A mass-scale adoption of electric vehicles, for any nation for that matter, is quite a challenging and cost-intensive process that not only requires a robust support infrastructure but also hinges greatly on people’s acceptance of alternative mobility solutions.

In India, while the government is enthusiastically preparing to introduce 6 Mn-7 Mn EVs by 2020, the lack of sufficient charging points and the high costs of battery production has, understandably, slowed down the nationwide adoption of EVs.

While a report by Reuters claims that cab aggregator Ola’s electric vehicle plans have hit a series of roadblocks, another study by independent research organisation A.T. Kearney Energy Transition Institute has predicted that the country’s automotive manufacturers will face challenges as a result of supply shortages of batteries.

In other news, 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.

The interest in EVs, however, has not entirely died down, as evident from the fact that ISRO has decided to offer its low-cost space battery technology to Indian automakers for commercial use in electric vehicles.

Given that so much has been happening in the country’s electric vehicle sector, we bring to you the 16th edition of the weekly EV roundups.

Ministries To Release Their Own Electric Mobility Plan

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.

ISRO To Offer Technology For Low Cost Electric Vehicle Batteries

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is reportedly gearing up to offer its low-cost space battery technology to the Indian automobile industry for commercial use in electric vehicles.

Confirming the development, ISRO Chairman Dr. K Sivan said, “We have identified (developed) the technology to reduce the cost of space batteries to be used for e-vehicle production. Now, we are in the process of transferring the technology on low-cost batteries to the (automobile) industry for its commercial use with the help of NITI Aayog.”

“ISRO has developed four types of cells for space applications—1.5Ah, 5Ah, 50Ah and 100Ah. Out of the four cells, Isro had earlier allowed Automotive Research Association of India (an industrial automobile research association) to use 50Ah and 100Ah cells for developing prototypes of an e-scooter and an e-car, respectively. ARAI was satisfied with the performance of these prototypes,” Sivan added.

Earlier, in January 2018, a panel led by Cabinet Secretary P. K. Sinha advocated the commercial use of ISRO’s lithium-ion battery technology for electric vehicles under the “Make in India” initiative.

SMEV Urges Govt. To Promote Electric Two-Wheelers, Cars Before Buses

The Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV) has urged the government-run think tank NITI Aayog and the Ministry of Heavy Industries to focus on promoting electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers and four-wheelers (cabs), at least during the initial part of the transition to all electric vehicles.

As suggested by the lobby group, the subsidy offered by the Indian government can be used most efficiently if the initial focus in on facilitating the adoption of electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers and cars. Once a robust charging infrastructure is in place, the country’s bus segment can also make the switch.

Commenting on the development, an SMEV official requesting anonymity said, “Members of the SMEV met the officials of the NITI Aayog in the last week of February and submitted presentation and suggestions based on that. They welcomed our ideas and have asked for more information about emission and efficiency of the electric two and three wheelers which we will provide in the days to come.”

Indian Govt. To Put 7 Mn Electric Vehicles On Roads By 2020: Venkaiah Naidu

The Indian government plans to introduce 6 Mn-7 Mn electric vehicles by 2020, the country’s Vice President Venkaiah Naidu said recently. The move, according to Naidu, is aimed at reducing pollution levels.

Speaking during a recent media interaction, the Vice President of India said, “The Indian electrical equipment industry consists of generation, transmission, distribution and allied equipment. Energy storage technology is needed to not only create a more resilient infrastructure but also to bring down costs.”

“Electric and hybrid electric vehicles will drive the automobile industry in the coming years. The government had already unveiled the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan and set a target of 6-7 Mn units of electric and hybrid electric vehicles by 2020,” he added.

Cab Aggregator Ola’s EV Plans Hit A Snag

Nearly 10 months after launching India’s first multi-modal electric vehicle project in Nagpur, homegrown cab aggregator Ola’s EV mission has hit a series of roadblocks. Started with an initial investment of $8 Mn from SoftBank, the project involved deploying a fleet of 200 electric-powered public transport vehicles on Ola’s app platform in Nagpur.

Fast forward to March 2018 and a number of Ola drivers have expressed their dissatisfaction, primarily due to long wait times at charging stations and high operating costs, reports Reuters. As per the publication, several of these drivers have already returned their electric taxis and switched to diesel variants.

Originally at the time of launch, the company had committed to set up 50 charging points across four locations in Nagpur, but has only managed to install around 22 EV charging stations in the city, the Reuters report added. An email query sent by Inc42 did not elicit a timely response from Ola’s communication team.

Last year, in November, Ola joined hands with Indian Oil to launch India’s first EV charging station in Nagpur. The charging station is located at one of Indian Oil’s petrol/diesel stations in the orange city. Around the same time, reports surfaced that the cab aggregator was looking to forge an alliance with Tata Motors to launch an EV version of Nano on its fleet.

Delta Electronics Launches EV Charging Solutions Range In India

The Indian subsidiary of Taiwan-based Delta Group, Delta Electronics India, has launched its range of energy-efficient EV charging solutions in India. During the Elecrama 2018, the company showcased its portfolio of EV solutions with DC Quick, AC chargers and site management systems.

As per sources, these chargers can be installed in different locations such as parking spaces, highway service, as well as residential and commercial buildings.

Speaking at the event, Hsieh Shen-Yen, President of Delta Electronics (Thailand) PCL said, “In line with our vision to be a strong catalyst and partner in India’s growth story, we are also announcing our fourth manufacturing plant in the country today. This is a testimony to our commitment to the “Make In India” initiative. Delta’s goal is to develop sustainable and energy efficient integrated solution offerings in India, for India, that will offer immense employment opportunities across the geography.”

Dalip Sharma, Managing Director of Delta Electronics India added that swappable batteries are not the right choice for big vehicles like cars and buses, and are instead best suited for electric scooters and rickshaws. He explained, “Swappable batteries are not successful in China, where we have a maximum number of electric buses. This concept works well for electric rickshaws and scooters, and not for cars and buses.”

“The simple reason is batteries in big vehicles will have high current and safety issues. A loose connection in a swappable battery can lead to risking the bus and its people inside. And it is a failure worldwide. It is difficult to say that it will work in India due to practical challenges,” Sharma further stated.

Indian Automakers To Face Changes Due To Shortage Of Batteries: Report

The country’s automotive manufacturers will likely have to face challenges as a result of supply shortages of natural resources required for the production of EV battery, as per a recent report by independent research organisation A.T. Kearney Energy Transition Institute.

Elaborating further, Abhishek Poddar, Partner, Energy and Process Industries at AT Kearney India said, “It is critical that India takes into account the practical aspects related to EV rollout, as it defines its long-term strategy for the sector. The problem is further complicated by the fact that we have limited availability of the natural resources required for Lithium-ion battery manufacturing.”

“Electric car batteries rely on a host of rare materials – from lithium and nickel to cobalt. Battery makers around the world are struggling to secure supplies of these key ingredients as demand outstrips supply. This undoubtedly places pressure on carmakers, so the hunt for alternative technologies is on,” explained Romain Debarre, MD at A.T. Kearney Energy Transition Institute.

In a related development, the government has recently said that the lack of a robust charging infrastructure, as well as the high costs and insufficient manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries, is slowing down the adoption of electric vehicles in the country.

Volkswagen Group To Produce EVs At 16 Locations Globally By 2022

Germany-headquartered automotive giant Volkswagen has announced that about 16 locations across the globe will act as production sites of the company’s battery-powered vehicles by 2022. This is in line with the company’s aim to massively increase its production capacity in the EV segment.

Volkswagen Group currently produces electric vehicles at three locations, and in two years’ time, an additional nine EV manufacturing plants will be set up, said Matthias Muller, the Group CEO.

He added, “Over the last few months, we have pulled out all the stops to implement ‘Roadmap E’ with the necessary speed and determination.” Earlier, the company announced its plans to increase its manufacturing capacity to 3 Mn electric vehicles annually by 2025.

While the government is keen on putting 6 Mn-7 Mn electric vehicles on the roads by 2020, as iterated by Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, to be able to achieve the feat, it has to ensure that a robust charging infrastructure is in place to support the running of EVs in the country. Additionally, India has to significantly enhance its battery manufacturing prowess, which might be challenging due to the high costs and lack of availability of natural resources.

However, with organisations like ISRO offering its technologies for low-cost production of Li-ion batteries, the shift to electric vehicles could potentially help India save up to $300 Bn (INR 20 Lakh Cr) in oil imports and nearly 1 gigatonne of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, as per a recent report by FICCI and Rocky Mountain Institute.

Stay tuned for the next edition of our weekly series of Electric Vehicles Roundup

The post Electric Vehicles This Week: ISRO To Supply Tech For Low Cost EV Batteries; Govt. To Put 7 Mn EVs On Road By 2020 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In a fresh turn of events, Seattle-based investor RoundGlass Partners has acquired parenting memories and milestone platform BabyOnBoard for an undisclosed amount. With this development, the startup will expand and enhance its Blossom product range for its online users.

Talking about the future plans, Aditya Kulkarni, CEO of BabyOnBoard, said that the acquisition has provided them with a bigger platform to continue building on the vision of helping parents raise healthier and happier children. With the acquisition, BabyOnBoard’s leadership team will soon join RoundGlass to work on their expansion project.

Established in 2017, RoundGlass is a global online platform which basically helps users to live healthy, stress-free and meaningful life. Not only that, the application also enables providers and seekers to stay connected and track progress together, creating a robust care continuum.

Operated by WhisperingWoods Technologies, BabyOnBoard claims that it has as many as 50,000 parents on the application and with roughly 500K monthly visits on its website.

Founded by IIM-Bangalore alumni Aditya Kulkarni and Dr. Rakesh Shivran and PEC alumnus Himanshu Jain in 2016, Bengaluru-based BabyOnBoard is a platform that enables new parents to access all information and resolve queries related to their newborns.

Interestingly, it was one of the Indian startups selected by social media giant Facebook for its FbStart programme in late 2016.

As part of the programme, the startup bagged services and credits worth $40,000. The benefits included mentorship from Facebook’s engineering teams and services from its partners like Amazon Web Services, Dropbox, Adobe, and MailChimp.

In 2017, the company raised an undisclosed amount of Seed funding from Gana Yantrika Systems’ Anant Pandit. Other investors who participated in the round included Mahavir Sharma of Rajasthan Angel Investors Network, Vishal Jain, Head of Projects at Honeywell, Rohit Sethi, L&D Head at Arthur D. Little Dubai and Gaurav Luniya.

In the parenting segment, BabyonBoard competes with players like Parentlane, Tinystep, BabyBerry, Ratan Tata-backed Firstcry, Mahindra Group’s BabyOye, HopScotch, etc.

A Few Other Baby Parenting Startups That Raised Funding In The Past

Last year, Gurugram based startup Mycity4kids, a parenting blog and kids events discovery site, raised $3 Mn (INR Rs 20 Cr) in Series A funding from SIDBI Venture Capital Ltd and existing investor YourNest Angel Fund.

In October 2016, Mumbai-based parenting and baby care startup Kidsstoppress.com had raised an undisclosed amount from Angel investors and a group of other investors.

FirstCry, an e-commerce platform for kids and mothers, acquired Mahindra and Mahindra’s baby care business BabyOye in October 2017 for $55 Mn (INR 362 Cr).

The post Parenting Social Network Startup BabyOnBoard Gets Acquired By RoundGlass Partners appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Protesting against a sharp fall in income, strict regulation for compromising user experience and long working hours, taxi drivers of app-based ride-hailing majors, Ola and Uber, will be going on a strike on Monday i.e. March 19, 2018.

The growing resentment has compelled the taxi drivers to threaten the ride-hailing giants. As a result of the strikes across cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Gurugram and others, on Monday, they will be switching their devices off.

There may be more complicating matters coming on the way coupled by with the strike:

The Taxi Union unit of Raj Thakre-led political outfit is organising the protest on March 19. As a result, from 8 A.M. onwards, drivers will be shutting their devices down and will be protesting outside the offices of Ola and Uber. In a gruesome twist, the protest will also see the participation of drivers’ families.

Sanjay Naik of Maharashtra Navnirman Vahatuk Sena, who is supporting the strike, is asking for the demands of taxi drivers to be met.

The taxi driver unions want a commitment of business worth $1,925 (INR 1.25 Lakh) every month from ride-hailing majors. Drivers used to earn the aforementioned amount during the 2014-16 period when Ola and Uber were giving lucrative incentives to the taxi drivers.

