Google bullish about Indian start-ups & Canaan invests in techTribe
Sahad at VCCircle reports about Google spreading its wings in the Indian investing scenario. Google has now joined as one of the institutional members of Band of Angels (BOA).
Google had previously invested as a limited partner in two early stage funds – Erasmic Venture Fund and Seed Fund. Recently they even acquired 30% units of Ventureeach TeNet Fund II for around $3.75 million.
Who are the Band of Angels?
Started back in April 2006, the Band of Angels brings together highly successful entrepreneurs and CEOs from India and around the world who are interested in investing in start up / early stage ventures which have the potential of creating disproportionate value.
They look at high quality mentoring along with providing companies a wide network to leverage to their advantage.
One of the founders of Band of Angels – Alok Mittal – is also Canaan’s managing director in India, a Venture Capital firm which led a joint investment in techTribe.
What is techTribe? 
We’ve covered techTribe a couple of times at WATblog..
Techtribe goes on the frontfoot in jobs networking!
and
as part of the India 2.0 series.
Well TechTribe can be called a community for Techies, where they can network for various purposes.
I’ve followed these guys for quite a long time now and they’ve grown at quite a rapid pace.
Their Connect2Develop initiative was an excellent one. Encouraging technology professionals in India to embark on an entrepreneurial expedition. It’s like a mini YCombinator for Indian companies (More than companies – basic ideas).
"techTribe exemplifies the innovative technology developments and entrepreneurs emerging from India who are looking for experienced investors that can drive their global growth. techTribe has established a strong following for its career networking site and we believe the company is poised for explosive growth as they change the nature of the recruiting market through new social networking and referral models," said Alok Mittal.
This is where it gets interesting – Career Networking site?
TechTribe can perhaps to some extent be called the Indian LinkedIn with a Jobster like future?
Well Canaan Partners have invested around $9 million in the BharatMatrimony brand – which also runs ClickJobs.com. Do we see a conflict in the future if ClickJobs plans to introduce some radical job referral networking scheme?
This follows Sequoia’s investment in MingleBox, while they have previously invested in Shaadi.com (A group which also runs Fropper.com).
Is it that VC Firms want more of the pie? Or are they hedging their bets?
While Fropper.com is still very much a competitor to MingleBox, techTribe perhaps captures more of the Web 2.0 imagination than ClickJobs.com which is pretty much a regular Web 1.0 Job Classifieds site.
Feel free to share your views with us.
Also worth seeing is Mashable’s: 70+ Tools for Job Hunting 2.0
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There is no intelligence in Techtribe, i am getting lots of mail about openings which i am not the target person [already working], because of thirsty of money they are sending random mails to all but not to concerned person.
I have been saying for sometime now to my co-workers to start investing in India and they brushed me off…but, this decision by Google really drives home my mission statement behind investing in India…It's a dynamic market that is poised for big things. I recommend this report on India i found that initially sparked my interest.
http://www.pennysleuth.com/rpt/InvestingInIndia.html
-Cheers!
Mahesh, Thanks for your comment. It's not that the site is sending you emails. It's people referring you to Jobs (that you may not be a good fit for) in their desire to earn money. It will die down in a few days/weeks. You can change your notification preferences so that you don't get referred to any Jobs if you're not interested. Just a suggestion. If you are potentially open, the random emails will drop after the newness of the referral model wears off. One thing you can do is go in, and Decline some of the referrals – the system recognizes it
To clarify my previous comment, the other members of techTribe can refer you to jobs they may think you'd be interested in. As a site, we can't stop that, but we have smartness built in to stop these people from referring anyone if people like you start to reject most of their referrals
Click jobs have always come up something new and innovative. So even if they launch a networking site, all that we can witness is healthy competition, as clickjobs never gives up on new ideas.
I dont think Techtribe could prove to be a very big competition for Clickjobs, as the latter is already an established job portal and that they have an edge over the new one, in terms of popularity among the people.
The first person to copy an unique and established idea becomes a great competitor in future.,
In india career networking site is a good vertical concept.,
Techtribe is a good concept , credit to the team to implement this however TT just lacks it somewhere . A dotcom should have sound fundamentals however the focus in the Indian circle is to get VC funded and its no formula to success
Typical example Minglebox – Vc funded but a peice of JUNK
Techtribe on the other hand has scope to improve