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Blockchain-powered P2P startup for the entertainment sector MinersINC has raised angel funding from V C Bothra, a Singapore-based businessman. It aims to enable creators of entertainment content — movies, music, games, etc — reach out to consumers, who can access the content directly and also rate it.

Founded in October 2017 by Nitin Narkhede and Deepak Jayaram, MinersINC is using blockchain to enable a robust technology-driven system that can offer solutions problems faced by the Indian entertainment industry such as piracy, revenue leakages, rights management, and opaque systems.

The Singapore-headquartered, MinersINC, with focus on India, has been developing a new platform in stealth mode for the last nine months. It plans to launch its platform in the fall of 2018.

Nitin Narkhede, co-founder, MinersINC, said, “MinersINC was started because we wanted to create an ecosystem that makes consumers a core and integral part of the of the entertainment economy. We also wanted to provide means for creators to personalise content and express freely while getting closer to their consumers. Blockchain technology will be at the heart of this platform and will give us a truly democratic platform.”

MinersINC: Connecting Creators & Consumers

To address the lack of connect between creators and consumers, MinercINC plans to deploy a community-driven approach in the entertainment sector for content creation and distribution, enabling direct and more rewarding interactions between all the stakeholders that make up the entertainment economy.

With a presence in India as Mangata technologies Pvt. Ltd, the company aims at providing benefits to all stakeholders of the economy – creators, consumers, and regulators.

With use case of Blockchain, the company wants to empower creators to sell directly to their intended audience making it a capital-light model from production to content distribution.

Further, with its engaged consumer community, the company will enable consumers to participate and drive activities on the platform and also get incentivised for their passion and attention.

For its product MYNK, Blockchain is being used to prevent potential revenue leakages and promote transparency in transactions, thereby adding to the exchequer’s revenues while reducing the need for them to spend on enforcement.

Deepak Jayaram (Deejay), co-founder, MinersINC, said: “Great cinema is our collective legacy, but content needs to discover its true value and not become a victim of an archaic distribution system which limits audience choices instead of enhancing them. Our platform will create an engaging environment which will reward consumers for following their passion for entertainment.”

Blockchain Gaining Foothold In India

In the world arguing over cryptocurrencies, the underlying technology— blockchain— has gained significant impetus. Even in India, the states like Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Telangana and Maharashtra are either working on the pilot projects or are in the process of developing PoCs for e-governance, based on the Blockchain.

While the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has directed telecom operators to adopt blockchain technology to register telemarketers and to improve the complaint redressal system for unsolicited calls.

However, investments in the sector have been very few and far in between. Recently, Blockchain-based job-listing startup SpringRole raised $1.3 Mn private funding from its early investors – AlphaBlock Investments, Brock Pierce and Scott Walker’s Blockchain investment and consulting firm DNA, Isaac Lee’s BlockWater, and Wavemaker Genesis.

A market research published by outbound HR company Belong found that only 0.25% i.e. 5000 of the entire 2 Mn-member Indian developers community have the capability to work on blockchain-related projects.

According to 6Wresearch, India’s blockchain market is set to grow at a CAGR of 58% during 2018-2024. No wonder, companies across sectors are increasingly looking to find use cases for the blockchain.

The post MinersINC Finds Blockchain Use Case In Entertainment, Picks Up Angel Funding appeared first on Inc42 Media.

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Have you ever wondered why a lingerie ad pops up while you’re browsing a sports website for updates on, say, cricket, even if you’ve never run an online search for lingerie products?

Running ads on websites is a popular mode of monetisation for companies — especially for digital-first ones — but some websites just can’t seem to correlate their ads with their content, and this can result in a UX disaster, putting off visitors to the site so much that they find an alternate site. Now, which website would want that?

But why should this happen in these times of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered recommendation engines, where data related to users’ interests is gathered and mined continuously to make ad selection and targeting more intelligent.

Clearly, not all websites have their recommendation game down pat.

Gurugram-based Staqu has developed an artificial intelligence-powered recommendation engine that adds context to ads based on the website content, for a seamless and unobtrusive user experience. Other than the ad solution, it also recommends relevant links to information, again in line with the context. The solution can be integrated on any kind of website, from ecommerce to news, the company says.

Not only that. Beyond addressing the relatively simplistic concerns of marketing departments of companies, Staqu is solving much bigger problems through big data — that of identifying criminals and finding missing persons.

In November last year, Staqu launched an AI-based human efface detection (ABHED) application for effective policing. The app, when integrated with a police database, helps police officers in identifying criminals and search for missing people. The startup has integrated the solution for police departments of eight Indian states, including Rajasthan and Punjab.

Staqu’s New, Improved Recommendation System

But let’s first understand how the startup’s recommendation engine works and how it’s different from other such systems. Atul Rai, co-founder and CEO, of Staqu explains this with a use case of the solution when applied to video content.

“Let’s say you’re watching a video of Shahrukh Khan, who is wearing a jacket and you like the jacket. The engine correlates the jacket to products on different ecommerce websites, and if that jacket is available, for instance, on Myntra, the engine will show you related ads,” Rai says.

“We are creating a Google of recommendation wherein we’re not capturing user data but rather provide related links to content that correlate to the content one is exploring on different websites,” he adds.

Rai says that Staqu’s recommendation solution relies heavily on AI-driven analysis. “While analysing videos, we perform speech and image analysis, and for ecommerce platforms, we perform both text and image analysis,” says Rai. In addition, the engine can also be used to identify the voices of different speakers. The startup claims that its voice recognition feature has 89.5% accuracy.

A Predictive Policing Solution To Curb Crimes

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Staqu’s other offering is an AI-powered predictive policing solution that is helping police officers identify criminals and missing persons and even predict crimes.

The predictive policing solution uses an advanced hybrid AI technology that amalgamates different neural network models to process image, speech, and text and extracts meaningful information from the analysis. The aim is to help law enforcers in decision making while dealing with criminals.

The company has developed an app that provides authorised police personnel with secured login IDs and access to the database.

“Police officers can automatically profile criminals or missing people and also gain access to their biometric information such as fingerprints, voice, and facial recognition. The system can also be integrated with the current Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) system,” says Rai. The CCTNS is a project of the Indian government aimed at creating a comprehensive and integrated system for effective policing through e-governance.

Staqu claims that the solution has helped the Punjab police nab more than 100 criminals.

In January this year, Staqu’s AI-powered predictive policing technology was selected by the Dubai police from solutions of over 677 other startups. Rai says, “The Dubai police want to integrate AI with their current programmes and databases in order to leverage analytics and statistics to support the decision-making process.”

The startup will assist the Dubai police in identifying criminals and predicting criminal activities based on heuristic data. According to Rai, Staqu’s solution will also enable the Dubai police to detect lies and ensure quicker response times during situations of emergency.

An AI-Powered Journey

Rai along with Chetan Rexwal, Anurag Saini, and Pankaj Kumar Sharma founded Staqu in 2015. Rai is focused on AI research and managing the company. Rexwal and Saini, both expert coders who had worked on building mobile-based apps or native apps that could be integrated directly into the operating system of a mobile and be deployed instantly, took care of the app development.

“Our team fit was complete with Pankaj joining and taking over server development. A business that is going to sift through copious amounts of data needs a strong network infrastructure right from the start,” says Rai.

Staqu’s prime focus is on AI-based research, image processing, deep learning, computer vision, and natural language processing (NLP), among other emerging technologies.

The startup raised $7.2K (INR 500K) in seed funding from Indian Angel Network in June 2016.

AI is a tool to extract meaningful information from big data. With India being one of the major countries creating tonnes of user data, many startups have started leveraging AI to draw both analytical and predictive insights from data and cater to the needs of various sectors.

Staqu directly competes with Bengaluru-based defence startup Tonbo Imaging, which offers a suite of solutions for military reconnaissance, infrastructure security, and transportation safety. It also provides imaging products and intellectual property cores that can be licensed by OEMs and systems integrators.

Similarly, there is IoT-based border security solutions provider CRON Systems, which provides security solutions for border defence and commercial security applications. The company claims to be working with the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Indian Army. It combines deep research in lasers, data, artificial intelligence, encrypted communications, and automation to offer accurate intruder detection and deterrence infrastructure.

