In one of the biggest Indian startup news this week, nearly 140 employees of Bengaluru-based Razorpay took part in the first liquidity event for the company as the Tiger Global, led a secondary deal for Employee Stock Option Plans (ESOPs). Harshil Mathur, CEO and co-founder of Razorpay, said that the company negotiated a secondary deal with the Tiger Global and the transaction was done at a 50% premium to the company’s valuation at its last funding round. All existing and former employees who hold vested stocks will be eligible to sell up to 33% of their vested ESOP shares of the company.

Here’s a look at the other important developments for the week.

Important Indian Startup News Stories Of The Week

MCA Issues Notices To 2000 Startups Over Investor Premiums

The ministry specifically focussed on companies whose valuations have fallen after the first round of fundraising. These notices had been issued in the past 45 days and the ministry wants to understand whether these startups have sought exemptions under any government scheme.

Flipkart-Walmart Deal: Income Tax Issues Notices, And More

• Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, along with 35 other stakeholders, have received notice from the Income Tax (I-T) department, questioning the total income raised from the sale of their equity stake in the company. Binny Bansal said that there was a query received with regard to the sale of shares and payment of advance taxes. It happened a few months ago and I had already responded to the same, he added.
• The US-based global retail giant Walmart has reportedly increased its share in recently acquired Indian ecommerce subsidiary Flipkart to 81.3%.  According to data revealed by Paper.vc, the other stakeholders in Flipkart now are: Tencent (5.37%), Tiger Global (4.77%), Binny Bansal (4.2%), Microsoft (1.53%), Accel (1.38%), Iconiq Capital (0.98%), Temasek (0.29%) and UBS (0.19%).
• Binny Bansal had filed a police complaint against the accuser for blackmailing and levelling false allegations against him. Following due process, the police informed him that when called to furnish her statement, the woman apologised for making these allegations to Walmart. Binny Bansal has however reserved his right to reopen the case if and when necessary.

Government Mulls Higher Penalties For Companies Not Reporting Data Breaches

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is working on introducing new rules under the IT Act, after a spate of data breach incidents reported by Google and Facebook which had affected Indian users. The government believes that most of the companies do not actively follow the law and also delay their response when letters are sent to them seeking information.

EU Says Data Localisation Mandate Unnecessary And Harmful

In an online submission to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Bruno Gencarelli, who serves as the head of the International Data Flows and Protection Unit at the European Commission (EC), expressed concern over the provisions in the draft Bill that leave it to the discretion of the central government or the Data Protection Authority (DPA) to decide on key matters rather than dealing with them in the Bill itself, which could create some uncertainties.

Social Media Companies To Have Fortnightly Meetings With Govt

The Ministry of Home Affairs called officials from the social media companies to get an update on their appointment of grievance redressal officers for the country ahead of the general election with a view to keep a check on the spread of misinformation. A Twitter spokesperson told Inc42 that discussions with the ministry over the matter are still going on.

Facebook Says Data Requests From Government On The Rise

The company claimed to have received nearly 16,580 data requests from the government in the January-June period. It also said that it had provided the data in 53% of the cases. Government officials sometimes make requests for data about Facebook users as part of official investigations. The vast majority of these requests relate to criminal cases, such as robberies or kidnappings, Facebook said in its report.

DIPP To Start Fresh Discussions On Ecommerce Policy

DIPP will put out a draft for the public discussion covering more than 15 issues relevant to the sector after these discussions. However, it will stay clear of the heated discussions on FDI issue so that proposal can be firmed up on other issues.

Suspension Of Aadhaar-Based e-NACH Payments System May Hit Digital Lenders

Under eMudhra’s digital signature system, a customer can authenticate a payment process with a one-time password (OTP). However since the Supreme Court curbed the use of Aadhaar-based eKYC by private companies, this product may result in contempt of court if continued. The e-NACH authentication system is estimated to save banks about 95% of their transaction-related costs.

Paytm Extortion Case: Bail Plea For Sonia Dhawan

Sonia Dhawan’s lawyer Satish Kumar had appealed in the district court, Gautam Buddha nagar for bail for his client in the Paytm extortion case. The application was filed after the Surajpur district court, Greater Noida (UP) special judge rejected the bail application of Dhawan’s husband, Roopak Jain, on November 14.

Xiaomi Opens 500+ Mi Stores Across Villages

Located across 14 states, the all-new Mi Stores have an average size of 300 sq ft. and reflect the signature design of Xiaomi’s Mi home stores. Xioami India plans to open 5000 Mi Stores by the end of 2019 and is looking to generate more than 15,000 jobs. The new Mi Store outlets will serve as Xiaomi’s prime retail stores situated in several towns ranging from tier 3, 4, 5 and below.

Other Indian Startup News Stories Of The Week

Brands Oppose Deep Discounts During Ecommerce Sales

Discounts are considered to be a major driver behind high-volume sales and acquiring customer loyalty. Electronics companies like Sony, Apple, LG, Eureka Forbes, and Dyson have already taken action against Flipkart and Amazon for offering deep discounts during the Navratri and Diwali sales in October and November.

BookMyShow Joins Grab Ventures Velocity Programme

As part of the Grab Ventures Velocity Program, BookMyShow’s offerings will be featured on the Grab homepage feed, enabling users to browse and books services on the Grab app. This will give BookMyShow access to Grab’s customers and deeper access to the Indonesian market as well.

Quikr Looks To Breakeven Next Year

According to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs filings accessed by Inc42, the standalone performance for the company showed a net loss of $27.87 Mn (INR 197 Cr), down 37.7% from a loss of $44.79 Mn (INR 316.58 Cr) in the previous year. The filings also showed that the consolidated loss for the year was $33Mn (INR 233.28 Cr).

Video Over Internet To Be $5 Bn Market By 2023, Says BCG Report

Documenting this change in a report entitled ‘Entertainment Goes Online’, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said that over the top (OTT)  content — video content delivered through the internet — is expected to reach a market size of $5 Bn (INR 35,730 Cr) by 2023. Outlining some of the challenges, the BCG said that while there are more than 30 OTT apps in India, over 80% of the users stick to three apps or less, so breaking through the clutter becomes the biggest challenge.

SoftBank To Open Office In Mumbai, Deepen India Investments

SoftBank’s subsidiary SoftBank Investment Advisers, which invests through the SoftBank Vision Fund has announced its plans to open an office in Mumbai in a bid to strengthen its position in the Indian market. According to the company, the new office will be led by Sumer Juneja who has been appointed as the country head for India recently.

LinkedIn Says Bengaluru Professionals Highest Paid

US-based professional networking platform LinkedIn, launched LinkedIn Salary in India, which will provide users detailed salary trends for different professions. The LinkedIn Salary feature will provide insights on best paying locations,top-payingg companies, salaries based on educational qualifications and industries, regarding a specific job title.

Citiustech Aims To Clock In $500 Mn Revenue In Five Years

Healthtech company Citiustech is looking to more than double its revenue to $ 500 Mn in five years in lieu of growing investments by hospitals, insurance firms and service providers in the US and Europe in harnessing data to improve services. It expects to close this fiscal with revenues of $175-180 Mn, including income from FluidEdge, which it acquired earlier this year.

IIT-Kharagpur Introduces Filter For Disaster Fake News

The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur has found a solution that uses artificial intelligence to extract critical information from social media platforms that is difficult to obtain manually. This information can be used to determine the authenticity of posts and also pass on data to aid rescue and relief operations.

