Following in the footsteps of ecommerce and fintech startups, healthtech is another sector where the Indian tech startups have been successful in attracting huge investments. After Healthifyme recently raised $12 Mn in Series B funding from global investors, another healthtech startup HealthAssure has raised $ 1 Mn in a Pre-Series A round of funding led by The HR Fund.

Commenting on the funding, Varun Gera, Founder & CEO, HealthAssure, stated, “This fundraise will help us continue effectively on the mission to repair the fractured infrastructure of Indian primary healthcare”.

The company had recently announced its plans to invest $15 Mn in order to strengthen their already extensive primary care network and product capabilities. The company will use the funds to further develop new consumer products in primary healthcare, digitising the ecosystem, and building extensive distribution.

Utkarsh Joshi, CEO & Partner, The HR Fund said, “ HealthAssure is focused on health as a workplace value and this aligns perfectly with our mission to transform the Workforce. Currently, good health has become one of the top most priorities for corporate India, making this a timely and key investment for us.”

Founded seven years ago, the Mumbai-based HealthAssure is a healthtech startup that functions as an aggregator of primary care services for corporates and individuals and. helps bring day-to-day care closer to individuals.

The startup claims to have been working with several firms in the insurance/corporate segments which includes Apollo Munich, Max Bupa, Cigna, ICICI Prudential, Royal Sundram, Loreal, FedEx, Deloitte, Max Life Insurance among many others.

Amalgamating AI, deeptech and IoT, healthtech startups have attracted huge funding and technology upgradation which is much required in the healthcare ecosystem of India. As per Inc42 Data Labs Funding Report 2017, healthtech witnessed 111 deals in 2017, making it the second most funded segment of 2017.

Facilitated by a Mumbai based Investment banking and advisory services firm Candle Advisors, the latest funding from the HR fund will help HealthAssure gain a stronghold not only in India, but also in other countries across South and Southeast Asia.

The post HealthTech Startup HealthAssure Raises $1 Mn In Funding From The HR Fund appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Currently, home to over “2,000 foreign companies” and over “10K startups” from across the world, Manchester that has witnessed the glory of industrial revolution during the 16th and 17th centuries, is still one of the key-enablers of digital ecosystem in the world.

Historian and Author Peter Hall in his book, The First Industrial City: Manchester 1760–1830 had stated, “Manchester was without challenge the first and greatest industrial city in the world.” After India-independence, as the textile industry in Manchester was fast shutting down, the city was on road to becoming another Detroit. However, unlike Detroit, Manchester, in fact, fast adapted to the digital change to stay relevant and retain its big market globally.

With IoT, big data analytics, blockchain and AI developments across the world, as the synergy and solution standardisation have increased like never before, Indian deeptech, IoT and AI-based startups too have started going global and cater to the available global market.

Speaking to Inc42, Tim Newns, CEO of MIDAS, Manchester’s Inward Investment Agency stated, “For tech startups, Manchester is one of the top five cities of Europe. One of the best places in terms of big market availability, low-risk management, technology, digital support.”

Besides, Manchester’s real estate market is the third most valuable in the country.

He further added, “With a market capitalisation of $300 Bn, Manchester offers Indian startups what a majority of countries won’t. We have government sponsored incubators for different sectors, readymade infrastructure, comparatively low tax rates which make the city 40% cheaper than London.”

Manchester-India Partnership

Under the UK government’s Department of International Trade, Manchester-India Partnership (MIP) has also collaborated with Deloitte India to support Indian startups further in various ways.

MIDAS offers five of Deloitte’s 2017 Technology Fast 50 winner-startups, the opportunity to win a Manchester establishment support package worth over $15380 (INR 10 Lakh). The prize also includes complimentary flights to Manchester in April 2018 and three night’s deluxe accommodation, and more.

During their time in Manchester, the winners will experience a tailored business programme comprising a tour of the city’s tech ecosystem, networking opportunities with UK businesses and thought leaders, as well as practical sessions exploring how to establish a business in the city.

The five winners will also have the opportunity to win a gold or silver Manchester establishment package:

In the past couple of years, 42Gears, BIZOM, e-Zest, ZIFO, BRIDGEi2i and Appnomic were some of the winner-startups of Manchester Prize through Deloitte India Fast 50 programme.

Tim explained, “While Manchester is widely known for being a digital media hub, we have developed a separate ecosystem for each platform and verticals. For instance, Fintech hub ‘The Vault’ facilitates infrastructure to fintech startups. We have just opened a new cyber hub that is backed by the central government. We have also enabled Universities to support cybersecurity.”

Tim also added that while the Lancashire University, along with a few other universities, provides expertise and mentorship in cybersecurity, the University of Manchester, which is one of the top 30 universities in the world, has a full-fledged fintech incubator.

Besides the University of Manchester, Manchester-based Barclays Bank, which is one of the leading multinational national banks, also offers fintech incubation programmes. Similarly, the city offers medtech, cybertech and other incubation programmes as well, averred Tim.

Having changed its image from a cotton-city to an innovation hub, Manchester houses innovation centres of leading companies from across the globe. India-based largest cycle company in the world Hero, Cisco, IBM, HCL, TCS, ARM and many other companies have established their innovation centres in Manchester.

It is also the headquarter of multinational banks such as Barclays, Lloyds and RBS. However, the city is best known for being another home to the BBC, the world’s oldest and the largest public service broadcaster. After the BBC, many other media companies either shifted their base or started their operations in Manchester, turning it into a digital media hub.

Tim said, “Manchester is also known for software, ecommerce and IoT equally. This is the city where programmable computers were invented. In the last few years, the city witnessed a number of unicorns, particularly in ecommerce. For instance, ecommerce startup Boohoo  is a $3.45 Bn company now.”

“Similarly, Manchester leads the UK’s healthcare through IoT and big data analytics. Over 50% of the UK’s healthcare support derived from Manchester. ARM and Cisco help provide the adequate IoT ecosystem in the city. Manchester is, in fact, leading Europe’s IoT market owing to the availability of some of the best digital infrastructure in Europe,” Tim added.

And, Brexit Repercussions?

On Brexit issue, Tim said that the Brexit move has, in fact, gone to gain favours from  India and other developing countries. It helped the UK to shift its focus from European trade to India and other countries.

According to MIP, Manchester is one of the few places in the world where one can get a company registered within 48 hours. Manchester also provides the second largest manpower in Europe.

“The new government has been totally focussed to better the startup ecosystem which has helped connect various programmes and initiatives such as sponsoring startups work seamlessly,” Tim concluded.

Global Denomination

Recently, in the last few months, besides Manchester’s MIDAS, the Netherlands is also showing prospects of interest in the Indian startup ecosystem. The Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA), a 60-member delegate from MEDEF (Movement of the Enterprises of France) and many others have paid visits to India, particularly Bengaluru.

The European Union (EU), Estonia has recently introduced its E-Residency programme for Indian startups to work in the country without any hassle.

Led by GoInternational Finland, Finland has offered Indian startups its ecosystem in the fields of education, innovation, and energy. Similarly, India-Israel partnership, once limited to defence deals, has grown manifolds offering mutual ecosystem in the fields of water, agriculture, foodtech, cybersecurity, homeland security, defense, software and IT.

With Manchester India Partnership, NFIA, Medef and GoInternational, there is an increased India centric trade-approach by developed countries across the world. This is not only a clear indication of the increasing significance of the Indian startup ecosystem globally but, as pitched by these organisations, it also means international corridors are opening doors for the Indian startups to a global market and bilateral trades.

The post What’s In Manchester For The Indian Startups? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Amid growing online sales, counterfeit products have been an increasing issue. To help the consumers who get duped by counterfeit products from online platforms, the government is in talks to initiate a mechanism for the same.

A media report recently quoted an unnamed official who told that the mechanism, which may be called ‘cashback’, is in a conceptual stage.

The initial talks are happening between ecommerce companies, the Consumer Affairs Ministry and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP). With the aim of restricting the sale of counterfeit products in the market, the government is looking for more stakeholder discussions.

The mechanism is said to be voluntary as the ministry continues the discussions about its aspects including the mechanism to file a complaint about a counterfeit product and to establish whether the product is counterfeit.

The Commerce and Industry Ministry reportedly believes that counterfeiting causes erosion of brand value, reputation and goodwill of the manufacturers and also leads to social and economic consequences which cause huge economic losses.

Track Record Of Online Counterfeit Products

The problem of online counterfeit goods is not a new issue in the country. In 2017 itself, trouble brewed for ecommerce companies when US-based athletic footwear brand Skechers filed cases with the Delhi High Court against Flipkart and four other sellers for selling fake products.

