India is home to the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world, after the US and China. Having said that, about 90 percent of startups fail to perform. According to a study by Forbes, the lack of innovation is the major cause of failure of these startups. 

Not only entrepreneurs have to be innovative but also comply with several registrations, tax, and labour laws. Thus, it becomes extremely tiring and difficult for startup founders to focus on growth and innovation while ensuring 100 percent compliance.

Enter Ahmedabad-headquartered LegalWiz.in. Founded on April 02, 2015, LegalWiz.in focusses on making legal compliance simple, affordable, and transparent for early-stage startups and small businesses.

“Businesses should be doing what they are good at and leave the back-office and compliance work to us,” Co-founder Shrijay Sheth says. 

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Realising dreams 

Born to a family of entrepreneurs, Shrijay always dreamt of building his own business. But, he chose to get his degree first and gain substantial experience before starting up. He did his post-graduate diploma in Investment and Financial Analysis from the Gujarat University and later did his MBA in Corporate Finance from the San Diego State University, California. 

Post his MBA studies, Shrijay worked with a legaltech company – LegalZoom, as the Financial and Business Analytics Consultant for five years. After returning home, Shrijay founded Hire4Higher Consulting, a boutique analytics and strategy consulting firm. 

“I went through the process of registering my business and realised that many first-generation entrepreneurs in India lack quality service providers within their immediate network,” he says. 

Meanwhile, he met Namann Pipara, who ran his conventional CA firm, Pipara & Company, at a business networking event in 2014. “It struck us immediately; with my background in legal ecommerce and his expertise as a CA, we could create a strong base for offering better services. That is how we created a comprehensive business professional solution,” Shrijay says.

Thus, the duo started LegalWiz in 2015.

At present, the team is 30-plus employees strong, including in-house professionals such as chartered accountants, company secretaries, lawyers, marketing experts, web developers, and designers. Besides, the company also has 50-plus affiliates. 

“Ahmedabad attracts professionals from major neighbouring cities of Gujarat and Rajasthan, making it easier for us to find candidates,” Shrijay adds.

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Services offered 

LegalWiz.in offers services that include business registration for startups and SMEs, obtaining tax and government registrations, and ensuring regular filings.

The startup also has specialists who advise on intellectual property rights that enable businesses to secure trademarks, copyrights, and patents. 

Further, it offers customised legal document drafting, online book-keeping, and fulfiling yearly compliance needs for LLPs and Private Limited Companies. Recently, LegalWiz.in has added other services which include ISO certification for quality assurance and FSSAI registration for the foodtech companies. 

Shrijay says the startup doesn’t charge any hidden costs. For a Private Limited Company’s registration, it charges Rs 6,000. Further, it charges an annual compliance fee of Rs 4,599, GST return filing fees of Rs 799 monthly, copyright registration fees of Rs 4,699, and more. These costs include professional fees, GST, and other government charges.  

Most of these services have different packages to select from. 

How does it work 

LegalWiz.in’s marketing and content teams are primarily tasked to generate leads through various online and offline channels. These teams also create content relevant to day-to-day challenges faced by businesses, related to legal and compliance matters. 

Within the operations team, the startup has a dedicated client-facing department where professionals (also known as ‘advisors on-call’) advise current, as well as prospective clients for free-of-cost. 

Further, the operations team, along with a nationwide network of professional firms, execute client tasks. The team members are assigned particular clients that they have to work with, are responsible for keeping the clients updated with the process, and regularly communicate with them. 

“Our greatest value addition is a dedicated account manager to each service order, who would ensure standard quality of delivery throughout the entire process,” Shrijay says. 

A number game 

According to Shrijay, to date, LegalWiz.in has over 5,000 paying clients and over 30,000 MSME registrations on its website. LegalWiz.in’s client list includes startups like eChai and CricHeros. It’s larger clients include Flipkart, Bank of Baroda, Vyapaar Samachar, and Instamojo. 

Since its inception, the startup has doubled its annual growth. In 2018, LegalWiz.in recorded a 20 percent growth each quarter. Currently, the startup is bootstrapped.

Shrijay says, at present, the company is profitable.

“Our cash burn is restricted to marketing and new technology build-out. We have a high percentage of customer satisfaction, thus, our word-of-mouth branding is strong. It helps us to lower our acquisition costs and enables us to pass on the advantage of reduced operational costs to our clients,” he adds. 

Recently, LegalWiz.in was invited by Startup India to provide feedback on improving processes for starting up and managing businesses in the country. 

