Bangalore based plug ‘n’ play workspace for startups, BHIVE Workspace has raised undisclosed amount in seed funding led by Raghunandan G (Founder, TaxiForSure), Rajesh Rai (Venture Capitalist & Co-Founder, Venturesity), Arihant Patni (Managing Director, Hive Technologies), Sanjay Mirchandani (Owner, Mirchandani Group), and Arun Narayan (Director, UK India Business Council).
BHIVE was started out as a provider of accessible and quality plug ‘n’ play workspace in Koramangla, Bangalore in November 2014. It now fulfils the vision behind its existence by fueling efficiency, catalyzing innovation, triggering collaborations and housing success stories of about 90 startups covering 4000 active members.
As of now, it has three coworking space across Bangalore (HSR, Indiranagar & Koramangala). With the funding, the company has announced that it will now be BHIVE opening its fourth location (HSR Sector 4) shortly!
The space available 24×7 and its monthly membership plans varies between INR 4500 to INR 8000 per seat/month. It also offers daily & weekly plans.
Shesh Paplikar, CEO & Founder of BHIVE Workspace, firmly believes that co-working spaces are essential to developing a growing and vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in India. He reflects that while an entrepreneur or startup spends time, efforts and investments on taking an idea to the next level, there exists many trivial, yet significant, issues that grab attention. Finding the right workspace, maintenance of office space, bill payments and operations, house-keeping and security, procuring food and beverages etc. are a few such distractions. Setting up the perfect backdrop to fix this issue or to amplify one’s productivity, lead to the conception of BHIVE Workspace.
Placed in prime locations in Bangalore, BHIVE houses enthusiasts across various work profiles like – Tech, Software, Mobile, Hardware, IOT, Fintech, Education, Innovation, Foodtech, Gaming, ecommerce, B2B, B2C, Hyperlocal, Social Impact & freelancers. The coming together of amazingly different yet like-minded and industrious individuals, in such a vibrant workspace, to meet, collaborate, communicate and exchange ideas, often creates value that nourishes the whole community.
Speaking over investment, Arihant Patni, investor, says, “Entrepreneurs need all the help they can get to achieve their vision. Physical work space is one thing, but having support from a community of mentors and other entrepreneurs in the same space is a big asset. BHIVE aims to provide this ecosystem in a way that will really help startups get to the next level. I am excited to support them in this journey.
Some Member Focussed Benefits are:
Access to a growing and well networked startup community
Connects with investors from across the globe
Free events, mentoring sessions, panel discussions and workshops across varied areas like funding, women entrepreneurship, investments, legal etc.
Internal and informal events to trigger interaction within BHIVE, and parties in prominent hangout zones to help initiate collaboration within the start-up community, mentors and investors in Bangalore.
Dedicated games area to leave members refreshed after their breaks
Strong fitness focus to reflect as a good work-life balance in member lives
Special discounts & services from BHIVE partners across different sectors benefiting the community
The community app & mailing list to stay regularly updated about the recent successes and needs of the community, which in turn helps many internal companies to get new in-house business & references.
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Bangalore-based Magic Crate, an early childhood learning startup, has received an undisclosed amount of seed funding led by Aarin Capital and TV Mohandas Pai in his personal capacity.
The other investors who participated in this round include Narayanan Ramaswamy, head of education practice at a leading consulting firm and Sethuraman, finance expert and practising chartered accountant.
The startup will use the raised funds towards expanding its product portfolio, growing the team and scaling up manufacturing.
The startup was started in 2015 by IIT-IIM alumnus Viswanathan Ramakrishnan along with his friend and ex-McKinsey consultant Karthik Lakshman. It offers an inquiry and play-based programme for the children between the age of 4 to 8 years. It is a subscription-based service that produces and delivers hands-on activities for children. The activities are designed by a team of early childhood experts and product designers to promote 12 essential skills in children, including creativity, problem solving, vocabulary building, and self-expression. For each age group, the company offers 3, 6 and 12-month plans starting from INR 549 per month.
Viswanathan Ramakrishnan, co-founder and CEO of Magic Crate said, “Research shows that about 80 percent of critical brain development happens before the child turns eight. This has a direct correlation with what they are exposed to, during those years. Also, in this age group, they have a phenomenal amount of free time and it becomes a big challenge to engage them at home. Magic Crate is solving this pain point for millions of busy, but well-intentioned parents.”
The startup is expecting the adoption of the concept to increase more with the launch of its digital platform, which is in due in coming days.
Karthik Lakshman, co-founder and COO of Magic Crate, confounded that when Magic Crate was launched, it shipped about 100 crates shipped in the first month. Since then, the startup has been growing 50% month on month basis and currently ships about thousands of crates each month to 1200+ pin codes across the country.
Magic Crate competes with other startups in the same domain like Flinto, which raised INR 1.8 Cr from a group of investors led by GSF. Other startups offering similar services include Canary Crate and Small Brown Box.
Mohandas Pai, former Infosys director and now an active angel investor has been investing in many startups in his personal capacity. He has invested in startups like multilingual test preparation app OnlineTyari, media tech company YourStory, restaurant discounts startup Ressy, online media startup, TheBetterIndia, online tax information platform TaxSutra, peer-to-peer lending platform Faircent among others.
Pai also runs private equity fund Aarin Capital along with Manipal Group scion Ranjan Pai.
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Looking at the progressive growth of Indian startup fraternity, investors, accelerators and incubators from all over the world have shown interest to invest in the sector. After the big ticket size investors from the US and China, now its Russian conglomerate, Sistema Joint Stock Financial Corporation (JSFC), who wants to invest in the Indian startup ecosystem. It has floated a proprietary $50 Mn (INR 340 Cr) Asia Fund to support Indian startups operating in the technology and niche consumer retail segments.
In a conversation with ET, Sistema JSFC’s Group CFO Vsevolod Rozanov said, “The Sistema Asia Fund will start with an initial tranche of $50 Mn, which will be increased significantly in the near future once our startups financing business grows in India.”
The fund would be a Singapore-registered fund advised by Insitel Services, the wholly-owned Indian unit of Sistema JSFC. The corporation has not identified a potential ticket-size for investment yet. However, the sources close to the development said that the financing could be above $1 Mn each.
For managing investments in India, Andrey Terebenin, an ex-Sistema JSFC executive board member, has relocated to India as senior managing partner of Insitel to oversee the advisory services function of Sistema Asia Fund.
Terebenin said that in the first wave, Sistema Asia Fund will provide early-stage financing to startups who already have a revenue stream. “We will typically fund tech startups and others involved in innovative consumer-centric businesses aligned with the ecommerce/online retail model such as furniture leasing, food delivery to payment gateways. We will shortly close a couple of early-stage financing deals with Indian startups operating in its preferred domains soon”, he added.
Sistema that has over $10 Bn of annual revenue owns stakes in predominantly Russian companies from various sectors of the economy, including telecommunications, utilities, retail, high tech, pulp & paper, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, railway transportation, agriculture, finance, mass media, tourism, etc.
