The Unique Identification Authority of India aka UIDAI has said that it cannot share Aadhaar Biometric data for crime investigations, as suggested by Ish Kumar, Chief of the National Crime Records Bureau.

The UIDAI, in a statement, has also stated that, “This is also the consistent stand taken by Union of India in the ongoing Aadhaar case in the Supreme Court. It may be noted that based on this legal position, UIDAI has never shared any biometric data with any crime investigating agency.”

“It may be underlined here that when Mumbai High Court gave orders to share biometric data with an investigating agency in a particular case, the matter was taken up to the Supreme Court which stayed that order,” added UIDAI in its media statement.

According to Section 29 of the Aadhaar Act, the biometrics data collected by UIDAI can be used for the purpose of generating Aadhaar and for the verification of identity of the Aadhaar holders and not for any other purpose.

The news is in reference to the reports being published in certain sections of the media about professed use of Aadhaar biometric data for the purpose of crime investigation. In this regard, there has already a clarification been given that the use of or access to Aadhaar biometric data for criminal investigation is not allowed under the Section 29 of the Aadhaar Act 2016.

The National Crime Records Bureau has said that limited access to Aadhaar data was needed to be given to police for the purpose of catching first time offenders and for the identification of unidentified bodies.

According to reports, 50 lakh cases were registered every year in the country and most of them were committed by first time offenders who leave their fingerprints, which are otherwise not available in police records.

At the 19th All India Conference of Directors of Fingerprints Bureau, the NCRB Chief had said, “There is need for access to Aadhaar data to police for the purpose of investigation. This is essential because 80 to 85% of the criminals every year are first time offenders with no records with the police. But they also leave their fingerprints while committing crime there is need for limited access to Aadhaar, so that we can catch them.”

The UIDAI claims that Section 33 of the Aadhaar Act allows a very limited exception and permits use of or access to Aadhaar biometric data in cases involving national security only after pre-authorization by an oversight committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary.

Earlier this week, reports also surfaced that  Aadhaar-Enabled Payment System (AePS) transactions have hit a roadblock with NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) delaying the introduction of the new charges for each transaction. Also, the plans for face recognition feature on Aadhaar have hit a roadblock and might be delayed till August 1, as suggested by UIDAI recently.

[The development was reported by ET.]

The post UIDAI Disagrees To Share Aadhaar Data For Crime Investigations appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Student housing in India has always been a nightmare. Think back to your student days — that 10x12ft room which you shared with your noisy (or nosy) roomie, where you had to stash all your belongings in half a cupboard split horizontally (or vertically, for that matter), could open the bathroom door only wide enough to sidle in because the study table got in the way, had water for only a few hours, harrowing power cuts, rickety beds, and, not to forget, food that would put jail meals to shame.

If you’ve been a student (and most of us have, at some point in our lives), and had studied away from the comfort of your home, you can probably relate to the scene above. And, no, it’s not an exaggeration. It’s the kind of paying guest or shared room accommodation most middle-class students could afford back in the day. This is probably true now as well.

Here comes Stanza Living, a tech-enabled student accommodation platform, which wants to take the pain out of student living in India and redefine the space with its scalable, professionally managed offerings. The startup was started by Anindya Dutta and Sandeep Dalmia, who realised the huge gap in and the massive potential of the student housing market in India and decided to offer students something beyond cramped and makeshift cubby holes with unreliable infrastructure, poor maintenance, and non-palatable food.

The startup is based on a unique community living concept created for students moving to a new place. The startup has been working towards organising the industry through a process-driven service model and simultaneously transforming Stanza Living into a scalable business.

“We are re-imagining co-living in India with our student-first approach and providing the best living experiences to them. Our focus is on creating a strong technology-enabled student accommodation platform and we are continuously investing in new technologies such as AI and ML to design, structure, and execute student-friendly offerings and solutions in a scalable manner across all large educational hubs across the country,” said Anindya.

The Stanza Living Concept

Anindya and Sandeep met while doing their MBA at IIM-Ahmedabad and, in nine years since then, their bond has grown from being friends to co-property owners concurred that the Indian student housing ecosystem needed disruption.

Stanza Living’s underlying philosophy is to always put students first. The founders feel that students need an environment that stimulates learning and growth, along with international living standards, to build the foundation for the most important chapter in their life — college.

With an aim to provide such an environment and such living standards, Stanza Living decided to aggregate, remodel, redesign, and operate student housing assets and offer them to students, along with essential services, at a reasonable cost.

Stanza Living partners with property owners and developers on a fixed lease, revenue-sharing, or management contract basis, for a period of 5-12 years. It remodels and redesigns the properties according to students’ needs, factoring in services such as food, WiFi, laundry, security, etc. The startup then makes such student accommodation and services available on a single tech-enabled platform.

The student accommodation platform claims to have grown exponentially— 20x since its inception — with the numbers of beds it’s managing rising from 100 to 2,000 in the last 12 months across educational hubs in the Delhi-NCR Region. At present, both their facilities in North Campus, New Delhi, are running at full capacity, with over 100 students staying in them, and are currently preparing to launch in Pune, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Indore.

Stanza Living was originally seed-funded by the co-founders and later received a $2 Mn boost from Matrix Partners and Accel.

Stanza Living: A Tech-Enabled Student Accommodation Platform

Stanza Living residences offer students the option to choose from different service packages for students, which includes basic components like the internet, and meals three times a day to laundry services, concierge services, doctor on call and others.

The student accommodation platform is also laced with multilayer security solutions at entry and exit, with a trained security guard, CCTV cameras and biometric access cards, along with incidence based alerts and a rapid response team. There is no pricing range which Stanza Living abides by. All the facilities are competitively priced in line with market pricing.

The real backbone of Stanza Living, however, is technology — the startup analyses the market potential in different educational hubs and seeks to deliver high-quality, scalable service offerings to students. It also plays a key role in designing, planning, and optimising rooms and building the interiors.

“Our focus is on creating a strong technology-enabled student accommodation platform and we are continuously investing in creating a strong suite of tech solutions that use new age technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning etc, to help expand our business and design, structure, and execute student-friendly offerings and solutions in a scalable manner across all large educational hubs”, said Anindya.

The startup’s business strategies are based on developing a strong, deep, and solid understanding of the student consumer and her/his needs, wants, and aspirations. The team enters into partnership or tie-ups with colleges and simultaneously employs a range of ambassador and influencer marketing campaigns which conducts events throughout the year within their target segment in colleges and universities.

Additionally, Stanza Living also runs a variety of engagement campaigns on social media platforms to continuously create greater brand awareness and satisfy their needs with the products and offerings.

Changing The Game Of The Unorganised Student Housing Market

The founders shared that the biggest challenges they faced initially were educating landowners about organising and standardising the highly competitive student housing industry, which for years has been dominated by unorganized and fragmented mom-and-pop operators.

“But, on the positive side, we’ve received and still continue to receive an overwhelming response from students and parents. We have seen a recent surge in interest levels from landowners, developers, and property investors as well, who are excited about our student housing product,” said Anindya.

When asked about competition in the market, the founders said that they believe a student housing platform is a new category in itself that needs a lot of time to grow and shape up. However, they do realise that there is a large pool of unorganised players and limited set of organised rental/PG service providers in the same space.

“Startups like Placio and Homigo also focus on student housing space. Stanza Living is here to offer a professionally managed, process-driven, tech-enabled community living experience to students, designed exclusively to their needs. And that differentiates Stanza living from the rest,” added Anindya.

Student Housing: A Sector Ripe For Disruption

For the longest time, there was no innovation or disruption in the student housing industry. Leave alone that, there weren’t even any organised players in the space. It was just a way for house-owners to make some money on the side by renting out the worst portions of their homes or converting a garage or a room on the rooftop into a barely furnished, barely liveable student’s PG.

However, it is a mammoth space, with huge potential. A recent report by JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle Inc) stated that the supply in the student housing market currently stands at 6 Mn beds, and there’s a massive shortage of 5 Mn beds. This is the market that Stanza Living is targeting.

Tech startups have disrupted the traditional real estate market and changed the way real estate business carried on. The Indian property market might be going through a slowdown, but tech-enabled real estate companies are growing rapidly, making India one of the fastest-emerging realty tech destinations in the world.

Opportunities for innovation using technology abound across the real estate industry. Some of the biggest near-term opportunities for innovation are:

● Data and analytics: The real estate industry is focused on developing tools designed to identify, collate, and analyse relevant data to enhance operational efficiency, inform decision-making, and improve the experience of participants across the residential, commercial, and industrial real estate sectors.
● Mobile applications: Mobile applications are starting to change the way real estate transactions work. Customers can pay their monthly mortgage through their smartphones or make an earnest money deposit instantly and securely using a mobile app.

Stanza Living: Not Just Another Brick In The Wall

Budget hotel room aggregators like OYO and Treebo have been operating for a few years in India now, raking in billions of dollars. In fact, OYO recently announced its foray into the hospitality industry of China with 11,000 rooms in 26 cities. But the tech-based aggregation concept is new to student housing.

The market is dominated by privately owned hostels and PG accommodation, and it’s a difficult task to convince landowners to organise and standardise their properties and services according to students’ needs.

The startup, thus, has been working towards organising the industry through its process-driven, technology-enabled service model, while simultaneously transforming the startup into a scalable business.

Stanza Living aims at offering a long-term value-based solution to house-owners and developers at the same time improving upon its technology. Also, in the next 12-18 months, the company is looking at expanding its portfolio to over 10,000 beds across all major educational hubs in India. With respect to revenue, it expects to clock $293K – $440K (INR 2-3 Cr) in 2017-18.

India has been among one the most active markets outside the US for real estate technology investments. The real estate needs of the country are vast and startups have only just begun to scratch the surface of the opportunity for technology-enabled innovation. As Anindya aptly concluded, “Given the dollars at risk and the proportion of the broader economy that real estate represents, there is every reason to believe the category will produce multiple ‘unicorns’ worth billions in enterprise value.”

Meanwhile, at least students look beyond cubby holes and substandard PG accommodation at living decently in the formative years of their life.

This story was updated at 10.50pm on June 25, 2o18 to change the headline and the copy where Stanza Living was directly compared with Oyo Rooms. The comparison is not in line with the positioning of Stanza Living. Inc42 regrets the error.