NASSCOM recently released its Artificial Intelligence Primer 2018, which revealed that India saw more than 400 AI startups and nearly $150 Mn invested in the last five years. Overall funding in the sector went up from $44 Mn in 2016 to $73 Mn 2017.

Some of the top AI investments in recent times include SigTuple ($19 Mn), Active Intelligence ($8 Mn), Observe ($8 Mn), Uniphore ($7 Mn), CreditVidya ($5 Mn) and Edge Network ($5 Mn). Investors leading AI funding in India are Accel Partners, IDG Ventures, Sequoia, Matrix Partners, Axilor, and India Angel Network, among others, the report says.

Staqu, after its AI-based recommendation and security solutions, now plans to foray into the banking sector. Rai, however, refuses to spill the beans on its new solution. “We are developing a niche solution for the banking sector, which will be launched soon,” he says, smiling cryptically.

In the meantime, here’s hoping we don’t get spammed with enticing food recommendations and recipe videos while we’re on a diet. Here’s also hoping that AI solutions one day truly enable India to reduce its spiralling crime rates.

The post How Staqu Is Making A Case For AI In Policing, And Also Building Better Recommendation Engines appeared first on Inc42 Media.

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In order to add a leadership team in Bengaluru and made its way to the US markets, big data analytics startup Iqlect has raised a bridge round of $2.5 Mn (INR 17.2 Cr). The investment was led by new investor VentureEast and existing investor Exfinity Ventures.

Founded in 2015 by ex Jabong CTO and former co-founder of LimeRoad, Sachin Sinha, Iqlect offers an all-in-one converged cloud-based real-time big data analytics platform. The aim is to make real-time big data analytics simple, pervasive and affordable for all.

The startup caters to the SaaS needs of the enterprises in industries such as infrastructure, ecommerce, security, among others.

Iqlect is currently in the process of shifting its headquarters to San Jose, US, and is also looking to add go-to-market and tech talent in the US too.

The startup had earlier raised a $2 Mn round from Exfinity Ventures in July 2015.

“A deep-tech company that seeks to make real-time data analytics more easily accessible, Iqlect offers an affordable full stack analytics solution. The platform, operating on a flexible plug-and-play model, is a departure from existing solutions by competitors,” said Shailesh Ghorpade, managing partner, Exfinity Ventures.

Iqlect: Moving On To Becoming A Global Company

Sashin shared that Iqlect is now looking to hire VP’s for engineering, product management, marketing and sales and also a country manager for India. Also, they are flipping the company to make it a US company.

“So, we are hiring go-to-market folks and a few key tech guys for our US office,” he added.

The startup will be entering the US markets with proprietary NoSQL Database, BangDB. BangDB is distributed, transnational, key value, document database which is written in C/C++ from the ground up for high performance, robustness and ease of use.

For the uninitiated, a database management system is simply a software application that talks and connects end users, applications and the database to capture and analyse data.

Iqlect is further looking to hit an annual recurring revenue of $1 Mn by the year-end. It is also in the process of raising a Series A round soon, with existing investors as well as a few foreign investors from the Bay Area, as shared by the company in a media statement.

Analytics Magazine in its February 2018 article quoted that “truly real-time, avoids and breaks silos giving much lower latency and higher throughput, accelerated time to market, integrated ML and AI framework, cost optimisation and others” are the differentiating factors for Iqlect in the current market.

Other notable Indian startups in the analytics domain are CropIn, Lymbyc, GyanData, Razorthink, and Tredence among others.

By 2020, as Bernard Marr notes, an estimated 1.7 megabytes of new information will be created every second for every human being on the planet. This indicates that real-time data analytics has become a crucial component in almost every industry now.

In its June 2018 report, Gartner quoted that Indian organisations are increasingly moving from traditional enterprise reporting to augmented analytics tools that accelerate data preparation and data cleansing. It further predicted that the analytics and business intelligence (BI) software market revenue in India is expected to reach $304 Mn in 2018, an 18.1% year-on-year increase.

[The development was reported by ET.]

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Sanjay Sharma and Vikram Jetley led online lending startup Aye Finance today announced to have raised its tenth debt financing round, since its launch in 2014.

The latest round of $10 Mn debt funding was raised by issuing non-convertible debentures. It was led by global impact investment managers Triple Jump BV and MicroVest Funds. The deal was executed by Northern Arc Capital (formerly IFMR Capital).

Aye Finance is a new-age finance company that provides customer-centred financial services to the small and micro enterprises across India.  As a Non-Banking Financial Company, it strives to make mortgage, hypothecation and term loan services accessible to the country’s underserved MSME sector.

The latest debt financing round follows Aye Finance’ Series C funding round of $21.7 Mn led by CapitalG along with the participation of existing investors SAIF Partners and impact investment firm LGT.

Freek Kortekaas, regional manager Asia at Triple Jump believes that these micro and small-sized businesses have outgrown microfinance and are often overlooked by banks.

Dr Kshama Fernandes, Chief Executive Officer of Northern Arc Capital, further added, ‘’It was a complex transaction as it was executed immediately after the new regulations governing FPI investments in corporate bonds were announced by the RBI and SEBI earlier this year. As a result, the deal required careful planning and structuring to ensure that the regulatory plus commercial requirements of both investors were met. Aye also benefitted through a larger quantum of the issuance.”

Aye Finance: Gearing Up To Grow Its Lending Portfolio In India

A July 2018 statement issued by Aye Finance reveals that the company has expanded its reach to 100 cities in 11 Indian States so far. It opened its 102^nd Branch in Hyderabad last week.

 Vikram Jetley, Executive Director and Founder of Aye Finance said earlier, “Setting up branches in metros, tier 1 and beyond cities has helped us connect with the bottom of the pyramid businesses to better understand their distinct challenges and has allowed us to offer them credit solutions which best match their needs, bringing this “missing middle” into the ambit of formal lending.”

Aye Finance currently works on “Cluster-Based Credit Assessment” methodology that uses insights of each industry cluster to underwrite the risk of lending to micro businesses. It claims to have disbursed over INR 800 Cr to over 65,000 customers.

Aye also gains debt facility from institutions like SBI, HDFC Bank, BlueOrchard, Triodos Investment and Symbiotics.

Other notable startups in online lending space include Veritas Finance, Lendingkart, Capital Float, Quikrupee, SMEcorner, Innoviti, Biz2credit, FlexiLoans, and KredX among others.

According to research company Statista’s latest report, total transaction value in the alternative lending segment amounts to $241 Mn in 2018. Further, the total transaction value is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2018-2022) of 53.3% resulting in the total amount of $1.3 Bn by 2022.

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With the rate fluctuations of GST (Goods and Services Tax) raising concerns among masses, the GST Anti-Profiteering Authority has ordered an audit of major ecommerce companies, including Flipkart and Amazon India. The exercise aims to examine whether the online retail companies have refunded the excess GST collected from the consumers.

The anti-profiteering authority has “directed the Director General of Audit, CBIC, to audit the major online platforms and submit findings to the authority”.

The development comes in line with the change in rates by GST Council on over 200 items of daily use like chocolates, waffles, furniture, wrist watches, cutlery and ceramic tiles, with effect from 15 November 2017.

Last year, the government set up GST anti-profiteering authority to ensure consumers received the benefit of tax rate reductions after the rollout GST on July 1, 2017.

The order came in the light of a case against Flipkart wherein an individual had filed a complaint against Flipkart alleging profiteering as the GST rate was higher when orders were placed and lower by the time delivery was made to consumers.

In its ruling in the Flipkart case, the authority said it was “conscious of the fact that there may be several such cases in which the e-platforms had collected excess GST from buyers and have not refunded the same after the tax was reduced on various products on November 15, 2017.”

However, the authority dismissed the application against Flipkart after it was assured that the ecommerce company had initiated the process of refund of excess duty paid at the time of booking.

An email query sent to Flipkart and Amazon didn’t elicit any response till the time of publication.

Flipkart has been a long-term player with taxation issues with the councils but has been able to receive a clean chit many a time. Recently, it had settled the case of reclassifying discounts as capex.

Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) rejected the revenue department’s argument that discounts rolled out by Flipkart should be reclassified as capital expenditure.

At the same time, a group of brick and mortar retailers including Future group and Reliance Retail and ICA have alleged that ecommerce companies like Flipkart and Amazon India are violating the FDI rules by “influencing prices on their platforms and illegally funding abnormal discounts”.