Interestingly, Sistema’s decision to diversify into the Indian startup financing scene comes at a time when Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications is taking over the Russian conglomerate’s Indian mobile telephony venture, Sistema Shyam Teleservices, which operates under the MTS brand.
Rozanov added that Sistema JSFC has an abundance of investible resources and funding startups could be a great way to leverage knowledge about how business works in India by virtue of our presence in the telecom business, and also at a time when the Modi-led government is committed to galvanising the startups ecosystem.”
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently unveiled the Startup Action Plan that promised certain tax benefits to the startups. It mentioned that there will be no tax on profits for the first three years, no capital gains tax on assets sold to fund a startup, a self-certification-based compliance system for new firms, no inspection for three years and a single-point interaction hub. The government would also have an INR 10,000 Cr fund for startups to prosper.
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Mumbai-based venture capital firm Kae Capital, which invests in early-stage companies, has raised $30 Mn as part of its second fund from existing and new investors.
The second fund has already been invested in at least five startups. The firm is said to raise an additional $10 Mn.
In October 2015, the VC firm had shared its plans to raise around $40 Mn in its second round of funding.
The VC firm shared details of the spending of its second fund. Let’s have a look:
The proceeds will be spent for next three to five years
The ticket size of investment will be doubled to be $1 Mn as compared to the previous investments of $500K
The follow-on ticket size also increases from $2.5 Mn to $4 Mn going forward
10% of the overall fund will be allocated for non-tech startups such as fast-moving consumer goods companies and manufacturing startups
The fund will have an investment cycle of 10 years, which could be extended by two years if required
The second fund will be completely dedicated for Indian startups
In March 2012, Kae had raised its maiden $25 Mn from investors which included venture capital firms like Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners and Omidyar Network; three global fund-of-funds such as Axiom, Squadron Capital and Morgan Creek Capital Management; and a few HNIs such as Manish Kejriwal and Deep Kalra. The firm is said to have exhausted this fund in mid of 2015 and has been warehousing its investments since then. It has invested in over 25 startups in India which count startups like on-demand electronics services startup HandyHome, online fashion portal Myntra, mobile advertising technology startup InMobi, in-store digital technology company Fynd (previously known as Shopsense), peer-to-peer car sales startup Truebil, customer communication startup Nudgespot, online logistics startup The Porter among others.
Recently, Kae backed Sendd, which was acquired by Craftsvilla against which Kae got a small equity in Craftsvilla.
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As India overcomes its image of a developing nation, it aims to look at solutions that align disruptive ideas, large markets and capable founders. The new generation entrepreneurs here set a vivid example of being at the helm of such a situation. However, transforming young companies into successful, scalable and sustainable businesses, it requires community, capital, partnership, continuous learning and access to resources. Identifying these opportunities and providing the required support for founders venture capital firm, Kalaari Capital, has launched a seed program named Kstart.
Kstart will nurture startups via systematic program to fast-track their growth. The program is based on five key components, which are as follows:
Capital: The program will offer fair capital to founders of up to $500K via a convertible equity instrument
Catalysts: The startup founders will have access to experience-based advice, committed guidance or open networks from the mentors called Kstart Catalysts to accelerate startup growth
Partners: The program will have partners, who will provide portfolio companies an access to their platforms, technology and expertise
Kstart Institute: Kstart Institute will help portfolio companies focus on important aspects of building and growing a technology-driven venture. Dr. Anil K Gupta, Professor, University of Maryland, will guide the development of the Kstart Institute curriculum
Respace: Respace is an outcome of collaboration with 15 artists from around the world, who will foster peer-to-peer learning which will be in a form of meetups, workshops and industry events
Kstart has partnered with a set of distinguished leaders who will be called called Kstart catalysts to advise and guide the startups in their entrepreneurial journey. These catalysts include people like Rajan Anandan – VP & MD SE Asia & India Google, Varsha Rao – Head of Global Operations Airbnb, Ratan Tata – Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons; Zia Mody– Managing Partner, AZB & Partners; Padmasree Warrior-CEO, NextEV Inc, USA; Muthiah V-Consultant, Spencer Stuart; Anil K. Gupta-Professor, University of Maryland and Meeta Malhotra, Former Partner, Ray + Keshavan. Kstart Catalysts will also be co-investors in the companies.
In September 2015, this Bangalore-based VC firm raised $290 Mn as its third India-centric fund. It has decided to use the fund in a span of three to four years, by investing $2-$5 Mn each in about 30 startups.
Data analytics company, Mu Sigma, has appointed Ambiga Dhiraj as its new CEO, making her the first woman CEO of an Indian Unicorn. Ambiga has been associated with Mu Sigma since 2007 and has led functions of talent management, marketing, innovation and product development, before assuming the role of COO in February 2012. As the COO of the company, she became a catalyst for major improvements to the company’s Indian operations and the global delivery of products and services to the market.
Checkout The Movers & Shakers Of The Week
Urban Ladder Appoints Sanjay Gupta As CMO
Urban Ladder appointed Sanjay Gupta as chief marketing officer. Sanjay brings 12 years of experience in branding and marketing. He was recent, head marketing – wellness and youth at Marico Ltd. and had previously worked with Accenture and Purple Squirrel Consulting. He is a Shri Ram College of Commerce alumni and had done a course in Strategic Marketing from Harvard University.
Lookup Appoints Dexetra Founder As CTO
Lookup, the free and secure messaging app that connects shoppers with local businesses appointed of Narayan Babu as its Chief Technology Officer. In his new role, Narayan will look at further bolstering the technology and innovation at Lookup and enhancing the user experience. Narayan Babu was one of the six founders and CEO of Dexetra, a venture-funded by Sequoia and Qualcomm which made popular mobile personal assistant apps, Iris and Friday. In November 2014, Alibaba and Softbank funded the US-based company Quixey, which owns and operates a search engine for mobile apps, acquired Dexetra. Narayan took over the reins of the consumer product team in India for Quixey as its Director of Engineering.
Affle Gets New Managing Director
Mobile platform Affle announced the appointment of Matteo Chiampo as the Managing Director for its apps platform business Affle AppStudioz. Affle has built a fast-growing mobile platform business over the last few years by offering App Development, App Marketing and App Analytics services over its MAAS platform. Matteo brings to Affle, a wide-ranging international professional experience of over 20 years, having played leadership roles in India, US and Europe. Prior to his appointment, Matteo had led the startup phase of Telenor Myanmar Mobile Financial Services, served as the CEO of Axind Software and the COO of Eko India Financial Services. He has also had stints in entrepreneurship, having started a project management consulting company in Boston and continues to be an angel investor, advisor and board member for a number of startups. Matteo holds an MBA from Boston University and an M.Sc.in Aeronautical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Italy.
Former Amazon Exec. Joins Craftsvilla
Manish Kalra will join Craftsvilla as Chief Business Officer. At Amazon, Kalra was Director of Integrated Marketing at Amazon India, and was responsible for overall marketing and played a key role in building Amazon brands like Amazon.in, Junglee.com and Kindle in India. He had also worked with MakeMyTrip.