Mindtree Bets On Software Solutions, Artificial Intelligence

Bengaluru-based information technology company Mindtree is investing on artificial intelligence (AI) and software solutions so that it can offer customers new services on a subscription basis in anticipation of a disruption in the services business over the next five years.

WhatsApp, DEF Conduct Training To Curb Fake News In Jaipur

Focusing on key election states and those plagued with instances of provoked-violence as a result of misinformation earlier this year, WhatsApp and Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) addressed over 120 attendees. The training was provided for local government administrations, law enforcement authorities, college students, NGOs and other community leaders, who are dedicated to the technological empowerment of their society, especially villages and semi-urban center.

Chai Point Looks To Expand Presence, Experiment Hybrid Model

Online and retail tea maker Chai Point’s hybrid on-demand payment model will be integrated in the its beverage dispenser model called BoxC. The integration, for which the firm has partnered Paytm, will enable Chai Point to have a dual payment system for BoxC on a contractual basis with the corporate house or employer for a minimum amount and on-demand, where it can scale through payments by consumers directly.

T-hub, Slush Partner For Global Startup Festival In India

The event brought together tech entrepreneurs, corporates, investors and innovators all under one roof, and focused on growth, scaling and user acquisition. Key takeaways from the event also included strategies on how to choose a new market, setting a go-to-market strategy, scaling an engineering team and how startups can grow along with tech giants.

BigBasket Partners With DBS To Launch Co-Branded Debit Card

Under this exclusive partnership, Digibank customers with the card who open a digi Savings account will earn a 5% cashback on every order placed on BigBasket’s app and website. The cashback will be up to a maximum amount of INR 200 per month and INR 2400 annually.

Niki.Ai Break Even On Every Transacted Order

Niki.ai, an artificial intelligent bot, has turned profitable for all transactions starting October 2018. The company has registered a (INR 200 Cr) gross merchandise revenue (GMV) annualised at current run rate. The company has launched its much-awaited voice command feature, providing vernacular support to India’s next billion internet users. Going forward, it aims to achieve an annualised GMV run rate of INR 1800 Cr by the end of FY20. The company intends to use their Artificial Intelligence-based proprietary technology to build a product for Bharat.

Vokal Launches Video Q&A In Vernacular Languages

Bengaluru-based knowledge sharing platform Vokal launched Video Questions and Answers in vernacular languages, which it claims helps animate and humanise the Question and Answer format and make it a lot more interesting for the viewers. Users can ask questions using the voice / text option as usual and knowledge contributors now have the option to respond either in audio or video.

Google Enables Neighbourly Across India

Neighbourhood community app Neighbourly by Google has now extended its services across India, almost six months after beta in Mumbai. The new cities which will use Neighbourly include Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, and Kolkata. Neighbourly allows users to ask questions and share their recommendations in a question and answer format through text or voice in eight Indian languages. Users can also keep up with relevant information in their neighbourhood by browsing through relevant conversations on the app.

Goals101 Expands To Qatar, Middle East

Fintech and Big Data platform Goals101 opened its new full-fledged office within the exclusive Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), Doha.  Goals101 aims to target the banks that are increasingly looking at the potential benefits of financial technology and digital platforms.

Ola Continues UK Ride With Service Live In South West England

Ride-hailing company Ola launched its services in South West England. With this, people in and around the city of Bristol can book rides on the Ola app, with services launching in Exeter and more towns in the coming weeks. Ola is offering a limited number of discounted rides to customers to try its service.

BigBasket Eyes 40% Revenues From Private Labels

Grocery delivery company BigBasket is expecting 40% of its projected revenue to come in from its private labels. The company aims to clock INR 3500 Cr in sales this fiscal year, up from INR 2000Cr last year. The company will also add a lot of categories to the private labels vertical.

Cars24 Record 3X Growth In Transactions

Used cars portal Cars24 recorded a more than three-fold growth in transactions over the past 10 months. Its monthly transactions grew to 10,000 in October from 3,000 almost a year ago, cofounder Vikram Chopra said.

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

The post News Roundup: 11 Indian Startup News Stories You Don’t Want To Miss This Week [19-24 Nov 2018] appeared first on Inc42 Media.

At a time when Venezuelans and Argentinians have been fast moving from their local currencies — Bolivar and Peso — to cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, the latter too has been on a down slide for the last 11 months.

This Monday, Bitcoin plunged below $5K, making it an unviable currency owing to increasing cost of mining. The next halving is due on May 23, 2020 which will further decrease the coin reward from 12.5 to 6.25.

Bitcoin is currently trading at $4.34K, lowest in the last one year. Columnist Peter Vogel counts various reasons behind the cryptocurrency downturn. Among few are steep decline in tech markets across the world and the ongoing war over fourth most valuable cryptocurrency Bitcoin Cash.

Let’s take a look at this week’s crypto developments!

Cryptocurrency Case: Finance Ministry Defends RBI’s Concerns In Supreme Court

In a counter affidavit to a two-judge Supreme Court bench hearing a batch of cases on the legitimacy of cryptocurrency in India, the finance ministry defended the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) ban on crypto entities from access to any banking services.

Representatives from the finance ministry submitted that the RBI circular as well as warnings issued by finance ministry on December 29, 2017 and by finance minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech on February 1, 2018, are in line with the first inter-ministerial (interdisciplinary) committee’s recommendations on cryptocurrencies.

The committee in its report recommended that warnings should be issued to the effect that cryptocurrencies are neither coins nor currencies and consumers should stop trading in these currencies. It also recommended that enforcement agencies take action against such trades to protect consumers.

Another inter-ministerial committee, led by Department of Economic Affairs secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, is yet to draft its report. The committee is scheduled for further meetings in December 2018 and January 2019, the finance ministry said.

Twitter Campaign Pushes For RBI Circular Rollback, Regulatory Framework For Crypto

In the absence of a regulatory framework, the status quo of cryptocurrency in India continues to be stuck in a stalemate even as trading is limited to crypto-to-crypto as against crypto-to-INR.

“We are worried about the RBI’s banking ban on crypto. It has hampered the entire crypto sector of India and the innovations that come along,” says Nischal Shetty, CEO of crypto exchange WazirX. Shetty is of one the crypto entrepreneurs who have voiced their dissatisfaction with the state of affairs on various platforms.

In September, Shetty sparked off a Twitter campaign to seek the community’s support and government’s attention towards regulating cryptocurrency in India.

Another similar campaign, an online petition on Change.org started by crypto exchange, Bitbns, also seeks to gather support for cryptocurrencies. It demands the repeal of the RBI circular. As of now, the petition has been signed by 44,634 people and is expected to reach 50K.

ABC Wins The Bitcoin Cash War

Bitcoin having hard-forked multiple times to Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, a new war has emerged in Bitcoin Cash, the world’s fourth-biggest cryptocurrency. The two powerful factions Bitcoin SV and ABC have been trying to gain control over the network.

However, the ABC faction led by crypto investor Roger Ver has now won the race called as the Nakamoto Consensus, in which computers that support the Bitcoin Cash network voted to go with either ABC or SV, which offered different technical improvements to the network.

Roger Ver, however, tweeted, “No one wins a war. Some just lose less than others.”

Bitcoin’s Daily Transfer Volume Close to MasterCard’s Now

Despite all the bad news, there are good news too. According to a recent report, Bitcoin is inching closer by the day towards overtaking MasterCard in terms of daily transfers.

A news daily Trustnodes reported that going by the official numbers released by MasterCard in the payment behemoth’s latest quarterly report, Bitcoin is fast becoming a more serious rival than ever.

