The Indian startup ecosystem raised $111 million in equity funding across 17 deals in the first week of June, 25 percent down from the previous week’s tally of $148.1 million.

A clear majority of the deals were pre-Series A or Series A. However, these early-stage deals accounted for less than a quarter - or $26.7 million - of the total funding.

The week’s funding was dominated by one deal - real-estate tech startup NoBroker raised $51 million as part of its Series C round led by General Atlantic and included participation from existing investors SAIF Partners and BEENEXT. The Bengaluru-based startup plans to use the funding to expand its operations and grow its home store and financial services offering.

Approximately $3.6 million was raised in debt financing from one deal, when bike-rental platform Vogo raised debt this week, led by Alteria Capital. The company expects to leverage this investment to grow rapidly across India. Earlier, in March, it had raised funding from Flipkart Co-founder Sachin Bansal.

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Early-stage rules the roost

Across seven deals, startups managed to raise about $3.93 million in pre-Series A, while three were undisclosed. Recykal, a cloud-based waste management and recycling startup, brought in most of the capital after it closed $2 million in pre-Series A financing, which is expected to help the firm expand its team and increase its presence across new Indian cities.

Recykal’s funding was led by Triton Investment Advisors (Triton), the family office of Pidilite Industries Director Ajay Parekh, and existing investor Vijay Acharya, who was formerly the Managing Director of Bank of Singapore.

Noida-based Jadooz, which is bringing the multiplex experience to Tier II and III towns at affordable prices, raised seed funding of $270,000 led by Artha Venture Fund, and aims to build 15 new centres in India and Nepal.

Dockabl, a performance management platform, raised $1.26 million in its Pre-Series A round led by a pool of marquee investors. The New Delhi-based startup aims to use the funds to further augment its product, technology, and expanding to global markets including North America and Southeast Asia.

Infurnia, an interior design software company based in Bengaluru, raised $400,000 in pre-Series A from undisclosed angel investors.

Delhi-NCR based startup Nurturing Green raised an undisclosed amount of funding from industry veterans like Vijay Shekhar Sharma (Paytm), Mohit Goel (Omaxe Limited), Suraj Nangia (Nangia Advisors), and others. The green gifting company intends to use this capital to tie up with supermarkets across India, open over 200 stores, and develop a digital strategy to boost ecommerce sales.

Leegality, an e-signing and digital document workflow platform, raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Mumbai Angels Network, Chandigarh Angels, and HNIs. The Gurugram-based startup will use the funds to enhance their technology, scale operations, and accelerate growth.

Lastly, SucSEED Venture Partners invested in LetzConnect, an educational networking portal in a pre-Series A fund-raise that was also co-invested by Obopay Mobile technologies, and Japanese Investor Syndicate.

Meanwhile, five companies raised $22.7 million in Series A, led by Bengaluru-based Avail Finance, which raised $9 million in a round led by Matrix Partners India. The fintech platform will use these funds to expand its product suite and will also offer micro-savings and micro-insurance products tailored specifically for blue-collar workers.

Cityfurnish, a furniture and consumer appliances rental startup, raised $5 million in Series A round, with storied investors including Gmail creator Paul Buchheit and Youtube Founder Steve Chen. The Gurugram-based company will use the funds to strengthen the Cityfurnish’s brand position, technology, and expansion in new cities.

Healthcare delivery startup Pristyn Care raised $4 million from Sequoia India, to improve its medical capabilities, invest in technology, and expand its medical team.

Delhi-based Chakr Innovation, which is building a suite of products to reduce air pollution, raised $2.7 million in Series A funding led by IAN Fund, a SEBI registered seed and early-stage VC Fund, along with Jyoti Sagar and IDFC-Parampara Fund. The startup will use the funds to expand operations across more than 12 cities in the next 18 months.

Skin and hair care brand mCaffeine raised $2 million as a part of its Series A funding led by RP-SG Ventures. The personal care brand will use the fresh round of funding to increase its online and offline presence, and for research and product development to expand its product portfolio to include 30 more products in the next 12 months.

Notable growth-stage investments

Indian language storytelling startup Pratilipi said it has raised $15 million as a part of its Series B funding led by Qiming Venture Partners. Existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Omidyar Network India, Shunwei Capital, Contrarian Vriddhi Fund, and WEH Ventures also participated in the round.

Milkbasket raised $10.5 million in funding this week, led by Unilever Ventures. The round also saw participation from Mayfield India, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures, and a few Indian family offices. The Gurugram-based hyperlocal delivery startup is working towards its goal of achieving $1 billion annual recurring revenue (ARR) in 2021.

Sachin Bansal's BACQ had invested $2.8 million in debt in Milkbasket two months earlier. However, on Friday, Milkbasket issued a statement saying that both the company and BACQ have mutually decided not to proceed with the investment.

Budget hotel chain FabHotels raised about $7.8 million from the Gurugram-based company’s existing investors in a Series B1 round led by Goldman Sachs, with participation from Accel Partners and Qualcomm.

Other deals

New York-based online lending platform Biz2Credit Inc completed a Series B capital financing round of $52 million led by WestBridge Capital. The funds will be used to drive further growth in the company’s marketplace lending business and support the continued expansion of its digital lending platform Biz2X.

Cylus, an Israeli rail cybersecurity provider, raised $12 million in an early investment round, which included new investors such as Indian engineering firm Cyient. The company said it will use the funding to accelerate its activities in Europe, the United States, and the Asia Pacific region.

US-based ACI Worldwide, an electronic payments and banking solutions provider, has invested an undisclosed sum in Mumbai-based Mindgate Solutions to deliver an end-to-end payments solution for various businesses.

Acquisitions of the week

CleanseCar Washing and Repair Services, a mobile application-based car wash service provider, acquired Carnanny Solutions in a stock deal. While the value of the deal was not disclosed, the companies said that Carnanny’s team will join CleanseCar as part of the transaction.

US digital marketer IntellaSphere Inc said it has agreed to buy Mumbai-based Edgytal. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Edgytal has a presence in India, the US, and Canada, while IntellaSphere operates offices in the US and India.

Edurer, a Jaipur-based Edtech startup, was acquired by Indore-based assessment company National Olympiad Foundation (NOF) in a part-cash and part-equity deal. The company chose not to disclose the cash deal amount. The founders of Edurer will also join NOF’s management team.

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Last October, sometime in the middle of the festive season, omnichannel retail platform Myntra launched its private label 'All About You' in Walmart online stores across Canada to target the huge Indian diaspora living there.

This was enough for media, analysts, and customers to speculate that Walmart will eventually bring Myntra to the neighbouring US shores.

Months after that, Walmart has confirmed that it is exploring to sell Myntra products online in the US.

Speaking on the sidelines of the shareholders' meeting at Bentonville, Arkansas in the US, JP Suarez, Executive Vice-President and Chief Administration Officer, Walmart International, said,

“We are launching the Myntra brand in our stores in Canada and that will happen in Q3. We think it’s going to be a very nice compliment to the online experience for our customers. We are then exploring US market to get Myntra products here into the marketplace. We are looking at exploring all those tradelanes with the Myntra businesses.”

Also watch: JP Suarez, Executive Vice-President and Chief Administration Officer, Walmart International, talk about Myntra in this video by YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma.

This will further boost Myntra’s push towards profitability. The development also comes on the back of Myntra reportedly creating a unified workforce by bringing all Jabong employees into its fold.  

Myntra Designs Private Ltd, which operates fashion e-tailer Myntra, has been narrowing its losses of late. Its losses narrowed by 76 percent to Rs 151.2 crore for the financial year ending March 2018, compared to Rs 627.7 crore for FY17.

While the journey for Myntra is truly global, for Indian startup it is seminal. Myntra was acquired by Flipkart in 2014 for around $370 million.

The acquisitions helped Flipkart to compete with its rival Amazon, which entered the Indian market in 2013. Walmart may be relooking at the same strategy to leverage Myntra and hope to wean away some Indian diaspora from Amazon.

Myntra, along with Flipkart Fashion and Jabong, has a major market share in the Indian online fashion market. Flipkart claims it has a 70-percent combined market share in online fashion.

An omni-channel platform now, Myntra is also betting heavily on it’s three-year-old private label business. The company is also planning to expand its offline presence from 12 stores to 200 in the next two years.

Following the Walmart acquisition, the company saw some restructuring and leadership changes last year. Ananth Narayanan, former chief executive of Myntra quit the company, and Flipkart subsequently appointed Amar Nagaram as the head of the fashion portal.  

