Kogta Financial, a retail non-banking financial company (NBFC), on Wednesday, announced that it has raised Rs 300 crore ($42.25 million) in its Series C fund raise, led by Creador IV LP along with Morgan Stanley Private Equity.
Arun Kogta, MD and CEO of Kogta, said,
“We have built the company with the right mix of product, profile, and geography diversification along with a focus on better asset quality and IT systems. The experienced team at Creador will help us further strengthen our systems and processes as we progress towards becoming a world class institution. We hope to continue on our growth trajectory and increase penetration across chosen geographies without compromising on credit quality."
Founded in 1996, Kogta offers financing for used and new commercial vehicles, cars and tractors, along with loans to MSME segment. The Jaipur-based NBFC operates 105 branches across eight states in central and west India, serving over 30,000 active customers.
It operates across Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. As of September 30, 2019, the company had a loan book of about Rs 825 crore ($117 million).
Speaking on the fund raise, Varun Kogta, Executive Director and CFO, Kogta said,
“This is the second investment in the company in the last one year, which clearly is a testament to the comfort of equity investors on the operational efficiency and scalability of the business model of the company. This investment has substantially increased the net owned funds and has contributed to positive asset liability management (ALM) and surplus liquidity on the balance sheet of the company.”
During the last few years, the NBFC has significantly expanded its branch network and has augmented its second-line of management team and borrowing relationships. It is now poised to reap the benefits of this expansion post the fresh fund infusion.
Arjun Saigal, Co-head of Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia in India said, “Post our initial investment in November 2018, Kogta has scaled up operations across eight states, with a sharp focus on asset quality and ALM. We look forward to participating in the company’s next phase of growth.”
According to KPMG, there are about 46 million micro, small and medium enterprises across various industries, employing 106 million people. Overall, the MSME sector accounts for 45 percent of the industrial output and 40 percent of exports.
“The company has demonstrated strong scale-up since the new team took over in 2008, while prudently managing risks, especially in the challenging used commercial vehicle space," Anand Narayan, Managing Partner at Creador Advisors India added.
Amit Mehta, Principal at IIFL Asset Management Ltd., a Series A investor at Kogta said, “As the first institutional investor in the company, we backed a strong credit culture and believed in the team's execution capability to capture the opportunity in vehicle finance and MSME space.”
It’s that time of the year again. The curtains will go up on India’s oldest and most definitive tech conferences, TechSparks, on the morning of Oct 11 in Bengaluru.
The two-day conference, often dubbed as the Kumbh Mela of tech conferences, will be a sangam of India’s tech ecosystem from startup founders and employees, investors, corporate leaders, policy makers, accelerators and incubators, software engineers, and pretty much anyone who follows India’s booming internet economy.
What is it about TechSparks that draws people from all over the country and outside India to camp in Bengaluru for two days? The answer in one sentence will be, you need to be there to see it for yourself.
This is the 10th year of TechSparks that has been witnessed by over 40,000 people over these past years, including more than 10,000 startups. Over the years, TechSparks has been instrumental in building over 15 lakh connections, creating 3 lakh+ jobs, and helping companies raise more than $1.2 billion in funding.
Spread over Oct 11-12 at the Taj Yeshwantpur, Bengaluru, this year’s TechSparks theme is ‘India 2025: Inclusive, Future-ready, and Intelligence-led’.
Since it began in 2010, TechSparks has become a benchmark platform to discuss, debate and develop ideas & engagements that build and shape the technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship narrative in India.
YourStory's Shradha Sharma in conversation with Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma at last year's TechSparks.
This year, too, we have an enviable lineup of speakers providing deep insights and perspectives of their respective domains.
TechSparks 2019 will see participation from some of the biggest names in the ecosystem, including:
● Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder of Paytm
● Bhavish Aggarwal, Founder of Ola
● Taapsee Pannu, Actor
● S Iswaran, Minister for Communications and Information Minister-in-charge of Trade Relations Republic of Singapore
● Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO, Flipkart
● Munish Varma, Managing Partner at SoftBank Vision Fund
● Manu Jain, Vice President & MD, Xiaomi India
● Naveen Tiwari, Founder & CEO, InMobi
● William Bissel, Chairman, FabIndia
● Amod Malviya, Vaibhav Gupta, and Sujeet Kumar, Co-Founders of Udaan
● Meeta Malhotra, Founder, The Hard Copy
● Anjana Sasidaran, Principal, Sequoia Capital
● Varsha Tagare, Managing Director, Qualcomm Ventures India
● Shashank Kumar, Co-Founder, Razorpay
● Rajiv Srivatsa, Founder of Urban Ladder
● Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Founder of Ninjacart
and many more….
Ashwathnarayan, Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka, and Minister for Higher and Medical Education, IT and BT, Science and Technology, will share the innovation story of Karnataka which is home to the startup hub of India.
Founder and CEO of Paytm Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Founder and CEO of YourStory Shradha Sharma will engage in a fireside chat and delve on businesses that are built for impact. The entrepreneur, who got many Indians on board the fintech revolution, will share his insights into Paytm’s role in making a large-scale impact.
As building a billion-dollar company has become the new chase, Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO of InMobi will talk on just how to tread the path, with reference to global businesses. The session will be followed by fireside chats with Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital and actor entrepreneur Taapsee Pannu.
The eclectic crowd at TechSparks last year.
Post lunch, we’ll look into the Softbank investment thesis with Munish Verma, Managing Partner of SoftBank Investment Advisers. This will be followed by more discussions around inclusive fintech, artificial intelligence, and how to scale startups.
At the same time, masterclasses on branding with Meeta Malhotra, Founder, The Hard copy, and other topics, including growth, product-market fit, and going global with other experts in the area will take place simultaneously.
The Second Day will feature equally empowered sessions and talks. Manu Jain, Vice President and Managing Director of Xiaomi India, will share the routes to map a successful and disruptive presence in the market. Aniketh Jain, General Manager of Global Enterprise Business at Kaleyra, will shed light on the bootstrapping journey for startups.
This will be followed by a panel comprising members from investment firms, researchers, and entrepreneurs who are making a dent in the healthcare sector. They will discuss on disruptive ideas in the healthcare sector.
Arranging daily commute of autos or cabs from one's phone is a fantasy turned reality. And our next speaker has not only enabled it but continues to steer its growth in the country. At TechSparks, Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder and CEO of Ola, will take the stage for a fireside chat with Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO of YourStory.
This will be followed by the Tech30 pitches and awards.
The story of entrepreneurs can be crazy. And Shradha Sharma will have a chat with actor Rajkummar Rao to talk about a story of an unlikely entrepreneur.
Other speakers include William Bissel, Chairman of FabIndia, and Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart.
On the agenda are a report launch and discussion on the state of accelerators in India that give the much needed push to startups. Other interesting panel discussions include one on the rise of spacetech industry in India, and the other panel on the booming economy of social media influencers.
Simultaneously, there will be workshops on Google Cloud, laying the foundation for startups and leveraging CRM to the best.
This 10th edition of TechSparks will be just the bridge towards growth, perspective, and more learning for all the attendees.
BASIX Sub-K iTransactions Limited, a Hyderabad-based fintech company focussed on financial inclusion, has raised Series C round of Rs 75 crore from Maj Invest, a Denmark-based asset management company.