Currently Bitcoin daily transaction is nearly 73% of MasterCard’s daily volume of $11 Bn.

In another news, customers in France can now shop at tobacco shops with Bitcoin, reported Reuters. According to the news agency, a French company has decided to integrate cryptocurrency with the sale of tobacco.

The post Cryptocurrency This Week: Indian Govt’s Submission In Supreme Court, Bitcoin Cash War And More appeared first on Inc42 Media.

US-based ecommerce company Amazon said that it would reverse its decision of blocking Australians from using the US website after a customer backlash.

Users had filed a complaint against the company saying that since July, they are being prevented from getting access to the goods available on the US platform. Australian customers were reportedly being redirected to the Amazon Australia website whenever they browse products.

According to reports, Amazon had blocked Australian users from accessing the US website after the country introduced a 10% tax on imported online goods worth less than $723.6 ($1K AUD).

Meanwhile, picture-sharing social platform Instagram said it has developed machine learning tools that will detect accounts that get likes and subscribers artificially.  This move is aimed at keeping a check on the “inauthentic likes, follows, and comments” some users get by paying and using third-party applications to popularise their accounts.

Further, US-based Adobe Analytics, which tracks online transactions, has predicted that nearly $6.4 Bn will be spent on online purchases during the Black Friday — an American shopping festival held on the Friday following Thanksgiving Day.

We’ve kept you updated on the latest news from the Indian startup ecosystem. Here’s Inc42’s weekly roundup of the latest news from the international technology and startup ecosystem from the week of November 19-25:

US Records $3.7 Bn Sales During Thanksgiving

US customers reportedly spent about $3.7 Bn online during the Thanksgiving holiday this year. According to reports, about 54.4% of traffic to retail sites and 36.7% of all ecommerce sales was driven by smartphones. This year, online revenue reportedly increased by 28% from the $2.9 Bn recorded last year. The day also witnessed $1 Bn sales in smartphones.

IKEA May Lay Off 7,500 People

Sweden-based furniture-maker IKEA said that it may lay off 7,500 people as part of restructuring its business. According to reports, the company has plans to create 11,500 more jobs. It also plans to launch 30 new smaller-format stores. IKEA added that it may see a 10X rise in the number of employees in India to reach 15,000 in the future. According to reports, the company also revealed its plans to invest $1.7 Bn (1.5 Bn Euros) in India and hopes to have a presence across several cities in the country.

Google Announces Ad Verification Plan Before EU Election

US-based search company Google has announced its plans to prevent election interference during the upcoming parliamentary election in May 2019, when about 350 Mn voters across the EU will vote to elect 705 members of the European Parliament.

In a blog post, the company said it will introduce a verification system for EU election advertisers so as confirm their identities. Under this system, the advertisers will also have to disclose their source of payment. According to reports, the company is trying to narrow down on the election ads where it can just have information on political parties, candidates, or a current officeholder.

Facebook Policy VP Richard Allan To Attend Parliamentary Meeting

Social networking company Facebook will reportedly have to furnish answers to the International Grand Committee comprising 22 representatives from seven parliaments on the spread of fake news and data misuse scandals. However, during the meeting, which is scheduled to be held in London next week, Facebook policy solutions vice-president Richard Allan will be giving the answers after Mark Zuckerberg refused to attend the meeting.

According to reports, Allan will have to present evidence to support the company before the parliamentary representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Latvia, Singapore, and members of the UK’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

Walmart Starts Testing Grocery Delivery Service In China

US-based retail chain Walmart has started testing its same-day grocery delivery service — Walmart To Go — in one of its stores in China. According to reports, Walmart users who are on the WeChat platform will be allowed to place their orders through their phone. The service will be available on the Walmart WeChat mini programme. The company claimed that the users can expect their orders to be delivered within an hour. About 8,000 stock keeping units (SKUs), including fresh products, personal care products, and homecare products, will be available through this service.

AutoDesk To Acquire Cloud-Based Software Startup PlanGrid

US-based 3D technology company Autodesk has announced its plans to acquire a cloud-based software startup, PlanGrid, for $875 Mn. PlanGrid, which was founded in 2011, offered a digital document collaboration platform which enables instant sharing of plans, markups, photos, and reports with people concerned in construction projects. According to reports, Autodesk said that this acquisition deal would help the company improve its workflows for all the stakeholders involved in the construction process.

WeWork China Expands To 60 Locations

US-based coworking platform WeWork has expanded its services to 60 locations in China from the initial four, including megacities such as  Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen. According to reports, the company believes that China will become one of its fastest-growing markets. Sern Hong Yu, regional head of project delivery at WeWork China, mentioned that the expansion will be faster in the coming year; however, Yu did not disclose the exact number of new offices in the country.

[Stay tuned for the next week’s edition of Around The Tech And Startup World!]

The post Google To Launch Ad Verification Before EU Election: News From Tech & Startup World [Nov 19-25] appeared first on Inc42 Media.

A study by Accenture revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) could add $957 Bn to the Indian economy with the potential to increase the country’s income by 15% by 2035.

With an eye on the tremendous opportunity, the Centre allocated more than $480 Mn under the Digital India initiative in the Union Budget this year. Government think-tank NITI Aayog is also planning to adopt AI in sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, education, infrastructure, and transportation.

During the 12th India Digital Summit, NITI Aayog chief Amitabh Kant had said, “This is a period of huge technology disruption in India. Artificial intelligence alone will generate the opportunity to the tune of $32 Bn.”

With disruption being the cornerstone of AI use cases, one company that’s taking its product to next level with AI is GOQii.

GOQii was founded by serial entrepreneur and gaming prodigy Vishal Gondal, who had sold his first venture — IndiaGames — to Walt Disney for $100 Mn.

In his over 20-year entrepreneurship journey, Gondal has worn several hats — serial entrepreneur, angel investor, hustler, podcast show host, and others. As an angel investor, Gondal invests in startups from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and enables them to compete at a global level.

In the 22nd episode of Inc42’s Ask Me Anything (AMA), Vishal Gondal talks about the applications of AI and where it should be used and where it should not.

Gondal believes that AI cannot transform certain sectors, including education, healthcare, and, to some extent, the service industry, as in these sectors human interface is of prime importance.

He says, “Technology will always be used in the backend to make things better and more efficient, but you as a human are always expecting somebody as a human frontend. Also in the case of health, there are a lot of things which AI just can’t figure out, which is called the context.”

He believes that for transaction services, AI can very well replace and do a lot of automation, but in the healthcare scenario, AI will always be what he calls “a way to augment.”

Gondal explains, “For example, the model on which GOQii is betting on is not an AI-based model, it is an assistant AI model, where humans will always be the decisionmakers and on the driving seat and AI assist them to scale.”

Stay tuned for our next article on Vishal Gondal’s Ask Me Anything!

The post AI Can Replace Some Humans, Not All, Believes Vishal Gondal Of GOQii appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Last week, NASSCOM successfully hosted a webinar entitled NASSCOM Product Connect: Customer Acquisition or Retention,  in which the participants learnt about some of the fundamentals of acquiring customers and what has to be done to retain existing customers. In the webinar, the key speaker, Aditya Trivedi, who is a senior director at SAP, highlighted practical ways to reach out to potential buyers.

A non-profit initiative named ASCENT India Foundation successfully organised The ASCENT Conclave last week. The event saw participation from India’s thought leaders and innovators, who shared their success and failure stories to help guide aspiring entrepreneurs.

After an eventful week, we are here to help you book your calendars again with Inc42’s latest edition of startup events coming up this week.

