Niti Aayog is reportedly preparing a list of medical devices that have the most potential for export. A list of ten such device-categories has been tentatively created. This has apparently been done to address the bottlenecks in domestic medical devices businesses.

“This list is being drawn up so that their domestic manufacturing can be prioritised. However, more devices are slated to be added in follow-up meetings. This is a preliminary list,” Businessline quoted an unidentified official as saying.

The devices that have been selected at the meeting by the government think-tank for providing priority subsidy or funding are cardiac stents, orthopaedic implants, surgical blades, catheters, X-Ray machines, syringes and needles, blood bags, CT Scan and MRI Machines and sutures.

Addressing the meeting, VK Saraswat, member, science and technology of Niti Aayog, said that the government was looking at a single-window framework for accelerating standardisation, body certification, declaring the device safe among others. “Currently there are too many departments involved in giving approvals, and thus they get delayed. We want to hasten this process,” Saraswat told Businessline.

Most countries apparently provide incentives to their domestic manufacturers for boosting their business. “Our biggest competitor is China, and largely their industry is thriving on domestic production (up to 95 %),” Himanshu Baid, chairman of CII Medical Technology Division was quoted as saying.

Niti Aayog has also been of the opinion that startups leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) are bringing a substantial change in the everyday lives of citizens. Amitabh Kant, CEO of Niti Aayog had earlier said that India is witnessing AI startups focused on solving the problems of accessibility, affordability, and availability.

Rift Between Health Ministry And Niti Aayog

Niti Aayog had proposed for legislation for medical devices and an independent regulator for this industry with the Draft Medical Devices (Safety, Effectiveness and Innovation) Bill, 2019. The Aayog argued that the need to have a strengthened regulation was spelt out in the government’s National Health Policy 2017.

However, the health ministry, which is the official custodian of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and the drug regulatory authority in the country, has now raised concerns to the Niti Aayog to have wider consultations with stakeholders for the proposed legislation for medical devices.

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation under the health ministry is the nodal body for regulating both drugs and medical devices in the country, but Niti Aayog has asked for a Medical Devices Administration under the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) to regulate medical devices in the country.

For the first time, India has its own ‘tech park’ at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) floor at the Las Vegas Sands hotel. CES is the world’s largest show for consumer electronics and is usually dominated by the likes of Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, who showcase their indigenous innovations.

The India tech park, officially called the Motwani Jadeja Foundation booth, has been put together by the foundation of the same name, says Forbes India report.

This is not an official government initiative and has been led by angel investor and entrepreneur from Ahmedabad Asha Jadeja Motwani, an angel investor. The booth showcased six Indian startups from across sectors.

“Our foundation was set up to give back to the Indian ecosystem what my husband and I received from it when we came to the US,” Jadeja Motwani told Forbes India.

She also added that she went to CES last year and discovered that almost every major country has a pavilion there, but not India and she felt that was unacceptable. And that is why she has cobbled together what she could with volunteers.

The startups on display as quoted in the report include:

• Calamus, an e-bike that senses obstructions and incoming traffic
• Altifarm, self-contained grow units for urban farming and cannabis growing
• Hyper Lychee, a home appliance company that has developed a hand-held electric scrubber with multiple attachments
• STEMpedia, a stem education kit for children
  an air-conditioned three-wheeled electric car called Strom
• Wagr, a smart location and fitness tracker for pet dogs

Talking about how the Indian government allocates funding to take startups global, little has been done to promote presence in other countries. “My hope is also to make some noise in India with this, and get the government to fund next year’s pavilion,” she said.

The angel investor has apparently tried to reach out to the government for the past two years but didn’t get any response. “I’m quite surprised, because the Prime Minister seems to really want this. If you’re not at CES, it’s a lost opportunity,” she added.

The startups are also of the opinion that showcasing at CES guarantees immense potential. “We’ve spent thousands of hours in development and we’re finally here. It’s been incredible,” Hannan Hakim, cofounder and CEO of Hyper Lychee was quoted as saying.

The cofounder apparently managed to connect with CEOs of big appliance companies in Germany to heads of Amazon launchpads in the UK and Seattle at the tech park. The CEO of Indiegogo stopped by to get us on board since we’re crowdfunding. It’s been very exciting,” Hakim added.

CES acts as a gathering place for all those who thrive on the business of consumer technologies across the globe. It has served as a ground for innovators and breakthrough technologies for 50 years now. Owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association, it is called the global stage where next-generation innovations are introduced to the marketplace.

Hyderabad-based farm-to-fork accelerator Gastrotope, on Wednesday (January 8), announced the selection of three startups in the second cohort of its acceleration programme. The yardstick for the selection of startups was healthy food, sustainable technology, food safety, plant-based and alternative protein and sustainable ecosystem.

Through this initiative, Gastrotope will nurture the selected startups to achieve impeccable results, optimise the business model, achieve product-market fit and execute a scalable growth strategy in the agrifood industry. Moreover, it also provides a networking opportunity, investment advice and strategy and skill development.

These Are The Three Startups That Were Selected By Gastrotope

Sprinng Foods

Mumbai-based Sprinng Foods, a subsidiary of Sprightlite Foods Pvt. Ltd, was started by Gaurav Sumant Kumar Chaturvedi and Tarun Khanna in 2018. It is one of the first Indo-Irish ventures producing international quality Gluten-free food products from India. The company produces gluten-free baked food products using its own in-house expertise and processes with carefully selected local production partners.

Clear Meat

Founded in 2019, Delhi-based Clear Meat was started by Dr Siddaharth Manvati and Kartik Dixit. It is one of India’s first cell-based meat companies focused on creating affordable, nutritious and safe animal protein alternatives. Earlier in November 2018, the company was selected by the Pro-Veg Incubator in Berlin and secured a second-place among a hundred other startups that participated in the programme.

RAAV Techlabs

New Delhi-based RAAV Techlabs was founded by Abhinandan Bhargava, Alphonse Dhas Antony, Rahul Kumar and Varshnee Raj in 2018. The company is known for designing quality analysis instruments for agriculture commodities. It uses AI and deep learning to assess the quality of agriculture and dairy products across the agri-value chain.

Creating a Sustainable Ecosystem In Agriculture 

Gastrotope was founded in September 2017 by Taizo Son of Mistletoe, and GSF, an accelerator led by serial entrepreneur Rajesh Sawhney and Infobridge. The accelerator aims to bridge the gap between the farms and the food tech industry and envisions to catalyse new innovations in the foodtech space in the country. In 2018, Gastrotope had signed an agreement with the Government of Andra Pradesh to create a farm to fork ecosystem in Vizag, where it had committed to invest $10 Mn in ten startups.

In January 2019, the first round of the cohort was launched during the Inc42 and Mistletoe’s farm to fork conclave in Bengaluru. Five startups that were selected in the first round of the cohort include Brown Foods, Credible, Fasal. Occipital Tech and Triton Foodworks. These startups were said to contribute in various parts of the agriculture value chain, starting from farmers to supply chain, logistics, processing, cold storage and customers.

US-Based cross border fund Mantra Capital, on January 8, launched its $60 Mn fund that will focus on early-stage foodtech, healthtech, agritech and startups working on the circular economy in India and the US. The venture fund has already raised $24 Mn for the fund and aims to close the fund by the end of 2020.

Jay Krishnan, one of the founding members of Mantra Capital, said “Mantra Capital’s fund will focus on scaling innovative solutions that have rapid acceleration potential and can solve problems locally with a massive global impact. We are uniquely positioned to execute this game plan and maximise returns to our investors.”

Mantra Capital will be focusing on seed and pre-series A round startups that are working on advanced solutions for human good in three specific themes — what we eat, where we live and what we thrive. The company, in its press release, also noted that it would be interested to fund startups that are backed by deeptech technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), blockchain, photonics and robotics.

The Internal Working Of Mantra Capital Fund

The fund is managed by three veteran entrepreneurs — Jay Krishnan, Srikanth Chintalapati and Kevin Jacobs. Jay Krishnan and Srikanth Chintalapati will be managing the Indian business and venture capital segment.

Jay Krishnan will be heading the deal flow in India, and will also be responsible for product management and business development for the portfolio startups. Moreover, he would also be in charge of bringing in global partnerships for portfolio companies.

Chintalapati will be responsible for supporting Indian portfolio startups in product development as well as scaling their operations and distribution in India. Meanwhile, Kevin Jacobs will be handling the US market by facilitating deal flow, assessing target startups, as well as managing exits or mergers and acquisitions (M&A) of the portfolio companies.

Besides funding, the Mantra Capital Fund will also focus on developing strategic partnerships with investors, global network, industry experience and market expertise of its portfolio companies. The early-stage fund will also provide offshore venture services and managed services to global startups.

In addition, Mantra Capital will partner with global corporations and accelerators to help startups’ Go-To-Market (GTM) and provide help in design, marketing, manufacturing, channel creation, and M&A through Mantra Capital’s managed services partner platform.