Brian Olsavsky Amazon CFO reported that Amazon India’s sellers on marketplace sold more products in the fourth quarter of 2015 than in all four quarters combined in 2014. The quarter saw Amazon’s worldwide revenue increase by 22% to $35.7 Bn. The company also launched its grocery delivery app in India by the name Amazon Now. The app will deliver everyday essentials in two hours
Important Developments Of The Week
Snapdeal Pilots Home Services Category
Snapdeal started pilot of its home-services category across four cities – Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Pune. Easyfix, Hicare, Terminix SIS and Jack On Block are the four service providers listed on its website.
Junglee To Sell Used Goods
Amazon plans to launch the service to sell used goods on its subsidiary Junglee.com. The initiative will be led by Mahendra Nerurkar, General Manager at Junglee. It will compete with predominant players like OLX and Quikr.
Amazon Traders Alleged Of $30 Mn Tax Evasion
Amazon and the traders associated with it have been alleged of tax evasion of about $30 Mn (INR 200 Cr.) by misusing Cenvat (central value added tax) credit facilities. The Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI) is investigating their accounts.
ZipGo Suspends Services
ZipGo again suspended its services in Bangalore after the state transport department alleged them of violating rules and operating without permits.
Hiree Fires 10% Workforce
Hiree laid off 10-15% of its workforce mainly from the sales department. During July-August 2015, Hiree had started team expansion and hired senior employees from companies like DELL, Oracle, etc. to boost its sales efforts.
Jabong Registers 35% Growth In Revenues
With lowest cash burn in 24 months and best improvement in EBITDA margin in a end of season sale month, Jabong targets to be India’s first ecommerce company to breakeven. Jade eServices Pvt. Ltd., which runs Jabong in India, registered the highest-ever month-on-month (M-o-M) growth of nearly 35% in its net revenue for January 2016. The traffic to the Jabong app has also grown by 20% in this month.
IndianRoots Launches Fashion Business Accelerator
NDTV’s ethnic ecommerce venture, IndianRoots, launched Fashion Business Accelerator in partnership with 6Degree, to boost budding fashion professionals. The incubator aims at providing state of the art facilities and opportunities for fashion professionals to grow their business. The stipulated duration of incubation is 6 months, and is extendable to 1 year on review.
Other Developments Of The Week
Meru To Launch Intercity Ride Sharing
After the successful rollout of ride-sharing services in Delhi, Meru Cab will launch similar services for its inter-city operations on two routes initially – Mumbai-Pune and Bangalore-Chennai.
PayUmoney Ties Up With FreePaisa
To facilitate transfer of earnings for users PayUmoney tied up with FreePaisa. FreePaisa users can now spend across 1,00,000+ ecommerce sites like BookMyShow, Myntra, MakeMyTrip, Domino’s and many more.
Droom Expands Service To 100 Cities
Droom expanded its services to 100 cities across the country. The automobile marketplace has increased its sellers to over 26,000 from 20, last year. It has also increased its listings to over 90,000 from 200 in the same period.
MyOperator Ties Up With Lenskart
MyOperator has associated with Lenskart.com to simplify Lenskart’s daily backend operations. The alliance is aimed at the acceleration and mechanization of the backend processes, which not only make daily procedures more efficient,but also saves the company its associated costs.
Tech Mahindra’s NFC-based digital payment wallet, MoboMoney, tied up with ToneTag, to launch sound based contactless payments. This association will help MoboMoney to be used for offline payments without revealing user’s mobile number.
With growing popularity among the commuters, Jugnoo provides access to Windows phone users. With this App, Windows phone users will be able to book their Jugnoo ride with a single click.
Primaseller Launches POS Android App
Primaseller launched India’s first app-based POS (Point of Sale) software that also integrates across multiple online and offline sources of order. This will help sellers manage offline business through one dashboard.
ShopClues Introduces Image Search Tool
Offering a virtual shopping experience to its customers on the go, Shopclues launched Image Search Tool on its Android app. The tool enables advanced visual recognition of a certain product and shows more options that are similar in terms of colour, style, pattern, design, material, etc.
Spice Hotspot Partners With WudStay
WudStay partnered with Spice Hotspot to help users enhance their travel experience using their smartphone. With over 300 stores across the country, Spice Hotspot will offer its customers an opportunity to book WudStay hotels across 40+ cities at special discounted rates with exclusive deals and packages especially for Spice Hotspot Customers.
Just Buy Live Launches ‘Udhaar by Just Pay’
Empowering India’s Aam Dukandaar Just Buy Live and Religare Finvest Limited, partnered with each other to launch a revolutionary credit product for retailers across the country called Udhaar by Just Pay. The product aims to offer structured credit lines for stock-in-trade requirements to retailers.
Zappfresh Ties Up With SRS Grocery
The tie up will enable Zappfresh to reach out to over 100,000 plus customers of SRS grocery in Gurgaon, Noida and Faridabad. Besides, customers of SRS Grocery will now be able to choose from a wide range of over 40 high quality fresh non-vegetarian options including chicken, mutton, fish & pork and pre-cooked items like ham, sausages and salami.
Babajob Announces 5 Mn Registered Job Seekers
Babajob.com announced the registration of 5 Mn jobseekers on their platform. The startup leverages technology to help access better employment opportunities and facilitate a quick, reliable hiring process for employers looking to hire these individuals from anywhere across India.
Medidaili Launches New Platform
Medidaili Technologies Pvt. Ltd announced the launch of its customised app that will provide specialised medical support services including diagnostics, healthcare packages and emergency services at the touch of a button.The app will enable easy facilitation of reliable healthcare services on a single platform.
Ola Share Expands To 7 Cities
Ola announced the launch of Ola Share across 7 more cities including Bangalore, Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune.
Ameyo Launches New Cloud Contact Center Software
Ameyo announced the launch of Ameyo Emerge- a powerful new cloud offering that helps businesses to integrate seamlessly across channels. With Ameyo Emerge, emerging businesses such as hyperlocal mobile app aggregators, hyper-local marketplaces, e-commerce, etc., can now create world-class contact centers without investing on hardware or coding.
Holachef Brings Wider Food Ordering Options
Holachef announced the launch of breakfast and evening snacks section in the menu for Mumbai consumers. With this, consumers get access to a wider food menu comprising of healthy, tasty and qualitative food service starting from 9 in the morning to 11.30 in the night.
Routofy Launches Android App
Routofy announced the launch of its application for Android platform. The app allows users to avail its new feature of making instant multi-modal travel bookings.
PIKKOL Partners With Zoomcar
Relocation services aggregator PIKKOL partnered with Zoomcar to provide hassle free mobility for consumers opting for Pikkol’s relocation services.
GoGo To Leverage Twitter Fabric For User Engagement
GoGo announced that it has become the first app in India to fully leverage all major Twitter’s Fabric software development kits (SDKs) for enhanced user experience including Crashlytics, Twitter Kit, Digits and MoPub.