The government is mulling over an ecommerce policy with Union Minister Suresh Prabhu heading the meeting of the ecommerce think tank. As the ecommerce companies handle legal and taxation troubles, ecommerce policy remains much awaited for protection of companies, sellers and buyers.

[The development was reported by Livemint.]

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While there is still no confirmation on whether the Justice Srikrishna Committee has submitted its report on the Data Protection Bill, reports have emerged that the proposed draft not only weakens the RTI Act, but also maintains much of the status quo of Aadhaar Act.

It also reportedly strengthens the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)’s powers when it comes to Aadhaar-related legal action by maintaining that only the UIDAI can approach courts in case of any Aadhaar disputes.

Last year in August, a 10-member committee headed by Justice Srikrishna was constituted to draft a Data Protection Bill for India. This came in the wake of a historic judgment by the Supreme Court (SC) on August 24, 2017, in which a nine-member bench of the SC gave a unanimous verdict that the Right to Privacy is a fundamental right. After several delays, the Committee was supposed to submit its draft last month.

Meanwhile, the TRAI has also released its recommendations on privacy, security, and data ownership in the telecom sector.

Earlier, it was reported that the Committee has recommended that data companies operating in India store Indian data locally. This includes global companies such as Google, Facebook, and Linkedin.

Online magazine Caravan claims to have access to the draft of the proposed law, which has been entitled ‘The Protection of Personal Data Bill, 2018.’

The draft reportedly contains more than 15 chapters on topics such as data localisation, the creation of a data protection authority, data protection measures, and separation of personal and sensitive data.

It is also said to propose some amendments to the Aadhaar Act 2016, and the Right to Information Act, 2015.

Expected Amendments To Aadhaar Act, 2016

According to reports, the changes proposed in the draft Data Protection Bill to the Aadhaar Act will include an offline verification process for Aadhaar, and increasing or instating civil and criminal penalties for contravening the Act.

Further, a new adjudication process to address disputes arising out of Aadhaar is said to be introduced.

The draft reportedly includes a new proposal for the appointment of an adjudicating officer above the rank of a joint secretary in the Union government, who will have the power to make inquiries in case the Aadhaar Act is found to be violated in any manner.

It also proposes that the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal act as the appellate body for any appeal against the appointed adjudicating authority. After the tribunal, the appeals will be heard only by the Supreme Court.

According to the reports, the draft maintains that only the UIDAI can approach courts in case of any disputes. This is a major flaw, as despite having a series of Aadhaar-related data breaches, the UIDAI has washed its hands off the matter and never admitted to any data breaches or dispute.

There are also some suggestions on the offline verification of the Aadhaar Act, which seem to be incomplete. Offline verification under the Aadhaar Act cannot be considered a method of identity authentication as any authorised body seeking Aadhaar verification registers a real-time query with the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR), which is maintained by the UIDAI.

Offline verification through the CIDR raises several pertinent questions: how will the Aadhaar identity be verified; does this mean that the agency doing the offline verification will have access to a local CIDR database; will the data be stored on a new type of Aadhaar card; and what about potential data breaches in such cases?

The draft reportedly doesn’t provide any clarity about offline verification and its execution.

Expected Amendments To RTI Act, 2015

According to the reports, the draft Data Protection Bill also proposes the removal of Section 8(1)(j) — which accounts for the right to privacy — of the RTI Act. The Section 8(1)(j) aims to fine-tune the balance between one’s personal information and the need for transparency in public. This was one of the sections invoked to deny information in the RTI queries seeking access to PM Narendra Modi’s educational degrees.

The Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act states: “Information which relates to personal information, the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information: Provided that the information, which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person.”

The removal of Section 8(1)(j) and its replacement with another provision will enable officials to withhold details even more easily and make them less accountable under the garb of increased privacy.

The section is said to have been misused by RTI officers to deny information requests, resulting in RTI activists demanding a clear definition of the terms — “public interest” and “public activity” — which restrains people from seeking personal information even if it could be in the public interest.

The committee, in a white paper released previously, sought to discuss the RTI Act, claiming that it might overlap with the Data Protection Bill. The committee had then observed, “Similarly (like PMLA — Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002), information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders is exempted from disclosure under the Right to Information Act, 2005.”

The draft Data Protection Bill reportedly introduces a new provision which requires three conditions to be fulfilled for disclosure of any personal data under the RTI. The conditions are as follows:

a) The personal data relates to a function, action or any other activity of the public authority in which transparency is required to be maintained having regard to larger public interest in the accountability of the working of the public authority

(b) If such disclosure is necessary to achieve the object of transparency referred to in clause (a)

(c) Any harm likely to be caused to data principal by the disclosure is outweighed by the interest of the citizen in obtaining such personal data having regard to the object of transparency referred to in clause

The amendment to the RTI ACT will give information officers enhanced freedom to choose not to disclose personal information as the above conditions don’t contain a clear definition of “public interest”.

Unbalancing The Act: Right To Privacy And The Need For Transparency

The proposed bill, thereby, unbalances the equation between transparency and the need to protect personal information, which wasn’t exactly the intention of the RTI Act, 2005.

This has also been highlighted by former Supreme Court Judge M Jagannadha Rao, who criticised the committee report, saying that it referred to the collection of data but “not to the boundaries of the right to collection of data, which is the essence of the Supreme Court judgment.”

“There is absolutely no discussion on these vital aspects as to where the privacy rights start and where the state’s surveillance must stop,” he wrote.

The final draft of the Data Protection Bill is yet to come out in the public domain, but the proposed amendments to the two major acts have raised a lot of concerns from various quarters.

Inc42 had earlier reported how the Data Protection Bill will not only talk about Aadhaar but also about big data and emerging technologies, the scope and exemptions of the law, the grounds of processing data, the rights and obligations of parties, and enforcement of the law.

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Taxi For-Sure cofounder Aprameya Radhakrishna is ready to take his next entrepreneurial plunge Vokal to another level. To fuel in his ambition of using voice as a medium to ask questions in regional languages, the startup has raised $5 Mn in a Series A round of funding.

The investment was led by Chinese investor Shunwei Capital, and 500 Startups. Existing investors Accel India and Blume Ventures also participated in this funding round.

Founded in 2017, Vokal is being positioned as a knowledge sharing platform in the P2P info-sharing space for Bharat. The idea is to reach the non-English speaking  audience and give them their dose of “love, life and politics.”

Tuck Lye Koh, Partner & CEO, Shunwei Capital believes that India is a large market and the language Internet users are underserved today.  Anand Daniel, Partner, Accel Partners further added that language diversity is an Indian problem and the non-English users are expected to balloon to 550+ Mn over the next couple of years.

“Vokal is building India-specific solutions to cater to the information & knowledge needs for the non-English users.  We are happy to support Vokal’s mission of creating a destination for the vernacular audience,” Anand added.

Vokal: The Voice Of Bharat

Aprameya Radhakrishna, Co-founder & CEO of Vokal believes that anyone who doesn’t know English in India has a huge problem of accessing relevant answers to their questions. Their Internet experience is poor with a dearth of meaningful content.

“We’re building a peer-to-peer content network that can cater to their information & knowledge needs,” he added.

Vokal is being built ‘ground up’ by relying on the ‘middle path’-voice- which is not as cumbersome as typing in a regional language or video, where many are conscious. The voice answers can also be converted to text using existing Google APIs.

The platform also has a live video streaming feature where experts share their knowledge with users. The platform is presently catering to the Hindi crowd and is looking to soon expand into languages like Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu.

It currently boasts of 200000+ questions with 1000s of questions pouring in every day on varied topics that are very unique to India. Vokal is currently in Hindi and launching in multiple languages in the next few months itself.

Vernacular Startups: Offering India The Choice To Stick With Its Diversity

According to Mayank Bidawatka, Co-founder, Vokal, India is one of the few countries with such a large language diversity.

The Indian vernacular segment is poised to be almost twice the size of the United States. Their Internet experience is broken with basic translation widgets available as solutions for their information and knowledge needs.

“We are creating a product grounds-up that they can use everyday. This is an Indian problem that needs an Indian solution. Translation of existing content is a non-solution for a country that thrives on audio-visual media as their preferred consumption mode,”he added.

