[Guest Post]: Networking Consistently & Informally – A Unique Offering for Start-Ups

Editors Note: Guest Blogger Keyzom Ngodup works with Intellecap, a pioneering social venture capital firm focused on making double bottom-line investments in India. In addition to capital and investment support, Intellecap is unique in that they also provide a range of support services that enable social ventures to move from start-up stage into growth mode. You can read Keyzom’s other posts here.

Pune OpenCoffee Club is a new community designed to help technology startup enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, developers, advisor’s, investors and everyone else create a central place for networking. The platform gives a unique opportunity to create communities that transcend beyond their area of work and facilitates cross-linkages as well as fostering creativity through targeted discussions among diverse players. OpenCoffee Club allows anyone to announce and arrange a networking session.

As Sramana Mitra puts it in Too Much Money, Too Few Deals, “there is excess capital chasing Indian start-ups and lack of fundable deals.” Interesting, she explored the issue of seed capital for entrepreneurship in India and has highlighted that “mentor-capital”, critical and imperative at this stage of the game to build a pipeline of startup companies, is largely missing from the scene. Pune OpenCoffee Club is an interesting way of informally bringing mentoring spirit to start-ups.