The company with the help of court-appointed local commissioners raided seven warehouses of the sellers in Delhi and Ahmedabad and discovered more than 15,000 pairs of fake Skechers shoes. Flipkart and Amazon came forward and vehemently denied the allegations by Skechers.

At the same time, a report by News18 alleged that more than 60% of sports goods sold online in India are fake, with at least 40% of the listings being made by duplicate manufacturers.

Previously, companies like Tommy Hilfiger, Lacoste, Calvin Klein have also helped confiscate thousands of fake apparels through court-aided raids on warehouses, owned by either sellers or smaller niche fashion portals.

Earlier in October 2015, Flipkart blacklisted about 40 sellers through its mystery shopping network of 60 employees which was initiated that very month. Next, in March 2016, the company once again blacklisted 250 of fraud sellers from its platform.

The counterfeit product controversies have been a regular trouble for Snapdeal. In January 2015, customers of Snapdeal repeatedly complained about receiving soap bars or even stones in their packages instead of the much more valuable phones that they ordered online. Two months later, one of company’s authorised vendors was arrested by the police for selling fake HP cartridges.

In July 2017, Paytm Mall delisted over 85K online sellers, in an effort to block fraudulent merchants from signing up on the ecommerce platform.

A report by Morgan Stanley expects Indian ecommerce market to hit $200 Bn by 2026. It is high time government targets the sale of counterfeit products to assure consumers’ trust in ecommerce products.

The post Government To Hit Back Counterfeit Products, Seeks Options To Compensate Consumers appeared first on Inc42 Media.

New Delhi-based digital retail payments platform Pine Labs has raised a funding round of $82 Mn led by Actis Capital and joined by new investor Altimeter Capital.

Pine Labs is an active player in point-of-sale payments in India, replacing the standard card-centric point-of-sale terminal with a smart, cloud-based payments platform aiming to reduce costs and drive revenue for retailers. The company currently claims to process 450 Mn transactions worth over $15 Bn, on an annualised basis, helping drive the government’s “Digital India” mission.

As shared by Lokvir Kapoor, CEO of Pine Labs, merchants across India have historically had to utilise multiple payment terminals to process cards issued by various banks, a situation that created additional costs, clutter and headaches around payments reconciliation.

Pine Labs solved this problem by creating cloud-based software that can be integrated with a generic point of sale terminal, allowing merchants to accept traditional electronic payment methods such as credit or debit card issued by any bank, as well as new generation methods such as e-wallets, QR code payment solutions or other UPI based solutions, on a single platform.

“This investment is a strong endorsement of the value of the merchant-first payments platform that we have built. With this capital, we will accelerate Pine’s network penetration in India and expand outside India with our world-class technology,” said Lokvir.

Pine Labs’ shareholders also include Sequoia Capital India, which first invested in 2009 and continues to support the company’s expansion plans as its largest shareholder.

 More On Pine Labs

• Pine’s cloud-based platform offers targeted customer-engagement campaigns; consumer analytics; and in-store consumer financing for partner brands
• It claims to have facilitated more than $1 Bn in consumer credit on an annualised basis.
• It also offers electronic gift cards, and a pay-by-points product that spans major card loyalty programs.
• It has also partnered with NBFCs to rapidly scale up the merchant lending business.
• It further claims to integrate India’s top 12 credit and debit card issuing banks, and the top 14 merchant-acquirers, on its payment platform.

Pine Labs: Current Traction, Merchant Network, And Plans Ahead

As claimed by the company, at present, over 75,000 merchants across India’s retail, ecommerce, electronics, food and beverage, fashion, financial, pharmacy, telecom and airlines industries are now using Pine Labs.

“The platform currently handles approximately 15% of India’s cashless transactions in physical retail stores, is currently deployed at approximately 300K payment acceptance terminals. The company aims to reach 1 Mn payment acceptance points in India in the next three to five years,” added Lokveer.

Also, in Q4 2017, Pine Labs entered Malaysia with an exclusive partnership with one of their leading banks. The company, which is in talks with over a dozen international banks, now aims to expand to other new markets across Asia and the Middle East.

“Pine Labs has emerged into a category-defining company with a new cloud-based model for retail payments that supports all payments types. It’s a platform that took years to build and provides a very defensible foundation for the next phase of growth in products and markets,” said Shailendra Singh, Managing Director at Sequoia Capital (India) Singapore.

With the push towards digital payments in India, multiple POS software has been launched in order to ease off different merchant issues linked to payments. Most recently, Flipkart’s digital payment subsidiary PhonePe also launched a Bluetooth enabled POS meant to serve merchants of all sizes – from kirana stores to petrol pumps and food chains to quick service restaurants (QSRs) among others.

The consumers can bring their phone close to the POS device installed on the merchants’ outlet and it would automatically show the merchant details & amount to be paid. In an official statement, PhonePe also claimed, that the POS device is the first such product in the Indian digital payments space. It works like a traditional calculator commonly used in local stores.

Also, there is another popular software in this category launched by Zeta. Zeta POS is a complete integrated business management system that will help control business from front counter sales to the storeroom, to back-office accounting, and everything in between. Zeta POS can manage the business from end to end by updating sales information in inventory and financial modules.

There are many others, but with a vast network of merchants particularly the Kirana merchants spread across the rural areas, the market is still ripe for the established as well as new entrants. The recent funding round of $82 Mn, will certainly add to the company’s efforts to scale as well as penetrate deeper into the existing markets in the country.

The post Digital Retail Payments Platform Pine Labs Raises $82 Mn Led By Actis appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Last week, Paytm app asking for root access on Android phones had raised major concerns. Now after being flagged by a French security researcher, the digital payments player has fixed the sensitive issue in its app on Android phones.

As per a TOI report, the security researcher, Baptiste Robert, who goes by the name of Elliot Alderson on Twitter, told TOI that Paytm in a new update on its app has stopped seeking ‘root access’ from users after he highlighted the issue with the company.

If a user allows the app to gain administrative access also known as root access or superuser access it will, in theory, have complete control over the device.

Rooting allows users to gain privileged control of their Android devices, thus removing any barriers to modification and teaking of the device’s software. Once a device is rooted it can be used to modify the device’s behaviour. Normally this is restricted to the user himself. However certain apps though can be given this privilege that allows them complete access to the device and its system software.

Thus earlier, if a user allowed the app root access, Paytm would virtually have complete control over the device.

Alderson pointed out that root access is essentially one of the most significant entry points for any Android device which can manipulate the operating system of the phone. It can access other app information, chat details, among many other things on the device. This is not an Android permission like having access to text messages and a user’s phone book.

Hence unless a user is totally savvy with technology, allowing root access is not advised by tech experts.

When the issue was raised, Paytm had stated that it was seeking root access due to requirements laid out by the payments umbrella body, NPCI which mandates checking if a device is rooted.

At that issue, Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma had said that NPCI had asked the app maker to check for rooted devices before enabling access to UPI payments.

“We are still checking if a device is rooted or not but the method has changed with a different coding. While the earlier method was foolproof, the latest one means to check if a device is rooted or not with a success rate of about 70-80%,” a Paytm spokesperson told TOI without divulging details.

As per the company’s message to Alderson, the fix does not require a new app on the Google Play Store. The engineering team pushed a configuration change.

Alderson said root access goes beyond standard permissions sought by various apps which is what raises concerns. Because with root access, the Paytm app can do anything it wants on the phone, read a user’s messages or go through his call history. Even though Paytm had pointed out that it doesn’t intend to do any of this but still it raises concerns about the privacy of the user, the security of the device, and of a possible threat from hackers.

Given the rise in threat from malware and hackers, it is natural that Paytm app asking for root access on Android phones has raised concerns as it does lead to a possibility of breach in cyber security. With the issue being resolved, users can at least now rest assured that sensitive data on their phones cannot be accessed easily now with the Paytm app.

[The development was reported by TOI]

The post Paytm App Stops Asking For Root Access On Android Phones appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Fighting off “once burnt, twice save”, OYO rooms is back in the game. Moving on from a fierce court battle with ZO rooms, the company is looking for some new acquisitions in the space with the backing of its deep-pocketed investors like SoftBank.

In a conversation with ET, Ritesh Agarwal, CEO of OYO, informed that for its prospective acquisitions the company is exploring various companies including hotel companies to IoT(internet of things) based technologies.

He also informed that OYO is looking at mature bootstrapped companies, regardless of their revenue, and is in talks with some such companies. Without revealing further details, Agarwal informed that the OYO’s corporate development team, headed by Maninder Gulati, Chief Strategy Officer, is leading these discussions.