The post How Stanza Living Is Homing In On The Student Housing Sector appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Indian mobile adtech company InMobi has entered into a strategic partnership with Microsoft Corp. as part of a technology collaboration.

InMobi will now be moving to Microsoft Azure in a phased manner. Also, the deal will combine go-to-market strategies aimed at enhancing the way marketers are looking forward to their advertising and marketing strategies.

To be noted, Microsoft Azure claims to provide the global scale and platform to meet the needs of the marketing industry with more regions than any other cloud provider.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said,  “As digital technology is transforming every industry and every aspect of our lives, companies are seeking new ways to engage customers where they are, with connected, personalized experiences. The combination of Microsoft Azure with InMobi’s marketing platforms will deliver new intelligent customer experiences and business insights to organizations around the world.”

The Expected Synergy Between InMobi And Microsoft

On the back of the global Azure infrastructure, the two companies are looking at additional opportunities in collaborating the empowered InMobi’s Advertising and Marketing Cloud capabilities with Microsoft Dynamics 365.

This also includes AI, machine learning and analytics. The companies will work in cooperation on the go-to-market approach, offering these integrated advertising and marketing solutions to Microsoft’s global enterprise client base.

Further, the InMobi Marketing Cloud will be sequentially launched market-wise worldwide over the next six months.

Due to far more advanced technologies available to marketers, there have been fundamental shifts in the advertising and marketing industry. It is combined with a rapid increase in customer touchpoints across multiple connected devices.

Founder and CEO of InMobi,  Naveen Tewari stated that InMobi is building one of the most advanced enterprise platforms for marketers, and the team is extremely excited to partner with Microsoft as it dives into the next frontier of connected devices.

“With Microsoft’s global reach and advanced security, privacy and compliance, alongside InMobi’s scale and decade-long experience in mobile-first technology, we can truly disrupt the marketing ecosystem. Together, Microsoft and InMobi will create a formidable force in the industry”  added Naveen.

More On InMobi

Inc42 earlier reported, InMobi acquired Los Angeles-based mobile mediation and revenue management platform AerServ for $90 Mn in a cash-and-stock deal.

Last year, in April 2017, InMobi claimed the profitable status, becoming the second Indian unicorn to ride on the profitability path after MuSigma. This profit has come on the back of video ad delivery to smartphone users, helping clients increase the conversion rate for online shopping and a strong growth in China operations.

InMobi also claimed earlier that with its focus on emerging economies,it will compete with Facebook and Google for a slice of the worldwide mobile internet ad spending pie which is expected to grow to around $200 Bn in 2019.

The post InMobi Partners With Microsoft As Part Of A Technology Collaboration appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Indian hospitality service and budget hotel network, OYO Hotels is now planning to launch its operations in Indonesia UK and a few other European countries, within the next 12-18 months, as quoted by the two people close to the development.

In May 2018, similar reports were surfaced on other media publications as well, citing speculations around different markets OYO Hotels is trying to tap into.

OYO Hotels had recently started its operations in China. However, the company has reaffirmed its India commitment during the launch. As an OYO spokesperson said earlier, “Our primary focus is to strengthen our foothold further in India. We are happy to state that we have reached 100,000 keys and are confident to reach 180,000 keys by this year.”

The company’s spokesperson further added that the expansion into China will help in deepening the network and commitment as South Asia’s largest hotel chain, as the company has already expanded into Malaysia, Nepal and China, where it has over 5500 assets partners.

According to reports, OYO was earlier involved in talks with the existing investor SoftBank to raise $800 Mn in fresh capital. The company’s value at that time could have reached to more than a billion dollars.

Also, reports surfaced earlier this week that SoftBank is looking to support OYO hotels through its China journey.

OYO has successfully entered the global market as it grows increasingly confident about the business model and its ability to take on global rivals.

The company has witnessed a turnaround in its business by its efforts to gain full control of the room inventory as well as marking a slight shift to its business model from having room inventory to opting for the franchise model in the past few years.

The company now claims to have transformed over 5,000 exclusive hotels in its chain through multiple formats including franchise, manchise–a hybrid between the management contract and a franchise and leased.  Its network includes major metros, regional business hubs, top leisure destinations as well as pilgrimage towns.

In words of SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son, OYO is a next-generation company and is the biggest player in the Indian hotels business. Being run by just a 23 years old founder, the industry certainly has high hopes from OYO Hotels to emerge among a few of the globally acknowledged startup from the Indian land.

[The development was reported by Livemint.]

The post OYO To Now Expand Its Business To Indonesia, UK, And Other European Countries appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Google Play is launching its first Indie Games Accelerator Programme as a special edition of Google Launchpad Accelerator.

The accelerator Programme is being launched to coach developers from the Asian countries so that they can successfully build, scale, launch, and market the next generation of hit mobile games.

For the uninitiated, Launchpad Accelerator is a programme by Google that comprises of an intensive two-week bootcamp in San Francisco and mentoring from over 30 teams teams across Google and other experts. Google had earned up to $50K in equity-free funding through the programme. The programme was launched to provide mentorship to mobile startups in India, Brazil and Indonesia in 2015.

Meanwhile, the Indie Games Accelerator is a four-month programme to train developers from countries like India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

What’s In Store For The Startups?

The programme will offer support to gaming startups and help developers with the best people, insights, technology and network of Google.

Moreover, the participants will be given Google Cloud Platform credits and invites to Google and other industry events. The list of selected developers will be released on the August 8, 2018.

As mentioned in a recent Google blog post, “Developers can apply for the programme until the July 31st. The developers will be attending two all-expenses-paid bootcamps at the Google Asia- Pacific office in Singapore where mentorship from Google teams and industry experts will be given.”

Apart from Google, Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator Programme also gained popularity in the country.

In last few years, many international organisations have launched their accelerator programmes in India. This includes names like Microsoft who partnered with Accenture Ventures, UC Berkeley launched a programme in collaboration with IKP Eden as well as Amazon.

Other companies which launched their accelerator programmes recently include Facebook in collaboration with T-Hub amongst others.

As per data available, India accounts for around 13% of the world’s online mobile gaming population. Further, according to a report by Flurry Analytics, India currently ranks among the top five countries in the world for online and mobile gaming. Also, as per a Google KPMG report released in May 2017, the online gaming industry in India is poised to reach $1 Bn by 2021.

As Google blog says, “There are many passionate gamers in Asia. The talented mobile game developers in the region have a tremendous opportunity to build apps and deliver experiences that entertain, educate and inspire.”

The interested candidates can thus apply for the programme here.

The post Google Play Launches Four-Month Indie Games Accelerator Programme appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Bengaluru-based elearning platform Edureka has raised $2 Mn from Leo Capital, a venture capital fund known for investing in technology companies. Being bootstrapping till now, Edureka has opened its door to investment for the first time, to fulfill its aggressive growth plans and to bring senior expertise on board.

Founded in 2011, Edureka works with the mission to make learning easy, interesting and accessible to learners across the globe. The platform, with its instructor-led training provides education in trending technologies like Big Data, Cloud Computing, Blockchain and Data Science. The platform also provides short term courses along with 24*7 lifetime support.

Lovleen Bhatia, Co-Founder & CEO, Edureka, said, “Edureka is a consumer-first company which believes in creating value for all our stakeholders. In long run, we will continue to focus on scaling up our team, enhancing our core product and improving customer experience.”

Post this investment, Rajul Garg, Founder and Managing Partner of Leo Capital India, who is an entrepreneur turned investor and founded companies like Pine Labs and GlobalLogic, will join the board of Edureka.

With this funding round, Edureka is planning to expand global reach and accelerate growth and innovation. The company also aims to achieve 6X growth in the next three years.

Edureka claims to have witnessed 3X growth in the last three years and has expanded its community to over 100 countries.

Rajul said, “We have long believed in the growth potential of elearning, especially when it comes to bridging the skill-gap in the IT industry. We are confident that Edureka will capitalise on the global demand to become the dominant player in this market and we look forward to helping them achieve this goal.”

A joint study by Google and KPMG had recently reported that online education will be a $2 Bn Industry in India by 2021. India is in fact the third largest online market for education in the world. The report further adds that the growth will be backed by a rise in paid users—currently 1.6 Mn and estimated to grow to 9.5 Mn in 2021.

Re-skilling and online certification courses are currently the dominant categories with a 38% share, according to the same report.

Other major players in this space include the BYJU’S, Coursera, Unacademy, Edukart and Embibe. Unacademy raised $11.5 Mn in Series B round of funding led by Sequoia. BYJU’S raised over $30 Mn from Verlinvest and $40 Mn from Tencent.

Online education is growing in India but poor digital infrastructure and low completion rates are the challenges that people get to face in this sector. Also, many online courses are self-placed and the students are not able to interact which leads to high drop-off rates.

The post Elearning Platform Edureka Raises $2 Mn From Leo Capital To Fuel Its Growth Plans appeared first on Inc42 Media.

A Gurugram-based startup, Biryani by Kilo (BBK) has raised $1 Mn in a pre-Series A round of funding from a group of investors, led by the founder chairman of CX Partners, Ajay Relan.

Founded in 2015 by Kaushik Roy, Ritesh Sinha, and Vishal Jindal, Biryani By Kilo was launched as a premium briyani brand to conserve the Khansama style of cooking in which every meal/biryani is freshly cooked with rich ingredients. The startup believes in cooking fresh unlike other brands where the food is cooked in bulk and then sold.

The startup has earlier received angel funding in February 2017 from a clutch of investors, including Chandigarh Angels Network, ex-Evalueserve Chief operating officer Ashish Gupta, GlobalLogic’s Sunil Singh among others.

As Vishal said, “We look forward to our association with Ajay Relan whose sharp business acumen and understanding of the consumer and technology space will help us to reach our goal of becoming a global premium Biryani & Kebab chain with emphasis on quality”.