In its press statement, Mantra Capital also announced that it will be scouting and curating US and Indian startups for its corporate innovation scaling programmes, which will be launched in the second quarter of 2020.

In a bid to improve the weather-predicting capabilities of India, Google Cloud has partnered with US-based weather technology company ClimaCell. This collaboration will work towards providing free access to high fidelity weather forecasting models to developers, scientists and businesses operating in India.

Google Cloud with its public dataset programme, ClimaCell – CBAM India Weather Forecasts, is going to make the outputs of these models accessible for everyone in the country. Additionally, Google Cloud will also help in supporting the computational requirements of this programme in India.

Improving Weather Forecast In India

The weather technology company claims that the ClimaCell Bespoke Atmospheric Model (CBAM) takes inputs from its proprietary “Weather-of-Things” technology.

ClimaCell says that this technology adds millions of additional observations, which are gathered from wireless signals, connected cars, airplanes, drones and IoT devices, to forecast the weather accurately. CBAM combines big data technology with artificial intelligence (AI) driven modelling techniques to create MicroWeather OS, an operating system that provides ClimaCell’s clients with accurate weather predictions.

“From wireless signals to cars sensors, ClimaCell leverages the connected world to bridge the large sensing gap and to help improve forecasting anywhere in the world,” ClimaCell said in a statement.

ClimaCell also claims that CBAM technology with the help of Google Cloud will help in improving high resolution and refresh time to predict weather conditions in a short period. The fast response time of CBAM helps in preventing damages incurred in adverse weather conditions in industries such as agriculture, aviation, construction, energy, outdoor events, transportation, drones, among others.

In India, besides the state and central government authorities, companies like Skymet Weather Services, SGS Weather and Environmental Services, BKC WeatherSys, Weather Risk, among others also provide weather updates.

Noida-based Skymet offers business solutions to media, power, shipping and telecom. Founded by Jatin Singh in 2003, the company also facilitates risk management services to the power, renewable energy, aviation, construction and the food and beverage industry in India.

Skymet provides solutions using Automated Weather Stations (AWS) network and secures businesses in weather data, crop measurement, climate analytics, and disaster management, thereby extending its outreach to de-risk vulnerable Indian farmers from climate change.

Bengaluru-based cab-hailing giant Ola has been aggressively paving the path to go public by 2021. The company has taken up a restructuring exercise to streamline its business in recent months. After losing nine top executives in October 2019, Ola has now confirmed the departure of two top-level executives.

An Ola spokesperson confirmed that the head of products at Ola Mobility, Naroo Krishnan, and vice president for engineering, Sanjay Kharb, are no longer associated with the company.

Earlier reports about Krishnan and Kharb’s departures in Entrackr had said that Ola would have a leadership vacuum in the technology and product verticals. But the Ola spokesperson told Inc42 that Ridlr cofounder Brijraj Vaghani will be taking over the engineering and product verticals as CTO for the mobility business. This would be in addition to his portfolio of Ridlr, which was acquired by Ola in April, 2018.

According to an internal email shared by Inc42’s sources, Ola CEO and cofounder Bhavish Aggarwal said “Brij will work with the Ola engineering and product teams over the next couple of quarters to help take our delivery to the next level, have a clear tech strategy, and also take our tech talent brand and org to the next level.”

A copy of the email, which was sent in November 2019, has been examined by Inc42.

Sources close to the matter told us that the elevation of Vaghani and the recent senior exits are a result of the organisation-wide restructuring to sharpen Ola’s focus towards the impending IPO within 18-24 months.

Ola’s top management has already been subjected to many changes in the second half of 2019. The company lost almost nine top-level executives due to various reasons. Some of the executives included chief operating officer Vishal Kaul, chief people officer Susheel Balakrishnan, marketing director for Australia and New Zealand Natasha Daly, chief of staff Akshay Alladi, and several other vice presidents and product managers.

In December 2019, Inc42 had reported that in a bid to achieve profitability, Ola’s cofounders Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati have split up responsibilities. The report suggested that Aggarwal was expected to oversee Ola’s international expansion, while Bhati would lead the Indian segment of the cab-hailing services.

While earlier media reports have suggested that Paytm was looking to buy a stake in Yes Bank, the homegrown payments giant, on Wednesday (January 8), has now denied this speculation.

According to ET, Paytm said that instead of buying a stake in Yes Bank, the company is in the process of obtaining a permit from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to run a small finance bank.

Earlier in September 2019, it was reported that the talks between Yes Bank and Paytm were at an exploratory stage and the two parties were about to discuss the structure of the deal so that RBI will be comfortable with it. However, now the deal looks pretty much off the table.

Inc42 has reached out to Paytm but we did not receive any reply till the time of publication.

Paytm’s Aspirations Of A Small Finance Bank

Recently, Paytm CEO and founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma had confirmed the company’s plans of becoming a small finance bank. Sharma had said that after the regulatory approval, the upcoming Paytm subsidiary will work similarly to a small finance bank launched by India Post Payments Bank.

As of now, Paytm Payments Bank can accept deposits of up to INR 1 lakh, offer remittance services, mobile payments or transfers or purchases and other banking services such as ATM or debit cards, net banking and third-party fund transfers. However, the fintech arm of Paytm is still unable to offer any advance loans or issue credit cards.

This might be the reason why Paytm is now bullish on a small finance bank, especially after RBI approved these financial institutions to offer basic banking and lending services. Till now, India has only 10 small finance banks — Au Small Finance Bank, Equitas Small Finance Bank, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, among others.

In November 2019, Paytm had raised $1 Bn in a financing round led by US-based asset manager T Rowe Price. Ant Financial, SoftBank Vision Fund, Discovery, Capital among others also had participated in the funding round. This was one of the largest amounts raised by an Indian startup in 2019, valuing the digital payments company at $16 Bn.

At that time, Paytm had said that it would be investing around INR 10K Cr ($1.39 Bn) to acquire customers and merchants in smaller towns. The company has said that the primary agenda is to become more inclusion-centric and provide financial services for the underserved and unserved by leveraging technology as a distribution platform.

Being an agrarian economy, agriculture has always been at the heart of all development and economic activity in India. With time, the stakeholders of the agri-ecosystem have turned to agritech to solve the intrinsic challenges using technology at all levels. Whether it is supply chain for farm-to-table or crop and weather intelligence. But others are tackling a more basic issue — losses and credit availability.

With more than a decade of experience in agri finance, Sandeep Sabharwal, the CEO and founder of Sohan Lal Commodity Management (SLCM), is addressing these two major global problems. SLCM provides warehouse management, agriculture financing, collateral management and procurement services to farmers, processors, millers, traders, importers, exporters, commodity exchanges and the government. Its tech-enabled warehouses not only offer safe storage and protection services, but also help in streamlining supply of agri-commodities.

“The thought of SLCM struck me when I was managing a family-owned business of food processing unit, where I faced issues such as abnormal losses, bad crop protection and unavailability of finance,” Sabharwal told Inc42.

Being an infrastructure-driven sector, these problems end up increasing post-harvest food loss and stressing the agriculture sector.

Founded in 2009 with a meagre investment of about INR 16 Lakh and a team of four, SLCM has created a technology-enabled network of more than 4213 warehouses, 19 cold storages spread over 68.15 Mn sq ft across India and with a throughput of 831.43 Mn metric tonnes. In FY 19-20, SLCM clocked the revenue of INR 722.22 Cr and generates employment for nearly 59K people directly and indirectly.

While SLCM is named after Sabharwal’s grandfather (Sohan Lal) to continue the business legacy, the new internal name for the company is “So Lets Change Minds”, the founder told us. This gives the agritech startup a global appeal.

Here are some key facts around the company.

• Total funding raised so far: INR 370.16 Cr
• Key investors: Incofin Investment, ResponsAbility, Nexus Venture Partners, Mayfield, Everstone, ICICI’s Emerging India Fund
• Presence: Pan-India and operations in Myanmar
• Number of clients: 5016
• Average capacity of a warehouse: 1500 metric tonnes
• Number of commodities handled: 930+
• NPA % on loans: 1.04% (as on March 2019)
• Amount of loans disbursed: INR 2042.42 Cr (till Nov 2019)
• Loan book size: INR 192.72 Cr (as on March 2019)

The Beginning Of SLCM’s Agritech Journey

“One can face the entire world if your family is by your side but that time was tough. As I took a decision to shut down the well-established family business (a food processing unit) and set up SLCM, my father didn’t speak to me for two years,” recalled Sabharwal.

But he was determined. His initial research made him realise the need for a service-driven approach to minimise post-harvest losses (around 10%-15%) that farmers incur for staple agricultural produce like wheat, paddy, pulses, spices, fruits and vegetables. “We thus launched SLCM as an asset-light model. We started working irrespective of the condition of the warehouse with efficiency in reducing post-harvest losses to merely 0.5% using scientific techniques,” he added.

