More details on the invention (which is actually done by cleverly bending light and then analyzing the results with a computer) can be found here

In any case, the question is, why is this article on PuneTech? Yes, Raskar is a Punekar – he did is engineering in COEP. However, so what? I am against the idea of Indians getting very excited about major achievements by people who grew up here, but really blossomed in environments outside of India.

However, Raskar continues to be relevant to Pune for the following reasons:

• He visits Pune on a regular basis, and is happy to give public talks and meet with people here, as was the case in the event PuneTech organized for him this July.
• It’s because of him that students and others in Pune get an opportunity to learn from people in MIT, as was the case with the MIT-COEP 5-day design and innovation workshop
• He is keen on collaborating with individuals and companies in Pune on various projects.

The last one I see as the most important, and far-reaching. Specifically, Dr. Raskar is interested in collaborating with individuals, entrepreneurs, companies, or institutions on at least two of his projects, if not more. Here are details:

• He is hoping to see that his EyeNetra invention reaches the maximum number of people in India – specially rural India. EyeNetra is the handheld, android-based, cheap device to detect vision problems including lens prescription, astigmatism, and cataract. Raskar is looking to collaborate with someone in India who can make this happen – either as a for-profit enterprise, or as a social enterprise. For more details see this PuneTech post
• He is hoping that some day, an event similar to MIT’s $100k Entrepreneurship Competition can be created in Pune in particular, or India in general. If there is someone here who can pull this off, Raskar would be able to support the initiative in various ways – including being involved himself, and trying to get people or groups from MIT to also be involved in some way.

Get in touch with Dr. Ramesh Raskar at: raskar@mit.edu (or get in touch with us, and we can introduce you).

Fab.com started off as Fabulis, a social network for the gay community, but pivoted to a daily design deals site.

This is the second Pune-startup by Jason Goldberg, co-founder and CEO of Fab.com. Earlier, he had started social|median, again with True Sparrow Systems of Pune, and this had a successful exit to Xing in less than an year.

In general, Jason Goldberg seems to have perfected the art of co-founding a startup with a development team in fully in Pune. This is not outsourcing in the regular sense of the word; he works with Pune based True Sparrow to build a dedicated team for his startup, he works very closely with the team, involving them in the conceptualization, architecture and design of the product, and spends one week out of every 6 in Pune. For more details on how he does this, check out this PuneTech post from his social median days: How social|median is Developed out of Pune

In any case, the full article about Fab.com’s funding is here

You can download Janwani’s PMC Budget Booklet Edition here. (If you have trouble downloading from that link, try this page and you should see a link to the budget document somewhere on the page.)

You can also check out Parisar’s analysis of the budget.

Overall, while Pune gets good marks for making the budget available to the public, apparently, the budget is not easy to understand, and making sense of it requires a significant amount of further processing. Parisar has done exactly that.

Now the next step is to convince the authorities to publicize how the money is actually spent (as opposed to how they had planned on spending it).

Earlier, Business Insider ran a story claiming that Pubmatic had gotten an offer of $300 million from Amazon, but turned it down in favor of going for an IPO.

Pubmatic is doing extremely well, as seen in this excerpt from the VC Circle article:

PubMatic acquired ReviNet, a US-based advertising optimisation company in May this year. It recently expanded to Europe and launched more data management and mobile products. Its GAAP revenue has risen 33 times in the past two years and by 51 per cent between the second and the third quarter of this fiscal year.

While Pubmatic is technically US-based, it has two co-founders who are in Pune (Mukul Kumar and Anand Das), and all of its development happens in Pune (with the exception of the ReviNet acquisition).

If Pubmatic does indeed go for an IPO, it will the first mostly-Pune-based software product company to do so. While last year’s Persistent IPO was many years in the making, Pubmatic is just 5 years old, and will be a great source for inspiration for technology startups in Pune.

Pubmatic has been one of PuneTech’s favorite Pune startup companies, and we’ve been covering it (see here and here) since our first month of operation in 2008. We wish it good look, and hope that this is just a first in the series of Pune IPOs

Update: Reader V. Krishna points out Kale Consultants was probably Pune’s first software product IPO. Kale Consultants provides solutions to the airline and travel industry, and has a mix of products and services, so it is indeed, arguably, Pune’s first Software Product Company IPO.)

Two emerging cleantech companies with very strong links to Pune have made us proud recently.

