By P Sreevalsan Menon
"Its time to give my gurudakshina," declared The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE) president, Kanwal S Rekhi, while presenting a cheque of $2 million to IIT, Mumbai. In his speech, he exhorted all Indians who have made it big in the Silicon Valley to give something in return to the institutions which have made them what they are today. Kanwal Rekhi wants them to do something else too; to foster and nurture all emerging entrepreneurs from the sub-continent.

An organisation (TiE) was founded in 1992 in the SiliconValley by entrepreneurs, corporate executives and senior professionals with roots or interests in the Indus region of South Asia.

And as president of the TiE, Rekhi is trying to make sure that everyone with sound business plans gets what they deserve. He was in Mumbai in September to propagate the TiE ideology. Rekhi said that with many Indian start-ups coming up, he was looking at fund requirements of up to $500 million.

TiE is also in talks with the Government of India to fund few ventures. TiE has set its goal: to benefit all entrepreneurs. But importantly, TiE on its own does not fund any company. It is up to the members to handpick projects and fund. After evaluating each business model, Rekhi and friends funded a handful of projects including Hotmail and Exodus Communications.

Sabeer Bhatia later sold Hotmail for $400 million to Microsoft while KB Chandrasekhar’s Exodus Communications is currently valued at more than $600 million.

Over the last few years, TiE has emerged as the launch pad for companies that have created wealth in excess of $3 billion.

Rekhi enumerated the TiE objectives: to foster entrepreneurship and nurture entrepreneurs, facilitate networking among members, and help members integrate into the mainstream community.

"The term entrepreneurship refers to new start-up ventures as well as enterprise within larger companies. With the ever shortening product lifecycles and global competition, entrepreneurship will become increasingly critical for survival even for large corporations," Rekhi said.

It is this spirit of risk-taking and decisive action by visionary individuals with talent and conviction that TiE strives to encourage. He went on to describe entrepreneurship as a worthwhile human endeavour.

Rekhi believes that entrepreneurs with Indus roots have a major role to play because of their unique experiences. Any successful entrepreneur will find a sense of fulfilment in helping budding entrepreneurs, he believes.

Take a look at the some of those who have made this possible: Cognizant Technology Solutions CEO, Kumar Mahadeva, The Galleon group (legacy member) managing general partner, Raj Rajaratnam, Transwitch CEO, Santanu Das, Princeton Electronics Systems Inc., CEO, Chuni Ghosh, and Bear Stearns managing director, Anil Bhandari.

Today, TiE has spread its wings out of Silicon Valley to establish more chapters in Boston and Southern California, as also in Chicago and New York City.

TiE, however, continues to provide a well-defined role for its members. The primary benefit of TiE membership is the opportunity to network with other entrepreneurs and professionals. They can also establish relationships that could provide them with mentorship, connections to mainstream professionals, advice, especially with respect to business planning and financing strategies, and, in some cases, access to capital.

Kanwal Rekhi: The man
Kanwal Rekhi went to the US in 1967 to do his masters in electrical engineering at the Michigan Technological University. He faced tough times as there was no demand for engineers. However, he managed to rope in a few Indians to found Excelan, a company making add-in boards to connect desk-top computers into a local area network (LAN).

Rekhi was an immediate success with his startup as, Novell took over the company. He was inducted as a board member with the designation of chief technology officer.

However, Rekhi left after Robert Frankerber was preferred over him for the chief executive’s mantle. He however, continued networking and soon took over as president of TiE.

It was at this time that he decided to invest in a few ventures.

After meeting KB Chandrasekhar and got to know about his idea, Exodus Communications. Kanwal was not very convinced. Yet, he wrote out a cheque of $200,000 on condition that Exodus would drop some services. Rekhi also helped the company to raise a further $3 million for expansion purposes. The result is there for everyone to see.

After the initial public offering (IPO), the company was valued at $560 million with clientele like Oracle and Hewlett Packard. However, not all his investments earned him the right rewards.

Even as Intelligmatch, an Internet-based employment company failed Nirvana, a provider of tools for website development also flopped. Perhaps, Rekhi had no control over the functioning or management of these companies. Rekhi, so far, has funded around 12 companies and an investment of $5 million has brought him $20 million in return.

TiE: History
N Vittal, then a senior Indian Government official, while on a visit to the US in 1992 met the Indian entrepreneurs from the Silicon Valley over lunch. Kailash Joshi, an IBM executive, took the opportunity to assemble some residents from the area. Little did they know that they were about to fill a vacuum by forming TiE.

The gettogether interested all those present, and when AJ Patel suggested meeting on a regular basis, TiE was born to provide a platform to facilitate networking among these entrepreneurs.

Few months later, AJ Patel, Kailash Joshi, Narpat Bhandari, Bipin Shah, Ray Vrudhula, Sam Satya and Roy Prasad started holding meetings every week. Successful entrepreneurs like Kanwal Rekhi, Prabhu Goel and Suhas Patil revealed their experiences while guest speakers, usually veterans from the industry, were also invited to give lectures. The discussion phase continued for some time.

And towards mid-1993, the group formally launched the TiE with Suhas Patil as the president and Kanwal Rekhi as director.

The charter members contributed $1,000 each year to capitalise TiE.

Its charter was expanded to include networking, mentoring entrepreneurs and integration with mainstream society. "There were some excellent individuals in the group. While AJ Patel brought conviction and confidence to the future of the organisation, Suhas instilled a new commitment to quality as a basic TiE value," said Kanwal.

"It was up to Kailash to insist on class and professionalism with Narpat bringing in the lets do it attitude," Rekhi reminicised. Kanwal Rekhi was instrumental in nurturing entrepreneurs with a touch of philosophy and an emphasis on meritocracy. "I believe in the guru-chela relationship," he added.

However, it was not all that easy for TiE. Reputation was at stake in some cases where long court cases loomed large.