While SLCM started earning revenue from the first year itself, it was very little compared to the business that Sabharwal had shut. “My father finally got the confidence when I received the first PE funding from Nexus Venture Partners in May 2010 and after that, there was no looking back,” chuckled Sabharwal.

Today, the group has seven marquee institutional investors on-board through four primary successful rounds of funding and one secondary round. These investors have invested up to the Series D stage and hold 82.12% stake in the company.

With time, the company has also extended its presence into other verticals as well as crossed international borders. In 2014, it started operations in Myanmar offering warehouse management solutions. Also in March 2014, SLCM commercialised its NBFC division in the name of “Kissandhan” for the financing operations.

The SLCM Backbone: Patent-Pending AGRI REACH Process

Sabharwal claims SLCM is the only company in agritech which has a centralised real-time process management system. “We have applied for the patent of our “System and Methods for Real-Time Data Management” and have named the process as ‘AGRI REACH’.”

“AGRI REACH”, is the culmination of all the processes, methods and systems that the startup follows to maintain the health of the crop and start operations of a warehouse in just 24 hours at any location irrespective of infrastructure and provide a standard operational experience in all facilities.

It is basically an algorithm which combines a series of processes, audits and real-time tracking of the facilities to give error-free results and deplete the risk of crop damage. It uses techniques like geo-fencing to bar-coded storage receipts to avoid theft, pilferage, and conducts internal audits along with a “Maker and Checker” policy at each level.

Agri-Warehousing: Maintaining Day To Day Challenges

Agri warehousing accounts for approximately 15% of the warehousing market in India amounting to almost INR 8000 Cr- INR 8500 Cr. It has been growing at a rate of over 10-12% the last few years. At present, the agri warehousing capacity in India is more than 120 million metric ton (MMT), and it has been growing at 4 % CAGR over the last 3 years.

SLCM is looking to tap this opportunity with new-age technologies. In order to ascertain a smooth day to day functioning, SLCM has incorporated many key technical and regulatory processes. This includes:

• SAP backend to automate the complete process of warehouse management
• “Maker & Checker” policy at each process and level to iron out all the possibilities of mismanagement of the stocks
• A backend team to monitor warehouse managers,
• An internal Auditors and the Audit team of 26 members to verify information collected
• Geo-fencing technology to supervise the audit team

As revealed by Sabharwal, 86 audits are conducted at a frequency of daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly and yearly basis on various processes to check quality standards. With real-time resource monitoring, the team ensures to bring even the slightest deviation in the stocks to the notice of the management.

Increasing frauds in the sector are another challenge at hand. As Sabharwal told Inc42, the industry has been hit by a series of large scams in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and now the latest is in Andhra Pradesh. Some agencies have even exited this business. As per an estimate, fraud to the tune of INR 6300 Mn has been reported so far in the last three years.

To beat this, SLCM has introduced bar-coded receipts as good as legal tenders to eliminate the risk of fraud in terms of fake storage receipts, boasted Sabharwal. “We work on the principle that if the receipt mentions a particular grain of a particular variety in a particular warehouse, it had to be there and that is the basis on which our business is built & followed the practice to the core at the level religiously,” he added.

The Second Pillar Of Success: Agri-Financing 

Ideally, in agri-financing; land, other valuables and balance sheets are considered as collateral to extend finance to farmers and other stakeholders. However, SLCM offers finance to farmers purely against crop as collateral irrespective of balance sheet or net worth. Since such agri-commodities have an established value and market, quick liquidation mechanisms provide sufficient funds to cover a loan extended against them in case of a default.

Other parameters such as type of asset being financed, borrower profile and repayment capacity, loan to value ratio, geography (location) of the borrower, end utilisation of the asset among others are also considered.

“This reduces the risk of distress selling. Additionally, the farmer saves 9.5% of its produce during the storage period which would have been degraded otherwise,” added Sabharwal.

Collections are also simplified at SLCM. While releasing the commodity a customer is supposed to pay principal and a simple rate of interest and other applicable charges to release the lot wise stock. To get their collateral released, borrowers are required to transfer the applicable amount (dues) from the official account to the Kissandhan account. “Once we receive the confirmation from our accounts team about the received payment, we release the collateral.”

Is Collection A Pain Point In Agri-Finance?

Despite loan waivers and government intervention, farmers are considered the riskiest asset class to lend to, Sabharwal has a different opinion here. “Warehousing (Development & Regulation) Act, 2007 introduced a negotiable warehouse receipt system which helps the farmers seek loans from banks against NWR to avoid distress sale of their agricultural produce,” he explained.

In this system, goods are first brought to the collateral manager who issues a warehouse receipt to the borrower that certifies the quantity and quality of the stored goods or commodities. The storage receipt of the goods or commodities issued by the collateral manager act as collateral for the loan.

A well-developed warehouse receipt finance system benefits farmers, banks, financial institutions, insurance companies and commodity exchanges. In the agri-credit space, the borrower’s commodity collateral against which the credit is disbursed is increasingly being assigned to professional collateral management companies.

Banks are the ultimate beneficiary in a warehouse receipt finance system as the average tenure of loan against warehouse receipt is around six months which helps banks with their asset-liability mismatch issues as they can churn portfolios quickly.

Further, lending against warehouse receipt is safer and more liquid for banks. Collateral managers actually make the job easier for banks as far as underlying collateral is concerned. Warehouse receipt financing also help banks achieve priority sector lending targets in an efficient way.

The Three-Step Strategy For Differentiation

In the last few years, a number of players have made their mark in the agri-tech segment across all niches. Names such as Freshokartz, Ninjacart, Farmtaaza, Waycool and Crofarm among others have disrupted agriculture in a positive manner. When asked about the strategy to deal with competition from new-age players, Sabharwal said that any entity dealing in commodities be it farmer, trader, processor, importer, exporter, SME etc. would require warehousing. All one needs to understand is the production and consumption cycle of food production.

Overall, the company is creating differentiation for itself across three areas:

• Process: Using scientific warehousing technology coupled with the agriculture domain expertise to store any kind of agricultural crop, agnostic to infrastructure, location and weather patterns.
• Impact: In a country like India, where post-harvest losses are pegged at 10% of the entire product which amounts to INR 1 Lakh Cr of loss, SLCM has been instrumental in devising technology to cut these losses to 0.5%. This has the potential to save INR 99.5K Cr, irrespective of the condition of the warehouse.
• Service: SLCM has developed forward integration into warehouse receipt financing, while other agri-focussed NBFCs are not based purely on the crop as collateral.

Going forward and for 2020, SLCM has plans to explore Southeast Asian countries like Cambodia, Laos, and mapping their tech to changing DNA of Indian agriculture in the near future. They are actively scanning the environment for inorganic growth via acquisitions in the allied sector of supply chain management as well.

“The sector we are addressing is extremely large and underserved, so to say quantify my competitors would be myopic in vision. Though I would like to say that there are various companies that are doing some parts of the services that we do,” he added.

Reiterating the need to bring technological innovations in the country, vice president M Venkaiah Naidu, on Tuesday (January 7), said that it is one of the key drivers to give a major push to the economy.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 107th Indian Science Congress, Naidu said that there is a need to invest more in research and development with a special focus on innovating through radical approaches to help India’s economic challenges.

During his valedictory address, Naidu also urged Indian entrepreneurs and corporates to collaborate more with Indian academic institutes and universities to promote research and development in the country. “Technological innovation is one of the key drivers to boost the economy, improve people’s lives and enable better delivery of services,” Naidu said as reported by MoneyControl.

Highlighting the necessity of an academia-industry linkage, the vice president said that if India doesn’t make the big leap forward in terms of quality of learning in educational institutions, the country will miss a great opportunity. Naidu further urged that the entrepreneurs have to innovate solutions that are required for the progressive development of India.

Besides the vice president, BS Yediyurappa, chief minister of Karnataka, was also present at the event. Citing that technology is going to play a key role in future, Yediyurappa said that India needs to leverage the demographic advantage with science and technology to achieve the goal of becoming a $5 Tn economy.

Agritech To Improve Indian Agriculture

During his speech, Naidu also highlighted the importance of agritech in helping India to become self-reliant for agricultural needs. “It should be remembered that a country like India cannot depend on imported food security and needs to have own home-grown food security,” Naidu added.

Naidu further said that unless India seriously starts to adopt agritech, it will continue to witness people shifting from agriculture to other industries. Stressing on how agritech can enhance both quality and quantity across the agriculture value chain, the Vice president added that scientific research should focus on making advanced machinery for a variety of agricultural activities such as spraying, post-harvest handling of produce, among others.

In order to improve agritech capabilities, Dehradun-based University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES) has recently announced the setting up of a ‘School of Smart Agriculture’. To create new solutions in the agriculture sector, the institute will develop curriculum around advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), big data, drone technology among others.

Indian agritech startups raised $66.6 Mn (INR 463 Cr) in 2018, whereas the total funding in the agritech space was $46.1 Mn (INR 320 Cr) in 2017, according to Inc42 DataLabs. Some of the notable startups in the agritech sector in India include Bijak, Vegfru, Lemon Leaf, DayBox, Crofarm, WayCool, CropIn, Fasal, and Kamatan Farm tech.