TiE Global Summit III

TiE Global and TiE Delhi-NCR are hosting the third edition of TiE Global Summit 2018 in Delhi. This year the summit will dwell on Entrepreneurship: Driving Employment, Driving Growth as the theme. The event will witness participation of 61 chapters of TiE from across the globe.

The Summit will also host some prominent names of the ecosystem including Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation Suresh Prabhu; Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha; Bibop G. Gresta, Chairman, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies; Dhiraj
Rajaram, Founder & Chairman, Mu Sigma; Kishore Biyani, Founder & CEO, Future Group among others.

Who Should Attend: Entrepreneurs, investors, industry stakeholders, students, wannapreneurs

Date: Nov 29-30, 2018 | Starting from 8 AM

Venue: Taj Palace, New Delhi

Startup Open House Pune- 91 Springboard

Coworking platform 91Springboard is organising Startup Open House this week in Pune with an aim to connect and grow. The main objective behind the event is to set up a vibrant community for everyone to connect and discover opportunities.

It will offer a platform for the startups to showcase their products to an audience consisting of potential partners and customers. They will also receive constructive feedback from their peers.

Who Should Attend: Students, entrepreneurs, freelancers, investors, tech enthusiasts

Date: Nov 30, 2018 | 5PM-7PM

Venue: 91springboard Yerwada, Pune

IIM Bangalore Pitch Tune Session: Nov 2018

The November 2018 edition of the Pitch Tune Session will be hosted this week at Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) Bangalore. The event will see participation from experts across different domains and verticals, including entrepreneurs, senior industry professionals, investors, and many others.

The event will provide a platform for startups to pitch their ideas and get a fundraising opportunity. They will also get to network and connect with industry experts, who will give advice on how to develop their businesses.

Who Should Attend: Entrepreneurs, students, investors, wannapreneurs

Date: Nov 28, 2018 | 2:30PM – 6:30 PM

Venue: Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) Bangalore

Stay tuned for the next edition of Events to Attend!

The post Startup Events This Week: TiE Global Summit III And More appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Mumbai-based wearable tech startup, GOQii, has raised a second round of funding led by Japanese conglomerate Mitsui & Co, as part of which the two companies also agreed to collaborate on GOQii’s expansion plans in Japan.

The Crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital and Denlow Investment Trust also participated in the round along with existing investors DSG Consumer Partners, NEA, Edelweiss Financial Services, Cheetah Mobile, along with Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and Tata Group chairman emeritus Ratan Tata. Trifecta Capital also provided venture debt to the company.

According to an ET report, the company raised $30-$35 Mn in the Series B round, at a valuation of $100-125 Mn.  GOQii is now planning to expand into new markets over the next 12-18 months.

GOQii plans to use the fresh funding for talent and headcount addition, marketing and geographical expansion. The company will further strengthen its big data analytics and artificial intelligence platform to drive actionable insights and to provide a holistic view of a user’s health.

Founded in February 2014 by Vishal Gondal, GOQii is a smart wearable that helps people track their steps, sleep, and other physical activities, and then does more.

Vishal Gondal, CEO of GOQii, said,  “We are very excited to partner with Mitsui to drive the next phase of our growth. There are several areas of potential collaboration and our respective teams will drive an aggressive roadmap to deliver our goal of Reimagining Healthcare Globally.”

Mitsui’s investment will enable GOQii to penetrate further across India and will also mark GOQii’s entry into Japan. Koji Nagatomi, COO of the Healthcare and Service Business Unit of Mitsui, said, “GOQii’s product offering is highly complementary to our portfolio of healthcare investments in India and Globally and we see several areas of immediate collaboration between us and GOQii. We also see a strong potential for GOQii to enter the Japanese market and are ready to help GOQii achieve its vision and ambitions.”

Vishal Gondal first ventured into the Indian startup ecosystem in the 1990s with gaming company Indiagames when he was just 16. After running the company for more than 13 years, Gondal sold Indiagames to Walt Disney for $100 Mn.

During a recent Ask Me Anything with Inc42, Gondal talked about his vision of GOQii and said that “at GOQii, what we’re trying to build is a technology-enabled platform that will guide people, motivate them, and make them help others by becoming an agent of change. That’s how you scale the model.”

The post GOQii To Expand Team, Enter Japanese Market With Mitsui-Led Funding appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In a gazette notification, the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises said that the government has increased the outlay for the first phase of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicles (FAME) scheme to $126.74 Mn (INR 895 Cr).

The FAME scheme is part of the government’s ambitious National Electric Mobility Mission Plan to convert at least one-third of the automobiles on Indian roads to EVs by 2030. The Indian government launched the FAME scheme in 2015, with the first phase set to be implemented over two years between April 1, 2015 – March 31, 2017, at an initial outlay of $112.71 Mn (INR 795 Cr).  However, the programme has so far received four extensions of six months each.

In the first phase of the FAME scheme, the government is trying to incentivise the purchase of hybrid and electric cars, two-wheelers, and three-wheelers. Approximately 2,18,625 Electronic Vehicles were ‘promoted’ by FAME I till July 2018.

Industry experts believe that these subsidies and the effective rollout of the FAME India scheme are extremely important for sustainable development of the EV ecosystem in the country.

According to a study by FICCI and Rocky Mountain Institute, transitioning to 100% electric vehicles could help India could help save up to $300 Bn (INR 20 Lakh Cr) in oil imports and nearly 1 gigatonne of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.  However, after ambitious plans of 100% electric mobility by 2030, the government took it down to 30%.

In line with its goals, the government is also working on the second phase of FAME which has proposed setting up of a venture capital fund of $70.85 Mn (INR 500 Cr) for development of a manufacturing base for zero-emission vehicles and their components, taking prototypes to manufacturing, and development of R&D among others. As many as 136 startups related to electric vehicles already exist in India.

The central government in August this year agreed to provide subsidies for all categories of electric vehicles — two, three, and four-wheelers — as part of the second phase of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme. The government had initially rolled out subsidies for electric buses only.

With continued strive to enable electric mobility framework in India, the government’s electric vehicle policy still remains awaited.

[The development was reported by ET.]

The post Govt Increases Outlay For FAME I Electric Vehicle Plan To $126.74 Mn appeared first on Inc42 Media.

OLX has joined hands with Germany-based Frontier Car Group (FCG) to launch its offline used car selling stores called ‘Cash My Car’. This marks FCG’s first step into the Indian market.

The company claims to have an overall market share of 77% in the Indian used cars segment. Currently, 27 Cash My Car stores are operational across 10 cities – New Delhi, Gurugram, Faridabad, Noida, Ghaziabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, and Chennai. “Plans are afoot to aggressively expand the store footprint to 150 by end of 2021 across 40 cities,” a company spokesperson said in a media statement.

OLX and FCG have agreed to share technological resources, expertise and knowledge to build and operate Cash My Car stores across cities in India.

FCG builds and operates pre-owned automotive marketplaces within emerging markets such as Nigeria, Mexico, Chile, Pakistan, and Indonesia. It is backed by OLX Ventures, the investment arm of OLX’s global classifieds business. As part of the joint venture, FCG will help set up the technology back-end for Cash My Car and later on help scale the business in terms of operations.

According to Sujay Tyle, cofounder and CEO of Frontier Car Group, OLX Cash My Car will ease the friction associated with selling pre-owned cars by focusing on pricing, transparency and speed.

