The Busy Bee of Innovation

It is a success story that would have remained untold had Nasscom not chosen

to honor the spirit of entrepreneurship. It is the story of Beehive Systems that

created a laptop-based mobile news gathering equipment for Sahara Samay, to

transfer at least 30 to 40 video footages over non-conventional mediums like

dial up Internet connection. The cost of transferring the video from distant

locations using vid'linkMOBILE is almost 80% less than traditional mediums

like VSAT and leased lines.

Tushar Kothari and Ganesh Rajamani founded Beehive in 1989. Fresh out of the

campus, equipped with engineering degrees and gallons of passion, the duo set

out with a dream of building their own enterprise. Beehive established a

graphics and animation studio in 1992. This gave the team an exposure to digital

graphics and video technologies. Says the 37-year-old Kothari, "Being

engineers helped us understand the underlying technology faster and we decided

to exploit this to enter the media space." The initial opportunity came in

the guise of NDTV, which asked Beehive for a news gathering solution. It

provided a foothold for Kothari and Rajamani to enter the media technology

solutions arena and they never looked back since.

With 15 years of broadcast expertise, Beehive Systems, today, is an industry

leader in developing broadcast solutions. Beehive has provided products and

solutions to broadcasters in 11 countries. This includes most of the national

and regional broadcasters in India and quite a few in the ASEAN, Middle East and

Europe market. The Noida-based company has 65 people on board who bring a lot of

industry-specific expertise to the table.

Beehive's products span digital newsgathering, digital newsroom, video

archival, on-air solutions, interactive TV, automated 2D and 3D automated

graphics. It has recently launched Wasp'3D, an advanced 3D graphics automation

solution. Says Kothari, "By 2006, we plan to have iTV/VOD platforms in

place. He expects to make $21 mn gross revenue from the iTV/VOD market by the

year 2010 and plans to get into high definition television products and video

archival products soon. Beehive is targeting a turnover of $3 mn by 2005 and

hopes to become a $50-mn company by 2010. Should not be too difficult given

Beehive's great going.

Beehive, which started with initial seed capital from CitiCorp, is actively

looking for venture capitals to take the company to the next big level. Says

Kothari, "Young entrepreneurs make the common mistake of believing that Rs

5-6 crore raised is more than adequate to take on the world. This,

unfortunately, is a misconception". He is satisfied with the interest the

VC community has shown and feels that it is only a matter of time before Beehive

gets its second round of funding.

Kothari wants to see Beehive spread its wings in the US and European markets

and expand to areas of synergy like Digital Signage, Interactive TV, HDTV, and

Video Archival and Logging. Kothari's and his team's vision for Beehive is

clear: Five years from now, Beehive would be the most preferred solutions

provider for high-end media technology products for broadcasters across the

world. "We have the passion to beat all odds and reach the top," says

Kothari with a lot of conviction. We have no doubts whatsoever.

Bhaswati Chakravorty

in New Delhi