However, over the past 12-18 months, incentives have gone dry as the duo gradually strengthened their supply sides.

While the strike by the taxi drivers will be troublesome for the commuters who use the ride-sharing cabs, Ola and Uber might not pay heed to the demand as they have turned their focus towards improving unit economics.

A fall in income has also caused a crunch in the supply of cabs for Ola and Uber. The development was reported by Financial Express.

The strike by the taxi drivers will also open the topic of India’s current dispensation of its public transport.

This is not the first time that taxi drivers are calling the strike. Last year, in Delhi NCR and Bengaluru, there were similar strikes, which were called off without resolving much of the issues which were raised. They also asked for government intervention in reducing commission to a single-digit percentage.

The plummeting income of the drivers has led to a drop in cab affiliation, reports RedSeer Management.

While Ola and Uber won’t bent easily to the demand by the taxi drivers, if the ride-hailing majors are looking to penetrate deeper into smaller cities in India, they will have to work out a way to pacify the brewing resentment amongst the drivers.

Ola, Uber And The Taxi Drivers – Who Is Hailing What?

Uber and Ola in India are rivaling against each other for a greater market share. But as of now, with their growing popularity, there are no regulations in place for monitoring the surge in pricing and the overall cab sharing services offered by the cab aggregators.

Several state transport departments have started drafting, or in some cases modifying, contract carriage permits (the law under which traditional taxis operate in India) with only Kolkata providing a provisional licence to Ola and Uber so far.

Uber has been quick to call such regulations and paperwork “unnecessary”.

Because of this, the taxi business as it exists now in most Indian cities is exploitative. Most drivers do not own the vehicle they drive. They are paid a salary every month that often depends on their daily earnings. Fines and extra charges incurred on the road are often the responsibility of the driver. More often than not, drivers end up working more than 12-hour-shifts to make enough money. Poor wages and long hours on polluted, choked and chaotic roads take a toll on their physical and mental health.

For all the innovation that Uber and Ola keep talking about, they seem to have reproduced, and in some cases, reinforced the exploitative structures of the previously existing taxi services.

Ola and Uber may well be right that India’s cities need more and not less taxi services, and that traditional taxi, auto services and app-based services can co-exist through their various ride-sharing innovations. But as the business grows and the comfort of the commuters is taken care of, the state governments and the central government need to work together with Ola and Uber to solve the grievances of their taxi drivers.

The post Ola, Uber Drivers To Go On Strike To Protest Against Long Working Hours, Income Drop appeared first on Inc42 Media.

There is no doubt that this is the time for a booming app economy. While hordes of apps which are populating the Play Store and iOS store enable the users to do everything –  from ordering food to booking a cab to calling a carpenter, the increase in the sheer number of the apps also make their discovery hard. It is this problem of discovery in the app ecosystem which founders Sunny Gurnani and Venkatesh Rao of instant or express app store AppBrowzer wanted to solve initially.

Says Sunny, “We have hundreds of apps in the Play Store and Apple Store but we use very few in our daily lives. We hardly have 20-25 apps on our phone. But the fundamental problem with the current apps is that I need to download them and install them in order to use them. So, as a user, I need to give my phone real estate or space to an app to use its service.”

With a low-end smartphone (which majority of the Indians users have), consumers hit a space problem. “Also, the phone becomes very slow after a user downloads say 20 apps, 50 videos, and a couple of hundred photos,” he added.

Thus, the duo hit upon the idea of not just providing the Indian app users a curated app experience but also to optimise their phone space and to help them discover multiple mobile apps in a single place. Hence, AppBrowzer was born in 2016, and aimed to provide app users with a curated experience where a customer could download AppBrowzer and do most of the activities he or she does from a single mobile app than downloading multiple apps.

“We have an aggregated news app, recharge and bill payments app, Zomato’s food app to order food, Uber app to order a cab and  MakeMyTrip to book flights ,” says Sunny.

Apart from solving the consumer-side of the problem, the startup has taken a step further by launching its business platform last month to help the retail and service-based businesses to create express apps in less than 10 minutes and reach out to the existing and new customers.

Solving Both The Consumption Problem And Creation Problem In The App Ecosystem

Sunny says that while there are so many apps in the App store, one hardly sees apps of local businesses to reach out to their consumers. Thus, a local restaurant or a salon won’t have a mobile app as they are hard to build and are expensive. Also, they don’t have the technical skills to build those mobile apps. For them, the startup has a B2B platform where businesses can use the platform to create a mobile app in less than 10 minutes.

In order to do this, all they have to do is share their product list and prices and choose a design to create an express app. So, just like the other apps in AppBrowzer, a user does not need to download these apps individually to use them.

In addition to the popular Indian apps like Flipkart, Amazon, Zomato and the likes, AppBrowzer also enables its users to discover local business apps in its local app section. It does so by picking up the user’s location.

Thus, users can access both popular as well as local business apps through AppBrowzer.

“We try to solve both the consumption as well as the creation problem in the app ecosystem. While on the consumer side, the challenge is that one needs to download apps to use them. On the other side i.e., business, there is a challenge of building an app which can easily cost $4.6K-$6.1K (INR 3 Lakh-INR 4 Lakh),” adds Sunny.

Thus, with its new B2B platform, the startup is also focussing on the creation of the mobile apps while also solving consumption problem on the B2C side.

For the mobile apps which have a massive user base, for instance Ixigo, Zomato and Uber, AppBrowzer has partnered with the company and has picked up the content in the form of SDKs or APIs, to create these express apps for them.

Meanwhile, the local businesses use the builder platform to create their apps themselves. The startup claims it would hardly take 10 minutes for a business to create a full-fledged application and start selling. One can either choose the payment gateway option by providing bank details and KYC or use the default cash on delivery option provided on the platform.

The builder platform is an easy as a plug-and-play option to create Express Apps and has been liked by quite a few home-based businesses, claims Sunny.

As far as the notifications from multiple apps are concerned, the app pauses all the notifications at its end and pushes the ones it thinks are appropriate. For now, users only receive notifications that AppBrowzer sends and not the ones from express apps directly.

The startup also plans to launch a feature, where it will have a notifications page inside AppBrowzer settings where a user can control and switch ‘ON/OFF’ the notifications from each express apps.

With 275K Users, The AppBrowzer Platform Is Gunning For 1.3 Mn Users By Year End

The AppBrowzer consumer app was launched in March 2017 and the first few months were focussed on building the install-base than the revenues. Currently, the platform boasts of 2,75,000 users using the mobile app, with the total apps on the AppBrowzer now standing at 200. Meanwhile, more than 25 businesses have created apps using its builder platform since its launch last month.

Sunny reveals that in the first few months, the app’s customer base mainly comprised of college students given the fact that they were mostly low-end smartphone users who face the space crunch problem on their phones.

So, in multiple colleges, the startup recruited college ambassadors which helped it to gain virality by offering them apps in entertainment and in education such as  TedX and Khan Academy.

However, once the platform started partnering with Zomato, Ola and the likes, the team realised that it needed to tap other avenues for monetisation. It was then that the startup resorted to Facebook and Google to market the app to a wider audience.

The decision to launch the B2B platform last month was  a strategic one as the startup first wanted to build a formidable consumer base so that local businesses would come in to build their express apps. The B2B platform offers a 30-day trial period and as per the startup’s claims, 60-70 businesses are testing it without going public yet. For publishing the app, they pay $7.69 (INR 500) per month or $92.3 (INR 6000) per year.

The startup monetises in two ways.

• So for bigger apps, the startup receives 3%-12% of the transactions going through the app. In short, Sunny mentions the app makes an average 5% per transaction.
• From the B2B platform, it gets subscriptions from local businesses who pay $92.3 per year to create their express apps.

As far as funding is concerned, the startup raised $500K in March last year led by angel investor Deepak Gurnani, who is a member of the Singapore Angel Network. A group of angel investors also participated in the round.

By December this year, the startup is looking to onboard 1.3 Mn users for its consumer apps. Meanwhile on the B2B platform, the team of 18 plans to have 1,800 express apps from local businesses by the year-end, from the current figure of 30.

AppBrowzer, Instant Apps And The Competition

Instant apps have been in the news for a while. Google had started offering Instant Apps in May 2016 where Android users would be able to use apps from a link without having to download anything from the Play Store.

However as per Sunny, Google’s focus is to solve consumer problems, hence it provides instant apps for users so that they can try some apps instantly before using. For that, Google requires an app to be present on the Google Play Store and then breaks it up into individual chunks and serves it to users as an instant app.

But developers are not its focus. So, as a developer, one still needs to go through the pain of building an app and putting it in Playstore which takes two to three months time. For a business to create a simple ecommerce app, it would take roughly the same time. This slow process  does not help the developer as he still needs to create a mobile app and then make it instant.

Moreover, Google’s primary money comes from the ‘search and install’ of the mobile applications. So, every time a user installs a mobile app, the business pays advertisement money to Google. Hence, while Google did start the instant app as a project three years back to enable users to access instant apps, the focus has not been a major one, especially for the developers.

However, there is no dearth of competitors in both the B2B and B2C market. For instance, Tapzo, on the consumer side, aggregates 10-15 mobile mini-apps in one place. But it doesn’t have a platform for B2B businesses to create their express apps. Then, there are a lot of business focussed applications like GoodBarber which helps build Progressive Web Apps or Goodbox which helps one create a mobile application in a half an hour.

Sunny however points out that since the above-mentioned competitors are focussing just on B2B side, businesses might struggle with getting consumers on to the app. AppBrowzer’s long term focus is to get more consumers for businesses and thus, provide both B2B and B2C solutions.

Editor’s Note

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. China took the first spot, with four of the top five countries by downloads in the emerging markets.

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 surpassed $86 Bn. Additionally, time spent in apps spiked by 30%, to the point where each user spends about 43 days per year in apps.

These statistics are not surprising given the explosive growth of mobile, Internet and the app economy in India. In Q4 2017, in India, as per the same report, users spent almost 50 Bn hours in apps during the same time frame. App usage grew rapidly in India, on account of the introduction of subsidised, unlimited 4G access  by Jio in September 2016. According to the report published jointly by the Internet and Mobile Association of India and Kantar IMRB, titled ‘Internet in India 2017’, the number of Internet users in India is expected to reach 500 Mn by June 2018.

In light of this backdrop, AppBrowzer is looking at a considerable opportunity as far as the burgeoning app ecosystem in India is concerned. But the fact also remains that smartphones are getting cheaper and more powerful, the consumer problem of real estate crunch on the phone might cease to be that big a problem.

However, AppBrowser still has the potential for developers and local businesses as it tries to create a parallel PlayStore for instant apps. How far can it provide the much-needed audience to local businesses in the overcrowding environment as well as stay ahead of its competitors will be something that will determine its success.

The post With Over 200 Instant Apps For Consumers, AppBrowzer Will Now Help Local Businesses To Create Express Apps In 10 Minutes appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Homegrown cab service provider Meru Cabs has announced that it is now adopting a marketplace model in the ride-hailing market. For this, the company has enabled its enrolled drivers to set dynamic fares in a bid to attract more customers.

According to the reports, drivers associated with Meru Cabs will be able to decide fares as per the demand in the location or the time of the day. This is much like the unregulated autorickshaws operating in the cities everywhere.

On the app, the company will offer its customers the option to choose from up to 10 cabs whose fares along with ETA (expected time of arrival), vehicle model and driver ratings will be displayed.

In conversation with ET, Nilesh Sangoi, CEO of Meru Cabs, revealed that the company plans to launch the new model in the Delhi-NCR region first and then expand the services in other cities by April.

For a long time, Meru has been charging the rates regulated by the government and it now sees fares charged by cab hailing majors, Ola and Uber, matching the regulated prices.

On this Sangoi said, “Over the past three years, consumers have gotten used to cheap fares due to heavy discounting which is what is done for habit forming in any new Internet industry. But it was not sustainable and, therefore, the fares have increased now and it is a more level playing field.”

He also believes that the move will make the fares on its platform more competitive, thereby allowing the company to be cheaper than Ola and Uber. The drivers will be shown a “recommended fare calculated by the platform and they can choose to charge higher or lower than it.”

To eliminate the chances of misuse, Sangoi said, “We have placed enough checks and balances that the feature is not misused by the drivers to charge higher or cancel rides after flashing a low fare.”