Shimply Launches Mobile App With Patented Pending Technology
Shimply.com, a multi category online bazaar for Indian products has launched its mobile app. The app features a patent pending technology of Virtual Trial Room which gives the freedom to see in advance how the products of your choice look on you, before you decide on one.
Fitpass launches its services in India
Fitpass provides its users the ability to freely workout across 1,000+ gyms and fitness studios in the city with more than 100,000 daily workout options to choose from. The app is available on web, iOS and Android. Fitpass also has 6 proprietary products aptly.
Chargebee Debuts Its “Launch Program”
To fuel its subscription businesses, Chargebee Inc., under this program, Chargebee will offer all of its services to new businesses and startups for free until they generate up to $50K in revenue.
Bikxie Launches Cashless Payments With MoboMoney
Bikxie, the two-wheeler taxi service provider has exclusively tied up with MoboMoney to offer cashless rides to its passengers.
This week two venture capital firms raised funds. Silicon-based venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital, managed to close $920 Mn fund capital to invest majorly in Indian startups along with South East Asian companies. With this, venture capital firm, Kae Capital, raised $30 Mn as part of its second fund from existing and new investors. The second fund has already been invested in at least five startups. It was reported that Flipkart approached Alibaba to raise next funding round. Though the talks are at a very nascent stage but the sources close to the development said that Alibaba’s investment will depend upon Flipkart’s willingness to offer a discount on its current valuation of $15 Bn.
This week 14 startups raised $20 Mn in funding altogether. (The funding amount is based on the startups that disclosed their funding amounts).
The Startups That Raised Funds This Week
Magic Crate: An early childhood learning startup, Magic Crate, received an undisclosed amount of seed funding led by Aarin Capital and TV Mohandas Pai in his personal capacity. The startup will use the raised funds towards expanding its product portfolio, growing the team and scaling up manufacturing.
Oust Labs: Edtech startup Oust Labs raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from T.V. Mohandas Pai and Aarin Capital. The startup aims to combine the fun and social aspects of mobile gaming with rigorous curriculum.
Altizon: IoT startup Altizon Systems raised $4 Mn in series A funding led by Wipro Ventures. Other participants in this round included Lumis Partners and existing investors, The Hive and Infuse Ventures. The startup will use the newly raised capital to scale up sales and marketing functions in India and the international market.
Mazkara: Beauty and wellness startup, Mazkara, raised $1 Mn in a seed round of funding from Dubai-based Dunamis Ventures. The raised capital will be used to expand its product team and subsequently launch operations in Delhi, Mumbai and Abu Dhabi.
Blue Tokai: Online specialty coffee retailer, Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters, raised an undisclosed amount in its seed round of funding led by Snow Leopard Ventures with participation from Bold Ventures. The company aims to use these funds to add more roasteries in other major cities across India.
Heads Up For Tails: Luxury brand for pet products, Heads Up For Tails (HUFT), raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding led by individual investors from USA, Singapore and India. The company will used the raised capital to launch 4-6 new points of sale this year, including one in New Delhi next month.
Perfumery: An ecommerce platform that sells fragrances, Perfumery, raised $30K (INR 20 Lac) in its seed round of funding led by Delhi-based Oranda Global and other angel investors. The newly raised capital will be used for Phase 2 of expansion and for creation of a specialised marketplace dedicated to luxury perfumes.
RoadGods: Startup accelerator Green House Ventures (GHV) has on-boarded a disruptive product design & marketplace platform RoadGods.The startup has built an online marketplace for outdoor and automotive products.
Urban Dhobi: On demand laundry startup, Urban Dhobi, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from angel investors Vinod Bansal and Sanjeev Singhal. The startup will use the newly raised capital to hire experts in different domains and for expansion in 5 more cities including Kota, Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Chandigarh.
SmartCooky: NDTV Ecommerce’s venture, SmartCooky, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from VLCC founder Vandana Luthra. The startup is a marketplace for health products and personal care products, and is an extension of NDTV’s existing food site. Zendrive: Mobile-tech startup, Zendrive, raised $13.5 Mn in Series A round led by Sherpa Capital. This round saw participation from Nyca Partners, Thomvest Ventures (Peter J. Thomson) and existing investors, First Round Capital, BMW i Ventures, Fontinalis Partners (Bill Ford) and Tad Montross. The startup will use the newly raised fund to focus on safety innovation and to grow its team.
Turtlemint: Online-insurance seller, Turtlemint, raised an undisclosed amount in a funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners. Blume Ventures also participated in this round. The startup will use the newly raised capital to scale up its technology & operations and to expand the team.
Gingercrush: Merchandising and product customisation platform raised $1 Mn in Pre Series A Round of funding led by Saha Fund. Mohandas Pai’s family office, Zia Mody (AZB Partners), Mumbai Angels, Ananda Kallugadde (NeoAngels), Rakesh Desai & Rakesh Malhotra (SAR Group) also participated in this round.
The week also saw first of its kind, investment in a co-working space for startups. BHIVE Workspace, raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding led by Raghunandan G, Rajesh Rai, Arihant Patni, Sanjay Mirchandani and Arun Narayan. The funding will be used to open BHIVE in its fourth location in Bangalore.
With this, the US global investment firm Capria that manages two ventures — Unitus Seed Fund and Capria Accelerator, has invested in the firm. The investors, which include Bill Gates and Aaarin Capital co-founders Ranjan Pai and TV Mohandas Pai have committed to invest Capria to help unlock more than $500 Mn in global impact capital over in the next 10 years.
Also, book review and recommendation startup, Woodpie, got selected to participate in a 14-week-long business building program as a part of ‘1440 Accelerator for Publishing Innovation’. As part of the program, Woodpie will receive $30K in seed funding in exchange for 7% equity in the company.
Flipkart infused $98.4 Mn (INR 666 Cr) in its logistics arm eKart through a Singapore-based group firm, to boost its logistics business.
Anti-virus software maker, Quick Heal Technologies Ltd, has fixed the price band for its initial public offer (IPO) at INR 311-321 a share. The company also aims to raise up to INR 250 Cr (about $38 Mn) through a fresh issue of shares.
Four startups won on the spot funding of INR 15 lakhs at Entrepreneurship Cell (eCell) of IIT Bombay, organised the second edition of the program during its The Entrepreneurship Summit 2016.
Acquisitions That Took Place This Week
On-demand service provider, Housejoy, acquired MyWash, an online laundry services player, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition would give Housejoy a foothold in “a strategic category” to help increase repeat customer usage.
Ethnic etailer, Craftsvilla, has acquired Sendd, an on-demand shipping service provider startup, for about $4.5 Mn. Post acquisition, Sendd will help Craftsvilla strengthen and streamline its logistics capabilities.
Allygrow Technologies has acquired AE Automotive Elements headquartered in Germany and the engineering services arm of Ranal, an US-based company for an undisclosed amount. The acquisitions are done in a bid to strengthen Allygrow’s product offering.
