Startup ditches VCs and approaches public to raise funds

February 4, 2008

By sinha

Dogearsetc, the print-on-demand startup is offering shares of the company to anybody who believes in their business model and is willing to bet on it.

Leonard Fernandes, founder of CinnamonTeal Print has left a comment on one of our post:

“..if you do not wish to attract the kind of money that a VC will want to invest, you are left in the cold. That leaves out a lot of people like me – people who are searching for investments in the range of 60-75 lakhs.

And before someone tells me to go to friends and family, let me tell them that I already have!!

Ours is a print-on-demand publishing house. We are only two right now but, besides clients in India, we have clients from Germany, USA, UK, Canada and Tanzania. Our Google analytics software shows expressions of interest from 34 countries. Let me repeat – we are only two and are currently managing an active client list of 37. We want to scale up – be the Lulu of Asia and even attract a major chunk of Lulu’s clientele because our cost/book is cheaper. But all of it does not warrant 1m USD as investments. So why in God’s name would I ask for it?

Our website is http://cinnamonteal.dogearsetc.com

So I am doing the next best thing. Selling shares of my company. I wouldn’t do it if I were not convinced of the numbers I have put in to arrive at the price per share. Go have a look, the url is

http://www.dogearsetc.com/cinnamonteal/invest.html

”
Leonard is offering a million share and each share is priced @ Rs. 189.05 @ NPV of Rs. 37,810,587.70.

Leaving all the calculations aside, do you think Indian VCs are really risk-takers or they will still invest in proven business models?

What’s your opinion?

tags: dogsearsetc, cinnamonteal

Tags: cinnamonteal, dogsearsetc

| More

Related Articles
Author

Rishi on February 4, 2008 at 11:51 am

Although the concept is good (might not be novel), but I don’t see it being successful somehow.. Best of luck anyway..
Although as Nilesh points out in the response to Leonard’s comment, the calculation of arriving at the price of Rs. 189.05 per share seems to be flawed, maybe at a little lesser price, some folks might just invest, just for the kicks..

Prashant on February 4, 2008 at 12:37 pm

Seems like Friends and Family goes to next level with Friends , Family and Social graph for fund raising . Kiva.org offer a platform for this kind of social lending . i m not sure how many HiTech venture got funded by Kiva .

Well sounds good in theory but i would like to know the fine points
does the financing gives a strategic advisory role to investor? howz the valuation decided and will there be a differential (Volume based Equity rate ) for stake selling? the financing is in debt mode or Equity mode or promoter holds the right to buy back or convert ? are they looking to raise a fixed amount of
is there a neutral third party to monitor if i invest in them ? if they decided to raise a VC Round 2 year down the line will i have a chance to offloadmy stake ??

I would request them