Earlier in April this year, Vokal was also selected to be part of Google India’s four day mentorship bootcamp for teams of ten Indian startups. It also acqui-hired quizzing app firm StupidChat Technologies in an all-stock deal.

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Bengaluru-based video-first experience discovery platform Trell has raised $1.25 Mn in a Seed round of funding co-led by BEENEXT and WEH Ventures.

Trell was founded in August 2017 by a team of IIT Bombay alumni Pulkit Agrawal, Prashant Sachan, Arun Lodhi & NITIE alumnus Bimal Kartheek Rebba, who have previously worked with Qualcomm, Microsoft, Samsung and ITC.

It is a blogging platform that enables people to create visual collections of their travel and local experiences and share it as a classic slideshow video or copyrighted-images on other platforms.

The funding round, conducted through LetsVenture platform, also witnessed participation from Sprout Venture Partners, Google India MD Rajan Anandan, and Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal, and other HNIs.

Apart from this, the startup saw participation from existing angels — Aprameya Radhakrishna, Nirav Choksi, Shanti Mohan, Nitin Gupta, and Amit Lakhotia — among others. Trell had earlier raised $250K from these investors last year.

Teruhide Sato, founder and managing partner, BEENEXT, said, “We’re very confident about team Trell’s understanding of what we see as a massive market opportunity. Moreover, we feel the co-founders have strong technical backgrounds, incredible user growth strategies and a highly data-driven approach. I believe Trell will offer a new way for travel & local discoveries.”

The startup will be using the raised funds to expand and strengthen the team in the areas of product, technology, and data science.

What Does Trell Do?

Trell defies categorisation as a ‘travel’ or ‘local experiences’ sharing platform as its users share stories of experiences ranging from a cafe in their neighbourhood or a weekend getaway to a planned trip to a far-off destination.

Users use Trell to discover experiences through other people with similar interests, preferences, and personality type. This further leads to a high-frequency usage of the platform and currently, their DAU/MAU is around 30% and WAU/MAU is around 58%.

The content on Trell is all visual, geo-tagged, and has a strong storytelling element, which makes it contextual and immersive, and helps in differentiating from all other competitors.

The startup claims to have crossed half a million downloads and has over 200,000 monthly actives, within eight months of its product launch. It is accessible on Android, iOS, and Web.

Prashant Sachan, co-founder, Trell, said, “Trell Users are intrinsically creating high-quality content on the platform using its authoring tool which serves as an easy-to-use replacement for WordPress/vlogs on Youtube for sharing local and travel stories. Currently, users are creating over 10K original posts every day, and it is growing 1.5X Month-on-month since September ’17.”

In the same sector, Bengaluru-based video sharing startup Clip App had raised $6 Mn in its Series A funding round led by Matrix Partners India.

Trell competes with other startups such as Foursquare, Tripoto, Kiwi.com, Airbnb, among others.

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The ministry of petroleum and natural gas (MoPNG) on July 23 asked the Supreme Court to ban the sale and manufacturing of Bharat Stage-VI non-compliant vehicles in India, starting April 1, 2020. The ban, if implemented, is also expected to boost the Centre’s efforts to ensure faster adoption of electric vehicles in the country.

In an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, the ministry said that the ban should be implemented as the continued sale of BS-VI non-compliant vehicles “will lessen the environmental benefits to be accrued from using cleaner BS-VI fuel.” The Centre has invested $4Bn (INR 28,000 Cr) to promote the use of cleaner BS-VI fuel. 

The Bharat Stage VI norms are essentially emission control standards meant to keep a check on air pollution. Based on the European regulations (Euro norms), these standards set specifications/limits for the release of air pollutants from equipment using internal combustion engines, including vehicles. While BS IV-compliant fuel currently in use has 50 parts per million (ppm) sulphur, BS VI stipulates a low 10 ppm. India plans to jump from the BS IV to BS VI by 2020.

The bench hearing the case ordered that the ministry’s affidavit be supplied to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) so the latter can respond to it. The bench said, “When this issue (shifting from BS-IV to BS-VI) had cropped up, there was strong opposition from you.”

The bench was told that Mercedes-Benz was already manufacturing BS-VI compliant vehicles in India. Benz recently announced that up to 40% of its entire product lineup would be fully electric or powered by some form of hybrid powertrain by 2025. Indian automakers such as Tata and Maruti & Mahindra are also said to be exporting BS-VI vehicles.

Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a report which said that India’s road transportation alone contributed to 87% of the total 188 MT of CO2 emitted in the country till 2010. It noted that electric vehicles are at least 3 to 3.5 times more energy efficient than traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.

Let’s take a look at EV developments in our 33rd edition of Electric Vehicles This Week.

Important Developments In Indian Electric Vehicle Ecosystem

Centre Reduces GST On Lithium-Ion Batteries By 10%

The Centre on July 23 reduced the goods and service tax (GST) on lithium-ion batteries from 28% to 18%. Welcoming the move, the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV) said, however, that the tax was still high compared to factory-fitted batteries in electric vehicles and would prove to be a hurdle in increasing EV adoption in India.

“We are fine, something has been done by the government to reduce GST on lithium-ion batteries when sold separately. However, some irritants remain as the new rate is still higher than a factory-fitted battery in an EV,” SMEV director general Sohinder Gill said.

FAME II To Give A Boost To Ev Industry: Babul Supriyo

Switching over from conventional ICE-based vehicles to new technologies such as electric, hybrid, and fuel cells is essential, the minister of state for heavy industries and public enterprises, Babul Supriyo, said.

In reply to written questions in the Lok Sabha, Supriyo said that the second phase of FAME envisages to provide a boost to the EV industry with several interventions on the demand and supply side, including R&D efforts.

He added, “The Indian automotive industry needs to develop technologies like lithium-ion batteries, electric motors for automotive applications, and battery management systems.”

RGEE To Use Lithium-ion Cells Made By CSIR To Store Solar Energy

Raasi Green Earth Energy (RGEE), a solar power business of the Bengaluru-based Raasi Group, has announced it will use lithium-ion cells developed by scientists at the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) for solar energy storage and to power electric vehicles.

According to Raasi Group’s chairman C Narasimhan, the company is planning to set up a 1GW solar energy plant, a cell manufacturing plant, and a lithium-ion battery recycling plant near Hosur in Tamil Nadu. The lithium-ion cells have been developed by scientists at CSIR’s Central Electrochemical Research Institute in Karaikudi.

Hyundai To Launch Electric SUV In Select Cities In India

South Korean automaker Hyundai is set to launch its electric SUV in India in the second half of 2019. The Hyundai Kona compact SUV, which made its debut at the Auto Expo 2018, will be launched in India, but it won’t be available at all Hyundai dealerships across the country. Instead, sales of this SUV will be restricted to just 15 cities, including metros such as Delhi and Mumbai.

The automaker has also signed an MoU with the Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC) to impart training to the youth; those selected will get an opportunity to work at Hyundai’s service channels.

EV Developments Around The World

EV, Plug-In Hybrid Cars Sale Dip In EU From Last Year

Limited driving ranges and a patchy charging network have resulted in a dip in the sales growth of electric and plug-in hybrid cars across major markets in the European Union in the first half of 2018. According to consulting firm EY, registration of electric cars increased by just 33% in the six months till June this year, as compared to a 54% rise in the same period in 2017.

EY partner Peter Fuss said, “Charging infrastructure remains inadequate and the models currently available mostly don’t offer a good-enough range. The situation will only change in the medium term. Starting in the luxury segment, electric powertrains will establish themselves as serious alternatives.”

Volkswagen To Launch Electric Charger Network In Canada

Canadian automaker Volkswagen has announced ‘Electrify Canada’ to set up 32 DC fast-charging stations in select cities and along highways in the country. Each station is said to have several fast chargers with an average of four chargers per site.

The stations will include a mix of 150-KW and 350-KW fast chargers, along with some Level 2 chargers that will support existing electric cars that don’t have fast charging capacity. The 350-KW fast chargers are expected to recharge a 300-mile electric car to 80% capacity in less than 15 minutes.

Volkswagen group president and CEO Daniel Weissland said, “We are thrilled to be able to offer this service and to take a leadership position in providing this key EV adoption enabler to the Canadian market.”

Audi To Produce Electric Engines For E-Tron At Hungarian Plant

German automaker Audi has launched the serial production of electric engines at its Hungarian plant, which will be made for its all-electric e-Tron model. The initial daily capacity will be about 400 electric engines at the Hungarian plant, which can be increased gradually, it said.