Market overview and future plans

The legaltech market is huge and holds space for multiple players. LegalWiz.in competes with the likes of Business Setup, Vakilsearch, Indiafillings, LawRato, and Cleartax. However, Shrijay says that the startup’s USP is its team of professionals.

“Our team strives to provide the highest quality services and answer customer queries personally, unlike others, who have sales-driven call centres as an extended service. The CS, CAs, and lawyers address the customer queries, and provide help to even those who are not our customers yet,” Shrijay says. 

Further, LegalWiz.in plans to introduce tech-based products that can be sold in a SaaS model. “It will open new dimensions of the revenue stream for the company in the coming months,” he says. 

As it becomes more inclusive as a business model and targets to hyper-grow as a full-service and software provider, LegalWiz.in will be looking for funding options soon. 

(Edited by Suman Singh)

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One of the buzzwords of tech last year was ‘podcasts’. What started as an iOS-only trend back in 2014, with the launch of Apple’s standalone Podcasts app, is now evidently mainstream, cutting across audiences and geographies. 

Podcasts have altered content consumption, especially for millennials. 

There is a plethora of apps today that allow users to stream podcasts across devices and platforms, and global podcasting revenues are at an all-time high. 

Listeners are spoilt for choice. And sometimes, even confused in the sea of content. So, users tend to rely on recommendations from their peers, online communities, and social networks. 

Breaker, a social podcast app, makes this process simpler and swifter. It is the first app to make the podcast discovery experience social. 

It lets users create profiles, discover new podcasts, follow other users, know what they are listening to, tap a heart icon to ‘like’ an episode, share episodes with other users, start comment threads, and join communities. 

Simply put, Breaker is the Instagram for podcasts. 

There are over 500,000 podcasts to discover on the app. Breaker also allows users to modify listening speed between 1⁄2X and 3X, skip silences, and enable auto-download of episodes. You can store 100 episodes (up to 4GB) on your device at any given time. 

After cooking up a storm in the iOS universe since 2018, Breaker rolled out its beta version on Android in late-2019. The app is currently listed in the ‘Early Access’ section of Google Play Store, and has recorded 5,000+ installs. It is rated 4.3 out of 5.

Breaker was also featured on Product Hunt recently as “the best podcast app”.

Let’s explore the app.

Since Breaker is inherently social, you get to sign up via Facebook, Twitter or Gmail. If you’re logging in with your email id, the app sends you a confirmation link to get started.

Breaker takes you to the homepage in the next step. There are five tabs - Home, Library, Search, Activity, and Profile - in the bottom bar to help you navigate.

The Home tab categorises podcasts under news, business, society, culture, and so on. 

Hit a podcast title to get started. Each title displays producer/content creator, publishing date, podcast duration, content description, number of likes and comments, and options to like, share, save, download, and create playlists. 

The Library tab lists your Playlists and Subscriptions. Playlists contain episodes and are grouped under sub-segments like Favourite Shows, Save for Later, Shareable, etc. 

The Activity tab shows podcasts that your friends have recently listened to. This mirrors Instagram’s Activity tab (which displays your friends’ likes). 

The Search tab on Breaker is the equivalent to the Explore tab on Instagram. 

This section throws up podcast recommendations and aids in the discovery of content. The reccos are personalised, based on your activity on the app.

The Profile tab tracks Followers, Following, and podcasts you’ve listened to. You can also access Settings through this tab.

The Settings page lets you personalise the app experience further.  You can set your notifications, storage and download settings, enable ‘skip silences’ for all episodes.

It also allows you to import subscriptions from other podcast apps like Castbox, Podcast Player, Pocket Casts, and Podcast Addict.

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Verdict: Breaker is worth the hype

Breaker is unlike any podcast app out there – not only is it a podcast player but also a social network, especially built for listeners. 

By blending regular podcast app features with community-building elements, Breaker stands out, drawing comparisons with platforms like Instagram. 

The app is intuitive with a smooth listening experience, and has compelling features like podcast imports and adjustable playback speed.

Dark mode and offline listening are an added bonus. 

The homepage might feel a tad cluttered to some users and could use some design tweaks. But, apart from that, there’s not much to complain.

All we can hope now is that the Android version of Breaker comes out of beta soon! 

(Edited by Teja Lele Desai)

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It has been 15 years since the rise of organised retail and close to a decade since the birth of ecommerce in India. Their entry has changed the way India looks at retailing as these two channels have brought in superior supply chain capabilities and hitherto unseen price efficiencies that have brought down the end cost for the customer.

