The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) is going to organize the first of its kind Venture Capital & Private Equity Conference on the 6th and 7th of February, 2009.

The conference will bring together industry experts, practitioners, advisers, academicians and students with the aim of identifying and addressing key issues and trends relevant to venture capitalists, private equity investors, and entrepreneurs. The conference is a student initiative of Leverage - the Venture Capital & Private Equity club of IIM-A in association with the Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM-A. CIIE was setup at IIM-A in 2001 with the support of the Government of Gujarat and aims to foster innovation driven entrepreneurship through incubation, research and dissemination of knowledge. Some of the ongoing projects are being backed by the Wadhwani Foundation (set up by the eponymous IT entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, USA), Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (Government of India), Piramal Foundation and Microsoft. IIM-A is the first amongst all IIM’s to have a conference focused on the increasingly popular sectors of Venture Capital & Private Equity. The central theme for the first edition of the conference – Leverage 2009 – is: “Venture Capital & Private Equity: Investing & Managing portfolios in Distressed Times”.

With the regime of low interest rates, rapid economic growth, easy leverage and rising portfolio company valuations ceasing to exist, tough economic times lie ahead. The market sentiments are at an all time low and this crisis of investor confidence has forced capital markets to come face to face with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

This entire economic conundrum is going to have far reaching implications for the private equity and the venture capital industry. The summit will take a closer look at these implications by focusing on the central theme. In the course of the two day summit, industry experts, academicians, budding entrepreneurs and bright minds from the top business schools will come together to express their views on the theme above through enlightening speaker sessions, intellectually stimulating workshops and thought provoking panel discussions. The entire VC & PE sector will be analyzed not only from the investors’ perspective but also from the perspective of different industries that benefit from the financing and guidance provided by the VC & PE sector.

Special emphasis will be laid on seeing the impact and effectiveness of the VC & PE sector in emerging economies like India, especially in the light of the current credit squeeze. Challenging questions like whether PEs are all about financial engineering or do they create value in the portfolio companies and does the current scenario warrant a paradigm shift in the way the PE and VC firms will function, will be posed and deliberated.

Leverage 2009 is guided by an advisory committee, which includes the following esteemed members:

- Prof. Ajay Pandey – Professor of Finance at IIM-A and Chairperson of the Post Graduate Program in Management. He is also the chief advisor to Leverage 2009.

- Prof. Jayanth R. Varma – Professor, IIMA. Director on board of Infosys BPO, Axis Bank Limited, Onmobile Global Ltd. He has also chaired several expert groups set up by SEBI and the Ministry of Finance.

- Prof. Anil K. Gupta – Executive Vice Chair of National Innovation Foundation set up by Dept. of Science and Technology, GoI. He also established the Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI, 1993) and Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN, 1997), two NGOs to support the Honey Bee Network and to scale up and convert grassroots innovations into viable products respectively. He has also been profiled by India Today as one of the top 50 Change Entrepreneurs in the country and has received the Padma Shri National Award in 2004 for his work in the field of management education.

-Sandeep Singhal - Nexus India Capital – Apart from Nexus, Sandeep is also the co-founder and Managing Director of eVentures, a leading Venture Capital firm focused on early stage investments in India since 1999. Sandeep has held senior roles at McKinsey & Company, Digital Equipment and EDA Systems. Sandeep has an MBA (with Distinction) from The Wharton School, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He is actively involved with TiE, Young Entrepreneurs Organization, and the Wharton and Stanford India Alumni Associations. He is also a member of the steering committee for New Ventures India.

A highlight of Leverage 2009 will be the B-Plan showcase which is being organized in association with Epiphany Ventures. Epiphany Ventures is a Sector Agnostic Fund, with a size of $25 Million. The Fund will focus on early stage investments, but is also looking at investing in later stages if the opportunity is suitable. Mr. Gaurav Saraf is the Director of the Fund and Mr. Rishi Khosla is the advisor for the Fund. The B-Plan Showcase will be an opportunity like no other for budding entrepreneurs committed to making their dreams a reality or those who have already taken the plunge and want to make it big in the world of business. A parallel objective is to create active deal-flow for venture capital investors to work on. Entries will go through a rigorous evaluation process after which the top 10 teams will be invited to present their plans to industry experts, academicians and investors. The event is different from other business plan competitions as there is no cash prize or winner of the showcase. Instead, budding entrepreneurs will get a chance to attract actual funding from venture capitalists in order to expand and grow their business ideas.