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In my everyday life, I deal with a lot of content; be it as a consumer or a creator.

I would like to share a few insights about content with you today. Particularly, how content without context is useless, and trust me, by the end of it, I would have convinced you how broad the implication of this is.

What is content?

Any kind of information is content.

The objective of this information can be to inform, educate, inspire, motivate, surprise, persuade, convince or even instill fear in you.

But I cannot attain my objective if the context is not right. I can’t randomly tell you “Hey, did you know, French fries are not from France”. It doesn’t make sense. It might be an interesting trivia, but it is not attaining any objective that you get by sharing that information.

However, it would probably make more sense, if I said this say, while we are sitting across a table having french fries. It would make even more sense if we were in France, or even more if we had French fries in France.

This is what context is.

The more dimension you add to that information, the more sense it makes and the more impact it will have. Correct? But unfortunately, that’s not what is happening today.

A lot of content is being created but with very little context or worse completely misinterpret it. To understand what is happening today, we need to go back in time. Way back in time.

Why and how did spoken language come into existence? The early human had figured out to control fire, he knew how to make spears, they were hunting in packs, which berries to eat and which ones to avoid.

But he wanted to transmit this knowledge to his tribe and future generations so that they have a better chance of survival. He knew the impact it would have on the chances of survival of himself and the next generation if he shared this critical information.

He had to invent a system to transmit this information and thus the early human invented language.

And for thousands of years, all of this information, even though it was being transmitted was stored in a single place - their brains.

Unfortunately, the brain is not a great storage device. I would love to quote productivity guru David Allen that your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.

So they had to invent a storage and processing system that can be outside of your brains because of its mental limitations. Around 3000-3500 BC some genius Sumerians came up with a brilliant system. It was called writing.

Writing was a huge task and only a few people could read. These painstakingly handwritten books were treated like treasures and likely only accessible to the extreme elite. In fact, not surprisingly up until the 15th century, there were only 30,000 books in the whole of Europe.

This problem was solved by yet another genius called Johannes Gutenberg. He had invented the printing press. Information and ideas started spreading far and faster.

Then around the early 20th century, the radio and tv were invented and this literally took information to the masses.

But one thing was common among all this information creation.

The barrier to entry to create content was very high because creating and spreading information was very expensive. This inadvertently forced context into creating information. This made critical information get priority and more exposure.

More importantly, this information transmission was only one-sided. Content creators went to great lengths to understand the what, where, when, how and more importantly, the “why” of information being presented and shared.

All of this changed in the 90s with the advent of the Internet.

Now, everybody could create content. And more importantly it was not just two-sided, it was all sided. People were creating content of other content.

The barriers to entry to create content is at the lowest in the history of human civilisation. This year we will create more data than the previous 5,000 years of humanity.

People are creating so much data because not only creating has become easier, storing and very importantly retrieving this information has become easier.

Throughout history, everyone was trying to transmit very critical information because of all of these problems. But now the critical information which is definitely being put out there is being buried by a lot of raw non-contextual information

But why is this a problem? Like nobody got hurt by some girl posting her breakfast picture or some teenage boy posting a selfie with his shades.

The problem appears when people and organisations with large influence create content and spread it without context.

The problem appears when people consume this content without the context and completely misinterpret it and take decisions and actions based on this.

The problem appears when fake information influences people more than actual information.

Today, the problem is not with creating information. There is lots of raw information being created. The problem is with processing this information.

The people who are responsible for processing this raw information and spreading it to the masses in the right context are not doing so.

But why are they doing this?

Attention

But what’s wrong with attention, the girl who is putting that tik tok video is doing it for attention, so is the young guy taking a video on his new bike.

The difference is, these major organisations and influencers are renting your attention to other companies and organisations in the form of advertisement. So the more attention they get the more money they make by renting your attention out.

Now, this wasn’t much of a concern until the Internet came along. Since creating content became so much more easier there were a lot more people trying to get a slice of the attention pie. Now, attention became the most sought after commodity.

They figured that the only way to get more attention is by being louder, literally and figuratively. Another trick they figured out was they can sensationalise certain information to get more attention.

And this cuts across lines, social media handles, media houses, online publications, reality shows, sports, movies, music, literally everything.

Is there a solution? There is.

Instead of renting out attention what if you can convert that attention into a transaction?

But the moment I say it, something in your head says hey that sounds wrong. But why do we have that resistance towards commercialisation of information?

Logically, it would make sense to monetise your content directly with your consumers than rent out attention and monetise it through other brands. The biggest disadvantage of this is that you have to listen to the tunes of these brands. The way raw information is processed is influenced because it might be against the vested interests of these brands.

But when you convert that attention into a transaction, something spectacular happens. The relationship between the content creator and content consumer changes. Because of this, content creators develop empathy. And empathy creates context. Because he knows if he creates content that the consumer will not consume, he will not transact with me.

Now you are converting that raw information in a way your users can digest. This means that the quality of the processed information becomes better which in turn creates a deeper impact on people.

And this is happening today.

It's happening with Netflix, which is directly transacting with their users and creating content for them. The same thing is happening with Music with Spotify, they are not even creating they are curating, which basically means putting things into context. Crowdfunded movies are a rage these days, so are crowdfunded political campaigns. It is also happening in online education.

I feel this drives home the point that people just don’t need information, they need it in the right context. And when they do, they don’t mind transacting because they understand the impact it is going to have on them.

And you as an individual can do it. The best part is that you don’t even have to create content or information. You just have to put it in the right context and you, as an individual can convert that attention into a transaction.

And when I say convert attention into a transaction, its not just money. It's a transaction of value. Money is just one way to represent that value. 

You too can add value in this chaotic marketplace of values, even when you are not creating. Whenever you get raw information, say in the form of a WhatsApp forward, force context into it and you can do this easily by asking the what, where, when, how and most importantly the why behind that information.

So by adding context not only are you making content useful, you can make it profitable, you can create an impact and maybe, just maybe, make the world a slightly better place to live in.

Here is my TEDx talk on the same topic

One of the biggest success stories of homegrown Indian startups is Flipkart. Launched in 2007 as an online bookstore, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal managed 20 successful shipments that year. Since then, the company has grown and gone on to provide more facilities like payments and logistics of its own.

Flipkart also topped the 2019 LinkedIn Top Companies list this year, being called ‘the most sought-after workplace in India’. Flipkart’s success in India caught the eye of US retail giant Walmart, which acquired the Indian ecommerce major in May 2018.

Now, if you are looking to be a part of the ecommerce major and become a ‘Flipster’, take a look at some of the job openings at Flipkart.

Engineering Manager

Experience needed: not specified

The candidate for engineering manager should have an understanding of distributed computing and core computer science concept. The candidate will have to work with architects, leads, and customers to define higher levels of abstractions, which can be adopted by rest of the organisation. The candidate should be excited about new technologies and enjoy big scale challenges.

For more information, click here.

Manager

Experience needed: 3-6 years

The candidate for this position should help develop plans, processes, systems and partnerships across the company to enable partner teams to improve customer experience. The candidate will have to create BRDs, SOPs, and interact with various teams to implement enhancements. The manager will also have to share data, insights and best practices from within the company and outside to constantly help improve customer experience.

For more information, click here.

Manager - Program Management

Experience needed: More than 2 years

As a programme manager, the candidate will have to work with business teams to identify critical selection gaps, put together a plan of action by finalising targets and collaborating with internal teams to drive progress. The candidate will also have to communicate the impact to stakeholders on a regular cadence. This role requires working central analytics to publish selection specific insights for weekly and monthly reviews.

For more information, click here.

M-Key Account Manager

Experience needed: not specified

The candidate for this role will have to develop deep and long-standing relationships with vendors to drive relationships from the strategic to the tactical. The candidate should have an in-depth knowledge of competition and vendor, and ability to influence the market and also drive portfolio management for best offers and discounts for the customers.

For more information, click here.

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Senior Manager-Market Intelligence

Experience needed: not specified

The candidate’s responsibilities will include leading market and competitive insights team, which is a mix of data analysts and M and CI managers. The candidate will also have to identify new sources of market intelligence in core retail and adjacent opportunities for Flipkart, both in India and globally.

For more information, click here.

Operations Engineer II

Experience needed: 3-7 years

The candidate should have scripting position in python, perl or bash, and knowledge of automation technologies like Ansible. The candidate should also have exposure to distributed cluster operations. For more information, click here.