However, organised retailing is, at best, at about 10 percent of the country’s consumption story, despite massive amounts of money being spent on taking on small retail or family-owned stores. This is due to inherent challenges and costs such as high rent, salaries, inventory costs, and returns.

Small stores and distributors have been able to survive with their small net margins of three percent, without the aid of technology.

However, over the last six years, there have been concerted efforts from brands and startups to work with distributors and kirana establishments by providing them technology and empowering them with data to change the way they reach customers.

The list of technology providers is endless; think Udaan, GoFrugal, Amazon, Reliance, Walmart, StoreKing, JumboTail, ShopX, SnapBizz, Connect India, and Bizom. All these players are going directly to the smaller stores, except Bizom, which is working with brands, distributors, and stores.

“Everyone agrees that the market is very large. No one player is going to be able to solve the way small stores go the technology route. We are focused on increasing their revenues and bringing them customer loyalty with the use of technology; until now they were subject to what the brands thought would sell in the market,’’ says Ashish Jhina, Co-founder of JumboTail.

There are close to 10 million stores in India and about half a million distributors. Less than two percent have been digitised so far. Consumer insights will help provide small stores ways to revamp their sourcing strategies and change the way they work with distributors.

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The Reliance vision

Reliance Industries’ retail subsidiary, Reliance Retail, which pegs the number of kirana stores in India at more than seven million, is readying a technology platform to bring small retailers into its fold as part of its "New Commerce" plan.

At present, Reliance Retail's revenue is Rs 1,30,000 crore – making it the largest retailer in India so far. The Indian conglomerate plans to use artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, and cloud computing to help kiranas become competitive.

With this move, it will gain data of 900 million Indians, which will help it become a full-stack data company. Not only will it have B2C consumption data, but it will also have B2B data from kiranas and Jio.

The company has data of 350 million Indian shoppers. With Jio, it has accumulated data of 300 million telecom consumers. At the 42nd Annual General Meeting, Chairman Mukesh Ambani announced that Reliance Industries would go after data with data-based architecture. Reliance will use this data as part of its super app strategy to serve consumers content, entertainment, and food and grocery ecommerce.

What brands are doing

Brands like Bisleri, Parle Agro, ITC, HUL, Britannia, and other FMCG biggies are betting on their distribution to get smarter and intelligent.

“Brands have a large distribution play and they have worked with small stores for years. But they were always dependent on data from distributors and thereby pushed product to small stores rather than understanding what is sold by region,’’ says Lalit Bhise, Co-founder of Mobisy Technologies.

FMCG giant The Hershey Company had exited a joint venture with a local partner a couple of years earlier and was looking to expand market reach for its confectionery and packaged foods. However, they were positioned as a premium product in the local market and aimed to reach growth goals by increasing depth of distribution – sell more in each store – rather than trying to be present everywhere. This meant that the company needed to identify the right channels and the right outlets for their products. For this, the team needed access to hygienic data on their current outlets – where they were selling, what they were selling, and how much they were selling.

However, their legacy solution had limited analytics capabilities and this prompted the team to look for an end-to-end solution that would allow them a 360-degree view of their retail supply network.

The company then worked with Bizom and deployed an onsite delivery manager to manage master data, generate reports, and provide quick turnaround times on support issues. Through the data captured, Bizom was able to offer actionable insights to solve the brand’s problems.

The brand’s sales team then identified the right outlets to focus on by using Bizom’s insights on order volumes to measure the potential of individual outlets. The company then increased drop size and share of shelf at the top performing outlets to utilise its sales potential. It backed up the sales push by extending loyalty programmes to channel partners based on Bizom’s analytics on trade promotion spend effectiveness. This increased its sales by 61 percent in India.

Similar strategies to improve distribution with technology are also followed by other brands like Mars, Bausch+Lomb, and Cargill to work with the Indian retail distribution.

Empowering small retailers

Startups like Smerkato, Peel Works, and ShopKirana are trying to change the way small retailers use technology to connect with consumers and increase their margins.

“The mom-and-pop store is here to stay. Look at India’s consumption patterns and the way its network is built around the locality. It is difficult for big retailers to take over even after two decades of organised retail and money being invested because you will see these smaller stores take to technology,” says Kumar Vembu, Founder of Chennai-based GoFrugal, which has 21,000 small retailers on its platform, as well as 9,000 large customers.

