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Global Reach
Silicon Spice, Dham had developed a working relationship with
NEA general partner Mark Perry. An investment by NEA, returns
from the Broadcom acquisition, plus World Bank and other funding,
led to formation of an incubator NewPath Ventures LLC, a $56
million business headed by Dham with the idea of lowering costs
by using Indian engineers for R&D.
Over 2004–06 NewPath funded three cross-border IT ventures:
Santa Clara-based InSilica, a fabless chip designer focused on
imaging solutions for mobile devices; ASIC-based network security
appliance developer Nevis Networks of Mountain View; and
Telsima, a Santa Clara telecom network solutions provider. Insilica
and Telsima each set up development centers in Bangalore, while
Nevis set up it’s development center in Pune.
Today, Dham is managing director and founder of NEA Indo-U.S.
Ventures, an early-stage and mid-stage VC fund with offices in
Santa Clara and Bangalore, focused principally on the Indian consumer
market and on developing relatively simple technologyenabled
services solutions tailored to India’s specific needs. NEA
invested and co-branded with the Indo-U.S. Ventures fund to get
exposure to India’s emerging venture investing eco-system.
Among its portfolio of 16 investments:
Attero Recycling, India’s first electronic waste (cell
phones, computers, TVs) reprocessing firm;
Microqual, a maker of mobile telecommunications
towers and electronic components;
Obopay, a mobile payment provider that enables fund
transfers via cell phone; and
MedPlus, an Indian retail pharmacy chain with 600
small (2–3 person) kiosk-like outlets, that is expanding
to include in-store diagnostic labs and health clinics
“India is leapfrogging in adoption of technology in an accelerated
manner,” Dham says. “It has been very far behind in the past and
is now skipping a whole generation of technology to catch up.” For
example, while landline telephone penetration was limited to a
mere 45 million households, cell phone usage in this decade alone
has catapulted to over 300 million and is rapidly growing to 500
million subscribers. Dham contrasts India’s progress to China’s this
way: “China’s approach is top down—the government decides.
From a business point of view, that’s a more efficient model, since
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