GigaOM

Like China, India is becoming a must-invest destination for US venture capital firms. Norwest, Kleiner Perkins, and Sequoia Capital are some of the funds that have invested in India and Indian companies. The latest to join the party is Matrix Partners, which has just closed $150 million Matrix India Fund. The new fund is headed by Avnish Bajaj of baazee.com (an auction company bought by eBay) and Rishi Navani, who formerly headed WestBridge Capital Partners that recently merged with Sequoia Capital. (Press release in PDF.)

The Mumbai-based fund, raised in partnership with Matrix Partners in the U.S., will be invested over five to seven years and will focus on early and growth stage funding of consumer services companies. Matrix India will provide risk capital to companies in the Internet, mobile, financial services, media and entertainment, healthcare, travel and leisure categories.

Matrix Partners has already invested $100 million in India through its $1.3 billion hedge fund. Almost 70% of the firms in the company’s fund have their research and development presence in India. Venture Intelligence that private equity deals in India rose sharply to $3.5 billion across 146 transactions in the first half of 2006 compared with $795 million through 67 deals in the same period last year.

The ‘Broadband in the Sky’ concept is finding its way to India. Early next year, passengers aboard planes of several Indian carriers will be able to access the Internet to surf, chat and watch television on a broadband connection, reports The Financial Express.

India’s private carriers including Kingfisher Airlines, a JetBlue clone; and other fast growing carriers such as Jet Airways and Air Sahara, plans to provide Internet connectivity at 35,000 feet. The state-owned carriers Air India and Indian Airlines are going to offer these services.

“We plan to offer Connexion, Boeing’s real-time, high-speed Internet and data communications service,” said Jitender Bhargava, Air India’s Executive Director. Kingfisher Airlines has announced plans to have live television on its flights by next March. Its fleet of Airbus A320s will be fitted with a satellite dish and live television will be available at every seat.

Continue »

To cash in on the country’s nascent but growing market for online games, Bharti Airtel Limited, India’s largest private broadband and telephone service provider, has partnered with Indiagames Limited to launch a games-on-demand service on its broadband network. (Indiagames is backed by Cisco Systems and Adobe Systems’ Macromedia.)

The service is going to cost roughly $5-a-month and offers unlimited access to single player and multiplayer games and includes games like Age of Empires, Star Fury, Driv3R and Flight Simulator.

“With over 85% of games in India being sold illegally, we believe that with our unparalleled price offering we will significantly expand the segment of legitimate sales and bring the experience of high quality online gaming to millions of gamers in India,” said Vishal Gondal, founder and director of Indiagames.

At 1.5 million users, India’s broadband market is small and growing at a sluggish pace. Gondal said the gaming service would spur broadband usage in India’s urban and semi-urban areas. Well, it did wonders in South Korea, Japan and China. Maybe this is the little nudge India needs.

Indians listening to FM radio on their mobile phones can now watch visuals while listening to their favorite Bollywood songs, as Nokia, Hewlett Packard, local station Radio Mirchi and mobile operator Hutch have launched a new service called ‘Visual Radio.’

The service, which will initially launch in Delhi, will let users buy concert tickets, video clips, games and ring tones. It will also allow users participate in quizzes and audience polls. The application will be available on 10 Nokia handsets including the Nokia Nseries phones. Mobile operator Airtel will also soon provide the service.

“This is a classic case of convergence of telecom, radio and music. The key here would be to provide our listeners with quality content,” said Pankaj Mathur, country manager, HP India Sales.

Nokia initially developed the technology for integration into mobile phones carrying FM radios. HP came on board to market, sell, distribute and implement the Visual Radio solution with operators and radio stations globally.

Qualcomm has denied reports that it is negotiating with Indian CDMA players, including Reliance Communications, on lowering royalty charges or chipset costs, The Hindu reports quoting the Press Trust of India news agency. “Qualcomm is committed to help the industry drive handset prices down and it involves multiple players and has nothing to do with negotiations on royalties with operators as they do not pay it,” the company is quoted as saying. The company said royalties on devices sold in India as well prices of the devices in the country are the lowest in the world. “Qualcomm is working aggressively to enable even lower-cost devices,” the company said.

Last month Qualcomm Chief Executive Paul Jacobs’s talks with Reliance Communications officials in India broke down on the former’s refusal to negotiate on the royalties issue. After that meeting Reliance Communications said it might migrate to GSM technology.

CDMA subscribers’ share in the Indian market will fall to seven per cent by 2010 while GSM subscribers’ share will grow from the current 75 per cent to 93 per cent, according to consultant Credit Suisse. Nokia, the world’s largest handset maker, has already shelved its CDMA handset manufacturing plants.