Sub-K plans to utilise the funds for product innovation and strengthening the IT platform that would position the company as a preferred fintech as well as a distribution partner for banks and financial institutions, it said in a statement on Wednesday.
Sasidhar Thumuluri, BASIX Sub-K Managing Director and CEO, said,
"We will be able to continue to invest in innovations and increase our reach multi-fold, thanks to Maj Invest who shares our vision of creating a world class vehicle for catalysing inclusive growth, along with our existing investors, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Accion, and Nordic Microfinance Initiative (NMI)."
Sub-K facilitates affordable financial services, including loans, savings and payments to more than three million under-banked households and micro-enterprises across India on behalf of multiple banks as a business correspondent.
David Paradiso, Maj Invest India Managing Director and Partner, said,
"We are highly impressed by what Sub-K has achieved so far in creating real value through an innovative business model. We are excited to work alongside the promoters, co-investors, and management to continue providing top-class financial service while looking to create real social impact in the regions we serve."
Earlier this month, Bengaluru-based fintech startup, FinBox secured an undisclosed amount as part of its pre-Series A funding led by Arali Ventures. The round also saw participation from marquee angel investor Anup Pai, Founder of financial services company, Fintellix.
Last month, another Bengaluru-based fintech company, Groww received $21.4 million as a part of its Series B funding round led by US-based VC firm Ribbit Capital, with participation from existing investors Sequoia India and Y Combinator.
(Disclaimer: Additional background information has been added to this PTI copy for context)
The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP), an Indian bio-innovation hub, recently joined hands with Beyond Next Ventures (BNV), one of the leading independent accelerators and VCs in Japan dedicated to incubation investment in technology startups.
The two organisations, under the umbrella of the C-CAMP – BNV Innovation Hub (CBIH), aim to encourage and promote the best deep science innovations in the field of Life Sciences and Biotechnology in India and Japan. To kickstart its activities, CBIH is calling for applications from Indian bio startups for funding support of up to $300,000 (Rs 2.1 crore) per startup.
The hub also aims to support startups in both the regions through exchange of human resources and technologies, and through other facilitation programmes and events to connect skilled talent, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders in both regions.
CBIH is a tie-up between Japanese and Indian innovation ecosystemsdedicated to the biological sciences. The hub will facilitate Japanese investment of up to $5 million in early stage Indian startups in the life sciences and biotech domain with technologies to address global issues. Beyond funding, CBIH will also enable expert mentorship and guidance from C-CAMP on an equity basis.
C-CAMP was established with the aim of enabling cutting-edge bio-science research and entrepreneurship by making available state-of-the-art technologies and providing training on these technologies to academia and industry, and building a thriving ecosystem to stimulate innovation and promote bio-tech entrepreneurship in India.
As part of C-CAMP's mandate to promote entrepreneurship and innovation, it has created and fostered an entrepreneur-friendly culture in and around Academic/Research environment through its Entrepreneurship programme, which includes Seed funding, bio-incubation, mentorship, and other facilitation activities.
Over the last few years, C-CAMP has interacted with over 500 startups and supported over 100 of these through funding, incubation and mentorship.
Karena Belin is a big believer in the statement that innovation and economic wealth are driven only by startups. She also made it part of the mission statement for WHub, a developed ecosystem of startups from Hong Kong that is now looking to build a bridge between the startups of Hong Kong and Bengaluru and strengthen the ties.
Karena, CEO and Founder of WHub, is keen on facilitating cross-border scaling between the two regions. Speaking to YourStory, she said,
"With regard to the vibrance and success of their ecosystems, Bengaluru and Hong Kong are very similar, with a strong core at their centers, which helps startups scale in a very short time."
With the intention to enable startups to grow out of their home markets, both from Hong Kong and Bengaluru, the WHub team is now actively participating in various tech and startup forums around the country.
Started in 2014 by Karena and Karen Content Farzam, WHub, as Karena puts it, is the first-ever startup community born out of Hong Kong, and it covers more than 80 percent of the startups in the area. It started as a job-listings platform, gradually growing to be an end-to-end connection and networking platform for startups to gain access to various venture resources, investors, talent, media, universities, and governments.
The community claims to have registered more than 2,800 startups, with 22,000 members and a reach of over two million people.
The co-founders have also launched an angel-investing platform AngelHub.io, which is reportedly the first and only crowdfunding platform for angel investing in Hong Kong. It is officially regulated and licensed by the Securities and Future Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong.
Only last month, both WHub and AngelHub raised $3 million from Kharis Capital and TNG FinTech Group, a fintech unicorn from Hong Kong.
The challenges
Speaking of the culture and the mindset of the startup founders in Hong Kong, Karena referred to the companies' capabilities to quickly adapt to new and growing markets.
"This a great challenge and has its own consequences. These startups fail too early. But on the bright side, if you incorporate this growth mindset in your DNA early on, it does give the necessary competitive edge," she says.
She further talked about how easy the access to capital in Hong Kong was and the availability of high net-worth individuals (HNIs) across the region. The country has the highest density of HNIs across the world because of which startups are able to conveniently bootstrap or find angel investments.
During the later stages of growth, the region has PE-VC funding networks and the necessary infrastructure and scale to take the company till the IPO stage.
"But the bridge between angel/seed funding and institutional money was lacking, and 80 percent of startups failed on that account. We are trying to effectively bridge that gap," says Karena.
Karena Belin
The startup ecosystem in Hong Kong
Being an international financial market and a hub for innovation and technology, Hong Kong has close access to the Greater Bay Area that has a GDP of $1,500 billion as of date, which is expected to hit $3,500 billion by 2025.
In the Greater Bay Area, Shenzhen is known as a hub for innovation, domestic finance, and hardware, and Guangzhou as an international business and trade centre. Macau, on the other hand, is a major centre for tourism, gaming, and hospitality and also a Portuguese-speaking business centre, while the Pearl River Delta is known for its advanced manufacturing.
With a population of 7.3 million people and the stronger sectors being Internet of Things (IoT), hardware, fintech, and healthtech, Hong Kong now has nine homegrown unicorns - SenseTime, WeLab, Lalamove, Tink Labs, BitMEX, GoGoVan, Klook, TNG Wallet, and AirWallex.
For fintech alone, the city has four unicorns that cumulatively add up to $8.5 billion in valuation, making Hong Kong the city with the highest unicorn density per capita across the world.
A graduate in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a postgraduate from Stanford University, Rajan started his career with consultancy firm McKinsey & Co. He worked closely with Dell Founder Michael Dell, and was also Microsoft India MD before joining Google. Apart from his presence in India, he is also an active angel investor in Sri Lanka.
For the podcast, Rajan spoke about how, apart from making investments in tech startups, he has also made investments to learn about the respective sectors. He advised founders to go after big problems and not small ones.
Rajan Anandan
Siddhartha Ahluwalia, Founder of 100x Entrepreneur Podcast and Co-founder of SHEROES, caught up with Rajan Anandan in this episode of the podcast, a series that features venture capitalists and angel investors.
The 100x Entrepreneur Podcast is an endeavour to know their habits, mindsets, and viewpoints that can help entrepreneurs scale 100x.
Tune in to listen to Rajan Anandan in conversation with Siddhartha:
Speaking to Siddhartha on the topic of “what has changed in the Indian startup ecosystem”, Rajan said, “There have been certain important changes in the last several years. The first is, many more Indians are connected to the internet and, specifically, to high-speed networks. Today, more than 400 million Indians are active on the internet every single day, where they spend four to five hours a day. Besides, they get affordable broadband, and that’s important from a scale perspective. You see many consumer internet companies scaling on the users’ side.”