Sangoi also added that even though the company is self-sufficient, it may look for some funding soon. He also checked off any plans to enter the food delivery market like its major competitors.

The company last raised funding in June 2016 when Brand Capital, the investment arm of Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd (BCCL), invested $25 Mn (INR 150 Cr) in Meru Cabs. Prior to that, in May 2015, Meru Cabs raised $50 Mn (INR 300 Cr) from India Value Fund Advisors (IVFA).

Years Old Battle Of Meru With Uber And Ola

This isn’t the first time the company is experimenting with its fare policy to attract customers. Earlier in September 2016, it launched an accurate fare calculator called ‘Fare Exactometer’. Using this feature in the Meru Cabs app, exact fares were confirmed at the time of booking the cab. The total fare was equal to or lower than the fares prescribed by State Transport Authority, for the respective travel route and time.

However, for quite some time, the company has been making headlines primarily for its battle with Ola and Uber.

In October 2017, Meru Cabs filed complaints against competitors, Ola and Uber, alleging that the cab aggregators were misusing investor funds to artificially enhance their dominance in four major cities across India. This, as per the complainant, was distorting the market, thus affecting the growth of other companies in the space.

Prior to this, in December 2015, the company issued complaints against Uber, alleging that global ride-sharing startup was following predatory pricing to increase its market share. In its complaint with the CCI, Meru had filed charges on Uber that it was charging very low rates for its services, while the average market price of radio taxis in Kolkata before Uber entered the market was about $0.30 – $0.33 (INR 20-INR 22) per km.

However, despite these charges, Ola and Uber have continued their game plans. Recently, Ola also realised its international expansion plans as its services became operational in Sydney, while a pilot project continues in Perth. Uber has been continuously trying to gain a strong foothold in the country, and as part of that Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi recently visited India and reiterated company’s commitment to India.

As per data from the consulting firm Redseer, the gross booking value of companies in the local ride-sharing space increased to $2.1 Bn in 2017 from $1.5 Bn in the year before. The Indian online mobility market, which encompasses cab aggregator and auto hailing segments, contributed over 15% of the industry’s overall gross book value (GBV) in 2017.

Amid this, the outcome of letting drivers regulate fares by Meru remains to be seen.

[The development was reported by ET.]

The post Amidst Competition From Ola And Uber, Meru Cabs Has A Revival Plan appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Online grocery delivery startup Grofers has raised $61.6 Mn (INR 400 Cr) in a round of funding led by SoftBank. With this, the Japanese investment behemoth now holds a 35%-40% stake in the Gurugram-based startup.

The funding round also saw the participation of existing investor Tiger Global as well as Russian tech billionaire Yuri Milner. With this new Series E round, Grofers will continue to invest in building private labels and supply chain
improvements.

A significant amount of investment will go towards building infrastructure and technology and efficient supply chain management to achieve deeper penetration in existing Grofers cities.

Commenting on the development, Albinder Dhindsa, Co-Founder and CEO, Grofers, said, “This fresh round by our existing investors is a vote of confidence and trust in the turnaround at Grofers. We took some hard decisions to fix parts of the business that were not scaling well. Our efforts have clearly contributed in making sure we have a clear path to profitability as well as the largest market share in the online grocery segment; having grown four-fold in the last one year for monthly sales in excess of $15.4 Mn (INR 100 Cr).”

The development comes less than a month after reports surfaced that the online grocery platform was in talks to raise $60 Mn-$65 Mn from its existing group of investors at a nearly 40% drop in its valuation.

“This endorsement of Grofers’ business proposition will help us in building an enriched customer experience for our next ten million grocery shoppers. We are committed to building a robust e-grocery market in India and further contribute to the growth of Indian farmers and digital India,” Albinder added.

Incidentally, the SoftBank backed company has reportedly shut its operations in several cities and changed its business model. Grofers is now focused on establishing its foothold in Delhi/NCR by investing in its supply chain and technology, an earlier report by Livemint stated. However, the company claims to be profitable in Delhi on a per-order basis.

In the past year, Grofers was also said to be in sale talks with rival BigBasket and Paytm. The talks, however, hadn’t materialised.

Last month, the company’s biggest competitor BigBasket secured $300 Mn Series E funding in a round led by Alibaba, with the participation of Abraaj Capital, Sands Capital and IFC. Alibaba had received the CCI nod to invest in BigBasket in December 2017.

According to CCI’s “Summary of the Combination”,  Alibaba.com Singapore E-commerce, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding, transferred the funds to Supermarket Grocery Supplies, the parent entity of Bengaluru-based BigBasket.

Grofers: Creating A Success Story Despite Setbacks

Gurugram-headquartered Grofers was founded in 2013 by IIT graduates Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar. The company has raised close to $226.5 Mn funding till date from investors like Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital, SoftBank Group and Cyriac Roeding.

It currently offers products across categories like grocery, fruits and vegetables, beauty and wellness, household care, baby care, pet care, bakery and meats and seafood, among other things.

At present, Grofers offers deliveries in 13 cities, clocking nearly 25,000 orders daily with an average basket size of $21.5 (INR 1,400).

In November 2015, the company raised $120 Mn at a valuation of about $400 Mn. Later in September 2017, the online grocery startup secured $839K (INR 5.5 Cr) from its existing investor, Trifecta Capital in debt funding. A fortnight later, it raised another $14.7 Mn from its parent company, Grofers International.

Commenting on the latest funding from SoftBank, Tiger Global and others, Grofers co-founder and CEO Albinder Dhindsa told ET, “The business is in a much healthier place and almost 10 times the size it was in November 2015 when we last raised capital. We took a lot of hard decisions to fix parts of the business that were not scaling well and our efforts have clearly contributed in making sure we have a clear path to profitability as well as the largest market share in the online grocery segment.”

In February 2017, the company signed a pan-India partnership with Reliance Fresh. Two months later,  the company was reportedly setting up 15 offline stores across Delhi/NCR.

The plan was to open two types of offline stores: tuck shops and franchise stores. Grofers was also in talks with startups like OYO to open tuck shops in its premises.

A couple of months later, in July, Grofers received the final approval from the DIPP for food retail, around the same time that Amazon got the green light for a $500 Mn investment. At the time, it was reported that the Gurugram-based company was looking to bring an additional capital of $40 Mn to expand its business and grow the market.

The online grocer recently launched its loyalty programme called Grofers Smart Bachat Club, which it claims has already crossed 100K subscribers in two months.

Competition Intensifying In The Online Grocery Delivery Space

A report by RedSeer Consulting said that the online grocery market stood at $1 Bn in 2017. As per a Goldman Sachs, the Indian online grocery market is estimated to reach $40 Mn (INR 270 Cr) by FY19 growing at a CAGR of 62% from 2016 to 2022.

Morgan Stanley expects the online food and grocery segment to become the fastest-growing segment, expanding at a compounded annual growth rate of 141% by 2020 and contributing $15 Bn, or 12.5%, of overall online retail sales.

The space has not only attracted the attention of startups like BigBasket, ZopNow etc, but also the country’s leading ecommerce players such as Paytm, Flipkart, and Amazon. Other players in the online grocery sector include BigBasket, Satvacart, Godrej Nature’s Basket and DailyNinja, among others.

As of March 2017, BigBasket held about 35% market share in the Indian online grocery segment, closely followed by Grofers at 31.5% and Amazon at 31.2%, as per a report by Kalagato.

Recently, post BigBasket’s massive fundraise from Alibaba, Abraaj Capital, Sands Capital and IFC, reports surfaced that Paytm Mall was looking to integrate the e-grocer on its platform, as a way of exploring the online grocery market.

Last month, global ecommerce player Amazon recently became the first foreign company to set a food retail business in India. It will now sell locally made and packaged food to the consumers directly, and will compete with other leading online grocery and food retail marketplaces like Grofers and BigBasket.

To bolster its entry into the segment, Amazon also recently opened 15 fulfillment centres to create a specialised network for its hyperlocal grocery delivery business on Amazon Now. The new centres have come up in the four cities where Amazon Now is currently available: Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai.

Flipkart, on the other hand, is reportedly looking to set up a chain of retail stores across the country, in partnership with global retail giant Walmart who is, in turn, planning to acquire 25% to 51% stake in the homegrown ecommerce unicorn.

Recently, reports surfaced that SoftBank was preparing to sell a part of its share in Flipkart to the US-based retail giant. If the deal materialises, Flipkart will be able to procure grocery and consumer goods directly from Walmart’s wholesale stores, which would, in turn, ensure better delivery speed and product availability.

Last November, the online marketplace made a soft launch of its online grocery category under Supermart in Bengaluru. As per reports, Flipkart is building a dedicated supply chain for its grocery category under Supermart. This is Flipkart’s second attempt into the online grocery segment, after the shutdown of ‘Nearby’ in 2016.

With the entry of new players, the country’s online grocery delivery space is expected to witness increased competition, which could ultimately result in consolidations or exits. Although Grofers has been struggling to challenge BigBasket’s monopoly, for the time being, its fate seems secure, especially now that it has backers like SoftBank and Tiger Global.

The post SoftBank Leads $62 Mn Funding Round In Online Grocery Startup Grofers appeared first on Inc42 Media.

As the Supreme Court (SC) of India, on March 13, extended the Aadhaar linking deadline in non-social related matters till the final decision is in, UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey has clarified that either Aadhaar or its enrolment ID is still essential for getting new SIM or Passports.

Recently, while social media were abuzz with the Aadhaar’s biometric data leaks, Ajay Bhushan stated, in an interview, that after the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 came into effect, UIDAI had asked each and every state to destroy their copy of biometric data of Aadhaar.

Confirming the same, the UIDAI CEO averred that the UIDAI has already received certificates from state governments pertaining to the eradication of their own copies of Aadhaar’s biometric data.

It is also worth noting here that some states like Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh are running their own biometric programmes, as part of which these states have the biometric data of their residents.

Speaking of the Aadhaar encryption, Ajay Bhushan stated, “The encryption that we have is 2048 bits. Normally, in a digital signature, you have an encryption of 256 bits. So, we are almost eight times higher. Now, when you try to break this encryption. The fastest computer on earth will require more than the age of the universe to break this.”

On the Aadhaar number leakage, the UIDAI CEO insisted that by knowing someone’s Aadhaar number, another person can do nothing as it would need biometrics or OTPs to take benefit of the same. So, the system is secure, unless and until the person is also compromised.

Meanwhile, the SC’s decision to extend Aadhaar linking deadline indefinitely did not go well with digital payments companies, as this has created confusion in the digital payments sector, especially since the RBI refused to extend the deadline.

As earlier reported by Inc42, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had refused to extend the deadline for KYC (Know Your Customer) beyond February 28, 2018, stating that “enough time has already been granted to adhere  the prescribed guidelines.” Notably, the completion of the KYC involves linking of Aadhaar card and PAN card to the e-wallet mobile applications.

The post States Do Not Have The Copy Of Aadhaar Biometric Data, Confirms UIDAI CEO appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Sweden-headquartered music streaming giant Spotify is in the process of launching operations in India, co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek announced recently during the company’s investor day presentation.

He said, “We are working on launching in some of the biggest markets in the world, including India, Russia, and Africa which has a very rich musical culture.”

Although Daniel didn’t reveal any specific timeline for the India launch, the company reportedly leased an office space in Mumbai last year. As per its public offering filings, Spotify had a total of 308 employees in India and 20 other countries including Brazil, Turkey, Belgium, Singapore, Australia and Spain towards the end of 2017.

Specific details about its Indian operations, however, were not disclosed. Earlier in 2016, the music streaming company had hired former Google executive Akshat Harbola as its Head of Market Operations, India.

Spotify: A Look At Its Key Stats

Launched in 2008, Spotify currently boasts a paid subscriber base of 71 Mn, spread across most of Europe, North and South Americas, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia. Last month, the company filed for direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange and is scheduled to begin trading on April 3.

Here are some of the key Spotify stats as shared during its investor day presentation:

• Over 50 Mn users globally listen to Spotify in their cars.
• 72% of Spotify users are under the age of 34, while 43% are under the age of 24.
• Over 75% of Spotify users use the service on multiple devices. So far, the company has partnered with more than 250 businesses across televisions, cars, laptops, receivers, and speakers, among others.
• Mobile and connected devices account for around 73% of total Spotify streams.
• Paid users stream an average of more than 80 minutes of content daily.
• The Spotify marketplace has over 3 Mn artists, who contribute 20,000 pieces of music on a daily basis. The company is currently aiming to increase its artist base to around 10 Mn.

