News : Indian Americans in Forbes Midas List

Nine Indian origin entrepreneurs feature in this year's Forbes Midas List of technology's best investors for fuelling a bull market for hot young companies. Heading the Indian-American list is Greylock Partners' Aneel Bhusri at number 25 (15 in 2011). Bhusri is co-CEO of Workday, the cloud-based financials and human resources software company.

Four-time consecutive Midas member Rob Chandra of Bessemer Venture Partners comes next at number 28 (26 in 2011). Chandra, who had a string of IPOs on India public markets, has two late-stage companies in India-based Bharat Matrimony and Summit Microelectronics.

Sameer Gandhi of Accel Partners is ranked 33rd (81 in 2011). His 2008 Series A investment in file-sharing company Dropbox is doing quite nicely going by the rumoured $4 billion valuation on the 2011, forbes noted. His current investments include growth investments in an India online shopping site called Flipkart. Khosla Ventures' Vinod Khosla follows at number 34 (71 in 2011). An Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) alumunus, Khosla is known for off-the-beaten-path clean-tech investments.

Khosla's passion for social entrepreneurship led to an investment in SKS, the Indian microfinance lender he funded in 2006 that went public in 2010, Forbes said. Other Indian-Americans on the Midas list include Battery Ventures' Neeraj Agrawal at 36 (51 in 2011), Mayfield Fund's Navin Chaddha (46), Bain Capital Ventures' Ajay Agarwal (95), Greylock Partners' Asheem Chandna (96) and Accel India's Subrata Mitra (99).

Visit : http://gadgets.ndtv.com/shownews.aspx?id=GADEN20120201847&Sec=NEWS&nid=206344

Read More

Green Technology : Ahalife gets $10.1M in its shopping cart

Ahalife, an online shop for curated one-of-a-kind, luxury wares, has raised $10.1 million in a second round of funding.

It must be hard to be rich. You’ve already bought everything new from Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus, and Saks, so where else can you shop for something more unique than the latest $5,000 Hermes handbag? You take to the Internet to buy the most exclusive, luxury gifts — like a $10,000 bag made from crocodile skin.

Ahalife’s founder and chief executive Shauna Mei has an impressive fashion background; prior to Ahalife, she started a business with former Marc Jacobs chief executive Jeffrey Aronsson, Donna Karan, and Oscar de la Renta. Wanting to offer the most unique luxury goods out there, she created Ahalife to sell hand-selected products.

Ahalife reveals one new product every day from one of its celebrity curators — people like designer Donna Karan, fashion consultant Tim Gunn, and makeup artist Carmindy. Each product has a thoughtfully written story about where it came from, how it was made, and why it’s worth its price tag. The site’s inventory is made up of clothing, food, beauty products, accessories, home decor, and tech products, along with travel experiences.

Services such as Of a Kind, Gilt, and Fab, offer similar shopping experiences to Ahalife. Of a Kind offers small-batch items for sale, so you know you’re one of only 20 people who own a specific designer handbag. Gilt and Fab are more focused on finding you a good deal while still shopping for higher-end, hand-picked products.

The funding will be used to grow the company. Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten led the round, with participation from existing investors DCM and FirstMark Capital. The company has raised a total of $19.1 million.

Read More