Date:17/08/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/08/17/stories/2007081761911000.htm

Tamil Nadu

Seed funding for music retailing start-up

Special Correspondent

It will be used for product development
and validation

CHENNAI: The Chennai Fund has announced seed funding of Mango Digital Vending Machines Network (Mango DVM).

It is a music retailing start-up founded by R.S. Ramkumar. The fund will be used for product development, validation and completing the proof of concept.

The Chennai Fund was floated by five chapter members of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Chennai — Gopal Srinivasan, director, TVS Electronics, and chairman CII Tamil Nadu State Council; R. Ramaraj, president, TiE Chennai; Suresh Kalpathi, chairman and CEO of SSI; K.B. Chandrasekar, chairman, e4e; and K. Pandiarajan, chairman, MaFoi, — to fund start-ups that focus on retailing of portable digital music through a network of digital vending machines located primarily in Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu.

Programme for entrepreneurs

In April, TiE Chennai launched an Entrepreneur Acceleration Program.

The EAP, launched in collaboration with IIT-Madras, would provide access to an incubation centre, the Loyola Institute of Business Administration and the Great Lakes Institute of Management that would help to train entrepreneurs.