Earlier, in December 2017, Spotify, Chinese investment giant Tencent Holdings and its subsidiary Tencent Music Entertainment Group jointly announced equity investments, geared towards strengthening their presence in the global music streaming market.

Speaking on the partnership, Ek said during the presentation, “Our view is that the Chinese market isn’t necessarily very favourable to western companies, so our view was we wanted to get exposure to that growth. Of course we’re trying to learn from that business, as they’re trying to learn from what we do, but that’s the extent of the partnership.”

A Look At Spotify’s Competitors In India

If Spotify decides to set up operations in India, it will face direct competition from other music streaming services like Gaana, Amazon Prime Music, Apple Music, Google Play Music, Saavn, Hungama and Airtel’s Wynk, among others.

Recently, in the fourth week of February,  homegrown digital music service provider Gaana announced a $115 Mn fundraise from Tencent and Times Internet, in order to boost the user experience on its platform and strengthen its tech.

As shared by the company, it intends to use AI to personalise music experiences for each consumer, to further develop its subscription product for paying users, and to develop aligned music experiences for Gaana consumers.

Around the same time, Amazon India rolled out its music streaming service – Amazon Prime Music – in the country. As part of the move, the Indian arm of the ecommerce giant signed a partnership with Saregama to stream its catalogue of 117K tracks spread over 15,000 albums on its Amazon Prime Music portal.

Apart from that, Amazon has also tied up with T-Series and Zee Music to bolster its offerings on Prime Music.

With over 60 Mn online music service users in India, the market size of the online music streaming industry is poised to reach a new pinnacle with the country’s Internet user base expected to reach 500 Mn by mid 2018. How the entry of an established, global name like Spotify will affect the existing players in the space remains to be seen.

(The development was reported by ET)

The post Music Streaming Giant Spotify To Focus On Indian Market, Says CEO Daniel Ek appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Mumbai-based cab leasing arm of Uber, Xchange Leasing India Pvt. Ltd, reported a revenue of $10.7 Mn (INR 69.7 Cr) for FY17.

According to the filings with Registrar of Companies (RoC) accessed by Inc42, the company posted a net worth of $37.7 Mn (INR 244.7 Cr) in the last fiscal. Compared to that, in FY16, the company posted a revenue of $39K (INR 25.4 Lakh).

Earlier, in June 2016, it was reported that Uber had invested $6.4 Mn (INR 43 Cr) in Xchange Leasing India Pvt. Ltd between January and March. Later between June and September of 2016, Uber reportedly poured around $30 Mn (INR 200 Cr) in its Indian cab-leasing business.

The development comes less than two months after the global cab aggregator sold the active portfolio of its US-based cab leasing arm to online marketplace Fair. With this, Fair became an exclusive partner of Uber for leasing services to drivers in the US, who want to lease a car for 30 days or more.

Uber Xchange Leasing In India

Uber’s leasing business was launched globally in 2013 but Xchange Leasing came to India only in December 2015. The global, as well as the Indian arm of Xchange Leasing, are led by Mohd. Akbar Khan as the Common Director, and it also operates with Uber in the US and South Africa.

According to earlier reports, Uber drivers have to pay $462-$539 (INR 30,000 – INR 35,000), to be part of the leasing programme and are then required to make monthly lease payments with an option to own the vehicle after three years.

Ola Follows With Its Leasing Programme

Following Uber’s footprint, its Indian rival Ola began its leasing programme, Ola Fleet Technologies in September 2015. For this, the company acquired Gurugram-based radio taxi service GCabs and renamed it to Ola Fleet Technologies. At the time, the company had announced that it would invest $770 Mn (INR 5,000 Cr) in its leasing arm, along with its partners.

In March 2017, the company invested about $7.5 Mn (INR 50 Cr) in Ola Fleet Technologies. This was followed by another investment of about $15.5 Mn (INR 100 Cr) in July 2017.

At present, both the companies have been locked in a battle to mark their foothold in the country. However, as Uber is increasingly focussing on the Indian market, Ola has been expanding its international services.

Ola recently launched its operations in Sydney, as its pilot project continues in Perth. Recently, the reports also surfaced that Ola is in talks with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek and other investors to raise another $500 Mn to $1 Bn in funding.

Despite setbacks, Uber has remained committed to India, which was reiterated by its CEO Dara Khosrowshahi during his recent visit to India.

As per data from the consulting firm RedSeer, the gross booking value of companies in the local ride-sharing space increased to $2.1 Bn in 2017 from $1.5 Bn in the year before. The Indian online mobility market, which encompasses cab aggregator and auto hailing segments, contributed over 15% of the industry’s overall gross book value (GBV) in 2017.

As the companies continue their battle in India, with the revenue posted by Uber’s leasing arm Xchange Leasing India, whether Ola Fleet Technologies will be successful in surviving the competition remains to be seen.

The post Cab Leasing Arm Of Uber, Xchange Leasing India, Posts $10.7 Mn Revenue For FY17 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Did Goods and Services Tax (GST) simplify India’s indirect tax issues? At least the World Bank does not think so.

India has always been ranked low in terms of countrywise taxation policy world over. If economic liberalisation was the biggest reform to revive the country’s economy, lack of taxation, land and labour reforms and FDI rules has been inhibiting the potential growth rate of India. However, the recent measures pertaining to tax compliances, digitisation of the economy, and FDI apparently have changed the scenario.

However, the big question that remains whether these reforms have been implemented as it should have been?

In its quest to bring transparency in India’s taxation policy and implement unified indirect tax rates across India, the central could not reach to the desired level of consensus among the state which resulted in five different GST slabs with three different forms IGST, CGST and SGST. Also, many lucrative sources of tax revenues were kept out of the GST radar, killing its very purpose of ease of doing business.

The World Bank has said that that the GST is one of the most complex tax systems in the world. The international organisation said that India has the second highest tax rate in the world among 115 countries that have similar indirect tax regimes.

According to the World Bank’s bi-annual India Development Update, so far, as many as 49 countries have a single slab of GST while 28 countries use two slabs. Only five countries, including India, use four non-zero slabs. The others are Italy, Luxembourg, Pakistan and Ghana. India’s GST structure has five tax slabs of zero, 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%.

Further, GST is not applicable in India for exports. Thus, all export supplies of a GSTN taxpayer would be classified as zero-rated supply, which allows exporters to claim a refund for taxes paid on inputs. Separately, gold is taxed at 3% rate, precious stones at 0.25%, while alcohol, petroleum products, stamp duties on real estate and electricity duties are excluded from the GST and continue to be taxed by the state governments at state-specific rates.

Additionally, the World Bank report also stated that the Indian state administration faced a lot of disruption in the initial days after this new tax regime was introduced.

Here are some of the major issues that the taxpayers and the small businessmen still continue to face even after one year of its implementation.

• Due to several tax slabs, businessmen, particularly in rural areas, are struggling to get the correct information about the how much tax they have to pay on specific products.
• Prices of some products are different according to the location and also there are multiple rates for various products. For instance, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.’s Baleno Sigma gasoline model costs $9,782 (INR 6.35 Lakh) in Maharashtra while the same model is priced at $10,244 (INR 6.64 Lakh) in Karnataka.
• There is no single and unified form for filing GST. At present, merchants have to fill three different forms for filing Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST), Integrated Goods and Service Tax (IGST) and State Goods and Services Tax (SGST).
• The website for filing the GST should be more user-friendly. The government must give an option to taxpayers to file their returns much before the deadline and generate the error report immediately after filing it.

Advantages Of GST

It must be noted that there are some advantages to GST over the old tax policies of India. For instance, earlier, several taxes were imposed on the same product which increased the price of the commodity. With the implementation of GST, it has eliminated the cascade tax by providing credit for the taxes.

Secondly, under the previous taxation system, the classification of products into different categories caused a lot of chaos and confusion among traders. GST has solved this issue by bringing in Harmonised System of Nomenclature (HSN), which is an eight digit code to identify products according to international standards.

Another major advantage is that it has controlled the prices of the products across the country. It takes into account manufacturing costs and collects tax at the point of sale, which automatically results in the reduction of cost. Once the prices come down, the consumption of consumers will increase, which will benefit the companies in the longer run.

However, there are a plethora of subjects that GST Council is yet to handle. For instance, while a number of GST slabs itself is too many to confuse merchandise and users, the Council has failed to classify each and every product under the GST radar. This includes Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies and many products and services offered online.

Many of the products including alcohol and petroleum has not been brought under the GST radar due to various reasons. While the government of the day does not want to lose the tax revenue it collects over fossil fuel products, in case of alcohol, the state governments apparently do not want a unified price and share the revenue with the centre.

The GST Council, in its 26th meeting on March 10, 2018, has taken a number of initiatives including E-waying the bill, rationalisation of certain exemption entries and further changes in GST rates which will help simplify the GST complexity. However, a faster implementation of these reforms will pave way for better ratings at many fronts like Ease of Doing Business.

The post World Bank: GST Is One Of The Most Complex Tax Systems In The World appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Meta Description: In an attempt to make India technologically advanced, technology giant Google organised a workshop on AI and machine learning in Bengaluru today.

In an attempt to make India technologically advanced, technology giant Google organised a workshop on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in Bengaluru today.

Interestingly, several famous personalities, such as computer scientist and software engineer Jeff Dean and Vice President of Engineering at Google Prabhakar Raghavan, kicked off the workshop by sharing the organisation’s future plans in terms of AI and ML.

Not only that, they also spoke about the ease of doing business with the help of AI and machine learning.

This event, organised by Google, also saw the participation of several faculties and researchers from the IITs and industry practitioners from both startups and bigger companies including Amazon, Flipkart, LinkedIn, Myntra, Microsoft and Ola. These companies also discussed their ongoing projects in many areas of AI such as Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, ML Systems, and Generative Models.

At the event, Google also awarded grants to five faculty members in India to support their academic research on AI. In its blog, the company claimed that the funds disbursed to the winners this time are much higher than it was in 2012.

Scope Of AI And Machine Learning In India

If one looks closely, all the major sectors in India – such as healthcare, media, automobile – are changing due to rapid technological advancement. According to Tracxn Technologies, there are more than 200 AI based startups in India.

Here is a list of Indian startups who are carrying out projects related to AI and Machine Learning.

•   Niki.ai is an AI-powered shopping assistant. Through its chatbot SDK, the organisation leverages the technology of natural language processing and machine learning to converse with the customers over a chat interface, to shop for products and services. Additionally, it supports over 20 categories including entertainment, travel, daily utilities, with partners such as BookMyShow, Redbus, OYO, Ola, Uber, JustRechargeIt, HDFC, among others.
•   Uncanny Vision delivers AI-based surveillance solutions. Using deep Learning-enabled vision algorithms that have been optimised to run on Edge servers, the company provides cost-effective and scalable security for next generation safe cities and smart industries. It also enables real-time actionable surveillance and analytics for high-value customers in retail and banking.
•   Founded by Avneesh Agrawal, Netradyne has developed a powerful camera which can analyse driving patterns and helps to determine the cause of an accident. The soap bar sized device is attached to a vehicle’s rear-view mirror and rests on the inside of the windscreen, pointing towards the road.
•   Gurgaon based Staqu is an AI focused research firm working in automated image understanding technology. Staqu enables automation of some of the crucial tasks for ecommerce companies which include image search, tag generation, real-time recommendation.

As reported earlier by Inc42, the government has allocated a massive amount of $480 Mn for Digital India initiatives focused on modern technologies including artificial intelligence among others.

During the Union Budget 2018 session, Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister, announced that the government will be investing extensively in research, training and skill development in robotics, Artificial Intelligence, digital manufacturing, Big Data intelligence and Quantum communications, among others.

It is expected that with the government’s push, AI will revolutionise everything from manufacturing to innovation and labour market productivity in India. Also, it will pave the path for India to be in the list of the most advanced economies.

Additionally, with such steps, India can be two steps ahead of the two superpowers US and China, especially when it comes to acknowledging the strategic importance of emerging technologies around the world.

The post Google Organises Workshop On AI and Machine Learning In India appeared first on Inc42 Media.

We bring to you the latest dope of Indian startup news stories of the week from the Indian startup ecosystem.