Giving examples, he pointed out that BYJU's has 1.5 million paying users. “There are quite a number of companies that now have thousands of subscribers.”
Rajan added, “The second thing is there is a broad-basing of companies today. Earlier, all the action was in consumer internet companies. If you see the data from last year, you will find a larger number of B2B tech companies than B2C companies founded in India.”
He encapsulated the third point as a dramatic change in the pace of scaling up. Giving an example, Rajan pointed out that Udaan ushered in a new wave by scaling up from zero to $1 billion valuation in two years. “Two years earlier, if you would have asked me ‘would you see any startup become a unicorn in two years’, I would have said not for a very long time.”
He also spoke about how the number of unicorns being created every year is increasing.
Rajan said, “Entrepreneurs are coming out from existing unicorns. Udaan’s founders came from Flipkart, and many other entrepreneurs are second- and third-time entrepreneurs. Sachin Bhatia of Bulbulshop, for instance, is a third-time entrepreneur. Kunal of Cred is also a seasoned entrepreneur. So, you have a combination of seasoned entrepreneurs and young entrepreneurs who have grown in very, very fast-developing companies.”
He affirmed that the funding environment in India was very positive.
“There was a time when it was difficult to raise even $10 million. But, today in India, you can raise $1 billion. We are very much on track to have 100 unicorns by around 2025. This is a very interesting phase for the Indian startup ecosystem,” he said.
Speaking about monetisation in Indian startups, he said, “Monetisation has been quite difficult for some time now. India is really about the user-growth story on the B2C side. I think that is changing. The existing market is not huge but quite sizeable. You have a $30 billion ecommerce market and a ride-hailing market that’s quite huge. UPI is the biggest boon that has come to the Indian startup ecosystem. Now, you have over 100 million Indians who transact online. Today, you can pay not just Rs 1000 or Rs 1500 online. Transactions of Rs 10, 20, or 30 have also become possible. Monetisation is improving. But it is still early days.”
Unicorns and their potential
When asked about the SaaS category and the potential for startups in that sector to become unicorns, he said, “I have been a big believer in SaaS for a long time. If you look at my angel portfolio, more than half of my investments are in SaaS companies.”
He added, “We are still a few years away from having a hyper value creation in Indian startups. Zoho and Freshworks are the two SaaS unicorns. This year, we will see probably a third unicorn in the category. We will have one SaaS unicorn every year till probably 2023, after which we can see several SaaS unicorns coming up every year.”
Siddhartha also asked him why, in his opinion, there was a renewed interest in ecommerce and mobility. To this, he said, “If you would have asked this two years ago to someone, they would have said ecommerce is over. ‘You have Amazon and Flipkart and each one of them spends a billion dollars. How can new startups come up?’ But, the fact is, in a country where you have 400 million-plus daily active users you have only 70 million who transact on ecommerce sites. So, there is a huge amount of headroom that is left.”
He pointed out that the first 50 million users, who were by now very comfortable with transacting on ecommerce sites, can currently buy different products. These users who were always comfortable with buying phones and fashion online are now buying groceries and fresh seafood. “There is a set of companies that would go after these first 50 million customers. Then, there is a new class of companies, what you call ecommerce-2, like Meesho and Bulbul, who will also go after these customers. Then, there are the non-English audience, for whom video products would be leveraged. So, I think there will be several billion dollar companies coming out of this new wave.”
The mobility market
Speaking about mobility, he said, “Two years ago, people would have said, there is Ola and Uber and no space for new players. But, the fact is, today, we are seeing more activity in the mobility space. Bike-taxi operator Rapido, one of the companies in my portfolio, for instance, is growing at an unprecedented rate.”
He also spoke about Bounce and Yulu as having very innovative models. “Most of India can afford to spend only a few rupees for transport. So, we have to invent models to hit that price point with a viable long-term unit economy.” He held out the opinion that the four-wheeler market had played out and was slowing down.
“So, it’s really going to be two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and a new kind of transport coming up, and over time a lot of them would migrate to electric.”
On Siddhartha asking him about India having a two million e-rickshaw unorganised market currently, Rajan, said, “A massive number of Indians take buses and trains. India has a 100 million people who have two-wheelers. So, it is not surprising that Rapido is scaling so fast. There exists a lot of opportunity in mobility. And, that is excluding electric and ancillary.”
On making investments
Talking about his interest with regard to the type of companies to invest in, he said, “I am excited about every company that I have invested in. There are some companies who are doing very interesting things. There is one company, Genrobotics, which I invested in last year. It is a startup from Kerala, and they are building robots to clean manholes. There are about four million manhole-scavengers in India and they mostly don’t live beyond 32-35 years because of the kind of work they do. This startup has built a robot called Bandicoot, and they train scavengers to operate these robots.”
Another company that is doing great and interesting things was Nayan, he added. “The app can record all the traffic violations in real time. They wanted to partner with the police and state governments. Theoretically, if they can get 10-20 million users who would become real-time capturers of traffic violations, a huge amount of data can be processed with computer vision to identify traffic violations.”
Rajan has made investments in SaaS, consumer internet, and content companies, among others. He said, “Outside of tech, I have made selective investments – more as investments for learning. For instance, I have made a few investments in life-sciences and healthcare so that I could learn more about these spaces."
He stressed that his bets were less about the space / sector and more about the founding team. “The reason I invested in Rapido was their thesis was very interesting. But, it’s a fact that Arvind and his team are super ambitious and very focussed leaders who are going to make it big. And, that’s the case with every single company I have invested in. I bet on the founding team.”
Finally, giving some advice to founders, he said, “I see too many Indian founders going after small problems. Don’t go after small problems. Go after large problems.”
CleanseCar a startup in the vehicle services space, has raised $2 million. Currently operating in Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, and Gurgaon, with 20,000-plus monthly subscribers, the startup looks to expand its business in these cities.
The investors who participated in the round were Haldiram’s Family Office, (Vevek Ventures Investments Pvt Ltd), Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma (Founder, Venture Catalysts), Dhianu Das (Alfa Ventures), Karan Kumar (Founder, Amalthea Capital), Rahul Bothra (CFO, Swiggy), Mitesh Shah (Co-founder, IP Ventures), Lalit Agarwal (Head of Venture Capital at a Sovereign Wealth Fund), Bobby Reddy (Indus Ventures), Sagar Agarwal (ex-MD, Evolvence India Fund), and Nandi Vardhan Mehta (Head of Finance, KAAF Family Investments Office).
Kalyandhar Vinukonda and Pratibha Shalini, Co-founder, CleanseCar
Founded in January 2018 by Kalyandhar Vinukonda and Pratibha Shalini, CleanseCar offers daily car wash, on-demand bike service, and roadside assistance for cars.
Speaking on the funding received, Kalyandhar said,
“With changing lifestyles, a burgeoning middle-class, and a dramatic rise in the number of car-owners in the country, there is a huge potential for supplementary services such as car cleaning and repair, using disruptive technologies, besides the provision of auto accessories.” He added, “We are witnessing a huge growth in our bike services unit too and see ourselves as the market leader in this sector.”