Audi, which also makes cars in Hungary, manufactured a total of more than 1.965 Mn engines at its Hungarian plant in the city of Gyor last year and is one of Hungary’s most important exporters.

China Revises Subsidies To Grow EV Battery Market

China’s electric vehicles industry is poised for tremendous growth. The government is planning a “brutal reshuffle” in the EV battery sector by bringing in subsidy reforms to meet the more exacting technological demands of next-generation transport, according to Sanford C Bernstein & Co.

Mark Newman, Bernstein’s lead global analyst for batteries, energy storage, and electric vehicles, said. “This has been a heavily subsidised market in which the (China) government has thrown money at everything and everybody that wants to give it a try.”

The China government aims to promote the development of longer-range EVs, requiring larger batteries with a higher energy density, which are much more complex to develop and mass produce. It has built massive new battery capacity in recent years

“Now they’re trying to wean them off, and you’re starting to see who is a worthy battery maker that can actually survive,” added Newman.

LG Chem To Build EV Battery Plant in China

South Korea-based LG Chem plans to invest about $1.77 Bn to build its second electric car battery plant in China to meet the growing demand in the country. According to the company spokesperson, the investment will be made by 2023 to increase its total output capacity to 32 GW hours per year, or batteries for around 500,000 electric vehicles. LG expects to begin production in October 2019.

The post Electric Vehicles This Week: Centre Reduces GST On Lithium-Ion Batteries, Hyundai To Launch Electric SUV In India, And More appeared first on Inc42 Media.

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Events. Exhibitions. Concerts. One thing that is common to all of these is the pulsating energy they reverberate, sweeping one and all in their wake. Such is the case with the fourth edition of Rajasthan Digifest, which commenced on July 25 in the city of Bikaner.

Day 1 of the Digifest saw an overwhelming response with the participation of a whopping 25,000 people and approximately 50 startups. The three-day fest, which is aimed at providing a platform to students, IT professionals, and aspiring entrepreneurs is being held at the Government Polytechnic College.

It’s all about emerging technologies these days, and The Rajasthan Digifest is no different. Robot ‘Budhia’ stole the show on day 1 of the fest. Budhia has been designed to not only give people all possible information relating to the Bhamashah Yojana, but also to resolve all problems relating to it. Budhia which can speak 19 different languages also does yoga and a cool jig to enamour its audience.

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Here are the other highlights from Day 1 of the fest

Job Fair: The Rajasthan government has been empowering the youth of the state with a host of opportunities. One such effort is the Job Fair, which was part of Day 1 of the Digifest. The Job Fair recorded a participation of more than 31,000 people, of which over 2,100 registered at the event and 1,500 secured their dream jobs on the spot. Apart from this, training sessions are also being held for the candidates to enhance their skills in all areas of employability.

International Balloon Challenge: The balloon challenge, which is a tribute to India’s former President the late Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, also took off on Day 1 with six payloads being launched into near space from among the 10 winners of the competition. The challenge essentially requires the participants to build a working model of a payload to be flown into “near space” in a helium balloon from Bikaner. The remaining payloads will be launched on day 2 of the fest.

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TecRush: A day with so much action around employment creation and innovative challenges needed a good way to end. And the perfect way was TecRush — a marathon open for everyone that kicked off in the evening on Day 1 with over 10,000 enthusiastic participants racing on the tracks. TecRush was the biggest highlight of the day and was flagged off by veteran Indian cricketer R P Singh.

The action at the Bikaner Digifest has just started with two more days to go. Day 2 started on July 26 with the enthusiastic crowd cheering those participating in Hackathon 5.0. The 36-hour hackathon started on day 2 with 3,000 participants.

Hackathon 5.0 seeks to provide a platform to anyone who can offer ingenious solutions to bring about change in the state. The participants — from the coding, developer, designer, and other communities — will be given a chance to innovate on themes such as Bhamashah Yojana, e-Mitra, artificial intelligence, the IoT, AR/VR, blockchain, etc. The winner of the Code-From-Home online Hackathon got a chance to enter Hackathon 5.0 directly.

Apart from this participants can also watch out for Green-a-Thon, Startup Fest, and more. Influencers such as Mohandas Pai, and other well-known investors, mentors, and startup founders will also be present at the event to interact with the bright and eager youth of Rajasthan.

The Rajasthan Digifest, organised by the Department of Information Technology and Communication (DoITC), is a flagship event of the state government, started in 2016 to give a boost to the technological landscape of the state by keeping the youth front and centre.

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Mumbai-based specialised debt financing Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) BlackSoil Capital has raised $17 Mn from its existing sponsors in a Series C round.

Till date, the company has raised an equity funding of $25 Mn from marquee family offices of Allcargo Logistics, Navneet Education, and Mahavir Agency.

It has also raised additional an external debt of $27 Mn from banks and HNIs till date.

BlackSoil Capital focuses on providing customised innovative debt solutions to diverse segments such as real estate, promoters of unlisted growth companies, as well as to establish institutional investors-backed new economy companies and their ecosystems.

In many cases, BlackSoil is the first-time lender; its usual ticket size is from INR 5 Lakh to INR 25 Cr per deal.

In less than two years of its operations, the company claims to have deployed over INR 700 Cr across 80 transactions.

The company claimed that for Q1 FY19, its loan book is INR 400 Cr, a 233% increase compared to INR 120 Cr in FY17. It also claimed to have seen 17 complete exits.

In Q1 FY19, the company claims to have deployed more than INR 160 Cr across 19 deals.

Shashi Kiran Shetty, CMD of Allcargo Logistics and one of the key sponsors of the NBFC, said, “In an environment where banks are averse to (providing) direct funding for real estate and new economy companies, NBFCs like us have a good opportunity to support such companies, as long as they meet our conservative underwriting parameters, security, and cash flows requirements. We now have a decent asset base and believe this equity round has come at a good time to scale up assets under management (AUM) in the segments we operate in.”

Recently, the company raised an INR 300 Cr Walton Street BlackSoil real estate debt fund to invest in markets such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. The AIF has already invested 30% of the fund across three deals in past six months.

BlackSoil recently invested in its portfolio online lending marketplace Rubique and, before that, in B2B procurement startup and one-stop platform for business, industrial, and office goods, IndustryBuying.

It has previously funded logistics startup GoBolt, marketing automation startup WebEngage, weight management services firm Truweight, retail analytics provider IntelligenceNode Consulting Pvt Ltd, and consumer product company Chumbak Design, among others.

NBFCs: Making Space In Fintech

Since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) granted NBFC status to P2P lending companies in India, the fintech space has been booming with several players diving in to expand their portfolio of services and to offer lending through traditional and transitional online methods.

Indian ecommerce company Flipkart is venturing into the fintech market — it has applyied for an NBFC licence to focus on consumer lending. The fintech sector it said to be worth $2.4 Bn by 2020.

Also, reports surfaced that digital payments giant Paytm is in the process of seeking a licence from the RBI to operate a P2P lending platform. Paytm is aiming to leverage its base of 7 Mn offline merchants to gain a stronghold in the country’s P2P lending landscape.

With the Indian fintech market continuing to attract huge investments, according to Inc42 Indian Tech Startup Funding report H1 2018, BlackSoil Capital has a huge market to capitalise on.

The post Debt Financing NBFC BlackSoil Raises $17 Mn In Series C Round appeared first on Inc42 Media.

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New Delhi-based digital media startup POPxo has now ventured into ecommerce with its private label merchandise. This will include products such as mugs, laptop bags, canvas pouches, and tote bags amongst others.

Priyanka Gill founded POPxo in March 2014 as a blog catering to the Indian diaspora.

“Millennial women are a large and under-served market, especially in the lifestyle products category. The POPxo ecommerce platform will create and sell product lines especially for them. We already know what appeals to women online — our private label is a natural extension. Content-Community-Commerce has always been our mission and with this launch, we solidify our position,” said Priyanka in an email interaction with Inc42.

POPxo has so far raised $11 Mn in funding from investors such as IDG Ventures India, Kalaari Capital, etc.

Every month, POPxo creates more than 2,000 pieces of content, that include 150 videos, more than 800 stories, and a large number of social media graphics.