Pune based ‘First Energy’, one of the pioneers in the clean burning stoves business, was recently chosen as one of the ‘Technology Pioneers of 2012′ by none other than the World Economic Forum. This honor was bestowed on only 25 startups world-wide! Big congratulations to Mahesh Yagnaraman and First Energy. The announcement can be found here

In other news, ‘PK Clean’, a plastic waste-to-oil startup, took the runners-up prize in the ‘CleanTechOpen 2011′! They also took the grand prize in the ‘Air-Wast-Water’ category. CleanTechOpen is considered the ‘Academy Awards of Cleantech’, choosing the most innovative and impactful cleantech companies from the US. ‘PK Clean’ has a very strong Pune link: we are their proving ground. Their pilot plant is based here and their founder, Priyanka Bakaya, is originally from Pune with strong family ties here. Big congratulations are also in order to ‘PK Clean’ and Priyanka! More details can be found here

I am sure ‘PK Clean’ and ‘First Energy’ will add to the likes of Praj, Suzlon, Thermax etc, companies that are worldwide leaders in CleanTech and call Pune their home! No other city/industrial cluster in India can boast of this distinction!

In another little news, I’m sure a harbinger of more great news to come, Pune-originated ‘Carbon Clean Solutions’ (or CCS for short) was recently invited to attend World Economic Forum. Looks like tomorrow’s great cleantech companies have two things in common (besides strong technologies and founders): they have very strong Pune links and they all have ‘at-least-two-word-names-with-spaces-in-them’ Maybe CCS should relocate back to Pune, they have a leg up with a three-word name! Hint, Hint, Aniruddha Sharma!

Here is a video of Anil Gupte giving an overview of L3:

If you don’t see a video above, click here to see it on YouTube

L3 has received multiple awards this year, including:

• Selected as on of the top 5 finalists in the Economic Times Power of Ideas Competition conducted by the Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), IIM Ahmedabad. CIIE along with Dr. Narayan Murthy extended Seed Funding to this venture.
• Selected as one of the Category Winner at the DST-Lockheed Martin India Innovation Growth Program.
• Selected as one of the Red Herring Global 100 (Innovative ideas and ventures).
• Winner of the Wipro-Wharton Global Innovation Challenge in the category of New Consumer-Centric Innovations, felicitated at the Wharton campus.

Prof. Gupte is part of the senior management team at Amplify Mindware, a group of educational institutions that are part of the Bharati Vidyapeeth family.

“The Pune Effect: Any tech (un-)conference that happens in multiple cities in India will have its highest attendance when it comes to Pune”

It probably started in Sept, 2008, when PHPCamp got 1200+ online registrations, and 700+ people actually turned up, making it the largest unconference in India.

The following year, we organized an “Internship Mela” for students looking for internships amongst Pune’s startups, and we had to turn away 100s of students from the gates after we somehow managed to accommodate 800+.

Over the years, this trend has continued.

When DocType HTML5 came to Pune, the organizers had to shut down registrations after getting more than 600 registrations.

In July 2011, organizers of the Java 7 Launch event in Pune had to hastily shift the venue of the event to a larger hall when, unexpectedly, 400+ people registered unexpectedly

When we organized PyCon Pune, the International Python Conference, we were expecting it to be much smaller than the first two PyCon’s that were held in Bangalore, since the Python community in Bangalore is much stronger. However, once again, we had to close registrations after the number of paid registrations hit 650, since the venue wouldn’t take any more. Raymond Hettinger tweeted that this was probably the biggest PyCon outside the US.

Once is happenstance. Twice is co-incidence. More than that, and it needs to be given a name and a webpage of its own. Amit Kumar Singh called it “The Pune Effect” in a tweet in response to PyCon Pune becoming the biggest PyCon outside the US.

So, this webpage is dedicated to the Pune Effect, and the amazing tech community in Pune.

And it comes with a challenge.

A challenge to all organizers of tech events in India – Why are you not in Pune? I’m looking at you, NASSCOM Product Conclave, and DrupalCamp, and Amazon AWSCamp. If you’re an organizing a tech event in India, remember that if you skip Pune, you are missing out on your largest event.

And this is also a challenge to all the techies in Pune. We have to work to maintain this reputation. Follow the PuneTech Calendar where all the tech events happening in Pune are listed (you can subscribe to get all PuneTech events sent to you via email or via RSS), and the make it a point to attend. This will definitely help your career – you become more knowledgeable, and more importantly, you get to know lots of interesting and knowledgeable people. Not only should you attend tech events, but also drag some of your shy friends with you.

The most active tech community in the country is right here in Pune. Are you a part of it?