One of the biggest news impacting the Indian startup ecosystem was edtech platform BYJU joining the unicorn club. According to filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the latest capital infusion, including the one by China’s Tencent and BCCL, valued BYJU’S at $1 Bn (INR 6,505 Cr). It became the 13th Indian startup to join the coveted unicorn club. In a VAIZLE report, BYJU’s was voted the most efficient startup from the edtech category in 2017.

Important Developments Of The Week

Paytm Launches Gold Gifting, Gold Savings Plan

Paytm’s Gold Gifting and Gold Savings Plan have been launched as a part of its wealth management offering, Paytm Gold. Through these services, customers can now send 24K 999.9 Purity Gold to each other instantly. The customer’s gold will be stored in MMTC PAMP’s secure and 100% insured lockers for free and they can get delivery of this gold at any time.

Also, last week, the Android app Of Paytm was asking users who have modified or rooted their devices for administrative access called root access. The tweet which brought this to light garnered a lot of attention, after which Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma responded that the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) had asked the app maker to check for rooted devices before enabling access to UPI payments. However, after a few days, the company fixed the sensitive issue in its app on Android phones.

Zomato Gold Records 150K+ Customers

In a blog post, the company claimed that more than 2K restaurants have joined the Zomato Gold services. The company claimed that 83% of its users discovered and visited a Gold partner restaurant for the first time, after becoming a member. However, considering this a too-good-to-be-true service, the company is now planning to alter the prices of its services.

Flipkart Will Bring Relatable Products For India

Flipkart is set to unveil a new brand called ‘Naye India Ke Saath’ to focus on its ‘Progressive India’ initiatives. The relatable Indian brand currently contributes 15% of the overall gross merchandise volume (GMV). The Progressive India initiative focuses on bringing more monthly active users from Tier II and Tier III markets.

PolicyBazaar Gears Up To Explore Healthcare Tech And Services

PolicyBazaar has reserved $100 Mn for its new venture in healthtech, which is presently being called PaisaWiki and has put together a team of 20 people, being led by Richit Unmat and Dhruv Sareen. The service will provide online access to top-rated medical professionals, who will form part of its in-house team of doctors. Others associated with the service will include clinics, diagnostic centres, hospitals etc. The company has also targeted to launch its first insurance product to cater to the out-patient department (OPD) market within the coming six months.

Lenskart To Invest $5 Mn In The Next Three Years

At present, the company’s manufacturing facility in Gurugram has the capacity to produce 100K frames per month and CEO Peyush Bansal is aiming to increase it up to 300K frames in the next three years. Over the period, the company expects the cost of its high-quality frames to come down by 30%.

Mobile Wallet Companies Appeal RBI For Interoperability

The country’s mobile wallet companies have urged the central banking institution to allow them to access merchant payments on an interoperable framework. They have asked the RBI for a settlement account that mobile wallets could have with banks so that both the credit and debit transactions can be resolved directly by the National Payments Corporation of India.

Government Not Interested In Solving Ecommerce Vendors’ Issues: AIOVA

Alleging favouritism towards marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart,  the All India Online Vendors’ Association (AIOVA), a group of online ecommerce sellers/vendors, has now abandoned plans to raise their concerns pertaining to payments, pricing and other issues bothering ecommerce sellers. As per AIOVA, various ministries seem ‘not interested in solving things,’ as they have taken no action on AIOVA letters highlighting a number of issues, including predatory pricing and deep discounting by units of ecommerce companies that sell their private label products to the need for a sector regulator.

Uber’s Xchange Leasing India Posts Revenue Of $10.7 Mn For FY17

According to the filings with Registrar of Companies (RoC) accessed by Inc42, the company posted a net worth of $37.7 Mn (INR 244.7 Cr) in the last fiscal. Compared to that, in FY16, the company posted revenue of $39K (INR 25.4 Lakh). The development comes less than two months after the global cab aggregator sold the active portfolio of its US-based cab leasing arm to online car marketplace Fair.

Spotify Will Focus On India: CEO Daniel Ek

Sweden-headquartered music streaming giant Spotify is in the process of launching operations in India, co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek announced recently during the company’s investor day presentation. Although Daniel didn’t reveal any specific timeline for the India launch, the company reportedly leased an office space in Mumbai last year. As per its public offering filings, Spotify had a total of 308 employees in India and 20 other countries towards the end of 2017.

SC Extends Deadline To Link Aadhaar, UIDAI Clarifies States Have No Biometric Data

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.” Following this, UIDAI has clarified that requirement of Aadhaar for opening new bank accounts as well as applying for tatkal passports will continue.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.”

However, soon enough, to highlight a flaw in Aadhaar security, an anonymous hacker rebuked the Aadhaar security of UIDAI by publishing website links containing thousands of Aadhaar data.

Another major setback came for mobile wallet companies, for whom the RBI had refused to extend the deadline for KYC (Know Your Customer) beyond February 28, 2018, stating that enough time has already been granted to adhere the prescribed guidelines. With the extension of the deadline by the SC, it is believed that a majority of the mobile wallet users will not take the initiative to fulfill KYC in order to avail services. These companies are still urging the Centre to rollback stringent KYC guidelines or give some relaxations for the same so that they don’t lose their customer base.

However, challenging doubts of security, after the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 came into effect, UIDAI had asked each and every state to destroy their copy of biometric data of Aadhaar. Confirming the same, the UIDAI CEO averred that the UIDAI has already received certificates from state governments pertaining to the eradication of their own copies of Aadhaar’s biometric data.

Other Developments

Amazon Prime Video Goes Multilingual

Amazon Prime Video is looking to expand its film catalogue to include southern Indian languages like Tamil and Telugu. Amazon Prime Video has, so far, inked deals with Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions, Mukesh Bhatt’s Vishesh Films, and Bhushan Kumar’s T-Series for their entire existing and upcoming films. Others include Green Gold and Japan-based TV Asahi Corporation for kids’ content, and Tamil Nadu’s V Creations for its superhit films, including Kabali and Theri.

Mobycy Launches E-bikes

Gurugram-based Mobycy, dockless bicycle sharing startup, launched its e-bikes called ‘e-Bycy’. These bikes are powered by Lithium-ion battery and can travel up to 40 kms on full charge, with a speed of 20 km/hr. The company has priced the service at INR 15 for half an hour. The e-Bycy will be available in beta app version in Gurgaon and some parts of NCR.

Ola, Uber Drivers To Go On Strike On Monday; Meru Cabs Introduces Marketplace Model

Protesting against a sharp fall in income, strict regulation for compromising user experience and long working hours, taxi drivers of Ola and Uber will be switching their devices off in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Gurugram and others. The protest, being organised by  Taxi Union unit of Raj Thakre-led political outfit, will also see the participation of drivers’ families.

While homegrown cab service provider Meru Cabs has announced that it is now adopting a marketplace model in the ride-hailing market. For this, the company has enabled its enrolled drivers to set dynamic fares in a bid to attract more customers.

Google Maps Introduces Six New Languages For Voice Navigation

In addition to English and Hindi, Google has brought voice navigation in six additional Indian languages: Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. It has also introduced Zippr like Plus Codes, which are six character Plus city codes for locations. The codes can be generated, shared and searched by anyone by entering into the search field on Google or Google Maps. To facilitate the process of accurate and easy searching on Maps, Google has also introduced ‘Add an Address’ – a feature that enables users, to contribute to the Maps experience from the Google Maps app.

H&M Launches Online Store In India

The company is bringing all its products to Indian customers with H&M’s Shop Online, which will showcase the complete range of its collections and also several ‘online-only’ products. The H&M online store will feature clothing in ladies’, men’s, teens’, kids’, plus-size and maternity wear categories. Additionally, it will offer a complete collection of lingerie and accessories. The move is expected to strengthen its presence in metro cities and also extend its reach to tier 2 and tier 3 cities across India.

Government To Bring Mechanism To Control Counterfeit Products

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.

Flipkart Launches Technology Centre In Bengaluru

The state-of-the-art technology centre will be operational in next few weeks. It aims to strengthen the technology infrastructure, product capabilities and end-user experience for the company. 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.

Ola Starts Its Operations In Sydney

The Indian cab aggregator has hired a local team to build partnerships and support driver-partners. The company is now focusing on investing in driver-partners and supporting them with new technology, training, and ways to increase earnings.The company is also planning to roll out a number of new initiatives for both customers and driver-partners.

Innov8 Launches Center In Cyber Hub Gurugram

The fully-managed office space has the capacity to house over 500 individuals.The new centre is not just a rigorous working zone but offers various activities to rejuvenate, destress and refresh the working entrepreneurs during work hours. The lounge area comprises of recreational elements like guitars, keyboards, slanting net, Xbox, Fussball, etc. Apart from the plush office, the new centre will host occasional investor-startups meetups, ideation workshops, fireside chats, stand-ups, movie nights, family days, networking sessions amongst other events to promote a culture of networking.

Myntra Offers EMI Options

The EMI facility is now available on the platform for some products that are worth $20 (INR 1300) or less. For this, the company has tied up with HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Citibank, State Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Amex, HSBC and others and will charge 13% to 15% interest on credit card purchases of selected items that can be paid over three to 24 months. This has been done to “encourage consumers who can buy first and pay later and it will help Myntra compete with brick-and-mortar retailers.”

iCubesWire Launches Digital Marketing Suite, Delta

Delta, launched by iCubesWire, aims to address the problem of marketers i.e. providing one platform for entire digital marketing spectrum. Delta, a SaaS-based engine, will provide access to the dashboard which chronicles all digital marketing reports and data under respective modules with a single login. It also offers a built-in CRM with access to social media ad management, ORM and listening to audit analysis, competition study, influencer marketing, SEO search, creative library, etc. under one portal.

Paytm Payments Bank Powers Food Wallets For 550+ Corporates

A year after introducing food wallet solution, Paytm claimed that the solution has witnessed 50% month-on-month growth since the launch and now caters to more than 550 corporates in the country. This includes companies like  L’Oreal, Hero Motocorp,Shoppers Stop, GAP and Big Basket among others. Aimed to benefit employer, employee and merchants, the solution enables employers to instantly transfer money to food wallets of employees to be used on the go. The company claims that over 68% of the wallet balance has been used at offline food outlets including office cafeteria and restaurants.

ICICI Bank Launches InstaOD For MSMEs

With InstaOD, MSMEs can access the overdraft facility up to INR 15 Lakhs instantly for a year using bank’s mobile banking app. To ensure robust application process, the bank has added an additional level of authentication. The facility is renewable on annual basis, depending on the repayment track records of the overdraft facility. Bank also plans to introduce the online sanction of overdraft facility for MSME customers of other banks soon.

Foodpanda Launches Technology Centre In Bengaluru

The state-of-the-art technology centre will be operational in next few weeks. Ite aims to strengthen the technology infrastructure, product capabilities and end user experience for the company. The company will hire around 100 team members for the centre. Nitin Gupta, Head of Engineering at Foodpanda, will head the Bengaluru-based technology centre.

Bird Group Launches Launderette

With the launch of Bird Apps, the company also launched Launderette, an on-demand, premium-quality laundry service. Launderette’s end-to-end services include free collection and delivery as well as a selection of garment care ranging from ‘wash and fold’, ‘wash and iron’, ‘dry cleaning’ and ‘steam ironing’. After this, the company plans to launch Guide – an organised platform that will connect global travellers visiting India to travel guides and driving their revenues and SIT – a disruptive app allowing gourmands an enhanced experience by pre-ordering at their favourite restaurants.

RBL, CreditVidya Partner For Instant Employment Verification

With the partnership, RBL Bank will instantly verify the employment details of salaried individuals, consequently reducing the turnaround time for credit assessments. The bank’s retail asset (Advances) segment has been growing at a CAGR of more than 60% and it is focused on developing more in-trend products and services.

Verifone Partners With Ezetap For Digital Payment Solution For Merchants

Under the partnership, Verifone’s payment solutions and services, and Ezetap’s software and payment processing will help the companies to deliver simple and secure checkout experiences for merchants and their customers in any sector. Together, the companies will work to develop turn-key, end-to-end solutions that incorporate a variety of applications such as accounting, payroll, real-time inventory management, and loyalty.

Urban Ladder Launches Store In JP Nagar, Bengaluru

The company has opened its third store in the city and comes after recent funding of Urban Ladder aimed to build a strong omnichannel presence. The company plans to expand to 15-20 stores in India by March 2019.  Urban Ladder is offering a ‘consult a designer’ service for this upcoming weekend, wherein customers can book an appointment with one of Urban Ladder’s designers for a free design consultation.