The $100 billion auto service industry is untapped as it has not turned digital. CleanseCar, therefore, is going after this opportunity by going digital and finding customers who are not comfortable with approaching traditional, non-transparent service businesses.
By leveraging data, CleanseCar was able to start its bike-wash business with its on-demand service, having seen 500-plus customers till date. Currently, CleanseCar is adding a new customer every nine minutes for its car-wash service.
Real-time car wash status, one-click renewal, and easy online payment and rescheduling processes are some of the features of the CleanseCar app that make it popular among its customer base.
CleanseCar is targetting washing one lakh cars daily and providing 25,000 on-demand bike services every month in all the Indian metros.
Unicorn India Ventures, a four-year old venture capital (VC) firm, was founded by Anil Joshi and Bhaskar Majumdar in 2015. The early stage investment firm partners with entrepreneurs, who are looking to build world-class companies by disrupting traditional sectors and solve real life problems using innovation.
Till date, Unicorn India Ventures has invested in 20 early stage startups, including Open Bank, Boxx.ai, Clootrack, VanityCube, Sequretek, Pharamarack, GrabonRent, SmartCoin, and OpenApp.
Last year, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Kerala Startup Mission and invested in three Kerala-based startups – GenRobotic, SectorQube, and Perfectfit.
YourStory recently caught up with Anil Joshi, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Unicorn India Ventures, to understand what they look for in founders before putting in their money and how startups from Tier II and III cities are different from the ones in metros.
Anil Joshi, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures
YourStory: How do you think startups in the metros differ from the ones in Tier II and Tier III cities?
Anil Joshi: The biggest learning from the small town startups, especially in Kerala, is that they are solving real life problems. That is the reason why they are able to do business quickly. Entrepreneurs associated with these startups find a local problem, solve it, and then expand globally.
We have invested in GenRobotic which basically automates manual scavenging. They have developed a robot and to our surprise, this startup has been profitable since its inauguration.
We have also invested in Inntot, whose product helps in digitising analogue radios to digital radios. They have served clients in Japan and Korea.
YS: What are the qualities you look for in a team before investing?
AJ: Domain expertise is very important. We try and see the aspiration of the entrepreneur – is he just trying to solve one problem or if his solution is able to solve problems across spectrum. These are the few qualities that we look at cautiously when we are evaluating any startup – whether be it a metro or a small town startup.
YS: Do you prefer a single founder startup to one with multiple founders?
AJ: We have invested in single founder companies, but preferably we try to look at companies which have at least two or three co-founders.
YS: Any particular sector that interests you?
AJ: Fintech is very hot right now. Other than that, we are seeing good traction in healthtech and agritech sectors.
YS: What are the emerging trends in the Indian startup ecosystem?
AJ: We are seeing a lot of solution leveraging digital technology.
YS: What can startups in the metro learn from startups in Tier II and Tier III cities ?
AJ: It has always been the other way around. Founders from Tier II and Tier III cities have looked up to entrepreneurs in the metros.
One important thing that founders from metros can learn from their peers in small towns is the ability to manage cashflow.
All other companies have the revenue which enables them to manage their expenses. Which is very surprising because most of the companies that I’ve seen shutting down is because they ran out of cash. But, our experience in small towns has been that entrepreneurs are able to manage their cash well, they are alive and surviving, irrespective of whether they receive funding. I have seen companies which haven’t raised any money but are growing.
YS: How has your partnership with Kerala startup mission helped you?
AJ: Kerala is probably one state which I wouldn’t hesitate to say that they are number one in the startup space. Their cross-value chain is very pro-startup. They have not only invested in our fund as a fund of fund but, also continuously helped us build a pipeline to look at for investment opportunity.
Apart from that, they actively support startups in fetching orders, help open doors for them and build market not only in Kerala but also outside the state. Overall, Kerala has been the true partner to us.
YS: In July, you announced a new Rs 400 crore B2B fund. Any Kerala startups that you’re looking to invest?
AJ: We are talking to a few of them. Hopefully, when we announce the fund close, you would see some announcement from Kerala as well.
YS: On an average, you make 3.6X return in all your investments. Do you see similar returns from the Kerala startups you invested in?
AJ: To be honest, I believe the Kerala portfolio will do very well for us.
YS: Any other states that you are looking forward to?
AJ: We have investments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and West Bengal. We see good quality of startups here and we would be happy to explore other states, provided we get access to good startups there.
In a recent report titled Agritech in India – Emerging Trends in 2019, industry body NASSCOM estimated there are over 450 agritech startups in India today. In 2019 alone, the sector received close to $250 million in funding, a whopping increase of 300 percent over last year.
Aligarh-based E&E is making its mark with specialised design, manufacture, operation, and maintenance of air, hydrological, meteorological, and particulate monitoring systems.
Setting up an online business is a lot easier and cost-effective than it used to be. Here are some ideas that can help women, especially homemakers, to set up profitable businesses from the comfort of their homes.
Started by Jyoti Gupta and Deepti Singh, Rank Me Online offers a Review Analyzer, an AI-driven tool that helps brands get actionable insights and data they can use to build new strategies.
Barefoot Edu Foundation Co Founders, Jonathan Mendonca and Saumya Aggarwal taking a session
Founded by Jonathan Mendonca and Saumya Aggarwal, Barefoot Edu Foundation is working to transform educational spaces into stimulating learning environments that are contextualised for under-resourced communities.
UrbanClap founders (from left to right): Abhiraj, Raghav and Varun
Home service startup UrbanClap aims to bridge the gap between service providers and customers by matching quality service professionals with service seekers in Australia.
Started by Sanjay Choudhary in 2017 with a vision to provide a sustainable ecosystem for young innovators, Incuspaze has also recently collaborated with SIDBI to cater to startups and MSMEs that are associated with it.
Bengaluru-based Sporthood is a network of neighbourhood sports clubs to help people across age groups connect with the sport they love and make it a part of their life. It has 20 clubs in two cities.
When Santosh Jagtap and Sorabh Arora ran their retail store in Bengaluru for licensed branded merchandise for movies and TV shows, including Game ofThrones and DC and Marvel Comics, they were approached by several designers and artists, requesting retail space to sell their products. These included handmade products in various categories such as fashion, home decor, and stationery. The duo found a gap as there seemed to be no vertical marketplaces for these niche artists.
“The existing system was to sell these products through flea markets or exhibitions like Sunday Soul Sante, Comic Con etc. Most of them were also listed on big ecommerce marketplaces like Flipkart and Amazon. It led us to start Quirqstation in 2019,” Santosh says.
Started in 2017, this omnichannel platform lets creators and makers sell their offerings through their eccentric, colourful retail outlets at Indiranagar and Church Street, and online. The platform addresses the main problem with existing systems: that most of these artists’ products were getting lost amid millions of other products.
Santosh and Sourabh, the Founders of Quirqstation.
“Few of these makers were selling through their own websites but managing your own website is an expensive affair, considering the marketing spend on social media etc. This was our Eureka moment,” Santosh explains.
They started by conducting market research where they met creators in flea markets, and gathered insights into the problems they were facing.
The team claims to be working with urban creators like Alicia Souza from Bengaluru, Katie Abey from UK, and also a few traditional and rural artisans from Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka.