Biryani By Kilo: Plans To Utilise The Latest Funding

The startup will be utilising the raised funds majorly to scale its operations across the country. Some other plans include –

• achieve a sales run rate of more than $5.8 Mn (INR 40 Cr) by March 2019
• to raise a Series A round of funding with a value of $14.5 Mn (INR 100 Cr).
• aims to clock a revenue of more than $72.85 Mn (INR 500 Cr) in the next five to seven years.
• to open up more than 20 stores in metros and big cities by March 2019

Biryani By Kilo: The Growth So Far

Biryani by Kilo currently has a total of 11 outlets in India with 10 stores in Delhi/NCR and one outlet in Mumbai. The brand claims to be growing exponentially at a rate of 70 to 80% per year with a current sales run rate of $3.4 Mn (INR 24 Cr) annually.

The startup further claims to receive more than 75% BBK orders online. The startup has its highest average order value of over $14.57 (INR 1000). Biryani By Kilo has also invested in a cloud kitchen delivery model to reap in advantages of low capex and rentals, flexibility to change locations, and low wastage amongst others.

In  Indian food delivery market, Zomato and Swiggy have gained popularity and are doing more than 200K daily food deliveries each.  However, the startups like Biryani By Kilo are leveraging tech to create a niche for themselves rather than becoming a competitor for the existing biggies.

According to a recently released TechSci Research report, the foodtech market in India is projected to grow at a CAGR of over 12% during 2016 – 2021.

The post Biryani By Kilo Looks To Drive Revenues Worth $72 Mn By 2022 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Indian tech startup ecosystem is again moving towards market correction this year. According to the Inc42 Datalabs’ Indian Tech Startup Funding Report H1 2018, till June 22, $3 Bn was invested across 372 deals — a 47% decline in the total funding amount and a 17% drop in the number of deals as compared to H2 2017. Also, M&A activities showed a 28% decrease, with only 54 M&A deals finalised in H1 2018.

Although this may seem like bad news, it’s not the entire story. Unlike the funding winter of 2016, things are not as gloomy as they may appear from an absolute point of view of the M&A activity and funding numbers.

H1 2018 marked the biggest acquisition for the Indian tech startup ecosystem, with Walmart placing a $16 Bn bet on Indian ecommerce company Flipkart. Now, with Microsoft, Walmart, Tencent, and Tiger Global at one end, Amazon at the other, and Alibaba poised in the third spot with Paytm Mall, the stage is set for Indian ecommerce to emerge as a battleground for global players.

Also, the Indian startup ecosystem added four new unicorns in H1 2018 — Paytm Mall, Policybazaar, Swiggy, and BYJU’S — with many more queued up for glory. Paytm Mall and Swiggy bagged a whopping $445 Mn and $310 Mn in total funding, respectively, so far this year.

Further, if we compare the Q1 2018 and Q2 2018 figures, there was an increase in both the funding amount as well as the number of deals in the second quarter till June 22.

Indian Tech Startup Funding Report H1 2018: An Overview

• H1 2018 maintained the ongoing trend with seed stage startups raising $183.75 Mn across 179 deals
• Ecommerce ($786.87 Mn across 49 deals) and fintech ($631.29 Mn across 70 deals) were the two top sectors in terms of funding amount and the number of deals, respectively
• Bengaluru retained its top spot with 119 deals, but witnessed a 49% decline in the number of deals in H1 2018, compared to H2 2017, followed by Delhi/ NCR and Mumbai
• According to projections based on Inc42 DataLab’s time series data, H2 2018 is expected to witness about $4.8 Bn in funding across 503 deals

Startups: Fuelling The Digital Transformation Of India

The Indian economy, along with the startup ecosystem and other industries, are currently on unsure yet exciting grounds. On one hand, the RBI’s clear stance on crypto is awaited, while on the other, the completion deadline for the Walmart-Flipkart deal has shifted to June 2019 — hinting at a long wait.

Further, different state governments, while prepping for the 2019 mega general election, are brainstorming on how they can notch higher ranks in the DIPP’s State Startup Ranking Framework. Even Jammu and Kashmir, which has seen political unrest for decades on end, recently released its startup policy and is even organising camps to train future entrepreneurs.

The southern Indian state of Kerala is betting big on its electric vehicle (EV) policy, while Karnataka is going along with blockchain and AI, and Rajasthan is all set to launch India’s biggest startup incubator — the Bhamashah Techno Hub — which will offer state-of-the-art incubation facilities to more than 700 startups.

Meanwhile, increased collaborations between the Indian startup ecosystem and those of Israel, the UK, and SAARC nations are also going to be to the advantage of all the involved parties in the near as well as long-term.

With regards to funding, India is now home to more than 200 incubators and 70 accelerators, with over 200 VC firms driving startup communities in metros and non-metros from the seed stage to the growth stage.

All in all, despite some lows and the lack of clear guidelines across sectors, India is advancing steadily towards its digital transformation. The startup ecosystem is playing a critical role here, bringing in innovation and disruption in much-needed areas, creating jobs, and offering technological solutions to all kinds of problems, thereby improving the lives of people.

Disclaimer: We are constantly updating our database of startups. Due to new startups of various domains being updated, previously reported deals and amounts might vary.

The post Indian Tech Startup Funding Report H1 2018: $3 Bn Invested Across 372 Deals appeared first on Inc42 Media.

UAE-based ecommerce and direct marketing company, Phygicart has raised $14.5 Mn, as part of its first phase to enter the Indian ecommerce space. The investment has been made by Boby Chemmanur, Chairman and Managing Director of Boby Chemmanur International group.

Joy, the chief operating officer at Phygicart, said, “The investment would be used to make our own products for which we are planning to set up an assembling unit in Ahmedabad, build our brand and enter into tie-ups with other brands. We are also in various stages of discussions to take over certain other brands.”

With the investment, Phygicart aims to provide an opportunity to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) who come up with innovative products. Also, through this model, the company will be making partners as well as consumers.

The company aims to expand operational footprint across seven countries by 2022, including other countries like the US and Nepal. Further, it aims to achieve a turnover of $1 Bn as well.

“The major drawback of ecommerce business is that it cannot establish a direct personal rapport with customers. We have rectified this adding that Phygicart.com will distribute about 60% of its total profits to partner store owners who join by logging in to phygicart.com,” Boby Chemmanur said.

Founded in 2016, Phygicart has over 5000 products belonging to sectors like electronics, cosmetics, food, wellness and dress materials. It connects both ecommerce and direct marketing on a single platform.

According to research company IBEF, the Indian ecommerce industry has been on an upward growth trajectory and is expected to surpass the US to become the second largest ecommerce market in the world by 2034. The ecommerce market is expected to reach $64 Bn by 2020 and $200 Bn by 2026 from $38.5 Bn as of 2017, added the report.

The Indian ecommerce ecosystem is currently going through one of its most volatile periods. With speculations circling the startup ecosystem, and confusion getting increased around the guidelines, there has been observed a slight shift in the strategies of the big players.

For instance, the Indian ecommerce unicorn Flipkart signed the acquisition agreement with the US retail giant Walmart, giving the entry to India’s local ecommerce zone. At the same time, we have players like Kishore Biyani, who are aggressively pushing in to bring the business models (like Retail 3.0) bridging both the online and the offline world.

All in all, with India’s ecommerce think tank brainstorming over ecommerce guidelines, digital payments on the rise and the Indian online shoppers going more maturer over time, Phygicart has certainly chosen an interesting time to enter into the Indian ecommerce ecosystem.

The post UAE-based Phygicart Invests $14.5 Mn To Enter The Indian Ecommerce Market appeared first on Inc42 Media.

We bring to you the latest edition of movers and shakers in the Indian startup ecosystem.

This week, PayPal unveiled its plans to continue with its commitment to India. It has identified the country as a key growth market and plans to hire 600 techies by December 2018. The company has tech centres in Chennai and Bengaluru, with a total headcount of 1,700. The fresh and lateral hires PayPal plans to make will work in domains like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

Let’s have a look at some other movers and shakers in the Indian startup ecosystem.

Payments Council Appoints Vishwas Patel As Chairman

Payments Council of India has appointed Vishwas Patel as its new Chairman. It has also appointed Loney Antony as its new Co-Chairman.

In his new role, Vishwas Patel will be responsible for creating a sustainable environment conducive to the development of the digital payments industry in India. Prior to this role, Vishwas was the Director of Infibeam Avenues Limited.

Loney Antony, on the other hand, was earlier working as the managing director of Hitachi Payment Services and brings over 32 years of experience in the financial services industry.

The newly appointed members will work towards achieving the target of growing the volume of digital transactions to 30 Bn for the financial year 2018-19. They will further lay focus on solving micro issues faced by the industry such as Implementation of Interoperability of Prepaid Payments Instruments, reimbursement issues related to Debit Card MDR for transactions upto INR 2000, and simplification of outward remittance regulations among others

Vivek Sunder Joins Swiggy As Its First COO The First COO Of Swiggy

Swiggy has appointed Vivek Sunder as its first Chief Operating Officer (COO).

In his new role, Vivek will be responsible for the operating units of the company. He will work towards accelerating the mission of making the lives of consumers more convenient and hassle-free.

He will also be in-charge of developing and executing Swiggy’s strategic direction and priorities to drive organisational growth and operational excellence.

Prior to this, Vivek Sunder was working as the Managing Director at P&G, East Africa, and brings with him over 20 years of experience.

He holds a BE in Computer Science from Netaji Subhas Institute of technology and an MBA from IIM Calcutta.

John Loffhagen Becomes The New President Of IFSG

Indian Federation of Sports Gaming (IFSG) has appointed John Loffhagen as its President.

In his new role, John Loffhagen will work towards creating a thriving ecosystem for sports gaming users and operators. He will lay guidelines for a common set of industry practices, dissemination of know-how to members and assisting with potential arrangements with right holders for the benefit of members.

Prior to this, John has played an important role in establishing the IPL T20 cricket and ISL football tournaments. He used to frame rules and governance structures of these events.

John is trained and qualified as a lawyer in the City of London where he spent eight years practicing corporate and commercial law. He is also associated with a UK law firm, Onside Law as a consultant.

IFSG will cooperate with important industry stakeholders to create a common set of practices, drive self-regulation, which will help in protecting user and operator interests. IFSG will be able to frame industry benchmarks with strong governance.

Currently, IFSG has 11 members that are working together to create standardised best practices and drive self-regulation. Some of the members include Baadshah Gaming, Vinfotech, Fantain, etc. StarPick, who recently launched its India operations during the T20 season, is the latest to come on board.