The Indian retail industry accounts for well over $600 billion, of which organised retail comprises only 10 percent, according to KPMG and E&Y. This translates into a huge opportunity for startups that can help improve sales and margins for small retailers using technology. Technology is key and there are plenty of opportunities for the many Indian startups providing it.

(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)

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Education technology (edtech) is becoming a global phenomenon, and as distribution and platforms scale internationally, the market is projected to grow at 11 percent per annum to $341 billion by 2025, according to global education market intelligence firm HolonIQ.

The pace is now being set by Asia – particularly China and India – experiencing the world's fastest growth in investment in the education sector. 

"We estimate that the speed of digitisation in education will overtake healthcare, due primarily to the build-up in capability over the past 10 years, and fueled by explosive growth in artificial intelligence with China, the US and India taking the lead on innovation," says, HolonIQ Co-Founder and Managing Director, Maria Spies.

The Indian edtech market is pegged to touch $2 billion by 2021, according to a report by KPMG and Google. At present, India has a user base of close to 10 million on edtech platforms.

As 2019 drew to a close, YourStory caught up with edtech startup StudyPad (creators of Splash Math) CEO and Co-founder Arpit Jain to identify the top trends in the edtech sector during the year. In its first round of institutional funding, StudyPad raised an undisclosed amount from Accel Partners in 2019.

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Online courses

2019 saw a shift in how people perceive online courses. What was once a second option to college has now become a  way for people to gain professional skills and bulk up their resumes.

According to Arpit, “Technology has been in the classroom for quite a long time but it’s been on the periphery. Now, it’s moving to the centre thanks to easy access to the internet. The curriculum itself is changing and how that curriculum reaches students is shifting from focussing on how teachers teach to how learners learn. We are now able to personalise lessons for each individual learner and allow for greater differentiation in the classroom to suit student needs.”

Regional languages

Across the world, more education resources and courses were available in regional languages in 2019. Google Translate, for instance, allows anyone to instantly translate any webpage into over 100 languages and it’s adding more languages every month.

When it comes to education, soon language will not be a barrier. This is especially important to the India market as more Tier II, III and IV users go online (thanks to cheaper internet rates). 

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Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI will continue to be the focus in 2020. It is expected to grow in the education sector and aid teachers in the classroom. 

“Things like automated administrative tasks, grading papers, keeping a track of student’s progress will all be outsourced to AI while the teachers are free to teach,” says Arpit. 

According to EZ Education (creators of DoodleMaths), the most significant uses of AI in edtech are in content recommendation, AI-powered teaching assistants such as chat-bots performing specific tasks, and accessibility functions such as text to speech and voice recognition.

Educational Videos and Online Communities

The popularity of educational videos only increased in 2019. People around the world have typically turned to online videos to learn.

“This is slowly changing as passive videos are giving way to immersive learning,” according to Arpit.

Platforms like Quora and Stack Overflow stayed in focus, allowing communities of learners to thrive in a space where their questions can be answered and they can help other people learn more about what they love.

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The money trail

As far as the funding trend in the sector in India is concerned, investor interest was robust in 2019 with some big cheques being written.

Here is a look at some edtech startups in India that caught the investors’ eyes during the year.

Gradeup

The exam preparation platform received $7 million in Series A funding from Times Internet. This was the second fundraiser for Gradeup in 2019, which has now raised $10 million in total.

Started in 2015 by Shobhit Bhatnagar, Sanjeev Kumar, and Vibhu Bhushan, Gradeup helps more than 18 million exam aspirants prepare effectively for competitive examinations like JEE, NEET, GATE, IBPS, SSC, TET, UPSC, among others. 

Unacademy

The Bengaluru-based edtech startup raised $50 million in Series D funding from Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Nexus Venture Partners, and Blume Ventures.

The funding round also saw the participation of other startup founders including Aakrit Vaish (Co-founder and CEO, Haptik) and Sujeet Kumar (Co-founder and CEO, Udaan). Two of the co-founders of Unacademy – Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini – also participated in the round. 

Started by Roman, Gaurav, and Hemesh Singh, Unacademy helps educators create lessons on the Educator App, which learners access via the Learning App, and it has more than 10,000 educators and 13 million learners on its platform.   

Vedantu

The Bengaluru-based startup raised $42 million in a Series C funding round led by Tiger Global and WestBridge Capital. With this round, the online tutoring platform is expected to be valued at around $100 million. 