Software Development Engineer IV- Payments

Experience needed: not specified 

The candidate should have deep expertise in any or combination programming languages like Java, C++, C#, Ruby, and PHP. The candidate will have to search, design, and build highly reliable, available, and scalable platforms and drive technical roadmap of the team in collaboration with engineering and product. Experience in building data-driven web application design and development is a plus.

For more information, click here.

HR Project Manager

Experience needed: not specified

As an HR project manager, the candidate will be responsible for project management of the HR work streams associated with several major business change activities. The candidate will have to devise and own the HR stakeholders and ensure key milestones are identified and communicated

to key stakeholders. The candidate will also have to act as a change agent and drive change management allied with projects.

For more information, click here.

Data Scientist

Experience needed: more than 2 years 

The primary responsibility of this role is to continuously improve speech technology through research and make robust voice-based dialogue systems for the company. The candidate will have to work in the research and development of algorithms based on deep neural networks for speech recognition, speech synthesis, machine translation, and advancing the state of the art in dialogue systems.

For more information, click here.

Senior Manager-Growth

Experience needed: 1-2 years for MBA graduates from Tier I business schools, and 3-4 years for engineering graduates from IIT  

As a senior manager for growth, the candidate’s responsibilities will include monitoring key affordability metrics such as product exchange and consumer finance for large businesses. The candidate should continuously track and report on the key metrics and provide data insights and trend lines to large business leaders. The candidate will also have to identify and build affordability capabilities and enablers that will drive significant growth on online sales of large appliances in India. 

For more information, click here.

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Last year around this time, there was a lot of excitement when Walmart bought over Flipkart in the biggest ever M&A deal worth $16 billion in the Indian startup ecosystem. It was a big win not only for the Flipkart Founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal but also for all the other startup founders keen to witness a successful exit.

The euphoria has not died down one year later. A year into the Flipkart buy, Walmart International head spells out ‘specific’ areas of focus for India market. President and CEO of Walmart International Judith McKenna said Walmart will focus on ensuring compliance best practices and building a strong supply chain for Flipkart across India.

The US retail giant remains “extremely excited” about continuing to invest in India. In response to a question by YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma, Judith McKenna said, “Over the course of the next year, we’ll find some specific areas where we think (there’s) true value in, for both businesses (Flipkart and PhonePe), and then we’ll go in a little deeper into those, rather than try to do too many different things."

[Startup Bharat] With these startups, the innovation sun shines on Odisha too

Boasting of architectural wonders like the Konark Sun Temple, Odisha is also getting a name for its startups, which are helping the state attract talent and investment. Read about some startups from the state.

[Weekly Funding Roundup] Indian startups raise $111M; Gmail creator, YouTube Founder come calling

The Indian startup ecosystem raised $111 million in equity funding across 17 deals in the first week of June, 25 percent down from the previous week’s tally of $148.1 million. A clear majority of the deals were pre-Series A or Series A. However, these early-stage deals accounted for less than a quarter - or $26.7 million - of the total funding.

[Podcast] Ashwin Damera of Eruditus on why the founder-startup fit is vital

In this episode of the #INSIGHTSPodcast series, Ashwin Damera, Co-founder of edtech company Eruditus, which runs Emeritus Institute of Management, speaks to Accel’s Anand Daniel about the effect the 'founder-startup fit' has on scaling a company and the importance of a mentor.

[App Fridays] Period tracking app Nyra makes it easy for women to manage physical and emotional wellbeing

Available in English and Hindi, Nyra allows women to track their period, fertility, ovulation, mood, lifestyle, physical activity, and pregnancy. It also offers personalised feminine health, hygiene, and fertility advice.

From Domino’s as first client to Shah Rukh Khan’s endorsement, how this entrepreneur bounced back after failure

Entrepreneur Viraj Bahl was staring at failure when he decided to start up again. This is his story of soldiering on and finding success in his venture Veeba, that is now a popular brand for dips and sauces. He has now launched V-Nourish, a health drink.

Ex-Paytm exec Sonia Dhawan joins SHEROES as Director of Communications

Ex-Paytm executive Sonia Dhawan has joined SHEROES, a women-only social community platform, as a Director of Communications. In her new role, Sonia will be helping other technology companies and startups (associated with SHEROES) with their public relations and corporate communication practice. 

Now get the Daily Capsule in your inbox. Subscribe to our newsletter today! 

Did you know that raising livestock for meat, eggs, and milk causes immense damage to the environment? Dairy and beef cattle produce the most amount of enteric methane, which is much more harmful to the environment than any commercial vehicle on the road. The methane produced is essentially a result of animal burping, thanks to the kind of food provided to the cattle to get more milk, meat, and wool. Reports also suggest that methane gas can damage the environment 28 times more than carbon dioxide.

According to the FAS/USDA, there are more than a billion cattle in the world, and India leads the pack with 30 percent of cattle heads. But, in terms of consumption, the US leads with 12 million metric tonnes of beef consumed annually.

Realising the harmful effects, Kartik Dixit from Nagpur, while researching meat consumption and how animal agriculture was destroying the environment, felt it was necessary to tie up with food scientists and researchers to come up with an alternative meat product.

The 24-year-old met Dr Pavan Dhar, 52, and Dr Siddarth Manvati, 33, two scientists at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), in 2018 to try and grow cells in a lab and clump them into protein to stop the damage caused to the environment. And thus, ClearMeat was born in 2018 in Delhi.

“Lab-grown protein is far more effective for the future of mankind and to save the planet,” Kartik says.

ClearMeat, which claims to be India’s first clean meat startup, is currently working on using chicken cells to create a texture like edible chicken keema. However, the chicken need not be culled; its cells can be extracted, and the bird can walk free.

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The journey

After graduating from YCC Engineering College, Nagpur, in 2015, Kartik’s first stint as an entrepreneur was developing a grocery delivery app. Although the first couple of ideas did not take off, he found his calling in 2017.

Back then, coming up with an alternative for chicken meat seemed like a great idea. But the world did not seem ready to accept young Kartik’s thoughts. He met over 40 scientists who shooed him away for being a novice. But, Kartik was relentless. He went to JNU and met two senior researchers at the biotech department who gave him a hearing.

Dr Pavan Dhar and Dr Siddharth Manvati realised the Kartik was up to something because the business numbers were compelling; all they had to do was clump plant-based cells together and create a protein. They had earlier worked on molecules that initiated new behaviour in cells, and Kartik’s idea appeared to be a way to commercialise their research.

While most such research does not often translate into business or commercial ideas in India, Kartik managed to convince these two scientists otherwise. Siddharth and Pavan decided to join Kartik to give life to his idea in early 2018, and the ClearMeat journey started.

Market and competition

According to the Institute of the Future in Palo Alto, by 2023, artificially grown meat will be a common sight in supermarkets in the west. In India too, you will probably see it in major cities in the coming decade. According to OECD, India’s meat consumption is the lowest in the world with just two kg per capita when compared to Israel, which stands at 58 kg.

To find a solution to this problem, several dozen companies across the world have come up with alternative solutions to save the planet with their lab-grown meat initiatives. In 2013, Netherlands-based Mosa Meat created a burger patty after raising $325,000 from Google’s Sergey Brin. It has not been rolled over commercially across the globe.

Similarly, Impossible Foods, based in the US, raised $250 million from Google Ventures to create a plant-based burger that looks like a beef burger. There are 10 other companies doing this in the US and Israel, but not in India.

The turning point

In November 2018, ClearMeat startup was selected by the Pro-Veg Incubator in Berlin to pitch its business idea, and the company ended up securing the second place among 100 others in the global competition. After seeing success here, the company connected with several global funding houses in the US such as the Glasswall Syndicate, which funds ideas that can protect the environment.

The company has currently set up a lab in JNU, and is now working on creating affordable protein. At present the cost of artificially grown meat is two times that of mutton per kilogram, but as the product gains acceptance, Kartik believes the price can be less than Rs 200 per kg. The company’s founders have pooled in their own money into the startup.

“This will be the safest and most hygienic meat available in the market soon,” Kartik says.

The team, however, did not want to give any timelines on delivery of its commercial product. Being a research company in its first year of operations, the founders are on the lookout for venture capital support in India. Their future plans are to retail the product, currently in research phase, in 18 months.

Artificial meat seems to be where electric cars were 10 years ago. Heard of, but not tried. Will Indians accept lab-grown meat? Only time will tell.

Facebook has stopped letting its apps come pre-installed on smartphones sold by Huawei to comply with US restrictions, dealing a fresh blow to the Chinese tech giant. The social network on Friday said that it has suspended providing software for Huawei to put on its devices while it reviews recently introduced US sanctions.