POPxo’s Private Labels Offerings

As part of its debut in the ecommerce segment, POPxo will be offering merchandise in five segments. This includes:

• POP Woman: POP woman is for a woman who knows her style and speaks her mind
• So Desi: POPxo’s ‘So Desi’ collection is for someone who has a flair for drama
• Wanderlust: The ‘Wanderlust’ collection is for the girl with a traveller’s heart. From summer tote bags to pretty notebooks, everything here reminds you to take a break
• My POPxo: It’s POPxo’s signature line for its millions of fans and is all about pretty pastels and self-affirming thoughts
• Boss Woman: Diaries, laptop sleeves, phone covers, everything here will remind you that you’re a #bosswoman all set to take on the world

The company is also looking at expanding into fashion and beauty over the next few months.

Shubham Jain, business head, ecommerce, at POPxo, said, “From design to production and distribution — we are running the entire process in-house and via our partnerships with service providers.”

With a monthly active user base of 17 Mn, the company claims to have over 80% female users spending over 3 Mn hours on the platform and digital content segment has over 200 Mn monthly engagements.

POPxo has partnered with over 250 brands to create branded content.

Vani Kola, managing director, Kalaari Capital who has earlier invested in POPxo said,  “We believe that ecommerce is the most logical step for the company at this stage. The lifestyle products market is fragmented and women-centric, and POPxo’s private label can service this market really well through its rich data-driven personas and enhanced personalisation.”

Private Label Market In India

In the Indian beauty and wellness market, beauty ecommerce websites such as Nykaa, NewU, Purplle, etc, are leading the private label market with a focus exclusively on beauty and wellness products.

Recently, reports surfaced that Amazon India is planning to launch its own private label of beauty and personal care products. Prior to this, Myntra announced its plans to open beauty and wellness offline stores.

A RedSeer Consulting report suggested that the domestic online beauty and personal care market is expected to cross $3.5 Bn by 2022; at present, it stands at $300 Mn.

The post POPxo Ventures Into Ecommerce With Private Label Products appeared first on Inc42 Media.

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The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a subsidiary of Indian Railways, has increased the amount it charges from online travel aggregators (OTAs) for allowing them to sell railway tickets on their platforms. The IRCTC has also relaxed some of its norms with a view to enabling smaller players and startups to offer railway ticket booking services.

According to reports, the new price structure for OTAs could increase the cost of providing rail ticket booking services to customers on their platforms by 10 times. Instead of the fixed fee of $36.4K (INR 25 Lakh) it charged per OTA per annum, the IRCTC will now charge INR 12 per ticket from OTAs.

In case the annual maintenance charge (AMC) collected is less than the minimum amount plus tax, the difference will be collected from the OTA in the subsequent year, says the latest directive.

Besides, the IRCTC will levy INR 0.25 plus taxes per enquiry made on these OTAs whenever the “look-to-book” ratio is more than 70, as a charge for consuming IRCTC APIs. According to an ET report, the IRCTC expects that this move will help reduce the excessive load that these B2C agents put on IRCTC’s ticket booking website. While the normal enquiry to booking ratio is 50:1, in case of many of such operators it is way above 100:1.

A number of OTAs have termed the IRCTC notification as “arbitrary.” One OTA spokesperson told Inc42, “The IRCTC, which is just an OTA, wants to remain the judge, jury, and executive in the space. The new notification issued seems to be neither wise nor viable for us to compete with IRCTC in the space.”

However, diluting the AMC to a per-ticket charge could be a boon for new OTA players.

“IRCTC charges used to be a flat INR 25 Lakh for almost every integration that we had to do, be it payment gateway, as agents, or as a wallet option on their platform. Now, with the pricing being changed to a per-ticket basis, it might be easier for smaller startups for whom the down payment is a challenge. But, for others, it’s a cost that will eventually be passed on to consumers,” said the CEO of a leading OTA.

Currently, major OTA players that offer rail ticket bookings on their platforms are MakeMyTrip, Clear Trip, Just Dial, Paytm, and GoIbibo. The OTAs will also be allowed to use their own payment gateways for rail tickets bookings from now on.

Meanwhile, with awareness about all things related to data at an all-time high and the Justice Srikrishna Committee set to submit the draft of the Data Protection Bill, the government seems to have discovered data as a new source of boosting its income.

According to an ET report, the government has put on hold the disinvestment in IRCTC to tap into the massive pile of user data collected by the entity.

The TRAI has already issued a series of recommendations on security and ownership of and rights over telecom data, stating that companies collecting and processing data have no rights over the data as it actually belongs to the concerned users.

Railway minister Piyush Goyal had earlier stated that there the IRCTC has gathered a huge amount of data which has not been factored in the valuation. The Indian Railways is now trying to see how it can leverage this data.

While the Justice Srikrishna committee is already mired in controversies for allegedly diluting the RTI Act and shielding the Aadhaar data leak flaws, the government, despite issuing some show cause notices to big companies such as WhatsApp and Facebook, has hardly taken any measures on the ground to strengthen data privacy.

While the RBI has already made it very clear that payment companies have to store their payment-related data locally, in the case of OTA bookings of railway tickets, there isn’t much clarity on personal data ownership.

AI, ML & Drones: Indian Railways Embraces New Tech

The IRCTC has already started leveraging its store of data. To begin with, it has revamped its website and enabled some AI-based features on its webpage. It has developed a tool to predict the probability of a waitlisted ticket getting confirmed at the time of booking as well as during the Passenger Name Record (PNR) enquiry on a waitlisted ticket.

According to the Indian Railways press note, the tool has been developed using machine learning (ML) algorithms and the ML model has been developed using waitlisted PNR data of the past two years. This model creates a pattern for various waitlist scenarios and predicts the probability of tickets being confirmed.

Currently, this feature is only integrated with IRCTC’s own website.

In a similar development, the Indian government on July 20 informed the Parliament that it has issued instructions to all zonal Railways units and Public Sector Units (PSUs) to use drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as an effective tool for mapping and monitoring of transportation corridors, projects, etc.

After the successful completion of the drone project by the central Railways, drones are will now be deployed by all the zones for the following purposes:

• To overcome visibility of parts of bridges that are difficult to access manually; drone inspection of few bridges is under consideration.
• One drone camera has been procured for the surveillance of railway tracks at vulnerable locations in the South Western Railway zone
• Two UAVs/drones are being deployed at Modern Coach Factory/Rae Bareilly for overhead surveillance
• A drone is being used by West Central Railway for inspection and project monitoring
• PSUs under the Ministry of Railways are using drones for project monitoring

Meanwhile, Google has installed free Wi-Fi facilities at 400 railway stations across the country.

The Indian Railways’ efforts to adopt emerging technology with a view to improving its services are commendable. However, from introducing bullet trains to setting up gen-next stations in record time, there is a series of unfulfilled promises that the Indian government will have to contend with.

With the Railways now looking to leverage its huge store of data, the government needs to make sure that its promise of data protection doesn’t fall flat in this context as well.

The post IRCTC Increased Price Structure May Hit OTAs, But To Be A Boon For Startups appeared first on Inc42 Media.

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MakeMyTrip has invested an undisclosed amount in Bengaluru-based Bitla Software.

Bitla Software is a travel-focused technology provider with SaaS, cloud and mobile-based solutions to help customers expand their businesses.

The company’s technologies are widely used domestically and internationally by bus operators, bus GDSs, online ticketing portals, hoteliers, holiday tour operators and cargo and logistics companies.

It will use the latest fundraise to rapidly develop and expand its suite of travel focused technology products, said Dasharatham Bitla, Founder & CEO, Bitla Software.

Deep Kalra, chairman and group CEO, MakeMyTrip, added, “Our latest investment in Bitla Software is aimed at providing an extensive suite of technology products and solutions for the bus and hotel supplier ecosystem, which will further strengthen our strong market position.”

MakeMyTrip has earlier invested in companies such as Fabhotels, GoFro, HolidayIQ, Inspirock, ixigo.com, Simplotel, and Mygola.com.

Bitla Software: Aiming To Disrupt

Launched in 2007, Bitla Software has a proprietary software HolidaySimply, which is said to be an innovative tour operator. With HolidaySimply, one can automate processes in the travel agency, use it to sell products through its web page or to establish better business cooperation with its partners.