Vedantu was launched by Pulkit Jain, Anand Prakash, and Vamsi Krishna in 2014. It has over one million lifetime users on its platform, and recently launched W.A.V.E – a personalised and interactive form for online learning platforms.  

Lido Learning

The Mumbai-based edtech startup raised $3 million as part of its Series A funding round led by investors like Ronnie Screwvala (Chairman, upGrad), Ananth Narayanan (CEO, Medlife), Vikrampati Singhania (MD, JK Tyres), Anupam Mittal (CEO, Shaadi.com), and Arihant Patni (MD, Patni Wealth Advisors), among others. 

Sahil Sheth founded Lido Learning in April 2019 to cater to students from classes 5 to 11, offering year-long coaching classes in mathematics and science, through an integrated online platform that combines content along with tutors from across the country. 

Adda247

The Gurugram startup secured $6 million in Series B funding led by Info Edge (India) and Asha Impact. STL, an existing investor of Adda247 also participated in the latest round.  

Started by Anil Nagar and Saurabh Bansal in 2010, Adda247 is present on both online and offline platforms, with more than 450 coaching centres, over 500 professionals, and about 1,000 teachers across the country. 

DoubtNut

The Gurugram-based startup raised a funding of Rs 23 crore ($3.3 million) in a round led by Surge, an early-stage startup accelerator programme by Sequoia India, with participation from existing investors, WaterBridge Ventures and Omidyar Network India, and new investor, AET, Japan. 

Launched in October 2017 by IIT-Delhi alumni Tanushree Nagori and Aditya Shankar, DoubtNut is an instant doubt clearing app that helps students (classes 6 to 12 + IIT-JEE) get answers to math problems in an easy-to-use format – the student takes a picture of the problem and gets a video explaining the solution.  

Cuemath

The Bengaluru-based edtech startup raised $5.5 million in its extended Series B funding round led by Manta-Ray Ventures Limited and also saw the participation from existing investors Capital G by Google and Sequoia India. 

Founded by Manan Khurma in 2013, the platform is an after-school math excellence programme for children (between KG and class 8) and is offered through home-based centres that are managed and run by trained and certified Cuemath teachers.

(Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)

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Launched in 2014, PhotoSparks is a weekly feature from YourStory, with photographs that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In the earlier 425 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.

Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath in Bengaluru recently hosted two exhibitions titled Saturnalia and Kaleidoscope, as well as other showcases by Subash Thodayam and Kolkata’s Contemporary Group. We feature highlights from the exhibitions in this two-part photo essay, along with artist and curator insights.

The Saturnalia exhibition was organised by Wet Palette, a collective founded by watercolour artist Sunil Linus De. It supports upcoming artists with exposure to the world of art through workshops, study tours, and exhibitions.

“Art for me is a way of life. I believe that I’m able to communicate or express ideas through my paintings. Many a time, it has been a reflection of life; I’m happy when I’m able to paint,” explains Sunitha Krishna, in an interview with YourStory.

She is the founder of the studio Brushes and Palette, and paints in watercolours and oils. “I have completed a number of oil paintings over the last four years, and sold a few. One went all the way to Tijuana, Mexico,” Sunitha proudly explains.

She has also tried her hand at acrylic, pastels and colour pencils. In the past four years, she has taken part in four group exhibitions. “I have been a big believer in realistic art, and have now moved to more of hyper-realism,” she adds.

Her two paintings at the Saturnalia exhibition were part of a series called Hidden, with the symbolism of doors and locks (Unlocking the Minds and Doors to Perception). “For me, the world is the largest canvas available,” Sunitha enthuses. More exhibitions are planned this year, including some large canvas watercolours.

“I observe nature and people, how light falls, the angle of shadows, and even the smallest detail. An idea is born as a combination of all these,” she explains. Her liking for rust led her to compose the Hidden series; the works are priced from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000.

As trends in the Indian art market, she observes a change from hanging wall calendars to paintings in Indian homes. “The connoisseur appetite for paintings has seen a huge shift in the last two decades, thanks to economic growth and desire for artistic representation in homes,” she explains.

Sunitha defines artistic success in various ways, from appreciation to sales. “For me, success has been when I look at my own work and feel that justice has been done. If one is able to make others see our work through our eyes, that’s a success,” she explains.

Sunitha also calls for greater art appreciation in India. “This is a mindset change. It has to come from not just the artists but the general public in all walks of life. More corporates can gift artwork to people as recognition, which in turn helps artists,” she suggests.