Users can now either sell a pre-owned car directly on the OLX online platform, OLX Auto, or offline at a Cash My Car local store. An OLX Cash My Car authorised vehicle inspection agent will physically inspect the condition of the car and the documentation. On the basis of the inspection, the car is then auctioned online to OLX Cash My Car’s partners across cities. The entire process can be completed in 45 minutes,  OLX claims.

“Through our proprietary pricing algorithm, we are able to standardise the prices associated with pre-owned cars. We run online live auctions, which gives customers 100 per cent visibility into the price offer they receive for any car we inspect at our store and a price offer can be made within minutes,” Tyle added.

OLX currently claims to have 40 Mn users who register over 4.8 Mn pre-owned cars annually and a network of more than 40K partners. Overall, OLX claims to have 85%  market share in the consumer-to-consumer selling segment in India.

“Having built both depth and width in this segment, and profound customer understanding, we are now providing users with another choice and touch point with this new initiative,” said Amit Kumar, VP, OLX India who is also heading OLX Cash My Car operation.

The market for the used cars in India is expected to reach $75 Bn by 2023, recording a CAGR of 15.2% during the forecast period, according to a May 2018 report by Mordor Intelligence.

About 3.4 Mn second-hand vehicles are bought and sold every year. But only a small part of these (400 K) originate from businesses to consumers and are processed by organised dealers.

However, heavier taxes on new cars, the rise in fuel prices, and access to offline used car sellers is making the proposition of buying a used car more acceptable to Indian consumers. In recent years this growing market has given rise to a host of second-hand automotive companies such as CarTrade, CarDekho, ZigWheels, Gaadi.com, Droom, Truebil, and Quikr Cars.

The post OLX To Open 150 Offline Used Car Stores By 2021 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Bengaluru-based Verloop closed a $3 Mn Series A investment round led by IDFC Parampara Fund.

Infosys cofounder Kris Gopalakrishnan, and Dr Ranjan Pai, the chairman of the Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG), also participated in the funding round.

The GrowthStory-promoted Saas conversation automation provider, was part of the Y Combinator Startup School 2017. Currently Verloop supports seven Indian languages including Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali and even Hinglish.

Clients who have leveraged the Verloop platform include Nykaa, Qtrove, Pipa Bella, Portea, Apollo Munich Health Insurance and Aadhaar Bridge. It has also been used by some of the biggest stars in Indian entertainment including Rajinikanth for his movie Kaala to engage with fans.

In addition, the company has developed a new messaging protocol and a patent-pending technology for the bot-to-human handoff for conversations when it detects that the conversation can be better served by a human chat representative.

The funding will be utilised to enhance the Verloop customer engagement platform as the company expands its team and scales operations to address the global market for automated customer services and marketing that MetricNet estimates is valued at $19 Bn annually.

Verloop: Number Crunch, Technology & More

Gaurav Singh, the 28-year old founder and CEO of Verloop claims that the platform already works with more than 5000 clients across ecommerce, healthcare, education, entertainment and lifestyle sectors across 37 countries.

He claims that Verloop  has processed more than 120 Mn unique conversations since its launch in late 2016. Verloop use-cases span marketing and sales, customer support and celebrity brand management.

“The use-cases they’ve built are very interesting and there is great potential for the product to verticalise and mine the potential for automated customer engagement across industries, across countries and across languages,” said Jatin Desai, General Partner, IDFC-Parampara.

There has been a massive behavioural shift when it comes to personalised brand experiences among the consumers. “This is where machine learning coupled with human ingenuity comes in and can help harvest the potential in these interactions,” Gopalakrishnan said.

The post IDFC Parampara, Infosys Cofounder Back Chatbot Maker Verloop In $3 Mn Funding appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Not content with acquiring a 9.5% stake in Kishore Biyani’s Future Retail, Amazon is now said to be discussing a wider agreement with the Indian brick-and-mortar store operator.

According to a report, Amazon is drafting a call-and-put option in the deal that will allow the global ecommerce company to call for Biyani’s stake in Future Retail Limited (FRL) over the long term, possibly as much as 8-10 years, subject to a change in Indian laws around foreign investments.

Biyani with his family controls 46.51% stake in Future Retail.

The Amazon-Future Retail deal talk first began in January when Kishore Biyani met Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in his Seattle headquarters. The much-delayed deal for the initial stake is worth $342.86 Mn (INR 2,500 Cr) and is set to be finalised in December.

Future Retail owns and operates brands such as BigBazaar, EasyDay, and Niligiris. The company has acquired half a dozen supermarket store chains and put together a total retail space of 13.6 Mn sq ft, with a presence in 255 cities through over 1,030 stores.

Currently regulations allow overseas investment of up to 51% in multi-brand retail, but an Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) can acquire less than 10% in an Indian entity as a single firm while an Indian company can dilute up to 49% of its stake to multiple FPIs.

Amazon has already picked up stakes in Shoppers Stop and Aditya Birla Retail ‘More’ through the FPI route.

As the company gets a toehold in Future Retail, Amazon is betting that the current limits on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in food processing and single-brand retail will be relaxed over time.

The current market cap of FRL is $3.6 Bn (INR 26, 648.69 Cr). As part of the deal, Amazon is likely to give a significant ‘control’ premium of around 25-30% for their right to call upon the shares.

Amazon and Future Group are also exploring agreements across fashion and FMCG verticals as well as synergise Amazon Pay and Future Pay to leverage on the network effect.

[The development was reported by ET.]

The post Amazon Eyes A Larger Alliance With Biyani’s Future Retail appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After six months of exiting Flipkart with $1Bn returns, Sachin Bansal is venturing back into Indian startup ecosystem looking for opportunities in fintech and agritech.

A media report citing sources said that Sachin Bansal will establish a holding company through which he will run his new businesses and make investments along with his new partner Ankit Agarwal, who he has known from his IIT-Delhi days.

Sachin is expected to directly operate his new businesses as well as invest in the agritech and fintech segments. However, the launch date for this new venture is not yet set.

Ankit Agarwal is an investment banker and was last working as a director at Bank of America, where he worked on interest rate trading.

After the Walmart-Flipkart deal, Sachin Bansal has been in talks to invest in cab-hailing company Ola, electric bike maker Ather Energy, artificial intelligence-based healthcare venture Sigtuple, and online insurance company Acko.

The interest of Sachin Bansal in fintech and agritech attributes the high-potential of the sector which has continued to attract investments along with innovation.

To begin with, according to Inc42’s flagship Ecosystem Report, Fintech as a sector has received $6.3 Bn funding since 2008 across 815 deals. This continues to be the trend, as the Indian Tech Startup Funding H1 2018 report, states that fintech startups raised a combined funding of $631.29 Mn across 70 deals in H1 2018.

At the same time, in agritech, we have investors like Omnivore Partners, Future Venture Capital Company Ltd. (FVCCL), IDG Venture, Accel Partners, Aspada Investments, IvyCap Ventures, Unitus Seed Fund, Rabo Equity Advisors, SAIF Partners, Villgro Innovations Foundation, Qualcomm Ventures and IDFC, among others.

The sector has raised $36 Mn from 15 agritech startups in 2017. IBEF report suggests that the country’s Gross Value Added (GVA) from the sector is estimated to have grown at 3% in FY18.

Entrepreneurs playing their second innings include Ibibo co-founder Ashish Kashyap who launched his fintech venture INDWealth with focus on wealth management and ex-Freecharge co-founder Kunal Shah has a new fintech venture CRED, which enables credit card bill payments.