LetsVenture Ties Up With Pioneer Fund To Make Capital Accessible To Y Combinator Startups

Bengaluru-based LetsVenture aims to enable Indian investors to invest in top 10% of the Y Combinator (YC) startups. It is a technology startup accelerator, known for launching 60+ companies valued greater than $100M and at least 10 unicorns with valuations exceeding $1Bn each. Some of the most well-known YC companies include Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, Instacart, Cruise Automation, Coinbase, Reddit, and Quora.

PayU, Kreditech Launch PayU Monedo In India

PayU Monedo aims to provide cardless EMIs for Indian customers. It enables merchants to expand their business to completely new market segments with the chance of significantly higher sales and lower cart abandonment rates. PayU Monedo offers instant short and medium-term shopping credits for their cart amount at the checkout of popular ecommerce websites.

Govt Of Andhra Pradesh Signs MoU With Belfrics Global To Develop Blockchain-Based Solutions

Under the MoU, Belfrics Global will develop blockchain-based solutions, which will help the government to run its day-to-day affairs in a smooth and systematic manner. The startup will be working closely with the government for identity management, supply chain management, education, payment solutions and business automation.

Sagoon, HT Singapore sign $5 Mn Investment Agreement

The deal with HT Singapore will enable Sagoon to reach nearly 460 Mn Indian internet users, a large chunk of Sagoon’s initial south Asian target market, through different media properties owned by HT Media including Hindustan Times and Mint etc. Sagoon will continue the development of its innovative Social Smart Card, planned for release by the end of 2018, and allowing Sagoon users to earn money while shopping, redeeming coupons, and gifting their loved ones.

Stay tuned for the next edition of News Roundup: Indian Startup News Of The Week!

The post News Roundup: 9 Indian Startup News Stories That You Don’t Want To Miss This Week [12-17 Mar 2018] appeared first on Inc42 Media.

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

Aparna Mahesh Joins BankBazaar As CMO

Online financial services marketplace BankBazaar has appointed Aparna Mahesh as the Chief Marketing Officer.

With an experience of two decades, Mahesh joins after her stint as CMO at FreshMenu. Prior to that, she headed Brand Marketing at Quikr.

At BankBazaar, she will lead the company’s marketing strategies, to drive the next phase of growth at BankBazaar from Bengaluru.

In October 2017, Chennai-based online financial marketplace BankBazaar raised $30 Mn in a funding round led by credit rating agency and information management company Experian. The funds were used to further strengthen its position as the leader in secure paperless access to loans, cards, and mutual funds.

Amagi Appoints Deepakjit Singh As CEO

Cloud playout and managed service provider Amagi has appointed Deepakjit Singh as its Chief Executive Officer.

With an experience of nearly three decades in broadcast technology, Singh has held executive positions at Encompass, Ascent Media, Bharti Airtel and BT.  Prior to this, he was Chief Innovation Officer at Encompass and Managing Director for APAC region where he grew the company’s business exponentially. Earlier, Singh served as VP of Sales and Marketing at Ascent Media, following a stint as SVP at Bharti Airtel.

At Amagi, he will work with the team to continue and expedite its growth trajectory, particularly in the US where the company expects rapid growth this year following its official launch in the region in late 2017.

Amagi offers cloud-managed broadcast services and targeted advertising for TV and OTT, enabling TV networks to launch, operate, and monetize channels anywhere in the world.

Vikas Prasad, Mayank Bishnoi Join Faircent

P2P lending company Faircent has roped in Vikas Prasad and Mayank Bishnoi on board its leadership team.  Vikas has joined Faircent as Head – Planning, Processes, and Control, while Mayank has taken over as Head – Customer Experience.

Vikas Prasad comes to the company with more than 17 years of experience in business planning and strategy; business process management and controls, and reporting and analytics. He has been associated with Avantha Ergo Life Insurance and DHFL Pramerica Life Insurance as a founder-member and has also worked with Max Life Insurance and American Express in various capacities.

Mayank Bishnoi holds an experience of 12 years in business-critical domains like product management, usage enhancement, customer retention, revenue enhancement, market research, customer life-cycle management, and customer relationship management. Prior to this, he has been associated with Jabong and Rivigo. At Rivigo, he was integral to the company’s vision of making logistics more human-centric.

At Faircent, the duo will work towards ensuring more consumer-centric products and better platform experience. The company also counts on them for next level of its growth and popularise P2P lending amongst a much larger section of the Indian population.

Soumyo Mukherji Joins Unicorn India Ventures As Advisor, Investment Committee

Unicorn India Ventures has roped in Prof Soumyo Mukherji, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Bombay as an Advisor, Investor Committee.

With over two decades of academic experience at IIT Bombay, he is also a senior faculty in the bioscience and bioengineering department of the university.

At Unicorn India Ventures, he will be involved in guiding the team in making investment decisions in Electronic System Design & Manufacturing (ESDM) sector, which includes companies working in technologies like robotics, cybersecurity, IoT, nanotech and medical devices. Prof. Mukherji will also mentor the portfolio companies currently working in this space.

WittyFeed Promotes Mayur Sethi As Partner And COO

WittyFeed has promoted Mayur Sethi as the company’s partner and Chief Operating Officer.

In his more than a decade-long experience, Sethi has worked with Havas Media and then he started his own Digital Marketing Agency, MP09 Digital, and parallelly worked on Hoppingo which is an e-commerce curation and product discovery platform.

He was working as Digital Consultant when he started working closely with the management team at WittyFeed in building the brand and managing operations. Soon after the successful re-launch of the brand and re-branding, the call was made to bring him aboard and help in shaping the vision of the company further.

Based in Indore, he will be taking care of all markets to expand the horizon of the company and empower the resources with knowledge and experience as Chief Operating Officer.

Stay tuned for the next edition of Movers And Shakers Of The Week!

The post Movers And Shakers Of The Week [12–17 March 2018] appeared first on Inc42 Media.

We bring to you the latest edition Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding of the week.

This week 13 startups raised $167.4 Mn in funding altogether and three startup acquisitions took place in the Indian startup ecosystem. (The startup funding calculations are based on the startups that disclosed funding amount.).

One of the biggest Indian startup funding this week was SoftBank leading an investment of $61.6 Mn (INR 400 Cr) in online grocery delivery startup Grofers. With this new Series E round, Grofers will continue to invest in building private labels and supply chain improvements. A significant amount of investment will go towards building infrastructure and technology and efficient supply chain management to achieve deeper penetration in existing Grofers cities.

Further, Delhi- and UK-based online fashion etailer Koovs plc is looking to raise another $32 Mn in an upcoming funding round. It plans to use the funds to strengthen its market presence in India and scale up its marketing and branding activities.

It was also reported that Walmart is planning to invest in Flipkart through a mix of primary and secondary purchase of shares. The $10 Bn-$12 Bn secondary share sale will take place at a discounted valuation. It was also estimated that if the deal goes through, Flipkart’s valuation will rise to $20 Bn from its current valuation of $14.2 Bn. Other investors like Tiger Global, Naspers etc will lower their stake or completely exit for Walmart to enter the company. However, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy will continue at his position.

Indian Startup Funding Of The Week

MCaffeine: Mumbai-based caffeinated personal care brand MCaffeine raised $500K in Pre-Series A round of funding led by Wazir Advisors, Let’s Venture and Calcutta Angel. The company will use the funds for product research and development,  inventory buildup and expansion of its product portfolio.

Vinculum: Delhi-based ecommerce software solutions provider raised $127.7K from its existing investor Song Hoi See, founder and CEO of Plaza Premium Group. This was an extended series B round of funding through allotment of preference shares.

Doubtnut: Gurugram-based multilingual online learning platform Doubtnut raised $537.7K (INR 3.5 Cr) in a Pre-Series A round of funding led by WaterBridge Ventures. The startup will use the funding to expand its platform, add more subjects, support more Indian languages and accelerate the development of several exciting new product features. Sarbvir Singh, Partner at WaterBridge Ventures, will join Doubtnut’s Board of Directors and Omidyar Network will also appoint a Director to the Board.

Stumagz: Hyderabad-based Stumagz, a digital campus communications and collaboration platform for educational institutions, raised an Angel Round of funding of an undisclosed amount from a group of US-based investors. The company will use funds for geographical and technological expansion.

Purple Quarter: Abhishek Goyal, founder of California-based startup Tracxn, and Mekin Maheshwari, a former senior executive at Flipkart, have invested in Bengaluru-based Purple Quarter, a technology head recruitment startup.

Wedeterna: Kochi-based Wedeterna, an online platform for self-arranged marriages raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from Singapore-based entrepreneur Avish Joseph. The company will use the funds to acquire customers, develop its products, and build Android and iOS apps.

Appiyo Technologies: Chennai-based Appiyo Technologies, a startup offering enterprise workflow automation solution, raised $500K in a Seed round of funding led by Axilor Ventures, with participation from The Chennai Angels and others. The company will use the newly raised funding to expand its services globally.

Avail Finance: Bengaluru-based Avail Finance, an online lending platform, raised $17.2 Mn in a Series A funding round led by Matrix Partners. Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Ola’s co-founders; Binny Bansal, co-founder and group CEO of Flipkart; Kunal Shah, founder of Freecharge; and Manish Patel, founder and CEO of Mswipe, also participated in the round.The round is a mix of debt and equity.

SmartQ: Bengaluru-based SmartQ, a foodtech platform, raised close to $1 Mn in funding from a consortium of Dubai based investors. The existing investor, YourNest has also participated in this round. The company plans to use the funds to expand its business in India and also globally with a stronger team. It will also use the funds to roll out first of its kind product portfolio for the customers.

Pine Labs: New Delhi-based Pine Labs, a digital retail payments platform, raised a funding round of $82 Mn led by Actis Capital and Altimeter Capital. The company will use the funds to accelerate its network penetration in India and expand outside India.

HealthAssure: Mumbai-based HealthAssure, a healthtech startup, raised $ 1 Mn in a Pre-Series A round of funding led by The HR Fund. The company plans to use the funds to further develop new consumer products in primary healthcare, digitising the ecosystem, and building extensive distribution.

Peritus.ai: California and Bengaluru-headquartered AI focussed startup Peritus.ai has raised $2 Mn in funding from VC firm Ideaspring Capital and early-stage fund The Hive. The company will use the funds to strengthen its development team in India.

Healofy: Bengaluru-based Healofy, a parenting social network startup, raised $1 Mn in a Seed funding round from Omidyar Network. The company will use the funds to hire talent in leadership positions across product, technology and data science; to build onto the existing personalisation engine and layer in multiple regional languages on their platform.

Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week

• Hyderabad-based online gaming platform, Ace2three acquired a majority stake in fantasy gaming platform FanFight with an investment of $1 Mn. The investment made in FanFight will be used for improving the marketing, hiring people with tech and analytical skills, as well as scaling the online product.
• California-based payments solution company, Wibmo, acquired Bengaluru-based payment technology startup Mypoolin in an undisclosed amount. 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.
• Seattle-based investor RoundGlass Partners has acquired parenting memories and milestone platform BabyOnBoard for an undisclosed amount. With this development, the startup will expand and enhance its Blossom product range for its online users.
• Mumbai-headquartered data analytics company Fractal Analytics has acquired behavioural architecture company Final Mile. Final Mile’s behavioural science, combined with Fractal’s data science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities, will help their clients drive lasting behaviour change internally and externally.
• OYO announced its plans to go on an acquisition spree. For its prospective acquisitions the company is exploring various companies including hotel companies to IoT(internet of things) based technologies. The company is looking for mature bootstrapped companies, regardless of their revenue, and is in talks with some such companies.

Other Developments Of The Week

• MetLife launched “collab 3.0 EMEA,” a global open innovation platform inviting entrepreneurs and insurtechs to scale their business with MetLife. The company is inviting insurtech startups to compete for a $100K contract to develop solutions across insurance value chains in areas such as customer engagement, sales, and operations, and to pilot these solutions with MetLife EMEA. The applications are open till April 20, 2018.