Owners of existing Huawei smartphones that already have Facebook apps can continue using them and downloading updates. It's not clear if buyers of new Huawei devices will be able to install Facebook's apps on their own.

Facebook's move is the latest fallout in the escalating US-China tech feud. The Commerce Department last month effectively barred US companies from selling their technology to Huawei and other Chinese firms without government approval.

Huawei declined to comment. 

In May, tech giant Google had suspended the Android licence of Huawei Technologies, which has been dependent on its hardware, software, and other technical services. According to a Reuters report, Huawei can access the public version of Android available through open source licensing.

In response to this, it was also reported that the Chinese giant was building its own operating system (OS) to replace Android. Media reports suggested that Huawei might call it 'Ark OS' and is believed to have already trademarked the name with the European Union Intellectual Property Office.

However, Huawei saw this coming and was already ready with its backup plan.

The Managing Director & Vice President of Huawei Enterprise Business Group - Middle East, Alaa Elshimy, told TechRadar, that Huawei's OS was ready in January 2018 and Huawei did not want to bring the OS to the market since they had a strong existing relationship with Google and others, and did not want to ruin the same.

In May, US officials issued a 90-day reprieve on their ban on dealing with Chinese tech giant Huawei, saying breathing space was needed to avoid huge disruption.

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IT company Tech Mahindra on Monday said it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur for conducting joint research in the field of cyber security.

"Through our partnership with IIT Kanpur, we aim to collaborate and co-create superior research based solutions in cyber security," Rajiv Singh, Global Head of Cybersecurity, Tech Mahindra, said in a statement.

Through this partnership, Tech Mahindra will bring real world industry exposure to students of IIT Kanpur and work closely with the institute on research projects to develop and foster an environment to deal with automation in cyber security and to enhance digital resilience of critical national infrastructure.

"With IIT Kanpur's strong footing in research capabilities and critical infrastructure, I am confident that our association with Tech Mahindra will lead to novel indigenous technology developments in Cyber Security," Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT Kanpur, said.

Sandeep K Shukla, Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, joint coordinator, C3I Center at IIT Kanpur said the cyber security is national imperative and developing indigenous tools and technologies to protect the cyber infrastructure is of extreme importance.

"We hope this joint research and development activity can become a model for academia-industry partnership in the country," Shukla said.

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Leading two-wheeler makers Bajaj Auto and TVS Motor Company said on Monday that any plan to ban internal combustion engine three-wheelers and two-wheelers to adopt electric ones by 2025 would be "unrealistic" and "ill-timed" and derail auto manufacturing in the country.

The comments come in response to some media reports that the government was considering a proposal to ban the sale of internal combustion engine (ICE) three-wheelers by 2023 and less than 150 cc two-wheelers by 2025.

Auto industry body SIAM has also advised the government to follow a well laid-out roadmap and a practical time frame for the rollout of electric vehicles (EVs) in the country.

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Bajaj Auto Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj in a statement termed the reported government's plan as impractical and ill-timed.

He listed out three execution-related concerns with the reported initiative.

"First, it may be impractical to target such a scale when none of the stakeholders currently possesses any meaningful experience with any of the pieces of the electric vehicle (EV) puzzle," Bajaj noted.

Secondly, it is ill-timed to target a date so close to BSVI implementation, he added. "And finally, to target two and three wheelers but not cars makes it an incomplete initiative," Bajaj said.

He added that an appropriate middle path would be in the first phase to target such a changeover through corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFE) norms, electric vehicles for all vehicle categories from a particular date such as 2023 or 2025 starting with the most polluted cities of India.

"Basis the learnings from that experience, a collective plan can be put together to scale up as desired," Bajaj said.

TVS Motor Company Chairman Venu Srinivasan said, "To force an unrealistic deadline for mass adoption of electric two and three wheelers, will not just create consumer discontent, it risks derailing auto-manufacturing in India that supports four million jobs." 

There is a need for gradual and seamless adoption of EVs to avoid such collateral damage and ensure our technology-driven disruption is positive and lasting, he added.

"We have been doing serious development work to ensure we can offer a mass market EV product that delivers on safety and high-performance. This is necessary to co-opt consumers into making a switch, so it's driven by consumer willingness and, therefore, adopted easily and widely. The supporting infrastructure for charging also needs to be as robust as conventional fuel options." 

The auto industry globally is still a long way away from all of this, as is India, he highlighted. Industry chamber CII on Sunday said the government should carry out wider consultations before finalisation of goals and timelines for electric mobility.

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Mastercard and Payswiff on Monday announced that they have signed a partnership to boost digital payments solutions beyond the top eight cities of the country, aimed at speeding up acceptance and adoption of digital payments in India.

They will provide app, services and support in regional languages, especially in areas where Point-of-Sale (PoS) machines are not easily accessible.

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Payswiff’s SET is a mobile application where individuals and business owners can accept payments using more than 60 payment options including credit cards and debit cards, e-wallets, e-payment links and UPI.

It also offers paperless merchant onboarding in less than 15 minutes on all PoS devices.

In a statement, the companies said that they are planning to add new features like ‘same-day’ and ‘instant’ merchant settlements to benefit micro merchants in small cities. They will be able to unlock additional revenue streams using features in the app like mobile recharges and utility bill payments among others.

Speaking on the partnership, Priti Shah, Co-founder and CEO of Payswiff Solutions, said,

"Our continuous endeavour is to make payment transactions simple by developing innovative and user-friendly solutions to address industry pain points. SET is another attempt to fulfil this objective... We are excited to partner with Mastercard to bring these people to the formal economy and pave new avenues for their growth.”

Currently, over 40 percent of Payswiff’s business comes from Tier II, III and IV cities. It has 1.5 lakh devices deployed with merchants in the enterprise and small and medium business (SMB) space and plans to expand its services to over 3,000 locations in rural India.

Rajeev Kumar, Senior VP - Market Development, South Asia, Mastercard, said,

“Mastercard aims to empower merchants across the country, especially in small towns and villages, with digital payments acceptance infrastructure. Mastercard’s partnership with Payswiff is a vital step in this journey. It will allow millions of small merchants across the country to experience the convenience, safety and security of digital payments and bring about a behavioural shift in society”

Mastercard recently announced its goal of bringing 10 million merchants on digital payments platforms by 2020 and has been providing education and awareness programs for merchants through accelerator programmes. 

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It was 2017 when serial entrepreneurs Harsh Pokharna, Gaurav Kumar, and Aditya Prasad came across an interesting problem to solve. Living in Arekere, Bengaluru, their interactions with daily grocery stores made them realise that most of the accounting and credit given by these shopkeepers was recorded on paper - small pieces that could easily be misplaced.

This system meant that it took longer to calculate and also lacked the aspect of ‘trust’ since there was no way to verify the accounts.    

This is what led them starting a digital-based credit balance recording solution for small business owners OkCredit later that year.

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Two years in the making and OkCredit has some of the best names in the venture capital circuit backing them, including Lightspeed India Partners and Y Combinator. 

On June 10, the company said that it has raised $15.5 million as a part of its Series A round led by Tiger Global Management. The round also saw participation from new investor Morningside Venture Capital as well as existing investors Lightspeed India Partners, Venture Highway, and Y Combinator. 

This takes the total funds raised by OkCredit to $17.5 million. According to the startup, the funds will be used primarily for scaling up the team and hiring across functions of product as well as technology. Further, it will use the funds to grow its customer base by focussing on aspects of customer stickiness.    

Speaking on the investment, Harsh told YourStory,

“We are happy to have been joined by Tiger Global and Morningside Venture Capital on the investment and also have our existing investors participate in this round. The funding will give us the necessary resources we require to grow ourselves. Our focus will continue be on users. We will be hiring new members, however, our core DNA continues to be technology-focused so would like to keep the team size lean.” 

At present, OkCredit is an app-based solution, which provides merchants with simple and reliable means of keeping credit and payments records for their businesses carried out on credit basis by recording them digitally.

Through digitisation, the company reduces the merchant’s burden of maintaining and accounting paper account books. It also allows them to send collection notifications to customers in case of delayed or missed payments.

To solve the trust problem, once a merchant registers a transaction on the platform against a customer, they are immediately informed through text or WhatsApp.

At present, OkCredit has an installation base of 1.3 million. What’s interesting is that the startup has achieved this growth without deploying a single foot-on-street.

“We have primarily managed to garner these dialogues through word of mouth virality. Our active merchant base is not just end-retailers, but also suppliers that supply to other businesses and typically get another merchant or two to register within the first month of getting onto the platform,” explains Harsh.  

