Gurgaon-based Snapdeal is planning to invest over $100 Mn (about INR 665 Cr.) in its Mobile only zero commission marketplace Shopo. The company aims to make it one million seller-strong platform.

Snapdeal had launched Shopo in July this year as a mobile-only platform, to bring small and medium businesses (SMBs) that cannot register on bigger ecommerce portals.

The company has already managed to get over 20,000 shops on the platform and aims at getting over a million shops in next one year.

Shopo has been developed by a 14 member team, it lets entrepreneurs list their products without submitting any sort of documents and avoid long verification procedure. Neither they have to pay any kind of commission to the company for the sale.

Shopo is inspired by Alibaba’s Taobao, and will look for revenues by means of advertising.

“Look at the Taobao model, we are just like them. We can look at options like advertising to make money. The idea of Shopo is to bring online as many sellers as possible,” Kunal Bahl said.

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The post Snapdeal To Invest $100 Mn In Its Mobile Only Zero Commission Marketplace Shopo appeared first on Inc42 Magazine.

A major chunk of the Indian food service sector is still unorganized and comprises of restaurants with little or no digital presence. Restaurant discovery and food ordering app, Zomato, believes that there is immense potential in getting these restaurants online. Basing on this premise, it launched its Whitelabel Platform today.

With Zomato Whitelabel, restaurants can launch custom-branded native mobile apps, and use the internet for easy access to their customers. “There is no one single service provider for restaurants which can give them entire suite of technologies required to run an internet presence closely integrated with the operations of their business. We see this as an opportunity to have a larger impact on the food-tech ecosystem, as well as create a larger overlap between tech and food,” said Ashish Goel, chief of Product & Design of Zomato.

Using this platform, restaurateurs can create apps for their restaurants within a matter of weeks even without any technical know-how. These Whitelabel apps integrate seamlessly into all of Zomato’s ancillary services, such as online ordering, table reservations, in-app cashless payments, loyalty programs, and the upcoming Zomato Base (point of sales system).

With features such as menu management, targeted push notifications, real-time information and marketing tools to merchants, the Zomato Whitelabel apps are subscription-based and are available to restaurants in all the 22 countries with Zomato’s presence.

Over 100 restaurants worldwide including Summerhouse Cafe in New Delhi, Miyabi Sushi in Dubai, and Shizuku Ramen in Melbourne have already signed up for this service in the last week.

Earlier this month, Zomato partnered with Paytm and integrated Paytm Wallet into its food ordering app to enable customers order food online on its platform using their Paytm Wallets. Having invested in last-mile delivery ventures Grab and Pickingo, Zomato also partnered with Delhivery to improve the last-mile delivery experience for its users.

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The post Zomato Launches Whitelabel Platform To Help Restaurants Create Custom Branded Apps appeared first on Inc42 Magazine.

Welcome to Flash Feed, your essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web – bite-sized and updated all day.

The post Zomato Closes $60 Mn Round From Temasek & Vy Capital appeared first on Inc42 Magazine.

Cross category classifieds company, Quikr, has announced launch of its real estate vertical, QuikrHomes.

With over 2 lakh real estate transactions on Quikr, QuikrHomes will provide customer engagement and lead management tools for builders and brokers. It will also provide a complete living experience for home seekers in the form of additional information aboutthe neighbourhood, schools, malls, hospitals, parks and walking area.

“The number of areas where we had a large scale of business had become one of the biggest open secrets in the Indian internet market. Verticalization was an obvious logical step to unlock this secret and have our user’s further benefit from the true breadth and scale of our platform.  Our real estate business has grown three times in the last two years and with the dedicated focus on QuikrHomes, we are confident we will at least double it every year for the next three years”, said Pranay Chulet, Founder & CEO Quikr.

Key features of QuikrHomes include:

• Paying guest accommodation to luxury real estate projects
• Curated neighbourhood and lifestyle
• Verified data about key establishments
• Integration with insights on other transactional activities across the platform.
• Reviews and Ratings of homes, Expert blogs
• Pricing Calculator Engine

Quikr had earlier hired Favista co-founder Manish Sinha to head real estate vertical.

Talking about the potential of the market, Manish Sinha said, “With Indian real estate marketing moving online to capture a $20 Bn market coupled with our cross category platform, we are uniquely positioned to capture the market share for our homes vertical. Quikr already had the largest number of individual led listings for real estate category especially in the metros and had a very large number of real estate developers marketing their projects well before the idea of QuikrHomes was born.”

Previously, it was also reported that the company was in talks with Commonfloor for a merger and later reports of Quikr in talks to acquire Housing had also sufficed in media.

Quikr was launched in 2008, and recently the company has launched QuikrCars, a vertical sharply focused on all kinds of automobiles. Earlier in July, it had closed a $60 Mn funding round led by its existing investor, AB Kinnevik along with the new investors including Falcon Edge Capital and Coatue Management also participating.

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The post Quikr Deepens Its Verticalization Focus, Launches QuikrHomes appeared first on Inc42 Magazine.