“We also have full-time creators or artists who are illustrators, doodlers, and cartoonists (such as Paul Fernandes), and we encourage our part-time makers or hobbyists who are students, housewives, working professionals among others. Currently, we are helping around 200+ creators and aim to reach a number of customers through our retail stores and the online marketplace,” Santosh says.
The team claims to have sold over 55,000 products, served over 8,000 customers, and make a GMV of Rs 2 crore.
The challenges they faced
Creating an omnichannel marketplace was a big challenge. The first retail outlet in Indiranagar, Bengaluru, was a proof of concept. Santosh says this challenge was overcome by selecting the “right eccentric, colourful, and youthful designs for our stores along with the right location for the stores”.
Quirqstation now has two retail stores at Indiranagar and Church Street in Bengaluru. The third store is getting ready and will be launched at Forum Shantiniketan Mall, Whitefield, Bengaluru.
Another challenge was to build an in-house technology platform as this needed industry expertise. The team was soon joined as CTO by Sanjay Kumar, who has studied at IIT-Kanpur and comes with 10 years of experience in building technology platforms for ecommerce companies.
Artists and designers can sell their products at the retail outlets, for which Quirqstation charges a 40 percent commission. They work on a consignment (sales or return) basis, and pay them on a monthly basis based on the sales.
Santosh says they don’t buy any inventory, and only provide a retail platform. This makes the business model asset-light and easy to scale to multiple retail outlets.
“Also, any unsold inventory in 90 to 120 days is sent back to the artists for replacement with new designs or new products. This ensures freshness in all our stores,” Santosh says.
For online sales, the team charges 23 percent commission in addition to shipping charges. This is a flat fee across categories.
Quirqstation also offers a ‘print-on-demand’ service. This is a royalty-based model where artists submit their designs or artworks on the website. They also mock up these designs on various products like T-shirts, mugs, posters etc. They get 10 percent royalty based on the sales report after products with their designs are sold.
“The average sale per square feet for our stores is around Rs 1,500, which is quite healthy in this category. For online sales, the Customer Acquisition Cost is about Rs 400 per customer,” Santosh says.
Currently, the average ticket size is Rs 1,000. The team on an average gets over 1,700 customers in a month and prices range from Rs 50 for smaller products to Rs 5000 for larger paintings and products.
“We believe in selling stories of our artists more than selling their products. These stories take shape on our social media platforms, our online marketplace, as well as our retail outlet with a firm belief that stories sell better than products. Our creators can be anybody and everybody who has the flair to create things,” Santosh says.
The team also provides artists with ‘Smartpage’, an in-house marketing tool that enables sellers to create their webpages within minutes and share them on social media.
“The idea here is that our sellers act as ‘micro influencers’ and promote their products or their shops on their social media. With thousands of followers on social media and with us having a few thousand sellers, this is going to have a multiplying effect to promote products sold on Quirqstation,” Santosh says.
The market and way ahead
There are several niche e-commerce platforms that connect designers and artists to consumers these says. BigSmall, Qtrove, Engrave, Kraftly, and Tjori are multi-category marketplaces, but operate very differently from Flipkart, Amazon, andSnapdeal.
There is also Kashmir Box, which works with over 10,000 grassroot artisans, 200 growers, and 135+ manufacturers and brands of the Valley. These startups prove that differentiated, scalable, and profitable online marketplaces can be built in India without spending billions of dollars.
Currently bootstrapped, a typical retail outlet of 1200 sq ft will cost about Rs 50 lakh to set up
.
Speaking of future plans, Santosh says, “We plan to open around 25 retail outlets in all major cities of India to provide a platform for makers and creators from across the country. Along with retail outlets, our focus also includes upgrading our online marketplace and providing sophisticated technology to our artist partners, which can help them reach millions of customers.”
If there is one thing apart from funding that startup founders need help with, it is design. Few startups can afford to hire a great UX/UI designer or an agency to help with their design requirements. It was something Arunabh Das kept hearing all the time.
As an expert in the subject, Arunabh would often be approached by startups and enterprise founders to help either with their MVP (Minimum Viable Product) or be a part of their design team.
The alumnus of Srishti School of Art, Bengaluru, where he pursued a master's in human-computer interaction design, Arunabh had worked with companies like MakeMyTrip, OnePlus, and others, and knew that design played an integral part of a product development process and cycle. He felt most enterprises and startups needed help in this direction.
It led him to start Watr, a startup that provides digital product design support to startup and enterprise teams.
"Our goal is to flip online freelance marketplaces, digital agencies, and in-house product design teams on their head, by offering an agility-driven and pricing-transparent remote design team to Fortune 2000 companies and startups, empowering them to become notable design-led organisations on the world map,” Arunabh says.
Watr started operations in Gurugram in 2019. It collaborates with startups and enterprises that do not have an in-house design team. It functions as an augmented design unit and an extension of their product teams, supporting them with branding and visual identity, digital product design (user experience/user interface/design systems/usability), service design strategy for organising, scaling, and smooth functioning of service/s, assistance with design hiring, and assistance with design training and knowledge transfer.
“We engage with clients on a subscription model, presenting them flexibility and transparency to choose between monthly, quarterly, and annual options based on their design requirements. We currently operate on a build, operate, and transfer model where we support product teams to build and scale through design, and if they require to move towards hiring an in-house team, we assist them with design hiring and knowledge transfer with design resources,” Arunabh says.
Challenges in the space
While engaging with different startups and enterprises, the team realised that while the tech community looks to achieve agility and launch the product at the earliest, it is challenging to find skilled and cost-conscious design talent to do the work under strict deadlines.
In most cases, an early stage startup or enterprise usually takes the help of a digital agency or a freelancer before hiring an in-house design team. “We also understood that hiring freelancers, a digital agency, or an in-house team is time-consuming, and an expensive process,” Arunabh says.
The team realised that while freelancers may be a cost-conscious choice, they lack the multidisciplinary skills to lead and design a product, and are also prone to bias in the absence of any other design resources. On the other hand, digital agencies may be well coordinated but are notably expensive.
Hiring an in-house team may be the ultimate goal for many startups or enterprises, but building a team is a slow yet gradual process, and needs an immense amount of infrastructure and resources.
“We, as designers, wanted to contribute to new projects and ideas and make a mark through our work. The current gap and remote resources made us recognise and unlock the opportunity space, and thus, Watr was born,” Arunabh says.
The team signed its first client within 15 days of its launch. The initial challenge entailed moving away from the traditional agency model for offering design support, and convincing founders of the new value addition to their product ecosystem, while testing and constantly iterating a solution towards the problem.
To address this, the initial website has been positioned as a digital product design studio to attract a few primary clients and build a portfolio of work, before reaching out on a broader scale
“We reached out to startups working out of coworking spaces and those around Delhi-NCR looking to hire an in-house product design team or digital products, and pitched Watr as a remote team offering to build their product,” Arunabh says.
The team of 20 comprises Arunabh’s former colleagues from the design industry with an experience of four-seven years in the field.
Designs on the future
The growing demand for design in the competitive business world has given a fillip to the market landscape of UX/UI designs. Hyderabad-based prototyping and testing platform CanvasFlipallows product managers, UX teams, and entrepreneurs to validate their ideas and check user experience without having to write any code manually.
Another entrant in the field, Bengaluru-based startup GoodWorkLabs designs and builds mobile apps, software products, and games. YUJ Designs Consulting provides user experience design solutions for software products.