The company mentioned on its LinkedIn page, “We have been creating advanced information technology solutions for tourism and travel agencies for more than a decade. Our vision is to become a global provider of world-class solutions for the tourism industry.”

The platform offers advanced Information Technology solutions for holiday online booking engine, OTA/ agency profile management, social network integration, automatic email and SMS notifications, mobile bookings, website CMS, inventory management, back-office & accounting among others.

Goomo, Travayoo, StoutWeb, Tavisca, are few other names operational in the Indian travel tech segment.

How Tech is Transforming Travel

According to a June 2017 Google India-BCG report, the country’s overall travel market is expected to become a $48 Bn industry within the next three years.

The growing tech startup ecosystem of the country is making India one of the few markets where travel is absorbing technology at a rapid pace to enhance the consumer experience.

Whether its AI, ML or IOT, tech startups have swept into every aspect of tourism from booking tickets and hotels to improve the hotel stay of the guests.

Maruti Techlabs founder Mukund Makadia quoted in his earlier article on Inc42, chatbots in hospitality is changing the way booking inquiries are handled and visitors are converted into patron customers.

In views of Mukund, by establishing artificial intelligence in the hospitality industry, hotels can create more significant opportunities to deliver excellent guest-friendly services ranging from matching guest preferences, suggesting books or music, nearby sports club to complement customers’ taste, all the way to automatically alerting hotel staff for personalised meal choices, special privileges and complimentary services, etc.

Wearable devices, voice technology and augmented as well as virtual reality are next in line to further streamline the travel and hospitality industry.

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US-based startup incubator Y Combinator has invested in Kyte.ai, a Mumbai-based smart SMS app, as part of its summer cohort 2018.

Launched in 2018 by former Housing co-founder Ravish Naresh, Kyte.ai specialises in blocking spam and automatically organises the user’s inbox.

“Kyte is attacking a problem that we don’t see in the US, but is prominent in India. We are excited to work with them because they have a strong, technical founding team with great product design instincts,” said Tim Brady, partner, Y Combinator.

Kyte comes with a number of intelligent features such as an inbuilt Spam Blocker that is updated in real time. Users are only notified about important updates like OTP, online transactions, travel bookings, and banking alerts.

It further gives users an easy option of SMS backup and restore. Kyte also comes with easy to use Banking APIs of all major banks. Users can easily perform balance check, fetch mini statements, change ATM pin and a lot more just using SMS.

“It is intended for the Indian market where SMS is the primary mode of communication for finance and commerce transactions and 60% of messages are spam. SMS alerts usage in India has exploded over the last three years and spam remains an unsolved problem,” said Ravish.

The company claims to have crossed 100,000 downloads in the last two months.

Y Combinator invests $120,000 in startups for a 7% equity across two batches every year. Once selected, the startups move to Silicon Valley, the accelerator takes care of their living expenses at the YC campus. Besides, the financial aid and fine-tuning their pitch, YC also help these startups in dealing with investors and acquirers.

Here are some other stats about the startup incubator:

• YC has funded 1,585 companies since 2005, and over 3,750 founders as of March 2018
• 15 YC alum are valued at over $1 Bn and over 70 YC alum are valued at over $100 Mn.
• 10 YC alum are valued at over $1 Bn and 64 YC alum are valued at over $100 Mn.
• YC alum have raised over $13 Bn in total.

Earlier in June 2018, Gurugram-based HRtech startup Leena AI became a part of summer class 2018 of US-based investor Y Combinator and confirmed an investment from the company. Some other Indian startups Y Combinator has invested in past include names such as Playment, Bulk MRO, Servx, WiFi Dubba, Supr Daily, Dost Education, Credy and DocTalk among others.

[The development was reported by TOI.]

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Six months after filing the case against Flipkart, US-based footwear brand Skechers has been offered an out-of-court settlement by the Walmart-backed company.

“Flipkart has offered some cash payment and a commitment to do a certain amount of business for Skechers as an offer to settle out of court,” said a person aware of the matter to ET.

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

What’s The Case?

Here is the series of events:

• In December 2017, Skechers filed cases in the Delhi high court against ecommerce sellers for selling Skechers’ fake products.
• This included Flipkart, and its four sellers Retail Net, Tech Connect, Unichem Logistics and Marco Wagon.
• With the help of court-appointed local commissioners, raided seven warehouses of the sellers in Delhi and Ahmedabad
• 15,000 pairs of fake Skechers shoes were discovered
•  News18 which accompanied local police, also reported that the products were also being sold on Shopclues and Snapdeal

At that point in time, Sketchers issued a statement that “Flipkart is an online marketplace that helps sellers connect with customers across the country, We only act as an intermediary. We conduct our business with the highest standards of integrity and are fully compliant with all the rules of the land. We cannot comment on the current issue as it is sub judice.”

Flipkart’s Attempts To Tackle The Case

After the December 2017 row, for the next three months, there had been no updates from either end on the case.

However,  in April 2018, Flipkart filed a criminal complaint against one its employees and one of its major suppliers, Marco Wagon, over allegations of cheating, fraud, forgery, and breach of trust.

In July 2018, out of the blue reports surfaced that Marco Wagon Retail sent a legal notice to the Flipkart India, the B2B arm of ecommerce unicorn for non-payment of dues amounting to INR 20 Cr ($2.9 Mn).

Marco Wagon also alleged that it was asked by Flipkart India to import Skechers shoes from suppliers in China that were pre-designated by ecommerce player.

This Is Not The First Such Incidence

Over the past years, several petitions have been filed by consumers and companies against sellers selling fake products. Previously, companies like Tommy Hilfiger, Lacoste, Calvin Klein have helped confiscate thousands of fake apparels through court-aided raids on warehouses, owned by either sellers or smaller niche fashion platforms.

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

Flipkart is one of the largest online marketplaces in the country. Through its ‘Flipkart Assured’ model, the company keeps a check on the genuineness of products sold on its platform, but things does not seem to be in control at times.

Skechers on the other hand is looking to rapidly expand in India by setting up its own manufacturing units, introducing new categories and expansion of offline stores.

In September 2017,  Skechers had announced plans of setting up 400 more retail outlets in India within the next five years from an existing number of 100 outlets. The company is also planning to launch a new line of accessories.

Will the Flipkart’s out-of-court settlement be able to rest this case, only time could tell.

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One97 Communications, which owns Indian e-commerce payment system and digital wallet company Paytm, is building its new, dedicated office campus in Sector 137 along Noida Expressway in Uttar Pradesh. Paytm’s new office campus will be spread across 10 acres.

Upon completion, this new office will serve as Paytm’s headquarters and will become the axis of its increased scale of operations.

“While adding a new chapter to the expansion of Paytm, this office campus will serve as the hub for the company to grow its operations while creating thousands of new jobs,” the company said in a media statement.

The new office campus is expected to offer world-class facilities and equipment and to accommodate more than 15,000 employees. It will be a green campus incorporating eco-friendly architecture.

Property consultants peg the deal size at INR 120-150 Cr, based on the current market price of INR 12-15 Cr per acre in Sector 137, which lies just off the Noida Expressway. Reports further said that One97 Communications purchased the land directly from the Noida Authority, the nodal body for managing Noida’s infrastructure.

Paytm Multiplying Its Growth

Launched in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm currently has 20K employees. Of these, 760 work out of Paytm’s present 48,000 sq ft head office in Noida, and the remaining work from its other offices in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Kolkata.

“We are adding around 10,000 employees every year to support our growth targets,” Paytm COO Kiran Vasireddy said.

Having grown into a full-fledged financial services company, Paytm has been doing really well and has achieved some great milestones in its eight-year-long journey.

Earlier this year, Paytm announced that it has achieved an annual run rate of 5 Bn transactions and $50 Bn in gross transaction value (GTV). Vasireddy also said in an earlier media statement, “We are witnessing phenomenal adoption in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, which is bringing in the new wave of growth for us.”

Another factor that has contributed to the growth has been Paytm’s multilingual app — 25% of Paytm users prefer using the app in their regional languages.

In April 2018, another homegrown success, ecommerce company Flipkart, also consolidated all (a total of 11) of its Bengaluru offices and now operates out of a single campus in the Embassy Tech Village (ETV), spread across 8.3 Lakh Sq Ft area. Flipkart is now looking to enter the fintech space and has applied for a Non-Banking Financial Company licence to focus on consumer lending.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s fondness for picking up prime real estate was earlier showcased in June 2017 when reports surfaced that he was buying a $12.72 Mn (INR 82 Cr) worth 6,000 ft residential property in Lutyens’ Delhi.

