A Star for the Future?

All the IITs that came up during the Nehruvian era in the 50s and 60s were

built with generous foreign assistance. IIT Bombay was no exception-in this

case, it was the Soviet connection. No wonder, in its early days campus

computers gave error warnings prefaced with 'Achtung'; the first mainframe

to come was a Russian Minsk II while teachers routinely visited Moscow for

training. Notwithstanding this undertone of communist Soviet influence in the

early days, IIT Bombay has undergone an ideological volte-face today. Not only

is it a strong votary of market economics, it has also become the breeding

ground for budding entrepreneurs, thanks to the Kanwal Rekhi School of

Information Technology (KReSIT).

KReSIT first shot into prominence, as a business incubation school, when one

of its first start-ups, iPortia, got funded by Rakesh Mathur of Junglee.com.

While the travails of technology slump impacted iPortia, later, another early

start-up, MyZus, working in the wireless domain, achieved greater fame. And as

they say, success breeds success: MyZus was followed into the Hall of Fame by

Herald Logic operating in the areas of reconfigurable software and intelligent

enterprise applications. The baton to carry on KReSIT's impeccable reputation

now seems to have passed on to three contenders-e-infinitus, Embedded Robot

Technologies (eRT) and Powai Labs. And if market acceptability can be looked as

a viable parameter for success, Powai Labs seems to be the next star in the

making.

“Three of the top five silicon design companies have already validated our products-in fact, two of them in the US and one in Europe are already our clients. There is no doubt that we are on the verge of becoming a significant global player” -Reapen Tikoo, CEO, Powai Labs

Incubated

in 2002, Powai Labs is developing hardware accelerators to verify large scale

design in VLSI. The idea is to offer emulation cards that are affordable for

every individual engineer in a chip design firm so that they need not test their

designs on a big emulation box. Reapen Tikoo, CEO, Powai Labs and an IIT Bombay

graduate says with understandable pride and overwhelming confidence, "Three

of the top five silicon design companies have already validated our products-in

fact two of them in the US and one in Europe are already our clients. There is

no doubt that we are on the verge of becoming a significant global player."

Industry watchers would probably scoff at such over-confidence, some might

think it presumptuous, but the fact is if all goes well over the next few

months, Tikoo might not be very far off the mark. At least on the technology and

business model front, you can find little to fault Powai Labs with. Presence of

micro-electronics experts like Dr Krishna Sabharwal and Prof. Madhav Deasi as

the advisories for the company, assures one of its technology pedigree. And,

unlike many other startups in the past, even the business model and the proof of

concept looks and feels sound enough.

Currently, the exorbitant pricing of tools for verifying and validating the

designs is the biggest bottleneck for any chip design company. Typically, the

big emulation boxes and simulation accelerators cater to a design size of 50

million ASIC gates at costs ranging from $2-4 mn per unit. Add to this the

vexatious issue of under utilization. There are no cost-effective options for

companies which want to test smaller design sizes in the range of 2 mn ASIC

gates as they still have to test their designs on a bigger emulation box. This,

Tikoo explains, effectively means that the company ends up under utilizing a

product that has a much higher capacity. Since the testing and validation

process comprises around 70-80% of the actual product's cost, controlling the

cost of testing and validation is crucial to the cost of the end product. Powai

Lab's IMAGE 2.5 (2.5 mn gates) at $75,000 and IMAGE 1.2 (1.2 mn gates) at

$32,000 are aimed at addressing exactly this anomaly.

But while pricing and technology expertise are indeed the company's strong

points, it is marketing that can turn out to be Powai Lab's Achilles Heel.

Though it already boasts of some big names in its client roster (Tikoo, however,

flinches from naming them), the budget required for marketing products in the US

can prove to be extremely prohibitive. It is exactly this factor which has

proved to be the nemesis for many promising companies. Right now, Tikoo is

relying more on creating publicity through PR, which he believes could prove to

be a shot in the arm for marketing activities later on. But, even here he needs

to be careful in choosing the perfect pitch for his spin doctors, otherwise it

might turn out to be an exercise in futility.

While, today, it might be premature to proclaim Powai Labs as a global leader

of the future, it is hard not to get affected by Tikoo's infectious

enthusiasm. Whether that along with its technical expertise would be enough to

carry the round is anybody's guess, but if it succeeds, this can be the

biggest feather in KReSIT's cap till now.

Rajneesh De in

Mumbai