OYO plans to use a significant portion of its Series D funding of $250 Mn from SoftBank. A few weeks after that in September 2017, the company raised $10 Mn from China Lodging Group Limited.

Rationalising the choice of national or international acquisitions, Agarwal added, “Wherever we see someone who can add to our stack, and make OYO more valuable to our asset owners, or customers, we will be interested, in India or outside. We will definitely look at companies in international markets, but for the core capabilities they have created, and not just for market share.”

An email query sent to OYO didn’t elicit a response till the time of publication.

A Look Back At OYO

A failed acquisition by OYO has caused huge troubles for the company. At present, OYO is entangled in a fierce legal battle with ZO Rooms. Recently, a Gurugram-based district court rejected an arbitration petition filed by budget hotel aggregator ZO Rooms against the company on the grounds that it lacked jurisdiction.

In 2016, OYO had signed a term-sheet to acquire the assets of ZO Rooms. However, after a long delay, OYO called off the deal. In February, OYO filed a criminal case against ZO Rooms stating alleging continuous inconvenience and harassment by Zostel founders.

Despite this, the company is engaged in strengthening its foothold and expanding its services in the industry. A success came in the form of partnership with MakeMyTrip, which after two years of delisting OYO, has added the company back to its portfolio of services.

Under the partnership, OYO’s chain of hotels will be listed and available for booking on MakeMyTrip and GoIbibo portals.

In a media statement, the companies claimed that the partnership will add momentum to India’s rapidly growing travel sector by bringing together OYO’s economy, mid-segment and vacation rental assets and MakeMyTrip’s travel customer base, along with GoIbibo and RedBus.

As the company tries to enter the Chinese market, it launched its Asset Management in August last year, which will help the company build a nationwide network of hotels through a partnership with real estate asset owners.

In October 2017, it also partnered with online hotel and travel booking platform Yatra Online to widen its access to customers.

On the business front, the company has seen a steady growth.

As per company’s regulatory filings, the company incurred losses of $77.35 Mn (INR 496 Cr) in FY 2015-16. However, it recorded a decrease in its losses in FY 2016-17 to $54 Mn (INR 363.7 Cr). The company recorded revenue of $19.2 Mn (INR 125 Cr) in FY 2016-17.

As the company works on strengthening its portfolio with the upcoming acquisitions, the fierce battle with ZO Rooms will still keep us hooked. However, we look forward to the companies OYO will decide to onboard in its growing portfolio.

[The development was reported by ET.]

The post OYO Moves On From ZO Rooms Battle, Plans Acquisitions In India And Outside appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Food delivery platform, Foodpanda has announced the launch of its technology centre in Bengaluru. The state-of-the-art technology centre will be operational in next few weeks.

In a media statement, the company claimed that the centre aims to strengthen the technology infrastructure, product capabilities and end user experience for the company. For the purpose, the company has also drawn a blueprint to hire a team of 100 members with  strong tech background in the coming six to nine months.

Nitin Gupta, who is recently appointed as the Head of Engineering at Foodpanda, will head the Bengaluru-based technology centre.

Commenting on the development, Pranay Jivrajka, CEO, Foodpanda India, said, “Through the technology centre in Bengaluru, we envision to bring together the best team of tech enthusiasts working on building a future ready product. Leveraging robust data sciences and machine learning, we intend to personalise offerings for all our stakeholders.”

The company informed that the technology centre will work as a hub to extensively work on re-imagining the product, integrate functions and introduce specialised domains of Machine Learning and Data Sciences. Also, it would be used for aggressive research and development functions in the future while leveraging best practices from around the world.

With this the company aims to develop more personalised offerings for the restaurant partners and millions of prospective customers in the country.

The company had recently allocated $61.5 Mn (INR 400 Cr) for delivery logistics, and believes that the technology centre will ensure an aggressive push in the direction of building a seamless experience for all its stakeholders – partner restaurants, riders, and end consumers – and creating a significant long-term business value.

Foodpanda also claimed that the technology centre is intended to provide an avenue for cross-pollination of talent within domains and fields in the food tech landscape.

Recognising The Need Of State-Of-The-Art Parks

Foodpanda is leading the baton for foodtech companies by recognising the need of such technology parks, and the idea has been initiated by homegrown ecommerce giant Flipkart in the logistics sector.

Recently, Flipkart announced that it is planning to set up a 4.5 Mn square feet state-of-the-art logistics park in Bengaluru.

This logistics park will house several Flipkart fulfilment centres, improve supply chain efficiency and reduce costs by deploying mechanised warehousing, acting as a freight aggregation and distribution hub, and by leveraging technology for intelligent transport systems.

If not exactly technology parks, global ecommerce giant has at least 56 fulfilment centres in India across 13 states with a storage space of 13.5 Mn cubic feet. Amazon recently opened 15 fulfilment centres for its hyperlocal grocery delivery arm, Amazon Now.

Foodpanda Fighting Off Increasing Competition In Footech Market

Foodpanda India currently has a network of 17,000 restaurants across 150+ cities. In November 2017, Foodpanda India claimed revenues of $9.6 Mn (INR 62.16 Cr) in FY 16-17, a 64% jump over the earlier $5.87 Mn (INR 37.81 Cr) in FY 15-16. The company credited its strong growth for the year to the success achieved in its key markets.

The foodtech company aims to be profitable by FY 2019, riding on its strategies such as third-party delivery logistics through Dash, food recommendation and discovery through the revamped India app, bringing Shahrukh Khan as the face of the brand and working on food quality initiatives such as the Food Doctor Program.

In December 2017, homegrown cab aggregator Ola acquired Foodpanda India from Germany-based Delivery Hero Group for $31.7 Mn (INR 202 Cr).

At present,  Foodpanda India competes with players like  Swiggy, Zomato, UberEATS, Google Areo and soon to be launched Flipkart’s one-stop app.

One of the major players is foodtech’s unicorn, Zomato, which raised $200 Mn funding from Alibaba Group in February 2018. The latest funding round was led through Ant Small and Micro Financial Services Group, a subsidiary of Alibaba that operates mobile and online payment platform Alipay.

At the same time, Bengaluru-headquartered Swiggy announced a $100 Mn Series F fundraise led by Naspers. With this round, the foodtech startup also brought on board a new investor Meituan-Dianping. Earlier, in January 2018, reports also surfaced that Swiggy is in talks with Naspers and Tencent to raise $200 Mn in funding.

A report by Morgan Stanley pegged India’s food delivery and the takeaway market has been at $19 Bn. In this ever-growing market, the launch o the technology centre in Bengaluru to facilitate customer experience is bound to fetch brownie points for Foodpanda.

The post Foodpanda Announces Launch Of State-Of-The-Art Technology Centre In Bengaluru appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Various ministries in India such as the Road Transport and Highways, Heavy Industries and the Ministry of Power will soon release their action plans pertaining to the electric mobility adoption in India.

Speaking to Inc42, a Sr. NITI Aayog officer closely working on the development stated, “The adoption of electric vehicles requires coordination among various ministries. Each ministry is doing its task. We are coordinating with the ministries to ensure that the tasks get released in the required shape and frame.”

Explaining it further, he added, “Action plan will be different for different things. For instance, for batteries, charging infrastructure, financial assistance and other components; there will be a different set of action plans. It will be the ministries that have to perform these tasks.”

The decision of dropping an EV policy plan and adopting an action plan instead has been taken owing to the fact that lithium and cobalt, that constitute as key components of the battery for electric vehicles, are largely imported from China. Any hardcore EV policy such as going all-EV by 2030 will only increase the dependency on China, if the alternatives are not explored further.

On FAME India scheme (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India), he stated that the scheme was actually launched by the Ministry of Heavy Industries and there is possibility that after March 31, the Ministry will come up with another phase of the same scheme.

The ministries that have been asked to formulate guidelines for the EV adoption are those of heavy industries, power, new and renewable energy, road transport and shipping and highways, earth sciences, urban affairs and information technology, reports Mint.

As per the report, while the road transport ministry has been asked to form guidelines on non-fiscal incentives, public transportation and last-mile connectivity in the context of EVs and sustainable mobility solutions, the power ministry has been tasked with framing rules for charging infrastructure.

The Electric Vehicle (EV) Action Plan and Policy have been moving back and forth like a pendulum in the recent years. There appeared a change of vibe after the then Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal had boldly stated that no petrol or diesel cars will be seen running on the road after 2030.