After Kalaari Capital and Jungle Ventures, Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, has now joined the advisory board of IDG Ventures India as a Senior Advisor.

Sudhir Sethi, Founder & Chairman of IDG Ventures India Advisors on this development said, “Mr. Tata is an icon when it comes to business leadership in the new age India. His rich experience in building businesses and expanding globally from India is of immense value to our portfolio companies. We are indeed privileged and honoured today”. Mr. Tata will be advising IDG Ventures India and portfolio entrepreneurs on its overall business strategy and strengthening the organizational leadership.

IDG Ventures India is completing nine years of operations this month. Ever since its inception, IDG has advised investments in 50 companies, committing over $150 Mn (INR 1,000 Cr.) in the Indian early stage technology venture capital market. A few of its investments include Myntra, Lenskart, Zivame, Vserv, Manthan, Perfint, NestAway, Hiree, and Uniphore among others.

Marquee Exits include, Manthan, IVIZ and Myntra acquisition by Flipkart as a result of which IDG Ventures is an investor now in FlipKart.

Tata will be formally advising IDG Ventures India portfolio companies on business growth, global expansion, team building and leadership. He will also be a special invitee, on selective basis, in portfolio company board meetings on strategic matters.

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Rahul Yadav, ex-CEO of Housing seems to be in the final stage of announcing about his startup. The most talked about and controversial ex-CEO has garnered funding from some of the top entrepreneurs for his new data analytics and visualization startup, whose name are yet to be announced.

Just a day before, we reported that Rahul’s new venture is getting funding from Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Flipkart founders and that ex-housing members are joining him in his next venture, today, FE has published a new report citing sources giving details of his new ventures.

Rahul Yadav’s unnamed new venture will be a data analytics and visualisation firm, whose product is likely to be used by ecommerce companies on day-to-day basis, the report said. The startup is anticipated to focus on analysing large data to predict consumer behaviour and provide speedy insights at key decision points.

Paytm’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma confirmed that he is investing in Rahul’s new venture.

He said, “Rahul is definitely an incredible maverick. He has an understanding of technology and we hope he has learnt his lesson and moved ahead.”

Besides, apart from Flipkart’s co-founders Sachin & Binny Bansal, Micromax’s co-founder Rahul Sharma has also made a personal investment into Yadav’s new venture.

Also, a Facebook post of Rahul confirms that he would meet Chairman and MD of RIL, Mukesh Ambani soon, keeping the purpose of meeting clandestine.

Rahul, in his Facebook status said:

According to our source, Azeem Zainulbhai, chief of staff at Housing, who was taking care of the finance function at Housing, is joining Rahul in his new venture. Azeem’s father, Adil Zainulbhai, who was the chairman at McKinsey India and is currently independent director at RIL has arranged Rahul’s meeting with the business czar.

Besides, Azeem, Housing’s Chief Design Officer, Suvonil who had quit recently, is also expected to join Rahul in his new venture.

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The post Rahul Yadav To Launch Data Analytics Startup; Garners Funding From Top Indian Entrepreneurs appeared first on Inc42 Magazine.

Gurgaon-based GHV Accelerator has onboarded FitMeIn as fifth startup in the accelerator program. As part of the acceleration program, FitMeIn will get seed funding of $100K from GHV.

Launched by three ex-colleagues-turned-friends, Nidhisha Varshney, Lalit Singh and Vishesh Goel in June 2015, FitMeIn is an online platform that offers monthly multi-studio membership to premium fitness workout destinations in Delhi/NCR.

The startup is on mission to provide customers a workout anywhere, anytime and of any form at the touch of a button, without them having to enter into expensive long-term commitments with a single fitness studio/gym.

According to a local research carried out by the startup, 80% people drop out of their gym/fitness classes because of boredom! By offering a wide variety of workout options, it also helps avoid monotony in their fitness regime and cut off the boredom fact.

Vishesh Goel, said, “Having tried over 10 different gym memberships since college, it was a constant struggle to find the right fit to keep myself coming back to workout more – which is the major pain area FitMeIn is trying to solve”.

The startup provides its customers access to a wide network of over 250 premium workout destination and fitness instructors across Delhi NCR for zumba, pilates, aerial yoga, crossfit, bootcamp, spinning and swimming.

Currently, it offers 5000+ workout sessions every week and plans to increase the number to over 15,000 sessions per week by the end of this year in major cities across India.

It offers monthly subscription plan of INR 2499, in lieu of which customers earn 20 virtual FitCoins that can be redeemed at partner studios for a workout of their choice. A user can book his preferred spot for the entire week through the online portal, using their FitCoins. With typically 0.5-1.5 FitCoins required to book a workout, customers can easily workout for the entire month. These FitCoins can be topped up at any time. The company will be launching its Android and iOS apps soon to ease and supplement its reach via its website.

According to Vikram Upadhyaya, Chief Mentor at GHV, “ It’s a novel concept in India. With all kinds of lifestyle diseases catching up early, we will need a paradigm shift in the way we live our lives. With a highly adrenalin-driven team, FitMeIn will completely turnaround the way India will workout.”