Other Developments Of The Week
Anthill Ventures selected 25 startups from over 300 applications at the event entitled “The Marketplace 3.0”, targeted towards online marketplaces and enablers looking to raise up to a million dollar.
iSPIRT is inviting application for third edition of InTech50, a platform for startups to showcase their innovative software products to a panel of Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Venture Capitalists and Product Leaders from the tech startups.
Uttar Pradesh has finalised its own startup policy to promote the ‘startup culture’ and entrepreneurship in the state. The aim is to facilitate both small and large IT/ ITeS industry spanning startups and micro, small & medium enterprises by providing incentives and a conducive policy framework.
Spark10 launched its operations in Hyderabad. With this launch, the accelerator is now inviting applications from the startups working in Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, Internet, smart technologies, analytics and machine learning domains.
Yuvraj Singh’s investment fund YouWeCan Ventures is planning to start an incubator to tap into a nascent community of entrepreneurs that had no access to angel investors. The company said the first two arms of the incubator will be set up in Gurgaon and Bangalore.
Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in partnership with Qualcomm launched a contest for startup ideas, in the run-up to the Make in India Week to be held in Mumbai from February 13 to 18, 2016. The winner will be announced at the end of the Make in India Week, and will get an equity investment of about $295K (INR 2 Cr) from Qualcomm, the US maker of chips for smartphones.
BSE Institute Ltd launched a tech-based accelerator for startups in Mumbai, in collaboration with Ryerson Futures Inc (Toronto) the technical arm of Ryerson University, Canada. The accelerator will focus on scalable, technology startups. It will aim to recreate Digital Media Zone (DMZ) – Ryerson’s flagship program in Toronto.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is planning to introduce regulatory changes to ease cross-border transactions for startups in India. This will enable startups to receive foreign VC investments without any restrictions. The changes will be finalised in consultation with the government.
Forbes, when launched the idea of finding young achievers under the age of 30, would have less thought that one day it would become difficult to extract 30 achievers out of the big list of entrepreneurs.
These new players are changing the rules of the game limiting to no boundaries. Over the past year, we saw how young Indians grabbed the limelight.
The Indian edition of the global magazine reports that this is the age of the big dreamer, of the kid with a plan and the chutzpah to action it. These young men and women not only fill us with admiration but also, to borrow an acronym from their generation, major FOMO (fear of missing out—yes, that’s a thing).
45 Indians and Indian- origin people made it to Forbes’ annual list of achievers under the age of 30 across varied fields. The Forbes fifth annual ’30 Under 30′ list featured 600 women and men, who are America’s “most important young entrepreneurs, creative leaders and brightest stars” and are “changing the world” across 20 varied sectors such as consumer technology, education, media, manufacturing and industry, law and policy, social entrepreneurs, science and art and science.
The research process was three-fold: One, interviews by Forbes India staffers with sources across relevant categories as well as through studies of databases and media coverage. Two, on forbesindia.com, inviting applications from, or nominations of, entrepreneurs and professionals who fit the criteria. Three, spreading the word on social media.
Raising funds is not an easy process, but finding the right investing partner to help you build your company is much more difficult. When it comes to fundraising, investors ask startups 100s questions not just during their pitch or till the funding is complete but even after they have invested the company. Investors are choosy about where they want to put in their money, but what about entrepreneurs? With rise of startup investments, there has been rise of number of investors and investment firms. Thus, an entrepreneur needs to be careful who they allow to invest in their startup.
Although this is not an exhaustive list of questions that you need to ask, but the basic considerations that should be kept in mind before you decide on a VC to invest in your business.
So, here’s a list of questions you should keep in mind
About The Fund
Founders should be aware about the basic profile of the fund. It’s better to ask them about the current number of investments that have been made through the fund.
Also, what is the experience of the partners in terms of the sectors they have worked in is important. In case they are from the same sector as your business then you will have a better chance of gaining useful insights from them.
Apart from this it is essential to know what pension funds and other funds have invested in the VC’s fund? What is the value of total funds invested by the management? The number of investments that have been made till-date by the management. Another essential factor is to enquire if there are geographic limitations to the investments that are being done. Because, getting funding from a VC is a long-term venture.
After the due course of time your business might have expansion plans, and at that point of time you would not want to hinder it by these limitations.
About Investment Profile
It is essential to gain a perspective on how the management differentiates between the opportunities, what are the deals that they look at, and the number of deals they enter in a year to gain an insight on the patterns of the deals made by them. Also, does the firm make any minority investments? What is the level of flexibility of the firms with their investments. Do they have a head-on approach towards their investments?
About The Deal Flow
What is the average size of an investment made by the management? In case the investment is done in exchange of equity then what is the expected average size of investment? What is the minimum/max equity cheque? Is there a scope for a follow on investments? What is the leverage brought to the investments?
It’s better to have an insight on where the VC finds its deals and also if they work on cash multiples or IRRs.
About The Funding Process
Once you have finalised the investment you will be closely working with the management. As essential it is to find a compatible founder who shares the same vision as you, you need to be able to identify with the team from the VC you will be working with. It’s essential to know whom would you work with from the VC’s team and what is their relevant experience? It is also advisable to know if there are any investments done by the firm that conflict with your business. Also, what are the key attributes that help in the decision making process and for the evaluation of the deal. This would help you present a rock-solid proposal and will extract the maximum from their funds. It is important to know what will be the financial information that will be provided by the firm. And also, how will they value your company.
About The Structure
Before you hand over key information about your process to the firm it is important to know who are the key decision makers that make the decision about investments? What are the key tenets of shareholder agreements? Do the investors insist on a board seat? Do the investors have a problem with the appointment of a non-executive chairman? Does the company have a structure of investment? Do they invest in phases and if yes then how do they structure their investments?
About The Value Addition
Are there any value added services that the company brings to the table, if yes then what are these services? Can they find additional deals to help the growth of your business? What are the sectors the firm focuses on? How important is the deal to the company and why? It is also important to know what are the work-pattern post investment. Also, one should insist if they can speak to the founders of their existing investee companies to gather an idea if the actual work situations with the firm.
Although these questions may seem too forthright and a little uncomfortable too but one should definitely ask these questions to get a fair idea about the ideology and investment ideas of the investment firm.
Checkout this interesting infographic created by Printpapa, listing the 36 crisp questions you must ask your potential investors.
Pune-based ecommerce logistics firm, Xpressbees, has raised around $8 Mn (about INR 54 Cr) from SAIF Partners and Vertex Ventures, the venture arm of Singapore government’s investment fund Temasek.
The startup is also the logistics support provider for online babycare retailer FirstCry. It claims to deliver 60,000+ shipments every day.
Owing to the problems in the delivery and reverse logistics, online retailers are building their own logistics and delivery networks. This has given them an edge for cost optimisation as well giving control from order processing to shipment.
Most of the leading ecommerce companies including Flipkart, Myntra and Amazon have their own last-mile logistics support. Indian ecommerce major Flipkart ships deliveries through Ekart, whereas Snapdeal picked up stake in GoJavas to support its last mile delivery hassles. Besides, furniture etailer, FabFurnish, launched its logistics service Fabone, and after spinning off its medical business as 1mg, wellness etailer Healthkart has also built its own distribution network.