• 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. It aims to provide the participants an opportunity to portray their out-of-the-box products and services and seek support from the government. The IT Day event will majorly host five programmes TechRush, Hackathon 4.0, Eduhack, Green-a-thon and eMitra/ITGK Connect for the different community of individuals. Also, recently, the state government’s flagship initiative iStart announced that it has enrolled 700 startups on the platform in just four months since its launch in November 2017.
• Embarking on a journey to support entrepreneurship in India, 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. Also, 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.
• Amongst the ten tourism startups shortlisted by global travel ecommerce company, Booking.com, Global Himalayan Expedition and Sakha Consulting Wings are the two Indian startups. The 2018 Booking Booster Programme offers grants up to $ 616.82K from Booking.com’s $2.46 Mn fund. The 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.
• AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education) has received support from Bihar to enhance student startup movement in state-run universities and higher educational institutions under its national student startup policy. To take the first step, Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, AICTE and his policy implementation team met Satya Pal Malik, Governor of Bihar and discussed the efforts to kickstart the student startup policy actions in Bihar. The team has also met Governor of Gujarat to discuss the roadmap for implementation of this policy.
• Artha India Ventures has got the final nod from SEBI for its Category-I fund which is expected to raise $31.5 Mn (INR 200 Cr). The Artha Venture Fund-I aims to make small-ticket size investments in around 40-45 startups.
• Global aerospace and security giant Lockheed Martin will open applications for its annual India innovation growth programme (IIGP) to seek innovative ideas of Indian startups and university students.The applications for the programme will open on March 21.
• Gujarat University launched its Startup and innovation policy which envisions Gujarat University as a hub of global standards for creating, nurturing and supporting innovative businesses across a variety of sectors.It creates several initiatives, reforms, and mandates which are divided into several platforms like infrastructural platform, academic platform, skill development platform etc.
• Kalaari Capital, one of the early investors in Snapdeal, is looking to sell its 8% stake in the ecommerce firm. The venture capital firm has held conversations with the company’s promoters to sell its stake, in entirety or partially. However in case it does, Kalaari Capital could sell its stake in Snapdeal for $6.1 Mn-$7.7 Mn (INR 40 Cr-INR 50 Cr) which would entail a massive cut from its overall investment of about $20.8 Mn (INR 135 Cr) in the company.

Stay tuned for the next edition of Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week!

The post Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [12-17 March 2018] appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Building a SaaS business is hard. But scaling-up a SaaS business is one of the most difficult things imaginable.

With the influence of VC funding, many SaaS founders are forced to think about scaling-up long before they are ready for it. It’s like asking a baby to become a world-class sprinter before he/she can even walk.

Success in SaaS is all about making the right decisions at the right time. When the scaling-up strategy starts to enter the conversation prematurely, many companies will fail.

In my experience in both advising dozens of startups and also building a multimillion-dollar SaaS company, I can confidently say that there are two key elements that must be in place before the word ‘scale-up’ even enters a founder’s mind.

Getting the Product-Market Fit

Nothing is more important in SaaS than getting the Product-Market fit. It may seem elementary, but if you don’t have it, you are sunk before you start.

Finding the Product-Market fit is a process of asking three questions.

1. Have you identified the right problem?

Do you know exactly what the issue is that you are solving? Can you state it clearly and succinctly?

Many SaaS products attempt to solve too many problems. One of our earlier products Visual PaaS, was much more technologically capable than KiSSFLOW. However, it solved too many problems and was hard to sell. KiSSFLOW only tackled workflow management and immediately appealed to people.

Once you find the right problem, it becomes the headline on your website. For us, the problem was summed up in “Automate Work, Reduce Chaos”. That message continues to connect with our audience.

2. Do you have a divergent solution and most importantly a solution that works 10x better?

The most important difference between your company and a competitor is the unique way you solve the problem when compared to others. Often, this is called a USP or differentiator. These two words have been abused so much that it no longer invokes any feeling in our minds. So think of this new word – “Divergence”.

Is your solution divergent enough from other players who are solving the same problem? Over time all categories loose divergence and become homogenous until a new player comes with a divergent idea and that is called disruption. Are you that disruptor?

3. Do you have the right pricing?

You know you’ve hit the right Product-Market fit when you have strangers buying your product and not just friends of friends. Real validation is unknown people buying your software and agreeing to the price you’ve quoted with little negotiation.

Of course, if people are buying from you without blinking, you may need to increase your prices. We doubled our price per user per month from $3 to $6, and then again raised it to $9 and customers still identify us as a very cost-effective solution.

This five-step product tear down that I created for SaaSX3 would be a good starting place for your product-market fit assessment journey.

Getting the Flywheel Moving

The second thing that must happen before you scale-up is to get your flywheel moving. Getting your flywheel moving is a meta-process that cuts across marketing, sales, customer success and support functions of your company. This encompasses your marketing process and sales process. The flywheel meta process for Freshdesk is different from that of KiSSFLOW and very different from that of ChargeBee all though all these three products are B2B SaaS and might appear very similar.

To get your flywheel moving you need to find those one or two marketing channels that deliver good, consistent results.  Given that most B2B SaaS products are either free trial or freemium model, once the visitor comes to your site they should be able to easily get to feel the product and the product needs to deliver the marketing promise. Engagement is a by-product of this.

Highly engaged customers buy on their own aka self-service, but that will be only 10%. The bulk of the people are fence-sitters and they need to be push to purchase. This is where your sales process comes in. Once you are able to make the sale then you need your customer success team to help your disloyal customer to taste success as soon as possible to get on the loyalty treadmill. If that doesn’t happen, churn happens.

It takes anywhere between 9 to 18 months for most SaaS companies to really get the flywheel moving and once it starts moving, it is hard to stop it…

The Real Scaling-up

Unfortunately, in recent times real scaling-up has become synonymous with VC funding. Achieving product-market fit and getting the flywheel moving alone is NOT the necessary condition to start pouring rocket fuel aka VC Money for brute force scaling. That will be a futile effort, and a waste of money, time and emotional energy. You need close to a billion dollar market to take the VC route to build out your business.

The real scaling-up activity unfortunately is less sexy and involves more grunt work. Doing more of the same in a faster, cheaper, better way ensures your flywheel gains enormous amount of speed.

The scaling-up activities will often result in disproportionate amounts of time spent on hiring the right talent, putting the right people in the right seats, building open communication channels, developing a work culture, creative destruction of processes that seem perfectly fine, re-organizing teams, spending huge amounts of time resolving conflicts, figuring out a way to kill politics/gossip and many more things like this.

Happy Scaling-up!

The post What Does It Take To Scale-up A SaaS Business appeared first on Inc42 Media.

This is one of the most exciting times to be part of marketing. New technologies are changing how we approach our target audiences and existing customers. While challenging to a certain extent in terms of understanding what this technology is capable of doing for our marketing objectives (with many technologies still evolving), there are many ways you can start benefiting from what already exists.

Augmented reality is defined by Live Science as a technology that adds another dimension to how we view the world by layering information onto what we currently experience in the form of visuals, sounds and other sensory experiences. As opposed to virtual reality, augmented reality changes your reality to a certain degree but does not immerse you in a different world.

Companies such as Google Glass have developed devices to incorporate augmented reality into their product. Now, they are seeking additional ways to create new experiences for their customers and prospects with this technology.

While you may not be at the point where you can develop the technology, you can think of ways to use what’s already out there in your own marketing strategy.

Here are some ideas.

Content Marketing

Think of augmented reality as adding another dimension to what you are already implementing with your content. It allows your audience to upgrade the content they are interacting with by adding or subtracting filters or visual stickers you can create and provide. Empower them to customize the content how they like before sharing it with others.

Both you and your audience help create that dimension. For example, you can use it in your product catalog. Allow the user to lay a product over a certain environment to see how it would fit or work for them. Consider how augmented reality can provide that “try before you buy” feeling so buyers can experience more realistic online purchases.

In this way, augmented reality content could be the solution for a challenge that has plagued industries related to selling furniture, makeup and clothing online. Focus on the fun, accessibility and visualization aspects within your augmented reality content, keeping in mind what your audience wants to see and how it will help them.

Advertising

This strategy in content and messaging doesn’t have to uniquely apply to your website. You can incorporate the “try before you buy” approach into advertising campaigns. Think about taking gamification in advertising. Enhance interaction and immersion using augmented reality. Give the user more control of what direction your advertising will take them without losing the ability to get your message across. Make the user feel empowered and less like they are being sold to.

You can incorporate virtual tours and case studies that the user manipulates to navigate to the offer that is of the greatest value to them. That also helps enhance the personalization aspect of what you are trying to achieve.

App Development

If your budget and technology talent can accommodate it, the next step in leveraging augmented reality within your company is developing your own apps that allow your audience to interact with your brand more directly.

Using this strategy, some brands have already found that they can convince users that their app provides superior interaction features over existing social media platforms. As a result, others have joined users on these apps and created a social-media based community around that brand. Encourage users to share their augmented reality experiences in terms of how they are using the app and what it can do for them.

Things To Ponder Before Adding Augmented Reality

Like any marketing technology or social media platform, you shouldn’t toss augmented reality into your marketing strategy because it seems like the thing to do or because everyone else is doing it. This type of technology may not yet be ready or relevant to every industry. Make sure you can effectively use augmented reality in one or more of the aforementioned ways.

Before launching any use of augmented reality, test it again and again until you know it offers a truly unique, engaging experience for your audience. This may mean investing in user testing, which is well worth the return to ensure you get it right. If you can get the audience excited from the start, the virtual enthusiasm will rise incrementally. That will give you something to build on with your other marketing efforts and potentially increase the number of shares and likes you receive through social media.

Take it slow. Stay attuned to further developments in augmented reality so you can add the technological innovations as you continue using it throughout your marketing strategy and beyond.

In partnership with Citi, the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship programme that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

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Causing frenzy for cab operators as well as cab-dependent commuters, drivers of ride-hailing companies, Ola and Uber, have now threatened to go on an indefinite strike from the midnight of March 18.

The strike, organised by Maharashtra Navnirman Vahatuk Sena, will be observed in major metro cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune etc.

Talking to PTI, Sanjay Naik of Maharashtra Navnirman Vahatuk Sena said, “Ola and Uber had given big assurances to the drivers, but today they are unable to cover their costs. They have invested $7691- $10,767 (INR 5-7 lakh), and were expecting to make $2307 (INR 1.5 lakh) a month but are unable to even make half of this, owing to the mismanagement by these companies.”

Drivers used to earn this amount during the 2014-16 period when Ola and Uber were giving lucrative incentives to the taxi drivers. However, over the past 12-18 months, incentives have gone dry as the duo gradually strengthened their supply sides.

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

He also alleged that the companies are prioritising their fleet over driver-owned vehicles, causing a slump in driver’s businesses.

Earlier, Inc42 had reported that the drivers are going on a strike to protest against a sharp fall in income, strict regulation for compromising user experience and long working hours.

Maharashtra To Bring Private Taxis Under City Taxi Norms

In a related development, Maharashtra government is planning to bring private cab aggregators like Ola and Uber under its city taxi norms, under which they would have to use CNG as the fuel to curb pollution.

Maharashtra Transport Minister Diwakar Raote informed this during supplementary queries in the Legislative Council over arrogant attitude of auto-rickshaws and taxi drivers in Mumbai, who he claimed either refuse fares or overcharge.

He stated that various government measures will follow to curb this and also claimed that it is already working to address passengers’ complaints.

As the major cab aggregators look for funds from foreign backers, they have been trying to make a profitable front by increasing fares as well as lessening driver incentives.

Amid this, the strike organised by drivers of Ola and Uber is bound to cause hassle in the public transport system of the cities. However, it has to be seen whether the strike affects the cab-hailing companies enough to give in to the drivers’ demands.

[The development was reported by ET.]

The post Ola, Uber Drivers Threaten Indefinite Strike From Sunday Midnight appeared first on Inc42 Media.

At a time when Bitcoin is less up more down, Google announced plans to ban cryptocurrency-related ads, Indian banks including HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra, Citibank and some other banks have suspended trading accounts of Bitcoin exchanges. HDFC and Citibank have even stopped their cards from being used for Bitcoin purchases. The question, therefore, remains, has the Bitcoin bubble burst in India?

It has been a decade since the peer-to-peer electronic payments system in the form of cryptocurrencies was developed by Satoshi Nakamoto. However, amid huge popularity of Bitcoin across the world, awareness and understanding of how the technology works among the common people has not increased significantly, as one of the top comedians of Hollywood, John Oliver, in his show Last Week Tonight tried to explain Bitcoin with the same old question ‘What, how and why’, and failed miserably in that bit.

