Start-ups based in my hometown – Pune:
– GS-Lab
– Bindview
– Covelix
So who got funded in the fourth quarter in 2004? Here are some of the start-ups I thought were interesting!
* KXen – About: KXEN (Knowledge Extraction Engines) is a global analytic software company that provides advanced analytics to be embedded in existing enterprise applications and business processes. KXEN makes cutting-edge data mining technology available to both business decision makers and data mining professionals. KXEN provides them with more accurate, timely and actionable information. Customers will have the ability to understand, predict, manage and influence through a better knowledge of the information contained in their corporate data.
* Ironport systems – Powered by IronPort’s SenderBase, the Industry’s first and largest email traffic monitoring network, IronPort’s new Threat Operations Center Report, now offers an unprecedented view into global email activity.
About: IronPort Systems has become the leading email infrastructure products and services provider as Global 2000 companies race to replace out-dated, non-secure, non-scalable, and costly messaging infrastructures. IronPort has developed a family of products called Messaging Gateway appliances that offer breakthrough performance, unprecedented ease of use, and reduced total cost of ownership.
* Laszlog Systems – Software platform to enable next generation Web applications.
* SugarCRM – Open Source CRM software
They lived off Yahoo’s Instant Messenger, enjoying free phone calls via its Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) offering. They worked out of their homes, chatting through the night on their headsets via their VOIP hookup. They met once a week at a small office borrowed from the SDForum, a software development group in San Jose.
By June, they had launched a test version, and had 1,000 people downloading the software. Roberts hit the pavement at Sand Hill Road to raise money from VCs. “I was a total neophyte.” He felt crazy pitching a company called Sugar, especially since few open source applications had been funded. “We were freakin’ nuts, burning through our savings.”
complete article
This research is courtesy of Mercury News – startup watch
More to come…