For the uninitiated, Lutyen’s Delhi is named after the British architect Edwin Lutyen. It is a very expensive zone in Delhi. According to Wikipedia, the Lutyens’ Bungalow Zone (LBZ) covers an area of about 26 square km. All the land and buildings in Lutyens’ belongs to the central government, except for 254.5 acres, which is available for private use.

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Mumbai-based mid-market private equity firm Gaja Capital has invested $25 Mn in Ahmedabad-headquartered edtech company Educational Initiatives from its third fund— $240 Mn Gaja III.

Educational Initiatives is expected to use the funding to further build its technology platforms, expand its product portfolio, and enter new markets, including the US.

Founded in 2001 by Srini Raghavan, Sridhar Rajagopalan, Sudhir Ghodke, and Venkat Krishnan, Educational Initiatives is an education research and assessments company. The company has been popular for its K-12 assessments and adaptive learning offerings in India.

Its flagship school assessment, ASSET, is suggested to be taken by more than 380K students each year in India and overseas. Another flagship learning product, Mindspark, is a computer-based, adaptive learning solution widely used by teachers and parents to help students learn Mathematics and English.

Educational Initiatives claims to have worked with more than 3,000 schools and 14 Mn students to improve their learning outcomes.

Gopal Jain, managing partner of Gaja Capital, confirmed the investment to ET but did not share details of the investment. He said, “Education is core to our investment strategy and we are long-term believers in the K-12 opportunity in India. Education is poised for its ‘cure moment’. The answer to improved learning outcomes is more a Google Maps of education than an Amazon or Netflix approach.”

An ET report cited people familiar with the development as saying that the deal, which was closed in the last few days, is a mix of primary and secondary components.

Gaja Capital will reportedly pick up a significant minority stake in the company. However, it is not clear whether the existing investors of Educational Initiatives — Footprint Ventures, IFMR, and Novak Biddle Venture Partners — will continue to hold their stakes, reduce them, or exit the company.

Equirus Capital acted as the sole financial advisor to Educational Initiatives for the transaction.

Ajit Deshmukh, Head of Investment Banking, Equirus Capital, said “EI with its in-depth research capabilities has done remarkable work in the area of tech-enabled education assessment and adaptive learning space. As Gaja brings in its vast experience in the education sector, the partnership will help EI achieve greater heights not only in India but also in the global arena.”

Gaja Capital has been focusing on education, financial services, consumer and healthcare sectors. This year itself, the company has marked two strong exits from its $180 Mn Gaja II fund — TeamLease and RBL Bank — in April and June, respectively.

It manages assets worth about $500 Mn across its three investment vehicles. The company has already invested in Chumbak, SportzVillage, EuroKids and CL Educate.

Edtech Space In India

The edtech space in India is getting increasingly competitive and has big players such as BYJU’S, Toppr, NeoStencil, Unacademy, and Englishleap, among others.

ByJU’S gained the status of a unicorn recently when a funding infusion — including one from China’s Tencent and BCCL — valued the startup at $1 Bn (INR 6,505 Cr), according to its company filings with the ministry of corporate affairs.

Also, Bengaluru-based edtech startup Unacademy raised $21 Mn in Series C funding from Sequoia India, SAIF Partners, and Nexus Venture Partners.

According to a report by Google and KPMG of May 2017, the edtech market is expected to have a significant impact on the online education sector, which has a potential to touch $1.96 Bn by 2021 from $247 Mn at present.

With an eye on this potential market, edtech startups are making their presence felt in the $100 Bn Indian education sector, according to the IBEF.

In 2017, edtech witnessed a 30% hike in terms of investments with international funding touching a new record of $9.52 Bn.

With Gaja Capital’s bet on Educational Initiatives, the edtech company can look at its next phase of growth in this hot sector.

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Bengaluru-based artificial intelligence-based emotion recognition startup Entropik Tech has raised $1.1 Mn in a pre-series A round of funding led by BIF (Bharat Innovation Fund). It is the first company to receive an investment from the $100 Mn BIF portfolio.

IDFC, Parampara Capital, Arthavida Ventures, and Jitendra Gupta, MD of PayU, were co-investors in the funding round.

Other existing investors from Entropik Tech’s previous seed funding round of $200K also participated in the new round. This includes a group of angel investors such as Dileep Bhatt, president of Downstream Operations at JSW Steel and Milind Chaudhary, director of Sea Global Services.

Founded in 2016, Entropik Tech enables companies and brands to track and measure consumers’ cognitive and emotional responses at their point of origin, using technologies such as brainwave mapping, facial coding, and eye tracking.

The startup will use the raised funds to scale its platform, Affect Lab 2.0, launch more IP-based products, and expand its global footprint.

Ashwin Raguraman, partner, BIF, said, “Entropik Tech’s AI technique to interpret emotional states and responses from brainwaves is pathbreaking and has a wide range of uses, from understanding consumer preferences to improving mental health. The possibilities are exciting and we look forward to supporting Entropik Tech in maximising the potential of this disruptive technology.”

Early-stage deep tech and IP-focussed venture fund Bharat Innovation Fund announced the first close of its $100 Mn fund recently. It invests in internet protocol (IP)-driven Indian startups to create breakthrough healthcare, agriculture, renewables, and advanced technology innovations. The BIF fund was instituted by the Centre for Innovation, Incubation, and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad.

Entropik Tech: Using AI To Help Brands Understand Customer Needs

Entropik Tech further plans to deliver innovations such as emotive natural language processing (NLP), chatbots and assistants, emotionally intelligent automotive, and sentiment analysis for human resource management, among others.

Rajan Kumar, founder and CEO, Entropik Tech, said, “Our online SAAS platform Affect Lab 2.0 enables brands to measure subconscious emotional responses to their offerings and create a resonance with their consumers.”

The startup is a part of accelerator programmes such as Accenture Ventures Cohort, Viacom18 VStEP, Plug and Play, and SAP Startup Studio.

Entropik Tech says it has filed multiple patents since its inception and claims to have achieved a 100% revenue growth in the previous quarter.

AI Startups In India

AI is finding widespread usage in our daily lives — think intelligent shopping assistants and helpful conversational bots — and will continue to do so. No wonder Indian startups are tapping its potential across sectors such as ecommerce, fintech, banking, surveillance and customer service, big data, analytics, and more.

Similar to Entropik Tech, Bengaluru-based startup Niki.ai leverages natural language processing and machine learning to enable brands to converse with customers through a chat interface, helping them in shopping for products and services.

Niki.ai last raised its funding from SAP, a global leader in business management software, and existing investor Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, on July 26, said that India wants to work with the BRICS nations on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and called for sharing the best practices and policies in the area.

Modi also said that technological innovations can help enhance service delivery and productivity levels. BRICS is a grouping of five major emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is the fourth major industrial era since the first Industrial Revolution of the 18th century. It is characterised by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres.

“India wants to work collectively along with BRICS nations in the area of Fourth Industrial Revolution and all nations must share the best practices and policies on this,” PM Modi said.

“Compliance with laws, the example of better delivery by direct payment technology to beneficiaries of social security and government schemes,” the Prime Minister added.

Modi said that the 4IR would have more importance than capital. “High-skill but temporary work will be the new face of employment. There will be radical changes in industrial production, design, and manufacturing,” he said.

The Prime Minister also emphasised the need for schools and universities to create curricula that will prepare the youth for the future.

Modi has been continuously supporting new-age technologies to lead the digital revolution in India.

The Modi-led central government reiterated its commitment to this during the Union Budget 2018 by allotting more than $480 Mn (INR 3,073 Cr) solely to Digital India programmes. At the time, government thinktank NITI Aayog was also tasked with initiating a national programme on artificial intelligence(AI). Centres of excellence were also announced on robotics, AI, the Internet of Things, etc.

Modi recently talked about use cases of new-age technologies in agriculture and also said that India is fast emerging as a global manufacturing hub. Now, by speaking of his commitment to 4IR on the BRICS platform, Modi seems to be promoting the image of Digital India at a global level.

[The development was reported by Livemint.]

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