Gurugram-based baby and mother care products startup Mamaearth, on Wednesday (January 8), announced that it has raised INR 130 Cr ($18 Mn) funding from Sequoia India. The funding round also witnessed the participation from existing investors like Fireside Ventures, Stellaris Venture Partners and Sharp Ventures.

The company will be utilising the funds to accelerate growth, launch more brands, hire talent and expand its presence across Southeast Asia. Most importantly, it aims to become a 500 Cr brand by acquiring five million new consumers in the next three years.

Interestingly, the current round witnessed a phenomenal exit for seed investors. For instance, some of the early-stage angel investors who have exited the company in this round reaped a return of over 20x on their initial investment.

Mamaearth was founded by husband-wife duo Varun and Ghazal Alagh in 2016. The direct to consumer fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brand is one of Asia’s first made-safe certified brands that offer 100% toxin-free and natural skincare, haircare and baby care products. Currently, the company offers a range of products including 80+ natural and toxic-free products. It has over 1.5 Mn consumers in over 500 cities across India.

In September 2018, Mamaearth had raised INR 27.5 Cr ($4 Mn) in a Series A round led by early-stage technology-focused venture capital firm Stellaris Ventures. Prior to this, the company had also raised $1 Mn in a funding round led by Fireside Ventures and few other investors.

Ishaan Mittal, principal at Sequoia Capital India said that out of India’s $15 Bn personal care market, online channels contribute to only 3-5%. However, in the next seven to eight years, the direct to consumer brands have the potential to redefine the architecture of tomorrow’s FMCG companies, he added.

According to a Technavio report, the Indian baby care market is expected to grow at a CARG of 17% to touch $31 Bn between 2014 to 2019, from $14 Bn. In recent times, a lot of startups have emerged in the market, including The Moms Co, BabyCare, BabyChakra, FirstCry and many more.

Last year, Delhi-based baby care products startup The Moms Co raised INR 35 Cr ($5 Mn) Series B round from existing investors DSG Consumer Partners and Saama Capital. Japanese investment firm SoftBank had also reportedly said to invest $400 Mn in FirstCry, where it had planned to acquire a 40% stake in the company, which was valued at around $600 to $700 Mn.

As Delhi prepares itself for the upcoming state assembly elections, the Chief Electoral Officer of the state has also geared up to incorporate new-age technologies in the proceedings.

Instead of carrying a voters’ slip to the polling station, electors can now download QR codes in their smartphones. These QR codes, which can be downloaded using the voters’ helpline app, will enable the election conducting body to verify a voter. Currently, this tech-driven facility will be limited to only 11 assembly constituencies out of the total 70 constituencies in Delhi.

Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ranbir Singh, on Tuesday (January 7), said that in polling stations of these 11 constituencies, voters can scan the QR code before proceeding towards the polling compartment. “Phones will be kept outside the compartment,” he was quoted as saying by Business Standard.

However, in case of any issue such as network failure, a voter will be left with no option but to get access to a physical copy of the voters’ slip.

As of now, the election conducting body has found over 1.46 Cr eligible voters who are going to cast their votes on February 8, 2020, for the Delhi elections. Notably, out of the total 1.46 Cr voters, 80.55 Lakh males, 66.3 Lakh females, and 815 belonging to the third gender have been included in the final voter list. Moreover, 13,750 polling booths are going to be set up at around 2,689 locations in the state to ensure the wider participation of the voters.

Incorporating Technology In Elections

In October 2019, Maharashtra’s Cyber Cell had partnered with the UK-based fact-checking platform Logically to detect, track and report any activity that might violate the Election Commission’s Model Code Of Conduct (MCC). The company kept a keen eye on social media portals — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp — from the Maharashtra Cyber Office at World Trade Centre in Mumbai before the elections.

Moreover, to eradicate any notion of tampering, the Election Commission of India (ECI) had instructed vehicles transporting Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) to be mandatorily equipped with IoT devices that have a GPS chip for location tracking. One company that is already supporting the ECI to get the task off the ground is Letstrack. The startup’s IoT with an in-built GPS tracker helped the ECI monitor EVMs and VVPATs, during the 2019 General elections, around the country.

In another attempt to incorporate technology in elections, three students from Malla Reddy Engineering College in Telangana introduced a blockchain-enabled platform to allow voters to vote without visiting the election points.

Even though India’s healthcare ecosystem has challenges when it comes to access to facilities and doctors in rural areas, in the urban context, the established healthcare sector is backed by the rise of epharmacies such as Medlife, 1mg, Netmeds and others. While epharmacies are dealing with regulatory challenges, they are also expanding rapidly and in the past year, many have spread their wings to reach Tier 2 and 3 cities as well.

While a slew of healthtech and epharma startups have emerged in the last few years changing the face of Indian healthcare, the industry took a hit when in October 2018 when the Madras High Court announced a ban on the online sale of medicines. The same was followed by the Delhi High Court and in January 2019. The ban on epharmacies was stayed until a decision is announced in the matter.

In February 2019, Delhi HC had also inquired about the guidelines for epharmacies from the centre. In June 2019, the government stated that it was still working on them. Since then, there has been no clarity on the future of epharmacies.

DataLabs by Inc42 also noted in its Annual Tech Startup Funding Report 2019 that healthtech startups raised $512 Mn in 2019 across 62 deals. Between 2018 and 2019, the funding amount and deal count plunged by 4% and 17% for healthtech startups.

The policy uncertainty towards epharmacies played a crucial role in depleting the investor confidence in this sector. With disturbed investor sentiment and regulatory upheaval, the companies were expected to have faced a tough time in regular operations. However, it looks like healthtech startup Medlife could, at least, manage growing its revenues in this situation.

The company filed its financial performance filings for FY19 with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, which showed that on a standalone basis, it has grown its revenue by 1.65X reaching INR 364.67 Cr, while its losses grew 1.45X reaching INR 403.6 Cr. It is to be noted here that revenues for FY19 make 90% of the company’s losses for the year while expenses are, nearly double of its losses, at INR 768.36 Cr.

Ananth Narayanan, cofounder and CEO, Medlife told Inc42, “It was a year of growth and expansion where we have built capacities for upcoming years and expanded our footprint in more than 2600 cities of India through various business lines. We are thriving to keep up our momentum in current year on the back of the infrastructure built over last year towards a profitable and sustainable business.”

On a consolidated level, the company’s revenue, expenses and losses remained nearly the same, hence, we have a closer look at its standalone performance for the year. The consolidated performance includes the newly-setup subsidiary Medlife Retail, which manages the retail vertical and has no revenue.

Narayanan told us, “We are excited about the hyper growth we have achieved last year and continue on the trajectory this year too.”

The Sources Of Revenue For Medlife

Founded in 2014 by Tushar Kumar and Prashant Singh, Medlife brought ex-Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan on board as a cofounder and CEO in August 2019. The company started its journey as an inventory-led epharmacy company. It claims to make over 25K deliveries every day across 29 states and 25000 pin code locations. As of March 2019, the company claimed to have crossed INR 1K Cr plus run rate.

Narayanan had told Inc42 in an earlier interaction that in the next 12 to 18 months, the company will achieve breakeven in terms of unit economics.

The CEO told us that pharmacies are a large portion of the business and diagnostics is the fastest growing. Narayanan also said that consultation is also growing very rapidly, but the company is using it mostly to onboard labs and diagnostics.

When we look at revenue generation for FY19, clearly sales of products generated 87.3% of the total revenue while the sale of services was 12.2% of the total revenue.

CEO Narayanan told Inc42, “We have made great progress on getting to operational break even in the last six months and target to get there in the next quarter.”

Burning Cash On Ads, Legal Fees

In terms of mergers and acquisitions, the company has made quite a few investments in the recent past. In May 2019, Medlife acquired Bengaluru-based medicine delivery pharmacy startup Myra Medicines for an undisclosed amount.

In February 2019, it acquired a digital healthcare platform and a ‘diagnostics at home’ services startup called Medlabz. In 2018, the company acquired Mumbai-based EClinic24/7.

Narayanan had earlier told us that for acquisitions, the company focuses on the capability and the customers it is acquiring. “I think every time we have got capability, we’ve been able to scale it across the network. The labs business is one of our big success stories. It has grown 4x-5x in the last one year, and it’s been wonderful as a business. The express business which we acquired recently is also scaling up really rapidly,” he had said.

In many ways, the company has strengthened its capabilities, but in terms of financial performance, its expenses continue to grow.

Legal hurdles, in particular, have taken a toll. In FY19, Medlife spent INR 10.82 Cr as legal and professional expenses, which was a 106% Y-o-Y increase.

However, Narayanan told Inc42  that these expenses are related to regulatory and professional fee for various expansion (organic and in organic) related expenses.