However, the ‘golden balloon’ of going all electric by 2030 soon burst as the automobile companies found out that the government had no plans pertaining to fuelling the golden balloon.

Speaking of the loopholes Mercedes-Benz India MD and CEO Roland Folger had earlier stated, “Can the government invest hundreds of billions of dollars into setting up charging stations and associated infrastructure? If not, then who will foot the bill? Definitely not the private sector. If at all the government manages to raise funds, is it worth the effort in terms of meeting the key objective of bringing down pollution?”

Amid huge backfire from automobile companies, Babul Supriyo, Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises stated, “There are, at present, no plans under consideration of the Department of Heavy Industry to make all vehicles in the country powered by electricity by 2030.” In fact, last month, the Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari averred that there is no need to have an EV policy.

Going all-electric was an important part of the PM Modi government’s promise at the Paris climate change summit 2016. Lack of policy, delay in plans and shooting lofty canons in the air to attract more eyeballs certainly indicate otherwise. Amid all this, newly-released white paper by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) has predicted that going all-EV might not be possible before 2047.

The post With Govt’s EV Policy In Jeopardy, Ministries To Release Their Own Electric Mobility Action Plan appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The agriculture sector is the largest employer in Indian economy. India ranks second worldwide in farm output. The sector accounts for 18% of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and provides employment to more than 50% population of India.

Still, farming is not a fruitful proposition. Two major pain points in the sector are large yield gaps and inefficiencies in supply chain management.

There are multiple reasons for yield gaps. Farmers are resource-poor and fragmentation of land over last few decades has resulted in reduced viability of the farming. Total number of operational holdings in India stands at 138.35 Mn, with an average size of 1.15 hectares. Of the total holdings, 85% are in marginal and small farm categories of less than two hectares. Other challenges include changing the climatic pattern and increased competition due to globalisation.

Poor post-harvest management techniques also have bearing on the income level of farmers. Post-harvest losses in semi-perishables and livestock products range 10-25%; whereas in case of perishables, losses are as high as 30-40%.

Poor Farmers Cannot Afford Technology Tools Due To Limited Resources

The government is trying to address the current challenge through collectivisation by means of creating farmers’ institutions. These producer companies can serve as nodal points to foster technology to small farmers.

Agriculture by and large is the virgin territory for technology-based solutions in India. The problem of missing intelligence in conventional farming can probably be plugged by inducing artificial intelligence (AI) through precision farming techniques.

Startups, today, are exploring solutions in robotics, big data, smart equipments, sensors and farm management software; or in new production and business models such as indoor or controlled environment agriculture, cellular agriculture. The startups are also leveraging technology in the area of market linkages such as retail, B2C and B2B marketplaces and digital agronomy platforms

In India, there are more than 300 agritech startups striving to address current anomalies in the agriculture supply chain management. As Internet penetration increases and more and more farmers take to the Internet to improve farming practices, this number is expected to go up further.

How The Crusade Of AgriTech Startups Is Supporting The Government’s Mission To Double Farmers’ Income By 2022

Real-Time Solutions To Farmers

Mobile-based advisory on plant protection aspects by startups like Innosapien Agro is likely to help in controlling pre-harvest losses due to disease/pest infestation in a timely and economic manner.

Precision agriculture solutions offered by startups like Aibono have potential to optimise input resources and maximising yields. Farm ERP solution of Cropin enables farmers to do connected and data-driven farming. The company harnesses cutting-edge technologies – big data analytics, artificial intelligence, geo-tagging & satellite monitoring to revolutionise the agro-ecosystem.

Then there is Pune-based AgroStar, which is an mcommerce platform for agriculture and has built a technology platform that  uses data analytics and agronomy expertise to provide real-time solutions to farmers in India. It is a  direct-to-farmer digital platform where farmers can procure quality agri inputs at fair price just by using a mobile phone.

Farming-As-A-Service

Since longer gestation periods are a typical feature of this sector, buying modern expensive equipment is a burden for the farmer as well as remains a worry for investors who want to invest in agritech. Thus agri-renting can take off the burden of input costs for a farmer. Now startups are fighting this by offering renting service. This is where startups like FarMart and EM3 Agri, which provides pay-per-use farm services for every step of the cultivation process, including land development, land preparation, seeding, sowing, planting, crop care, harvesting and post-harvest field management, come in.

Then, there are companies like Gold Farm that are helping farmers to optimise the farm machineries available in their areas, which all farmers cannot afford to buy. By leveraging IoT for demand generation and tracking, Gold Farm endeavours to make farm mechanisation equipment more accessible to farmers across all village districts in Karnataka.

There also exist startups like New Leaf Dynamic Technologies that offers GreenCHILL chillers which is a sustainable storage system for farmers and FPOs across India. Since the product does not need the electricity grid, New Leaf Dynamic hopes to plug gaps in the country’s cold chain infrastructure in places where power supply is patchy. Their system relies on unconventional source of energy like cow dung, rice husk etc, which for sure are not scarce in rural areas. These kind of solutions will certainly help in cutting post harvest losses in coming years.

Big Data

Data is important in the agricultural industry to root out inefficiencies. The development of farm specific, data-driven diagnostics to determine soil health is a big opportunity area. Accenture estimates the digital agriculture services market to hit $4.55 Bn by 2020, thus pointing out the ample scope of growth as far as the use of data in agriculture is concerned. Real-time data and insight from farms (an accurate view of their operation throughout the growing season) will help to improve financial, operational, and agronomy aspects.

To address the problem of conflicts on quality issues in the market, Intellolabs offers an AI-based solution for determining quality of the produce. Path breaking invention of an artificial intelligence (AI) based commodity testing app and equipment of Intellolab is certainly going to disrupt and revolutionise the way commodities are tested by processors, exporters, traders and retailers.

IoT: Internet of Things

Along with Big Data, IoT is the next big thing disrupting agriculture. Just like Intellolabs utilises AI, Stellapps leverages Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, cloud, mobility, and data analytics to improve agri-supply chain parameters, including milk production, milk procurement, cold chain, animal insurance and farmer payments.

Its SmartMoo IoT router and in-premise IoT Controller acquire data via sensors that are embedded in milking systems, animal wearables, milk chilling equipment and milk procurement Peripherals. They transmit the same to the Stellapps SmartMoo Big Data Cloud Service Delivery Platform (SDP). The SmartMoo suite of applications then analyses and crunches the received data before disseminating the analytics and data science outcome to various stakeholders over low-end and smart mobile devices.

Leveraging IoT for precision agriculture are also drone startups like Aarav Unmanned Systems, which provides high-value engineering solutions to enterprises across GIS (geographic information system) surveying/mapping, industrial inspection and precision agriculture.

This can transform and change the way decisions are made in agriculture through its solutions to optimise irrigation, fertilisation, pesticide distribution and early failure warnings.

Marketplaces

Marketplaces help farmers to create standards in produce. They buy the produce from the farmers and assure them of market prices before they sell the produce to large corporates. For instance there is Merakisan, which offers fresh food and goods sourced from local farmers to the consumers directly.

Also due to marginal farming, poor logistics and zero market information, a number of middlemen get involved in sourcing the produce from farmers to markets. As a result, the farmer gets only one-fourth of what the consumer pays and also there is much wastage in the supply chain. Startups like Ninjacart address these problems by cutting out the middlemen from the supply chain. Initially, it worked as an on-demand grocery delivery company and later pivoted to an end-to-end B2B agri marketing platform.

On similar lines is Better and Boon’s, an end to end fresh fruits and vegetables supply chain company with a vision to “create wealth and opportunity to the farmers of India”. The company showcases farmers produce in their retail stores and sells these farmers product at a premium on a profit sharing basis thereby famers get higher margins and the customers get a better product. Also the customer gets product traceability

So, there are good reasons for optimism. Innovative solutions offered by these Indian agritech startups hold a good potential in mending current deficiencies in the supply chain system with a fairly transparent mechanism. In the current ecosystem, if adequate incubation support is extended to these startups and FPOs,  the government’s mission of doubling the farmers’ income will no longer be a pipeline dream.

The post How AgriTech Startups Can Further Add Up To The Government’s Mission to Double Farmers’ Income By 2022 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Apps and digitisation today are words that need no explaining today. But if we roll back a few years to be in 2010, mobile apps had just started making their appearances in India. At that time, it used to normally take around a year to build an app. This is in complete contrast  to what is happening today as an app update is rolled out practically every 15 days.

It’s this very agility Siddhartha Chandurkar had in mind when he began Shephertz in 2010, providing app builders and enterprises a set of pre-built services for common features so that they can quickly launch their apps.