The origin story

Aditya, Gaurav, and Harsh met during their time at IIT Kanpur in 2010 and have been close friends ever since. After their graduation in 2014, while Gaurav and Harsh began working at Flipkart, Aditya went on to work with US-based data company Fuzzy Logix in Bengaluru.

But the trio always wanted to start up on their own. 

Meanwhile, Aditya and Harsh switched to Jio Money and led the early-stage development there. On the side, the three started building a business card sharing application, and then to building a social event planning application. However, not finding traction for their early products, they delved deeper into Blockchain, looking to leverage the technical innovation to solve user problems at scale.  

The earnings from these led the three of them to quit their high-paying jobs in July 2016 and look for startup ideas. 

As Harsh explains, the trio wanted to solve some of the problems they themselves faced.

“We were quite inspired by Y Combinator Founder Paul Graham’s words on starting a startup and wanted to make something people want, and try to solve our own problems to avoid solving imaginary problems.”

OkCredit’s app launched on Google PlayStore in November 2017. Harsh mentions that they built the app while sitting with the owner of their neighbourhood grocery store and observing the challenges he faced with accounting on a daily basis. 

Eventually, the startup became a part of Y Combinator’s 2018 summer batch and raised money from the US-based seed accelerator during its $1.7 million pre-Series A round. The round saw participation from LightSpeed India Partners, Venture Highway, Y Combinator, along with other angels.

In January 2018, OkCredit picked up a seed investment of $300,000 from Lightspeed India Partners. 

How do they stack up?

According to Harsh, of the 1.3 million download base, 900,000 merchants were active in the last 30 days. In addition to this, 30 percent of its merchant base are B2B suppliers, while the rest are retailers.

When it comes to usage, 50 percent of app sessions are to record transactions, he adds, while the rest are for sharing account statements, invoices, or checking previous invoices. 

However, the founders don’t reveal much about the product roadmap, but state that the 12-member team is working towards releasing an in-app payment feature soon.

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Hedge fund manager and current investment manager at Berkshire Hathaway, Todd Combs is expected to join India’s mobile payments major Paytm as a board member, two sources aware of the discussion told YourStory.

An RoC regarding Combs’ appointment is expected to be filed this week.

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The news around Todd Combs joining Paytm's board of directors first came in August 2018 when Berkshire Hathaway invested around $300 million in Paytm’s parent One97 Communications for a valuation of about $10-12 billion.

Along with Combs, Yao Michael, Senior VP and Head - Corporate Finance at Alibaba Group, will also join the board, replacing Joseph Tsai, founding member and Executive Vice Chairman of Alibaba Group, said a Times of India report. 

Paytm (One97 Communications) was Berkshire’s first investment in an Indian technology firm and the transaction was led by Todd Combs himself. Warren Buffett, who runs the conglomerate, was not personally involved in the transaction.

While speaking about Berkshire’s investment in Paytm last year, Todd spoke highly of the Noida-based payments company, stating,

“I have been impressed by Paytm and am excited about being a part of its growth story as it looks to transform payments and financial services in India.”

Prior to joining Berkshire Hathaway in 2010, Combs was the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Member of Castle Point Capital Management, an investment partnership he founded in 2005 to manage capital for endowments, family foundations and institutions.

An MBA graduate from Columbia Business School, Combs was appointed board member of the largest bank in the US - JP Morgan Chase in 2016.

Apart from Todd Combs, other board members at One97 Communications Ltd. Include, SAIF Partners’ Ravi Adusumalli; Ant Financial CEO Eric Jing; Founder and Managing Partner of law firm Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas - Pallavi Shroff; Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs Group and Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia-Pacific Mark Schwartz; along with Managing Partner at SoftBank Munish Varma.

Just last week, Paytm said that it had achieved a Gross Transaction Value (GTV) of more than $50 billion while clocking 5.5 billion transactions in FY19.

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The impact of technology – allowing you to do things you couldn’t before and making people’s life easier - always intrigued Jennifer Anderson. 

Jennifer, who’s now the Senior Director of Engineering - Product Platform of Uber, says her love for technology began when her father, an electrical engineer, would bring home the latest piece of technology. The natural synergy between mathematics and technology got the young South Californian girl hooked. 

Today, Jennifer is responsible for all Machine Learning (ML), data analytics, customer care, marketing and communications platforms at Uber. 

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A computer does what it is told 

Jennifer recalls that she wrote her first code in BASIC at the age of 17, while still in high school. It was a dice game. 

“My father brought the early personal computer home, which I remember took up most of the space in the room. But it was an interesting device and he kept encouraging me to play with it. At first, I played a lot of games on it, and slowly started reading magazines and tried programming,” Jennifer says. 

She built the dice game with a simple algorithm during an informal programming class at school.  

“But that feeling of seeing your code work is something I will never forget. It was then I realised - the computer does what you tell it to do. It doesn’t do what you mean for it to do. The trick is to be very precise in your instructions.” 

Her love for mathematics gave her the push to try different combinations that gave those precise instructions to the computer. Soon, she went on to graduate in computer science, and did her Master’s and PhD in computer science from Stanford. 

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A journey of firsts 

“Stanford was definitely challenging and there were moments where I wondered ‘why am I doing this?’ But then it was there that I learnt it was important to show up every day, do your best, and keep learning,” says Jennifer, who was the only girl in the class. 

After Stanford, she worked on digital equipment at Western Research Centre. Her research was on high-performance computing and compilers, where she built programmes that would automatically analyse code to see how it would perform. 

Jennifer says, “What interested me was how to analyse code and add profiling information, or make it more efficient. And how would a particular code change things? In technology, you just have to recognise that things are going to change, and be able to work around that change. You may really like a particular programming language, but it is going to be replaced by another one in a few years.” 

While at the Western Research Centre, Jennifer had her first child.

One of the women who worked at the sister lab before her was Anita Borg, a legend for women in tech. Borg founded the Institute for Women and Technology and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. 

“Her work there had set the context and helped the environment, and I gravitated towards companies that were inclusive,” Jennifer says. After Western Research Centre, she spent her next 11 years at VMware. 

“Some of the people I knew at Stanford were founding VMware, and these were some of the smartest people I had worked with. Also, the team was a super technical building an interesting product,” she adds. 

In 1999, Jennifer, who had given birth to her second child, became the first woman software engineer at VMware. Being part of the early days and building a company can be daunting and challenging, and Jennifer says what kept her going was continuous learning. She adds, 

“There will be new things along. Take more opportunities and go off the beaten path, explore new things. Something that is an exploration today could be an opportunity tomorrow.”

Why early days matter most 

Speaking of her VMware stint, Jennifer says,

“What I really liked about joining VMware early was that I got to see how the culture we set up and the decisions we made in the early days ended up shaping the whole company. We focussed on being a strong technical company and had high hiring standards. And that was filtered down to the team even as we grew. It is really interesting to see how some of the cultures you set early on get amplified as you grow. It is what makes a company great or not.” 

Soon it was time to move to a startup. In 2013, Jennifer joined enterprise applications startup Bebop, which was later acquired by Google. For her, it was about the impact the product or company could create. She always wanted to be where the impact was significant - her motivating factor. 

“I didn’t want to go to a company where the end goal was an acquisition. While we ended up getting acquired, it wasn’t Bebop’s primary goal. Every single person at Bebop was focussed on making the life of employees easier and better. Again, when I joined Uber two-and-half years ago, it was about the impact and what was I doing to make lives easier,” she says. 

What is that code that can change everything?

Uber, she says, gave her the opportunity to build technology that makes life simpler and allows you to do things that you couldn’t have done before. The platform has made it simpler to get a ride and order food online, but it also has created an impact on the scale of building a powerful gig economy. 

“It has the power at some point to even change the way cities may be built, with buildings with helipads, and a few parking lots,” Jennifer says. 

Today, the focus of Uber is to think of new lines of business as an ordinary theme. “Uber is a global company operating in over 600 individual cities. From a technology team perspective, it is a great advantage. While we have the strength of a global focus, we also need to be mindful of each of the cities we work in. The idea is to build products that are flexible and customisable,” Jennifer says. 

That, she feels, is the best and the most challenging part of Uber. “Products keep being developed at great velocity and speed, you need to be on your toes,” she says. 

And for all the women looking to join the STEM field, Jennifer has one bit of advice: be yourself, and relax! 