Further, the company’s advertising expenses grew 2X in FY19, transportation distribution expenses grew 1.5X, and brokerage and commission fees grew 2.3X. On this, Narayanan told us, “We have a substantial increase in brand building as we scale the business during the year.”

As the company builds its diagnostics business, the costs involved are also increasing. For instance, Medlife’s collection charges grew 2.98X reaching INR 6.57 Cr in FY19. As the company widens its horizons, its employee benefit expenses grew 93.7% reaching INR 107.5 Cr in FY19.

Narayanan had earlier told us that in FY20, Medlife expects to achieve overall sales of INR 1.5K Cr with an exit run rate of INR 2K Cr. On FY20 targets, he told us, “In the current year business growth have been on track to end the year with a GMV run rate of $250 Mn with achieving operational profitability.”

Correction Note: January 9, 2020| 12: 30 PM
The story wrongly mentioned that Medlife was making 20K deliveries in 25 pin codes location. We have updated the same with the correct information.

Update: January 8, 2020| 11: 40 PM
The story has been updated to include comments from Medlife.

India’s ecommerce sector which is hardly 5% of the country’s retail sector makes the most noise in the startup ecosystem. And, why not?! When two of the biggest global players like Amazon and Walmart are key stakeholders, there’s bound to be a lot of attention on this space. In fact, the duo is also influencing India’s trade relations with the US now.

Be it Flipkart’s acquisition by Walmart, or numerous policy initiatives, the last two years have shaped India’s ecommerce in multiple ways AND 2020 will be crucial too as India is set to introduce its comprehensive policy on ecommerce and Reliance enters the game.

Reliance Jio has announced plans to launch Jiomart. And, it will be interesting to see how the conglomerate performs especially when other big groups like Tata have failed to make an impact in this sector.

As the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to introduce Union Budget 2020 in the Parliament on February 1, 2020, ahead of Delhi Assembly elections, we spoke to ecommerce startups on their demands from the Budget.

Interestingly, while the government is yet to introduce the National Policy on Ecommerce, the economic slowdown has forced every sector to agree on one basic demand — address the decreasing consumer spending.

While Amazon and Flipkart chose not to comment on the Budget 2020 expectations, among the other companies who spoke to Inc42, the major demands are:

• Address the low consumer spending
• Simplify GST for ecommerce vendors, bring more parity among offline and online vendors
• Support small vendors and kirana stores
• Provide more clarity on policy guidelines pertaining to ecommerce
• Push for 5G and digital India to help build better digital infrastructure

According to Deloitte India and Retail Association of India’s report, the retail market in India is expected to hit $1.2 Tn while the ecommerce too shall grow to $84 Bn by 2021 and $200 Bn by 2026. However, amid the slowdown as India’s GDP is the lowest in the last decade, Morgan Stanley has now estimated that India’s ecommerce market may only hit $200 Bn in 2027.

What’s Plaguing The Ecommerce Market?

From GST to FDI in inventory model of ecommerce, the existing ecommerce policy has imposed numerous restrictions over the marketplaces, India’s ecommerce companies have been struggling to find a balance between profitability and operability. Despite having received huge funding from VCs, ecommerce companies, on the whole, have been under huge loss every year.

According to Microsoft India Startup Research, over 75 ecommerce startups out of existing 450+ in the country have raised funding from VCs. And, most of these ecommerce companies in India including Amazon India and Flipkart have made huge losses.

Walmart owned-Flipkart’s losses has grown by 69% in fiscal year 2019, despite having revenue shot up by 44%. Amazon India, for which Bezos has committed to invest $5 Bn, registered a cumulative loss of over INR 7,000 Cr across various units in 2018-19.

Another major ecommerce player Shopclues, which in 2016 had become India’s fourth unicorn, was acquired by Singapore-based player Qoo10.

Paytm Mall, however, did manage to reduce its loss to INR 1171 Cr in 2018-2019.

Within ecommerce, we, therefore, are seeing a slew of emerging sub-sectors such as social ecommerce, recommerce, subscription-based ecommerce, vertical ecommerce focussing on women, children and male grooming and fashion which are exploring different revenue models.

Ecommerce Expectations From Budget 2020

Among the ecommerce sector, the expectations are geared towards the MSME sector, especially for B2B players. Amit Sharma, CEO and founder, ShopX, said that given the economic conditions of 2019, it would be welcome to see the government roll out measures that support and drive the growth of the small MSMEs and kirana stores who are a vital link to the Indian economy.

“The focus should be to spur consumption from Tier 2 and 3 cities. As an enabler of small retailers and kirana stores, we will work on supporting and digitising the 12 Mn stores across India that support the daily needs of 400 Mn middle-class Indians,” he added.

Jatin Mazalcar, CFO, Meesho, leading the wave of social commerce startups and encouraging individual reselling said the government has to focus on home entrepreneurs. “We would like to see the lowering of income tax and putting more money in the hands of the consumer to give a boost to the economy, no GST obligations for small or home entrepreneurs and parity between online and offline suppliers with < INR 40 Lakh turnover.”

Mazalcar added that significant investments happen in the initial phase of startups and refund of GST input credit to startups can free up a lot of working capital and spur entrepreneurship.

“This will be a big enabler for small or home entrepreneurs, generate employment and more importantly digitise the economy further.”

He further spoke about helping startups streamline costs by lowering tax on ESOPs since there is a very high tax incidence at the moment. This can be changed by reducing the tax rate as well as not taxing perquisites at the time of exercise, he added.

Akshay Hegde, cofounder and MD, ShakeDeal told Inc42, “Increasing consumption power of the middle and upper-middle classes by rejiggering the direct tax slab rates is sure to drive more take home in the hands of consumers for discretionary spending.”

Hegde also recommended increasing the exemption for income tax level up to INR 5 Lakh of an individual’s income to increase the middle-class base and hence drive the demand for goods and services.

“The loss of tax revenue should be overcome and offset by the resultant increase in consumption. Further rationalisation and simplification of the indirect tax refunds system should be looked at closely. Freeing up locked up working capital in an economy already dealing with sluggish credit growth is key to improving cash flow and working capital flows for businesses.”

He urged the government to create more startup-friendly and focused measures like in the first budget in Modi 2.0, where the government clarified on angel tax and helped the startup spirit. The government should also look into policies that bring in more FDI into the country especially for labour-intensive sectors. This would help address the unemployment issue facing the country.

Ramakant Sharma, cofounder and COO, Livspace, called for clarity on tax policies for individuals.

“We hope that the upcoming budget 2020 will allow greater tax benefits to enable larger part of the population to purchase homes.”

Sharma added that now is a good time to invest in housing as the previous budget had addressed the issues surrounding liquidity of realtors through the recapitalisation of PSU banks and support to securitisation for NBFC assets.

“Our government has always been open to feedback, and we feel that home buyers and real estate developers will benefit from the upcoming budget which might allocate greater funds towards infrastructure thus contributing towards a healthier economy. With the upcoming budget, we are also expecting newer policies aimed at transforming buyer experiences.”

Vikas Bagaria, founder of Pee Safe, which makes women-focussed hygiene products, believes that verticals such as femtech within the ecommerce industry have huge potential. It is expected to reach $50 Bn globally by 2025, as per estimates by Frost and Sullivan. “Though this is a relatively new industry, it aims to address some of the age-old problems women have been facing and is projected to be the next big thing in the women’s health and hygiene market.  It promotes the use of digital health applications such as hygiene products, diagnostics, reproductive health monitoring systems, etc. to help women take control of their health.”

For Bagaria, the big expectation from the Budget 2020 centres around government policy and regulation to enable ease of doing business through centralised policies. “This will also attract more foreign investment opportunities in the segment. There is also a need to simplify the taxation process and make early-stage funding easier. While the government has done well in terms of facilitating foreign investments in India, this outlook needs to be maintained going forward to effectively promote more innovations under the Make in India campaign.”

For Sanchit Gaurav, cofounder, Housejoy, technology as well as government-aided initiatives such as the Bharatmala scheme for logistics, UDAN and AMRUT are paving the way for some evolutionary advancements will make 2020 a landmark year for construction.

“There are also some roadblocks that need to be addressed and we hope this year’s budget will bring out conducive policies. The Indian government has recently infused capital in real estate and infrastructure but more needs to come in, particularly in Tier 2 and 3 areas.”

He added that timely tech intervention will not only help individual growth but also lead the economy towards recovery. “We hope the budget will enable this and more.”

Need A Balancing Act Between Swadeshi And Videshi

Besides numerous restrictions such as no FDI in inventory-based model ecommerce, GST registration, the upcoming intermediary guidelines, the Personal Data Protection Bill and others will further increase the liability of the companies.

On the other end, there is a slew of accusations on the major ecommerce players such as Amazon and Flipkart for not fairly treating their online vendors. In fact, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has taken them to various courts on the same.

Given the number of jobs that ecommerce companies generate, and the support it extends to independent entrepreneurs and MSMEs, as well as other sectors such as fintech and logistics, encouraging the ecommerce industry has been top of the government’s agenda for many years and should continue in 2020 as well.

