Launched in 2014, PhotoSparks is a weekly feature from YourStory, with photographs that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In the earlier 410 posts, we featured an art festival, cartoon gallery. world music festival, telecom expo, millets fair, climate change expo, wildlife conference, startup festival, Diwali rangoli, and jazz festival.

With keynote addresses, panel discussions, entrepreneur exhibitions, demo sessions and workshops, the fifth edition of the annual IoTNext conference kicked off this week in Bengaluru. The conference is organised by think-tank IoT Forum, a partnership between TiE Bangalore and IESA (India Electronics and Semiconductor Association). There are 500 delegates, 25 exhibitors and over 50 startups participating this year.

Awards are being given to the most promising IoT startups by sector: agritech (FarmGain Agro), healthcare (Dipitr Technologies), industrial IoT (Occipital Labs), emerging tech (AeroLogiks), and scaled-up startup (Smarter Home Technologies).

India now has around 1,500 IoT startups, according to the IoT Forum IoT Startup Directory 2019, released at the conference. The breakdown of startup locations across Indian cities is Bengaluru (720), NCR (180), Mumbai (94), Pune (91), Hyderabad (82), and Chennai (64), with dozens of other startups cropping up in Coimbatore, Kochi, Kolkata and other cities.

The IoT startups are spread across sectors, with managed services leading the pack: IoT services (480), transport (287), consumer (273), commercial (246), industrial (173), retail (173), agri (162), wellness (150), and utility (82).

The Indian IoT Start-up Directory was first published in 2016, followed by annual updates (see online version here). Since its launch in June 2014, IoTForum has held around 60 events across India. See also YourStory’s coverage of IoT Day 2019, and earlier IoT activities by TiE Bangalore: IoT SIG, IoT Next Summit, IoT startup showcase, SMAC Day, IESA Vision Summit, and Smart Mobility. 

From the quantified self and smart home to ambient entertainment and intelligent factory, IoT has a wide range of applications. Over the years, there has been a dramatic increase in affordability of technology components of IoT like sensors, bandwidth, cloud infrastructure, open source libraries, and tools for analytics and AI/ML.

The conference organisers cited sources such as Angel.co (over 3,000 IoT startups listed globally) and CB Insights ($12.5B invested in IoT startups worldwide in the last five years by VCs). In India, the IoT Forum has tracked the rise of Indian IoT startups over the years: 2014 (123 startups), 2015 (275 startups), and 2016 (470 startups).

The theme of the conference this year is ‘IoT Matrix: Enhanced Reality and a Data-driven Future.’ Data holds the key to an enhanced and secure immersive environment, according to Arvind Tiwary, IoT Forum Chair.

“You can survive only if you are in the innovation business,” he emphasised. He traced a range of tech impacts such as the rise of ‘likes’ currency and customer intimacy at scale. The global digital ecosystem is spawning a wide range of business models as well.

Citizens will need to get used to living with paradoxes as a part of daily life, with seemingly contradictory thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis. “Get used to white water rafting,” Arvind joked.

“Start off with a focus on a clearly-defined and narrow customer segment. Then aim for at least 25 percent market share from overseas,” Arvind advised Indian IoT startups, in an interview with YourStory. Founding teams should carefully assess the hype around emerging technologies, and be prudent in deals involving governments or government-run businesses.

Thanks to the IoTNext Forum, the IoT startup ecosystem in India is receiving a boost from government schemes, spectrum advocacy, platform workshops, news coverage, and facilitating events. IESA, with over 300 institutional members, is also partnering with STPI on the IoT Open Lab initiative.

IoT permeates every aspect of individual, social, business and government life, according to Ravi Gururaj, President, TiE Bangalore. Agricultural applications of IoT can boost yields of individual farmers as well as entire states, observed Venkatesh Kumaran, President, AxLerate NOW.

These trends are reflected in the conference track themes: edge computing, security, industrial applications of AR/VR, and agri-sensor applications. There are also discussions around the larger issues of government policy, standardisation, corporate-startup partnerships, and globalisation strategies.

For example, IoT-driven inputs can inform farmers better on “what, where, when, and why” to plant certain crops. Benefits also extend to supply chain management, warehouse operations, and retail services.

“Thanks to its large domestic market and global offshoring base, IoT can help India become the data capital of the world,” said Satya Gupta, Vice Chairman, IESA. Government policy will play a key role in this regard.

IoT is set to drive an even bigger transformation than the first wave of the Internet, thanks to the fact that more devices than people are now online. However, this will put more pressure on humans to be even more creative than machines and algorithms, according to Supria Dhanda, Vice President and Country Manager, Western Digital.

Technology will also need to be humanised and made more inclusive, given the range of misconceptions and biases in society that are under risk of being amplified even more. The tech community should focus not just on productivity gains but also risk management and the larger public good. For example, public security and law enforcement can be improved, but not at the risk of creating a surveillance society.

Many innovative uses of IoT were showcased by the startups and exhibitors at the conference, as shown in this photo essay: Candiphi, FoodPrint, Karab, Smarter Homes, Ksens, RDL Technologies, Avench, Immunis IP, EmbedSense, Strack 360, Ignitarum, Lantronix, AgroBlock, Flippar, TechnoSphere, SenseGiz, Augmented Byte, MakerBot, iWave, Envitus, and DigiNest.

Now, what have you done today to stop in your busy schedule, and find ways to position for the tech-transformed world of tomorrow?

Got a creative photograph to share? Email us at PhotoSparks@YourStory.com!

See also the YourStory pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups,’ accessible as apps for Apple and Android devices.

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Reliance Jio on Sunday said it will launch new unlimited plans from December 6, which will raise its voice and data tariff by up to 40 percent.

The Mukesh Ambani-led company, however, said that customers will get up to 300 percent more benefits under the new plans and it will offer fair usage policy for outgoing calls from its subscribers on the network of other telecom operators.

"Jio will be introducing new all-in-one plans with unlimited voice and data. These plans will have a fair usage policy for calls to other mobile networks. The new plans will be effective from December 6, 2019," the company said in a statement.

Jio said it will continue to work with the government on the consultation process for revision of telecom tariffs and looks forward to participation from all other stakeholders. Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel have also announced to raise mobile calling and data rates from December 3.

Earlier, Reliance Jio, deemed India's fastest-growing 4G network, posted a net profit of Rs 990 crore for the September quarter, marking a 45.3 percent growth from a year ago. Revenue increased 33.7 percent year-on-year to Rs 12,354 crore.

In these 12 months, Jio also added 103 million subscribers to its network, with a churn rate of 0.74 percent, which is below the industry average. Jio's total subscriber base now stands at 355.2 million, covering 99 percent of India's population, Reliance revealed.

The company further revealed that in the past two years, Jio has witnessed more than 3x increase in voice and data traffic. This is driven by its "deeper 4G network presence and affordable tariffs" that continue to attract first-time mobile internet users.

"We are still adding more than 10 million new customers every month. Jio is not only India’s largest telecom enterprise in terms of subscribers and revenue but has also become the Digital Gateway of India," added Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries.

(Disclaimer: Additional background information has been added to this PTI copy for context)

(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)

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Mobile calls and internet charges will go up by up to 50 percent in the country, as three private sector players⁠—Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and Reliance Jio—on Sunday announced their plans for a tariff raise from December 3.

This is the first hike in the last five years in the country's telecom space, which has been facing a bruising tariff war, with voice calls becoming almost free and data prices falling by 95 percent to Rs 11.78 per GB from Rs 269 per GB in 2014.

While Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea have shared their new rates in the ‘unlimited’ category that will replace their existing pre-paid plans with up to 50 percent hike in cost, Reliance Jio said it will roll out new all-in-one plans with unlimited voice and data from December 6 at up to 40 percent higher prices.

Vodafone Idea was the first to announce new tariffs/plans for its prepaid products and services, stating, “the new plans will be available across India starting 00:00 hours of 3 December 2019”.

Bharti Airtel followed by announcing similar plans to raise its prepaid mobile services rates.

Vodafone Idea announced the maximum increase of 50 percent for the price of its entry-level unlimited plan with a year-long validity of Rs 1,499 with 24 GB data usage limit, in place of its current Rs 999 plan, which comes with 12 GB data usage limit.

Bharti Airtel too announced a similar level of change but kept the prices of most of the new plans lower by Re 1 compared to those of Vodafone Idea.

From December 3, customers of these two companies will have to shell out a minimum of Rs 49 to make calls, access the internet on mobile, and stay connected for four weeks.

While telecom operators have been offering unlimited voice calling, both Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel have now decided to cap the outgoing calls outside their network from December 3.

Both the companies have capped outgoing calls to network of other telecom operator to 1,000 minutes in case of plans with 28 days validity, 3,000 in 84-days validity plans, and 12,000 in 365-days validity plans. Beyond this limit, customers will need to pay 6 paise per minute for outgoing calls.

