Launched with the ambition of building billion dollar Internet technology-enabled infrastructure service companies, e4e Inc, which claims to be the country's first technology holding company, has around $125 million in its kitty for the first phase of its operations which should last it for another six to eight months. It is likely to raise the rest of the $300 million it has access to, towards the end of this year.

e4e Labs is close to firming up two other ventures it is going to incubate (apart from Praveen's). One of these is a Bangalore-based company working in the remote network management space while the other which is US-based with an India back-end is into business process outsourcing.

Dr Mitta, who also heads e4e Inc's India operations, is hopeful of having up to six start-ups in the fold by the end of this year. Evaluations of projects and discussions with promoters are under way. ``Some will be based at our facility (in Bangalore), and move out as they grow. They might even go for venture funding from outside e4e depending upon their core competencies,'' he pointed out. Recently e4e Inc (it stands for `entrepreneur for entrepreneur) picked up sizeable stakes in New Jersey-based eCRM player iSeva and Bangalore-based Aztec Software (in the latter case, transferring the holding of its chairman Mr KB Chandrasekhar to the e4e portfolio).

According to Dr Mitta, e4e Labs is looking for some common factors in the projects they will fund. ``Internet should be the delivery mechanism, the revenue model should be non-linear as opposed to people-intensive and it should be a utility-type model (which offers computing on tap),'' he said.The incubator is also clear that the start-ups it funds turn cash-positive in 3 years with revenues touching $100 million inside five years.

``Another key determinant is that there should be synergies between all the ventures we fund,'' Dr Mitta said. This is to ensure easy and cost-effective leveraging of skills available under the same roof.

e4e Labs looks for non-linear growth model in start-ups Presently, e4e is focusing on high-end eCRM, remote network management and wireless data services and will soon put managed network services on its shopping list.The labs division will eventually have a dedicated management team of 10 to hand-hold entrepreneurs through their various teething phases including registering the company, hiring, drawing up the business and marketing plan, getting customers, administration and pre-and-post-IPO guidance.

e4e Inc (or entrepreneur-for-entrepreneur) was founded by Indian IT whizkids including Exodus chairman Mr KB Chandrasekhar, Walden International partner Mr Somshankar Das and Dr Mitta who was chief technology officer of Wipro. Among its investors are PRIO founder, Mr Ashok Narasimhan, Mr Frank Bonsal, Jr, of New Enterprise Associates, Global Internet Ventures chairman and co-founder of Verifone and Cybercash, Mr William Melton.

As for Praveen, keep an ear open. You might just hear something very interesting soon.