Sunitha advises audiences to approach art with some amount of patience. “No artwork is similar, and no thoughts are the same. Audiences should look at the theme or perspective of the artist for better appreciation,” she adds.

She also offers tips for aspiring artists. “Work hard and harder. There is no shortcut to success. Focus on any one medium and style for some time and master it. Then switch to other mediums and styles,” Sunitha signs off.

Now, what have you done today to pause in your busy schedule and channel your creative side to new paths?

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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India, now the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world, saw a steady rise in the emergence of unicorns in 2019 with nine new companies entering the coveted $1 billion valuation club. In 2019, we got our third fastest unicorn - Ola Electric. This was also the year when the majority of new entrants came from B2B – including Druva, Icertis, CitiusTech, Delhivery, and Rivigo.

Amidst all this frenzy, startup funding did suffer a small setback at the end of 2019. But is it too soon to conclude anything? Now, as we step into 2020, investors tell us that this year, everyone will be 'cautiously bullish' and there will be a bigger focus on more capital-efficient business models. Read more to know what 2020 holds from the investor standpoint.

In other news, as we enter the beginning of a new decade, we at YourStory want to continue to ignite change and help shape the future of the new Indian economy. For this, we want you to tell us what you want to see more. We have put together a brief questionnaire to know what you expect from us at YourStory in the next decade. Join us as we continue to harness the power of storytelling to enable positive change. 

Take the YourStory survey here.

Great companies are built on obsession and paranoia: Gaurav Munjal

In this episode of 100X Entrepreneur podcast, Gaurav Munjal of Unacademy shares his insights on creating a dent in the edtech industry, and how one can grow personally and professionally.

TravelSpoc helps users customise holidays the old-fashioned way

Thiruvananthapuram-based startup TravelSpoc is a collaborative common platform for travel agents and operators to showcase their tour packages and products. The startup is an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based ecosystem that makes the best travel experience available to travellers – sourced from multiple travel agents.

Nearly 50 pc startups dealt in innovative products: RBI survey

The pilot survey on the Indian startup sector was conducted from November 2018 to April 2019. Startups in six sectors – agriculture, data and analytics, education, health, IT consulting/solution and manufacturing – accounted for nearly 50 percent of the survey respondents. 

Social startups that made headlines in 2019

As 2019 comes to an end, there have been many innovations led by startups in the social sector. From spacetech startups using satellites to address the environmental issues to startups building innovative solutions to educate the underprivileged children. Amid the rising number of startups today, SocialStory brings you the startups who changed the world across all the social verticals in 2019.

How FnV Farms plans to disrupt the food supply chain

Founded by an IIT-B grad, Mumbai-based FnV Farms has built a unique sourcing and last-mile delivery model for fresh fruits and vegetables by combining a robust supply chain mechanism with cutting-edge data science. Buyers can get same-day deliveries for free.

This entrepreneur built an FMCG company with Rs 250 Cr turnover

Started in 2001 as a small direct selling company of software products, Netsurf Network expanded its verticals in less than two decades to clock Rs 250 crore turnover. It has now entered the US market.

UPI recorded 1.31 billion transactions in December 2019

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates UPI and other retail networks, tweeted that the total UPI transactions in the country for December 2019, stood at 1.31 billion. At the same time, the total value transacted through the network also increased, reaching Rs 2.02 lakh crore.

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

Intuit Circles, a strategic startup ecosystem engagement initiative by Intuit, facilitates business growth and knowledge for startups through smart-tech. The programme aims at powering prosperity for startups by providing for some of their biggest needs, with the aim to improve the possibility of startup success. Startups are given access to a personal ecosystem of mentors, a thriving community of peers, investors and partners like co-working spaces, incubators and accountants.

Intuit Circles is helping startups leverage its technology and financial expertise by providing access to Intuit’s flagship financial management software for small businesses - QuickBooks Online. Tech startups can also partner with Intuit to collaboratively develop solutions for the 4.5 million global customers of QuickBooks Online by integrating their product on its platform.

Seamlessly managing financial processes with QuickBooks integration

From more than 2,000 startups who have signed up for the Intuit Circles this year, we bring to you the stories of two startups who have leveraged the QuickBooks Online integration, and managed to achieve scale.

Kredily

Founded in February 2017 by Devendra Khandegar, Kredily is an all-in-one HR and payroll software. It helps SMEs, startups and mid-sized organisations automate attendance management, leave tracking, payroll processing, pay-out and expense management.