According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), prices of mobile data have fallen drastically since 2014 by about 95 percent to Rs 11.78 per GB.

The average cost to the subscriber for wireless data in 2014 was Rs 269 per GB and Rs 226 per GB in 2015. But, after the introduction of 4G technology in India, the average cost to subscriber for wireless data usage sharply declined to Rs 75.57 per GB during 2016.

This average cost for wireless data further declined from Rs 19.35 per GB in 2017 to Rs 11.78 per GB in 2018.

The telecom companies’ move to raise mobile tariff follows the Supreme Court judgement, on October 24 this year, that upheld the government's method of calculating the revenue share that it should receive from the earnings of service providers.

Vodafone Idea last month reported a consolidated loss of Rs 50,921 crore—the highest ever loss posted by any Indian corporate—for the September quarter on account of liability arising from the Supreme Court order.

The company has estimated a liability of Rs 44,150 crore post the apex court order, and made provisioning of Rs 25,680 crore for the same in the second quarter this fiscal.

Vodafone Idea which is reeling under massive debts of around Rs 1.17 lakh crore had earlier cited acute financial stress on the company behind its decision to raise mobile call and data charges.

Bharti Airtel has posted a staggering Rs 23,045 crore net loss for the second quarter ended September 30, due to a provisioning of Rs 28,450 crore in the aftermath of the SC ruling on statutory dues.

According to government data, the liabilities in the case of Bharti Airtel add up to nearly Rs 35,586 crore, of which Rs 21,682 crore is licence fee and another Rs 13,904.01 crore is the SUC dues (excluding the dues of Telenor and Tata Teleservices).

The government is currently not considering any proposal on waiving penalties and interest on outstanding licence fee based on adjusted gross revenue (AGR) or on extending the timelines for telecom companies to pay their statutory dues.  

(Edited by Athirupa Geetha Manichandar)

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After crossing the landmark figure of one billion in October, UPI transactions in the country touched a new high in November.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) announced in a tweet that UPI clocked 1.22 billion transactions worth Rs 1.89 lakh crore for the month.

That is an increase of 6 percent in the number of transactions, but a marginal decline of 1.1 percent in the transaction value.

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In October, 1.15 billion transactions amounting to Rs 1.91 lakh crore had been carried out. Earlier in September, more than 955 million transactions generating Rs 1.61 lakh crore were clocked on UPI-led apps.

In fact, between September and October 2019, transactions had shot up 19.4 percent, possibly led by festive season sales.

In October, NPCI had even partnered with the IT Department to allow citizens to pay income tax via UPI. That too played its part in boosting transactions for the month.

In a statement to the media, Dilip Asbe, Managing Director and CEO, NPCI, said,

"It is encouraging to witness digital payments being widely accepted across the country. This is a result of the continued support that UPI has received from the ecosystem, including banks and third-party payment apps and the policy initiatives by the Government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the digital payments."

Interestingly, UPI transactions have almost doubled over the last 11 months from 673 million in January to 1.22 billion in November.

To further boost the usage, NPCI plans to launch UPI in markets like Singapore and the UAE too. This is aimed at easing currency conversions for Indian travellers abroad.

NPCI had earlier announced that it hopes to grow UPI's user base "five-fold" to 500 million in the next three years. The service, which launched in 2016, counts a little over 100 million users presently.

UPI payments are supported by Paytm, Google Pay, PhonePe, Amazon Pay, Mobikwik, SBI Pay, iMobile, Axis Pay, BOB UPI, and several others.

(Edited by Suman Singh)

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After CEO and Co-founder of Ola Bhavish Aggarwal recently revealed the company's path to an initial public offering (IPO) in the next two years, the ride-hailing aggregator has attracted all the more attention to its fiscal performance.

According to its RoC filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Ola Cabs, registered under ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd, recorded a whopping Rs 2543.63 crore in operational revenue in FY19, against Rs 1847.53 crore in FY18. The company also saw its losses narrowed to Rs 2592.92 crore this fiscal year, against Rs 2842.26 crore during FY18.

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The income generated from its subscription services like Ola Select and Ola Pass has come down to Rs 27.21 crore this fiscal, from Rs 42.27 crore generated in FY18. Money spent on advertising and promotions was clocked at Rs 469.02 crore for FY19, while it was Rs 406.24 crore in the last fiscal.

The amount spent on information technology (IT) is recorded at Rs 280.74 crore this fiscal, while it was only Rs 254.05 crore in FY18.

Valued at a little over $6 billion and having raised over $3.5 billion from the likes of Temasek Holdings, Tiger Global, Softbank, and Matrix Partners, Ola is now present in 250 cities across India, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

Ola also reports to have received the largest domestic investment made by a single individual, Sachin Bansal, Co-founder of Flipkart. The startup received funding of $92 million (Rs 650 crore) from Sachin earlier this year.

According to sources, Ola is also in advanced talks to raise about $150-200 million (Rs 1,050-1,400 crore) from tech giant Microsoft

Speaking at TechSparks 2019, CEO Bhavish had said,

“We are looking to offer the whole spectrum, where consumers can look at any form of mobility. Increasing the penetration of shared mobility is going to be a big focus in India.”

The company has branched out in recent times by foraying into the cloud kitchen segment and building an electric vehicle entity, Ola Electric, which is also a unicorn. More recently, the startup entered the self-drive segment with Ola Drive.

In India, Ola claims to have over 125 million users and more than one million driver partners. It is serving as many as one billion rides every year through its platform.

(Edited by Athirupa Geetha Manichandar)

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Infra.Market, a Mumbai-based B2B online procurement marketplace for real estate and construction materials on Monday said that it has raised $20 million in Series A funding round led by Tiger Global, Nexus Venture Partners, and existing investors Accel Partners. The company plans to use the freshly raised funds for its product and geographical expansion.

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Earlier in August 2019, the company had announced that it had raised $3.5 million in a seed round from Accel Partners. It also raised a debt round of $4.5 million from InnoVen Capital in September. Dhruv Agarwala, the Founder and CEO of PropTiger is also an angel investor in the startup.

“This round happened before we expected, we are not looking to raise more funds. Currently, we are a high margin company and we have to stick to that. Our current monthly revenue is at $5 million and we aim to use the funds to grow the revenue to up to $20 million per month,” Co-founder Souvik Sengupta said.

With technology at its focal point, Infra.Market was founded by Souvik Sengupta and Aditya Sharda in 2016. A centralised online marketplace for real estate and construction materials, Infra.Market offers fair pricing and enhanced tech experience to its clients.

The startup aggregates its client’s demands and matches them with its supply chain, offering economies of scale on material pricing, along with affordable credit options.

Currently operational in Bengaluru, Pune, and Mumbai, Infra.market is looking to expand its footprint into cities including Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Chennai.

By March 2020, Infra.Market expects to be operational in at least five cities. The startup will also focus on expanding its product line to become a one-stop B2B ecommerce platform.

Infra.Market’s client list includes the likes of ACC, Prism Johnson, JSW, IndiaCements, Dalmia, Nuvoco, Wonder Cement (earlier Lafarge), Capacite, Shapoorji, TataProjects, RDC Concrete, Sobha Developers, NCCCL, Godrej, and Swastik Infra.

“While today we handle some of the clients' product requirements, we want to expand our offerings and want their entire procurement to go through us,” Souvik said.

According to the founders, the company has been profitable since its inception.

(Edited by Suman Singh)

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Our world is changing rapidly, and not just for the greater good. In the last few decades alone, our once abundant rivers have begun drying up, mighty mountains are dying, hunger is thriving and pollution is choking our cities – all symptoms of a change for the worse.

These statistics are not meant to alarm, but to bring immediate and urgent need for change; a change for the good. Every big movement in history started with a single voice or a small group perhaps, which then snowballed into mass movements. All it takes is the drive to do some good in the world – a kind of goodness that lasts forever.

100 Pipers ‘Play for a Cause’ has channelised these vibes into a movement by turning to music. It was Jimi Hendrix who said, “Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.” Taking a leaf out of this eternal rockstar’s book, 100 Pipers ‘Play for a Cause’ started a first-of-its-kind musical movement on November 29, with #100Pipers100Gigs, where 100 of India's most celebrated music bands came in unison to play for not just one, but 15 causes.

1 day. 100 gigs. 27 cities. 15 causes.

Leading bands like Parikrama, Delhi Indie Project, Indus Creed, The Local Train, Peepal Tree and many more, together performed live across 27 cities to raise awareness for different social and environmental causes – from water scarcity, gender equality and dying arts, to raise a voice against the evil of hunger and polluting our oceans, among others.