While state governments have been collaborating with ecommerce players on various schemes such as Uttar Pradesh’s One District One Product (ODOP) scheme, Flipkart has now partnered with the Indian government’s Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM).

Despite having grown this decade, traders and ecommerce players continue to lock horns on various issues. Part of the issue has been the delay around the various important ecommerce policies. Can Sitharaman find a balance and bring more clarity to the existing policies?

This article is part of Inc42’s Startup Watchlist, an annual series in which we list the top startups to watch out for in 2020 in India from agritech, deeptech, logistics, healthtech, edtech and other sectors. Explore all stories from the Startup Watchlist 2020 series here.

The advancement in technology has been a major catalyst in disrupting the Indian economy positively. But when talking about the economy, one of the primary contributors is the agriculture sector, which desperately needs technology to rescue farmers in India, boost revenue, production and tackle issues. Given that the lives of farmers and the food economy that impacts the whole population are at stake, there’s a lot riding on agritech startups and their potential impact.

In many ways, 2020 is expected to be the year that challenges such as fragmented land holdings, seed and crop quality, availability of input, supply chain and storage, weather and climate risks as well as soil nutrition are addressed through tech.

Technology came into the picture and changed things for farmers at the start of the new century. With the help of high-tech drones, IoT devices and data analytics, India’s agritech startups are now lending a helping hand to grow India’s agriculture economy.

According to DataLabs by Inc42, the agritech sector recorded a total funding of $244.59 Mn in 2019, an increase of over 350% in the amount of funding in the agritech sector from the previous year. Speaking to Inc42, agritech stakeholders said that while startups have expanded rapidly in the past couple of years, the growth of the sector has been held back by lack of government support, lack of structured data, fewer large investments, poor infrastructure, and policy lag.

However, with technologies such as AI, drones, satellite imagery, robotics and IoT being put to use, there is a huge scope for agritech startups to transform this sector that is so crucial to the Indian economy. Inc42 has curated a list of some agritech startups in India that have the potential to outshine the competition in 2020. Here’s a look.

Editor’s Note: The below list is in alphabetical order and is not meant to be a ranking of any kind.

Aquaconnect

While agritech might be principally associated with traditional crop farming, Aquaconnect is a startup uses AI and remote-sensing technologies to assist shrimp and fish farmers to improve efficiency and farming revenue.

FarmMOJO, its AI-enabled mobile app, acts as a farm advisor and provides context-specific suggestions and alerts to farmers in multiple languages. This helps farmers make decisions to improve water quality parameters, feed consumption pattern and health management of the inventory.

Based on the data intelligence, FarmMOJO also connects the farmers with the upstream (hatcheries, feed producers, farm equipment manufacturers, lenders, insurers) and downstream of the supply chain (processors, exporters, and certifying bodies). The data intelligence improves the chances of farmers getting low-interest lending products from banks and traceability certification access for exporting to the overseas market.

Founded in 2017 by Rajamanohar Somasundaram, Shanmuga Sundara Raj and Sanjai Kumar, the Chennai agritech startup has on-boarded 3400+ shrimp farmers and is working with them at various interventions to improve their farm production and market connectivity. At present, it is working in three major aquaculture production states in India — Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Gujarat.

Cofounder Rajamanohar Somasundaram told Inc42, that believes land-based aquaculture in this country is the next frontier as it continues to grow faster than any other global food production sector. As maintaining ocean health and wild fish stocks has become a major concern, aquaculture will likely play a significant role in mitigating this concern, he added.

Rajamanohar said that technology adoption and last-mile connectivity as the biggest challenge in agritech. The startup received total funding of $1.1 Mn from Omnivore and Hatch Norway.

In 2020, the startup aims to reach 15K farmers across India and establish its presence in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian nations. It further plans to focus on disease risk management solutions for farmers, risk management solutions for banks, customisation of solutions for other aquatic species and solutions for indoor aquaculture systems.

Fasal

Hardware and IoT are disrupting farm operations and agritech in India just as much as manufacturing and industry. Fasal’s AI-powered IoT-SaaS platform for horticulture captures real-time data on growing conditions from on-farm sensors and delivers farm-specific, crop-specific actionable advisories to farmers via mobile in regional languages.

Fasal’s field sensors measure multiple dynamic variables including micro-climate, soil, and crop conditions. It leverages machine learning to transform this data into farm-level predictions, anticipating various risks while helping horticulture farmers reduce input costs, optimise crop protection, irrigation, and crop nutrition. Farmers are required to pay a monthly subscription depending upon the farm size and crop for the time their crop is active.

Founded in 2018 by Ananda Verma and Shailendra Tiwari and headquartered in Bengaluru, Fasal claims to have over 100 farms and over 1000 farmers on-board in the horticulture belt of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka. At present, it works with grapes, pomegranates, citrus fruits, chillies and peppers, and tomatoes.

“Indian has really good research institutions who are producing phenomenal research in agriculture but the impact is low. We need them to open up for collaborations with high paced startups to leverage the research and create a bigger impact,” Fasal cofounder and CEO Verma told Inc42.

Besides adding more crops and expanding geographies, the startup plans to focus on the B2B2F model in 2020, essentially entering the supply chain and reverse chain market to compete with other agritech startups in India.

Freshokartz

Farmers need a helping hand when it comes to input material and they most often rely on middlemen in the supply chain for this part of their business. This results in inefficiencies in the procurement of inputs just as it does in supply chain. Jaipur-based Freshokartz not only provides analytics to farmers based on soil tests, past crop history, and financial data, but also operates physical centres in the villages to provide farm advisory, deliver quality seeds, pesticides, and fertilisers to the farmer’s doorstep.

Freshokartz has a subscription model for farmers where farmers pay INR 500 to 1000 per year as a subscription fee which includes one soil test with unlimited call centre support and field visit at farmer’s doorstep. The agritech company also makes money by selling seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides to farmers. Freshokartz also connects farmers with the market and helps them to get a better price for their produce, which is one of the chief concerns of Indian farmers.

Founded in 2016 by Rajendra Lora, the startup currently operates from 75 rural-level centres in villages with a base of around 90K farmers. In terms of revenue, Lora told Inc42, “Freshokartz has done more than INR 10 Cr for the last 3 years and targets an Annual Recurring Revenue of INR 20 Cr. by the end of this financial year.” Ministry of corporate affairs filings show that the startup registered revenue of INR 2.28 Cr for 2017-18.

For 2020, the company has a lineup of interesting goals. Lora told Inc42 that it plans to raise $2-3 Mn in a Series A round in the next 6-8 months. Freshokartz aims to open 100 physical centres by March 2020 and double the number of farmers it is currently working with. It wants to venture beyond Rajasthan to Madhya Pradesh and Haryana and partner with NBFCs to provide credit support to farmers.

Gramophone

Employing a different approach to input supply for farmers, Gramophone takes an advisory and mobile commerce route to sell seeds, crop protection and nutrition products directly to farmers.

Gramophone also allows for farmers to talk to agritech and agriculture experts for solutions and product consultation. The Gramophone Farmer app has agronomy, community and agricultural input retail as the key components. To provide scalable, personalised crop care solutions to the farmers, the app has a digitised database of more than 30 crops with the agro-climatic conditions in which they grow, duration of varieties and more. The app also contains information on pest and disease problems and soil nutrition.

Founded in 2016 by Tauseef Khan, Nishant Vats, Harshit Gupta and Ashish Singh, Gramophone has an application user base of 300K farmers. Filings, accessed on Tofler, show that the startup registered revenue of INR 1 Cr in 2017-18.

A spokesperson for the agritech startup told Inc42, “India’s productivity is almost half of the global average in most of the crops. Our aim is to provide agronomic intelligence and be the one-stop solution for all agriculture input needs of the farmers as more than 40% of the seeds and crop care products sold to farmers are spurious in nature.”

Gramophone has plans to bring 30 Mn farmers on the platform and provide easy access to agriculture financing in the next few years. “We want to be the go-to digital platform for anybody who wants to reach out to rural demand over the next five years,” it said.

Intello Labs

AI is changing most sectors of the economy and Intello Labs uses AI-based image processing to assess food quality at the source. The agritech startup works on a B2B model with food growers, processors, retailers, food service companies and other stakeholders in the Indian food supply and production chain. Intello Labs charge customers a monthly fee depending on the number of images processed.

The startup was founded in 2016 by Milan Sharma, Nishant Mishra, Himani Shah, and Devendra Chandani. Headquartered in Gurugram, Intello Labs said that being underserved in terms of technology for the food industry comes as the biggest opportunity for tech startups. Finding the right talent is the biggest challenge, the company said. Filings on Tofler state that the startup registered revenue of INR 5.8 lakhs as of FY17.

The company will be developing solutions more specific to the US and China markets. “Our mobile application solutions generated maximum interest among clients, now, they are clamouring for our sorting machines. We expect this hardware side of the business to take off in 2020,” it added.

