Why the rechristening you ask? Besides in-keeping with trend of renaming, versioning – we think – Morpheus reflects the new role we have taken on. So, welcome Version 2.0 – The Morpheus!

The Morpheus:

In its new avatar, Morpheus will invest 5 Lakh INR (10,000 USD) in portfolio companies starting Batch 4 of its Business Acceleration Program (BAP). We have raised a small fund to help start-ups monetarily giving them the impetus over and above our real mentoring value.

Our LPs are a group of young, bright professionals who have placed trust in Morpheus, understand the start-up landscape & above all, believe in YOU – the Indian Start-up Founder! Special thanks to all our LPs for laying trust in us and believing in Morpheus.

Open for applications:

We are accepting applications for Batch 4 of the Business Acceleration Program (BAP) that starts last week of March. Last date for receiving applications is March 10, 2010.

Find more information about the BAP here: Apply , FAQ

Morpheus – continues to stand by you:

In the last two years, we have had an absolutely great time working with the 40+ founders of our 20 portfolio companies. They are working hard innovating and continuously creating value. Thanks to them, that our belief in the Indian start-up opportunity is growing stronger by the day!

Morpheus continues to believe that India has some of the most gifted, smart, hardworking young entrepreneurs amongst us. And India itself is a land of overflowing opportunity with a large domestic market; infrastructure & support system that takes to build global products. So we continue to lay our trust in the Young Indian Entrepreneur.

No, Not VC’s but entrepreneurs like other fellow-folks!

Though we are investing a small amount of money to facilitate start-ups; Morpheus’ core competency will continue to be the value we bring through our Business Acceleration Program (BAP), as a business accelerator and advisory firm. The 4 month intensive engagement to help the start-up team accelerate their business; the community value that is gained by extensive interactions amongst Morpheus Portfolio Founders (The Gang) are our primary value.

As an entrepreneur / start-up, if you are looking ONLY for funding – we are not the right people to talk to. If you are ready to accelerate, go from 40 miles per hr to 100 miles per hr– We’d like to talk to you. Drop us a line: neoATmorpheusventureDOTcom

Find out more about us: Team, What we do

Morpheus’ main mission is to work with young ambitious teams & together create enterprise value, jobs, social impact, and thus script the new Indian economy. And create wealth for all associated along the way!

Sharda Balaji of Novojuris adds:

MVP has been on the forefront of helping startups succeed. Their hands-on approach, working alongside the entrepreneurs as a co-founder, no-nonsense attitude and their approachability is awesome!  For young entrepreneurs who feel lonely figuring things out, they must enroll with MVP for the sheer acceleration of their business.

Jaya Jha, Co-founder of Pothi further added when we told her about our latest effort:

The initial days of a young entrepreneur are best spent in being able to take the idea off the ground, rather than handling VC meetings, negotiating contracts and detailing exit plans. Most businesses don’t need a lot of money at that stage. But all of them need some! And it needs to come with the right mentorship.

Finally, closing with a quote that’s relevant to us all:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt
“Citizenship in a Republic,”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Wikipedia definition of *Phoenix

The latest batch has a diverse set of startups ranging from apparel, financial services, automotive, advertising & education domains

Bangalore, India – August 14, 2009 – Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) (www.morpheusventure.com) an India based venture firm, which works closely with select startups as a ‘limited co-founder’ announced names of 10 progressive startups participating in Batch 3 of its four month Business Acceleration Program (BAP).With this addition, MVP now has 20 companies in its portfolio.

The uniqueness of this batch is the diversity of the startups – ranging from apparel, financial services, automotive, advertising, robotics & education domains. This is also a step away from the original YCombinator program that was the inspiration to MVP’s Partners and focuses largely on web-technology startups.

“India has a lot of unsolved problems that lead to large markets opportunities,” said Sameer Guglani, Founding Partner – MVP. “That’s the reason our portfolio is focused on domains like education, health, automotive, apparel, retail, advertising and financial services.”

MVP has also expanded its team with Indus Khaitan joining as Partner in May 2009. Indus is a technology evangelist and an entrepreneur with over 10 years of product, technology & operational experience in the Silicon Valley. Indus started Tejit which was acquired in May 2008. Most recently, Indus was Chief Technology Officer of SezWho, a Silicon Valley startup which was sold to JS-Kit in Mar 2009. “We and all our portfolio companies are very excited to have Indus on board. He brings years of deep technology expertise, experience of building companies in the valley and his infectious passion for startups”, commented Nandini Hirianniah – Founding Partner, MVP

MVP Batch 3 Portfolio:

1. Adscoot: Yet to launch, outdoor media startup, envisioning a new medium of advertising targeted at SMEs – More here
2. EasySquareFeet: A full service real estate company, serving over 150 clients each month, with a mission to make the experience of renting / buying that all important SquareFeet ever so memorable! More here
3. InterviewStreet: A beta platform that facilitates students’ preparation for their placement interviews via mock interviews for the companies they intend to work for. More here
4. Naabo: Their flagship SaaS based product TurboDoc helps doctors manage their clinics & medical practice, and is used by more than hundred paid customers and growing. More here
5. Picsean: Aims to be a comprehensive online and offline magazine rack, with content being aggregated from photographers – professional and amateur across the world! At an idea stage currently they are yet to launch. More here
6. ReachTax: Envisioned to be the H&R block of India, they help individuals and businesses manage their finances and taxes. 10% of Small Businesses based out of Chennai, India filed their annual tax returns via Reach Tax in the last financial year. More here
7. Retail Vector: A mystery shopping venture that aims to measure and help clients enhance customer satisfaction by leveraging real shopper experiences! More here
8. RobotsAlive: With a dream to create a Robotics revolution in India; they make Robots and reach out to Education Institutes to use Robots to teach Robotics efficiently. More here
9. Scopial: A hi-fashion Apparel Company powered by a strong community of International Designers who showcase their designs via Scopial. The top rated designs are made into best quality tees. More here
10. VeriCAR: A used car verification and certification company started by two automobile geeks, with over 250 verifications and counting! They also help in Sale / Purchase of used cars. More here

Update on previous portfolio companies:

• 1 exit: food@home (Acquired by a larger local catering company in March 2009)
• 3 Series A: Commonfloor, Crederity, Instablogs
• 3 Market Leaders: DeskAway, Instablogs, Sutra People
• 4 Profitable: DeskAway, Fachak, LifeMojo, Sutra People
• 1 shutdown : Moblf (Founders have moved on to other ventures)