Bengaluru, the Mecca of the independent music scene in India, played host to 11 rocking performances with some of the most well-known bands from around the country. Known for its sprawling rock music culture, the city of startups played host to edgy indie music with Peepal Tree, Girish and the Chronicles, Perfect Strangers, Soundarya, The Sylvester Trio, Akog, Mahesh & the FTP, Aabha Hanjura & Sufistication, KA 19, Siddharth Menon and Suraj Mani, all lending their voice in the fight to #PreventWaterPollution, the cause that Bengaluru stood for.

Musician Siddharth Menon, who performed in Bengaluru, not only enthralled the audience with his high-energy performance, but left the crowd with a tinkering thought about standing up to #FightWaterPollution in Bengaluru, the cause that Menon was supporting.

“While it is always a pleasure to perform in the garden city, this time was a lot more special as I had the honour of being part of such an important initiative with 100 Pipers Play For A Cause. Always believed that music unites people like nothing else does, and this event is a classic example,” he said.

The cause of preventing water pollution and scarcity strikes a personal note with the Kerala-born musician - “My family and friends were severely affected by the Kerala floods last year. It was that incident that made me think about the environment actively. I’m making small changes in my life to be more conscious of water usage”

Echoing Menon’s sentiments, Aabha Hanjura of Sufistication, who also performed in Bengaluru supporting to #FightWaterPollution, says music transcends language to bring people together, “Music has the power to start conversations, which is the first step towards change. For me, water has always been an important cause and I’m glad we are a part of this conversation with 100 Pipers Play For A Cause”.

100 Pipers has always lived its brand philosophy of ‘Be Remembered for Good’ with various endeavours that lead to a positive change. In the past as well, ‘Play For A Cause’ has brought celebrated musicians to create awareness for various causes and championed social change. With this year’s #100Pipers100Gigs, 100 Pipers ‘Play For A Cause’ has led this change from the front while inspiring people to join forces. Even you can be a part of the movement and pledging your support here.

Syed Arshad grew up in the small town of Bhagalpur in Bihar. His father was a co-operative inspection officer for the state government. There were no entrepreneurs in his family; no one had ever run any business. It was a typical Indian small-town, middle-class family. Arshad did not have any plans to pursue entrepreneurship either. But destiny had other plans.

The Bihar boy moved to Delhi in 2002 to finish his schooling at Jamia Senior Secondary School (a wing of Jamia Millia Islamia). After school, Arshad joined the Indian Institute of Aeronautics to study aircraft maintenance engineering. “But it proved to be difficult at that time to get a job in the aviation industry. So, I joined IBM as a collection expert (agent),” he explains. He worked in the sector for a few years and during this phase something happened that would change his life. 

Arshad always wanted to write. So, he penned a romantic fiction, called If It’s Not Love, during his days as a collection agent. He struggled to find a publisher and finally decided to self-publish through an agency in Kolkata. After this, a number of people reached out to him wanting to know how he managed to self-publish. He started to help people get their books published and soon realised there is a market for it as a business. 

“After the book was published many people contacted me to understand the process. Seeing the interest, I thought why not start a company. I analysed the market and figured there is definitely a need,” says Arshad.

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Starting up

In 2015, Arshad registered BlueRose Publishers as a proprietary firm in Delhi. He invested Rs 5 lakh into the business, which came from personal savings and a bank loan. In the first year he had two people working with him and the company made only Rs 20,000. But things turned around after a year and the revenue shot up to Rs 10 lakh. Since then the Delhi company’s topline has seen consistent growth - in 2017, it clocked a revenue of Rs 1 crore. In 2018 it touched Rs 3 crore, and in 2019 it’s set to go over Rs 7 crore, or $1 million. Today the company is a private limited company with 50 people working for it. In 2018, it also branched into traditional publishing.

So, what is the secret sauce that took the company from earning a few thousand rupees to crores, from having three authors a year to 1,500 in 2019? “Honestly, it is all about strategising things in business; there is really no secret sauce,” says Arshad.

What is self-publishing?

Self-publishing, as the term suggests, is the process of getting one’s book published by themselves. As a writer, one can design, edit, print, and distribute their work on your own, or one can hire a platform that takes care of all the needs of the manuscript and brings it out in the market for a fee. Companies like BlueRose offer end-to-end services ranging from filing copyright application, editing, designing, and formatting to listing on online portals such as Amazon. Other companies that operate in the self-publishing space include Chennai-based Notion Press, Partridge India (an imprint of Penguin Books), and The Write Place (a Crossword Bookstore initiative).

What sets BlueRose apart from its competition, according to Arshad, is the fact that they charge “much less” than the others. “If Notion’s starting fee is, say, Rs 30,000, ours would be Rs 15,000. That’s the kind of price difference that we have,” he says.

Author Rashmi Trivedi’s book Woman, Everything Will Be Fine! published by the company in 2016 went on to become an Amazon No.1 bestseller. Her second book, Ashes To Dreams, which was published in 2018 through the company’s traditional publishing platform also went on to do well and was among the 10 Amazon bestsellers.

“We have writers from almost every sector and with works in most genres, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, academic, and self-help. We are quite optimised on Google search and are very active on social media. Our audience find us through one of these platforms and a lot of them come to us through references from previously published writers from BlueRose,” says Arshad.

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Future plans 

BlueRose plans to launch a reading lounge in Delhi by early next year. The company wants to test the market starting with the capital city and will look at other cities depending on how the pilot project performs. 

It is looking to raise half a million dollars for expanding its business as it looks to go global. The company has already collaborated with a publishing company in Germany, called Omni Spectrum.

“We will be part of the London Book Fair in March 2020 and are hoping to collaborate with some companies and bring in some business,” says Arshad. BlueRose is currently in talks with investors who have shown interest. “It is a matter of choosing the right fit as far as investors are concerned,” he adds.

The publishing industry in India is currently worth around $8 billion and is set to touch $10 billion by 2020.

(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)

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Yash Vyas was working in a retail store in Dubai when he stumbled upon the concept of hydroponics in a newspaper. Hydroponics (also known as ‘soilless farming’) is a practice where plants are grown indoors using mineral nutrient solutions in water solvents.

It fascinated Yash instantly and also made him realise that Dubai’s harsh desert climate had made it difficult to grow farms.

“There was inefficiency of land and water, and almost no greenery either at home or outside. That formed my belief that hydroponics could be a fix. It is a clean and sustainable solution, unlike current farming techniques,” Yash tells YourStory. 

He then returned to India at the end of 2017, and started Agro2o in early 2018. 

Growing an indoor smart garden

The Delhi-based startup operates at the intersection of agritech and IoT. 

Agro2o has developed a proprietary smart garden using a fully automated indoor hydroponics system. The plug-and-play solution allows anyone to grow fresh herbs, veggies, medicinal plants, and even flowers inside their homes. Because it is an IoT-enabled product, it requires little human attention on a daily basis. 

The Founder-CEO explains,

“We call it automated hydroponics. Depending on the plant type, the system can intelligently judge and provide the level of light, water, and nutrients required, and create an ideal growing condition for the plant. There are microcontrollers fitted into it. All you have to do is insert a nutrient cartridge depending on the plant you want to grow.” 

The smart garden is also enabled with a touchscreen and WiFi connectivity. It sends out alerts to users whenever the water has to be topped up. 

In future, the system could even come with Alexa integrations, Yash shares. 

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Intersection of hydroponics and automation

He explains that this unique marriage between hydroponics and automation is a result of the startup’s two years of extensive R&D in plant science, for which it collaborated with the Delhi University’s Department of Plant Molecular Biology. 

“We also acquired expertise in automation and AI to be able to perfect the technology and apply for design patents,” Yash reveals. 

While the product is yet to see a commercial launch (planned for early 2020), Agro2o showcased its technology at the Startup Expo held in September. “It attracted a lot of interest from investors and general buyers,” claims the Founder.

Agro2o has even opened pre-orders on its website. 

It has also been incubated by Electropreneur Park, an initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The currently bootstrapped startup might even look to raise a seed round of Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 2 crore in 2020.

Agro2o’s current device allows you to grow 10-12 crops at a time. These are categorised into Herbs, Greens, Veggies, and Ornamentals.  “Categories of crops cannot be mixed because the nutrients and conditions required for each are different,” Yash says. 

He adds that a 24-crop device is in the pipeline. The plan is to have three products for varying crop capacities in the price range of Rs 8,000 to Rs 18,000. “It is like any other consumer durable device that can last you for 4-5 years,” Yash adds.

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Key markets and growth plans

As could be expected, the demand for indoor hydroponics systems is much higher in the Gulf countries than in India. The founder attributes this to severe climatic conditions and higher disposable incomes in these regions. 

Hence, to tap into this growing demand, Agro2o will launch in the Middle East along with its rollout in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chennai. 