O4S

Once products are out in the market, there’s always someone looking to cut corners to skim money off the top or pass off low-quality imitations. Farmers face this problem with grains which can have a serious impact on the economy.

O4S, also known as Original4Sure is a SaaS platform that helps businesses get full control over the downstream supply chain and helps provide traceability solutions for agricultural input companies.

The Gurugram-based startup empowers brands by providing them with services such as returns management is a massive concern for seed companies — 40% of their products are affected by the return process, the company told us. The focus of these businesses then becomes finding an easily scalable solution whereas, for bigger brands who are into multiple products, the recurring problem is of brand counterfeiting which leads to loss for the farmers and also brand dilution.

Founded in 2016, O4S is founded by Divay Kumar and Shreyas Sipani. Its model revolves around serialisation or the process of providing every primary product with a unique identification number right at the manufacturing site. Post this process, at every data capture event in the downstream change, O4S charges a fee from the brand.

Specifically for the agricultural and Indian agritech industry, it solutions cut across manufacturers of seeds, insecticides, pesticides, bioproducts, and fertilizers. “Though there is a lot of scope to use centralized data for the sector in our country, the biggest challenge is that the Landholding pattern is very diverse and varies from region to region, which makes engaging with everyone by a single entity a test,” it told Inc42.

The agritech startups are selected for the Watchlist based on editorial criteria as well as the recent funding, stage, growth or scale achieved in the preceding year and how it has differentiated itself or its model in India’s competitive market.

Delhi finally has an anti-smog tower, but it may not quite be the solution to air pollution that Delhiites want. Installed by the Traders Association Lajpat Nagar (TALN) in the Lajpat Nagar market in South Delhi. The anti-smog facility was inaugurated by former cricketer Gautam Gambhir, who is the elected member of parliament from the East Delhi constituency.

The device has been procured by the Gautam Gambhir Foundation and installed with the help of TALN. It has to be noted that the cost of the device is INR 7 Lakh and the operational and maintenance cost of the device would be around 30K per month, which will be borne by TALN.

The 20 ft tall tower is said to purify the air around the Lajpat Nagar Central Market area, which witnesses an average footfall of over 15K people every day. The device is said to purify 250K to 600K cubic metres of air per day. It is also claimed to clean 80% of particulate matter (PM) — PM 2.5 and PM 10 — and help in improving air quality within a circumference area of almost 500 to 750 metres.

In a press statement, Gambhir, the MP for East Delhi, said: “Fighting Delhi’s air pollution is my topmost priority and we are working on several such initiatives.” The East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) had brought machines and sprinklers worth INR 70 Cr when pollution was at its peak, he added.

In terms of the design, the tricolour-themed tower is shaped like a chimney with four outlet units. The air purifier tower is fitted with exhaust fans to pull in air with the help of a big inlet unit. It runs on electricity, which is supplied by the national power grid, but the tower also has an option to utilise solar power.

The Solution To Delhi’s Air Pollution Woes?

Worryingly, air pollution levels have remained in ‘severe’ category in the capital for many months. On Sunday (January 5) morning, there was a drastic improvement and the air quality index (AQI) entered the ‘very poor’ category (PM 2.5 was 302 and PM 10 was at 283) in Lodhi Road area, according to the AQI data, as reported by ANI. However, the data keeps fluctuating during the peak hours of the day.

Air Quality of #Delhi‘s Lodhi Road area, prominent pollutants PM 10 and PM 2.5 in ‘severe’ and ‘very poor’ category respectively. #Smog #AirPollution pic.twitter.com/JVe2rhb2x4

— ANI (@ANI) December 5, 2017

Inc42 reached out to the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) to find out more about the fluctuations in AQI levels. However, the council denied commenting as there was no analysis conducted to back up the data at the moment.

The tower has been installed as a result of pressure from the Supreme Court. In a November 2019 ruling, the SC had asked the centre and the Delhi government to install ‘anti-smog towers’ in Delhi-NCR. Similar to the air-purifying tower in China’s Xi’an, where the device is claimed to clean over 10 Mn cubic metres of air per day.

While reports from scientists behind the Chinese project seemed positive at first glance, there is no public data available or solid evidence to support their claims. Hence, this remains a fragile option to tackle air pollution, according to some cleantech startups and experts that Inc42 spoke to.

“If you install air conditioners inside-out, it won’t solve global warming or pollution,” said Abhilasha Purwar, founder and CEO of Blue Sky Analytics, commenting about the so-called anti-smog tower.

Gurugram-based Blue Sky Analytics monitors air quality by combining satellite data with artificial intelligence. Blue Sky is stitching together data from NASA and European Space Agency satellites and ground sensors to create an “AI-driven geospatial data refinery.”

Speaking to Inc42 earlier, Purwar had said that masks, air purifiers, and other such products are akin to putting “a band-aid on cancer.” They may temporarily address the symptoms but do nothing about the root cause.

Other experts are equally sceptical. Anumita Roychowdhury, the director executive at the Centre for Science and Environment told HT that investing in such devices is not feasible as there isn’t enough data to back this technology or evidence of improving air quality yet. Instead, she suggested that the government and other industry stakeholders use the same money to reduce emissions from vehicles, industries and others.

“We need real action to cut down on real emissions,” she added.

The Gautam Gambhir Foundation clarified that the air purifier is a prototype and the team will analyse its performance and then install several purifiers around the constituency. “Every step in the direction of making Delhi pollution-free saves lives.”

Citing that India’s ecommerce sector is growing at the fastest pace in the world, the Competition Commission of India (CCI), in its new report, estimated that the revenue from this segment will reach $120 Bn in 2020, growing at an annual rate of 51%. In 2017, the revenue from ecommerce segment stood at $39 Bn.

‘The Market Study On Ecommerce In India’ report, which was published on Wednesday (January 8), highlighted that the growth in the ecommerce sector is fueled by the increased penetration of smartphones as well as the internet in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

Additionally, the report cited that the introduction of cash of delivery as a payment method by ecommerce platforms helped in gaining the trust of users, thereby increasing the number of online orders. Other factors that helped the ecommerce industry to boom were discounts and deals offered by the marketplaces, faster deliveries, and access to a large product range, especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities where choices were limited earlier.

For a particular category of goods, the report cites that the share of online distribution to offline sales varies significantly. For instance, the online sale of mobile phones accounts for around 40% of total sales in India. The report also stated that smartphones sell online more than feature phones.

On the other hand, for electronic appliances and fashion products such as apparel, shoes, accessories, the report found, ecommerce platforms perform more as a supplementary channel as brick and mortar stores are still predominant in these categories.

Highlighting that the ecommerce platforms have brought increased transparency for sellers, the report said that the majority of the retailers track competitors’ prices and adjust price levels accordingly. “While the idea of dynamic pricing strategy is not new, ecommerce has transformed the way price information is disseminated,” the report quoted.

Investors Bullish On Ecommerce Startups

One of the reasons for this significant growth of the ecommerce industry is the increasing trust of investors. According to the report, ecommerce startups received a total of $13.3 Bn in 904 funding rounds since 2009. Most funding in ecommerce startups took place in 2017, which saw a total of 124 funding round, valuing $3.5 Bn.

Moreover, the report estimates that there are around 4757 active ecommerce startups in India. Though ecommerce startups started to emerge in 2009, the report cites that 1650 startups entered the ecosystem in 2015, which is the most in a single year.

In India, ecommerce segment is largely dominated by two players — US-based Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart. Besides these two, other notable players in the market are Snapdeal, Paytm Mall, Shopclues, Myntra, Jabong, among others. Fascinated with India’s ecommerce growth, global consumer goods brand Procter & Gamble (P&G) has also started testing an ecommerce store in India.

As ecommerce companies are still waiting for the finalisation of the National Ecommerce Policy, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has stepped forward pushing for self-regulation to mitigate some of the issues that are plaguing the sector.

In its report, ‘Market Study on E-commerce in India: Key Findings and Observations’, released on January 8, CCI has asked ecommerce companies to keep a check on themselves in various matters including discounting, revision in contract term, data collection, review mechanism and search ranking.

The commission called for clear and transparent policies on deep discounts. CCI asked ecommerce platforms to also note the basis of discount rates for different products and sellers, while also highlighting the implication of participation or non-participation in discount schemes.

In addition, the competition regulator has also asked ecommerce companies to ensure transparency over user review and rating mechanisms to keep information symmetry intact. However, CCI has asked ecommerce platforms to only publish reviews for verified purchases and develop a mechanism to prevent fraudulent reviews/rating.

Among other things, the CCI has also given due importance to data collection, calling for a “clear and transparent” mechanism of data collection and sharing.

“Set out a clear and transparent policy on data that is collected on the platform, the use of such data by the platform and also the potential and actual sharing of such data with third parties or related entities,” CCI’s report read.

The CCI has also asked ecommerce platforms to bring into effect changes that would enable the following:

• Notify “business users” about any proposed changes in terms and conditions. These changes cannot be implemented before the expiry of the notice period.
• Add a general description of the main search ranking parameters among other things in the terms and condition section.
• Note any possibility of influencing the ranking through direct or indirect remuneration paid by business users to the company.