LazyLad, MyTaxiIndia, PickMyLaundry and FoodPort are the other startups that are part of GHV Accelerator. Recently, LazyLad and MyTaxiIndia raised pre-series A funding from global Investors within 2 months of joining the exclusive Acceleration Program at GHV.

The post GHV Accelerator Will Now Sweat It Out With FitMeIn; Onboards In The Accelerator Program, Invests $100K appeared first on Inc42 Magazine.

Uber has announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Tamil Nadu Government to create thousands of work and entrepreneurship opportunities, foster technical innovation and support development in the state.

Uber says the deal will enable it to create over 30,000 “entrepreneurial opportunities” for drivers, as well as an opportunity to work with the government to together develop programs to improve technology as part of the region’s economic development. It will include training programs, building infrastructure and working on public-private partnerships around R&D.

Amit Jain, President of Uber India, stated, “Uber is pleased to announce our landmark partnership agreement with the Government of Tamil Nadu to drive innovation, create tens of thousands of entrepreneurship opportunities, and provide safe, reliable transport options for people of this state.  “We are deeply committed to the local communities in which we operate, and look forward to leveraging our global expertise to deliver new solutions to make Chennai a city of the future.”

The company claims that Tamil Nadu & four other big metropolitan areas in India makes up 80% of its business in India. So, with this deal, it will be great to see how this business model turns out. The move follows its announcement made a couple of months back, wherein Uber had declared that it would invest over $50 Mn in the next five years to set up a new office in the southern Indian tech hub of Hyderabad, housing about 500 employees in the next five years

The company has also been testing out other initiatives such as cash payments considering that payment card penetration in India is lower as compared to the developed markets where Uber operates.The company is also planning to come up with its own mobile payment wallet in the country. .

India being the second largest and fastest growing market for Uber globally, it is investing significant resources into this market’s continued growth as the number of taxi service providers, especially in metros which have seen a phenomenal growth in the past couple of years.

It will be pumping in about $1 Bn in the next nine months exclusively in the Indian market. The online cab company will expand into newer cities and to develop new payment solutions as well.  It recently expanded its services to four new Indian cities, totalling it to 22 cities

Meanwhile in a significant first, Uber’s biggest rival Ola recently has already unleashed its potent weapon. Earlier this week, Ola announced the launch of Ola Shuttle – a service to offer shuttle bus service to urban commuters for as low as under $1 (INR 66). Passengers can use the app to scan and track shuttles on the map, book their seats and make payment.

The post Uber Inks Mou With Tamil Nadu Govt. To Create Over 30K Entrepreneurial Opportunities appeared first on Inc42 Magazine.

Good news for the Indian Railways commuter!

Google and Indian Railways have partnered to launch a new project under the code name Project Nilgiri, that will deliver free Wi-fi access to around 400 railway stations across India. Google will be using the Google Fiber project, that’ll provide high speed internet connection for the travellers.

Commuters will be able to access Wi-fi only after mobile number verification through a one-time password sent over SMS. Initially, a user will get high speed internet connectivity for the first 30 minutes and thereafter, the speed will drop and become slow. The connection of the users will however still be “active”.

Google and Indian Railways will be setting up Wi-fi hotspots across 400 railway stations through out the nation over a span of 4 months from now in the first phase. In its phase 2 expansion, Google plans to provide Wi-fi on board moving trains Pan India using cutting edge technology.

Currently, Indian Railways provides Wi-fi connectivity in moving trains for select routes like Rajdhani express using satellite communication technology.

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The post Google To Provide Free WiFi Across 400 Indian Railway Stations appeared first on Inc42 Magazine.

AdUrCup, a BW ACCELERATE Batch 1 startup from Delhi, has raised undisclosed amount in its first round of funding led by the founders of Dineout, Ankit Mehrotra, Sahil Jain, Nikhil Bakshi and Vivek Kapoor who have invested in the startup in their personal capacities.

The raised capital will be used to create a first of-its-kind out of home (OOH) ad network, which aims to reach 25,000+ consumers per day across Delhi NCR and more than 5,000 consumers per day on trains.

Founded inside the IIT, Kanpur campus in January, 2015, AdUrCup is a procurement application for quick service restaurants (QSR). The app enables advertising inventory which in turn helps in converting a cost center for QSR businesses, disposables which accounts from a 5% to 12% of the bill value, into an asset. For advertisers, this works as a mechanics to deliver a hyperlocal personalized advertising campaigns to the customers while they eat their favourite meal.

Globally, total OOH advertising revenue stood at $36.32 Bn in 2014 and is set to grow at a CAGR of 4.6 %. Experts are hoping that it will reach $45.37 Bn by 2019. In India alone, OOH is pegged to be at $37 Mn (INR 25Bn). However, it still remains a deeply unregulated and fragmented industry.

AdUrCup has already acquired over 200+ QSR’s, large food delivery players and travel food service providers. Currently, they’re working to scale the business model to other cities. “We are geared to expand our operations and acquisition across two of the major cities, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Ahmedabad across the next 2 months. These are exciting markets with a very strong trend of eating out” said Kushang and Abhishek, Co-founders, AdUrCup.