Zomato Appoints Mohit Gupta As CEO

Zomato has appointed Mohit Gupta as its new Chief Executing Officer (CEO). The appointment is in line with Zomato’s plans to strengthen its leadership team to accelerate growth of the business. It is working on the mission – ‘better food for more people.’

Prior to this, Mohit was working with MakeMyTrip, where he was responsible for the P&L of online business and comes with over 20 years of experience.

Mohit has played a key role in building out the marketing function, the successful IPO, leadership in Holidays business and mobile first approach at MakeMyTrip.

Mohit holds a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Sardar Patel University and a PGDM in Marketing from IIM Calcutta.

Publicis Sapient Strengthens Its Leadership Team

Publicis.Sapient, the digital business transformation hub of Publicis Groupe, has appointed Tilak Doddapaneni as its new Global Head of Engineering. It has also appointed Rakesh Ravuri as its new Chief Technology Officer.

Tilak Doddapaneni has been hired into the newly created position of Global Head of Engineering at Publicis.Sapient – joining from Tesco, where he was Online Engineering Director.

Doddapaneni will join the Publicis.Sapient global leadership team and report directly to Nigel Vaz, Publicis Groupe Lead for Digital Business Transformation and CEO of Publicis.Sapient EMEA and APAC.

In his new role, Doddapaneni will lead the entire technology delivery community across Publicis.Sapient globally.

In addition to client success and engineering and delivery excellence, he will focus on the talent development, performance metrics, and breakthrough engineering practices required by digital business transformation clients in their modern test and learn environments.

On the other hand, Rakesh Ravuri, who has held a succession of senior engineering roles at Amazon, will join as Chief Technology Officer for programming languages and cloud and Global Head of Engineering for Retail.

He will play a key leadership role in Publicis.Sapient’s extensive operations in India. Ravuri will report to Doddapaneni. Both Doddapaneni and Ravuri are Sapient alumni.

Ravuri, brings a wealth of knowledge in cloud platforms, service design and agile engineering gained as Director of Software Development at Amazon. Ravuri built the engineering team responsible for the software systems for Amazon’s new logistics business to launch ship.amazon, delivering millions of packages for its sellers.

Ecosystm Appoints Neelam Dhawan As Board Advisor

Ecosystm, a technology research and advisory company has appointed IT industry veteran Neelam Dhawan as Board Advisor.

In her new role at Ecosystm, Neelam will provide ongoing counsel to the board, in concurrence with her existing roles as a board member at Dutch technology giant Royal Philips, and ICICI Bank Limited India.

Globally recognised as one of the Most Powerful Women in Business by titles including Fortune, Forbes and Business Today, Neelam has played an instrumental role in shaping the IT industry in India.

In her professional career spanning 35 years, Neelam has held various senior executive roles within technology giants including Hewlett Packard, Microsoft and IBM.

Neelam brings a proven track record in managing transformation across industries, including banking and finance, telecommunications, manufacturing, healthcare and government.

Founded in 2016, private equity-backed Ecosystm democratises data and insights making it available and accessible to technology buyers and vendors globally using a ‘research as a service’ model. It focuses on offering transparency and autonomy to users, allowing them to consume data in a way that is affordable, and contextualised to their needs.

Ola Appoints Simon Smith As MD, Australia

Cab aggregator Ola, is strengthening its presence in Australia with the appointment of Simon Smith as managing director.

In his new role, Simon will head and develop the leadership team and play a pivotal role in building Ola’s presence including strategy, marketing, product development, customer service, and engagement with driver-partners and other stakeholders.

Prior to joining Ola, Simon’s previous career stints include Chief Executive Officer of eBay Australia, Non-Executive Director of Sportsbet, VP of Virtual Offices at Servcorp and a consultant at McKinsey and Company.

Ola is currently available in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and the Gold Coast and shortly will launch in Adelaide. Since launching in January, the service has received a positive response from driver-partners with close to 40,000 registrations. By enabling driver-partners to provide the best experience possible, customers, in turn, will be delighted by their ride.

Simon is expected to help in fulfiling Ola’s mission to build the future of mobility in Australia.

The post Movers And Shakers Of The Week [02- 07 July 2018] appeared first on Inc42 Media.

We bring you the latest news stories from the Indian startup ecosystem

Two of the biggest announcements impacting the Indian startup ecosystem this week were IPOs by Salebhai and IndiaMART.

Ahmedabad-based etailer Salebhai will be issuing 22,59,600 shares, offering 26.58% of its equity in the market to raise $3.48 Mn (INR 23.73 Cr). The company has received in-principle approval from the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) to file its initial public offering (IPO).

On the other hand, Noida-based online marketplace IndiaMART will be offering over $4.28 Mn shares for sale through its IPO. The company will be going online and will be making its IPO debut.

Let’s have a look at some other important developments from the Indian startup ecosystem.

Important Indian Startup News Stories Of The Week

Reliance Industries Enters The Ecommerce Market With Hybrid Model

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has announced its foray into the ecommerce segment with a hybrid online-offline model. The announcement was made with an aim to create shared profitability by integrating the offline stores of three crore small retail players via Reliance Jio, RIL’S online platform.

Flipkart Applies For NBFC Licence, Receives Vendor Notice Over Non-Payment Of Dues And More

• MacroWagon, a vendor of Flipkart, has sent a notice for the non-payment of dues and damages worth $2.9 Mn (INR 20 Cr). However, Flipkart has claimed that all the allegations are incorrect and that it has already initiated legal proceedings against MacroWagon.
• Myntra And Jabong now look to Invest $300 Mn in three years. Myntra and Jabong expect to triple their GMV to $4 Bn in three years, from $1.2 Bn in Fy17. Also, the companies aim to triple their combined customer base and improve their share of the domestic online fashion market to 50%, from an estimated 35% now.
• Flipkart has applied for a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) license to focus on consumer lending. The company will be starting its fintech services with microlending and microinsurance for ecommerce purchases on the website.
• Flipkart is now looking to reach Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of $17.6 Bn by 2020-21. It is expecting that 45% ($7.4 Bn) of its GMV target will be contributed by mobile phones, whereas large appliances and fashion will contribute $2.7 Bn and $2.6 Bn respectively. Groceries will be contributing to another $1 Bn.
• Walmart has set the target of June 7, 2019 to complete the process of arranging funds for the Flipkart deal. Walmart had started the process of selling $16 Bn worth bonds to complete its 77% acquisition of Flipkart in June.

Online Marketplace Nykaa Launches Nykaa Man

Nykaa has added a new section to its beauty and wellness marketplace- Nykaa Man. The company is expecting an addition of 2% to the overall revenue earned. Nykaa claims that 15% of its social workers are men and about 20% of its traffic comes from men and male products. Nykaa expects that men’s section will provide an increased revenue of 10% in the coming years.

Ecommerce Subgroup Asks Centre To Allow FDI In Inventory-Led Online Retail

An ecommerce subgroup has asked in a proposal from the Centre to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in an inventory-led online retail model, limited to players who are stocking products under the Make in India Campaign. The proposal has come when the discussion around ecommerce policy is going on. In the new ecommerce policy, there will be greater liability and responsibility on online retailers.

Home Ministry to Look Into Cybercrimes, Walmart Receives Warning And More

• The Union Home Ministry will constitute a panel under joint secretary, cyber and information security (CIS) to monitor cyber crimes, particularly fake and violent content. The panel will ensure compliance of complaints by social media platforms like Facebook and Whatsapp.
• The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has issued a warning against WhatsApp to stop the spreading of fake and violent messages by applying appropriate technology. Last year, rumours of child lifting were mobilised on WhatsApp which led to the killing of 31 people.
• WhatsApp believes that it needs collective efforts to address the misinformation. The company has said that it will give users controls and information to make sure that they stay safe. It is also planning to run a long-term public safety advertising campaign.

Uber To Launch Uber Express Pool In India

The effort is being taken by Uber to minimise the inconvenience for riders in terms of time spent in vehicle sharing. With the advent of Uber Express Pool, private ownership of cars will be challenged and there will be less congestion on the road. Also, it is the cheapest service, offered so far by the Indian cab aggregators.

NPCI May Launch Upgraded UPI 2.0 Soon

The new version will have features like generating collect payment requests along with invoice/ bill attachment, a one-time mandate with block functionality, signed intent/quick response code, adding of overdraft account type in UPI and foreign inward remittance.

OYO Launches OYO Auto Party

OYO Auto Party platform provides banqueting and wedding planning services to its customers. It will be available in cities like Delhi/NCR, Jaipur, Lucknow, and Kolkata. There will be in total 50 venues in all the cities combined.

Amazon To Leverage Its Prime App, Opened Third Fulfillment Centre In West Bengal And More

• Amazon is leveraging its hyper local application Prime Now in top four cities to offer ultra-fast deliveries to its customers during the upcoming Prime Day Sale. The application has gained attention in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
• Amazon India will be offering virtual reality stores at malls all over the country on the second edition of members-only Prime Day. The company is planning to set up over 11 pop-up stores in malls across the country.
• Amazon.in has launched a dedicated store for Collectibles. The new store comprises of collectibles from two categories – Entertainment and Sports that will provide Amazon.in customers direct access to thousands of collectibles in the form of sports and entertainment memorabilia from selected sellers.
• Detel’s products which could previously be ordered via Detel’s official website or B2BAdda.com is now listed on Amazon India. Going forward, all new products to be launched by the brand in the Mobiles and Accessories category will also be listed on Amazon.
• Amazon India has launched its third fulfillment centre in Kolkata, West Bengal, ahead of its upcoming Prime Day Sale in India starting from July 16. The fulfillment centre is spread across an area of 1,40,000 square feet and has a storage space of 600,000 cubic feet. The fulfillment centre in the state will enable faster deliveries and empower thousands of small and medium businesses to sell on Amazon.in

Other Indian Startup News Stories Of The Week

UPI Records 30% Growth In Transactions In June

According to National Payment Corporation of India, the country has used Unified Payment Interface UPI for 246.37 transactions in June 2018. The transactions have seen a spike from 189.48 transactions since May 2018.

UIDAI Extends Aadhaar Deadline

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has extended the deadline for deployment of 16-digital virtual ID as an alternative to Aadhar numbers till August 2018. Virtual ID is one of the two-layered safety net features to avoid data breaches.

