Cloud Computing: Opportunity for Indian entrepreneurs

According to Gartner, 80 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies are expected to use some form of cloud computing services by 2012. This will create a huge opportunity for software, application and infrastructure developers in the Indian market where cloud computing is still at a nascent stage. Indian businesses are adopting the Software as a Service (SaaS) model and are using Web-based transaction platform, and are expected to be quick adopters of cloud-based services. Such services have gained quick momentum over the last two years, across large enterprise customers, small and medium sized businesses, and start-ups.

Some of the biggest players in cloud computing market today include Amazon, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Google, and IBM, while companies such as Wipro, Yahoo, and TCS are foraying into this segment to offer customisable solutions to businesses across verticals. While such large companies will perhaps rule the infrastructure play, creating applications could prove to be an interesting business proposition for tech-savvy entrepreneurs in India. For example, SOASTA was quick to realize the potential of application development and has harnessed the immense power of cloud computing to become the leading provider of cloud testing, which businesses use to test the real-world performance of their web applications. Using the flexibility, scalability and economics of cloud infrastructure, they are able to offer load tests with hundreds of thousands of simultaneous users – something that was unthinkable even two years back.

At the same time, the enabling technologies for cloud computing are still under rapid evolution, and Indian entrepreneurs could help shape the cloud computing environments of tomorrow. These include the entire range of storage technologies, replication and failover systems, and even application development platforms (also referred to as PaaS). Virsto is an interesting Canaan-backed venture looking to create next generation cloud storage systems using commodity hardware.

Security is perhaps one of the biggest concerns that businesses would like addressed when they share their data with third-party software hosting companies. Even though Gartner anticipates that by 2011, enterprises will purchase as much as 40 percent of their IT infrastructure as a service, there will always be some hesitation about sharing critical information with someone outside the company. Fortune 500 enterprises are expected to partially address this through use of private clouds. However, for the majority of enterprises that will use public cloud infrastructure, entrepreneurs can exploit this opportunity to create security infrastructure and applications.

Cloud computing represents a major shift in the way IT infrastructure will be designed and offered. It opens up enormous opportunities for entrepreneurs to build large businesses, and Canaan is excited to partner with visionary entrepreneurs in this nascent area.

Alok Mittal, Managing Director

Portfolio News

mCarbon, the New Delhi-based mobile media and value added services (VAS) provider, recently announced the launch of a music station. The store will enable users to select and download full song tracks, ring tones, caller ring back tones and music videos on their mobile phones through a single interface. The company is also planning to launch a service for international roamers with a leading telecom operator and will be doing a pilot in Delhi this month. mCarbon, the VAS provider boasts to have more than 100 enterprise customers, including Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Bank of India and Axis Bank.

Bharat Matrimony, World’s first & largest Matrimonial brand recently conducted a survey among the youth and married people across India to know - “What Valentine’s Day meant to them.” The online survey received close to 1876 responses from respondents while the on-ground had a total of 1033 people.

BharatMatrimony, also received an Award for Excellence on India’s leading Internet company by The Institute of Economic Studies, New Delhi.

Vivox, a Framingham, MA-based provider of voice services for online games, virtual worlds and social networks, recently raised $6.8 million in its third round of venture funding. Canaan Partners, an existing investor, also participated in the round. With the latest investment the company plans to make voice part of more and more shared experiences online for its customers. Providing the managed voice service, Vivox connects people and communities across multiple platforms including PC, game consoles and Web-based social networks such as Facebook.

  Blurb, the creative publishing and marketing platform, announced record growth in 2009 as consumers and creative professionals worldwide turned to Blurb as their preferred publishing platform to create, publish, share and sell professional-quality books. The company achieved more than 50% year-over-year revenue growth with 2009 sales of more than $45 million. Blurb boasts of having created and shipped more than 1.2 million books in 2009 – more volume than the company had shipped in total since its launch in 2006.

At Canaan Partners

Canaan Partners, recently announced that it has joined the Invest in America Alliance – an international group comprising VCs and corporates. The firm has committed to investing $200 million in U.S. based technology companies over the next two years as part of the alliance’s Invest in America effort. The Alliance is focused on encouraging investment, technology entrepreneurship, and job creations in the U.S. It aims to drive the development of cutting edge technology in the U.S. and further anchor the nation’s competitiveness on the global stage.

Events

Green Investment Congress India 2010, a premier event on clean technology-related investments, which brings together the best from the field of finance and project development on one platform to exchange ideas, generate business and push the industry forward. 

The event to be held in JW Marriott Hotel in Mumbai on 20 – 21 April, 2010 will be aimed at discussing all aspects of opportunities in the green sector, and provide the top executives across the industry to gather and identify where the potential for investing in Green Technology lies.