On the advertising front, the company has already acquired some of the major brands and is now in the process of helping them design incisive solutions.

Ashu Agrawal, Director of BW ACCELERATE said, “We are excited to see the progress AdUrCup has made. We believed in them and have faith, with right kind of mentors ACCELERATE has brought onboard, will serve as a strong foundation to this startup.”

He further added, it will be lovely to see this team-AdUrCup, expand into other cities soon.

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The post Offline Ad Network, AdUrCup, Raises Seed Funding From Dineout Founders appeared first on Inc42 Magazine.

It’s been said, “Money, Mentors and Markets are the Three Pillars of Startup Success”

Today, one can read about many interesting startup stories around the country. Many fresh faces and even experienced people are taking the plunge. The increasing societal support, development of individual risk taking ability and even policy support from the government has totally changed the entrepreneurial scenario in the country, than what we had a decade ago.

‘Entrepreneurship’ and ‘Startup’ are no longer dreaded words. One starts his/her entrepreneurial journey with an idea, but it is not ‘only’ about the idea. A powerful idea demands right execution, which implies that the entrepreneur and the enterprise needs timely access to money, mentors and markets.

Money

“Business is a money game with few rules and a lot of risks” – Bill Gates

An enterprise needs money to start, scale etc. The use of the funds varies at different stages of the startup journey. For example, money is needed initially for development (to buy components, equipment or to obtain services through hiring or outsourcing) to reach to the ‘Proof of Concept’ (PoC). In the next stage, money is needed to build a core team and to support go-to market strategies. And as traction happens, money is needed for scaling up to manpower, facilities and distribution channels as well as post sales support to maximise returns.

Mentors

“Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in a right direction” – John Cossby.

Money is not the only thing that plays a role in development and scaling up of a startup. There are a number of things and people who play an important role in a startup’s success. Mentors add a lot of value to a startup. True mentors get involved closely with both, the entrepreneurial team and the enterprise, to provide critical nudging at the right times. Role of technical or professional inputs (e.g. when to file what type of patent) is perhaps more obvious compared to critical inputs at all crossroads of the entrepreneurial journey (life coach if you will).

Though mentors can provide entrepreneurs with inputs and guide them further, in the end, the decision to accept it or not should be left to the entrepreneurs. They should have the final authority on what to choose. Mentors should not enforce their decisions on them neither it should be like ‘deciding for you’. At the end, the ‘entrepreneur should have right to choose’ and this shouldn’t affect mentor’s interest in the venture.

Access To Markets

“Everyone is not your customer” – Seth Godin

No matter how well-funded and a well-mentored is the enterprise,  the real test is in the market it is targeting. All said and done, execution plays an important role for a good idea to succeed. But not all well executed good ideas make it big in the market in a timely manner. If  mentors, or incubator, provides a push back by branding or established credibility, it also opens many opportunities. Of course, opening a door does not get one success, but it enables one to get access to people who can look at their offerings more favourably and if it is worthwhile, even extend support.  

It is not easy to find this combination of ‘money, mentors and access to markets’ together under one roof. icreate has created its platform in a way that it now acts like a one-stop-shop to access money, mentors and markets for aspiring entrepreneurs.

How icreate helps startups?

icreate is an autonomous institution that identifies, nurtures, and mentors aspiring individuals/teams (with or without ideas) to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. More importantly, the process at icreate is designed to win entrepreneurial team’s trust and confidence, to embark on a synergistic journey with a shared sense of value and direction with all parties pulling in the same direction, enhancing chances of success and enabling one to go farther and reach there faster.

icreate’s model involves a 13 week intensive “Grooming” Program to equip individuals with the right mindset, skillset and toolset for their next-gen entrepreneurial journey. Its objective is to expose aspiring entrepreneurs to various elements of entrepreneurship like product development, marketing, accounts & finance, legal aspects, and talent management etc from a startup perspective through academic sessions, activities, industry visits, entrepreneurial meets, brainstorming sessions and access to domain experts.

The Grooming Program helps an entrepreneur to get answers to questions like how to evaluate an idea, how to build value; building sensibility of finance – what price and whom; how to build teams; what are the culture, ethos and ethics; what is the market- price, position, pitch and promotion; and much more

Subsequent to the Grooming phase, in the next 8 weeks, aspirants are expected to pick an idea that has a strong value proposition around which a viable and dependable business can be built, and workout enough details to submit a skeleton business plan and an incubation proposal. Such proposals are then evaluated by an independent panel for incubation at icreate. The incubation offering includes physical facilities, project funding (up to INR 15 lakhs), sustenance allowance, mentoring and networking. The model is based on a debt – equity – revenue based commission structure.

Having successfully concluded four batches, icreate is seeking its fifth batch of 25 capable and aspiring entrepreneurs to bet on. With 33 aspirants from India, U.S.A, U.K., Finland and Singapore over the first three batches, 13 are currently incubated at icreate. Additionally, ongoing current batch of the Grooming program has 19 aspirants. The fifth batch for “Grooming” commences in Feb 2016, for which, the application deadline is 31st  October 2015.