Here are details of the announcement in his own words:

I am happy to announce my association with a unique new cleantech fund: Infuse Capital. I will be helping them as a Venture Partner.

Infuse (Indian Fund for Sustainable Energy) is a new fund with some of the most influential promoters and investors in India and the world.

Infuse is anchored by MNRE (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India), DST (Department of Science and Technology, Government of India), IIMA (Indian Institute of Management, India’s most renowned business school) and BP (the global energy giant). All four of these institutions have made substantial investments in the fund.

This first close will be followed by the second close thru a few other investors: mostly institutional and a few individuals (both Indian and Global)

Infuse is an early-stage fund focused exclusively on Clean Technology companies. We believe that our influential investors (such as MNRE, DST, IIM-A, and BP) bring us the best chances of developing a good pipeline and will make the crucial difference in helping our portfolio companies thru the right policy mechanisms, technical help, unparalleled business network, and global cleantech reach. No other fund can boast of active participation and funding by such institutions. As you all know, Cleantech investments and business is very tough because many issues such as technology, talent, business models, and policies need to work together. We feel that Infuse covers all these aspects with active investments from the best and the most influential Indian and Global institutions to do that.

Besides that, Infuse is backed by a very strong advisory committee (and investment committee) consisting of some of the biggest and most successful stalwarts of Indian and Global cleantech industry.

My role with Infuse will focus on building a robust pipeline, making investments and managing the portfolio with active help to the portfolio companies. All my current associations and engagements will continue.

Infuse is now open for business (inaugurated last month by Mr. Narendra Modi who is the most forward-looking politician in India and Dr. Faroukh Abdullah, the Minister of New and Renewable Energy) and we are actively building a pipeline. If you know of entrepreneurs and/or companies working in Cleantech and could be looking for funds, please connect them to me at anil@infusecapital.in

More information is available at Infuse website.

This funding is going to be used by Druva to make a strong push into cloud-based backup. Cloud infrastructure for a bandwidth and storage intensive like backup can be a significant expense, and of course, sales and marketing too.

A few weeks back a partially inaccurate version of this story had been leaked by Economic Times and was reported by PuneTech, but we “withdrew” the story after Druva called us up and let us know that it was premature to talk about it. Talking about a company’s funding round before everything is finalized and the money is in the bank is dangerous for a number of reasons including:

• Funding is a tricky thing and there are no guarantees until the money is in the bank. Many things can, and do go wrong. One bad day on the stock market can cause VCs to reconsider any deals that are not final.
• From the time the startup received a term-sheet from the VC until the deal is finalized, there is usually a no shopping clause which prevents the startup from talking about the details of the deal with anybody else. This is to ensure that the startup does not use this offer to try and create a bidding war between VCs. Hence, if the details leak out the VCs might feel that the startup is trying to violate the no shopping clause
• Most importantly, if word leaks out that a VC is funding a company for amount X, then in next few days is is possible that the VC’s contacts in the industry (probably other VCs) keep saying “Why are you paying X? I don’t think it is worth more than Y?” and this can cause the VC to reconsider the deal. This is very dangerous for the startup.

This time however, the news is official (and is actually better than the deal reported by Indian Express).

As for what Druva does exactly, and why it is one of our favorite Pune companies, just read the previous article, which had a bunch of links. Here are some other interesting tidbits about Druva:

• “Druva’s disruptive innovation reduces the storage footprint and bandwidth requirement for backup by orders of magnitude compared to other industry solutions” -Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Nexus
• Druva, founded in 2007, has amassed more than 750 customers and protects more than 300,000 endpoints (i.e. servers, laptops, PCs) worldwide
• InSync’s global, source-based deduplication reduces bandwidth and storage by 90 percent while providing 100 percent accuracy for Microsoft Outlook and Office applications

Here’s the full press release regarding this news

Here is a comment from Jaspreet Singh, CEO of Druva:

Thanks Navin, but this news is not very accurate. This was unethically leaked and then misreported by Peerzada (abrar.shz@timesgroup.com) of ET for some cheap thrills.

Not sure when would people this these grow up and stop screwing lives of entrepreneurs who are already fighting against all the odds.

You have been a great supporter and I would give you a call sometime next week to give accurate information and some more good news.

Basically, Druva is indeed in an advanced stage in their second round funding process, but it is not done yet, and they cannot talk about the details of the amount or the investors involved. The details that came out in the ET report are inaccurate.

We wish Druva luck, and hope to hear the official good news sometime soon.