TiEtheKnot – fund me up, Scotty!

Open onto a wide long stage. With an equally large live screen behind it. A 1000 plus captive audience, sitting spellbound in absolute silence, watching the proceedings. Reads like a hit movie being played out in a large single theatre cinema? Well read again. This was the atmosphere at the recently concluded 5^th edition of TiEtheKnot at TiEConDelhi 2015. But it wasn’t anything less than a hit movie screening, replete with whistles and claps at the appropriate moments.

TiEtheKnot is a platform for high potential startups to raise their first seed investment in real time. The tagline goes: Unreal Speed. Real Funding. And true to boot. 5 startup contestants get 7 minutes to pitch their startup idea to a jury of 10 plus investors and a 1000 plus audience. The investors get 3 minutes for Q and A and after that they take a call on whether to invest or not. All this happens in real time in a highly power packed televised format in collaboration with CNBC TV18 Young Turks. An Indian version of Shark Tank, if you will, albeit much less taxing on the participants and allowing all the investors to invest.

So far I have attended the last 3 editions of TiEtheKnot and the thrill doesn’t seem to get old. A lot is to be said about the anchor, Raman Roy, a pioneer of the Indian BPO industry and a serial entrepreneur himself. He knows how to keep the audience interested, punctuating the high tension between investors and startups with well timed witty one-liners as and when required. After the investors have had their fill of Q and A, he opens the floor to the audience, but restricted to only 2 questions. A mad rush then ensues to get to the two microphones placed strategically around the hall to get a chance to ask a question. Mr. Roy firmly but politely strikes down any additional people in his disarming manner, thereby controlling the narrative. He then goes on to each investor, asking them to say Yes or No as per their intention to invest. A round of applause, maybe even a couple of whistles greet a startup when it gets a Yes, which invariably almost all them do. Just like Jai and Viru at the end of Sholay, defeating Gabbar. Except in this case, they are all on the same side, one hopes.

So what purpose does all this hoopla serves, one might wonder? Well to my mind, one is the undeniable result that most of the startups do actually get funded right on the spot. Of course, the startups have already gone through an extensive screening process and the investors are already aware of the key elements of each startup. In the most recent edition, around 8 Crores were raised between 5 startups giving a massive boost to the entrepreneurial dreams of these founders. And the spotlight doesn’t hurt either – the startups get featured on live TV giving them access to a great PR opportunity. But more than that, the event serves to both ignite and nurture the entrepreneurial spark in the mind of the audience (both present there live and watching later on) that if these startups can get funded, maybe so can I. In today’s India, with ever an increasing work ready youth population and no suitable avenues for most, starting a startup is both hip and the need of the hour. TietheKnot moves the needle in that direction, one funded startup at a time.

The 5 startups featured in the recent edition of TietheKnot were :

1. GreenChill : Renewable Energy powered cold storage
   
2. Talocity : Talent Stock Exchange
3. E-Chemex : Marketplace for bulk chemicals
4. StoryXpress : Online automated Video Ads for Businesses 
5. FtCash : Payments aggregator for merchants and customers

*The latest edition of TietheKnot was held at Taj Palace, Delhi as part of TieConDelhi2015 on 17^th Oct 2015. You can probably catch the event on CNBC TV18 and on YouTube. All views reflect the author’s personal experience. 

-Siddhant, Co-Founder & COO, SAS Online 

(@sidd2015)

This post was first published on LinkedIn