“Yes, you will be different. You’re a woman and they’re guys! Tech is about what you’re able to do and deliver. Wear a dress, wear makeup, bright colours. You may approach things differently and that’s okay. Embrace your differences. Don’t feel boxed in by the fact that there aren’t that many of you. Be yourself and you will be more comfortable, confident, and things will come through!” 

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Without focussing on what an employee wants to learn, today corporate firms subject them to learn something that might not suit their skill sets. This is what Degreed is looking to change. Founded in 2012, the US-based company is currently working with 250 corporations whose turnover is more than a billion dollars, and has four million people learning on its platform. It has also raised over $78 million till date.

In a conversation with YourStory, the company’s CEO Chris McCarthy speaks about why degrees are not relevant for people, and how the company is on a mission to make people learn for life.

YourStory: Can you tell us about your early days? How did you join Degreed, and your first year at the company?

Chris McCarthy: I was lucky enough to figure out what I was good at and what interested me early on in life. My passion for education and learning started when I was in college doing entrepreneurship. But my school wouldn’t let me adjust my class schedule to spend time building that business. I looked at the student debt I was accumulating, how my education wasn’t propelling me to my true passion - building a business, and realised how broken the education system was.

This experience plus the insane student debt crisis in the US led me to join a startup called Zinch, a company that helped kids get into college and pay for it. It was later acquired by Chegg, an education technology company, and I ran that business for three years.

This is where I met David Blake, the Founder of Degreed. His passion for education and vision for life-long learning and recognition was completely in line with my life experiences and values. We clicked immediately and when he proposed, I didn’t hesitate to get on board.

Everyone thinks there is a silver bullet to starting a company, but they don’t realise it takes consistency and hard work. Dave and I did the hard work then, and we’re doing it now. The challenges now may be lesser than before, but there are still fires that start and we know how to put them out.

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YS: What did the platform look like before? What kind of content did you start with?

Chris: Our goal was to be able to track on Degreed. We let the users and the market take us to where we needed to go, and saw all the content that was consumed. It was a very informative data set and we rolled up our sleeves and did the hard work.

Eventually, we were able to use the data to “skate to where the puck was going to be”. Initially, it was for people inside companies, as this was a new technology and a new category. We first got the early adopters who were either seeing these trends by themselves, or were trying to build a solution by partnering with us.

Now, in our fifth year, we are engaged with the largest companies in the world and it is a fixed line item in the HCM (Human Capital Management) tech stack of an organisation.

YS: What feedback did you get from the early VCs, and how did you tweak the product?

Chris: Through the years, we have spoken to hundreds of investors and advisors, and some themes emerged. Most tried to push us to recruiting, especially in the early days, as very few saw the play in learning and development. Investors were the earliest ones to push us to enterprise vs. small and medium sized businesses, teams, and a consumer business model. As a young company, we decided to focus on enterprise business.

YS: Can you tell us about the company’s growth between 2014 and 2017.

Chris: I’m blown away by how fast the business has grown, and we are proud of the amazing customers we have worked with. The adoption of this technology has been faster than I expected. It’s a big reason why we are investing so heavily in India. 

YS: How did you manage to scale the team to its current stage?

Chris: Whenever I interview potential hires, I question them to understand how a person is perceived as a leader and why. It’s also a guideline I try to operate by. The best leaders instil confidence and swagger in the rest of the team that we will execute on what we set out to do. I recruit the best talent and teammates, try to get the most out of each of them, but more importantly get them to work well as an aligned team.

YS: Tell us about your Series B and C rounds. What was the value proposition that the company achieved that VCs wanted to back to scale?

Chris: In the spring of 2013, we raised $1.8 million in a seed round from investors and VCs including Deborah Quazzo, Mark Cuban, Mike Levinthal, Chris Eyre, Larry Rosenberger and Walt Winshall.

Since then, we have raised $32 million more in our Series A and Series B rounds, which added Jump Capital, Signal Peak, GSV Acceleration, and Rethink Education to our investor list.

The $42 million Series-C financing raised in March 2018, brings our total funding to $75 million. It was co-led by Owl Ventures and Jump Capital. Founders of Circle Capital, along with existing investors GSV Acceleration Fund and Signal Peak Ventures, also participated in the round.

YS: What is the difference between LMS and LXP management systems? Where does Degreed stand here?

Chris: Learning management systems are for managing, and learning experience platforms are for learning. Degreed is the next generation learning solution combining mobile, social, gamification, and content from all the top content providers, informal learning and formal learning - all in one portal.

YS: Tell us about the future of learning. What is happening to the global workforce today, and what type of employment should one get used to?

Chris: Work looks a little different today. Careers can be longer by 30 to 40 years, tenures are shorter, and skills will stay relevant for less time. Based on LinkedIn’s 2017 Workplace Learning Report, the average skill today has a shelf life of five years. Our goal is to make sure no one in today’s workforce becomes irrelevant after a mere five years due to lack of new skills. We believe people want to develop their skills for the future regardless of their age and professional background.

Degreed is constantly working with the most innovative companies such as Airbnb, Boeing, Unilever, and others to future-proof their business by up-skilling their most valuable assets - their employees.

We’ve created a platform that mimics the user experience of socially-enabled sites, allowing people to learn anything, from any source, from anywhere, while allowing businesses and teams to share content and track and measure learning – giving people new skills in a very digestible format.

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YS: Tell us about your acquisitions.

Chris: In June 2018, we combined forces with Pathgather, a fast-growing innovator in learning experience platforms. The New York-based company brought on board 30 smart, creative, and dedicated people. That means we’ve now got the largest team in the industry – more than 230 people – dedicated exclusively to improve people’s learning experiences and linking career growth to business priorities.

The acquisition also brought together two real innovators in learning experience platforms – our two organisations literally created this market. It also solidified our lead in the fast-growing learning experience platforms market, with a combined client base of more than 200 organisations, over four million licensed users, and nearly $100 million in funding.

YS: How big is Degreed India?

Chris: In India, we are ahead of our initial business targets, and are continuing to invest heavily here - both in resources and time. With about 12 customer acquisitions, a few of the most progressive companies in India have trusted us. We also have two partners here - Enthratech and Design in Change, and have conducted 10 events across the HR and L&D landscape slated for 2019. The India team will be about 10 this year.

We are committed to India because it is a progressive market with customers who are advanced in their processes and thoughts. The learning technology market in India is to the tune of five billion (LMS market alone is around one billion), and India is also a skills-first. So, upskilling and keeping yourself relevant is very important. We see lots of potential for tech and learning organisations here.

As artificial intelligence and machine learning take over more of the physical and rote skills of today’s workers, human skills such as emotional intelligence, empathy, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving will become even more important. These are the skills that can be developed throughout one’s career.

YS: What is your advice to entrepreneurs starting up in the product business?

Chris: Start with a purpose. Degreed is one of the most mission-aligned companies. Sometimes, this comes into conflict with operational alignment or business priorities, and we have had to make hard decisions. Making an impact while at the same time building a giant company is a rare situation, and we have to do both to truly succeed here.

YS: What is the future of Degreed?

Chris: We are working to reduce cost and maximise value from existing content vendors and sources and to improve time to readiness and proficiency by accelerating and improving onboarding and leadership development. We are also looking to enable a culture of continuous learning to drive employee engagement, productivity, and retention, as well as increase internal mobility and organisational agility.

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If you thought getting a pizza from Domino's delivered to your train seat was cool, hold on to your horses. Now, thanks to a partnership between Calipso and Western Railways, passengers travelling from Indore can get head and foot massages on board. The Indore-based beauty services startup will provide its services to over 80 trains with direct access to 1,50,000 passengers. It also has a physical store at the Indore junction platform. These services will be divided into three categories - gold, diamond, and platinum.

Licious opens first offline experience centre in Gurugram

Meat and seafood startup Licious opened its first multi-dimensional experience centre in Gurugram to recreate the ‘Licious experience’ on-ground. The team chose Delhi-NCR because it feels that the region has a deeper penetration of semi-organised and organised meat stores, which users are used to seeing in their vicinity as compared to other locations. 

Tiger Global leads $15.5M Series A funding round in OkCredit

OkCredit has raised $15.5 million as a part of its Series A round led by Tiger Global Management. The round also saw participation from new investor Morningside Ventures as well as existing investors Lightspeed India Partners, Venture Highway, and Y Combinator. This takes the total funds raised by OkCredit to $17.5 million.

Set to raise $50 M in Series D, Roposo co-founder reveals what’s next

Roposo was launched as a fashion-focused social network and soon pivoted to a video-sharing app. In a video interview with YourStory, Co-founder Mayank Bhangadia retraces the startup’s journey to 38 million users, and reveals how they aim to grow their user base and ad revenue.