By 2025, the startup plans to sell two lakh units in India, and clock revenue of Rs 300 crore - Rs 350 crore. In the GCC countries, meanwhile, it hopes to sell about five lakh units in five years.

Yash observes, “I see two user profiles for our products. One is the value-conscious customer who wants something positive in their space. The second is urban millennials who like cool gadgets and also love cooking with fresh veggies and herbs.”

While smart homes is Agro2o’s immediate focus, the startup also has ambitions to venture into the smart farms segment.

“Technology-enabled commercial soilless agriculture will soon become a reality,” says Yash.

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Tech a facilitator for soilless agriculture

Hydroponics is a nascent sector in India. 

But globally, the market is expected to be worth $12.1 billion by 2025, with Asia Pacific being the growth driver, according to Transparency Market Research. 

Agro2o claims to be the first in Asia to launch a smart hydroponics product. “So, building awareness is both an opportunity and a challenge,” says the founder. 

“Our nearest [undisclosed] competitor in the West is valued at only $120 million. This is a relatively new sector, but there is a large potential to be realised,” he explains.

Does Agro2o want to be seen as an agritech or an IoT company?

A bit of both perhaps.  Or, as Yash puts it: an innovation company in the smart hydroponics sector.

“Tech is just a facilitator to make soilless farming more accessible,” he signs off.

(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)

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While Indian healthcare has made serious strides in the recent years, the country is still a very underserved market. According to the Association of Healthcare Providers (India) the total number of beds per thousand people is a dismal .9. According to the National Centre for Biotechnology Information the number of doctors per thousand people is only 1.34.

In order to address the multitude of issues that contribute to these worrying numbers, a crop of doctors have turned entrepreneurs. They, after all, are well-positioned to tease out the gaps in the sector.

Bengaluru-based Asia Healthcare Holdings is betting on these ‘docpreneurs’. At the helm of this venture owned by PE firm TPG Growth, which is owned by TPG Capital, is Vishal Bali, the executive who knows a thing or two about speciality healthcare delivery, having worked for Wockhardt for 18 years before it was acquired by Fortis in 2009.

He speaks to YourStory about what how the platform is betting on speciality hospitals to address the supply deficit in the Indian healthcare scenario.

The idea and the business

The idea for Asia Healthcare Holdings began to take root in 2015 when Vishal Bali was at TPG Growth. Since 2007, US-based TPG Growth has pumped close to $15 billion in upcoming businesses that have healthcare as a major vertical.

“When we thought of the AHH platform there was a differentiated thought process. We wanted to invest in multiple companies where we build and grow the company along with the founders. It is a platform because a bunch of companies get common administrative support from AHH. It is very different from a buyout model, where a company has already scaled. We follow a build-and-grow model,” says Vishal Bali, CEO of AHH.

The idea was to invest in speciality centres founded by entrepreneurial doctors. TPG Growth then created a fully funded platform in the form of AHH to scale up small-format specialty hospitals, with Vishal heading the entire investment strategy. These specialty hospitals can bridge the gap in demand-supply in treatment with a bed size of 50 to 300 beds. “The key is replication of these small formats. With that hypothesis we started in 2016 where we invested American Oncology Institute, which was run by entrepreneurs,” says Vishal.

AHH took a majority share in the American Oncology Institute (AOI), founded by Cancer Treatment Services. The AOI was started in the US by leading oncologists in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, one of the leading oncology providers in the US. In India, it had begun as an oncology hospital in Hyderabad. It has since then opened hospitals in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

In three years, AOI went from one hospital to 13. Refraining from laying out the details of the exit, Vishal says that it was great one for AHH. AOI’s revenue was $50 million when the company was sold in early 2019 for an undisclosed amount to Varian Medical Systems.

AHH has a strong operating capability to grow businesses because its core team takes care of operations, finance, project support and supply chain. The average amount invested in each centre is Rs 20 crore. Till now AHH has deployed $150 million in capital in total to AOI (now sold), Motherhood, Ampath Diagnostics (now sold as it was owned by CTSI), and Nova IVF.

Doubling down on mother and childcare

AHH made an undisclosed investment in Motherhood in 2016 and helped the chain grow from from three hospitals to 11. The idea was to grow from it from a birthing centre to a centre for children by adding neonatology, pediatrics, and other allied child care services. Now Motherhood can also receive premature babies from other hospitals.

To complete the birthing chain, it invested in Nova IVI Fertility in 2019. Nova IVF has 19 centres. With these two chains, AHH intends to create the largest mother- and child-focused healthcare platform in India.

“We will continue to work with entrepreneurs, doctors, executives with clinical acumen. The idea is to have multipliers in this model of specialty hospitals in small formats,’’ says Vishal.

AHH is now looking for doctors who run ophthalmology centres for its next set of investments. “We will be going after micro-markets,’’ Vishal confirms.

According to IBEF the hospital industry will be worth $132 billion in 2022, currently the market is around $70 billion. No wonder TPG Growth, through AHH, has made the right bets in the Indian market, with entrepreneurs tuned into the unique challenges plaguing the healthcare landscape of the country.

(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)

Fifteen-year-old venture capital fund Accel India today announced that it had closed its sixth India fund to the tune of $550 million. With this new capital, the VC firm will continue placing bets in seed and early-stage startups across India despite the reigning sentiments of a slowdown.

“We look at a 10-year window when investing in startups so we do not just go by the current local market conditions,” Accel partners said.

The firm believes that it has been on the ground for 15 years and has seen a few cycles of slowdown, “so if we have something good, we look at it,” they said.

Started in 2005 in India, Accel is credited with placing some early bets on more than 100 early-stage Indian startups, including Flipkart, Swiggy, and Freshworks. Some of these early bets, which Accel terms as its ‘Originals’, have given the firm happy dividends and a reputation of a ‘kingmaker’ in the Indian startup ecosystem.

“When we started our first fund in India in 2005, the world was a very different place. Just one in 50 Indians had access to the internet and mobile phone ownership was nascent. Yet we firmly believed that India was on the cusp of a big change,” the VC firm notes in its official release.

The firm started with an $800,000 investment in Flipkart and continued backing the company until the startup was acquired by Walmart in an enviable deal worth $16 billion, valuing it at over $21 billion—the largest-ever acquisition of a private, venture-backed company in the world.

Accel invested $1 million in Freshworks in 2011 when the software-as-a-service category from India was almost non-existent. Girish Mathrubootham-led Freshworks is today a global company with more than 2,500 employees and is valued at $3.5 billion.

Similarly, Accel’s seed investment in Swiggy was $1 million when it was making around 100 deliveries a day in Bangalore. Swiggy now handles more than one million daily orders and is valued at $3.4 billion.

The firm notes that it is the first institutional investor in more than 85 percent of all its investments and in addition to the companies above, it is the first partner to founders at category-defining startups such as Acko, Akamara, Blackbuck, BookMyShow, Bounce, BrowserStack, Cogoport, Clevertap, Curefit, Drip Capital, Farcast Biosciences, Moglix, Ninjacart, Portea, Rupeek, Samunnati, StanzaLiving, UrbanClap, USPL, Zenoti, Zetwerk, Zinier and many more.

Interestingly, to a question by YourStory on the investment sentiment on the consumer business, Anand Daniel, Partner at Accel, who has led investments in consumer technology, online marketplaces, mobility, and healthcare, said that the newer set of startups is scaling faster and there is a lot of scope for them to refine their offering.

“It is a changing landscape and very early days in India. There are opportunities across all sectors. We may take these early bets and some may work, some may not.”

Today, India has 600 million internet users and 150 million online transacting customers with a national payments platform that processes $20 billion a month. Anand says, “Swiggy recently announced it is in 500 cities, when we invested in them we could never imagine that.”

Accel has so far raised $1 billion capital across five rounds and has 44 companies with more than $100 million valuation. It typically invests across five areas, including consumer, B2B, SaaS, fintech, and healthcare.

On the way forward, the firm believes that it sees the trend of digital adoption play out not only in categories like food delivery, digital payments, and e-commerce, but also across sectors like agritech, education, insurance, logistics, healthcare, real estate, and manufacturing.

“In the last decade, Indian tech startups have created around $100 billion of enterprise value and as the GDP doubles in the next decade, we see startups creating disproportionately higher value,” the release notes.

To another question on how the nine partners come to a decision about investing in a particular company, they said each one has the flexibility to make their decisions and it helps to have a diverse thought process.

“So when we invest in a startup, it becomes an Accel company as opposed to a single partner’s portfolio,” the partners said. With its founder-first approach, Accel supports its startups in product and scale thinking, brand and digital marketing, organisational scaling and culture, and financial metrics.