Also, we have InMobi founder Amit Gupta traversing ecosystem with his new Internet of Things-focused startup Yulu Bike, which provides dockless bicycles sharing for the first mile, last mile, and short distance commute. Yulu has made it to Inc42’s 42Next, a list of the 42 most innovative startups causing an impact in the Indian startup ecosystem.

Another entrepreneur who has made his second attempt at entrepreneurship fruitful is Taxi For-Sure cofounder Aprameya Radhakrishna who founded Vokal, a knowledge sharing platform in the P2P info-sharing space for Bharat.

After CRED, Yulu, Vokal and INDWealth creating buzz and raising funds, the Indian startup ecosystem has high hopes set with Sachin Bansal’s new venture.

 [The development was reported by ET.]

The post Sachin Bansal To Explore Fintech, Agritech Investments Along With His College Friend appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In a Facebook post today (November 27), WhatsApp’s chief business officer (CBO) Neeraj Arora, announced his exit after a seven year stint at the company.

“Time flies for sure but not memories. It is hard to believe that it has been seven years since Jan and Brian got me onboard at WhatsApp, and it has been one hell of a ride!” Arora said.

Arora, an IIT Delhi alumni, had earlier worked with companies like Google and Times Internet. He was also on the board of Paytm.

WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton quit the company in 2017 while the other cofounder Jan Koum put in his papers in April this year. Since then, speculations were rife about Arora as candidate for the post of  WhatsApp CEO as he was an early member of the team and played a critical role in the growth of WhatsApp in global markets, particularly India.

Recently WhatsApp announced the appointment of Ezetap co-founder Abhijit Bose as the head of its Indian operations. He is the first ever country head of the Facebook-owned messaging app and he will join the company in early 2019.

Arora said that he is now looking to spend quality time with his family and hopes that WhatsApp “will continue to be the simple, secure & trusted communication product for years to come.”

“I’m going to be taking some time off to recharge and spend time with family. I am deeply indebted to Jan and Brian, who entrusted me to be their business companion for so many years and I am thankful to each one of you who has supported me along the way and made this exciting journey possible,” he said.

In a separate statement, WhatsApp spokesperson said, “WhatsApp is grateful for the dedication, focus, and outstanding work of our early leaders and team. We remain deeply committed to providing a way for people to communicate privately now and in the future.”

The post WhatsApp To Find New Business Chief As Neeraj Arora Resigns appeared first on Inc42 Media.

India is ready to take on leading nations as it looks to secure a place among the top three economies of the world by 2030, said angel investor TV Mohandas Pai. Pai, currently a partner at VC firm Aarin Capital, is a former Infosys CFO and a law graduate and fellow.

He was speaking at the launch of Inc42’s The State of The Indian Startup Ecosystem 2018 report at our flagship event, The Ecosystem Summit, held on November 16 in New Delhi.

Pai has high hopes from Indian technology entrepreneurs and expects them to create a $10 Tn economy by 2030. He also expects India to have 100 unicorns by 2025.

Pai provided many facts and figures on certain socio-economic factors and demographics to support his estimates.

He pointed out that India has the second-largest population in the world, which is increasing at a rate of 1.11% — much faster than that of China, at 0.39%. While its large population makes India the “ultimate” investment-destination and market in the world, it could also be cause for concern, said Pai. However, he added that things are looking up as India’s population growth rate seems to be stabilising.

“The fertility rate of the whole of south India is less than 1.8%. Except for a couple of states like Bihar and UP, the fertility rate (in India) is stabilising and, hence, in coming years, the population may not be that big an issue as it appears today,” said Pai.

What India has going for it is the fact that it is the fastest-growing economy in the world today. Since 1991, for the last 27 years, India has had a GDP growth rate of 8.7%, which is only second to China, which grew at 9.5% during the period.

Currently, India’s GDP growth rate is 8.2%, the highest in three years. With this, it has surpassed China as the fastest-growing economy this year. Recently, India also became the sixth-largest economy in the world.

“We are the fastest-growing country in the world. Not comparable with any other country but China. Singapore is home to 5 Mn people, half of Bengaluru’s population. Similar is the case with Finland and other countries,” said Pai.

He added that the increasing participation of women in workforce augurs well for the country. Pai said the only country that has outpaced India on this front in the last 25 years was China. The disparity in education rates among women in India and in China is one of the reasons that India is lagging behind its neighbour as far as women’s participation in the workforce is concerned.

“When Mao Zedong came to power in China, he said, ‘Women hold up half of the heaven,’” said Pai.

Luckily for India, things are changing fast, said Pai, pointing out that about 60% of the enrolments in medical courses in the country are women while in engineering, the figure is 40%.

There’s more good news — India’s inflation is normalising. From 12.5% in 2009, the inflation rate has come down to 4.7% in 2018, even as GDP growth rate is 8.2%. This is reflective of the quality of growth India is seeing. “We have 28% in savings growth. This year, the total investment in India is $760 Bn. It’s not a small number — 30% of the GDP. This largely goes unnoticed, because of the large and diverse geography,” explained Pai.

China is currently a $13 Tn economy, but its gross debt-to-GDP ratio of 260%, compared to India’s at 68.9%, he added.

The biggest plus point for India is that it is largely a young nation. “Gandhi once used to run weekly newspaper ‘Young India’. True to his dreams, India, unlike other countries, is not ageing, said Pai.

“Unlike China, we are not ageing.  Compared to the US (37 years), Japan (48 years) and China (37 years), Indians’ average age is much lower — 29 years. This also supports the claim that the Indian entrepreneurs are the agents of change,” said Pai.

Talking about the findings of Inc42’s flagship report — The State Of The Indian Startup Ecosystem 2018 — Pai asserted that the ecosystem metrics are reflective of the changes India is seeing — there are 39K startups in India, 2,000 investors, apart from an expanding coworking space.

Inc42’s 400-page report — The State Of The Indian Startup Ecosystem 2018 — takes a data-driven and comprehensive approach to analysing the state of the Indian startup ecosystem. The report presents a host of facts and figures relating to startups, policies, investments, sectors, technologies, and other core pillars of the ecosystem. “For the first time, we have a comprehensive report on the Indian startup ecosystem,” said Pai.

“By 2025, there will be 6 Bn smartphones…each person will have a smartphone. Further, in India, you get unlimited data at $1.5 a month currently. India consumes 11 Gb of data per person per month. When each of the 1.3 Bn people (in India) will have a smartphone, magic will happen,” said Pai.

By 2025, we will also have 100 unicorns, forecasted Pai. That’s a lot of hope for the Indian startup ecosystem.

The post India’s Tech Entrepreneurs To Create A $10 Tn Economy By 2030, Says TV Mohandas Pai appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Bengaluru-based dockless scooter sharing startup Bounce (Metro Bikes) has acquired the India assets of Chinese dockless bike rental company Ofo, a company spokesperson told Inc42. The terms of the deal were undisclosed.

“We have been in discussion with Ofo regarding this for a long time. Once the things got confirmed, the announcement came in,” the spokesperson added.

The development was first reported by YourStory. Ofo had started its operations in India in January 2018. In July this year, Alibaba-backed Ofo shut down its operations in India following a reported cash crunch. It fired most of its 30 employees in India. It claimed to have completed 1 Mn rides in 10 weeks of operations.

Bounce is now looking to expand its cycle vertical very soon and aims to deepen its presence in India. The company has also rolled out offer letters to most of Ofo India’s team members.

In September this year, Bounce raised $3 Mn from in venture debt from speciality lending firm InnoVen Capital, to finance its expansion plans. It also counts Sequoia Capital India Advisors, Accel Partners, and G Raghunandan, founder of TaxiForSure, as investors in the platform and raised $12.2 Mn in August this year.