Paytm To Enable Self-Employment Opportunities In Rural India

Paytm Payments Bank has partnered with the Grameen Foundation for Social Impact (GFSI) to provide self-employment opportunities to women and youth of rural India in the banking and finance sector. The programme has been started under the Paytm AshaKiran initiative.

ItzEazy Partners With Bikes4sale

The partnership aims to make RTO Services for used bikes easier. Initially, the service will be offered in 10 metro cities across India including Bengaluru, New Delhi, and Mumbai.

PolicyBazaar Aims To create 2,500 New Jobs In FY19

On the occasion of completing 10 years, PolicyBazaar announced that it will create 2,500 more jobs in FY19, taking its employee strength to 6,000 people. Growing 100% Y-o-Y PolicyBazaar.com is aiming to underwrite premium worth $1.4 Bn (INR 10,000 Cr), expand its unique customer base to one crore and increase its revenue to $217.8 Mn (INR 1,500 Cr) by 2020.

Finzy Receives NBFC-P2P Certification

Bengaluru-based peer to peer platform Finzy has received its NBFC-P2P certification from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Finzy would now be compulsorily required to maintain specific net-worth, meet set prudential and leverage norms, have a fit and proper board at all times and ensure fair and transparent operating principles in the conduct of its business. Finzy would also have to contribute repayment track record of each and every loan to CIBIL on a periodic basis.

Indus OS Partners With Appnext

Mobile discovery platform Appnext will provide Indus OS with smart interactive tools and technologies helping India’s home-grown mobile operating system to offer its customers a unique way to discover and access services.

Govt. Of Karnataka Partners With Nasscom

National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) along with Government of Karnataka, has launched the Centre of Excellence for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (CoE – DSAI), in Bengaluru. NASSCOM also signed a MoU with Niti Aayog to collaboratively foster applied research, accelerating adoption and ethics, privacy and security.

Snapdeal Introduces Instant Sign-Up For Sellers

Under this tech-enabled initiative, sellers need to simply provide their GST Identification Number (GSTIN) and other key seller details will be auto-populated using tech integration with the government’s GST network. Instant Seller Sign-up feature is a transformative tool because the use of automated GSTIN verification process eliminates all manual verification steps. This will lead to a significant drop in the instances of seller rejection in the onboarding process.

Tencent Enters The Indian Cloud War

Tencent is aiming to bet on niche offerings for video and live streaming products.  It is offering two specific solutions to its prospective clients- Tencent Cloud LVB(live video broadcasting) and Tencent Cloud for VOD(video on demand).

Digilocker Becomes The Ultimate Solution To Save Official Documents

Digilocker has announced that Railways will accept soft copies of Aadhar and driving licenses saved in DigiLocker. DigiLocker is a digital storage service operated by the government that enables citizens to store official documents on the cloud. DigiLocker is being used by 9 Mn people across India to store over 197 Cr documents such as Aadhaar Cards, driving licenses, and more.

Stay tuned for the next week edition of Indian Startup News Stories Of The Week!

The post 11 Indian Startup News Stories That You Don’t Want To Miss This Week [02-07 July 2018] appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Technology is fascinating in more ways than the mind can comprehend or the eye can perceive. Behind the flashy, new-age appeal of and social media buzz around consumer technology is real change being led by digital technology that’s uplifting the lives of people on the ground.

Rajasthan, a state with a population close to 69 Mn (6.89 cr), is one of the leading agents of this digital change in India. Rajasthan was once synonymous with heritage and royalty, conjuring up images of majestic forts amid deserts and pink and blue cities dotted with temples and havelis.

Today, the state is taking incredible strides towards digital transformation across sectors and cross-sections of society. While, on one hand, it has emerged as a leading hub for startups in the country with its iStart programme, on the other, it is driving e-governance at various levels, bringing digital where it really matters — to empower its women through Bhamashah Yojana and e-Sakhi, to help employ local youth through e-Mitra, etc.

Smartphones and Internet have become a part of the daily lives of the people residing in the state, as was evident from the high number of requests for mobile number portability (MNP) in Rajasthan. The number stood at 26.24 Mn — the highest in the Northern and Western zones of India — and that too for the second year in a row, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

And at the base of these initiatives is the state government’s Rajnet — a network that is set to cover all 9,894 gram panchayats and 183 municipal areas along with all district and block headquarters in the state. The number of Internet users in Rajasthan was the highest among rural areas in India at 7.3 Mn as at January 31, 2016 (6.47% share in all India) and second only to West Bengal, according to the government data.

In our last (and first) Digital Rajasthan Yatra, we discovered evidence of the real digital change happening on the ground in the state. We met 58-year-old Gayatri Soni of Tonk, an ANM (auxiliary nurse and midwife) worker in the Chironj village, whose primary job is to spread awareness on health-related government services and policies to women in her village. We also met health workers who use phones to click pictures of their registers and paperwork and send them to the PHC office, making functioning smoother and more transparent.

The scope of the digital advancement Rajasthan is making and the scope for us in terms of opportunities and challenges to cover this change has brought us back to Rajasthan to conduct Phase Two of the Digital Rajasthan Yatra. This time, we will be covering even more ground (2,000 Km), both literally and figuratively, and will be travelling through 10 districts beginning with Nagaur. We will also cover Jodhpur, Pali Udaipur, Rajsamand, Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Alwar, Bharatpur, Dausa.

This time around, we will assess the adoption of technology and all things digital by the locals, with a major focus on farmers, women, and youth on one hand and sectors such as agriculture, SMEs, education, and healthcare on the other.

Watch this space to keep track on our travels through the majestic state of Rajasthan, where we explore firsthand the changes technology is bringing on the ground.

E-Mitra, Soil Health Card, Kisan Card, And E-Mandi: Digital Services Are Now Part Of Farmers’ Daily Lives

Time: July 7, 12:00 noon

Place: Gugarwar Village (Nagaur District)

Group Discussion in Nagaur with farmers

Participants: Mangilal, Birlaram, Ramdev, Peparam, Rameshwar lal, Azi Ram

After the visit to Madan Lal’s home, the Inc42 team sat down with a group of farmers underneath a neem tree, with birds chirping, cattle lazing around, and a gentle breeze giving relief from the afternoon heat in the desert state of Rajasthan.

The discussion was aimed at understanding the experience of farmers on using digital services and also the benefits of various initiatives of the government — The Kisan Card, Soil Health Card — for them.

The discussion threw up the following experiences of the farmers:

E-mitra: The local authority of the village or the patwari, as he is commonly called, regularly assesses the farmlands of the village and their yield. As per the data collected by the patwari, the farmers are issued a token from the e-mitra kiosk that they can use at the kisan mandi for further transactions so that payments are made directly into their bank accounts.

The Kisan Card: The Kisan Card enables villagers to avail of loans worth up to INR 3 Lakh ($4.3K) at an interest rate of 7% and at just 4% in case of early payments. The interest amount charged by private moneylenders is a steep 24%.

The Kisan Card, however, has low penetration. Only the farmers associated with co-operative societies were using the Kisan Card. Further, there is no insurance for crops even though the insurance amount is deducted from the loan amount and no other noteworthy insurance benefits are provided.

The Soil Health Card: The Krishi Department regularly checks and furnishes a detailed report on the health of the soil and its components. This is very advantageous to the farmers as they get to know the contents of the soil and can use chemicals and pesticides accordingly for better-quality produce.

Subsidies: The state government offers subsidies of INR 85K ($1,235) to INR 90K ($1307) to build storage areas such as covered sheds or warehouses on their farmlands to store produce. Farmers have to apply for the subsidy when they make such structures, and the amount is transferred directly into their bank accounts.

E-Mandi: The e-mandi has benefited farmers in more ways than one by removing middleman, giving farmers a minimum support price (MSP) as digitising transactions. The challenge, however, is that the government buys part of the crop and not the entire yield. The farmers are then updated about the same via a message on their mobile phones.

The discussion brought forth a mixed bag of experiences on the part of the farmers. Soon it was time for the Inc42 team to drive on to our next stop.

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E-NAM Mandi System A Boon For Farmers Of Gugarwar Village

The destination for the day was the house of Madan Lal, the father of Rajendra Lora, who has set up FreshoKartz Agri Products, an ecommerce marketplace for fruits and vegetables in Jaipur. Madan Lal and his fellow farmers assembled to meet, greet, and interact with the Inc42 team.

Visit any village in India and the warmth and simplicity of its people is sure to engulf the visitors and that was seen here as well. We were served tea and cold drinks by the hospitable villagers.

Curious about why the Inc42 team was there, the villagers had all sorts of questions about where we came from, the purpose behind our visit, and, most of all, if Inc42 was related to farming.

The villagers were slightly disappointed when they learned that Inc42 had nothing to do with farming but were still eager to tell us their stories. We first spoke with Madan Lal, who’s been a farmer for 25 years. He farmed crops like onion and peanuts in an area that hasn’t seen adequate rainfall for decades.

Selling the produce has been and is a major challenge for farmers like him.

Madan said, “The traditional mandi system does not work and we get below par prices and baffling scenarios where sometimes one set of produce gets two sets of prices in the market.’’

The farmers said that the E-NAM mandi system under which the government buys a part of the produce at the minimum support price has been a huge boon for them. For example, earlier the government used to purchase produce for INR 3,600 ($52.35) but now they do it for INR 4,600 ($66.89). The farmers want this initiative by the government to expand to the whole produce as the cost of farming is going up.

Further, Madan also expressed problems that need the government’s attention. For instance, although everyone in the village has mobile phones, many don’t fully comprehend the information or use of services such as the Internet, with newspapers not being widely circulated in the area. Madan also suggested that the government should run awareness campaigns for the people who are currently in farming so that the schemes created by the government benefit them.

With that, the Inc42 team wrapped up the first half of Day 1, swiftly driving to the next destination.

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Digital Rajasthan Yatra II Begins

The Inc42 team started the first leg of the second edition of its Digital Rajasthan Yatra at 7 am on July 7 by taking the Jaipur Ajmer Expressway to Gugarwar village, a tiny village in Nagaur District of the state. The journey was smooth for the most part — about two hours — owing to the well-made expressway, after which a stretch of 45km till the Gugarwar village was comprised not so smooth, rural roads.

