S T S Prasad had moved to the US in 1986 for a master’s degree in computer science, and then had several stints, including at Sybase, Junglee, Amazon, and WalmartLabs, the last of which he had helped launch.

At some point during his WalmartLabs days, he felt the desire to stay closer to his parents in India and also expose his son to his homeland. “I met my wife in Chennai and had a lot of connections to that city.”

Last year he registered for an event by venture capital firm Accel Partners to showcase its portfolio companies, one of which was Chennai-based customer support software provider Freshdesk. Negotiations happened. In August this year, Prasad moved to Chennai as senior VP of engineering at Freshdesk. He says he’s happy he moved.

Prasad is one of the six people who have moved to India through a talent acquisition programme – perhaps the first such by a VC firm – that it started last year. Called Smart Move, the programme is designed to encourage good Silicon Valley senior talent to move to Accel’s portfolio firms in India.

“The need for a reverse brain-drain sort of programme arose from low maturity of the Indian startup ecosystem compared to its US counterpart,” says Prashanth Prakash, partner at Accel.

Prior to this programme, the portfolio companies would have to individually make multiple trips to the US to find the right connects and the right talent. “So it made sense for us to anchor a more formalised programme where we could aggregate all the demand from the companies here and give a set of options to those in the US,” Prakash says.

Narayan Thammaiah, Chief People Officer at Accel who is leading the programme, says the firm focuses on new-age companies and then looks at the talent within these companies. Shortlisted people are invited to a session, held usually near their area of work or stay.

The pitches are focused on technology and product. The invitees get to meet Indian entrepreneurs, and if they are interested in moving, the discussions move to individual conversations. Myntra, Freshdesk, and logistics startup Blackbuck have been attracting the majority of interest, Thammaiah says.

However, the conversion rate – of those committing to the final move after showing initial interest – is still quite low. Last year, the programme saw 370 registrations, out of which only 6 made the shift. The whole process also takes around 6-8 months to conclude. Thammaiah attributes the low conversion and long process mainly to the realistic expectations that are set.

“We want to do good to the (portfolio) company. We offer a compensation that is no more than 50-60% of their earnings in the US. But there are other perks like a bigger house, a better job title. Also, since the move involves family decisions, the process takes time,” he says.

Almost all who have taken the final decision to move are Indians wanting to be closer to their families. Prabhakar Reddy made the move five months ago, to become one of the investors at Accel India’s team. He was working as a partner of an early-stage venture fund in the Valley but wanted to be closer to Dubai, where his family is currently settled.

Connie Liu is an exception. She had been working in the New York technology world for almost eight years. She now works for Headout, an on-demand mobile marketplace based in Bengaluru. Liu says she likes being in an environment where she can add more value, and she finds Bengaluru very “alive”.

The Accel platform has also launched a Quora-like forum that answers all the questions and concerns that a person might have before the shift. Questions like, “When is the best time to shift to India?” or “Where to find the best schools for my kids?” Not surprisingly, there is one consistent concern that keeps popping up in all discussions – traffic in India.

Thammaiah calls it a long-term programme that is looking not only at the short-term talent needs of its 106 portfolio companies, but also helping the startups transition into full-grown companies. “Right at inception, we conceptualised it as a five- to six-year programme that would help to build the ecosystem,” he says.

Source: ET Tech

Image Courtesy: Times of India