Prior to starting up, Devendra worked as a venture capitalist in Gujarat Venture Finance Limited (GVFL) and subsequently headed Tracxn Labs, during which time, he worked closely with entrepreneurs and observed that a lot of time was consumed in managing mundane HR tasks. He realised that while numerous HR platforms existed, they were expensive and non-intuitive. On the other hand, employees struggled to access financial products, ranging from salary advances to short-term loans and insurance benefits. That’s when Devendra saw the need to build an HR tech platform that was free and easy to use and started Kredily. The startup’s flagship platform, Kredily Bazaar, is India's first and fully-integrated HR platform for employee benefits and financial management. The startup also boasts of a 100 percent do-it-yourself system for payroll, leave, attendance and expense management.

Devendra says that financial management is extremely critical for a startup. “A founder always needs to be on top of payables and cash available, not just at the end of the month, but in real time.” Observing the many benefits startups were deriving from the Intuit Circles programme, Kredily decided to get onboard.

Soon after, Kredily integrated QuickBooks Online on to their platform, solving a major pain point for their clients. Devendra explains, “Any organisation that processes payroll, needs to sync up with Kredily’s accounts. This means, consolidating all the pay-out from payroll across the organisation and posting a 'journal voucher'. But now, with the integration, the clients can now post their journal voucher to their QuickBooks accounts in a single click.

Currently, they have 18,000 companies registered on their platform. According to the founder, this is an unprecedented feature and simplifies the entire workflow for payroll and post-payroll accounts sync.

“QuickBooks is a boon for a founder, especially one who suffers from scarcity of time. It helps you stay in sync with all kinds of financial payments, in real-time,” says Devendra.

He adds that Intuit Circles is a great platform to connect with like-minded founders and further explore business synergies. Startups have the opportunity to meet Intuit’s global leadership team as a sounding board for their ideas and to get mentorship. “Entrepreneurs sometimes get caught up in their own thought processes. An environment like Intuit Circles helps you gain a broader perspective. Conversations, exposure and interaction with other members helps validate one’s business direction,” says Devendra.

Arka Inventory

Arka Inventory is a user-friendly cloud-based business application which helps in digitising, organising and automating procurement, warehousing, production, sales, fulfilment and accounting operations in new-age manufacturing and trading businesses. The company was founded in 2018 by Shreevathsa GP, Vinod KR, Praveen Nune and Kanti Hegde.

Shreevathsa is a Chartered Accountant who has worked with several SMBs, and used to provide value-added services to businesses through business analytics reporting. The biggest challenge he faced was non-availability of required information from the businesses. Also, large enterprises used ERP solutions to run their businesses efficiently, which were not suitable for SMBs as they were too complex, expensive and required training to manage. Due to this, most SMBs ran their business on spreadsheets, unconnected systems or on paper. Non-streamlined operations took a toll on their efficiency and they struggled to scale their businesses. Witnessing this problem in SMBs across industries, the team decided to start Arka Inventory.

“Arka is bringing in the most advanced technologies and making it available to small and medium businesses of India at an affordable price,” says Shreevathsa.

Initially, it was a challenge to reach out to the market to create awareness about their product. Also, with the limited financial resources they had, they had to ensure that their financial resources were spent to gain maximum effectiveness for its intended purpose.

That’s when they came across Intuit Circles. And, there has been no turning back since they registered for the programme. The programme is helping them reach out to more potential users by connecting them with the QuickBooks team. Intuit Circles is also helping them connect with the startup ecosystem to create synergies with peer startups.

Additionally, the integration with QuickBooks Online has benefitted Arka Inventory in several ways. “When we talk about operations in SMBs, along with procurement and production, finance is one of the most important functions. QuickBooks Online is a wonderful tool available for SMBs around the world to efficiently organise their finance, accounting and tax processes,” says Shreevathsa.

He adds that the association with Intuit Circle has nurtured their business and increased their visibility in the market.

Behind the scenes with the Intuit Circles’ tech integration team

Although startups are a very important piece in the Intuit Circles’ puzzle, there’s a team working behind the scenes to not just provide all the support the startup needs but also ensure that the integration is executed smoothly. Meet Sudipto Ghosh, Development Manager; Rajesh Gupta, Solutions Architect; Cynthia Srinivas, Director - Product Infrastructure; and Karthik M U, and Senior Software Engineer, people who are part of Intuit Circles’ Technology team.

