The Venturator is an online portal that connects entrepreneurs with investors, legals advisors, mentors and corporate clients.
Twenty-eight-year old Mumbai-based Abhilasha Dafria came up with the idea of her startup based on her experience as a journalist in the startup arena, when she worked with yourstory.com. She understood that entrepreneurs have difficulty in networking and want an easy way to be connected to the right people. That’s how The Venturator happened.
“I decided to start a company where I can connect entrepreneurs with potential co-founders, legal advisors, mentors and potential investors. We understand that there are different kinds of requirements for startups and we, at The Venturator, work at putting entrepreneurs in touch with the right people,” says Abhilasha.
The Venturator also conducts offline events. Their flagship event is The Velocity Series, which is conducted in association with Tata Starbucks and happens every second saturday. In this programme, established entrepreneurs talk about their experience and share gyaan at a scheduled Starbucks outlet. The 10-episode-long series was started in April with a select audience of 60 budding entrepreneurs. The first episode had Sumit Jain and Lalit Mangal, founders of Commonfloor.com followed by Greg Moran of ZoomCar in May. The episode scheduled for June has Urban Ladder founder Rajiv Srivatsa speaking at the venue. This series of The Venturator is backed by Starbucks, GANT, Printo and Divum technologies.
Established in 2014, The Venturator has a team of five members. The portal has not managed to monetise on the model yet. With an initial investment of Rs 5 lakh, The Venturator’s revenue comes from corporates that would want to brand themselves around the startup ecosystem. In the future, they are planning to charge service providers that they connect with startups in a ‘freemium’ business model. “It is and always will be free for startups,” adds Abhilasha.
The Venturator is also planning to do a programme called Startup Corporate Mixer, which is a way of connecting B2B startups with their corporate clients. This eliminates the hassle involved in making multiple cold calls, emails and scouting for references, as it is conducted in a speed-dating format, where startups talk to their potential clients and save a lot of time.
The Venturator has received an undisclosed amount of money using which they aim to use to improve their operations. Abhilasha dreams of a day when a first-time entrepreneur would have The Venturator as their first contact when establishing a business.
Abhilasha holds a Masters in Marketing from SIES College, Mumbai. She is also a polyglot, thanks to her Masters degree in Foreign Languages. Abhilasha is good at French, Spanish and German.
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