Where on one side, logistics companies like Xpressbeess are getting third party ecommerce companies on board, on the other side, online retailers like Flipkart are adding more power to their in-house logistics services. Recently, Flipkart reportedly infused $98.4 Mn (INR 666 Cr) in its logistics arm eKart.
Xpressbees’ parent FirstCry has raised $69 Mn so far from investors including IDG Ventures India, SAIF Partners, Vertex Ventures, Valiant Capital, NEA and Ratan Tata.
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What started out two years ago as a simple idea discussed over a hot cup of coffee in Delhi’s chilly winters at the Indian Coffee House, situated in the heart of India’s capital, Connaught Place, has now evolved to become what many of you now may know Inc42 to be – the go to destination for all things tech in the Indian startup ecosystem.
From just a team 3 founders, we have now grown to a 20 member team (the number is growing rapidly and might have changed by the time you read this :P) of intrapreneurs, story tellers and enablers working out of our swanky new office space in New Friends Colony in South Delhi.
Since January 2014, Inc42’s journey as a startup has been a roller coaster ride with a lot of ups and downs, our own share of adventure and a lot of learnings. Running a media company has been a very different kind of experience from a pure play product or a service company – it’s more of a mix of building a product, service and network.
When we started out in 2014, a lot of people pointed out that the media industry wasn’t something worth getting into – “it’ll not work”, “it’s not scalable”, “how will you compete with print”. But over the past 2 years, a lot has changed. India is poised to be the largest internet population, the way people consume content and news has changed, digital content consumption has exploded and startups have received mainstream attention (thank you Startup India). And by the looks of it, the digital media industry is going to blow up over the next 2 years.
From a 2 BHK to a 5000 sq.ft commercial space!
During our first year of operations we met many interesting people, friends, supporters, entrepreneurs and investors including Ritesh Malik, Nikunj Jain, Prabhu Ram, Singapore Angel Network, Dewang Neralla, Unicorn India Ventures and others who helped kick-off our journey. We’ve summarised that journey in last year’s wrap up post.
Now that we’ve recounted through some of the nostalgia, lets move on to some of the more recent developments.
Announcing Our Pre-Series A Funding
Entering the third year of our operations, we are pleased to announced that we have raised our Pre Series A round of funding from a number of (42 to be precise) well known investors and entrepreneurs backing and supporting our endeavour.
The round included institutional funds like Unicorn India Fund and Mohandas Pai’s fund, Aarin Capital besides angel groups/funds of the likes of Singapore Angel Network, Singapore based M&S Partners Pte Limited, Pranav Pai, Arihant Patni (Hive Technologies), Anirudh Damani (Artha Ventures), Anand Ladsariya (CEO and promoter director of Everest Flavours Ltd.) and entrepreneurs like Chandu Sohoni (Founder, Amigobulls and Ex-Founder of Newshunt), Freecharge founders – Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon, InMobi founders – Mohit Saxena & Amit Gupta, Deepak Ravindran (Founder, Lookup), Salil Chaturvedi (Founders, Provogue brand), Dewang Neralla (Founder, Atom Technologies).
We are extremely pleased to have such amazing groups and entrepreneurs to become a part of Inc42’s family/journey.
Creating A Community Of Influencers & Founders
We are rethinking how ideas and stories are shared in the world of tech. We believe that besides great editorial and journalistic stories, experiential stories written by experienced founders and influencers provide the most value to founders. This type of content which actually helps startups solving their real life problems and even help them implement best of practices in their startups.
The purpose that drives us all is the belief to help founders and new age startups build sustainable businesses and enable them to create impact.
We want to help founders and new age startups build sustainable businesses and enable them to create impact!
We also wanted to share our core belief system that also serves as a guiding principle for the Inc42 family:
Great ideas can come from anywhere
People create better things together
Design matters at a deep level
Strive to create value, impact will follow
Nothing is set in stone (including these values)
We believe that information is the new age currency and by empowering our readers with the right information, we are playing our part in fostering a healthy, vibrant, strong, dynamic and progressive ecosystem.
PS. If you want to become a part of the Inc42 family and help us help startups create an impact, we’re hiring!
Besides producing great in-house stories, we encourage more and more founders, investors, thought leaders and industry experts to share their expertise with our readers in form of compelling stories.
Over the past two years, Inc42 has attracted over 500 contributors and influencers including investors, founders, product managers etc. from across the globe who share their domain knowledge and expertise regularly on various topics. Over this year we plan to bring in over 1000 new such domain experts on Inc42 and expand further to make our reach felt by a wider audience.
Our Events Philosophy
As a new age media company, events are an important part of our offering. We’ve all been to numerous tech and startup events, chats, conferences and found that they all had the same old repetitive formats, rehashed “gyaan” and a glamour quotient that offered no other value to founders.
So as a brand, we decided to lay away from those standard set of events and come up with fresh, innovative and creative event formats for the startup ecosystem. Last year, we launched three such new event formats that received a great response from the startup community.
Pulse42 – The Invite Only Tech Party
Pulse42 was designed to be an invite only tech party brand for serial entrepreneurs, investors, VC’s and the influencers of the startup ecosystem. We conducted six editions of Pulse42 last year across Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore that attracted over 600+ influencers from the Indian tech ecosystem.
It has now grown to become the go to destination for the who’s who of the Indian tech ecosystem and to network with the most premium audience in a chilled out environment.
We will be announcing Pulse42’s dates for 2016 pretty soon!
StartupPulse
StartupPulse was another event series that we conducted in 2015. The event was targeted towards growth stage startups looking to fuel their growth through mentoring or by raising funds. We conducted 6 editions of StartupPulse. Each edition had 15 startups who went through rigorous mentoring from industry experts from various fields including Design (UI/UX), Sales, Marketing, Technology, Infrastructure, Product Management, etc. All the startups were also trained on the art of pitching by seasoned entrepreneurs and investors.
The top 5 startups from each edition pitched in front of a jury of lead angels, investors, accelerator heads and industry veterans for fundraising.
Out of the 90+ startups which participated in the 6 editions StartupPulse held in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, over 70% of them have either raised funding through investors they met or pitched to during the events or have gotten acquired.
Inc42 Mixers
“An insanely diverse set of passionate and creative people, buzzing atmosphere, a fun evening accompanied with drinks to loosen people up, networking, bonding, peer to peer learning and new relations!”
The statement summarises what we do at Inc42 Mixers. A get together which acts like a medium for people from various walks of life that are directly or indirectly part of the tech and startup industry, to come together, bond and spend time with the sole purpose of learning in a relaxed setting.
Last year, we successfully piloted our first edition of Inc42 Mixer in Delhi and will be announcing the launch of Inc42 Mixers 2016 across the country soon.
We plan to launch many more event formats and creative ways of bringing the Indian tech community together this year. Stay tuned for some big announcements on this front as well.
A Lot More To Come
Helping Companies Make Better & Informed Decisions
Our team is working hard on a number of products (called experiments) that are currently being tested in a closed alpha with a selected set of users. With these products we intend to help founders and companies make more informed decisions in the journey towards building sustainable businesses.
