A fortnight ago, coworking space 91Springboard organised a startup event in Gurgaon where eight people made pitches to an audience of about 200.
To a spectator, the event would hardly register as out-of-the-world. But for someone intimate with the startup world, the differences were apparent: those pitching wore formals, spoke for longer than five minutes, and were not asking for money. Instead, they were venture capitalists from top firms like Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners and IDG Ventures asking the entrepreneurs in the audience for a chance to finance their companies.