Here, we are, taking a photo-op break by the highway — Shivam Shrivastav, features writer and Mumbai correspondent at Inc42 (left) and Ajith Sharma, project lead for the Digital Rajasthan Yatra.

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The post [Live Blog] Digital Rajasthan Yatra II: Tracking Rajasthan’s Tech Revolution Plan For The Next 10 Years In 10 days appeared first on Inc42 Media.

InnoVen Capital India, a venture debt and speciality-lending firm has closed the first half of 2018 with commitments of funding worth $60.9 Mn (INR 418 Cr) to be invested in early and growth-stage startups.

So far, the Temasek-backed firm has disbursed $43.7 Mn (INR 300 Cr) of the total fund committed. Itis expected to invest the remaining capital within the next two months.

Ashish Sharma, CEO, InnoVen Capital said, “We closed 22 transactions in the first half on back of a strong deal flow and robust follow-on funding activity with our portfolio companies. We observe more and more startups warming up to venture debt as they look to optimize their capital structure while reducing dilution.”

As shared by the company, about 30% of the annual growth of the capital deployment was shown in H1 2018, as compared to H1 2017. During this period, Innoven Capital added 10 new companies to its portfolio, including Eruditus which offers executive learning programmes globally, logistics startup Elastic Run, among others..

Recently, Eruditus Education Pvt. Ltd raised $2.3 Mn (INR 16 Cr) from InnoVen Capital. Also, in September 2017, the VC firm invested about $15.4 Mn in online travel company Yatra, which was said to be the largest- ever venture debt deal funded by a firm in India.

In this April, Gurugram-based B2B marketplace and SME lending company, Power2SME also raised a debt financing of $6.2Mn (INR 40 Cr) from InnoVen Capital.

“We continue to derive our strength from our well-diversified portfolio, strong relationships and a global footprint across India, South-East Asia and China”. added Ashish

According to InnoVen Capital, about 60% of total deployment in H12018 was contributed by follow-on funding to existing portfolio companies to support them through their growth stage.

The follow-on funding transactions of Innoven include Pepperfry, Power2SME, Chaipoint, Capillary, Treebo, Bizongo, Epigamia, and Shadowfax.

Going further, InnoVen Capital is undergoing discussions with startups to write larger cheques and hence expect the pace of capital deployment to continue briskly in the second half of the year as well.

“Large ticket follow-on investments will continue to dominate our investment pattern going forward,” added Ashish.

As of June 2018 end, InnoVen Capital India has cumulatively funded venture debt worth over $330 Mn in more than 120 tech startups across India.

Also, InnoVen Capital has been able to significantly increase its average investment ticket size to $2.1- $2.3 Mn (INR 15-16 Cr) from $729K – $1 Mn (INR 5-7 Cr) it was writing earlier.

The post InnoVen Capital Closes H1 2018 With Startup Funding Commitments Worth $60.9 Mn appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Chennai-based B2B e-procurement platform Kobster has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a Pre-Series A round led by Incubate Fund.

Apart from Incubate Fund, Chandigarh Angel Network, ANME (Angel Network Middle East), and LetsVenture also participated in this funding round.

Kobster was founded by Karthik Ramaiah, Mohan Gayam, and Vineet Neeraj and was also incubated under PayPal’s Start Tank Programme. It is a full-stack company and focuses on end-to-end solutions, including last-mile fulfilment. Kobster also claims to be operationally profitable.

Kobster’s B2B e-procurement platform enables corporate buyers, retailers, SMEs, home offices, hotels, hospitals etc purchase business products in bulk at wholesale rates. It offers a one-stop-shop platform for all business needs with doorstep delivery, flexible payment options, and 24X7 ordering facility.

Earlier, in 2015, Kobster also raised an undisclosed amount of funding from venture capital firm Splice Capital. The startup also counts among its investors Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and CEO of Matrimony.com, Mahesh Parasuraman,co-founder and partner at Amicus Capital Partners, and Kishore Ganji, CEO of Astir IT Solutions Inc.

Kobster: Bringing Efficiencies In B2B Market

Nao Murakami of Incubate Fund, who is an investor in Kobster, believes that in India, office supply, and the MRO market are highly fragmented and still most of them do offline transactions.

He further believes that this market needs three important things for B2B commerce to grow — high frequency of order, large  ticket sizes, and a high retention rate of customers.

“We looked at Kobster closely and noticed that they have been growing steadily for last 24 months. Also, especially as we are VC fund originally from Japan, we know some successful ventures in this space such as Askl and Monotaro so we are confident on the business model,” he added.

Here are some more facts on Kobster:

• Currently operational in Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi/NCR, Hyderabad and Pune.
• Has partnered with 5000+ brands and vendors
• Offers over 1 Lakh products across categories like stationary, housekeeping, Pantry, electronics, IT consumable, electrical and others.
• Claims to be serving more than 100 traditional and new age corporates including companies like Oracle, Altisource, MindTree, Virtusa, Urban Ladder, CoWrks, DB schenker and many more.

Kobster’s Future Plans

Kobster is working towards a vision to streamline the corporate indirect purchases space with the help of their own cloud based e-procurement tool, Kobster Elite. Kobster claims to reduce 15-20% on indirect cost and increase the efficiency by 30-40%.

Mid and large enterprises see a value in switching to digital platforms. In recent times, corporate procurement has become one of the fastest evolving industries (FEI). According to the Global Business and Spending Outlook Survey commissioned by American Express, about 40% of the CFOs surveyed said that they would invest more than they did in 2017 in improving administrative process efficiency, including streamlining financial and procurement processes to help meet business objectives.

Shanti Mohan, founder and CEO of LetsVenture, said, “In India, most of the business procurement happens in the traditional, offline way, and there is huge potential to organize this market and bring transparency in quality and pricing. Kobster founders have proven their mettle by onboarding marquee clients and growing at a steady rate.”

Now, the startup is also looking for a Series A round of funding to fuel its growth and expand to Tier 2 cities, strengthen category offering, build advanced technology features, and go deeper into its customer base.

The post Incubate Fund Leads Pre-Series A Funding In Chennai’s E-procurement Startup Kobster appeared first on Inc42 Media.

July 27, 2018, is a date that will be remembered for long by Inc42. It was Day 3 of Rajasthan Digifest in Bikaner. It was also the day that Team Inc42’s work of passion — the second edition of Digital Rajasthan Yatra Report — was unveiled by the Honourable Chief Minister of Rajasthan Vasundhara Raje at the Digifest.

The report is the culmination of Team Inc42’s 10-day long travel across the desert-turned-Digisthan covering thousands of miles to capture the essence of ‘Rajasthan at the Cusp of a Digital Revolution.’

The Digital Rajasthan Yatra II report sheds light on how the lives of women, youth, farmers, and others have changed for the better and how sectors such as small businesses, healthcare, education, and agriculture have been impacted by the wave of technology and eGovernance initiatives of Government transforming the state.

For the second time this year, Inc42 took the initiative of travelling through the length and breadth of Rajasthan to witness Digisthan in the making and its impact. The 10-day Digital Rajasthan Yatra saw Team Inc42 undertake a road trip of sorts across Rajasthan’s dry yet well-maintained roads to touch 10 important cities and districts — Jaipur, Jodhpur, Alwar, Dausa, Udaipur, Nagaur, Rajsamand, Pali, Jhunjhunu, and Bharatpur.

We chronicled the journey and the stories in this Live Blog.

The aim was to discover and actively seek out stories of real change happening on the ground, led by the digital drive undertaken by the Rajasthan government. Team Inc42 had set out to cover 2,000 km but was so swept up in the digital wave that it ended up travelling 3,300 km. We wanted to dig deeper, follow every lead they got on how technology is changing the lives of women, farmers and the youth, and the face of SMEs, healthcare, and education — important pillars of growth for an economy.

And we were not disappointed. Everywhere we halted, talking to city dwellers and village residents alike, observing their interaction with technology, we came across real-life stories of how the state government’s digital initiatives are changing the everyday lives of ordinary people, leading to extraordinary results.

Team Inc42 found that Rajasthan’s digital mission has moved to the next level. Smartphones, the Internet, and “digital” have become a part of the daily lexicon of the people and are helping them lead better lives. Here are some of the stories of change:

• From enrolling in basic computer courses, children have moved on to crowdsourced smart classes, as in the case of Rajkiya Uchch Madhyamik Vidyalaya, a government school in Sikar district.
• Small businesses like Alwar’s famous kalakand shop Baba Thakur Das & Sons are raking in greater profits by enlisting their products on platforms such as Amazon, Flavors of My City, and Place of Origin. Others, like Anshul and Sakshi Bansal’s ApKaMart have launched their own online platform to take Rajasthan’s local handicrafts to global markets.
• Technology is making healthcare delivery easier. The Bhamashah card, with its medical insurance cover and food security benefits, has managed to cover 70% of the state’s population and enabled direct transfers of benefits worth over INR 20,000 crore to more than 5.7 crore people. In Jodhpur, Team Inc42 met Devki, who was able to save the life of her husband, Suraj, thanks to the Bhamashah Card — he recently underwent a life-saving surgery to remove a brain tumour.

• Then there is the ambitious e-Sakhi programme, which seeks to empower 1.5 Lakh women by making them messengers of digital literacy in the state.
• Digital technology is also proving to be a saviour for farmers. While Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) across the state are training farmers in the latest agricultural technologies, e-NAM, an online platform for buyers and sellers of agricultural produce, has helped eliminate middlemen and increase farmers’ incomes by ensuring they get fair prices. The farmers now get subsidies directly and timely in their bank accounts and are being encouraged to transact digitally.
• There is also e-Mitra, an e-governance initiative that makes public and government services available through kiosks at a hyperlocal level and iStart, which looks to build a robust startup ecosystem in the state.

T V Mohandas Pai, chairman, Aarin Capital Partners, says, “After reading these stories of how initiatives undertaken by the Rajasthan government, under the leadership of Honourable Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, are benefiting the people of the state, I am hopeful that Rajasthan will break all barriers on its way to becoming a digital unicorn of India. All indications say that a resounding success awaits the state government, as it creates a digital ecosystem that intends to include all.”

