the present state? and
( ii ) those who look at things and ask - Why cant these be like this?
"

It is the Choice that matters the most. One who is able to understand the rudimentary problem and is able to make an effective decision considering all the constraints and the goal in mind will be 'The One'. The 'One' doesnt refer to a supra-human who can lift buses/trains and can fly in the air ; it refers to the thought process that a person posses by virtue of which he/she can conquer any problem at hand.This in turn reflects on the confidence levels and associated risk-taking abilities that one might have.

Understanding the case,constraints, possible solutions and framing a feasible course of action with the minimal risk factor can be said to resemble ANOVA(Analysis of Variance). A matrix of the constraints available and solutions would help us in doing a thorough analysis. It also helps us in framing the risk associated with each and every move.Decision Trees are a quick way of framing strategies with associated probability of success and risk.

Everyone is aware of these managerial tools; but it is the 'One' who can truly apply these tools in real-world problems and emerge with a most feasible and succesul solution. We all have been blessed with almost similar skills ; but the ability to understand the intricacies and making(and not chosing) the decision is what that counts.

I cannot restrain from quoting Lee Iacoca - "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind."

An end to remember

This was a poem written by my pal (Kashyap) sometime back. FULL CREDITS TO HIM.

Death by sleight of the hand
death coming as a marching band
seething foaming at the mouth
marching on, marching south

as civilizations crumble
their march ended in a stumble
filled with destruction and loss
they fall to the call of chaos

one by one they all fell
we now stand at the gates of hell
death comes to hold our hand
death and it's merry marching band

break not your stride my men
let us march into the lion's den
break not your stride and fall
though all the heavens may call

heaven knows our time will come
and ash and dust we will become
but until then we will march on
to meet our doom, till we are gone

our world too will fall at last
to the lightnings the heavens cast
but until then we must hold
the last of the strong and the bold

our woes will come and we will fall
and raging fires will consume us all
but stand and burn we will and must
burn until we are all ash and dust

blood and fire will wash us all
as we go to the mother's call
to return whence we came
and none remember what became

of those who dared to stand and face
the horrors that befell our race
though none may know your name
nor mine, our race will share our fame

our work man one day will find
the ruins which we have left behind
and wonder who we had been
what these strange words could mean

but that day will not be today
so tarry not, lets be on our way
to face the coming tide of death
as long as there is one more breath

the end is coming, know it all
be it today or not we will fall
we will make an end to remember
from now on to the end of forever

and all will know of the time we fell
those from a time when all was well
facing the certainity of their doom
who stood to try defy their nation's tomb

The Isolated Frog Syndrome

The Isolated Frog Syndrome
----------------------------------

Before you start reading this text, let me make a disclaimer : I am not sure if the the term 'The Isolated Frog Syndrome' already exists in the English Vocabulary. If it exists then my most humble apologies to the author for inventing this 'beautiful' phrase - there was no intent of plagiarization over here...and I respect the IPRs of the author; However If the phrase does not already exist, then I do have the copyright(or left) of the usage of the word. However, for the sake of the general audience I have 'opened' the copyright so that you can use them in your day-2-day vocabs; But do give the credits to me for coining this rather 'funtastic' phrase which you will find tempting to use in various connotations.

Now coming to the actual phrase and wat it exactly means ...etc ..etc.........

My initial professional career in the IT Industry saw many ppl. I had the opportunity to work with the top brass.I learnt a lot of ppl management and 'handling' skills.It was during my stay here that I made an interesting observation. Let me share my revelations with you (am I sounding like the 'AGENT'...nway...) :

I found that the managers are essentially are of 2 kinds :

one who have the 'real' xperience - this they would have gained by working in various indutries and with a variegated working environment. They know the intricacies of the term 'management' and set a precedent by their style of functioning and working. They are leaders and managers in the true sense of the word.

The other class of 'managers' sprout from the relatively 'uncharted' waters of the industry...that is these are the managers that are homebred or homegrown. They would have become managers by due to the sheer 'lack' of compeitition in the firm, for which they have been serving since time-immemoorial.They have high visibility in the organization and can control(or rather 'handle') the resources with relative ease - due to their POWER.


The term 'The Isolated Frog Syndrome' denotes the second class of managers.The problem with this class of managers is that since they lack the vision of the outside world , they tend to feel and start practicing the traditions of the company; the irony here is that , it is in fact these ppl who set the traditions of the company. The result of this trend setting is that, if a fresher joins in this 'well'(the firm), then the 'frog'(who is our manager) directs him that the outside world is not what he thinks; in fact our frog doesnt even know wat is happening in the 'real' world. Due to this, if our buddy 'guest'(fresher) happens to question some of the rather idiosyncratic actions / behaviours of the frog, he is reprimanded and is reminded by the frog that he better confim to the culture of the firm(the well) and take the pride in being a part of this phenomenon.

But time has its own due course. One day our buddy(fresher), decides that he is going to have a taste of the outside world and going to seek 'nirvana' from the WELL.The WELL remains a mute spectator.