Accel was founded in Silicon Valley over 35 years ago. "We believe bold, exceptional entrepreneurs—people we refer to as “Originals”— are not confined to geographies, they come from everywhere. It is the reason we have a presence in India for over 15 years and in Europe for nearly two decades," the press note stated.

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Microsoft, IBM, and other Fortune 500 companies are often faced with several business problems. To solve these, their innovation teams use AI and computer vision-based solutions. Arjun Das, Arun Das, Jack Kundamal, and Sougata Majumdar were a part of such teams for long. 

“While we were almost always able to devise a suitable algorithm tailored to the business problem, overall projects had varying degrees of success due to the realities of receiving training data and other such ‘last-mile’ problems. Often, these initiatives were shelved before we could realise the fruits of our labour due to typical large company priorities,” Arjun says. 

After several such iterations they realised that they were on the cutting edge of computer vision and recognition analytics, but were not able to achieve their full potential.  

“It was then that we decided to form our own company to productise our solution and address the ‘teething pains’ and impediments that new deep tech endeavours typically face,” Arjun says. 

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Say hello to Nymo

Nymo Technologies, an AI company that focuses on edge computing, computer vision, and deep learning technologies, was launched in 2018. The startup has built AI algorithms for facial recognition. 

The deep tech startup provides actionable insights through intelligent facial, image, and behaviour recognition while dramatically reducing processing, bandwidth, and storage needs using patented edge computing devices and solutions. 

Nymo’s video analytics platform serves smart cities, retail automation, and security and surveillance for government and private enterprises. The four founders had realised the problem with building these while being a part of larger organisations.

The founding team comes with a wealth of experience. 

Arjun has over 17 years of experience in data science, AI, and ML at the likes of IBM, E&Y, and KPMG, while Amit has 26 years of experience in technology consulting, product development, ML, and financial crime analytics at IBM, Cognizant, and PWC. 

Jack comes with 26 years of experience in predictive data analytics, business development, and solution engineering at Viridyan, Connectiva, and Schlumberger, while Sougata brings in 16 years of experience in front-end application design, user experience, and interface architecture at IBM, Johnson & Johnson, and Deutsche Bank.  

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The challenges and solutions

Speaking of the offering, Arjun says the startup provides edge computing software and devices that are seamlessly integrated with Nymo's video analytics platform. This captures, tracks, manages, and interprets moving objects in a broad range of scenarios. This not only reduces total cost of ownership for the clients but allows them to scale much more efficiently. 

One of the key challenges was to educate the marketplace and potential clients. AI has been around for a while and visual AI has been talked about in the recent past, the perception in the marketplace was that it was a “nice to have” and not necessary mission-critical.  

“The initial hurdle was to convince our customers that not only could it be critical, but more importantly it could be cost-efficient and could provide a healthy return on investment,” Arjun says. 

They overcame this by conducting countless “proof-of-concept” projects to showcase their technology and demonstrate viable, repeatable, and tangible business outcomes. The other thing they did was to partner with system integrators and consultancy firms to get the word out to customers. 

“These firms are usually on the forefront of new technology adoption, and this proved to be an important catalyst for us,” Arjun adds. 

The space and future 

Several startups across different sectors are using AI and computer vision. These include Uncanny Vision, SensoVision Systems, MintM, and IntelloLabs. 

Nymo serves clients in retail, hospitality, government sector, and manufacturing. Some of their clients include Jindal Steel, Petoo, BPL, and Ecoprosus. The team has alliance partners such as Protiviti, KPGM, B4b Solutions, and General Aeronautics. 

It is only this year that Nymo has started going to market. The startup is privately funded by the co-founders and angel investors. It has closed a seed round and expects to raise a Series A round in 2020.

“We expect to have orders in excess of $ 10,000,000 booked this year. We expected to have revenues of $3,000,000 in 2019 and $6,000,000 in 2020,” says Arjun. 

In the coming months, the founders expect customers in Singapore, the UAE, Europe, and the US. 

“While the current focus is on solving adoption challenges to make visual AI truly mission-critical, our future plans are centred on providing actionable insights and smarter devices through AI-powered edge computing,” Arjun says. 

(Edited by Teja Lele Desai)

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As Co-founder and CTO of B2B on-demand delivery startup Shadowfax, Vaibhav Khandelwal now codes only during the weekends. But his journey began by coding 24/7.

He has since then helped found and build Shadowfax, an on-demand last-mile logistics network that offers tech-enabled, one-stop delivery solutions. The multi-modal logistics platform integrates with bikes, minivans, trucks and airlines to deliver across 70 towns and cities in India. 

“It never is about what you can code, but what you can build and what that can do. It is about how much you own something and work towards changing the status quo,” Vaibhav says. 

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A curious mind

Hailing from Jaipur, Vaibhav is the son of a chartered accountant and a homemaker, and was the first person in his family to study science. 

“I was very intrigued by physics and chemistry during childhood. I would always relate real-life scenarios with physics. During winters in Jaipur, the pipes would contract because of the cold, and we would pour hot water on them to help them expand. Similarly, I found chemistry interesting; I represented India at the International Chemistry Olympiad,” he recalls. 

Calling himself a stubborn and competitive child, Vaibhav says he “always wanted to win” and ended up toping till Class 12. However, his love for science didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in other activities. 

A cricket lover (and player), he is a die-hard Sachin Tendulkar fan. “I stopped watching cricket after his retirement," Vaibhav says, adding, "And I prefer conversing in Hindi.” Apart from cricket, Vaibhav also played hockey.

Always interested in trying new things, he found the computer extremely exciting when his father took him to visit his office in the early 90s. Vaibhav spent his time playing games and exploring. 

In 1998, when the family got home a desktop with a dial-up internet connection, he wasted no time in building his own website on HTML. 

“The internet is a great thing for a curious mind like mine. It gave power to the stories rather than rote learning,” Vaibhav says.

He adds that he worked on his own and learned most concepts on the internet; his competitive spirit made him power through and study for JEE. 

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From IIT-Delhi to Adobe

In 2010, he got into IIT-Delhi, with an all India rank of 136. 

“For the first two years, I focused on extra-curricular activities like street plays, debates, quizzes, and other things. Interestingly, I am inherently introverted but competitive. While the first semester was all about studying, the next semesters, when I got into street plays, led me to get better marks. I focused on attending interesting classes,” Vaibhav says. 

In his third year at engineering school, Vaibhav’s love and interest for coding was rekindled during an internship at Adobe. He says there were teams of three to four people, and “we had to figure out the next revolution in learning”. 

Building patented technology 

Vaibhav went on to build a social learning platform on Adobe Reader.

“People read articles and journals on the reader where you can highlight some notes and comments. What if you could aggregate these notes and comments, and do an ontological process, which allowed a new user to understand relevant parts of the document and social Q&A. We built it in 2013, and it’s now a US-patented technology. It has been integrated with the existing Adobe product,” Vaibhav says. 

Building this product got Vaibhav extremely interested in technology. In 2014, he was one of the first recruits at Housing. But he didn’t join as his family was sceptical of the idea of joining a startup. 

However, he had found his niche: coding. 

“The best part of coding is how it can solve different problems. While I personally like Java and find it has several natural use cases, I am not particularly attached to a language. For me, it is about the problems a code can solve. In my final year, I built a code to identify the dish you want to order in a restaurant. You scrape through the comments, and pick the right dish,” Vaibhav says. 

Coding for trade 

With Housing off the cards, Vaibhav did an off-campus search and landed at System 2 Advisors, a US-based hedge fund. Here he worked on building algorithms for different strategies for trading. While at Adobe a lot of things were automated and had security, here the focus was on creating impact, and how a small code could bring scale. 

Vaibhav says he learnt a lot about infrastructure scaling at System 2 Advisors. “We would process petabytes of data on a daily basis, trade across the globe. Stock prices across the globe would be captured and processed. I also learnt ownership. It was a small team and everyone had an important task and role,” he adds. 

During this stint, he understood the importance the right skill sets to have for his kind of work.

“There are no short cuts to hard work, no matter how smart you are. Sometimes, smartness is just over-rated,” he says.

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The early days of Shadowfax 

It was while working on petabytes of data and building algorithms for the US trading fund that Vaibhav got the idea of Shadowfax. It was late 2014, and brands like Tinyowl and Foodpanda were growing. But there was a problem: the lack of a seamless link between restaurants and delivery partners. He discussed this idea with Abhishek Bansal, a friend from IIT-Delhi. 

The duo first thought of a Swiggy-like idea.

“We didn’t pursue it because we didn’t see the unit economics. We wanted to build a super-strong business model and focus on B2B. So I would work in my office till 10 pm, and after that till 2 am I would build the app, backend, and dashboards of Shadowfax. We built everything with application and trial and error,” Vaibhav recalls.