“One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes” – Benjamin Disraeli

You can know more about icreate’s Grooming Program here.

[This post is sponsored by icreate]

The post icreate Invites Applications For Fifth Batch Of Grooming Program appeared first on Inc42 Magazine.

Curofy, LightMetrics and SlamdunQ have emerged as the winners at Google’s Launchpad Week that took place earlier this week in Bangalore.

The five-day programme for early-stage startups was launched on Monday to mentor startups on product strategy, UX and UI, marketing, business development and presentation skills. The event concluded with a demo day where the startups made a pitched to a jury of 5 including Ravi Gururaj, Samir Kumar of Inventus, Phanindra Sama among others.

Sixteen startups were shortlisted from over 1000 applications based on interviews and recommendations. These startups went through mentoring sessions led by industry experts including Alok Anand, Pallav Nadhani, Ravi Trivedi, Santosh Bhat, Satej Sirur, Satish Medapati, Sreeraman Thiagarajan, TR Ramanujam, Vinay Tamboli and Srikanth Sundararajan.

Here are the winners at Google’s Launchpad

Curofy: Curofy is like linkedIn for doctors. It is a doctors only network allows them to connect and collaborate with each other through a mobile app.

SlamdunQ: Founded in August last year, SlamdunQ is a wearable technology company focused on enhancing sports performance. Its first application, Slam dunQ Cricket, is aimed at helping bowlers improve their skills.

LightMetrics: It is a smartphone-based driver monitoring solution that gives a 360-degree view of driving behaviour by providing visual context to driving data.

“The personal time we received with experienced mentors was extremely useful in shaping our strategy. We are now working towards building a revolutionary platform which will change the way medical industry stakeholders reach out to the Doctors,” Pawan Gupta, co-founder, Curofy said.

Other startups that took part in this edition

MedOnGo: MedOnGo is a mobile and cloud based healthcare solution. It basically lets users digitize their healthcare records in cloud platform.

Intruo: Intruo is a reviews platform for interior designers, carpenters, painters and architects.

LetsDoc: LetsDoc is a health management platform for chronic patients suffering from diabetes, high cholesterol and common deficiencies.

Finbox: Its a personal finance management assistant. The app lets one tracks and categorises spends, organises accounts and provides powerful insights in order to control the financial life of its users.

PiQube: PiQube aims at changing the way companies hire talent by making the process simple, smart and swift. Its tool helps organisations make informed hiring decisions powered by analytics with insights on over 30 factors including skills that are both tangible and intangible.

DoPartTime: It is an online portal that facilitates hiring and finding of part-time work for students, women, freelancers, pro bono and voluntary.

Monkey Box: Monkey Box helps teams securely manage and share all their client-related data such as passwords, devices, notes, files, services and much more.

Galleri5: Galleri5 is a social media platform for discovery of amazing user-generated visual content (primarily images).

Toorq: Toorq.com is a unique experience in internet sharing – a truly open, unhindered, internet-powered, location-aware experience. One can send information from or to any location (area, street, city, country). Information is organized, discovered and subscribed to by ‘channels’ (people, locations, issues, interests, etc).

Frapp: Frapp is a digital platform that connects students with local businesses. With Frapp, students can avail exclusive deals and offers at businesses around them.

Startups including Reach, SuperGenie and Devmag were also among the selected startups.

Google Launchpad is held in various cities around the world including Tel Aviv, Barcelona, Paris, Berlin and London.

The post Exclusive: Curofy, LightMetrics & SlamdunQ Wins At Third Edition Of Google’s LaunchPad Week Held In Bangalore appeared first on Inc42 Magazine.

Global Fashion Group, which owns online fashion retailer, Jabong, is in talks with Paytm to sell the online fashion retailer. This news comes in just a few days after news of Jabong’s CEO and co-founder, Arun Chandra Mohan and Managing Director and co-founder moving out of the company had sufficed in the media.

According to Mint, AB Kinnevik, the largest shareholder of GFG, is taking care of the sale process and is reaching out to other potential firms to sell out Jabong. Akhil Chainwala, investment manager at AB Kinnevik is currently in India to meet potential buyers for Jabong. He is also expected to meet top executives at the Aditya Birla Group.

“Kinnevik is also negotiating on behalf of Rocket Internet, which owns more than 21% of GFG. It wants to sell its stake in the money-losing Indian fashion store ahead of GFG’s proposed stock market listing, they added. Kinnevik owns more than 25% of GFG,” mentions the report.

Jabong is currently valued at somewhere around $500 Mn and $800 Mn, according to people close to the development.

Last year, there were reports that Amazon was is in talks to acquire Jabong. However, the company had denied any such thing.

Jabong was merged with Global Fashion Group (GFG), formed out of five Kinnevik and Rocket Internet-backed online fashion startups active across dozens of emerging markets earlier this year. These include Dafiti (Latin America), Jabong (India), Lamoda (Russia and CIS), Namshi (Middle East) and Zalora (South East Asia and Australia). The merged entity had also raised $35 Mn funding round led by Tengelmann Ventures and Verlinvest.