We will be launching some of these into the beta stage and opening it up for a wider set of users.
PS. Our bi-weekly newsletter membership is now 45,000 strong and is a great way to stay updated with the Indian tech ecosystem as well as any updates on our new products/initiatives.
Giving Young Entrepreneurs The Upper Hand
Quite many successful startups were launched by young starry eyed founders in college. College is the time when people start thinking about what they finally want to do with their lives. It’s the time when one discovers oneself and finds their passion. Keeping that in mind, we are pleased to announce the launch of our newest initiative targeted towards student entrepreneurs and the young Indians who want to kickstart their entrepreneurial journey with Campus Misfits, our campus ambassador program, and #NoBullshit, a series of events for college students.
We still have a long way to go to help make India a #StartupNation and we hope that we will have your support in this long journey.
Note: We’d like to assure our readers that our content will, in no way, be influenced by any of the new set of investors coming on board and will always be in complete control of the editorial team of Inc42.
Gurgaon-based on-demand grocery delivery startup, PepperTap, has been reported to shut operations in six cities.
According to the company, it will now shut down business in larger cities such as Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Jaipur. The startup had 50 full-time employees and about 400 delivery personnel on a contractual basis in these cities. The company will, however, continue to operate in Delhi, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Pune, Noida, Bangalore, Ghaziabad and Faridabad.
Earlier in September 2015, PepperTap had rolled back operations in Agra and Meerut due to non-acceptance of the concept in the markets.
Navneet Singh, co-founder and chief executive of PepperTap said, “Even though PepperTap has been able to establish itself as a leading hyperlocal grocery delivery service, given the short to mid-term investment climate outlook, we have decided to focus on depth rather than breadth. We are digging our heels in for the long term. We will focus on building a stellar customer experience by providing additional categories and services that differentiate us from our competition in cities where we continue to operate in. This will help PepperTap conserve capital it raised in the last three to six months and will give a runway of about two more years.”
Started in 2014, PepperTap offers over 5000 unique products across categories including grocery & staples, fruits & vegetables and household goods. It claims to be delivering over 7,000-8,000 orders a day. Its’ parent firm Nuvo Logistics Pvt. Ltd, which also runs a reverse logistics business, posted a profit of INR.87 lakh on revenue of INR 19.5 Cr in 2014-15.
Funding Received By PepperTap
December 2015: PepperTap raised additional $4 Mn from Innoven Capital and closed its Series B round of funding. It also acquired Bangalore-based Jiffstore to better their product offerings and boost customer experience.
September 2015: It raised $36 Mn from Snapdeal, Sequoia India, SAIF Partners, along with participation from investors like Ru-net, JAFCO and BeeNext.
April 2015: It received $10 Mn in Series A funding from SAIF Partners and Sequoia Capital
February 2015: It raised seed funding from Sequoia Capital.
During the funds raised in September, Singh said that the company increase its team with more than 5000 staff to support its operations and expand its presence to 75 cities across India by the end of 2015. However, due to increasing pressure on startups to conserve capital amid a slowdown in funding many of them are winding up their services in various cities.
The year 2015 was beneficial for the hyperlocal delivery ventures. Players in this domain like Zopper raised $20Mn in series B round funding from Tiger Global and Nirvana, Shadowfax raised $8.5 Mn in its Series A round of funding led by Fidelity’s proprietary investment firm Eight Roads Ventures and ZopNow raised $10 Mn from San Francisco-based Dragoneer Investment Group, along with its existing investors, which valued the company at over $50 Mn. However, the year 2016 seems to bring cash crunch for this space. In January 2016, Grofers announced a shutdown of its operations in 9 cities. Shadowfax too has restricted its operations to only three cities for now as it is currently focusing on generating cash flows and achieving operational efficiency.
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Last mile logistics technology solution provider startup, Gray Routes Technology Pvt. Ltd, has raised an undisclosed amount in a second round of angel funding from Mahesh Parasuraman, co-founder of VC firm Amicus Capital; Rahul Gautam, a Hong Kong-based investment banker and a group of other angels from The Carlyle Group. The round also saw participation from existing investors.
The startup will use the fund for international patent protection, developing world-class data analytics capabilities as well as domestic expansion.
Founded in 2013 by Sapna Patel, an ex-Google executive and Soubhagya Sahoo, an ex-employee of Hindustan Unilever Ltd, Gray Routes, is a B2B hyperlocal logistics technology and services platform. It provides real-time data analytics service to help its clients make better decisions pertaining to sales and marketing. Along with sales force mapping, the company has developed priority clustering based route optimisation, demand visualisation heatmap, automated map based task assignment, data sync techniques, and a vernacular language engine for navigation for the last mile workforce.
It counts its clients as some of the fortune 500 companies which include P&G, Nivea, GSK along with some 280 SMEs as clients who use its solution to automate and optimise their last mile delivery/sales operations. It offers logistic solution in in the restaurant, retail, pharmacy and bakeries sectors.
Formerly known as Gray Routes Innovative Distribution, the company has over 26 patent claims for its SaaS solutions, and has developed automated patent-pending planning systems that can be used to plan, optimise and coordinate in real time and execute work among the sales managers and last mile workers.
The startup has been recognised as one of the top 4 tech companies in India and in UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering LiFe Awards, 2015. It was also one of the top 30 B2B companies in IBM SmartCamp 2014.
Gray Routes has earlier secured $100,000 from a group of unnamed angel investors in Bangalore and Silicon Valley in July 2013.
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Putting an end to all the rumours, leading budget hotel aggregator OYO Rooms is all set to acquire Zo Rooms in an all stock deal.
According to the person close to the development, “The talks initiated in December and now we are almost through the deal. There will soon be an official announcement.”
Zo Room’s website has not been in operations for over past 24 hrs, which led us to enquire further about the company’s status.
The person stated above said that looking at the market scenario, its existing investors are not keen on extending investments with Zo rooms which has led the company to seek more avenues. The startups exclaimed that about 40% of its employees are being retained in the deal. Whereas, it has helped placing its rest of the employees in other startups and companies, through its network.
The rumors for this anticipate deal started in December last year. However, as the deal finally comes to a close it will mark as one of the biggest deals for 2016. In the list of big deals for the year 2016, we have Quikr acquiring CommonFloor for $200 Mn.
More details of the deal are soon to follow.
Zo Room’s parent company, Zostel Hospitality Pvt Ltd, was founded in August 2013 by Dharamveer Chouhan, Akhil Malik, Paavan Nanda, Tarun Tiwari, Chetan Singh Chauhan, Abhishek Bhutra and Siddharth Janghu with an initial corpus of $30K (INR 20 Lakh). The startup has two brands, ZO Rooms, chain of premium budget hotels, and Zostel, a chain of backpacker hostels. For the FY14-15 revenue for Zo Rooms was INR 2.6 Cr and for OYO Rooms it was INR 2.4 Cr.
