YC-style Indian incubator accepting applications
iaccelerator.org
iaccelerator.org
""When the company is formed we set up a bank account. When the bank account is set up we deposit a check for the full amount of our commitment ie. 5 Lakh directly into it. A company secretary is brought in to distribute funds from the company checking account as per the budget instructions. Adjustments to the budget can be made at board meetings. Founders do not have direct check writing control of the bank account."
Has any of this changed? (If not this is a sucker deal, hardly "YC style")
earlier discussion http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=842150
That being said, if a founder tells us they'd like their money up front, we'll write them a cheque.
In other words you think people just out of school can't handle 10k$ without board meetings but you want them to build great companies for you. That makes sense ;-)
This (majority of applicants being graduates) is true for YC (and other funds) too. PG and co don't sit around holding board meetings every time a founder wants to buy a laptop or a monitor.
"That being said, if a founder tells us they'd like their money up front, we'll write them a cheque."
This is good to hear. Founders (desperate enough to go with these guys), do demand your money upfront.
Ideally, we'd like you to work out of either Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore or Hyderabad. We can give you living & working space in any of these cities.
Also, if you've just got an idea and no prototype or implementation of any sort as yet, we typically invest between 2-5 lakhs and take an average of 6% in equity.
If you've got a product out and some traction of some sort, we're open to other options.
Its one meeting to decide a budget and we're not going to demand a specific budget, the startup gets to decide how much money they're going to spend and on what. Whether they stick to the budget or not is up entirely to them, we aren't going to police their money at all.
We trust them to build awesome companies which is why we're funding them in the first place.
"YC-like, my ass"
While we're inspired incredibly by YC, there are certain things we do differently simply because of different constraints. There's a lot that we do that maybe YC doesn't do, we will subsidize your living costs & working costs as much as we can should you choose to work out of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore or Hyderabad for example.
It is still unnecessary bureaucracy. 10k $ is not that much money even in India. The key point is that you still need founders to tell you upfront (in the form of a "budget") how they are going to spend the money. YC just writes you a check.
As for "policing", if a "Company Secretary" is needed to disburse funds (as per last years FAQ) you don't need to "police" anything and you have line item veto by default.
"We trust them to build awesome companies which is why we're funding them in the first place."
Which brings me to another question. How many of your fundees have gone public/been acquired etc in the last 3 years of your operation? I can't find that info anywhere on your pages.
If you don't trust them to spend the money as they like, you are risking next to nothing. (There seems to be some ambiguity on this. Do founders need a company secretary to disburse funds? Can they write their own cheques/draw on the money as they feel fit, once funded? a simple yes /no on this would help). Why would good developers trade away their freedom for this kind of bureaucracy?
"While we're inspired incredibly by YC, there are certain things we do differently"
Yet you still feel the need to add the "YC like" adjective while missing/perverting the essence of the YC approach.