Indian language video platform Bolo raises Rs 3 Cr

Bengaluru-based Indian language knowledge sharing community Bolo raised Rs 3 crore in seed funding led by Nexus Venture Partners with participation from Unacademy Founders, Growth Story Founders, and Newsdog Founder Chen Yukun. The startup aims to utilise the funding amount to strengthen the team across product, technology, and operations.

Pioneering Ventures launches $70 M fund for agriculture and food sector

Pioneering Ventures announced the launch of a ‘Rural India Impact’ Fund of $70 million. The fund, a growth capital vehicle to be raised through family offices and other institutional investors (mainly Europe), has invested over Rs 1,000 crore in India along with its co-investors. Its portfolio companies include Desai Fruits & Vegetables, Citrus Processing India, MilkLane, FarmLink and Samaaru. 

Dunzo CEO Kabeer Biswas on its B2B foray and expansion plans

Bengaluru-based startup Dunzo, which started life as a WhatsApp-based service, now runs all kinds of errands for customers in four cities. In a conversation with YourStory, Dunzo Co-founder and CEO Kabeer Biswas talks about Mumbai expansion and their recently launched B2B focus.

Israel's Applicaster inks first-of-its-kind business partnership in India

Homegrown OTT platform Zee5 has entered into a partnership with Israel tech startup Applicaster in what is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between Indian and Israeli companies. The partnership seeks to utilise the bonhomie between the two countries and pro-collaboration policies between India and Israel, and has been facilitated by the Embassy of India in Tel Aviv.

Flipkart dominates India's online smartphone sales

Mobile sales from online channels reached its highest-ever share of 43 percent in the first quarter of 2019, a study by Counterpoint Research reveals. Flipkart pocketed 53 percent of overall sales, while Amazon grabbed a 36 percent share. The remaining 11 percent went to Xiaomi's Mi Store.

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Say, you need to get a professional-level quality video – for marketing, or training purposes, or customer service. You need to get a camera, a model, a venue, a camera person, lighting, and an editor: a time-consuming and expensive process, but there was no other way to go about it… until now.

Bengaluru-based startup Rephrase.ai is changing how video creation is done. Its generative AI algorithms automate everything that happens from script to video. You just have to type in a script, select the models (available on the platform), and automatically get a video of the model speaking the text. Instead of spending weeks or months making a video, you get it done within seconds.

In this interview with YourStory, Rephrase.ain Co-founder Ashray Malhotra explains the ground-breaking technology behind Rephrase.ai as well as its many use-cases for enterprises.

Any text or speech as input to the Rephrase Generative AI engine API would create desired video /animation based on a human character of their choice. It supports 40 languages including English, Hindi, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish, to serve a global audience.

Besides its use in edtech and corporate training, Rephrase.ai can help in personalising videos for sales, making characters speak in augmented reality (AR)/virtual reality (VR), giving a face to digital assistants, and A/B testing digital ads to increase marketing RoI, amongst other applications.

How Rephrase.ai happened

Founded by Ashray Malhotra, Shivam Mangla, and Nisheeth Lahoti in 2018, Rephrase.ai was among the 10 startups selected for the first batch of TechStars India Accelerator programme (in 2018).

Ashray and Nisheeth, both IIT-Bombay alumni, co-founded audiotech startup SoundRex in 2015. It was selected by the South Korean government to expand business in Korea in 2017, and was also part of Alchemist Accelerator in San Francisco. Shivam, who graduated from IIT-Roorkee in 2015, has earlier worked with Facebook, and Nisheeth at Google. All three are in their early 20s.

While at IIT Bombay, Ashray was active in the short film club on campus. This experience made him realise the difficulty of shooting and getting lighting, cameras, voices, etc right. Of course, anyone with a smartphone can easily make a video today; but it does not give professional quality.

That was the inception of the idea behind Rephrase.ai.

Enormous market

However, building the product started with the hope that it can change the way movies are dubbed into different languages – the lip-syncing can improve the experience, as it would look like the movie was shot in the dubbed language itself. But the trio’s experience at TechStars Accelerator helped them develop the idea further and find use-cases in marketing and animation.

For instance, it takes 24 frames to get one-second video in animation, as it takes tweaking every lip movement 24 times. Rephrase.ai helps automate such animations.

Automating animation, which is just one of the applications of the generative AI engine, is a huge market, as the animation industry is expected to be worth $270 billion by 2020. US-based startups like Tangent.ai and Rct Studio also provide innovations in the sector.

Effective growth

Beta version of Rephrase.ai was launched in May 2019, and it is already working with 15 companies, across the media, BFSI, and HR sectors. Ashray says, “We are working with a bank now to convert its chatbot to a visual one. So it will feel like a video call with a support agent for the customer. It adds a human touch.”

The startup will launch its official version next week. “By onboarding beta customers, we are understanding their use cases and then deploying with the companies who fit the right profile,” Ashray tells YourStory. He maintains that the only metric that matters to the startup right now is the product-market fit.

To avoid ethical issues, the team has decided not to provide a consumer-facing app for now. “We will sell our product to companies so that they can create digital video ads to target customers and make them feel special with videos that can directly speak with them,” Ashray says.

It looks like Rephrase.ai is ensuring that the future is now. 

Website

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SaaS-based modern customer interaction platform Jumpstart, which allows local and SME businesses to enhance their online reviews and optimise customer communication, on Tuesday announced that it had raised a seed round of funding from Venture Catalysts. The funding amount is still undisclosed by the Mumbai-based startup. However, Venture Catalysts invests in the range of $250,000–$1.5 million in early-stage startups.

Started in late 2017 by Raghav Soni and Qamar Siddiquie, Jumpstart helps brands drive purchase decisions, brand visibility and customer experience. It has already acquired over 4,000 businesses across 50 verticals in the retail and service space, and helps drive 10x more online reviews with Reviewboost.

Raghav Soni, Co-founder, Jumpstart, said,

“This funding round will help us double down on our industry-first innovation, driving millions of businesses to adopt digital transformation going around them.”

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He added, “Jumpstart started with a mission to boost offline-based businesses, small and big. Local brands have seen growth of up to 40 percent in new customer footfalls by adopting Jumpstart's proprietary Reviewboost and social commerce features, and have become the most trusted businesses in their locations.”

The SaaS opportunity

According to a recent report published by Accel, India will be home to a $50 billion global SaaS opportunity by 2025. With a large number of SME and local enterprises turning the digital leaf, platforms like Jumpstart have a significant role to play as an enabler, bringing customers to these local enterprises and leveling the playing field in a highly competitive, digital-driven business ecosphere, the startup said.

Commenting on the investment, Dr Apoorv Sharma, Founder, Venture Catalysts, said, “VCats is always looking for businesses that can serve as a catalyst to the next phase of transformation. Jumpstart, in its role as the facilitator of local enterprises to develop a strong online presence and reach out to more consumers effectively, fits this role perfectly. The technological and product level maturity of Jumpstart, and its deep market research also prompted us to invest in this company at a seed stage.”

Earlier this month, B2B SaaS-based performance management platform Dockabl raised $1.26 million in its pre-Series A round, led by a pool of marquee investors including Aditya Berlia (Apeejay Group of Companies), Ritesh Malik (Guerrilla Ventures), Sanjay Kapoor, Angad Singh Malhotra, and Arun Kapur.

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In a live conversation on Monday, United Nations’ Secretary-General António Guterres formed a 20-member high-level panel, co-chaired by Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma and philanthropist Melinda Gates. This independent expert group called on governments, the private sector and civil society to urgently work together to maximise the benefits and minimise the harms of digital technologies.

The conversation also formulated a report, ‘The Age of Digital Interdependence’.

The report, as stated by Ma, makes a strong call for reinvigorating multilateral cooperation, complemented by a multi-stakeholder approach. The aim is to involve a far more diverse spectrum of stakeholders, such as civil society, academics, technologists, and the private sector.

“The future is being created literally everyday, and it’s changing so fast that we can’t predict it at one particular moment. My 16-year-old daughter says that I am digitally literate but not as much as I think I am, which is true,” said Melinda Gates, Co-founder of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, at the panel discussion with Jack Ma Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group and António Guterres, at the UN Headquarters.

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The UN Secretary-General called this high-level panel the most diverse, competent and committed group of individuals they ever had. The secretary also expressed his enthusiasm over the enormous potential of the digital era.