Currently it offers over 190,000 products from more than 1,800 brands on portal. The company closely competes with Myntra.

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The post Global Fashion Group In Talks With Paytm To Sell Jabong appeared first on Inc42 Magazine.

Uber has announced that it is launching its carpooling service, UberPOOL in India, starting with Bangalore.

The new service will allow, riders, share a ride and split the cost with another person who happens to be requesting a ride along a similar route in your city.  After finding a match, Uber, will notify the rider first name of the co-rider.

“With UberPOOL we’ll aim to achieve our shared vision to make Bangalore a city of the future, one that looks a whole lot greener, cleaner, and more efficient thanks to fewer cars and more shared rides. Reducing the number of cars on the roads is beneficial not only to the environment, but also helps reduce traffic and congestion currently faced by commuters in our city,” Uber said in a blogpost.

The company is yet to finalize the pricing for UberPOOL for the riders. On the driver side, as per the company, drivers can make about 10-15% more revenues from UberPOOL, as compared to the Uber platform.

Though the service will help riders cut down the spends while they travel, but, this might increase the waiting time for the riders and obviously, sometimes even deviation from the routes. Adding on, sharing a ride with a unknown co-rider might also increase the security and safety concerns.

Uber had first launched uberPOOL in San Francisco in August 2014. Since then, it has added POOL in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, and Austin.

Recently, Bangalore Traffic Police has also announced the carpooling initiative. In India, UberPOOL will face direct/indirect competition from TaxiForSure, Ola, Tripda and Ibibo Group’s Ryde.

Few days back, Ola had announced launch of Shuttle service in Bangalore and Gurgaon.

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The post Uber To Launch Its Carpooling Service, UberPOOL In Bangalore appeared first on Inc42 Magazine.

Music streaming service, Saavn has raised an undisclosed amount in funding led by former Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin. This news comes in just 2 months after it had raised $100 Mn Series C round. 

Sarin will be joining Saavn as a strategic advisor.

“Music streaming is a core app on today’s smartphones, and Saavn is superbly positioned to grow rapidly in the fast expanding smartphone market in India. As an innovative and nimble music streaming company, at the heart of one of the world’s most valuable markets, Saavn hits all the right notes. I look forward to working with the Saavn team on the company’s continued progress,” Sarin said.

Saavn is also announced the following growth milestones today:

• 10x increase in daily active users in India since 2014
• 20 Mn + songs
• Over 250 Mn streams per month
• A global team of 145 people across 5 offices
• 18 Mn monthly active users

“As we continue to build a world-class mobile entertainment company, we believe in collaborating with the best partners in the world.  With over 90% of our usage driven by smartphones, Saavn users are moving data plan transactions and driving data engagement at an incredible pace.  In the coming months, you’ll see us work more deeply with carriers in India and additional territories,” Rishi Malhotra, Co-Founder and CEO of Saavn, said. “We’re honored to have the support of Arun, who brings unmatched industry insight, experience, and instincts to our business.”

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Germany-based media house, Axel Springer has announced to acquire a majority (88%) stake in New York-based Business Insider. Springer already holds approximately 9% stake in the company and, after this purchase, will hold a stake of 97%.

According to press note, the purchase price based on 100% of Business Insider amounts to  $442 Mn (currently approximately EUR 395 Mn) on the basis of a cash and debt free valuation of $390 Mn (currently approximately EUR 348 Mn). The valuation corresponds to an amount of $343 Mn (currently approximately EUR 306 Mn) for the 88 percent of the shares that Axel Springer is acquiring.

According to Crunchbase, since its its launch in 2007, Business Insider has raised over $55.6M in 7 rounds of funding. Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment company of Jeff Bezos holds 3% share in the company which he will continue to hold.

Started Henry Blodget, Kevin Ryan and Dwight Merriman, the publication targets 18 to 34-year-olds. Apart from news and exclusive reports, it also offers a subscription-based research reports branded as BI Intelligence.

Business Insider reaches over 78 Mn unique visitors each month. Once through, this deal will take Springer’s total reader base to 200 Mn. The acquisition also puts Axel in the list of ‘six largest publishing houses’ in the world.

Post the acquisition, Henry Blodget, founder, CEO and Editor-in-Chief and Julie Hansen, COO and President at Business Insider will continue in their respective roles. There will be additional appointment on board of the company, which will now include Kenneth Lerer, managing partner at Lerer Hippeau Ventures, an early-stage technology venture capital firm, co-Founder of Huffington Post and Chairman of Buzzfeed, will receive a seat on the Board of Business Insider.

Axel Springer will finance this acquisition using existing credit lines. The transaction is subject to approval by relevant antitrust authorities.

Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer SE, stated, “With the acquisition of Business Insider, we continue with our strategy to expand Axel Springer’s digital reach and, as previously announced, invest in digital journalism companies in English-speaking regions of the world. Business Insider has set new standards in digital business journalism globally.”

