Mahesh Murthy of Seed Fund, Venture Capital company in Mumbai talks about VC funding trends and investment opportunities in India. Seed Fund recently closed their round of $10 million for investment. They plan to invest in early or the seed round of funding of Indian start-ups. Mahesh says that there is about $1 billion in the pipeline that various VC companies plan to invest in India.

With so much money in the pipeline the inevitable question is what are the areas or sectors for investment? Mobile applications and content is Mahesh’s answer. The math is simple he points out. There are over 80-85 million cell phone users, and for millions of people in India the cell phone will be the basic access device to the Internet. Mahesh’s point is supported by a recent investment of $10 million into Mauj, a Mumbai-based mobile gaming company.

How much money is needed in the seed money for start-up in India? Mahesh says that in the initial or the seed round about $500-800k should get the start-up going. Indian start-ups do not need $2-3 million, the typical amount that US-based start-ups require at the seed fund stage he points out.

Mahesh and his partners plan to fund a series of Indian start-ups in the next few quarters and hope that these start-ups in turn get the subsequent (A,B,C) round of funding from the big VC companies that are either in India, or planning to come to India.

Before Seed Investment, Mahesh was part of Passion Fund, another VC company.

Mahesh is also the founder of Pinstorm Research located in Mumbai. There are about 60 people working in the company.

Mahesh lives in Mumbai with his wife and son.

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