Melinda Gates recalled her days at Microsoft when having a supercomputer was absolutely out of predictions. She added that we cannot really predict the future possibilities of the technological revolution. Adding to what Gates said, Jack Ma asked us to embrace and enjoy the current movement, and look at all the positive possibilities of where maximum leverage needs to be taken.

He metaphorically calls all of us just the beginners at the digital era, and that this is just the dawn of it. “Being with the internet industry for over 25 years now, the only thing I can now do digitally is send or receive emails,” he admits.

Here are the five priority actions the panel has recommended to the United Nations and the world:

1) An inclusive digital economy and society, to envision substantial contribution to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This, by ensuring that every adult has affordable access to digital networks and digitally-enabled financial and health services.

2) Human and institutional capacity, for recommending the establishment of regional and global digital help desks to help governments, civil society and the private sector to understand digital issues and develop the capacity to steer cooperation related to social and economic impacts of the digital technologies.

3) Human rights and human agency, urging the UN Secretary-General to institute an agencies-wide review of how existing international human rights accords and standards apply to new and emerging digital technologies.

4) Trust, security and stability, to recommend the development of a global commitment on digital trust and security to shape a shared vision, identify attributes of digital stability, elucidate and strengthen the implementation of norms for responsible uses of technology, and propose priorities for action.

5) Global digital cooperation, as a matter of urgency and recommending the UN Secretary-General to facilitate an agile and open consultation process, to develop updated mechanisms for global digital cooperation.

You can find the whole report here.

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Artha Venture Fund (AVF), the early-stage micro-VC fund on Tuesday announced the second close of its fund for over Rs 100 crore. The fund is a Category I alternative investment fund that invests in startups from the seed stage through Series A. 

The fund’s managing partner, Anirudh A Damani, announced the second close at a get together in Mumbai. The event was attended by over 250 people from the startup and VC ecosystem.

In a press statement, Anirudh said “AVF’s hands on investment style is a mix of Western ethics and Indian pragmatism. We expect to make the final close of Rs 200 crore by April 2020.”

The fund's investment strategy is to be the first investor into early-stage companies and put in Rs 1-2 crore, with Rs 10-15 crore held in reserve for follow-on rounds. That is, over 65 percent of the fund’s corpus is held to invest in follow-on rounds.

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In July last year, Artha made its first close of Rs 40 crore and announced its warehoused investment in the P2P lending startup - LenDenClub.

The fund recently announced its fourth investment in the Delhi-NCR based startup Jadooz, that brings the multiplex experience to Tier II and III towns in India.

Prior to AVF, Anirudh A Damani has had seven years of experience investing in startups through his family office, Artha India Ventures. He has invested in over 70 companies including BabyChakra, OYO Rooms, Tala, Interstellar, NowFloats, and Karza to name a few.

The firm's portfolio also includes Kabaddi-Adda, a kabaddi focussed online platform. It has also invested in Haazri, a quick service restaurant (QSR) that serves tea, coffee and snacks to corporates.

Artha has set its pace of completing one investment per month with an aim of completing over 15 investments by March next year.

The company also stated: "In the past, angel networks have struggled to raise follow-on rounds for winning investments but AVF is addressing this pain point that is rampant across the early-stage ecosystem by maintaining up to a 1:10 ratio for follow-on investments."  

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Travel plans can be both chaotic and fun. Whether you are travelling alone or planning a family vacation, you travel to relax and to create priceless memories without the stress of planning the trip. Besides, there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to travelling. And offering this flexibility and personalisation to travellers is Mumbai-based Taxidio.

Started in November 2015 by two travel enthusiasts - Vishal Kejariwal (35) and Abhas Desai (36), Taxidio (meaning ‘travel’ in Greek) is an online DIY (Do-it-Yourself) trip planner.

What more? Taxidio has a B2B vertical to enhance concierge experience across hotels. It also provides tech-based solutions for independent travel agents and online travel agents (OTAs).

After the website went live in May 2017, the founders launched an iOS and Android application in March 2018.

Team voyage

After travelling to nearly 30 countries, Vishal, an MBA in Finance, turned his passion for travelling into a full-time job. He was joined by his college friend Abhas, an engineer with an Executive MBA in Information Technology. Abhas worked with the Aditya Birla Group before joining Vishal in this venture.

“We have always loved travelling, and the more we travelled, we realised that no matter how easy it sounds, planning a trip is rather complicated and the industry is highly fragmented,” says Vishal, who has previously worked for the Essar Group. “Thus, we went beyond what we were doing at our jobs,” he adds.

Besides the two co-founders, the team consists of four other members with IT, finance, and media backgrounds.

Challenges of starting up

Like every journey comes with many bumps, twists, and turns, “creation and curation of content have been our biggest challenge,” says Vishal.

In an industry where content is easy to find, but also gets outdated very soon, Taxidio wanted to create a niche. Hence, the platform overcame this problem by updating its content regularly.

And while the content and team were in place, like any other startup, the need for funds was another big challenge for Taxidio. “Especially since the cost of marketing has skyrocketed,” says Vishal.

What started as a bootstrapped company with Rs 30 lakh investment, Taxidio, over the years, managed to raise Rs 2 crore from friends and family.

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Flexible recommendations

On the Taxidio platform, the user can enter a few basic details about their travel style and preferences, and Taxidio generates a list of destinations that match their preferences.

The startup provides the user with 19 interest parameters, based on which it offers choices. The travel platform also recommends attractions and activities to indulge in during the trip. Users can plan and modify the auto-generated itinerary, securing hotel and attraction bookings.

“Hotel recommendations are clearly designed based on the user’s budget and proximity to the majority of the attractions or activities they select,” says Vishal.

Taxidio also has an affiliated partnership for hotel booking and attraction booking with Booking.com and GetYourGuide.com, respectively.

It lists the itinerary in a sequential manner, also called the ‘straight line algorithm’. Unlike other travel agents who just list the attractions, Taxidio lists places in each city on a ‘straight-line basis’ by letting them know the sequence in which they should visit the attractions. It also provides the distance between each place of interest they want to visit.

Taxidio also gives a detailed description of the place, its opening and closing time, entry fee charges, nearest public transport, etc., to better organise the trip.

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B2B offering and user base

The platform also has a B2B vertical. It partners with hotels to automate their concierge and reception to enhance the guest’s experience. It also provides a plug-and-play solution for online travel agents, ensuring personalised and efficient trip planning.

For independent travel agents, it provides its software-as-a-solution. It also offers plug-and-play solutions where the travel agents can use its platform and services to book hotels and attractions. And for OTAs, it gives options they can provide to customers.

Apart from its B2B offerings, Taxidio mostly targets travellers between ages 18 and 45.

“As per our database, roughly 60 percent of our users are Indians, 20 percent Americans, 15 percent Europeans, and another five percent are from the rest of Asia,” says Vishal.

As per the company records, Taxidio has more than 2,100 registered users, and gets most of its bookings from Mumbai.

“Europe has been trending when it comes to itinerary bookings,” says Vishal.

The travel platform also basked in its glory when it was the only Indian startup to get selected for Madeira Startup Retreat in Portugal last year.

Number game

Operating in a competitive segment, Taxidio realised it had to cater to its customers’ needs by creating its own niche. Hence, it lets travellers plan their trip on the portal for free of cost. The platform does not charge anything for booking accommodation or attractions through its portal either. Taxidio, however, earns commissions for these.

The startup generates most of its revenue from the APIs as commission for the bookings made through its website. It is soon launching a travel guide solution, for which it plans to charge between Rs 150 and Rs 200 per city for a travel guide.

Additionally, the B2B solutions for hotels are chargeable on a subscription basis. And for online travel agents, it has a strategic partnership.

Since the website went live, Taxidio claims to have routed bookings worth $150,000.

“We have seen a rise of about five percent on a month-on-month basis on the number of users on the website, and a similar pattern can be seen on the app,” says Vishal.

The startup is expecting to have more than seven lakh unique visitors in the next one year.

Travel business and future

According to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the Indian travel market is projected to grow between 11 and 11.5 percent to be a $48 billion market by 2020.

With several companies operating in the space in India, Taxidio is currently competing with the likes of MakeMyTrip, Trivago, Pickyourtrail Thrillophilia, and Tripoto. However, what sets Taxidio apart is its DIY feature and B2B services.

“Now that we have a firm hold on the B2C front, we have dabbled deeper into the B2B space,” says Vishal.

Taxidio is now looking to strengthen its business development and tech team. It is also planning to raise more funding and is in the process of talking to various investors.

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