Axel Springer SE is divided into three operating segments: Paid Models, Marketing Models and Classified Ad Models. It has nearly 15,000 employees.

It is also an investor in other media firms like OZY.com, an online magazine for news and culture, Livingly Media a women’s portal, Lerer Hippeau Ventures and SV Angel.

Axel Springer also has a majority holding in the shopping platform, Retale; a virtual-reality startup, Jaunt; the social-video-news media company, NowThis Media and the media startup, A Plus.

Earlier this year, Vox Media, one of the fastest growing online publishers, had acquired an independent technology-related news, reviews, and analysis website, Re/Code; Singapore-based E27, had raised $650K; Tech In Asia had raised $4 Mn from SB ISAT Fund, Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, Walden International, Marvelstone, m&s Partners, Andrew James Solimine, co-founder of Nitrous and others and Buzzfeed had  $200 Mn in a new funding round led by NBCUniversal

Another digital content company, Gigaom was shut down in March this year. Later in May, Knowingly Corp, an Austin-based internet startup had  acquired a portion of the assets of Gigaom and relaunched it in August.

In context of India,  News Corp acquired VC Circle, YourStory grabbed under $5 Mn funding from Kalaari and others.

Let’s have a look into fundings of media platforms:

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Digital payments platform, FreeCharge has announced that it now has over 1 Mn customers. Customer rollout of the FreeCharge Wallet was initiated on 25^th September.

Govind Rajan, Chief Operating Officer, FreeCharge and Chief Strategy Officer, Snapdeal said, “ This is the fastest not just for wallets but for any digital product! This milestone is a testimony to the trust that consumers have on FreeCharge. Speed and security are two pillars of the consumer experience. With FreeCharge Wallet customers are able to make their transaction within 10 seconds. FreeCharge is compliant with leading industry standards like PCI DSS, making FreeCharge the quickest and most secure wallet”

FreeCharge Wallet leverages technologies such as HCE, NFC, QR code and BLE to create a intuitive consumer experience. Though FreeCharge does not own an open mobile wallet license as of now, the company has tied up with Yes Bank to launch its wallet and Fino tech for payment bank. The company has also received an “in-principle” approval for a semi-closed wallet and may launch its own wallet over time.

Related: Our Real Competition Is Cash, We Need Drive The Shift From Cash To Cashless: Kunal Shah, FreeCharge

FreeCharge as a platform has 29.8 Mn registered users and on an average FreeCharge platform witnesses 5 transactions per month per user.

Welcome to Flash Feed, your essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web – bite-sized and updated all day.

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Firstouch, a fully indigenous mobile operating system targeted at enabling the next 500 Mn users to connect to the internet in their native language, has just raised its super angel angel round led by leading technology entrepreneurs and investors, including Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal from Snapdeal, Pranay Chulet from Quikr, Naveen Tiwari and Amit Gupta from Inmobi and Mayank Singhal from Temasek.

Firstouch was founded by Rakesh Deshmukh, Akash Dongre and Sudhir Bangarambandi IIT Bombay alumni. It offers a comprehensive platform for the first-time, non-English speaking smartphone user, including not only a local language interface, but a highly simplified user experience, a local language app store and full translation capability. Its vision is to bridge India’s digital divide by bringing millions of rural consumers online.

The company has recently also crossed 1 Mn user mark in just a 100 days.

It took over three years, for the founders to develop its core product, including building a repository of over two million words across various Indic scripts to be able to offer a fully functional keyboard, autocorrect and suggestions, matra predictions and complete translation and transliteration

In addition to its language functionalities, it also has a thriving developer ecosystem with developers creating mobile apps in many regional languages for the Firstouch App Store (called App Bazaar), which has recorded over 1.5 Mn app downloads since inception.

Besides, the company is also in discussion with a number of strategic partners and businesses that are looking to create a strong reach in to the next 500 Mn internet users that will come online from India’s remote corners and transact via the Firstouch platform.

The company will further look to expand its capabilities across other emerging markets, and recently launched operations in Bangladesh.

Welcome to Flash Feed, your essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web – bite-sized and updated all day.

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Accommodation listing startup Grabhouse that shifted its base to Bangalore, has raised $10 Mn (INR 65 Cr.) in Series B round of funding from its existing investors, Sequoia and Kalaari Capital.

The newly raised capital will utilise to strengthen its presence in existing cities, build technology capability and launch new verticals.

Grabhouse plans to launch a new line of offering in the PG and Apartment category, also increasing the headcount and investing in relevant spaces.

Pankhuri Shrivastava, CMO & co-founder of Grabhouse said, “Business is about bringing the right owner and seeker together, there is a science behind house hunting or renting. Our key differentiator has been and will always be our technology-lead approach targeted towards making this online experience hassle-free. The newer version will be a virtual assistant, which Grabhouse claims should be working at par with Siri or Google Now. We are confident that this infusion will help us realise our goals faster and increase our presence.”

The company has witnessed an earning of above $76,000 (INR 50 lakhs) from consulting services like neighbourhood specialists and lead generation, in past one month.