Rajasthan, a state with a population of close to 69 Mn (6.89 cr), is one of the leading agents of digital change in India. It is taking incredible strides towards digital transformation across sectors and cross-sections of society.

The pace at which the Rajasthan government, led by Honourable Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Department of IT&C Principal Secretary Akhil Arora, is going digital is truly exemplary – and we won’t be surprised if DigiSthan soon becomes the torchbearer of Digital India as well.

The post Digital Rajasthan Yatra II Is A True Insight Into Rajasthan Being At The Cusp Of A Digital Revolution: CM Vasundhara Raje appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After the Sridhar Vembu-led Zoho, Freshworks has officially become the second unicorn to emerge from SaaS hub Chennai. Freshworks just received a $100 Mn investment, taking the company’s valuation to $1.5 Bn, post-money.

The round was led by existing investors Sequoia Capital, and Accel Partners, with participation from CapitalG.

The latest funding round has raised the total investment in the SaaS company to $250 Mn.

The company, founded by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy, was initially named Freshdesk and was rebranded to Freshworks later in June 2017, in line with its increasing suite of applications and bundled multi-product suite.

Freshworks plans to use the funds for international expansion in its key markets — the US and the UK — as well as to continue investment in its integrated SaaS platform and the Indian SaaS market.

The funding announcement came a few weeks after Freshworks claimed to have crossed $100 Mn in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and launched its fully integrated cloud bundle — Freshworks 360.

127 Countries, 150K Clients, And Counting

Mohit Bhatnagar, managing director, Sequoia Capital India Advisors, believes that Freshworks is a truly global company with customers across 127 countries.

Sequoia first invested in Freshworks during its $55 Mn Series F round in November 2016. It also acted as a lead investor in the Series F round.

“Sequoia first backed Freshworks in 2016 and didn’t hesitate for a moment to double down on the investment. Girish and his team have worked relentlessly to build Freshworks into a leading SaaS company from India,” said Bhatnagar.

Freshworks is currently headquartered in San Bruno, California, in the US, and has offices in India, the UK, Germany, and Australia.

It claims to have over 150K clients worldwide using the Freshworks software product suites, including leading companies such as NHS, Honda, Rightmove, Hugo Boss, Citizens Advice, Toshiba, and Cisco, among others.

How Freshworks Paved Its Path To Success

So, what gives Chennai-based SaaS companies their sass? In the case of Freshworks, we assessed three major driving factors that led the company to become a unicorn within eight years of its launch:

• Strong financials
• An acquisition-led growth strategy
• Bundled suite of services with individual products

Here’s a deep dive into these factors:

Strong Financials

According to Freshworks’ FY17 MCA filings (as accessed by Inc42 DataLabs), Freshworks reported a total revenue of INR 199.2 Cr ($30.65 Mn) last year, an increase of 109% from its FY16 revenue of INR 94.89 Cr ($14.16 Mn).

Interestingly, it has doubled its revenue every year since 2014. The company claims to have reached $100 Mn in annual recurring revenue.

This means that it would have clocked a revenue of more than INR 680 Cr ($100 Mn) in FY18. The financial statements for FY18 have not been filed with the MCA yet.

Further, the revenue split for FY17 shows that 98% of Freshworks’ revenue is from sales of software services.

If we talk about expenses, in FY17, it recorded a total spend of INR 171.70 Cr, a spike of 111% from its total expense of INR 81.55 Cr in FY16.

Like in the case of its revenue, Freshworks has doubled its expenses every year. However, the percentage increment has come down as observed in the year-on-year trend.

The Inc42 DataLabs team also noted that in FY17, 75% of its total spend was on employee-related expenses, amounting to INR 128.10 Cr ($19.7 Mn). Going ahead, the company’s advertising expenses were quite low at INR 28.11 Lakh in FY17.

The post A SaaS Startup With Sass: How Freshworks Turned Unicorn With A $100 Mn Funding At A $1.5 Bn Valuation appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In recognition of the efforts of influencers and visionaries from across the world in digital governance, UK-based NGO apolitical has released its list of the World’s 100 Most Influential People In Digital Government.

The list recognises Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Indian Union Minister for Electronics and IT and Minister for Law and Justice, among the top 20 most influential people in digital government.

Vasundhara Raje, the chief minister of Rajasthan, which is on a digitalisation mission, also features on apolitical’s list of the World’s 100 Most Influential People In Digital Government.

Others on the list are Malcolm Turnbull, the Australian prime minister; Nana Akufo-Addo, president of Ghana; Audrey Tang, minister for digital, Taiwan; and Hillary Hartley, CDO, Ontario, among others.

According to reports, apolitical stated that under the leadership of Prasad, the Indian government has embarked on a new data protection, digital inclusion, and a cyber security framework. It added that India has initiated several new e-governance initiatives, including a unified mobile app for services, an online procurement platform, and an open government data platform.

Making India Digital First Through E-Governance

When every aspect of our lives and the world is going digital, governance can’t be left out in the cold. In fact, it is governments that lead countries, and, to that extent, they need to lead digital transformation as well.

There is no better place for them to start than governance. Smart governance or e-governance has become imperative in this day and age to create successful, peaceful, and thriving socio-economic ecosystems and nations.

The Indian government, like many others across the world, has realised that e-governance initiatives are the key to improving the lives of people, delivery of government schemes, and providing an impetus to the economy. Since the launch of Digital India in 2015, followed by the Startup India campaign, the government has increasingly been exploring use cases for technology such as artificial intelligence and blockchain in governance to create a smart and digitally first country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India programme has spread like wildfire across the country and is inspiring state governments to follow suit. Even in the Union Budget set earlier this year, the government doubled its allocation to the ‘Digital India’ programme to $480 Mn (INR 3,073 Cr) in 2018-19.M

Meanwhile, the Rajasthan government, under the stewardship of Raje, has been making serious efforts to digitally empower the people of the state — especially women, farmers, youth, and children — while changing the face of healthcare, education, agriculture, SMEs and other important pillars of the state’s economy. Raje announced a host of digital initiatives at the Rajasthan Digifest held in Bikaner in the state from July 25-27.

From empowering women through the Bhamashah Yojana and eSakhi, to creating a conducive business atmosphere for startups with istart, Rajasthan is on the cusp on a digital revolution, as Inc42 observed during its 10-day Digital Rajasthan Yatra last month. From small towns to villages, digitalisation has reached the last-mile, making work, and learning a digital-first affair.

The fact that two Indian political leaders featured in this first-of-its-kind list of the Most Influential People in Digital Government by apolitical is reflective of the international recognition these visionaries have received for their innovative and forward-thinking governance.

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Like many other global leaders, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi realises the potential of new and upcoming technology in reforming sectors and the lives of people in India. With a view to ensure that India doesn’t miss the blockchain boat, PM recently said: “India’s youth can lead a revolutionary movement using AI (artificial intelligence) and blockchain technologies with a value addition.”

However, words need to be translated into action. As Inc42 earlier reported, more than 80% of the blockchain developers in India may move abroad in search of better opportunities and owing to the lack of “robust regulatory framework.”

But, what, really, is the big deal about blockchain? How is it different from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum? Why is every government, consulting firm, technology giant, and startup alike — and across sectors such as e-governance, fintech, healthcare, education — rushing in to explore blockchain applications?

What is its real potential — especially blockchain as a technology/framework and blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) — in the context of India? How are other countries exploiting blockchain to their advantage? What is the existing scenario, and the future, of blockchain in India?

This, and a lot of more questions on blockchain have remained unanswered at large, primarily due to two reasons — lack of real understanding and knowledge of the technology, and the absence of comprehensive analytical data relating to its usage/potential usage in India.

To answer these unanswered questions, cut out the hype from the reality, and clear the air of confusion pervading the technology, Inc42 is launching the Blockchain Technology Report 2018: An In-depth Study Of The Current State and Future Of Blockchain In India.

The report delves into the hype around the technology, decoding blockchain and its frameworks, and discussing its features — primarily information consensus across multiple parties, its transparency, and security. Providing a rundown on the leading frameworks — Ethereum, Hyperledger, Multichain, Corda, Quorum, Lisk, and more — the report also places the technology in context, bringing in the classic case study of Telegram. It aims to clarify the difference between blockchain and cryptocurrencies for readers with limited or no knowledge about the technology.

It also elucidates the current ongoing applications and the landscape of blockchain adaptation across the world and in India, exploring the various initiatives taken by governments the world over to incorporate the technology to bring more visibility into governance.

The report talks about the various projects being implemented by Indian government think tank Niti Aayog and state governments to digitise land records and exam certification using a blockchain called IndiaChain.

Most importantly, it discusses the vast scope of application of blockchain across industries, specifically exploring opportunities in India.

Here’s A Look At Some Global Blockchain Facts:

• Only 0.5% of the world’s population is using blockchain today, but 50% or 3.77 Bn people use the Internet
• Over the last five years, venture capitalists (VCs) have invested more than $1 Bn in blockchain companies
• About 90% of the major North American and European banks are exploring blockchain solutions
• The global blockchain market is expected to be worth $20 Bn by 2024
• It is estimated that banks could save $8-12 Bn annually if they use blockchain technology
• In April 2018, a group of 22 European nations formed a new blockchain partnership aimed at exchanging information on the technology. The countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Norway, Spain, and the Netherlands, signed a declaration on April 10, 2018, establishing the new group, dubbed the European Blockchain Partnership, according to a release from the European Commission, which led the effort

The increasing importance of blockchain can be understood by the fact that leading IT company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) believes 2018-19 will be the year of blockchain adoption by the largest banks and stock exchanges in India and expects to generate at least $200 Mn in annual revenues from its blockchain practice. ICICI Bank announced that it has on-boarded more than 250 corporates on its blockchain platform for domestic and international trade finance.

Now, more than ever, Indian businesses need to be made aware of the importance of implementing blockchain in the banking system, especially to control frauds. According to a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report, sourced by Reuters through a Right To Information (RTI) appeal, state-run banks have reported as many as 8,670 “loan fraud” cases, totalling INR 61,260 crore, over the last five financial years up to March 31, 2017.

Closely tracking the trends among the early adopters of blockchain in India, Inc42 Datalabs has also addressed the challenges blockchain startups have faced while designing PoCs (Proof of Concept).