Says Siddhartha, “To scale an app from a couple of users to a million, on the backend, required considerable work then. Free cloud technology was not readily available at that time. By using our services, app developers need not have to worry about how to scale, how to manage the servers or the traffic even.”

And that’s what ShepHertz does. The ShepHertz Intelligent Digital Hub Platform (IDHP) provides an environment of continual transformation to build omni-channel (mobile, social, gaming, TV, IoT, wearables, Point of Sale and web) apps and increase user acquisition, retention, engagement and conversion through their real-time actionable Big Data analytics solution.

As part of their omni-channel digitisation platform, they also provide social listening tools such as sentiment analytics and machine learning tools such as chatbots. The startup enables large enterprises with digital transformation so that they can be agile to launch new features and campaigns quickly.

For instance, Siddhartha points out that ‘recommendation’ is a service used by most apps. This service is applicable to all apps: from ecommerce, music to insurance. It’s a cross cutting service. ShepHertz provides 800 such APIs spread across platforms i.e., from wearable devices to other platforms.

Focussing On The Enterprise Customers: 60K Customers, 150 Countries

In layman’s terms, ShepHertz provides services to app developers at a price point which is easy for them to adopt. Today, because of the cloud, many such services like ML, AI, which were earlier available to only very large companies, have gotten democratised.

So much so that Siddhartha opines if you are an app developer with a laptop, you can compete with any company. In contrast, in earlier days, building a software required a 15-20 people team with a substantial investment.

However, though the company started with its focus on app developers, now it is focussing on enterprise customers.

Says Siddhartha, “Though we supported app developers of all kinds but the challenge with that market is that almost 80% of that market consists of gaming app developers. If you make 60 games on an average, only one out of them would work.”

“For us, to build a company with a possible $100 Mn revenue streaming in the future, it did not make sense to focus solely on an unpredictable customer set. Because we could not tie them up at a recurring level given the unpredictability of their success,” he further added.

Coupled with this was the fact, that today enterprises are changing themselves with the evolution of the startups. Today, every company in India (large or small scale), are at some level of digitisation and they want to move ahead.

Thus, ShepHertz  started focussing on selling digitisation to large enterprises. Traditionally, such enterprises used to buy software from large IT companies and the whole setting up process would stretch to a year. They were dependent on them for all sorts of development.

“Today, one quarter is a lifetime! You can’t spend that much time on development as the market is changing continuously. So, we put enterprises on a continuous transformation path so that in 15-20 days they can launch new services,” says Siddhartha.

The platform thus enables enterprises to launch use cases and campaigns in days instead of months without having any type of dependency on the development team or external development agencies. Not only this, the startup helps them realise the digitisation roadmap by putting them on a continual transformation path.

Consequently, ShepHertz serves 60K customers in 150 countries, processing close to 100 Bn+ API calls through its platform. In India, it counts enterprises like IndiGo Airlines, Kotak Securities, Spencer’s, Edelweiss, L&T Realty among its many customers in the retail, banking, insurance and other fields.

The Gurugram and Palo Alto-based SaaS startup is focussing on Asia, Hong Kong and Middle East at the moment.

As far as monetisation is concerned, it follows both the SaaS model as well as a hybrid managed solution for clients in segments such as insurance: where one can’t have data co-located with another company on account of compliance. For such clients, it offers a private managed service on the cloud.

While Siddhartha did not disclose the amount of revenues, he did mentioned that the adoption rate in the past five years has been raised by 8000%.

The SaaS startup had raised seed capital in 2012 and then raised a Pre-Series A round of $1.5 Mn, led by Kae Capital, with participation from Mumbai Angels and Blume Ventures, along with independent funds, Sashi Reddi Investment Capital Fund, GrowX Ventures, LetsVenture and India Quotient. It was also one of the 15 global startups (out of +500) selected for Microsoft Accelerator’s First Global Startup Roadshow in 2016.

Navigating The Challenge Of Becoming A Global SaaS Player

Given that ShepHertz has a significant global presence, Siddhartha is well versed with the challenges involved in becoming a global player. While today, the ready availability of VC funding has changed the scenario for SaaS startups in India, but it was not the case eight years ago. Given that one has to fight competitors in a mature market, reach one’s customers effectively becomes a challenge.

To this end, Shephertz employed content marketing, social media heavily. Siddhartha opines, “One has to find new ways to acquire customers and operate under constraint. We learnt to operate at a low cost. We converted our blog into Spanish and Japanese. Thus, automatically, Spanish traffic started coming in, as it is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. When we converted it into Japanese, a lot of Japanese gaming customers started coming in.”

Additionally, the startup also banks on its differentiating features against competitors such as Apptimize and other global PaaS (Platform as a service) players like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Services in the digitisation space. Siddhartha believes that because the product is API-driven, it quickly enables enterprises in a very short term. Agility with reliability is another factor with which it aims to set itself apart.

“By virtue of knowledge from so many customers over time, we have so many APIs and so many services in our portfolio. If you want a bot or a recommendation engine or a virality solution or core storage services: anything an enterprise or app developer needs to build their app is available with us,” he adds.

The SaaS startup’s future plan is to focus on the mobility side to have a omni channel solution for its customers. Secondly, it wants to solve the data problem of enterprises through its digital hub. The third focus will be on AI/ML as they will fundamentally change the game for companies who adopt them earlier.

Editor’s Note

The scope of the industry is mind boggling as the total digitisation revenue is growing in billions. If companies like Amazon has taken over retail in the US and forcing companies to digitise and stay relevant, consumers themselves are also driving the digitisation wave as they opt for ecommerce and greater dependence on the Internet and mobile apps.

A report titled ‘Internet in India 2017’ expects the number of Internet users in India to reach 500 Mn by June 2018. Recently, a Google-BCG report suggested that digital spending by consumers is expected to grow nearly 2.5 times to $100 Bn by 2020.

Interestingly, this year as per the App Annie 2017 Retrospective Report, India overtook the US to take the second spot in terms of the number of app downloads in 2017. Meanwhile, globally there’s been a 60% growth in the number of app downloads with downloads exceeding 175 Bn. Consumer spending has more than doubled from 2015 and exceeded $86 Bn.

In this respect, the scope for SaaS startups like ShepHertz remains immense as the world moves towards digitisation. However with so many players in the SaaS space and a fragmented user base, how far behind can the startup leave its competitors remains to be seen.

The post How SaaS Startup ShepHertz Is Helping Enterprises In 150 Countries Onboard The Digitisation Bandwagon appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Global travel ecommerce company, Booking.com, has shortlisted ten sustainable tourism startups to join its 2018 Booking Booster Programme. These include two Indian startups – Global Himalayan Expedition and Sakha Consulting Wings.

The 2018 Booking Booster Programme offers grants upto $ 616.82K from Booking.com’s $2.46 Mn fund. The second phase of this accelerator programme aims to identify, mentor and fund enterprising startups from around the world that are seeking to create a positive impact on the global tourism industry.

Here’s a brief about the two selected Indian startups:

• Global Himalayan Expedition (GHE) organises impact expeditions to provide clean energy and digital education access to the remote mountain communities of the Himalayas, helping to put them on the map for future travellers to explore.

Commenting on the selection, Paras Loomba, Founder Global Himalayan Expedition said, “Booking.com’s Booster Programme will be a great platform for GHE to build upon our work in the Himalayas, learn from experts and scale this initiative across various remote geographies of the world.”

• Sakha Consulting is a social enterprise, launched to provide safe transport solutions to women by women in some select cities in India, providing livelihoods with dignity in professional driving to resource-poor women as part of the “Women on Wheels” (WOW) initiative.

On the selection, Meenu Vadera, Founder, Sakha Consulting Wings, “Participating in the Booking.com Booster Programme means a possibility of offering Sakha an opportunity to fulfil its potential. We hope to gain new knowledge, new networks, new funds and equipped with all of it, we hope to reach out to hundreds of more women enabling them to break barriers and take on non-traditional livelihoods that can potentially transform their lives.”

The Booking Booster Programme will be organised in Amsterdam in May 2018.

Commenting on the two selected Indian startups, Vikas Bhola, Head – Indian Subcontinent, Booking.com said, “For the second year in a row, India was the second highest represented nationality after the United States among the startups that applied. The startup space in India is clearly thriving and it is encouraging that there are quality startups focussed on creating opportunities for the development of local communities and economies to promote tourism.”

Global Vacation Stays Player – Booking.com

Establish in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com works to empower people to experience the world and invests in digital technology that helps take the friction out of travel. The company connects travellers with varied options for the stay including apartments, vacation homes, 5-star luxury resorts, tree houses, etc.