John Oliver is not the first, badgers and jam, Ellen DeGeneres, Seth Meyers and Trevor Noah have already killed it.

The world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is full of humour; one just needs to cross the first chapter of who, what and why. John Oliver’s ex-boss Jon Stewart in his show The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, while covering the fall of Mt. Gox, did it three years back.

Let’s take a look at the recent developments from the world of Cryptocurrency!

Google To Ban Cryptocurrency-Related Ads Including ICOs

After Facebook announced to ban cryptocurrency related ads earlier this year, the global search engine giant Google is now set to ban all cryptocurrency-related ads including ICOs.

The $809 Bn company (Alphabet) has brought a new restricted financial products policy that will go into effect from June 2018 onwards.

While the last Financial Services Policy of Google had nowhere mentioned Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or any other related topics; however, the newly released restricted financial products policy restricts the advertisement of Contracts for Difference, rolling spot forex and financial spread betting and cryptocurrency-related product ads.

Google stated, ads for the following will no longer be allowed to serve:

• Binary options and synonymous products
• Cryptocurrencies and related content (including but not limited to initial coin offerings, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets and cryptocurrency trading advice)

Speaking to CNBC, Scott Spencer, Director of Sustainable Ads, Google  stated, “We don’t have a crystal ball to know where the future is going to go with cryptocurrencies, but we’ve seen enough consumer harm or potential for consumer harm that it’s an area that we want to approach with extreme caution.”

HDFC Bank Bars People Trading Bitcoin And Other Cryptocurrencies With Its Cards

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, BofA, 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 the RBI’s 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.

Hackers Are Now Using UPSC Website For Cryptojacking

Some anonymous hackers are now using in-browser crypto-jacking on India’s leading public services commission UPSC website for Monero mining.

A US-based security researcher Troy Mursch shared the screenshot showing Coinhive on the website of Union Public Service Commission (India) – http://www.upsc.gov.in.

He tweeted, “This is an interesting case of cryptojacking as it’s injecting the short URL form of Coinhive (cnhv[.]co) via the code shown in the screenshot. It appears the script injects Coinhive in the first iframe (https://cnhv[.]co/1wzlq) and then waits until the user is idle for 10 seconds before invoking the second iframe (https://cnhv[.]co/1vrzj).”

The cryptocurrency mining crime is growing fast. After it was reported that Russian Supercomputers placed at nuclear sites were hacked by none other than their own nuclear scientists to mine Bitcoins, some 600 powerful computers in Iceland that were originally used to mine Bitcoin have been stolen for reportedly the same purpose.

Last month hackers had hacked Tesla Kubernetes console to mine cryptocurrencies. The details pertaining to mining software and more have not come out yet, as the attackers hid the true IP address of the mining pool server behind CloudFlare, a free content delivery network (CDN) service.

France Blacklists 15 Cryptocurrency Websites

The French stock market regulator, the Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF) has announced to blacklist 15 cryptocurrency websites which according to its press statement violated the “Sapin II” law which deals with transparency, corruption and the modernisation of economic life, introducing a change in the system of intermediation in miscellaneous assets.

According to the AMF, ”The investment proposals highlighting the possibility of a financial return or a similar economic effect involve intermediation in miscellaneous assets and are now subject to ex ante control by the AMF. Consequently, no offer can be directly marketed in France on without prior allocation by the AMF of a registration number.”

As per Politico, France has always been wary of the risk involved in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire is among the most vocal advocates for regulation. Paris wanted to “avoid the risks of speculation or possible financial traffics linked to bitcoin.”

Francois Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France has even said, “Bitcoin is a speculative asset and people who invest in it do so at their own risk”

Speaking at a conference in China, Villeroy had then stated, “We need to be clear: Bitcoin is in no way a currency or even a cryptocurrency. It is a speculative asset. Its value and extreme volatility have no economic basis, and they are nobody’s responsibility. The Bank of France reminds those investing in bitcoin that they do so entirely at their own risk.”

Coinbase Receives Its E-money License In The UK

In a major development, San-Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has been granted an e-money license by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Announcing the same, Zeeshan Feroz, CEO, Coinbase-UK said, “Our e-money license will extend beyond the UK to 23 countries within the EU. We believe that this is an important step towards our commitment to making cryptocurrency accessible to everyone.”

Zeeshan also announced that Coinbase will be the first crypto-exchange to support the UK’s Faster Payments Scheme.

On supporting faster payments scheme, he stated, “Coinbase will add support for the UK’s Faster Payments Scheme (FPS). By replacing SEPA for UK customers, Faster Payments will offer a familiar payment experience and is supported by all major UK banks.”

“UK customers will benefit from faster, safer and seamless bank transfers. We will start with a pilot, giving a small number of institutional users access to Faster Payments. In the coming weeks, we will begin rolling out to all UK customers, making the Coinbase experience increasingly easier,” he added.

After extending some warmth to Bitcoin, it appears banking systems world over are now shying away from cryptocurrency usage. While everyone is literally awed by the underlying technology blockchain, they seem to be awfully unsure about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Is it because the major stakeholders – developers, bankers/economists and policymakers – are not on the same page?

The post Cryptocurrency This Week: UPSC Website Hacked For Cryptojacking, Google Bans Bitcoin Ads And More appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Master Persuader, Warren Buffett, recently released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholders. If you need the best investment advice, then read his letter. But if you want to improve your leadership and persuasion game, we are covered.

Together we will learn five of the most important lessons from the Oracle of Omaha for selling people on any of our ideas and inspiring them.

New research in the journal Behavioral and Brian Sciences shows that reasoning evolved in early humans more for the sake of winning arguments than as a guide to effective decision making. If you try to persuade people by directly reasoning with them they often argue and resist. Buffett’s style of buy-and-hold investing is easy and is not based on intricate trading algorithms.

The best way to persuade and inspire people is to apply simple, ordinary techniques that fly under the radar. A Master Persuader knows that people cannot resist what they don’t detect.

Let’s pry open Buffett’s treasure chest and extract his buried persuasion gold that was highly effective but went mostly unnoticed.

Own Up To Your Mistakes Early On For Instant Credibility

Buffett admits that they are holding on to too much cash and were unable to make a deal.

“At yearend Berkshire held $116.0 Bn in cash and U.S. Treasury Bills…this extraordinary liquidity earns only a pittance and is far beyond the level Charlie and I wish Berkshire to have.”

When you start with a drawback, you build credibility and trust with your audience early. Later, when you get to the pros of your case, they will come to believe in them more. Glossing over weaknesses only at the end makes you less credible and leads to more argumentation with your strengths.

Use Strong Visuals To Prime Their Imagination For Maximum Persuasive Effect

Visual persuasion is the most effective form. If you get people to imagine where you want to lead them, they are essentially half-convinced right off the bat. “…the cash register will ring loudly.”

On how some CEO’s have a penchant for excessive deal making:

“If Wall Street analysts or board members urge that brand of CEO to consider possible acquisitions, it’s a bit like telling your ripening teenager to be sure to have a normal sex life.”

“Don’t ask the barber whether you need a haircut.”

Cialdini’s 7th principle of influence: Unity or being one OF us.

As he and Charlie Munger get older, a major concern for shareholders has been who will take over from them. Buffett recently appointed two longtime Berkshire executives, Gregory Abel and Ajit Jain, to vice chairman roles. He calms succession fears by talking about them as unitized family members of Berkshire. We are persuaded better by people who we view as part of our family–i.e., who are of us and this will make shareholders come to accept the new leadership more readily when the time comes.

“Each has been with Berkshire for decades, and Berkshire’s blood flows through their veins. The character of each man matches his talents. And that says it all.”

Dispel Their Fears And Inspire A Sense Of Security

Anyone who puts to rest our fears gains a privileged persuasive hold on us. We automatically grow to like and trust them more.

“We will attempt to alleviate this problem by continuing our practice of publishing financial reports late on Friday, well after the markets close…”

“We have intentionally constructed Berkshire in a manner that will allow it to comfortably withstand economic discontinuities…”

“…Charlie and I sleep well.” (Superb optics, also fulfills Lesson #2)

Encourage People’s Dreams And Aspirations (Self-Actualization)

We will do anything for those who encourage our dreams and back us up rather than people who steer us towards their own selfish goals.

“In America, equity investors have the wind at their back.”

And at the end of the letter he eloquently closes with a Rudyard Kipling poem to further motivate his shareholders:

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs . . .If you can wait and not be tired by waiting . . .If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim . . .
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you…Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.”

Master Persuaders inspire us, calm our fears and are one of us. They clearly articulate their vision and take genuine steps to immediately become credible and trustworthy.

If we keep it simple and follow Warren Buffett’s lead, we can all strike persuasion gold.

#Leadership, #CareerDevelopment, #Persuasion, #Influence, #DecisionMaking

The post Five Golden Leadership Lessons From Warren Buffett To Inspire People And Sell Ideas appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After starting our business, we envisioned competing with secondary ticket marketplaces such as StubHub and Ticketmaster. It’s become increasingly difficult to imagine where we’ll be five years from now.

From having next to nothing in 2011 (our first year on the market) to reach nearly $50 Mn in ticket sales in the last 12 months, our company has lived up to many of our original expectations.

But realistically, we only represent a small percentage of the ticket resale business. Though we continue to grow and make the difference we wanted to see in this industry, as both an entrepreneur and businessman, the question of when to sell is always looming.

Last year, a healthy offer made its way to the table: one which promised a seven-digit payout and 10% ownership in the new joint company. Sure, the prospect of selling was appealing, especially after five years of hard work and a pretty dismal salary.

Even though we technically wouldn’t be selling out entirely, we still felt the valuation was low. And in order for the acquisition to be successful, in addition to bearing additional paydays for us, the new joint company needed to be valued much higher, around $100 Mn.

Understanding A Fair Valuation 

We learned a lot from this first opportunity to sell. First, there will likely be a discrepancy between how much you think your company is worth versus what others are willing to pay, especially in the case of small businesses like ours. To prepare for this, many companies take the “comparable model” approach.

Look at other transactions that have taken place within your industry to see which terms are practical for your business. With this knowledge, you can make the argument your company should be similarly valued. Though these terms are often private and difficult to obtain, it’s important to do so.

At the end of the day, if you value your company at $100M but no one is willing to pay for it, then it’s up to you to become more realistic. When it comes to selling, your company is only worth what someone else is willing to buy it for. A general rule of thumb:

If the discrepancy is within 15-25%, you should be able to make a deal. If it’s off by 50% or more, you’re going to have big problems.

Identifying Mission And Vision Alignment 

When it comes to selling, we want to find a partner who not only had deep pockets but who is also on board with our mission and won’t steer too far away from this path. This can be incredibly challenging since it’s difficult to find buyers in the first place. But when the time is right, we’ll spend a considerable amount of time reaching out to funds, companies and individuals we think we’d partner well with.

If selling appears to be the right move, we’ll be working extremely hard to find a partner with the best potential.

Though money is certainly a dominant factor, it’s not our only driving force as a company. So we’ve continued to roll the dice, a decision based primarily on gut feeling and knowing what is best for the company — or at least what feels best. Having a great business partner makes this much easier, as we’re in constant conversation regarding when to sell.

Going With Your Gut And Sticking To Your Strategy

We knew that if we could continue to double our sales, we could hold off, keep scaling the business, and in the end be much better off. And we did just that. Still, after partly achieving what we set out to do, a sale seems inevitable.

Part of being an entrepreneur is taking on greater financial risks in order to operate and organize the business you set out to create. If we were to sell to a private equity company, one that would likely increase commissions to double profitability, our brand value would be damaged, and in a few years, I’d likely find myself battling the same problems I had with the ticket industry five years ago.

For the time being, we’ll continue “rolling the dice” for as long as the company can afford to, or until we meet the perfect potential buyer.

As of now, we can afford five more years of being our own growing entity without compromising our mission. If (and when) the time comes for us to sell, I hope that my driving motivations will be to maintain a company whose intentions are good and to keep the business on the path forward in this difficult industry.

About The Author

Brett Goldberg is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of TickPick. TickPick is a technology company focused on improving fans lives by providing them access to cheaper tickets and by creating products & services that simplify the consumer experience.

In partnership with Citi, the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship programme that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

The post Determining Whether Or Not Now Is the Time to Sell Your Company appeared first on Inc42 Media.