TiE Silicon Valley Announces Four Companies Selected for Billion Dollar Babies Program

MUMBAI, INDIA--(Marketwired - Dec 22, 2014) - TiE Silicon Valley (sv.tie.org), the Silicon Valley chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs, today announced the first set of companies participating in its Billion Dollar Babies program, a mentorship program for Indian startups with global aspirations.

Applications for Billion Dollar Babies will remain open until January 10, 2015. The Billion Dollar Babies program aims to help select Indian product startups reach $1 billion in global enterprise value through its intensive six month program. As part of the initiative, one of the company's co-founders will relocate to Silicon Valley, where they will connect with mentors and venture capitalists, participate in the TiE CIO Forum and other educational events, and receive help with hiring, marketing, and other company-building tasks.

The initial companies selected for the inaugural Billion Dollar Babies program are:

• Seclore -- seclore.com -- Seclore helps organizations achieve their security, privacy and compliance objectives with its innovative Digital Rights Management solution, Seclore FileSecure, which enables organizations to control the usage of information wherever it goes. Easy to deploy and use, Seclore extends the security of DLP, ECM, ERP and Mail/Messaging solutions to information that moves beyond the perimeter.
  
  "In light of recent security breaches, complete data control and security is more important now than ever before," Vishal Gupta, Seclore CEO and founder. "Seclore is thrilled to be participating in the Billion Dollar Babies program and bringing its innovative and comprehensive security solutions to companies around the world."
  
  
• Sokrati -- sokrati.com -- Founded by ex-Amazonians, Sokrati offers an integrated marketing platform for retail & local businesses. Sokrati's technology leverages real-time data analytics, user intent and merchandise behavior across devices to automate marketing across digital channels like search, social and display advertising. Sokrati's performance-driven marketing strategy delivers at least a 40% upside on users' marketing budgets.
  
  "Sokrati is honored and really excited to participate in the inaugural class of TiE's Billion Dollar Babies program," said Ashish Mehta, CEO and founder. "As one of the fastest growing companies in the Asia-Pacific region, we are excited to democratize marketing technology and data analytics for marketers of all sizes globally. With TiE's support and resources, we aim to increase our current user base of 3,000 marketers by at least 10 times over next two years."
  
  
• Vinculum -- vinculumgroup.com -- Vinculum, enables multi-channel retailing and fulfillment for eCommerce and brick-and-mortar retailers. Its award-winning Software as a Service (SaaS) suite includes products such as Vin eRetail (www.vineretail.com), helping retailers and eCommerce companies sell across marketplaces, 3PLs to undertake eCommerce order management and fulfillment; Vin SIM enabling Omni Channel retailing with real time information of store data and Vin MDM, keeping product, inventory and customer master data consistent across channels.
  
  "Vinculum is excited to participate in the Billion Dollar Babies program," said Venkat Nott, Vinculum CEO and founder. "Today's consumer is online savvy, shops across eCommerce sites and marketplaces, and expects ecommerce companies and retailers to offer them a number of choices and flexibility in terms of inventory lookups, click and collect, same-day delivery, home delivery, etc. Our software products and services are designed to address the business process and technology challenges, and to help our customers derive significant leverage to succeed in the multi-channel world. We are looking forward to building a great global company by leveraging TiE Silicon Valley's resources."
  
  

The program is also working with Druva, a company previously mentored by TiE members. Druva's Founder & CEO Jaspreet Singh will serve as an advisor to entreprenerus in the the Billion Dollar Babies program.

Druva is the leader in data protection and governance at the edge, bringing visibility and control to business information in the increasingly mobile and distributed enterprise. Built for public and private clouds, Druva's award-winning inSync and Phoenix solutions prevent data loss and address governance, compliance, and eDiscovery needs on laptops, smart-devices and remote servers.

"Mobility and data governance are two of the largest issues in today's enterprise environment," said Jaspreet Singh, Druva CEO and founder. "Druva is committed to bringing these essential software solutions to companies around the world, and already supports over 3,000 mid- to large-sized enterprises. I am confident that the mentorship opportunities from TiE's Billion Dollar Babies Program will help entrepreneurs with global expansion I look forward to providing help or guidance based on my experience to the other companies selected for the program."

The Billion Dollar Babies committee includes co-chair BV Jagadeesh, Managing Partner at KAAJ Ventures; co-chair Raju Reddy, Advisor to Hitachi ITSC Global and global entrepreneur; Ashish Gupta, Senior Managing Director at Helion Venture Partners; Dinesh Katiyar, Partner at Accel Partners; Ash Lilani, Managing Partner at Saama Capital; and Manu Rekhi, Partner at Inventus Capital Partners.

In India, Billion Dollar Babies is co-chaired by Nishith Desai, founder of Nishith Desai Associates; Ravi Gururaj, chair of the the NASSCOM Product Council; and Saurabh Srivastava, founder TiE Delhi & India Angel Network.

"TiE Silicon Valley is thrilled to announce its first class of Billion Dollar Babies," said Venktesh Shukla, president of TiE Silicon Valley. "As the US-India market grows, it is more important than ever to nurture companies looking to break expand their global presence. These companies are each leaders in their fields, and we are excited to see them grow over the course of the program and reach their full potential with the help of TiE's extensive resources."

For more information or to apply for the program, visit sv.tie.org/billion-dollar-babies.

About TiE Silicon Valley:
TiE Silicon Valley is a nonprofit association dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship in the Bay Area and beyond. TiE strives to inspire entrepreneurs through mentoring, networking, education, incubating, and funding programs and activities. With nearly 50 events held each year, including TiEcon, TiE brings together the entrepreneurial community to learn from local leaders as well as each other. TiE Silicon Valley is part of the TiE network, which includes over 11,000 successful entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, corporate executives, and aspiring entrepreneurs in 18 countries. For more information on TiE Silicon Valley, visit sv.tie.org