Serial entrepreneur Dinesh Jain who is also the founder and promoter of Udaipur & Dubai based Eden Animation Studios has launched Eden Angel Investment, a new Seed Stage Fund for Young Entrepreneurs.
The company has been set up from Jain’s own wealth and a team of highly experienced professionals is being set up, to groom and mentor specific projects along with Mr Jain who will don the mantle of Angel Investor and Mentor for start-ups led by young new entrepreneurs.
Eden plans to fund four new projects and entrepreneurs in the first two quarters of this year and six more projects in the next two quarters. Depending upon the nature and needs of the selected projects, the company will invest between INR Five Lakh to INR Twenty Five Lakhs in each of the selected projects.
The fund is aimed to foster and nurture entrepreneurs focused on areas including Digital Content Creation for New Media, Comics, Mobile Apps & Content Development, Multi-Platform Content Synchronization, Interactive Gaming, Edutainment, Innovative Digital Solutions for Primary Education and Human Capital Development in Rural / Semi Urban regions.
“The Foundation of Eden Angel Investment stands on a simple idea – ‘Do Something New’” Jain shared with AnimationXpress.com “I began my journey of entrepreneurship 25 years ago and always kept trust on simplicity of the idea, sheer amount of belief in it and lots of enthusiasm to make it happen.”
“We are looking majorly for young entrepreneurs with innovative ideas. Now a days people are becoming more and more aggressive in terms of content consumption and they want it everywhere, in their hand held devices so that they can watch it when they feel like in cars, in offices everywhere and that too in a personalized manner. Though there are some significant developments, a lot more innovative and user friendly, simpler approach is required for content syncronization across different platforms and content development particularly for mobile and portable hand held devices, interactive applications.” He added.
“Social gaming and network gaming are the sectors we believe can be the next big thing in India. We will look for new innovative ideas in this sector. Usage of technology in education sector is also huge in India but most of it is focused at modern city centric education system. Though some odd village schools get supported by new age technology there is still an absolute dearth of mass level penetration in enabling technology for primary education. So our focus will be on ideas which can work in this segment and become profitable by invention and simpler usage of technology. In terms of Human Capital development, we will encourage start-ups that are picking up the rural and semi urban area for their operative sector. Immense opportunities are lying untapped in this segment and a lot of work can be done with a strong willed business model.” He added.
On being asked would he have a hands on involvement with the companies that get angel funding from him, Jain replied that it would be different from case to case.“Depending upon the overall scenario in some project we may choose to work actively from beginning and in some we may act as ‘mentoring while needed’ basis. It’s all depending on the project and the founders approach towards it.”
Would the entrepreneurs who pitch need to invest an equal amount of their own money? Jain retorted, “It depends entirely on the project and its scope. In some cases we may be the sole investor where the founder is bringing in the idea. Things can be arranged accordingly or in some cases we may ask for some investment by him/her also for the risk equalization”
We are very open for listening to any new business idea provided the term ‘business’ is there not as a supplement but as a major activity of the venture. Commercialization and that too with realistic approach are required in the business plan.
The launch of the Angel Investment company co-incides with Jain completing 25 years of his journey as a serial entrepreneur building several successful ventures in the areas of Furniture Manafacturing, Plastics, Packaging, Basic Education Services, Animated Content Production Business in the Media Entertainment Industry.
Bravo!
We at AnimationXpress.com wish Mr Jain the very best with his Angel venture and look forward to keep updating our readers with new entrepreneurial opportunities in the digital media and animation sector.