Founded as Wicked Rides in 2014 by Vivekananda HR, Varun Agni and Anil G, the company offers premium motorcycle for rent under the Wicked Rides banner, and commuter bikes under the Metro Bikes label, now rebranded as Bounce.

Bounce currently offers its services in select areas of Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mysore, Jaipur, Udaipur, Belagavi, Manipal, Jaisalmer, Gokarna, and some other cities. The startup has tied up with the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) and provides bike rentals at metro stations across the city. It plans to work on improving its delivery models and expand to other major cities across India by 2020.

In the Indian bike-rental segment, Bounce competes with Yulu, Mobycy, Ola Pedal, Stoneheadbikes, Rentabike, ONN Bikes, Tazzo Technologies, LetzCycle, and WheelStreet, among others. Chinese smart bicycle startup Mobike also announced to begin its operations in India in May 2018 and is now operational in Pune.

The post Bounce Buys Chinese Bike Rentals Startup Ofo’s India Assets appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Tokyo-headquartered IT services provider NTT DATA has entered into an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Mumbai-based Atom Technologies, an end-to-end payment service owned by 63 Moons Technologies. The terms of the deal are yet to be disclosed.

Dewang Neralla, CEO, Atom Technologies said, “At Atom, it has always been our endeavor to offer world-class payment services to our customers and our association with NTT DATA will help us evolve into our next phase. We look forward to greater synergies and to implement NTT DATA’s global learning into the Indian markets and thereby further enhance the payments ecosystem in the country.”

The deal marks NTT DATA’s foray into the rapidly expanding Indian payments market. With this deal, the company aims to strengthen its business presence in the South Asian markets. With a revenue of $19 Bn, it has a presence in over 50 countries and employs more than 1,20,000 people worldwide. It claims to have a pan-Asian focus on digital payments, having acquired companies in Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Thailand, and is expected to play a pivotal role in its expansion strategy.

Isao Arima, Senior Vice President at NTT DATA believes that Atom has a substantial presence in both brick-and-mortar and online payment sector in India. “Our payment business in Japan, as well as South East Asia, will help Atom provide cross-border payment services to their merchants. Moreover, our customer base and development capability will allow Atom to upward its growth trajectory,” he added.

In the recently concluded 13th India-Japan annual summit, the prime ministers of both countries worked to further strengthen bilateral economic trades and strived to push a digital partnership wherein leading corporates from both countries could foster a collaborative economic environment.

Atom, launched in 2005, is India’s first company to have created a multi-channel payments platform covering PoS, online, IVR as well as mobile. This partnership will help Atom leverage NTT DATA’s presence across the globe and emerge as a large global payments entity. Utilising NTT DATA’s relationship across the spectrum, Atom aims to further broaden its universe of customers both in India and globally.

“The company has grown exponentially over the years and has great potential to grow further. In line with the strategy of 63 moons to exit from the market ecosystem, we were looking for a reliable partner that would elevate our institution to greater heights,’ Rajendran, MD and CEO of 63 moons technologies said.

It’s not the first high-profile acquistion in the Indian fintech space. Earlier in 2018, Naspers-backed PayU, a Gurugram-based payment service provider acquired fintech company Citrus Pay for $130 Mn. Later, in May 2017, US-based Ebix Inc. acquired 80% stake in Mumbai-based fintech company Itzcash for $123 Mn and rebranded its Indian subsidiary as EbixCash.

The post Payments Company Atom Technologies Gets Acquired By Tokyo-Based NTT Data appeared first on Inc42 Media.

IIFL Securities, a unit of IIFL Holdings, said that it has picked up a 15% stake in Bengaluru-based fintech startup Trendlyne for an undisclosed amount.

Trendlyne is a stock markets analytics platform used by investors, analysts, fund managers and industry watchers. IIFL Securities will integrate several features of Trendlyne such as Superstar Portfolios and Stock Screeners into IIFL’s own stock trading platform.

Trendlyne is an Oracle Startup Accelerator alumnus, winner of the Top 20 Fintech Startups from IAMAI, and winner of the Next Big Idea Contest 2018 from the Canada government as well.

Aniruddha Dange, Digital Strategy Head, IIFL Group said, that Trendlyne empowers retail investors with access to analytical tools powering features like custom alerts and superstar portfolio.

“While online retail investors have grown by 50% in the last year, a large segment of investors still trade on the basis of ‘tips’ through unverifiable sources. Our aim is to provide them with reliable structured data which have been time-tested,” Dange said.

Trendlyne is operated by Bengaluru-based Giskard Datatech Ovt. Ltd, and was founded in 2016 by Amber Pabreja and Devi Yesodharan. The startup raised seed investment in January this year from DICE Fintech ACE, the startup accelerator programme backed by the Three Sisters institutional office along with the Bhagchandka Group family office fund.

The startup claims to have approximately three million monthly page views while IIFL Securities has 3.7% share of daily cash turnover in Indian markets and its mobile app ‘IIFL Markets’ has over 2.1 Mn users.

Like Trendlyne, many fintech startups are disrupting the traditional model trading stocks by offering tech-enabled insights and stock trends to individual investors. In this space Trendlyne faces competition from companies like Zambala, Smallcase, Wealthy, and many more. Apart from app-based trading, fintech startups are also working on integrating investors’ portfolios into a single app and reducing brokerage fees.

The post IIFL Securities To Take 15% Stake In Stock Markets Platform Trendlyne appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The government of Karnataka has partnered with France-based utility company SUEZ, Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) and Paris-headquartered innovation hub NUMA, to launch ‘DataCity Open Innovation Programme’ in collaboration with startups and corporates.

The idea behind the collaboration is to solve for challenges faced by global cities, with regards to smart mobility, water and waste management, energy, smart buildings, transparency and security, and pollution management.

Starting with Bengaluru, also known as the IT city or Silicon Valley of India, the 7-week long programme will call in applications from the startups to experiment the solutions, on basis of data collected from Bengaluru-citizens and problem statement created by corporates.

According to Shyam J Bhan, MD and CEO, SUEZ India, the collaboration with NUMA will support the group’s digital strategy for the development of resilient and sustainable cities.

“70% of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2050. We need to address today our urban challenges to build the cities of tomorrow,” Souad Tenfiche, CEO, NUMA, Bengaluru added.

A similar initiative was taken by Flipkart last year when it organised Gridlock Hackathon calling all the fellow startups to help find a solution to curb traffic congestion in Bengaluru.

A recent study identified Bengaluru as the city with the maximum number of job opportunities in the tech domain. However, due to a population boom in the last decade, residents have to face major issues such as traffic, pollution, and water crisis. The startups and the government are working together to improve the city’s infrastructure.

The Karnataka government has also taken subsequent steps to groom the startup ecosystem of the city, thereby encouraging new age entrepreneurs to bring in solutions to the existing problems.

This includes extending a credit line of $282.63 Mn (INR 2000 Cr) with an aim to host at least 20,000 startups by 2020, one of the largest incubation programmes ‘Elevate’ as well as the Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) signed with multiple countries including Germany, France, Finland and Australia.

The post Karnataka Govt Launches DataCity Programme To Solve Bengaluru’s Problems appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Times Internet-owned online restaurant table booking service Dineout acquired Pune-based SaaS restaurant management software provider Torqus for an undisclosed amount.

The deal will help Dineout improve its services to the restaurant industry and position itself as a full stack-technology service provider. According to Torqus CEO Tanmay Ratnaparkhe, the company will operate as an independent business and will use the funds from the deal to fast-track innovation and client deliverables.