Incepted in 2013 by Prateek Shukla and Pankhuri Shrivastava, Grabhouse.com is a community-based online exchange for finding rented accommodation which offers a broker-free and transparent experience to house hunters seeking rented or shared accommodation.

Quick Facts:

• Broker-free online real estate platform
• Present in 11 cities
• Receives over 4.5 Mn page views every month
• Witnesses over 200 transactions per day
• Combined month-on-month growth is around 115%
• Includes 22 neighbourhood specialists now

Kalaari Capital’s Vani Kola said, “We are very excited to partner with Grabhouse. Renting space in India is in need of some revolutionary thinking & measures to make house hunting a joyous experience, across the board. Grabhouse through a combination of technology & smart analytics is addressing that need. Hence, together we should grow from strength to strength.”

Prior to this, the startup had raised $2.5 Mn in Series A round from Kalaari Capital and India Quotient, in January this year.

Pankhuri added that when the last funding was raised, it was more focused on great team and technology wherein marketing contributed a small part.

Grabhouse competes with Commonfloor in the same domain, which is expected to be in final round of being bought by online classified portal Quikr. The other players include NoBroker and Housing.com. However, the USP of the company lies in the fact that Grabhouse is focused towards the fulfilment and successful closure.

The real estate space is getting cluttered with more and more startups entering the domain with disruptive idea, like Eezyrent, Flatchat, Zocalo and Nestaway. Recently, Zocalo.in, raised funding from a clutch of prominent investors. Also, Nestaway, had raised $12 Mn (around INR 76 Cr) from Flipkart and Tiger Global.

According to a financial daily, private equity funding in real estate is expected to be double this financial year to increase by $10 Bn as compared to a year ago.

Welcome to Flash Feed, your essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web – bite-sized and updated all day.

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Last week we concluded sixth edition of Pulse42 and StartupPulse in Bangalore. We’d like to take a moment to thank all our sponsors for supporting Inc42 to host this event series.

Loginext Solutions: Mumbai-based LogiNext helps courier and express companies to satisfy their need for advanced technology in order to achieve the goal of superior customer service. It helps them optimize their operations and provide superior customer service using data collection and analytics.

Lookup: Bangalore-based Lookup is a free and secure chat app to directly chat with local stores to get everything done with a simple message. From making reservations, ordering food, to getting product information, Lookup enables everything with a message. It is just like chatting with your friend to get things done.

Kotak Mahindra Bank: It is the fourth largest Indian private sector bank by market capitalization, headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, offering a wide range of financial services that encompass every sphere of life.

10000 Startups: 10000 Startups is an initiative of NASSCOM which is aimed at incubating, funding and supporting 10,000 technology startups in India over the next ten years. The program is partnered by Indian Angel Network and supported by Google, Microsoft and Verisign.

Amazon Web Services: Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a dynamic, growing business unit within Amazon.com.  AWS is a comprehensive cloud services platform, offering compute power, storage, content delivery, and other functionality that enables businesses to cost-effectively deploy applications and services with greater flexibility, scalability, and reliability.

Atom Technologies: A Financial Technologies Group Enterprise, atom technologies is an innovative Payment Service Provider offering 360o payment facilities over Internet, IVR, Mobile Applications and POS using Credit/debit card, net banking; cash/prepaid cards and IMPS.With over 100 payment options, 15 million + transactions, 4500+ strong merchant tie ups across various sectors spanning across Government , Utility, BFSI, DTH, Education, Entertainment, Retail, Travel and Tourism, Telecom and Subscription space. An atom technology is truly living up to its vision – Providing you the ‘new way’ to pay.

Also, thanks to other sponsors for supporting us:

growX ventures: growX is an early-stage investment firm based out of Delhi. growX helps startups scale by investing time and money in the businesses, and typically works closely with the investee companies at a strategic and operational level. growx investments are focused on seed and angel stages across a wide range of sectors.

Paytm: Paytm is a mobile commerce platform, which was started with offering mobile recharge and utility bill payments and today it offers a full marketplace to consumers on its mobile apps. It has over 80 Mn registered users.

Embibe: Indiavidual Learning is the parent company for Embibe. Embibe brings the power of information to help students prepare better for life-changing exams like JEE Main, JEE Advanced, BITSAT and CET / AIPMT.

growX ventures: growX is an early-stage investment firm based out of Delhi. growX helps startups scale by investing time and money in the businesses, and typically works closely with the investee companies at a strategic and operational level. growx investments are focused on seed and angel stages across a wide range of sectors.

Guerrilla Ventures: Delhi-based Guerrilla Ventures is a  technology-focused angel fund which has also invested in couple of startups including RHLVision, Machinga, Bisko Labs among others.

OutBox Ventures: OutBox Ventures is a New Delhi-based investment firm that specializes in seed funding and early-stage support for startups in India.

Eshiksa: Eshiksa is an eLearning startup providing innovative and cost effective solutions to education Industry. It facilitates smooth management of educational affairs of an Institute. The portal helps educators to manage, analyze and report extensive data, while saving time by eliminating repeated data entry.

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