Talking about the ten selected startups, Gillian Tans, CEO of Booking.com, said “The relationships we build with these passionate entrepreneurs not only help fuel their continued growth but also invigorate and inspire our entire company. Our aim is to build a network of like-minded organisations and individuals that are leveraging technology to create a more sustainable future for destinations worldwide.”

In a media statement, company claimed to have over 1.6 Mn properties and cover more than 128K destinations in 228 countries and territories worldwide. The company also provides 24/7 for assistance and support in 43 languages through customer experience team.

Other Innovation Programmes Led By Foreign Companies

Several global companies have been eyeing the potential of Indian startup ecosystem and introducing various programmes to associate with the Indian startups.

Recently, global aerospace and security giant Lockheed Martin announced that it will open applications for its annual India innovation growth programme (IIGP) to seek innovative ideas of Indian startups and university students.

Also, Techstars announced that it will launch a new startup accelerator programme in India next month. The programme aims to focus on hardware and software technology sectors and will support 10 early stage startups.

Earlier, Amazon opened applications for its annual Amazon Alexa Accelerator 2018 to seek out 13 promising startups which use voice technology. The programme is looking for startups to explore Alexa innovation in segments such as smart home, entertainment, finance, enterprise, communications, automobile and transportation, health and wellness, connected learning, connected devices, hardware components and other enabling technologies.

Furthermore, Axilor Ventures has invited applications for the seventh cohort of its startup accelerator programme starting in March 2018. The 100-day programme will focus on startups working in consumer, deeptech, enterprise, fintech and healthtech segments.

As various accelerators explore multiple domains of startups in India, the Indian tourism industry has found their right representatives to bag the grants from the Booking Booster Programme 2018 organised by Booking.com.

The post Two Indian Startups Join Booking.com Accelerator Programme 2018 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

As PM Narendra Modi has shifted the campaign from ‘Positive India’ to ‘Progressive India’, ecommerce behemoth Flipkart is also set to unveil a new brand called ‘Naye India Ke Saath’ to focus on its ‘Progressive India’ initiatives.

The ‘Progressive India’ initiative aims to create a more ‘relatable Indian brands’, which will further help attract another 100 Mn customers, reports ET.

As per the report, relatable Indian brand currently contributes 15% of the overall gross merchandise volume (GMV). The Progressive India initiative focusses on bringing more monthly active users from Tier II and Tier III markets.

An email sent to Flipkart team did not elicit any response till the time of publication.

While rival Amazon India, was recently seen prioritising Indian sentiments in its ad campaigns, being a homegrown company, Flipkart aims to bank on being swadeshi in this regard.

The Swadeshi raga is not new for the users. Banking on Swadeshi campaigns, Yogacharya Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved, in a short span of the last few years, has already become one of the largest FMCG companies in India.

Earlier, Inc42 had also reported that the US-headquartered retail giant Walmart is looking to acquire a big stake in Flipkart. If the deal goes through, it would catapult Flipkart’s valuation to $20 Bn from its current valuation of $11.6 Bn.

According to Shoumyan Biswas, VP of Marketing at Flipkart, the company will come up with several solutions in the next 6-18 months to add 100 Mn more customers. “For example, only 35 Mn people have credit cards, so we want to create credit options for the remaining population that doesn’t have credit cards,” he added.

Meanwhile, despite heavy losses and ongoing litigation with the taxation department, Flipkart Group has reported a rise in its revenues by nearly a third on Y-o-Y basis for the FY 2016-17.

The ecommerce giant has reportedly registered a 29% Y-o-Y increase in its revenue, at a staggering amount of $3.09 Bn (INR 19,854 Cr) for the financial year which ended in March 2017. However, Flipkart continued to record high losses, which reached $1.3 Bn (INR 8,771 Cr) and translates to an increase of 68% from a loss of $814 Mn (INR 5,223 Cr) registered in FY16.

The post Ecommerce Behemoth Flipkart To Bolster ‘Relatable Indian Brands’ appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In an attempt to boost entrepreneurship, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has already disbursed $79.7 Mn (INR 517.92 Cr) under its Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) initiative to more than 100 startups of India, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry CR Chaudhary reportedly said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

“The 109 startups have received funding under FFS with a catalysed investment of $79.7 Mn (INR 517.92 Cr),” the minister pointed out.

The Minister further claimed in the same report that an amount of $76.9 Mn (INR 500 Cr) has been released to SIDBI in FY16 and $15.3 Mn (INR 100 Cr) in FY17.

“Currently, the total commitment under FFS stand at $161.7 Mn (INR 1050.7 Cr) to 24 Alternate Investment Funds (AIFs), while a decline in a fund by AIFs is $18.9 Mn (INR 122.86 Cr),” he added.

The Minister further stated that over 768 applications have received rebates of up to 80% on patent fees and have also received legal assistance for the same.

As per DIPP reports, so far, out of the total number of applications received, over 6,096 have been recognised as startups by DIPP. Over 74 startups have been approved for availing tax benefits by the IMB, as of the first week of January 2018.

The  ‘Fund Of Funds’ for Indian startups initiated by the Indian government has a corpus of $1.54 Bn (INR 10K Cr) to provide funding support for the development and growth of innovation-driven startups.

The fund will be raised over the 14th and 15th Finance Commission constituted by the government of India, and the tenure of the AIF supported under FFS will be initially up to 12 years.

Earlier in October 2017, Inc42 reported that 75 startups had received funding of over $92 Mn from the FFS.

Startup Ecosystem Of India: Current Status And Efforts Taken By The Government

Well, it is a known fact that an innovation economy will create more jobs in the market. According to the latest Labour Bureau’s quarterly report on employment, job creation in India has risen two-folds to 13,600 July-September 2017 as compared to the previous quarter.

According to the experts, these startups will create as many as three lakh new employment opportunities in the next few years as the majority of job seekers are opting for such organisations – which are already attracting funds from popular investors in the Indian market.

Though it has been two years since PM Modi launched Startup India scheme there are still key challenges that aspiring entrepreneurs face getting them recognised as eligible businesses to get funding and claim tax benefits under the Startup India policy.

The root cause of this problem is the procedural bottlenecks as the selection process is not automatic or system-driven. However, the Indian government is working to bridge all these gaps and improve the state of doing business in the country, including the easing of tax norms, simplifying patent filing mechanism and more. As a result, India is ranked at the 100th position in the World Bank ‘ease of doing business’ index.

Some of the reasons why this has happened are amendments made in the tax laws, providing single window platforms for resolving startups queries. Here are some of the initiatives taken by the government which provides single window platforms to startups to resolve queries.

• Designed and developed by National Informatics Centre, National portal of India enables a single window access to information and services provided by various Indian Government entities to startups.

•  Startup India Online Hub is a platform where all stakeholders of the entrepreneurial ecosystem can connect and engage with each other.

•  Launched on February 28, 2018, eBiz portal will aide the Indian startups to get various licenses and approvals hassle free.

In view of all the initiatives taken by the government, startups in India can be a major contributor to boost India’s position in the global market. According to the latest NASSCOM report, India has the third largest startups ecosystem with as many 4,750+ tech startups as of December 2016. It may be guaranteed that this number will continue to increase in view of the government’s encouragements.

The post Govt’s Major Push To Promote Startups In India, FFS Funds 109 Startups appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Days after the Indian government indicated to the Supreme Court that in  light of the time needed for the Aadhaar case that it may extend the March 31 deadline, SC has finally extended the deadline to link Aadhaar card to mobile phones, bank accounts, tatkal passports, etc. till it reaches the decision on petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act.

In its decision, the five-judge constitution bench of SC said, “Having heard the learned counsel for the parties, we accept the submission made by the learned Attorney General. Subject to that, we direct that the interim order passed on 15.12.2017 shall stand extended till the matter is finally heard and the judgment is pronounced.”

In February, the Supreme Court rejected a petition seeking an extension of deadline beyond March 31, 2018, for linking the Aadhaar card with a host of services.  At the time, the bench while rejecting the petition filed by Shyam Divan, indicated that all these concerns would be taken care of when it concludes the ongoing hearing on Aadhaar validity and passes its final verdict.

The apex court also clarified that the “benefits, subsidies and services covered under Section 7 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 should remain undisturbed.”

This includes subsidies or direct benefit transfer schemes of the Ministries or Departments of the Union Government to all state governments, the deadline for which remains March 31.

In December 2017, the Supreme Court had extended the deadline for mandatory linking of the Aadhar card to various services and welfare schemes till March 31, 2018.