The idea was that Shadowfax would act as an aggregator of delivery partners. Different businesses require fulfilment support, and having their own fleet isn’t feasible for each one. “So that’s a service that can be outsourced, and we wanted to be that,” Vaibhav says. 

The co-founders were in Mumbai, but piloted the app at a night kitchen in Noida. At midnight, they started testing the product and continued till 4 am. “Fortunately, my manager was open to the idea, and I could continue to build on Shadowfax,” Vaibhav says. 

The love for Tolkien 

Vaibhav and Abhishek brought in their love for JR Tolkien’s work, Lord of the Rings (LOTR), in building the product. Shadowfax is the name of the character Gandalf’s horse. Interestingly, all servers and databases have an LOTR reference. “One of the services, Rivendell, is a knowledge repository and the core app is Gandalf, who rides Shadowfax,” an enthusiastic Vaibhav explains. 

There is a reason for bringing in the connection. Vaibhav believes it is important to have a centralised brain that can design systems to pass information to the right people.  

Expanding on this, he says: 

“We learnt early that it was difficult to work with blue-collar workers, but they behave so because you treat them like that. You need to treat them like white-collared people. We began by giving them the right benefits. But then the delivery boy communicates only with the app. Everything from payout to support is done on the app and has no human intervention. This made the delivery boy work lean hours; it was more like a freelance network. People who have a bike and want to deliver can pick up jobs. We made it a practice to build tech so robust that anyone who has worked should get the payout on time.” 

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What impact can you bring? 

By March 2015, Vaibhav had started working on Shadowfax full time. He spent time on locations, understanding the competition’s code, and what they were doing differently. 

“What change can technology bring in? Today, we have over 30,000 DAUs. All of this can be monitored from one centralised location, which has all the data. The drivers, their background verification, every single bit of data. This centralised location needs to have the right control process and become robust every day. Over 30,000 people making Rs 10,000 is a big impact in a country like India,” he says. 

Vaibhav now focuses on long-term projects and strategic initiatives, particularly data science. But he believes that techies respect and listen “only if you have built something” – the reason he is hands on and continues to code.  

What and why do you code?

The co-founder says he looks for people who have created impact in a particular organisation. 

“Have they grown organically and have they released products? What have they built? Do they have right ownership? Everyone in the engineering team codes, we all have a high sense of ownership. We tend to evaluate people on how quickly they learn. How actively can you think on your feet while solving a problem, and how much business do you understand? In the end, whatever you code should have an impact.”

Vaibhav emphasises that there is no short cut to hard work. And that it is important to get a strong hold of business understanding. 

As techies, you need to constantly learn, improvise, and invest your time in new tech and frameworks or “you never know when you get redundant”. 

“We never were the best in class or at code. But we were always known to be fighters who work through and get the job done. If there is a problem and a solution can be built, we build it. And that is core idea behind code and technology,” Vaibhav says. 

(Edited by Teja Lele Desai)

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Norway-based Pickatale is an interactive storybook app for children up to eight years. It has now entered India in partnership with Delhi-based Eupheus Learning, an edtech startup that offers hybrid learning content for schools on a subscription basis.

The platform packages the K-12 school curriculum in physical forms like textbooks as well as digital to seamlessly integrate in-class and at-home learning. With this partnership, Pickatale has launched an India-focused interactive storybook app ABC Tiger for young learners between the age group of 3-12 years.

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During his visit to India to launch the app, YourStory caught up with Sigbjørn Dugal, Founder and CEO, Pickatale, who also works with startup initiatives in China, supporting Origo’s portfolio companies, is a Partner of Ascend Ventures, and has co-founded and invested in several Chinese companies, covering mobile and online services, furniture, and hospitality sectors. Previously, Sig founded and served as the COO of Mezzme Ltd, a wireless service provider focussed on the media sector in China.

In an interaction with YourStory, Sigbjørn speaks about Pickatale’s long-term commitment towards the Indian edtech market, how they customise their products according to the Indian education system, and why they choose Eupheus as their exclusive India partner.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

YourStory (YS): Give us a quick backstory of how Pickatale came into being? 

Sigbjørn Dugal (SD): The Pickatale story started because I believed that reading should be an integral part of the process of growing up, and that every child deserves to have access to a library of their favourite stories. But, how would this be possible if a child cannot access plenty of books whenever they want to or wherever they want to? Can you carry over 1,000 books on the bus or on the way back home? Can you carry that many books to the mountain cabin during your spring break?

When I wanted to give my own children the opportunity to read more books, I was surprised to see how inaccessible and expensive children’s books were online, and how little technology was used in the books to help children with learning, and most found on the app-stores were flat PDF’s with simple narration. This inspired me to start Pickatale in 2012.

I started Pickatale in Norway and worked hard towards turning it into one of the best children’s reading apps ever. The app now contains an extensive library of interactive children’s books. The books have been digitised - in the sense that all words, pictures, and illustrations are clickable. In addition, several books have been narrated by well-known actors and actresses. This provides the opportunity to experience books in new and exciting ways.

YS: Tell us about Pickatale’s offering. How has it evolved from the idea stage to now? 

SD: There are so many apps for children out there, but we see many of these are addictive without any kind of learning value. We wanted to do something about this, and so we created an app to develop a love of reading in children.

We started as a small team. The company was started in August 2012 with Jens Rugseth as a Seed investor. This helped to scale team, develop product, and create content. In January 2014, we had 215 illustrated books, written and translated in several languages. Currently, we have more than 1,700 books in Norwegian, 1,000 books in Swedish, 1,200 books in US English, and 970 books in UK English. Our team today consists of over 80 employees in three countries - Norway, Poland, and Macedonia.

YS: How is Pickatale different from other audio and interactive books available online? 

SD: Our production process has always been efficient, iterative, and agile, and our book production operations are cost-efficient and scalable. We follow a lean methodology, seamlessly integrating a global team of more than 200 illustrators, authors, and narrators. Our book creation tool, which is our own proprietary software, has allowed us to digitise books without the need of an army of developers or designers. 

By combining text, sound, and illustrations, Pickatale helps young people develop a love for reading. One of our major functionalities is to enable children to listen to the story. The main difference from regular audiobooks is that children can look at illustrations and read the text as they follow each word, which is highlighted on the screen as the narrator reads. This audio support can be an important factor, both when it comes to developing reading skills and expanding children’s vocabulary.

The key to developing a love for reading is to gain access to books that children like. To become good readers, children need to practice, but reading should preferably be interesting and fun. Our app distributes children’s literature in a whole new way and makes a wide selection of books available at an affordable price. Our goal is to make good reading experiences readily available to everyone – anytime, anywhere.

The selection from about 1,000 Pickatale originals and many more partner books, some of them with the beloved Disney characters, is what we offer to our readers. Our users grow by the day and we have witnessed immense success in Norway and Sweden since we launched in 2018 and 2019, respectively. We are expecting to further grow in the UK where we launched in October 2019.

YS: What caught your attention to India?

SD: India is, in the first place, a country which is striving to increase the level of literacy by implementing various educational platforms and reforms. We believe that a large market such as India needs a solution for literacy such as the one we have.

Mobile devices are the backbone of internet growth in India. In cities, 30 percent of the population own tablets. India is paving the way to a multi-million user market, with mobile devices taking the lead. We also believe that the Indian market can be a test market for the rest of Asia, and that can help us understand the needs of other Asian markets.

YS: Why did you choose Eupheus, which is a K-12 edtech startup, while Pickatale caters to children?

SD: Eupheus, most importantly, is an edtech company with which we share common values - innovation, ethical values, and the belief that we want to make a difference in the world. For both Eupheus and Pickatale, children come first. Education and knowledge transformed and shaped by today’s hi-tech standards and the digital world are the key focal points which we have in common.

The second main reason is the fact that we cater not only to the needs of children aged 0-12, but also teenagers interested in subjects such as science, nature, space, history, geography, and social sciences. We offer a wide range of original Pickatale knowledge books that according to their structure, illustrations, and text appeal to all K-12 grades.

YS: Where do you place India as of now in your strategy to expand.

SD: We believe that for the time being, and in the future, India is the crucial market to be successful in as it is moving in the right direction. It is investing a lot of effort, talent, and research into the development of education and knowledge.

The reading books we offer are the right solution for this course of development. While Europe requires a product focused on leisure reading, India has been striving to create knowledgeable readers who would gain a deeper understanding of the world and the thought processes.

YS: How do you plan to capitalise in India? What are your key strategies for the next 12-24 months?

SD: In the first 12 months, we would like to capitalise on micropayments because the first and foremost principle of our company is that learning and reading should be affordable. Every single child is entitled to and should have access to education.

In the next few months, we will focus on penetrating the school market and expand our programme and platform in schools across India. In the meantime, we are developing a support learning programme that will cater to kids who lack access to education, especially to those who strive to acquire English as a foreign language.