Recently, Zo Rooms launched Zo Prime, a premium offering in the 3 star hotels which provides amenities and luxuries as per 3 star standards. The company had plans to launch ZO Apartment (service apartments, starting with a price of $23), ZO Homes (‘bed and breakfast’ and ‘homes’ category) and ZO Star (super-premium and ultra-luxurious offering which caters only to 4 star and above hotels across India).
Bangalore and San Francisco-based social networking startup, Affimity, has raised $1.2 Mn in angel funding from Silicon Valley-based angel investors and founders.
The raised funds will be utilised to further expand their services in India and abroad and strengthen its team.
Parveen Mittal, co-founder & Country Manager India said, “This is an exciting moment for us. We have seen a tremendous growth over the last few months, and we consider this to be the right time to scale our operations in order to strengthen our position as the number one platform of choice for anyone looking to share his interests with others.”
Started in 2014 by Venkata Ramana, Amar J Singh and Parveen Mittal, Affimity, is a social networking site which provides a platform for like-minded people to meet and engage with. With its channel-specific approach, the platform acts as an alternate social media platform for users to focus on their passion and interest.The startup currently has
The startup currently has 35+ channels on its platform. It’s Android and iOS apps have had hundreds of thousands of downloads. The company aims to reach a target of 10 Mn global user base by December 2016, with India contributing to about 40% of that user base.
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We reached out to Jabong and got the response stating:
We confirm that a fire broke out at one of Jabong’s warehouses in Pataudi in Haryana on late Monday night. According to our information, no employees were injured which is of utmost importance for the company as the health and safety of our employees is our key priority. Jabong will continue to conduct business normally subject to some temporary delays or fulfilment issues which could be encountered in some product categories. As India’s online fashion leader, we will continue to provide our customers with excellent service and are confident that our customers will bear with us till we return to normalcy.
Earlier:
Business for the online fashion retailer, Jabong, does not seem to side with it. The company’s largest warehouse, outside Gurgaon in Pataudi, faced major fire yesterday.
According to people familiar with the matter, the fire was caused by the short-circuiting of electric wires and caused a severe damage to goods. The fire was so severe that over 25 fire tenders, including those from private operators, the Indian Air Force, and the nearby districts of Rewari and Jhajjar were called to tend to fire.
It was reported that there have been no human casualties, but the fire has almost destroyed the warehouse.
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To level the competition between all cab operators in the state, Karnataka has sought to put an end to the collection of surge-price from customers, a practice by cab hailing apps such as Uber and Ola.
Surge Pricing refers to an automatic increase in rates when the taxi demand is higher than the available fleet or drivers.
The regular cab-permit holders follow a fare chart which is notified by the transport department. According to this chart, passengers are charged 1.5 times of the regular fare between 11 PM and 5 AM.
For the technology-based service providers different state follow different policies. In Karnataka, the draft under on-demand transportation technology aggregators rules-2016, “The fare including any other charges, if any, shall not be higher than the fare fixed by the government from time to time.”
In another significant step, Karnataka government has raised a question of licensing for app-based taxi services. To which cab aggregators have everytime responded by saying that they are technology companies engaged in facilitating a taxi-hire, and are not in the business of running taxi services. However, the state does not agree with the claims and has demanded the requirement of a license every now and then, which shows that the government wants to treat the aggregators in the same way as the other conventional cab operators.
EV Ramana Reddy, principal secretary, Karnataka transport department, told ET, “These are all a set of proposals we have placed in the public domain. The government will take a final view and notify the policy only after examining the views, suggestions and objections, if any, from all stakeholders.”
Some of the rules suggested are as follows:
To function, app-based aggregators will have to comply with having a minimum of 100 taxis, either owned or operated under an arrangement with individual permit holders.
Aggregators will need to operate a control room and ensure cabs have tamper-proof GPS and a panic button
The cabs should have electronic digital fare meters capable of generating a printed receipt in case the app is unable to send the fare details through an SMS or email to the customer.
A cab driver must be a resident of Karnataka for at least five years
The driver should be able to speak Kannada, and one another language, preferably English.
The draft rules seek to allow a cab driver to switch between aggregators according to his choice.
Apart from Uber and Ola, Meru, Megha, Bangalore Taxi, KSTDC, CarzOnRent and Spot Taxi currently operate as ride-hailing services in the state.
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Mumbai-based online test preparation platform Toppr has marked its second acquisition in less than a year. After acquiring Jodhpur-based Easyprep, the startup has now acquired – Manch.
Manch was started by 3 IIT Bombay graduates Rajshekhar Ratrey, Aadil Shah and Vikas Verma in late 2013. It is an knowledge delivery platform which enables an individual to obtain competence using the platforms’ in-built analytics and recommendations.
Zishaan Hayath, CEO and founder of Toppr on the acquisition says, “The team of Manch are an excellent bunch trying to solve the same problem that Toppr is trying to solve – to personalise K12 education with the help of technology. I believe together we can build something that will be greater than the sum of parts”.
When asked why Manch he said, “Manch brings several years of experience in product management, engineering, design; and also a deep understanding of our customer. This is very valuable in our journey to make a world class learning platform that is loved by millions of students”.
The entrance exam preparation market for K12 students is pegged at $8 Bn which is growing at about 20% every year. Other startups in the online test prep space include Embibe, Examify, TestBook among others.
Recently, Amazon India also announced launch of Exam Central bookstore, to provide exams related information, preparation books and other study material to students and job aspirants on its portal.
Last year in May, Toppr had raised about $10 Mn in the second round of funding led by Fidelity and its existing investors which includes Saif and Helion. Post that, in October, it had raised $2 Mn round from Venture Debt provider Innoven Capital.
Paytm is partnering with offline players in the realm of mobile and electronic appliances, enabling them to use the platform to sell their goods. With this, the Paytm users will be able to choose the offline store from where they wish to buy their product.
Amit Bagaria, Associate Vice President of Paytm said, “With Paytm, the offline retailers will be able to create a brand-specific store on our platform. They will be able to expand their reach significantly and drive sales by leveraging the power of ecommerce. We are focussing on mobile stores and large appliance retailers at the moment as there are a fixed set of SKUs. But we will soon be branching out with this model into other segments as well.”
It has tied up with around 5,500 stores including 4,000 brand exclusive mobile stores and 1,500 large appliance retailers as a part of its omni channel strategy.
The company will also help offline players with analytics and data, which they can use to scale their brands online. The stores will be able to create their own content on Paytm and engage with customers keeping their brand personality intact on the online domain as well.
Welcome to Flash Feed, your essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web – bite-sized and updated all day.
Welcome to Flash Feed, your essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web – bite-sized and updated all day.
Urban Ladder Appoints Sanjay Gupta As CMO
Lookup Appoints Dexetra Founder As CTO
Affle Gets New Managing Director
Former Amazon Exec. Joins Craftsvilla
Magic Crate
Oust Labs
Altizon
Mazkara
Blue Tokai
Heads Up For Tails
Perfumery
RoadGods
PindropMusic
SmartCooky
Zendrive
Turtlemint
Gingercrush