After that in January 2018, the constitutional bench began the final hearing on a batch of petitions which challenged the Aadhaar Act on the grounds that it violates an individual’s fundamental right to privacy. This had been challenged by over 1.1 Bn people who have enrolled on a petition and opposed against making Aadhaar mandatory for availing social security benefits and other services.

With the final verdict seemingly far off while the deadline of March 31 loomed closer, the decision by the Supreme Court is being hailed as a victory by many.

The post SC Has Indefinitely Extended March 31 Deadline For Aadhaar Linking appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After SBI Bank issued a warning against using SBI credit cards for trading cryptocurrencies, one of the leading private banks of India, HDFC Bank has stated that its credit, debit and prepaid cards will not be permitted for the purchase/trade of Bitcoins, cryptocurrencies, and virtual currencies.

Worldwide, a number of banks including  Lloyds, Capital One, Bank Of America, Citibank and JP Morgan have already barred their customers from purchasing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with their cards.

As HDFC bank holds 52% share of the Indian credit cards customer base, the decision is bound to affect Indian cryptocurrency users.

On December 28, last year, Inc42 had reported that cryptocurrency exchanges were facing transaction issues from their banks. The transactions were getting delayed by a day or more, particularly when words like cryptocurrency, Bitcoin or any such words were entered in the remarks space.

In a notification sent to all HDFC bank users, citing RBI warnings, the bank stated that to ensure its customer’s security, the bank has decided to not permit usage of HDFC Bank credit, debit and prepaid cards towards purchase or trading of such Bitcoins, cryptocurrencies and virtual currencies, on merchants suspected to be dealing in cryptocurrency or online foreign exchange trading or both.

The development has come at a time when Indian public sector banks primarily Punjab National Bank are struggling to recover from the largest ever banking scam in the history of the country.

As part of counter-measures, RBI has announced to discontinue the practice of issuance of Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) and Letters of Comfort (LoCs) for trade credit for imports with immediate effect.

RBI has stated, “On a review of the extant guidelines, it has been decided to discontinue the practice of issuance of LoUs/ LoCs for Trade Credits for imports into India by AD Category –I banks with immediate effect.”

However, “Letters of Credit and Bank Guarantees for Trade Credits for imports into India may continue to be issued subject to compliance with the provisions contained in Department of Banking Regulation Master Circular No. DBR. No. Dir. BC.11/13.03.00/2015-16 dated July 1, 2015 on ‘Guarantees and Co-acceptances’, as amended from time to time,” it added.

Recently, while commenting on cryptocurrency, Bank of England (BoE) chief Mark Carney has averred that Bitcoin has pretty much failed as a currency by standard benchmarks and is neither a store of value nor a useful way to buy items.

The current decision of HDFC bank to ban the trading of cryptocurrencies using its credit, debit and prepaid Cards is being seen as a precautionary measure to further avoid any such scam.

The post HDFC Bank Bars People Trading Bitcoin And Other Cryptocurrencies With Its Cards appeared first on Inc42 Media.

California-based payments solution company, Wibmo, has acquired Bengaluru-based payment technology startup Mypoolin in an undisclosed amount. The deal is said to be done in part cash and part stock.

Wibmo offers its digital payment technology solutions and payment security in multiple countries including India. The company also offers mobile-based consumer payments solutions to some of India’s largest banks.

Post acquisition, Mypoolin will continue its operations as an Indian subsidiary of Wibmo. The products and technologies of Mypoolin would continue to grow as well as the two companies would leverage their strengths for future businesses.

On the acquisition, Govind Setlur, founder and CEO of Wibmo, said, “Mypoolin is a very strong technology company in the bank account-based payment space in India. With UPI and Aadhaar based market leading solutions in this rapidly growing segment, Mypoolin expands our offering in consumer payments and opens some very exciting opportunities.”

Founded in January 2015 by Rohit Taneja and Ankit Singh, Mypoolin offers its payment solutions to retail merchants and allows its users to send and receive money directly. The company also provided a feature to split and settle bills using an interface.

In its early stages the company received funds from Accel Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, Investopad and angel investors like Rajan Anandan, Sharad Sharma and Sunil Kalra among others. Mypoolin also won a convertible note of $250K via QPrize in the year of its inception. Taneja also participated in StartupPulse Bengaluru, Inc42 edition.

Commenting on the development Ankit Singh, Co-founder, Mypoolin said, “With Wibmo, we have a perfect fit for our products, creating a broad range of solutions to meet the rapidly evolving everyday payment need of consumers and merchants in India.”

Setlur added, “With a strong focus on innovation and rapid adoption of technology to meet market needs, Mypoolin aligns well with our own culture of being the change agent in payments.”

India has been witnessing growth in its digital penetration. Recently, a report by Credit Suisse predicted India’s digital payments industry to grow five-fold from its present $200 Bn to $1 Tn by 2023. It also suggested that the value of digital payments will likely jump from the current 10% to over 25% by 2023.

A Google-BCG report had suggested that the digital spending by consumers is expected to grow nearly 2.5 times to $100 Bn by 2020.

Recently, data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed that digital transactions in the country reached a record high of 1.11 Bn in January 2018, up by 4.73% from the 1.06 Bn it reached in December 2017.

Amid such growth, various global companies have been eyeing a share in the digital payments pie through mergers and acquisitions as well as direct entries. With the acquisition of Mypoolin, Wibmo has taken a step forward in strengthening its foothold in the growing fintech market of India.

The post California Based Wibmo Acquires Payments Tech Startup Mypoolin appeared first on Inc42 Media.

There was a time when strategies of the Indian state governments revolved more around fulfilling the basic needs of the states. However, in the past few years, we have seen the emergence of a new India where the states have imbibed the issues of innovation, technology and digital as their core agendas. Rajasthan is one such state that has always worked hand-in-hand with the central government’s initiatives.

From e-governance to introducing startup policy, the state has so far taken multiple initiatives to build the digital infrastructure of the state and raise its bar on the ease of doing business index.

Amongst such initiatives, in November 2017, the state government raised the curtain from its flagship initiative iStart, in line with the Startup India Hub. And with 700 startups enrolled on the platform in just four months is a testimony of its massive adoption.

As shared by the iStart officials with Inc42, the registered startups belong to varied categories including agritech, finance, hyperlocal services, edtech, and enterprise SaaS, amongst others. Recently, the state officials also came up with the guidelines to utilise the $77.3 Mn (INR 500 Cr) state’s startup promotion fund, also known as Bhamashah Techno fund for the iStart startups, announced during the Kota Digifest in August 2017.

“iStart is the flagship startup incubation programme of the Rajasthan government which is working towards presenting Rajasthan prominently as a major startup hub of the country,” said Akhil Arora, Principal Secretary, IT&C.

iStart Rajasthan: A Quick Overview

iStart Rajasthan aims to accelerate the state’s economic growth and development. The platform is based on an “access-improve-access” model and supports idea/ or concept stage, MVP or early-growth stage startups.

When the government of Rajasthan’s Department of IT initiated startup promotion activities in August 2017, a single-window platform was introduced for the startups. This single-window platform serves as the singular source of all startup information and other essentials required by startups. That’s how iStart came into existence.

The platform has all the options for startups viz incubators, VCs, accelerators, etc. for people who want to be a part of the startup ecosystem either private or public, at one place.

So How Does iStart Work?

At iStart, the startups are first provided with a detailed assessment report and a scorecard called Qrate Scorecard. For the next step, startups undergo customised and group skill building as well as mentoring programmes. Coupled with the assessment done in the first phase, this helps startups to zero in on the areas that need improvement.

After the successful completion of the first two phases, participants are connected with investors and potential customers via the iStart platform. Startups mentored from the programme are then offered opportunities to pitch their ideas for grants and investments from the Rajasthan government.

Qrate Ranking is the most important parameter of iStart which sets the benchmark for the startups. Currently, Qrate is the only startup rating mechanism in the country where the startups are ranked on the basis of bronze, silver, gold and signature categories. There are 250 different tangible parameters on the basis of which it rates the startups. Once the rating is done, on basis of these ratings, the platform offers multiple benefits to the startups including the benefit of funding.

 The Qrate ranking has been able to further channelise the processes for the effective working of the startups. For instance, earlier banks did not provide credit cards to the startups without registering for a fixed deposit of the value of 20% higher than the credit limit on the card. Also, banks were risk averse and did not prefer to provide loans to the startups.