We have estimated that the market is ready to engulf our projects and the customisable learning materials that we offer, so we are sure that our platforms will reap the rewards of success quite soon.

YS: Can you tell us about your India investments?

SD: We are prepared to invest whatever is necessary to make this a success story in India, and ensure that as many as possible will have access to the product and are able to learn, develop, and explore our immense library.

We believe that every child should have the opportunity to discover the scope and availability of the reading and learning material that we offer and find out that they have more advantages than traditional learning. Our goal is to make education fun and entertaining in order to appeal to the needs of individual kids and cater to their different interests and abilities.

(Edited by Megha Reddy)

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At YourStory's annual flagship event, TechSparks 2019, Ola Co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal confirmed that the ride-sharing unicorn is eyeing an initial public offering (IPO) in the next two years.

At the time, Bhavish told YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma that he was "absolutely focussed" on taking the company public. 

And he sure wasn't kidding. 

Ahead of the much-awaited IPO filing, Ola has reported a significant 38 percent jump in its FY19 operational revenue to Rs 2543.63 crore from a year ago. Losses for the period narrowed to Rs 2592.92 crore in FY19, versus Rs. 2842.6 crore a year earlier. 

"Today, we are running our business profitably in India and there is no vanity metrics. It's the real bottom-line. We've built a stable business and now we want to go global," Bhavish told YourStory.

Valued at a little over $6 billion and having raised over $3.5 billion from the likes of Temasek Holdings, Tiger Global, Softbank, and Matrix Partners, Ola is now present in 250 cities across India, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

It hasn’t stopped there.

In recent times, the company has branched out by foraying into the cloud kitchen segment and building an electric vehicle entity, Ola Electric, which is also a unicorn.

"Our ambition is to build an Indian consumer business on a global scale. Today, there are no Indian brands on a global scale and it’s not because we couldn’t do it, the stars just didn’t align. The domestic market is complex, but in the next decade, there will be several Indian brands, and in mobility, we want to be the leading player," Bhavish told us.

Read more at: https://yourstory.com/2019/10/techsparks-2019-bhavish-aggarwal-ola-ipo-going-public

OYO elevates Aditya Ghosh to the board, Rohit Kapoor to new India CEO

Aditya Ghosh will join Ritesh Agarwal, Betsy Atkins, and other industry experts like Munish Verma, Bejul Somaia, and Mohit Bhatnagar on the company’s diverse and multi-cultural board.

Lani Zena Fernandes is revving up for an exciting career in motorsport

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5 reasons why this was the ‘year of gaming’ in India

A large young population and increasing internet penetration have made India the top gaming market among emerging economies. From the meteoric rise of fantasy sports to the growth of small-town players, 2019 was, quite literally, a game-changer.

How Radha Arakkal is bringing a social change in West Bengal

Radha Arakkal left a cushy, corporate job to help create social impact. Since 2018, Radha has been working as a freelance consultant in the social sector and is at present mentoring Swapnopuron Welfare Society’s English medium school for 120 children at Hingalganj in North 24 Parganas, a district in West Bengal.

This Mumbai startup sold 8 tonnes of tea in just 12 months

Brought together by their shared love for brewed goodness, the story of Mumbai-based Bhuman Dani and Shariq Ashraf is one of serendipiTEA. The Good Life Company is filling the gap in the Indian specialty tea and coffee market. The brand is already present in India and the UAE, and soon plans to expand to the UK and EU markets.

How Bengaluru-based William Penn has grown to Rs 100 Cr turnover

Launched as a word-class alternative to the neighbourhood stationery store, Bengaluru-based William Penn now has its own label and products, tie-ups with premium brands like Cross, Waterman, and Sheaffer, and a turnover of Rs 100 crore.

UPI touches record transactions in November

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) announced in a tweet that UPI clocked 1.22 billion transactions worth Rs 1.89 lakh crore for the month. That is an increase of 6 percent in the number of transactions, but a marginal decline of 1.1 percent in the transaction value.

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At the Global Gateway team at Silicon Valley Bank, we work closely with founders and investors in emerging markets to help support their international market expansion needs. As the Market Lead for India, I have the unique opportunity to do frequent in-market visits and I have just returned from one.

And I can tell you that the ‘startup buzz’ is real.

The December 2018 IVCA report states: “India is among one of the top startup ecosystems in the world — housing 50,000+ total startups and 3,500+ funded startups growing rapidly at over 30 percent.”

According to a recent Yourstory report, India has the third largest startup ecosystem in the world as well as the third highest number of unicorns. In 2019, seven companies have reached “unicorn” status and 50 more were added to the “soonicorn” (soon-to-be unicorn) list.

Over the course of 10 days, I visited four cities. I wanted to share some key learnings from each of these startup ecosystems.

First stop: Bengaluru, the Silicon Valley of India

The city is home to more than 25 percent of total startups in India. From 2014 to September 2018, Bengaluru startups reportedly received $16.2 billion funding across 1,244 deals.

I had an opportunity to speak at Nasscom’s Product Conclave, which attracts 2,000+ participants and 100+ plenaries/panels.

India’s ecosystem has been scaling up from its beginnings in 2004 when Silicon Valley Bank set up its first office in Bengaluru. The momentum began through the high growth of its large consumer-facing businesses such as Flipkart (sold to Walmart for $16 billion), Ola Cabs, and Paytm, and the trend continues with soon-to-be decacorns like OYO, BYJU’s, and Swiggy. There is also a continuing rise of global SaaS leaders like Druva, Zoho, and Freshworks from India.

While much attention has been on the consumer startups, there has been a consistent and growing number of enterprise/B2B companies aiming for the US market being launched in India. I spoke on the Game Changers on Scaling 10X panel to help founders think about how best to plan for such scale. Strong team, product readiness, support infrastructure, and timing are some of the key things startups must focus as they continue to scale.

Next stop: Mumbai, Financial Capital of India

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Mumbai is reportedly generating 6.2 percent of India’s GDP, and houses approximately 9,000+ startups and 720+ active investors.

While in Mumbai, I participated in a workshop with Nishith Desai and Associates—one of India’s leading law firms that focuses on startups—on the topic of going global.

The ‘dos and don’ts of going global’ discussion focused on challenges of startups going global. As startups go global, they need to ensure they are set up with the right entity structures (including flip considerations).

Foreign investors (particularly ones from the US) also look for startups to establish a strong US presence — customers, founding team, IP, etc as they are looking for opportunities to invest. Increasing investment by global venture capital firms is instilling more confidence in founders and creating more innovation.

Ecosystem support for startups has increased in the form of rise of incubators (70+), accelerators (170+) including global players like Y Combinator and Techstars, and organisations such as Indiaspora, Nasscom, and TiE. We co-hosted a series of round-table sessions (Mumbai and Bengaluru) with the TiE startup community to better understand market nuances.

And one common thread through it all was founder’s grit.

Stop#3: Jaisalmer, the Golden City

In a whirlwind 24-hour visit, I participated at INK 2019 Within & Beyond, which brought together an eclectic mix of world-class individuals, including technologists, musicians, artists, social entrepreneurs, and educators to find conversations that spark wonder and leave you with new, meaningful relationships.

I had the unique opportunity of mentoring next-generation leaders/fellows. At the same time, I managed to catch up with investors, clients, and partners, in the most amazing and serene setting — Suryagarg.

Last stop: Delhi, India’s capital

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Delhi reportedly recorded a higher average ticket size and funding growth rate than Bengaluru, with total funding raised by startups pegged at $15.8 billion between 2014 and 2018.

TiE Global’s 4th annual summit (#TGS4) in Delhi brought thought leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, from the Indian and global startup ecosystem. Silicon Valley Bank has been a proud partner for years and as a TiE Charter Member I have been personally involved in several of its startup initiatives.

The theme of this year’s event, Indian Startups: Global Footprint, explored, in depth, how the Indian ecosystem has matured and how Indian startups are increasingly expanding globally. It was great to speak in the panel on Global Investment Trends and Cross-Border Considerations.

According to AnitaB.org insights, the pressure to conform to societal norms in India is hard. On a daily basis, women perform a complex balancing act between their family and professional responsibilities, which contributes to the small number of women in technology.

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SHEROES helps women create safe spaces to deal with some of those challenges. At Silicon Valley Bank, inclusion and diversity is very important and we were thrilled to be supporting such efforts in India with organisations like SHEROES.

Lastly, the trip gave us an opportunity to reconnect with our clients, both startups and investors who are crushing it every day. Take, for example, KhataBook (GGV, Sequoia Surge portfolio company), which just closed $25 million.

We are truly grateful to be a small part of their journey.

The India innovation ecosystem continues to mature and scale to new heights. There is more capital available for startups and their scale-up plans, funding more sophisticated/repeat entrepreneurs, which are increasingly focused on global opportunities. India has a solid foundation now to build upon for the next few years.