Watr’s subscription prices range from $2,500 - $10,000 a month depending on the number of hours of team support the company chooses to opt and engage with.. Watr started its operations in late May 2019, and has clocked revenue of $28,000 in the first four months. Arunabh adds that it has observed healthy traction and is targeting 100 percent growth by the end of this fiscal.
Currently bootstrapped, the startup is looking to raise funds in the near future. “We look forward to scaling and expand the capabilities of our team. We want to partner with key companies taking up diverse product design challenges, helping them distinguish as recognised design-led organisations in the world. Our long-term goal is to find recognition as a niche and premier design incubation space for organisations in the subcontinent and the world.”
The domestic logistics sector is set to grow at 8-10 percent over the medium term with the outlook remaining largely stable, ratings agency ICRA said on Wednesday.
The key drivers for demand pickup would be the festive season as well as the anticipated revival in infrastructure spending post monsoon and improvement in receivable cycle of contractors, it said in a statement.
"ICRA Research has forecast the domestic logistics sector to grow at 8-10 percent over the medium term with the outlook remaining largely stable," it said.
The ensuing demand momentum will lead to higher freight volumes in the second half of FY 2020 despite the weak macro-economic scenario, it added.
ICRA Ratings Vice President Shamsher Dewan said: "We expect the sector to continue to outpace the GDP growth over the medium term, which apart from demand side factors would also be supported by supply-side positives like emergence of integrated logistics players, investments in infrastructure development such as warehouses and inter-modal transport hubs, and capacity augmentation being undertaken by large logistics players."
"Industry capex towards capacity augmentation (fleet, warehousing, cold storage, terminals etc) and investments in technology to improve service offerings is estimated at Rs 9-11 billion annually (which translates into 2-3 percent of operating income)," the statement added.
The credit metrics of ICRA's sample of logistics companies are anticipated to remain comfortable, it said.
On the flip side, however, ICRA's analysis of sample of 12 large logistics players in Q1 FY20 has indicated a slowdown to 7 percent as compared to 11 percent in Q4 FY19 and 10 percent in Q1 FY19.
Dewan added: "ICRA expects the Indian logistics industry to continue evolving/being shaped in the medium term as reflected by ongoing trends. This includes trends like shift towards organised players post GST and e-way bill implementation, focus on multi-modal offerings, increasing interest by private equity and foreign players in the space, emergence of ecommerce logistics requirements, focus on warehousing and cold chain services, and increased adoption of technology."
Microblogging platform Twitter has admitted that user data like email addresses and phone numbers that had been provided by them for security purposes may have been "inadvertently" used for advertising purposes.
The US-based company noted that it could not say "with certainty" how many people were impacted by this, but asserted that "no personal data was ever shared externally with our partners or any other third parties".
"We recently discovered that when you provided an email address or phone number for safety or security purposes (for example, two-factor authentication) this data may have inadvertently been used for advertising purposes, specifically in our Tailored Audiences and Partner Audiences advertising system," Twitter said in a statement.
It added that as of September 17, it had addressed the issue that allowed this to occur and it was no longer using phone numbers or email addresses collected for safety or security purposes, for advertising.
"We're very sorry this happened and are taking steps to make sure we don't make a mistake like this again," it added.
The company declined to comment on the impact of the development on users in India.
Twitter, in its statement, explained that when an advertiser uploaded their marketing list, it may have matched people on Twitter to that list based on the email or phone number that the Twitter user had provided for safety and security purposes.
"This was an error and we apologise...We cannot say with certainty how many people were impacted by this, but in an effort to be transparent, we wanted to make everyone aware," it said.
In June quarter, Twitter had an average monetisable daily active usage (mDAU) of 139 million (29 million in the US and 110 million from international markets). This is against an mDAU of 122 million in the same period of the previous year, and 134 million in the previous quarter this year.
Twitter does not provide country-specific user numbers.
US-based ride hailing platform Uber has made a submission to the Delhi government offering use of 5,000 bike-taxis to improve first and last-mile connectivity during the odd-even scheme to be implemented next month, according to sources.
Currently, regulations do not allow bike-taxis to operate in Delhi.
According to sources, Uber has made the submission to the Delhi government proposing to deploy 5,000 bike-taxis to help ferry one lakh commuters to and from Metro stations every week.
The service is proposed to be offered for a fee of Rs 5 per ride, they added.
The company, which competes with Bengaluru-based Ola, has also proposed to re-deploy 2,500 bikes from its food delivery network (UberEats) to work as bike-taxis during the odd-even scheme that will be implemented from November 4-15.
Uber did not respond to e-mailed queries on the matter.
A Delhi government official said a proposal was received from the cab aggregator but no decision has been taken on it as yet.
One of the persons aware of the development said bike-sharing provides a huge opportunity to unlock the potential of shared mobility through optimal utilisation of existing vehicles on the road.
The person said Uber, in its submission, has cited data that one out of two UberMOTO trips in Gurugram began or ended at a Metro station, while one in four such trips in Noida began or ended near a Metro station.
The odd-even scheme has been proposed as part of a slew of measures to combat high level of air pollution in Delhi caused due to stubble burning in neighbouring states during winters.
During the 12-day scheme, vehicles will ply alternately on odd and even dates as per their registration numbers. In the previous two experiments in January and April in 2016, a fine of Rs 2,000 was imposed on violators of the rule. In the past, two-wheelers and female commuters were exempted from the rule.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will hold a review meeting with CEOs of public sector banks (PSBs) next week to discuss various issues, including progress on credit offtake.
The meeting, scheduled to be held on October 14, is expected to review fund flow to stressed NBFC and MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) sectors, sources said.
Banks are expected to present report card on partial credit guarantee scheme and fund raising from market to enhance their capital base.
The Centre in August issued guidelines on operationalising Rs 1 lakh crore partial guarantee scheme under which PSBs can purchase high-rated pooled assets of financially sound non-banking finance companies (NBFCs).
NBFCs, including housing finance companies (HFCs), came under stress following a series of defaults by the group companies of IL&FS in September last year.
Besides, the meeting will also assess the progress of first phase of outreach programme held across 250 districts across the country.
This will be the second meeting of Sitharaman with CEOs of PSU banks in less than a month.
The first phase of 'Loan Mela' for providing credit to agriculture, vehicle, home, MSME, education and personal categories ended on October 7.
During the annual performance review earlier this month, PSBs decided to undertake outreach exercise in 400 identified districts. Later, the private sector too expressed willingness to join the initiative.
The second phase will be held in 150 districts between October 21 and October 25, just before Diwali.
Additionally, the Centre will also review loan delivery through 'psbloansin59minutes' portal.
The platform has helped reduce turnaround time for loan processes in such a way that MSMEs can get an eligibility letter and in-principle approval in 59 minutes and can choose the bank of their choice.
After the approval letter is received, the loan is expected to be disbursed in 7-8 working days.
Touted as the country's largest online lending platform, the portal was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2018 with an aim to make credit access and banking for MSMEs transparent and hassle-free.
The portal sanctioned loans worth over Rs 35,000 crore in less than four months from its launch.
As on March 31, 2019, more than 50,706 proposals had got in-principle approval and 27,893 proposals had been sanctioned.
Social commerce startup DealShare has raised $11 million in Series A round of funding led by Matrix Partners India and Falcon Edge Capital. The round also saw participation from partners of DST Global, Omidyar Network India, and few leading angel investors.