Now, in accordance with their Qrate ranking, startups can avail all these facilities as well as raise their seed fundings from the VCs and angel investors, on the iStart platform itself. Further, the iStart platform also facilitates and pays for all kinds of benefits that startups need – from broadband to patent filing and from legal advisory to applying for incubators.

iStart Rajasthan: Major Milestones Achieved And The Road Ahead

Just one month after the launch of iStart, it was reported that 300 startups got enrolled on the platform. “We want to become the hottest junction for incubators and entrepreneurs. Currently, we are at number two position but we are aiming for the top spot,” said Akhil Arora in a media statement.

The industry has also applauded the iStart initiative taken up by the Rajasthan government on account of the encouragement it provided to the startup community in Rajasthan. As stated in a media journal,

“This programme created such an environment in the state that startups found it easy to get access to knowledge (know-how related to their respective businesses) and funding through VC firms and government schemes.”

Now with over 700 startups on the platform, the iStart officials are taking more initiatives to fulfill their vision of becoming a major startup hub. And as per a government official, the state government is also working to launch the biggest incubator of India which would have a capacity to incubate 700 startups at one place.

Editor’s Note

As per AngelList, there are currently 750 active startups in the state. Also, as per Inc42 DataLabs Funding Report 2017, around 30 startups based out of Rajasthan raised $148 Mn (disclosed) funding altogether between 2014-17.

In the years ahead, to what extent iStart can nurture the existing startup ecosystem of Rajasthan will be worth watching. But more interesting will be to watch the extent of growth and success those startups that graduated from the iStart platform can scale up to, and equally noteworthy to follow how they will become successful in gaining investors’ confidence in the late stage rounds.

The Department of Information Technology and Communications under the Government of Rajasthan is organising the third edition of the Rajasthan IT Day from March 18-21 at Jaipur. To know more and for participating register here.

The post iStart Rajasthan Gains Overwhelming Response, Enrolls 700 Startups In 4 Months appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After SC extended the deadline to link Aadhaar card to various services, UIDAI has clarified that requirement of Aadhaar for opening new bank accounts as well as applying for tatkal passports will continue.

In a series of tweets, UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) said, “As per the Supreme Court’s order dated 13th March 2018, the requirement of Aadhaar for opening new bank accounts and applying for Tatkal passports under the relevant laws continues.”

It further added, “for those who do not have Aadhaar, they are required to apply for Aadhaar and provide the Aadhaar application number while applying for availing the aforesaid services.”

In its order, the Supreme Court of India’s five-judge constitution bench had said, “Having heard the learned counsel for the parties, we accept the submission made by the learned Attorney General. Subject to that, we direct that the interim order passed on 15.12.2017 shall stand extended till the matter is finally heard and the judgment is pronounced.”

The apex court also clarified that the “benefits, subsidies and services covered under Section 7 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 should remain undisturbed.”

In December 2017, the Supreme Court had extended the deadline for mandatory linking of the Aadhar card to various services and welfare schemes till March 31, 2018.

After that in January 2018, the constitutional bench began the final hearing on a batch of petitions which challenged the Aadhaar Act on the grounds that it violates an individual’s fundamental right to privacy.

In February, the Supreme Court rejected a petition seeking an extension of deadline beyond March 31, 2018, for linking the Aadhaar card with a host of services. At the time, the bench while rejecting the petition filed by Shyam Divan, indicated that all these concerns would be taken care of when it concludes the ongoing hearing on Aadhaar validity and passes its final verdict.

The clarification by UIDAI on the mandatory requirement of Aadhaar for opening bank accounts and tatkal passports is one of the major issues concerning lack of clarity in Indian judicial system.

The post Aadhaar Necessary To Open Bank Accounts, Tatkal Passports; Clarifies UIDAI appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Bengaluru-based online foodtech platform SmartQ has raised close to $1 Mn in funding from a consortium of Dubai based investors. The existing investor, YourNest has also participated in this round.

Commenting on this development, Anvita Varshney, Ex Managing Director of Lazada group, said, “Within a short span of time, SmartQ has been able to build on a huge customer base and has been serving some of the best and large-scale businesses.”

Founded by Krishna Wage and Abhishek Ashok in 2014, SmartQ enables a digital cafeteria experience across different sectors including corporates, malls, multiplexes, stadiums, hospitals and colleges. The digital cafeteria platform of SmartQ includes mobile application, automated billing kiosks, centralised billing system, NFC prepaid cards, POS software etc.

The primary value proposition that SmartQ offers is the capability to transform any conventional cafeteria into one that is completely digital and cashless. This enhances cafeteria and food-court experience by eliminating queues, minimising wait time, and increasing collaborative work time. The company claims to have been growing 50% month-on-month and clocks over 100K+ transactions every day.

The startup intends to use the raised funds for expanding the business within India and across international geographies along with further strengthening the team. Through the funds received, the startup also has plans to roll out some of the world’s best and first of its kind product portfolio for the customers.

Krishna Wage, Co-founder and CEO, SmartQ, said, “The funding has enabled all of us at SmartQ to take the startup to the next level of strategic growth and further scaling up on technology, talent and brand building in full swing.”

Further, as part of the funding deal, Anvita Varshney, Ex Managing Director of Lazada group, has joined as the Board of Advisors for SmartQ. Yournest has fully committed the Fund I, which was of $13.84 Mn (INR 90 Cr), to 16 companies including SmartQ. The fund invest is tech-enabled businesses and seeks out disruptive ideas in cutting-edge technologies – IoT, Robotics, Enterprise SaaS using AI/ML, Block Chain etc.

Digital cafeterias are the new trend that foodtech startups are trying to set in. Similar to SmartQ, there is HungerBox, which is currently serving 110+ digital cafeterias and have also recently raised $2.5 Mn in Series A funding round. It also offers 50 different payment methods to its clients. Another company is Zeta, which has introduced host of digital ordering and payment facilities to digitise the existing cafeterias in the corporate organisations.

The time is ripe and essentially the latest funding round will help the foodtech startup SmartQ in scaling ahead and add on more digital cafeterias to its list.

The post Dubai Based Investors Back FoodTech Startup SmartQ, Pump $1 Mn In Funding appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Started by InMobi in 2011, the unicorn club is one of the few milestones that every Indian startup dreams to join. BYJU’S, as appears from its recent filings with MCA, has now become 13th Indian startup to join the unicorn club.

Based on its recently-released Annual Indian Tech Startup Funding Report 2017, Inc42 had earlier marked BYJU’S as one of the potential startups to enter the unicorn club.

After cementing its presence in the Indian K-12 and test preparation market, BYJU’S is currently exploring expansion into the international markets through the acquisition route. With a total funding of $244 Mn, BYJU’s was valued at $800 Mn during its last funding round, which was led by Tencent in July 2017. The company also counts Sofina, Sequoia India, Verlinvest and IFC as its key investors.

The infusion, including the one by China’s Tencent and BCCL valued BYJU’S at $1 Bn (INR 6,505 Cr), as per the company filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, reports ET.

As per Inc42 datalabs, India is currently breeding over 100 such tech startups which are expected to smoothly sail into the billion-dollar club. The report has further shortlisted 34 Indian tech startups that have a high chance of becoming a unicorn by 2020.

This includes other startups like Delhivery, OYO, CarTrade, Pine Labs and Rivigo which appear to be in line to enter the billion-dollar club soon.

Founded in 2011 by Byju Raveendran, BYJU’s offers learning programmes for class 6-12 and test preparation for JEE, AIPMT, CAT, IAS, GRE & GMAT. They launched BYJU’s –The Learning App in 2015.

According to an official statement, the app is currently used by over 15 Mn users, with close to 900K paid annual subscriptions and a high annual renewal rate of 90%.  As said in an official statement, “BYJU’S has seen more than 100% growth, with revenue growing from INR 115 Cr (FY 15-16) to INR 260 Cr (FY 16-17). The company also turned profitable last quarter.”

In a VAIZLE report, BYJU’s from edtech category was the most efficient startup in 2017. It is interesting to note that BYJU’S was sixth from the bottom in social media activity with just 78 posts throughout the year.

The edtech startup had earlier signed Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan to improve penetration and engagement.

Last year, BYJU’S had also acquired TutorVista and Edurite from Pearson. The partnership focussed on expanding the international reach and creating a diverse product portfolio.

BYJU’S is the first edtech startup to enter the billion dollar club, which might be a good news for other edtech startups including Embibe, CultureAlley, CollegeDekho, Littlemore and Meritnation.

The post The Rise Of India’s Billion-Dollar Club: Edtech Startup BYJU’S Turns Unicorn appeared first on Inc42 Media.