Indian Angel Network invests in GrOffr.com: a Real Estate group buying pioneer

Indian Angel Network, India's first and largest business angel investor group, invested in a real estate group buying pioneer, GrOffr.com to help them expand their reach in India. GrOffr.com, co-founded by management school classmates and colleagues at a large financial services firm Sandeep Reddy and Vikhyat Srivastava in 2010, helps customers in getting attractive rates for their planned purchases of Real Estate, Cars and other high value assets. By leveraging the power of group buying, GrOffr allows customers get lucrative deals from builders in the primary real estate market. IAN invested under US$1 million.

IAN member Mr. Krishna Jha, who serves on the board of the company believes that GrOffr is a differentiated business idea in the real estate asset category with large potential for savings for end customers.

Indian Angel Network, operating nationally, with over 170 investors from across the globe, brings together successful Indian entrepreneurs and CEOs who share a passion to enable more early stage businesses to create scale and value. By focusing on startups, the Network addresses the current acute lack of funds available to early stage companies. IAN also seeks to provide mentoring, strategic thought leadership and leverage the Network's network for the investee companies.

IAN investors invest in ventures that have uniquely differentiated propositions, high quality execution teams and large markets. What began as an initiative "for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs", has now grown into the most complete early stage angel investing network covering range of activities--right from incubation, mentoring and of course investing in differentiated ideas.

Jerry Greenfield on the Key Ingredients of Success

David Walker, Corporate Communications; Source: Credit Suisse

Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s Homemade Inc., shares his views on the importance of social awareness for entrepreneurs and the success of his values-led ice cream business. The interview was conducted during the annual Entrepreneurs Summit at the Sundance Resort in Utah, organized by Credit Suisse Private Banking USA.

David Walker: Sir, your company was socially responsible before that really was en vogue. How did you inculcate that in your business?
Jerry Greenfield: I think it was an evolutionary process for Ben and me to want to have Ben and Jerry's be more of a socially responsible company. In the beginning, we were just trying to be a little community-based company and have little festivals or whatever. And I think as the business became more successful, we started to understand the role that business plays in society and that we could have a bigger impact.

It has to be gratifying that the market really has moved to a point where most companies see it as responsible and as good business to be socially responsible. How do you see that evolution?

There has been an enormous shift. Some of it comes from the companies themselves, some of it comes from consumers, who are insisting that businesses be more concerned about what goes on in society. It's interesting to see the power that people in the marketplace have. When consumers speak, businesses listen.

You mentioned that fair trade is very important, as well as locally sourced products. Is that something you followed at Ben and Jerry's? Were you looking to get your milk from Vermont farms?

Yes. You know, when we looked at the impact that Ben and Jerry's has, a lot of it is simply in the ingredients that go into our ice cream. We're big users of milk and cream and then you think of the flavorings and whatever. Looking at the ingredients and what we think of as values-led sourcing has become of primary concern in the company.
It started off with Vermont milk. Then it became hormone free milk. We try to get products like brownies from bakeries that are doing good work in the community and now, the most recent is the company's commitment to become a hundred percent fair trade globally for a hundred percent of our products by the end of 2013. So that's going to become quite a challenge logistically for the folks at Ben and Jerry's. Everybody is completely on board philosophically, but it's about how do you make it happen? I think we have a hundred and twenty or more different ingredients or add-ins, so there's a bit of work to be done.

What do you hope that the audience and those entrepreneurs that you spoke with tonight take away from your remarks?

There are a lot of people in business who are concerned about social or environmental issues and they want these issues to be part of their business. But they either don't know how to do it or they don't know if it's going to make them less profitable or less likely to succeed. And what I try to share with people is Ben's and my experience that not only will it not make you less successful, in our case it made the company much more successful. And just because the conventional wisdom says one thing doesn't mean that it's true. If you're a business person who wants to integrate social and environmental concerns into your day-to-day business, you can do it and be incredibly successful.