See you in Pune (20th Mar) & Mumbai (21st Mar). Details coming soon.

Please drop your name and preferred time slot in the comments, that would help manage everyone’s time. Also check the comments for time slots already taken.

See ya! business plans not required

Update: Morpheus team is hanging around late — just show up!

Just come over for a coffee if you would like to chat with us. To help us manage the time please drop a comment below with your preffered time slot.

Look forward to seeing you. B-plans not required

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

We have started a twitter account called “Friends of Morpheus (@fom_morpheus). This is a community of folks who are either working with us formally or have a good informal friendship with Morpheus or are just interested in startups. The idea is to share / discuss / publish – news, articles, wisdom and thoughts about startups,  more engagement activities will be added overtime.  Sometimes we will also share updates from Morpheus and from portfolio companies

If you have something to share please tweet it with @fom_morpheus and we can further share it with all the fom_morpheus followers.

Click here to follow Friends of Morpheus –  http://twitter.com/fom_morpheus

Don’t forget to spread the word and feel free to send us suggestions on what more can be done or should be changed.

We have specially invited:
* Mekin Maheshwari. Yahoo, uGenie, Lulu. Currently at Flipkart
* Sameer Sisodia. Yahoo, Ziva. Now taking a break from everything!
* … and few others to be confirmed

Where:
Jaaga, Rhenius Street, Off Richmond Road, Opposite the Hockey
Association Stadium main gate, Shanthinagar. See the map at
http://jaaga.wikidot.com/contact

When:
23rd Jan, 10:00a – 12:01 pm

Format:
* Event will be attended by 20+ start-up founders / entrepreneurs
* The event brings together entrepreneurs to share experiences and
interact with other start-ups in an informal manner
* Guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur /
investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem
* Please RSVP for the event.
* There is no fee for attending the event
* Chai/Biskit will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?
* Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
* Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
* Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
* Opportunity to build a strong startup community

“Start-up Morning/Evening” is organized under the Xtreme Startups
banner. It is a non-profit initiative to support & promote
entrepreneurship.The events are organized with the support and help
from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of
the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune. This
edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by Jaaga, Upstart.in, Morpheus
Venture Partners and Startupnews.in

If you have not recieved an email inviting you for the same, please comment/drop us an email and we shall add you to the list.

Vardaan of IndianWeb2 writes:

DeskAway a Mumbai based startup by Synage Software Pvt. Ltd. deliver software as a service (SaaS) over the Internet to the global audience. DeskAway is one of the best Project Management Tool available online, free as well as paid its one of the first such web start-up from India that made mark on web inspite of already available competitors such as BaseCamp, Collab, Zoho etc.

Congratulations to Sahil & DeskAway team.

The list with the most impacting technologies on the top:

1. Gmail
2. iPod
3. Google
4. Social Networking
5. iPhone
6. Blackberry
7. Mobile Telephony & Mobile Internet/Email
8. SAAS & data in cloud
9. Blogging
10. Firefox
11. Online air/ticket reservation
12. Portable Digital storage
13. Affordable air travel
14. Print on demand

Clearly, Google, Gmail, Mobile Internet esp. with iPhone, Blackberry & smart phones have made access to information on the go. Whereas, the boom in online travel reservation for air & railways have made traveling less of a chore. Here’s what they further elaborated.

Mohit says:

I think in last 10 years many things had impacted our lives which may not be new but were not easily accessible earlier due to cost, infrastructure etc.  For example,  Telecom, Internet, Air travel and Computers got affordable for common people. Banking, shopping, investing and many other activities are impacted by technology. Digital storage enabled us to store tons of information in cell phones, digital cameras, external and portable hard drives, iPods etc. Whereas satellite television, increase in the number of multiplexes, radio give consumers more choices. HDTV, Plasma, IMAX have changes the electronic media and experience completely.

On Social Media as his top choice Abheek quipped:

If man is a social animal – this really capitalizes in the modern era.Bringing friends / foes together, social networking has reconnected millions in just a few clicks!

Shashank sent it summarized:

Cannot imagine surviving the last decade without Gmail & iPod !!! Revolutionary .. Inspirational.

