“Accelerators should not try and be all things to all people”

At the recent Venture Intelligence APEX’13 Summit, Sateesh Andra of VenturEast Tenet Fund provided what I thought was very useful guidance to entrepreneurs on which type of early stage investor to approach – depending on the type of company they were creating.

Accelerators should not try and be all things to all people. They are great for fast moving businesses – like Internet, Mobility, Cloud-based technologies, etc. – which need things to be put on a fast track. But you cannot accelerate anything for a Retail consumer company. That message is getting mixed up in India. Companies that require longer gestation and diligence (to solidify their business model) – like ventures in Cleantech, Medical Devices, etc – should go to incubators. Angel networks are good for very domain specific businesses where the entrepreneur is fairly seasoned and already knows what they want to do. Seed funds can bet up to a $1 million even on concepts, but need to see full fledged teams.

View more highlights from the summit here