BANGALORE, INDIA: At the ISA Vision Summit here on Monday, venture capitalist Dr Hemant Kanakia reckoned that successful enterpreneurial ventures don't necessarily need too much support from the government as well as ruled out the need for local foundries and Original Design Manufacturer shops.

"Founders of such enterprises need to be knowledgeable of the domain, including with a clear understanding of customer needs and technology. Experienced smart risk capital is also crucial for successful companies," he said at a session, Changing India, Venture by Venture.

Kanakia also pointed out that there was a large gap between import and export in the electronics industry of India, adding that fabrication-less (fabless) semiconductor sector holds out a huge potential in the country.

"Growing design cost at complex SOC and advanced process nodes poses a big challenge. One needs about US $80-160 million investment to profitability in Silicon Valley," he explained.

Any products that benefit into India-centered design focus would find his support, said Kanakia, who is currently focused on making angel investments in the country.

Chief executive officer of KeyTone Technologies Inc. and serial entrepreneur Nitin Komavar emphasized on the need for innovation to ensure growth and progress. "There is only so much governments can do, but there should be an ideal ecosystem for innovation."

While he felt that not enough companies are getting funded in India, Komavar pointed out that the times have changed. "Earlier, companies used to think local before going global. Now, they have to think global from Day 1," he expounded, before saying that an ecosystem has to be fostered to create new ventures from existing ones.

Another panelist, Balaji Kanigicherla, CEO of Ineda Systems, said that leaner R&D structure would ensure better growth. "On an average, only 15 start-ups receive Series-A funding annually in India. There were over 50 IPOs and mergers last year."

In order to see a product, it took $30 million at present as against $10 million in 2010, he noted, even as he said that more fragmented approach and better vision were the need of the hour.

According to Vijay Naik, CEO & President of Karmic US, the China threat to India was real as far as the semicon industry is concerned and IP protection was weak.

He said that engineering resources (graduates) from professional colleges were not employable by VLSI industry directly. In this regard, "Qualcomm management has recognized the SSLC student engineers' talent and has been the first to integrate successfully those trained by Karmic."

Naik suggested that the government implement Karmic Training & Research Centre type institutions for in-depth training of budding engineers. Venture capitalists are put off by red tape and bribery, which stymied the flow of much-needed capital, he said.

CyberMedia (India) Limited's chairman and managing director Pradeep Gupta, who moderated the session, highlighted that innovation and training centres, public-private partnership, government support through schemes like tax breaks would help entrepreneurship to get a boon in India.