On SaaS & data in the cloud Sameer elaborates:

I used to have a lot of SW installed on my computer along with lot of data – IM clients, documents, mails, ppts, pictures, music and all the jing-bang. However, over the last 2 years 80% of apps which I user are SaaS based and browser is where i spent almost all of my time on Laptop & away. I use apps like Google mail, Google Chat, Google docs, Blog readers, facebook , twitpic and picasa. My contacts are on linkedin and google. I listen to last.fm. So, it does not matter whether I’m on my iPhone or on Laptop, my data and my apps are with me all the time.

iPhone, Blackberry & Smart phones also made a huge impact on our lives. On iPhone Nandini H says:

Personally, I think it redefined how I looked at a phone. iPhone for me is a mobile+personal calendar+digital camera+my laptop+entertainment console = all in one! As a media student I ushered the year 2000 with Media Convergence being the “buzz” word and now in 2009 i’d bet my money on the iphone as a true convergence device!

Namit talks about Blackberry as his top choice:

I am on road a lot and need mail access…  have used the gmail client for mobile for a while, but it drains away all the battery in 4-5 hrs. I used to call up a colleague, and ask him to check my mail and reply on my behalf… was super inefficient for him and me Blackberry truly made me a lot more mobile and efficient. (needless to say emails are the most important part of corporate communication)

Sameer further comments on iPhone:

I used to carry my laptop around every where I went but after switching to iPhone, my time spent on laptop time reduced by 70%.Iphone this has given big boost to my productivity and made my life much more comfortable since I dont have lug the laptop everywhere.

Sahil on his top choice:

You got me thinking now…there are so many…

Smart Phones – so I can carry my business with me. SaaS & Social Media – so I can work and spread the word about my business from anywhere.
Facebook/ VOIP/ IM – helps me stay in touch with people whom otherwise I would have forgotten.

Chinmoy sent this to us on twitter:

iPod has shown how digital music is done. Broadband It made possible for people to go online for entertainment on Youtube.

Ankit’s top 2 items are:

1. Smartphones,
2. Cloud computing and storage

… and Nandini Maheshwari’s:

1. Blogging
2. iPhone

… and Hari’s:

1. Firefox
2. GMail

Indus on Google search as his top choice:

Google simplified search both from user experience and cutting the data overload.

Nandini H’s list includes iPhone, Final Cut Pro, Mobile penetration in India, Social networking, etc. She elaborates:

Final Cut Pro – Made life easy for all people in the movie / video business. For me, i no longer had to think linear on the editing table (such a relief!). It changed the way professionals approached editing and packaged video. I’d say for India, introduction of non-linear technology & personally FCP, as i am a big Apple fan.  I’m also thankful to CDMA technology and also GPRS, and i owe much of the initial phase of my first startup to these technologies. Thanks for making my office virtual in 2005! This one is the last! For India, Nano and Reva – the electric car are two other technologies that have made an impact. Nano making a car affordable to an average Indian, Reva ‘coz thats where the future lies, what with all the global warming effects! and both indigenous.

Lalit asserted:

I think cellphones, Internet and my laptop are the tech advancements that impacted my life the most.

Kapil on his top choice:

(a) google – I completed my MBA thanks to Google
(b) iPhone – cant go anywhere without it

Thanks for your responses & we continue to extend our wishes to everybody!

The ‘Foundation of Youth Social Entrepreneurship’ (FYSE) recently announced the fellowship to 100 entrepreneurs from 20 countries across Asia. Amongst them were two founders of Morpheus Venture Partners’ portfolio companies viz. Ankit Maheshwari of InstaBlogs & Sahil Parikh of Deskaway:

Ankit, 30,  started Instablogs in 2006, an online media company with it’s roots in citizen’s journalism.

Sahil, 30,  co-founded Deskaway in 2005, a leading provider of web-based project collaboration application.

The fellowship is given to “Asia’s most inspiring young entrepreneurs and social changemakers.”
The FYSE is a regional organisation dedicated to inspiring and empowering young people to make innovative suggestions and actions to create positive change and real impact in their communities, their countries and Asia as a whole.

Congratulations!