According to the statement released by the company, the funds will be utilised for city expansion, developing artificial intelligence-based solutions, and indigenous logistics network.
Commenting on the investment, Vineet Rao, CEO and Head of Technology, said,
“We are in the process of creating the biggest ecommerce story of India. The latest funding will also give us the impetus to strengthen our asset-light, low-cost, and highly efficient logistics model. We plan to strengthen and leverage the local economy and entrepreneurs through our flagship programs such as DealShare Dost (last-mile supply chain) and DealShare Dukaan (O2O store model), eventually empowering them financially and reducing our operating costs while increasing the overall efficiency.”
Targeted at non-metro and middle-income customers in India, DealShare offers deals and discounts on daily-use products such as snacks and other food items including fruits, vegetables, and dry fruits, FMCG products such as lotions, soaps, cleaning liquids, etc., as well as household merchandise such as linen, buckets, and mops.
Navroz D Udwadia, Co-Founder and Partner of Falcon Edge commented: “Falcon Edge is excited to help drive DealShare’s mission of meeting the daily needs of an under-served customer base of 500m first time internet users. DealShare brings together a focused assortment that is differentially procured. This, when coupled with the delight of discovery and a gamified shopping experience, drives robust repeat usage and cohort behavior. These factors coupled with creative, first principles driven fulfillment drive exciting unit economics. We believe this ability to grow rapidly while demonstrating robust unit economics this early in a lifecycle is rare indeed.”
The startup, which is already present in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Baroda, Kota, Jodhpur, Ajmer, Sikar, Sawai Madhopur and Nagaur, is also planning to expand its footprint to Maharashtra by the end of this month.
DealShare also plans to expand into 100 cities across more than 10 states in the next one year, and is expected to raise more funds very soon.
Announcing Maharashtra launch, Sourjyendu Medda, Chief Business Officer and Head of Sourcing, said: “At DealShare, we focus heavily on simplified user interface, local language, social virality, and local supplies. These pillars allow us to penetrate deeper into smaller cities and towns like no ecommerce or modern trade company has done before. With the opening of Maharashtra and other states and further penetration into Rajasthan and Gujarat, we are confident of hitting a five million customer base in six months who will buy with us multiple times a month. Our unique demand aggregation model also allows us to do B2B with a number of traders very effectively. We are in the process of converting some of our loyal trader customers to DealShare Dukaans (O2O store model) to service our end consumers more efficiently. This is ecommerce 2.0 for Bharat.”
When demonetisation hit India in 2016, the country propelled towards financial inclusion and digitisation of payments. India ranked as the third biggest startup hub in the world, and fintech players like Paytm, PhonePay, Google Pay, and even Whatsapp now are making a mark in the fintech sector.
Today from the likes of the ecommerce giant Flipkart to startups like Monexo, everyone is looking for people specialising in fintech. If you’re in the fintech field, get on board the innovative startup bandwagon with YourStory’s list of curated jobs:
Flipkart is looking for a candidate with experience and understanding in working with different multi-tier architecture. A managerial role, the architects will be responsible for driving tech and good practices in engineering in their respective teams. They will be participating in code reviews, architecture discussions, and design reviews. They will be responsible for performance, scaling, and quality of the team.
Fintech startup LendingKart is looking for an analyst for their core product operations team. The candidate needs to be able to look at different processes and requirements of the businesses and convert them to key metrics. The position is based out of Ahmedabad. Lendingkart is looking for someone who can write complex SQL queries on large data sets, convert product or business problems into analytical problem statements, analyse and then communicate business issues to a wide range of audiences using strong data analytics and communication skills, knowledge of a scripting language like R or Python is a bonus and more.
MPower enables students from around the world to financially access higher education. The team is looking for data analyst contact for MPower's product, operations, engineering, and product teams. According to the job description the candidate’s focus will be on designing, engineering, developing, documenting, and reporting analytic efforts to translate complex data into actionable information. MPower is looking for people with a Bachelor’s degree or higher education in engineering, applied mathematics, economics, statistics, and management science. It is looking fro someone who has used Salesforce, Einstein Analytics, SQL, Python, and Data Studio.
MPower is also looking for a financial analyst, who will be responsible for preparing and analysing financial and ops data. The job description states they are looking for someone with at least three years of relevant accounting experience in the financial services industry (consumer credit, consumer loans, education financing, or online lending platforms).
Open Financial Technologies, a Bengaluru-based cloud fintech startup is looking for a product manager with two to eight years of experience. They will be responsible for driving the execution of all product lifecycle process including product research, market research, competitive analysis, road map development, requirements development, and product launch.
After its previous two ‘classes’, Google is back with the third edition of its ‘Launchpad Accelerator India’ programme. And, this time around, the tech giant will be providing its support and mentorship to ten Indian startups that have been shortlisted for the programme, starting October 14 in Bengaluru.
The three-month-long programme is aimed at helping the ten startups, which are using scalable technology like AI and ML to address India’s various socio-economic issues.
As part of the programme, these startups will first undergo an intensive one-week mentorship bootcamp. During this period, industry experts as well as Google’s teams will try to understand and address the problem areas of the respective startups across various domains, while providing them mentorship and support and setting clear and specific goals for the three months of the programme.
Following the bootcamp, the startups will receive highly customised support, including tech guidance on specific projects, machine learning-related support, design sprints for identified challenges, leadership workshops, access to Google teams, interactions with industry experts, mentors, networking opportunities at industry events, and more, the company said.
Here’s a quick look at the ten startups that made the cut for the third edition of Google’s Launchpad Accelerator programme:
Agricx: Using AI, this startup helps more than 450 million stakeholders, including farmers and food-processing companies, to standardise, digitise, and enable discovery of agricultural produce.
Ambee: This startup offers hyperlocal, real-time, and accurate air-quality data and intelligence, both at street-level granularity and at global scale.
Artivatic: Using AI, ML, and data, Artivatic powers insurance, finance, and healthcare businesses with intelligent systems, solutions, and processes.
CureSkin: An AI skincare expert that uses image-recognition techniques to identify skin problems.
Intello Labs: An AI-based assessment app for post-harvest commodity quality.
Jiny: This is the world's first assistive UI platform for businesses. It guides users at each and every step in their preferred language through its audio-visual assistant.
Nayan: It helps detect traffic violations and improve road safety by applying AI on crowdsourced video data.
Nira: It’s an app-based credit line, granting approved users a limit of up to Rs 1 lakh.
PerSapien: This is a device that can neutralise pollution in the ambient atmosphere.
SustLabs: A product that effectively reads and decodes real-time electricity consumption in a household by using smart meter data.
The internet and the digital economy has finally understood that the world is full of different types of people speaking different languages. And in this ecosystem, vernacular and localised content is not only inevitable, but will increase its relevance as the years go by.
With the universality of the internet and the digitisation boom prevalent in Tier II and Tier III cities and towns, entrepreneurs and businesses have realised that in order to become successful and reach every nook and corner to potential customers, going regional and localised is the only way to bring in genuine engagement and impact.
As per reports, people can now access the YouTube India home page in more than ten languages. In fact, smaller cities are heavily responsible for 60 percent of YouTube watch-time which is a clear transformation in terms of viewership. Hindi is undoubtedly the largest segment among Indian regional languages. Also, Telugu had the highest viewership and uploads between 2016 and 2019 among regional languages (outside Hindi). About 16 million Telugu video subscribers in 2016 soared to 166 million in 2018.