Let’s do this, India!

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory)

(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)

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NASA's Moon-orbiting spacecraft has found the debris of Chandrayaan 2's lander Vikram on the surface of the Moon, the US space agency confirmed on Tuesday, nearly three months after India's ambitious mission made a hard landing near the uncharted lunar south pole.

On September 7, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) attempted a soft landing of Vikram on the Moon. However, ISRO lost contact with Vikram shortly before the scheduled touchdown. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Camera team released the first mosaic, acquired on September 17, of the site on September 26.

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Indian Engineer Shanmuga Subramanian contacted NASA's project after which, the US space agency confirmed the identification of debris by comparing its before and after images.

"After receiving this tip, the LROC team confirmed the identification by comparing before and after images. When the images for the first mosaic were acquired the impact point was poorly illuminated and thus not easily identifiable," NASA said in a statement.

The two subsequent image sequences were acquired on October 14 and 15, and on November 11, NASA said.

The LROC team scoured the surrounding area in these new mosaics and found the impact site (70.8810 degrees South, 22.7840 degrees East) and associated debris field.

According to NASA, the November mosaic had the best pixel scale (0.7 metre) and lighting conditions (72 degrees incidence angle).

"The debris first located by Shanmuga is about 750 meters northwest of the main crash site, and was a single bright pixel identification in that first mosaic," NASA said in a statement.

The November mosaic shows best the impact crater, ray and extensive debris field, NASA said, adding that the three largest pieces of debris are each about 2x2 pixels and cast a one-pixel shadow.

Ever since ISRO lost contact with Vikram, NASA has made several attempts to locate the Chandrayaan-2 lander with the help of its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

The LRO flew over Vikram's landing site once on September 17 and next on October 14. The ambitious Chandrayaan-2 mission to the Moon was launched in July. If the spacecraft had reached the surface in one piece on September 7, India would have been only the fourth country to successfully put a lander on the Moon.

(Edited by Megha Reddy)

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Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC®), the world’s largest startup competition for entrepreneurs addressing global challenges, partnered this year with YourStory’s annual conference, TechSparks, to host a regional XTC® competition in Bengaluru.

From more than 30 startups participating in the competition, the judges selected three winners:

• Freshokartz is building an integrated agriculture value chain using AI and ML, leveraging data of all kinds to provide recommendations and advice to farmers so they can increase their yields.
• Elucidata's AI-enabled Polly platform empowers innovators to more easily utilise complex biomedical data to drive the discovery of new drug therapies.
• Navana Tech is solving the user interface problem for the next billion users by building text-free, image-based, and voice-assisted technology, including speech recognition technologies in Indian languages and dialects, so that more people can use smartphones with confidence.

Could your startup be next?

If you are a startup with a ground-breaking solution or technology that addresses a global social challenge, then the Extreme Tech Challenge is the perfect platform for you.

Backed by global corporations such as Samsung Electronics, Ford, NXP, HARMAN, and several others, XTC® seeks to recognise and encourage promising startups whose innovations also address some of the biggest challenges the world is facing today.

XTC® supports and empowers these startups by offering:

• Global visibility, with the top startups chosen to pitch to hundreds of tech leaders and VC firms at the XTC® global finals in Paris in June 2020
• Access to leading investors who can help you raise capital
• Engagement with leaders of global corporations, VCs, and corporate VCs
• World-class mentorship, with the opportunity to work with industry leaders and experts to help guide your startup to success

Who can apply?

The competition, inspired by the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to shape global development by 2030, is looking for innovators who are working in the following categories:

• Agtech, Food and Water
• Cleantech and Energy
• Education
• Enabling Technologies
• Fintech
• Healthcare
• Transportation and Smart Cities

If you're a startup that is legally incorporated or registered in India and innovating in one of the above-mentioned categories, you can apply for the XTC® competition. Registration is free, but startups will be responsible for their own travel, accommodation, and other costs to attend competition-related events.

Read the entire official rules for XTC here.

Participate and create an impact

XTC® provides two pathways to participate in the global startup competition, which culminates in the global finals at VivaTech in Paris, France, in June 2020.

The first path is to join an XTC® regional competition, which are held all over the world. The next regional competition will take place in conjunction with the TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin event on December 11 and 12, 2019.

The second path is to apply directly to XTC®. The top 30 startups will be invited to Paris to participate in a final-round bootcamp, and the top 10 will pitch on stage at VivaTech to an audience of thousands. A panel of leading investors from around the world will select a winner for each of the seven XTC® categories.

So, if you’re a startup in India building a great business while addressing a global challenge, apply for the Extreme Tech Challenge. The last date to apply is March 31, 2020, at 11:59 PM, Pacific Daylight Time.

Xiaomi has announced the launch of Mi Credit, its digital lending solution, in India. Mi Credit is Xiaomi’s second finance solution to be launched in India after Mi Pay.

Mi Credit is an online curated marketplace for lending, with its current lending partners primarily being NBFCs and fintechs such as Aditya Birla Finance Limited, Money View, EarlySalary, Zestmoney, and CreditVidya.

Mi Credit has been running in India in a pilot format and has already disbursed loans of over Rs 28 crore (approximately ~Rs 1 crore per day) in November 2019. Over 20 percent of the users have availed the highest amount of loan of Rs 1 lakh. Currently, Mi Credit services 1,500 pin codes across 10+ states and aims to expand its availability to 100 percent of the pin codes (more than 19,000 pin codes) by the end of FY19.

Xioami claims a first in users being able to complete the digital application form within five minutes on the Mi Credit app. Repeat customers can avail a loan with one-click disbursement, the company said.

Manu Jain, Vice President, Xiaomi, and Managing Director, Xiaomi India, said, 

“In India, the lending industry is on an explosive trajectory. As per a recent report from CIBIL, there are over Rs 4 lakh crore worth of personal loans outstanding from nearly 1.9 crore customers, with each user accounting for almost Rs 2 lakh of outstanding amounts. Of these 1.9 crore customers, the majority tend to avail the loans for medical emergencies, followed by shopping, wedding, travel, and education purposes. We are bringing Mi Credit to India hoping to provide yet another innovative and truly digital solution for their lending needs.”

Mi Credit app comes preloaded on all MIUI phones, and can also be downloaded from Google Play Store as well as GetApps, Xiaomi’s own app store. The company said users can also check their credit score instantly and for free on the app, a service powered by Experian.

Xiaomi claims that all user data on Mi Credit is stored securely in an encrypted format in India through its partner, Amazon Web Services Cloud Infrastructure.

Hong Feng, Co-founder and Senior Vice President, Xiaomi Corporation, and Chairman and CEO, Xiaomi Finance, spoke on the global launch of Mi Credit outside China. He said, “We see a huge opportunity for consumer lending in India with estimations reaching up to $1 trillion dollars in digital lending by 2023, as per a report from BCG. This makes us believe that our Mi finance business, based on solutions such as Mi Pay and Mi Credit can truly revolutionise the Indian fintech industry.”

(Edited by Athirupa Geetha Manichandar)

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Bengaluru-based space tech startup Dhruva Space has raised Rs 5 crore in a recent round of angel funding carried out by Mumbai Angels (MA) Network and other external angel investors. The investment was led by Ravikanth Reddy, Managing Director, Hotcrete.

Commenting on the funding, Ravikanth said,

“I'm backing Dhruva because of their cutting-edge satellite and communications technology and a strong founding team. Space is a sector that will be an integral part of many critical applications in the future. I will advise them from time to time and provide relevant contacts to help them grow.”

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Dhruva Space was founded in 2014 by Sanjay Nekkanti (Founder and CEO), Abhay Egoor (Founder and CTO), and Krishna Teja Penamakuru (Founder and COO). The spacetech startup provides end-to-end solutions, from building small satellites and making ground sensors, to launching them and monitoring them via earth stations.

Speaking about the fundraise, Sanjay said,

“It was a pleasure working with MA towards our first fundraising. The support extended by the entire MA team has been phenomenal. They were diligent and thoroughly professional throughout the process. We look forward to working with them and benefitting from their experience.”

At present, the company is working with ISRO and the European Space Agency (ESA). The company has been awarded a grant of 50,000 euros by ESA. The Dhruva space team will be able to access this grant after setting up an entity in Austria and completing the necessary formalities under the agreement.

Nandini Mansinghka, Co-promoter and CEO of Mumbai Angels Network, said,

“We are excited about raising funds for Dhruva Space, the first space tech start-up in our portfolio. We see a strong wave in space startups, both in the number of companies approaching us for investments and investors keen to invest in this space. We are extremely bullish about participating in this industry that defines the near future.”

(Edited by Athirupa Geetha Manichandar)

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