Leverage 2009 - IIMA’s Venture Capital and Private Equity Conference

Leverage 2009, the first edition of IIMA’s Venture Capital and Private Equity Conference is being held on the 6th and 7th of February, 2009. The event is a confluence of industry experts, practitioners, advisors, academicians and students who would together identify and address the key issues and trends relevant to venture capitalists, private equity investors and entrepreneurs.

The conference will feature several illustrious speakers such as Mr. M. Damodaran (Ex. SEBI Chairman), Mr. Kanwal Rekhi (CEO, Inventus), Mr. Sandeep Singhal (Co-Founder, Nexus Capital), Mr. Mahesh Murthy (Partner, Seedfund), Mr. Mohanjit Jolly (Draper Fisher Jurvetson), Mr. Amol Jain (Texas Pacific Group), Mr. Ajay Tandon (Citi Venture Capital), Mr. Dhiraj Poddar (Standard Chartered PE), Mr. Suresh Raju (TVS Capital), Mr. Utsav Baijal (Apollo Group), Mr. Ashish Ahuja (Wadia Ghandy & Co.) and Mr. Vivek Joshi (Kotak Private Equity) amongst others. The conference is a student initiative of Leverage - the Venture Capital & Private Equity club of IIMA in association with the Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIMA and is organized by students from the 2-year Post Graduate Program in Management and the 1-year Post Graduate Program in Management for Executives (PGPX).

The conference has generated tremendous interest from all spheres of business. Several VC firms – Epiphany Ventures, Nexus Capital, Navaam Capital, Ojas Ventures, Seed Fund, Inventus Capital, Indusage Advisors, Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship and Capital18 – have confirmed participation. Several entrepreneurs, auditing firms, legal outsourcing firms, consulting house, banks, and private equity companies have expressed interest in participating for the event.

The conference will also feature a Business Plan showcase which is being organized in association with Epiphany Ventures, a Sector Agnostic Fund, with a size of $25 Million. Thirteen Entrepreneurial Ventures have been shortlisted for the Showcase panel, which is scheduled to happen on the 6th of February.

For entrepreneurs, there is a special feature in the conference whereby there will be expert sessions by faculty on focused issues concerning new ventures and businesses. Also, relevant faculty from the institute will hold consultative sessions for visiting Entrepreneurs in specialized fields like Operations, Leadership, Entrepreneurial motivation, Finance etc. A publication by Leverage is also being released concurrently with the event. It collates the views of students and practitioners on the industry in question keeping in mind the theme of the conference: "Venture Capital and Private Equity: Investing and Managing Portfolios in Distressed Times".

For more details, you can send an email at [email protected] or visit the Leverage 2009 webpage.