Content marketing companies have been realising the significance of vernacular content availability and its reach, which is well-reflected in the need to employ experienced localised authors to create impact-worthy articles written in local Indian dialects that connect with people and their diverse cultures and roots.
For example, Chinese owned companies like Opera and UC Browser has been successfully operating in India since a long time now. Initially, the firms' main focus was on the English dialect for all sorts of advertisements and communication. But with changing time, trends, and demands, these firms have started focusing on different Indian regional languages as well in order to target the majority of masses existing in India. Some of the key languages that these brands are focusing on include English, Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam and so on. In order to meet the demand, such firms are employing experienced localized authors for increasing the traffic as a firm.
It goes without saying that most folk love conversation and communication in their native language over any other, including English, the world over. India with its burgeoning population of around 1.3 billion people has a meager 125 million English speakers (Source: BBC). Thus, the recent increased emphasis on localised content and vernacular platforms seeing an upward graph.
From food delivery to taxi services, the past decade witnessed online companies solving problems of the urban population of India. Statistically, the problems were solved for English speakers, which essentially meant that the companies could tap only 10 to 15 percent of the Indian populace.
While countries like China and the US have just one or two official languages, India has 22 official languages with 6,000-plus dialects. With schemes like ‘Digital India' and the smartphone revolution, people have access to the internet but not to content. Hence, this large, net-savvy untapped market makes India the most sought-after amongst new-age businesses from across the world.
Tech Mahindra and Opera are a few great examples that explain why targeting the entire masses individually is essential in order to get a fruitful result. Recently, Tech Mahindra has been focusing on generating content in Hindi to reach out to millions of people that are usually untargeted. Similarly, Opera, realising the fact that its necessary to target the remaining audiences for enhancing its traffic has started generating content in different languages that can be easily fetched by people living in different parts of the country. Such initiatives offer an opportunity for firms to inform audiences about their products and services by communicating in the languages that they usually prefer and understand.
Today Google's translate and a slew of other software and applications make sense of English. Yet, many are faced within correct translations and broken sentences. A gaping hole, many businesses have decided to fill, with an added focus on R&D to bring more vernacular languages to the customer.
The increased availability of regional language focussed platforms and options show the demand for regional content. Gone are those days when the English language was considered to be enough for attracting audiences through online platforms. In the past recent times, the demand for regional languages like Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, and others have increased drastically which has forced the entrepreneurs to work on the same. As a result, many companies are now working with different languages along with English in order to meet the requirement. Hindi as a language is gaining great response and popularity in terms of audiences and viewership.
In the future, this nascent sector is set to explode with a greater demand for regional language professionals be it digital marketers or content writers and specialists. This is already evident in the incidence of job postings for regional language content specialists by established and new-age brands setting footprints into India.
According to a report, more than 30 percent companies in India are now looking out for employees that are good in English along with 1-2 regional languages. It's a new trend where an employee has a good grasp of different languages at the same time is believed to be more effective and productive to attract the audience. If you scroll through different job opportunities on LinkedIn and other platforms, you might see the requirement for a writer who is good in English and some other regional language as well.
While some vernacular content was available in the news and entertainment genre, traditionally, with the advent of new-age platforms like news and entertainment-driven apps and social media, the need for regional content to connect with the end-user is seeing a sporadic rise. Platforms catering to localised content are showing better performance.
In fact, recently, Franchise India which is nationally famous for its contribution in the franchise sector has started posting news and articles in the Hindi language as well believing the fact that India has many great entrepreneurs that might understand and related to its vision clearly through this language. The firm believes that it can help them gain more audience that might be interested in their services.
Going by the reports, about 60 percent of the viewership is coming from outside six large cities and of that 95 percent is in Indian languages. Added to that, Malayalam language content is growing 100 percent year-on-year in watch time. `With over 265 million users coming to YouTube in India every month, diversity of Indian content on YouTube has never been this good before.
The fact that Indian language users have overtaken English language users on the Internet in India is proof.
The steady rise of apps like ShareChat etc,which offers people a platform to connect in a localised language or provides an ease of filing stories online by a journalist in a regional language or airing a live interview in real-time without worrying about it being dubbed in English is a clear signal that in the years to come, with more of digitisation and technology; personalised and customised offerings in the localised language will be the norm.
The growing online user base in India, especially in the semi-urban and rural segment is set to see an increased demand (and consumption) of vernacular content while also an increase in digital advertising spend in the regional media that is set to grow from a mere $300 million in 2018 to $3 billion by 2023, as per the report Vernacular is Now by RedSeer Consulting.
Market leaders like Facebook, Google, etc who hold 80 percent of the India digital advertising spend, are already supporting languages like in Tamil, Hindi, Marathi and Bengali and are very focussed on localisation, "the writing is clearly on the wall!" And it's vernacular.
(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)
Indian Angel Network, a pioneer in the seed and early-stage investing, has recently invested in Sattuz.
Owned and operated by Gorural Foods & Beverages, the Bihar-based brand is facilitating improved access to the goodness of foods and beverages of rural India for the global consumer base comprising new-age, health-conscious individuals.
IAN investors Hari Balasubramanian and Vikas Kuthiala led the funding round and will join the company board at Sattuz post investment.
Hari Balasubramanian, Lead Investor, IAN said,
“The Indian consumer is always looking for new and healthy non-alcoholic beverages with distinct taste and Sattuz comes as a unique option for beverage lovers not just domestically but also across the world. We hope state governments like Bihar where people consume Sattu also start recognising and supporting startups which are looking to build FMCG brands from traditional Indian food items.”
Incorporated on February 28, 2019, Gorural Foods & Beverages was founded bySachin Kumar and Richa Kumari with the vision of providing a tasty and healthy alternative to carbonated and caffeinated beverages currently flooding the market.
Sachin Kumar, Founder, Sattuz, said,
“People today – especially the younger generation – are very selective regarding what they eat and drink and how it will affect their health. Naturally, they realize the value of consuming non-carbonated and non-caffeinated beverages as part of a healthy diet.”
“But the problem is that such products have very limited availability, especially in India. And add to it the challenges faced by people with fast-paced or travel-centric lifestyles who seek healthy food on the fly. Through Sattuz, we aim to fill this void. Not only do the drinks under this brand offer instant energy and nutritious boost to consumers but also give them a dollop of the natural goodness of rural food and beverages.” he added.
According to the startup, the non-alcoholic beverage industry currently stands at over Rs 200,000 crore and Sattuz – on the back of its nutritional benefits and ease of transportation – is well-placed to disrupt this high-value market. The company is targeting to capture 1-2 percent of market share over the next five years.
Gorural Foods & Beverages claims to be the first startup from Bihar, which has received investment from IAN and some members of BIA (Bihar Industries Association).
With investors from 11 countries, IAN’s presence spans seven locations, which includes cities in India and the UK. The network is sector agnostic and has funded startups across 17 sectors in India and 7 other countries growing global footprint companies. Some of its marquee investee companies include WebEngage, Druva, Box8, Sapience Analytics, WOW Momos, Consure amongst many others.
Through its Rs 450 crore VC fund, IAN offers a platform for seed & early stage, where entrepreneurs can raise from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 crore of funding.
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