While the Inc42 Blockchain Technology Report 2018 offers indepth insights for professionals seeking to gain an understanding grip of the subject, it could be a fun read for n00bs looking to decode the technology — especially for those who have been bingeing on Mr Robot, a popular TV series based on cryptocurrency, primarily the Bitcoin.

In the blockchain world, find out which block does India stand in.

Order the Inc42 Blockchain Technology Report 2018 now!

The post Inc42’s Blockchain Technology Report 2018: Demystifying The Hottest Technology Of The Moment appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, said British science fiction writer, Arthur C Clarke.

Technology, when explored to its fullest potential and applied in the right spirit, really can be akin to magic. From things we’ve come to take for granted,  to pathbreaking innovations changing the face of agriculture, financial services, healthcare, education, and mobility — it is indeed technology that has woven its magic into our world.  One such technology with hitherto unfathomable potential which has been a buzz for a while now is blockchain.

Blockchain was invented by Sastoshi Nakamoto, the name used by the unknown person or people who developed Bitcoin, in 2008. Simply put, blockchain is a new, disruptive distributed ledger technology that is rapidly changing business models and becoming increasingly important in the world order.

This technology is undoubtedly the future, because it will bring decentralization, trust and accountability into different walks of life. India has the infrastructure and the entrepreneurial ecosystem to become the hotbed for blockchain technology development given that we can create a regulatory framework or sandbox to support it, said Rahul Raj, Co-Founder & CEO, Koinex

While this technology is being increasingly adopted by countries, industries, and people worldwide, there still seems to be a lot of confusion and scepticism around it.

To begin, with most people think blockchain and Bitcoin are synonymous, when, in fact, they’re complementary technologies. Blockchain, which was invented to account for Bitcoin, is an open, decentralised ledger that records transactions between two parties in a permanent way without needing third-party authentication. This creates an extremely efficient process that is expected to dramatically reduce the cost of transactions.

Consensus mechanism is the most vital aspect of blockchain technology. It fosters trust by ensuring that only appropriate stakeholders sanction transactions in a transparent manner. Once approved, the immutability of blockchain ledger ensures that recorded transactions cannot be tampered. The two aspects have immense applications in the sharing economy which cannot thrive without trust, said Ashwarya Pratap Singh, CEO & Co-founder, Drivezy

Inc42 Datalabs, the research division of Inc42, has been keeping a close eye on all the developments in blockchain, especially in India, for the last two years. Inc42 Datalabs has now culled and encapsulated its keen understanding of the technology along with deep insights into its applications — both existing and potential — to come out with a blockchain technology report 2018, with a key focus on India.

Inc42 is launching ‘The ‘Blockchain Technology Report 2018’  this week on 16 August, with a view to demystify blockchain and separate the reality from the hype. The blockchain technology report 2018 also addresses blockchain’s vast scope of applications, specifically exploring opportunities for it in India. It also aims to give an overview of cryptocurrencies to readers with limited or no knowledge of digital currencies.

Thing To Watch Out For In ‘The Blockchain Technology Report 2018

The report aims to deep dive into all the aspects of blockchain — from basics such as what the technology is all about, leading blockchain-based platforms and the problems they’re looking to solve to the importance of blockchain for Indian businesses and in governance.

Highlights of ‘Blockchain Technology Report 2018′

History: Blockchain was invented in 2008 to serve as the public transaction ledger of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. It was around 2014 that the tech community started exploring how blockchain could alter different kinds of operations. Many believe Bitcoin and blockchain are one and the same, but they’re not. Bitcoin is a decentralised digital currency or cryptocurrency without a central bank or single administrator. Blockchain, which was invented to account for Bitcoin, is an open, decentralised ledger that records transactions between two parties in a permanent way without needing third-party authentication.

What Blockchain means for India: With an increasing number of pilots and production-ready applications, Blockchain is ready to move to the next level in India. With government bodies, consulting firms, technology giants, and startups adopting the technology on multiple platforms, blockchain is sure to see exciting days ahead.

Policies surrounding blockchain: The Indian government and India’s central bank, the RBI, have decided to promote the use of blockchain in financial services for improving transparency and financial inclusion in the country. However, the government has taken a tough stance against the use of virtual currencies. In India, regulatory involvement in blockchain applications mostly revolves around cryptocurrencies.

Investors: In line with the global blockchain investors — Goldman Sachs, Google, Andreessen Horowitz, Digital Currency Group, Blockchain Capital, Draper Associates — a number of Indian investors have come forward to invest in Indian blockchain startups. A number of startups have in fact already closed significant funding and have stepped up from the Seed funding stage. The report brings in more details in this regard.

Blockchain For The Future

While blockchain seems to be the hottest technology trend doing the rounds these days, it comes with its fair share of challenges that the industry, governments, and users to overcome to be able to explore its full potential. One of the key challenges is the low awareness about the technology, especially in sectors other than banking. Even where people are aware of it, there is a lack of a true understanding of the nature and applications of blockchain.

Further,  there are a number of issues that need to be addressed by the ecosystem stakeholders to take blockchain projects from their PoC phase to commercially viable solutions. Also, in certain applications, crypto tokens become an essential way to generate consensus in blockchain (Public, in particular) — either by Proof of Stake (PoS) or Proof of Work (PoW). However, in the current scenario where regulations pertaining to cryptocurrencies ain’t clear, it will be difficult for startups to work on certain big projects, making safety and security without PoS and PoW, a major issue.

Nevertheless, regulatory bodies have taken cognisance of the potential of the technology and are forming working groups to aid and oversee its growth in India. With governments, consulting firms, technology giants, and startups adopting the technology across sectors to solve multiple problems, blockchain is sure to see exciting days ahead.

Blockchain has been the underlying technology used today in the commercialisation of a growing number of sectors. One should take this technology as seriously as the development of the Internet in the early 1990s since its hard to ignore the change it tends to bring about in the future, said Jatin Madhra, CEO, Bient Technologies.

The post Coming Up: Inc42 Blockchain Technology Report 2018 To Decode The Hottest Technology For Both Pros And Noobs appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In a big step forward to strengthen the startup ecosystem in Rajasthan, the Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje launched India’s largest business incubator — the Bhamashah Techno Hub — in Jaipur today (August 23).

The incubator will provide end-to-end support to startups, ranging from infrastructure, technology, angel funding, access to venture capitalists, mentorship, exposure to national and international organisations and experts and much more.

“Our efforts in the Rajasthan digital space have been to create and nurture entrepreneurship and talent and to make people across the country come together on one platform,’’ said CM Vasundhara Raje.

Inauguration of Bhamashah Techno Hub at Jaipur, Rajasthan https://t.co/lcAS0wYhJF

— Vasundhara Raje (@VasundharaBJP) August 23, 2018

The incubator, which has has been built in a span of 15 months, is spread across a sprawling 100k sq ft facility and has a seating capacity for 700. It also hosts a digital museum and a tinkering lab for development of products, adaptive learning, computational thinking, physical computing, etc.

“Rajasthan has 1,000 startups currently that have created 5,000-6,000 jobs. With Bhamashah Techno Hub, we aim to create more than 5,000 startups in the next few years employing more than 1 Lakh people,” said Mohandas Pai, chairman, Manipal Global Education.

Most incubators charge a certain fee, which startups can ill afford. But the Bhamashah Techno Hub edge is that it will offer a host of benefits for free so that bootstrapped startups can concentrate on developing their ideas and products.

Benefits Startups Can Avail At Bhamashah Techno Hub

• The Centre offers a full-time, week-long onsite mentorship for incubatee startups
• It also provides operational advice, banking support, and guidance for intellectual property rights (IPR) laws and applications
• At present, the centre boasts 50 mentors, all of whom are experts from various industries
• The entrepreneurs will also be given access to state-of-the-art amenities and has a 360-degree approach to helping them succeed

Rajasthan Government’s objective behind this incubation centre is to help startups propel through in-house and multi-level support. iStart Nest incubation centre in the capital city Jaipur is already running with 45 operating startups. Apart from this, incubation centres are successfully mentoring many startups in Kota, Udaipur and Jodhpur.

Rajasthan Government’s Digital Initiatives

During the launch of the Bhamashah Techno Hub, the Rajasthan government’s digital initiatives were also brought to light once again.

The state government has been doing a lot to empower startups in the country with initiatives such as istart. Apart from this, it has been working to bring digital technologies into e-governance and improve the lives of its people. From initiatives such as the Bhamashah Yojana, which is empowering women in an otherwise patriarchal society by making them the financial heads of their families, to Rajdhaara, which is described as the unified gateway for a spatial decision support system — the government has been digitalising every possible aspect of life, industry, and governance in the state.

The INR 5,000 Cr Bhamashah Techno Fund is one of the most important government initiatives aimed at creating a compelling startup ecosystem in the state; in the last three months, 20 startups have already received funding from it.

The annual Rajasthan Digifests have served as a hotbed for innovation for the youth, taking in events such as adrenaline-pumping hackathons and sustainable greenathons. The recent three-day Rajasthan Digifest in Bikaner saw an overwhelming participation of 25,000 people and 50 startups right on Day 1. A Job Fair organised as part of the Digifest recorded participation of more than 31,000 people, of which 1,500 secured their dream jobs. Other events such as the International Balloon Challenge, the TecRush marathon, and Hackathon 5.0 too saw a positive response.

To bring digital governance even closer to the people, the Rajasthan Government launched the e-mitra+, a technological lift to the e-mitra initiative that was launched in 2004. Under e-mitra+, the IT department is setting up self-service kiosks at gram panchayats’ Atal Sewa Kendras for the people of the state.

One of the other highlights of the Techno Hub launch by CM Raje was the announcement that a group of entrepreneurs from the state is all set to travel to Silicon Valley — the Mecca of startups in the US — to learn the making of a global state. Mitra, the robot, also marked its presence at the event and the CM also launched Rajasthan’s own online payment application — Bhamashah wallet.

In Rajasthan, a new digital initiative sees the light of the day almost every day, improving ease of doing business, healthcare delivery, agriculture, the startup ecosystem, and, most importantly, making ‘digital’ a part of every person’s life in the state. Thanks to these initiatives, the Rajasthan government is leading the charge of digitally forward states across India and is perched right on top of the list, setting an example for other states to follow.

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