Apart from setting up self-regulation policies for the ecommerce platforms, CCI’s report also noted that Indian ecommerce is the fastest growing in the world. As per the report, ecommerce segment’s revenue is expected to reach $120 Bn in 2020, noting a 51% year-on-year (YoY) growth since 2017, when revenue from the ecommerce segment was at $39 Bn.

The report also attributes this growth to deeper penetration of smartphones and internet services in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Moreover, the report also notes that schemes like cash on delivery, discounts, deals offered and faster deliveries have made the segment popular against the customers.

Well, while ecommerce discounts might have been the main attraction for consumers, not everyone is happy with the practices.

With 2019 being filled with protests against ecommerce companies like Amazon and Flipkart, 2020 seems to be going on the same path as traders organisation Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) is launching another series of protests against the discounting and predatory pricing practices of ecommerce companies.

From payments to governance to delivery of financial services, blockchain is transforming key sectors in ways not imagined half a decade earlier. Just as Indian state governments such as Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have announced plans to harness blockchain for delivery of government services and efficiencies, the technology is being used massively by entrepreneurs and business innovators

So much so that blockchain has penetrated every sector, including finance, energy, governance, supply chain, media and entertainment among others. The healthcare industry also has seen several use cases of blockchain, right from digital identity and records management to privacy applications as well as trial monitoring, pharma manufacturing, authenticity tracking for prosthetics and drugs and more.

According to a new MarketsandMarkets report, the blockchain technology in the healthcare market is expected to reach $829 Mn by 2023. Over a six-year period, the healthcare blockchain application market is expected to grow by nearly 30x as private and public uses expand. Will the Indian healthcare system also move towards a blockchain future? More will become clear in the next decade as the healthtech market matures, but for now, much of the efforts and resources are being dedicated in research and exploration, as seen below.

Blockchain Graph Of The Week:

The Venture Scanner highlighted the funding activity in the blockchain technology across various categories. The $11.9 Bn investment is spent only on innovation and experiment/pilot stage of the technology, followed by exchanges and trading platform at $2.5 Bn and financial services at $2.1 Bn.

Blockchain News From India

Here are the biggest blockchain-related headlines from the domestic market.

Kerala Riding The Blockchain Wave In India 

After Telangana, Kerala government is planning to leverage blockchain in the financial sector and human resources. In the next five years, the state plans to make its financial system more efficient and implement pilot government schemes by creating a talent pool of professionals in the area of blockchain. In 2017, the state had set up Kerala Blockchain Academy, which aimed at training 20K people in blockchain development over a span of two years.

In addition to this, the Kerala government in an ET report said that it is also looking at implementing blockchain-enabled pilot schemes in land records, managing workforce, immunisation programmes and organic food traceability among others.

NPCI Launches Blockchain-Based Vajra Platform 

The National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched a blockchain-based payments platform called Vajra. According to NPCI, the platform can be accessed by various payment companies for providing secured transactions on their online platforms or mobile applications to secure payments. Ensuring easy incorporation of Vajra in payments systems by banks, NPCI will provide an application programming interface (API).

The platform will be based on the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), which has been designed for automating payment clearing and settlement processes of NPCI products such as unified payments interface (UPI) and Rupay. More than anything, the Vajra platform will enhance data security and transparency, facilitate real-time transactions and reduce reconciliation challenges and processing errors. It uses a private encrypted blockchain network with three distinct node types — participant node (for banks and payment providers), a clearinghouse node (NPCI admin to maintain the network) and a notary node (validation of transaction based on Aadhaar).

Blockchain Around The World

Ant Financial Aims to Launch Its Enterprise Blockchain Platform 

The financial wing of Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba is reportedly planning to launch enterprise-focused “Ant Blockchain Open Alliance” platform this month.

According to Ant Financial, this will be the first open alliance chain to share platform use rights which enables small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and developers to enter the blockchain industry at a low cost to develop and launch their own applications. Once rolled out, this is said to boost the commercialisation of blockchain applications to the next level across the globe.

RedFox Labs To Launch World’s First Blockchain Game

Vietnam-based blockchain venture builder RedFOX Labs recently announced that it will be launching its first non-fungible token (NFT) blockchain game this year. This will be the first NFT blockchain to have the entire game logic on-chain. “This feat wouldn’t be possible on other blockchains, so this is as much a Proof of technology as it is a game release,” said in RedFox in its twitter post. The game has collectable pieces that can be stored, traded and used for gameplay. Once ready for testing, it will be integrated with actual games.

StrainSecure To Launch Blockchain-Powered Cannabis Tracker 

California-based StrainSecure a platform that is developed by TruTrace is the world’s first blockchain-secured platform for tracking product from seed-to-sale. This has got the attention of the US medical cannabis companies rushing to sign up on its platform. The StrainSecure platform provides testing, DNA-based validation and product guarantees for patients and customers.

The blockchain-powered platform enables cannabis producers to foster enhanced trust among customers in an industry famous for unreliable supply chains. During the pilot test of the platform, major players like WeedMD and Harvest One Cannabis took part in the programme. The results have been phenomenal, where WeedMD put 40 of its strains through validation, the report added.

Chinese short video app TikTok has confirmed fixing a vulnerability in its app that allowed hackers to manipulate content, delete videos, upload unauthorized videos, make private ‘hidden’ videos public and extract confidential information of users via SMS containing a malicious link.

US-based cybersecurity firm Check Point Research exposed the vulnerability — its team discovered multiple loopholes which a potential hacker can use to conduct the attack which gives total control over TikTok accounts.

Inc42 reached out to ByteDance, which runs TikTok, to understand the extent of vulnerability of the breach and how it affected users in India. The company did not responded till the time of publishing.

Currently, TikTok has more than one billion monthly active users across its apps, with India being one of its biggest markets with over 300 Mn active users. India is also one of the fastest-growing markets for TikTok, but the recent breach brings the safety of Indian users into question, many of whom are young adults and teenagers, as well as new users unfamiliar with security threats.

TikTok Security And Privacy Issues

The Check Point Research had also found that the TikTok advertisements subdomain was vulnerable to Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks. This type of attack uses malicious scripts that are injected into trusted websites. Once a user clicks on this, an attacker could access personal information saved on user accounts, including email addresses, birth dates using this vulnerability.

This also comes at a time when TikTok was forced to sell the majority stake in order to remain in the US, which is one of the prominent markets. If the sale happens, the parent company ByteDance is expected to fetch $10 Bn through this deal, the reports stated. However, the US-China trade war has put TikTok in a bad spotlight.

The US government had reportedly said that TikTok app can be a security threat to the country as it easily supplies user’s data to Chinese authorities under Chinese law. TikTok, however, denied the reports by calling it ‘meritless.’

While the US is alleging the TikTok app for its security threat in the country, India, on the other hand, has been requesting the Chinese short video app for user information. According to TikTok’s transparency report, the Indian government had sent a total of 107 requests to the company demanding user information from January 2019 to June 2019.  Out of which, 99 of such requests were legal, and remaining eight of them were recognised as emergency requests by TikTok.

Moreover, the Indian government accounted for 47% of the total requests made globally to TikTok during the same period, followed by the US and Japan with 79 and 35. Also, the Indian government made 11 requests to TikTok to take down content from the platform. The US government had made a total of six requests for content moderation on TikTok.

The 5G trials in India might be delayed further as telecom giants  — Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India — are planning to seek extension on the January 10 deadline to submit their proposals for the same.

An unidentified senior official told ET that there is a lot of documentation and many details are yet to be ascertained, which is not possible by January 10. Therefore industry body cellular operators association of India (COAI) will be writing to the department of telecommunication (DoT), this week.

COAI’s director general Rajan Mathews told ET, “There are three scenarios – rural, semi-urban and urban areas – for which a proper plan needs to be submitted, including information from each gear vendor and operator. Gathering this will take time, which is why we are seeking an extension.”

In December 2019, IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad informed the Rajya Sabha that the centre is looking to finalise its framework for 5G technologies.

Prasad also announced that the field trials of 5G services will begin in the last quarter of FY20 — January to March. Media reports, published in December 2019, also noted that the government received close to 12 applications for the 5G trials. However, there has been no update in this regard since then.

The fifth generation cellular network technology will offer the fastest mobile internet speeds in India, along with low latency. 5G networks are expected to provide download speeds of up to 1Gbps.

While 5G networks are expected to be launched in India by 2020 there is still no concrete date or timeline in this regard. None of the telecom operators or government officials have set a date for the spectrum auction. Telecom players are also skeptical about investing heavily in 5G infrastructure, especially due to various regulatory and policy-related issues that have impacted revenue.

However, once in place, 5G technology is expected to create a cumulative economic impact of $1 Tn in India by 2035. Swedish multinational telecom Ericsson estimates that 5G enabled digitalisation revenue potential in India will be above $27 Bn by 2026.