The whole Torqus team will join Dineout, he added.

Torqus was launched as a Point of Sale (PoS) service provider in 2013 by Ratnaparkhe and Suneet Kulkarni and is now being used in more than 3500 outlets across more than 70 cities in five countries.

Torqus’ cloud-based restaurant software system helps restaurateurs manage all their backend activities, ranging from procurement to billing to taking feedback from customers after the meal.

This deal is Dineout’s second acquisition this year after it bought Gourmet Passport. Before these, Dineout had bought one-stop CRM platform Inresto in 2015.

Dineout along with Dineout Pay, Gourmet Passport, Torqus and inResto will cater to a combined client base of nearly 10,000 restaurants across more than 70 cities in India.

Founded in 2012 by Ankit Mehrotra, Vivek Kapoor, Nikhil Bakshi and Sahil Jain, Dineout claims to currently serve more than 10 Mn diners across 6,500 restaurants in top nine cities including Delhi, Mumbai among others.

Since acquisition by Times Internet in April 2014, Dineout claims to have recorded a growth of 200%.

Ankit Mehrotra, cofounder and Business Head, Dineout, said, “While most of the innovations have been taking place in the aggregation and delivery space, Dineout and Torqus, combined, will enable us to tap in the immense possibilities in the restaurant market.”

After Deliveries Startups Now Fight For Reservations

As the Indian foodtech industry grows at a fast rate, with food delivery majors such as Swiggy and Zomato joining the unicorn club, restaurant table reservation apps are seeing a surge in popularity across the country.

Apart from food delivery and restaurant reviews, Zomato also offers a table reservation service on its app. Some of the other players who recently raised funding in the segment include:

• Restaurant table reservation startup EazyDiner raised $5.85 Mn (INR 41 Cr) in a Series B funding led by Denlow Investment Trust and early-stage investment firm Beenext
• Online restaurant reservation platform Eatigo raised a follow-on funding as part of its pre-Series C round from existing investor TripAdvisor

According to National Restaurant Association of India’s (NRAI) 2013 India Food Services Report, the foodservice industry in India is worth an estimated $48 Bn and was projected to grow to $78 Bn by 2018 at a CAGR of 11%.

With Indian foodtech startups preparing for an inevitable customer acquisition war, the sector is poised for further consolidation.

The post Dineout Acquires Cloud-Based Restaurant Management Software Torqus appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Singapore-headquartered SaaS-based cybersecurity startup CloudSEK has raised $1.97 Mn (INR 14 Cr) in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Exfinity Venture Partners and StartupXseed.

CloudSEK, which has an office in Bengaluru, plans to use fresh funds to expand further in India and Southeast Asia and at the same time, evolve its flagship product XVigil.

Founded in 2015 by Rahul Sasi, CloudSEK is a cybersecurity platform powered by machine learning and is being used across financial, ecommerce and transportation sectors. It is now looking to further evolve into sectors like pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals and retail industry.

CloudSEK offers two products: SaaS-based X-Vigil, a unified risk management platform and Cloudmon, to track network and application-related security issues.

The company had raised seed funds in 2015 from M.E. Meeran Foundation, the investment arm of Kochi-based Eastern Group.

Ravi Thakur, Partner, StartupXseed Ventures said, “Looking at their product, clientele and growth rate, they have struck the right chord to crack the business. Moreover, what fascinated us is their way of solving the problem which is very effective and scalable at large along with strong team background and execution capabilities.”

In the wake of rising data breaches, cybersecurity is gaining increased importance across the world, and especially in India, which has the second largest number of Internet users in the world at over 460 Mn, second only to China.

Chinnu Senthilkumar, General Partner & CTO, Exfinity Venture Partners said that the losses due to cyber-related crime, worldwide, are estimated to be upwards of $600 Bn.

He said that more than 500K cyber attacks have been reported in India in 2018.

The cybersecurity space has major players such as Fortinet, FireEye, Symantec, Lucideus, AppsPicket, and others. This year, Lucideus raised $5 Mn, Sequretek raised $3.7 Mn, Network Intelligence raised $4.87 Mn.

The country currently has an estimated 200 such cyber security startups with most of them working in the banking and financial services sector.

In 2017, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had asked all government bodies to spend 10% of their IT budgets on cybersecurity following the worldwide cyber attack by WannaCry ransomware.

According to a report by Marketsandmarkets, the current global spend on cybersecurity is expected to grow to $202.36 Bn by 2021.

The post Cybersecurity Startup CloudSEK Raises $1.9 Mn For Expansion appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Bengaluru-based vehicle sharing marketplace Drivezy has raised $20 Mn in Series B equity funding, led by existing investor Das Capital. Other investors who participated in the round include Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd., Singapore-based Axan Partners and US-based IT-Farm.

Amish Parashar, partner at Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory, Silicon Valley, will serve as an observer on the board of directors at Drivezy.

Drivezy cofounder Abhishek Mahajan told Inc42 that the company will use the funding primarily for marketing and brand building exercise. It will use some part of the funds to develop the technology and build a platform that is driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning. The company will also be focusing on expansion as it looks to service 21 cities by 2019 from nine cities at present.

Along with equity financing, Drivezy has secured $100 Mn in an asset financing deal using which the company plans to induct over 50,000 vehicles. The funds will be deployed over a period of three years, through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) named Harbourfront Capital. The financing mechanism will be handled by Tokyo-based Anypay Inc., which is also an early investor in Drivezy.

“We have great relationships with companies across India and we will actively invest in projects and companies in the country,” said Shinji Kimura, Chairman of Anypay.

Founded in 2015 by Ashwarya Pratap Singh, Hemant Kumar Sah, Vasant Verma, Abhishek Mahajan, and Amit Sahu, Drivezy (formerly JustRide) is a peer-to-peer bike and car sharing service. It claims to have 4500 bikes and 2500 cars listed on its platform and expects to make it 15K cars and 16K two-wheelers in the next one year.

Drivezy’s vehicle sharing marketplace allows individual vehicle owners to list their idle cars, motorcycles and scooters and earn money by renting the vehicles to customers. Customers can also rent a car or a two-wheeler from Drivezy for hourly, daily, weekly and monthly basis.

From its latest fundraise to being featured as one of the 42 most innovative Indian startups in Inc42’s 42Next list launched during the Ecosystem Summit, Drivezy has been on a roll in 2018. Since January 2018, Drivezy has doubled the number of vehicle listings on its marketplace and plans to deploy an additional 10,000 bikes in Bengaluru and Hyderabad by December 2018.

Mahajan told Inc42 that one of the pilot project underway for subscription services by Drivezy is a collaboration with Hyderabad Metro, where the users with a metro card can rent Drivezy’s two-wheelers anywhere. Further, he claimed that the company has recorded 10X growth in a year.

Drivezy competes with taxi aggregators and ridesharing startups like Ola, Uber, Bounce, LetsRide, PoolCircle, ZoomCar, Carzonrent, Wunder, and Ryde among others.

A study by the global research organisation World Resources Institute (WRI) found that India’s car-sharing industry is growing rapidly and it could potentially reduce car ownership in the long term.

Also, according to a Statista report, revenue in the ride-sharing segment amounts to $371 Mn in 2018 and is expected to show an annual growth rate of 19.6%, resulting in a market of $761 Mn by 2022.

Drivezy was part of the 2018 edition of the most coveted list of India’s most innovative startups — 42Next by Inc42. 

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