According to the team, one of the primary reasons that determine the failure or success of the businesses within the first few years depends on how well they manage their finances. That’s why the team constantly reaches out to incubators, accelerators, government bodies, venture capitalists and co-working spaces to identify startups that have expressed interest or those that have applications that complement their platform capabilities for finance management. But, that’s not all. Today, the team in addition to helping startups manage their finances, they are helping the startups scale their business with a technology-backed approach.

Reasoning why the team expanded the support beyond financial management was a study that the team undertook a year prior to the launch. The team adopted Follow-Me-Home (FMH), a unique methodology to observe and engage with business owners to understand their critical pain points. During this time, the team observed two recurring challenges - growth (access to customers and scaling) and the capability to compete in a technology-driven market.

Today, the integration track addresses these two challenges. Startups can engage with engineering teams and developers at Intuit to brainstorm on technical feasibility, explore integration opportunities and fast track their development efforts. Startups can also utilise the integration channel and test out early-adoption from a relatively large set of customers in QuickBooks.

“The partnership with Intuit Circles provides startups a unique opportunity to speed up the entire development, deployment and reach,” says Sudipto.

While several startups have scaled through the programme, there are a few who have experienced measurable benefits through the integration, one of them being Fyle. They leveraged the single-click integration so that their customers would automatically be able to connect to their QuickBooks Online (QBO) account. This move enabled the startup to gain customers globally and expand their footprint to the US, Netherlands and Singapore, all in less than a year.

The team is inspired by the different startups they work with. “The energy and vibe of the whole startup ecosystem is infectious. You take so much learning and enthusiasm back to work. To witness the obsession for solving unique customers’ pain points, daring to dream big and being bold has been the revelation,” says Sudipto.

These engineers are passionate about the startup community and Intuit Circles provides them the right opportunity to fuel their passion.

“The amazing discussions that we keep having with the community on strategy, customer problems, business issues, technology challenges, learning from failures, experimenting, listening to stories around funding and scaling keeps us going,” he concludes.

Bengaluru-based ride-hailing unicorn released data based on the trends observed on New Year’s Eve, revealing that people across India travelled over 20 million kilometres on the Ola platform on December 31.

In a statement, Arun Srinivas, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Ola, said,

“This New Year’s Eve 2019 was one of our busiest evenings in the last year and millions of users chose Ola as their default choice of mobility. With enhanced availability on the platform, we were able to cater to the high demand through the night. We thank our two million driver-partners for their efforts in ferrying citizens safely back home in the New Year.” 

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According to the report, 30 percent of total Ola bookings that day started and ended at airports, showing that people preferred visiting family, friends, and taking vacations for their New Year celebrations.

The data also revealed an average of 20 percent increase in the number of people attending house parties this year, compared to last year. On average, the most number of booking requests came between 7:30 to 8:30 pm and between 12:30 to 1:30 am, indicating the time people stepped out and returned from the party.

Bengaluru registered the most number of trips to and from party areas, taking up 23 percent of all trips on New Year's Eve, followed by Mumbai (22 percent), and Delhi-NCR (20 percent).

Ola also had introduced various initiatives to enable a safe mobility experience ahead of the busy holiday season. This included rolling out its AI-enabled safety feature ‘Guardian’ across 16 Indian cities. Further, Ola collaborated with local authorities in various cities to issue safety guidelines to driver-partners.

Going beyond platform safety measures, Ola also deployed ‘Safety Scouts’ and ‘Quick Response Teams’ to support citizens on the ground. 

Arun further added, “We have also received a phenomenal response from citizens on our various initiatives like Ola Guardian, Safety Scouts, and Quick Response Teams that were deployed on the occasion. We would like to thank various city police authorities across the country for their collaboration and their video-messages to drivers with tips for safe driving on New Year’s Eve. We are committed to innovating and building an enhanced mobility experience for our cities and citizens in the year ahead.” 

(Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)

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Micro-finance company Satin Creditcare Network on Friday said it has received external commercial borrowing (ECB) funding of $15 million (around Rs 107.2 crore) from Development Bank of Austria (OeEB), to accelerate its lending portfolio.

The investment will support SCNL in its planned expansion, portfolio growth, and its efforts in increasing financial inclusion through its operations in 22 states.

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This will be the third round of ECB funding by a foreign institution in SCNL while showcasing their continuous interest in the company and the microfinance sector in India. The first ECB investment in SCNL was by World Business Capital and second investment was by responsAbility Investment.

This is OeEB’s first investment in the MFI industry in India under the new ECB guidelines. OeEB works in developing countries and emerging markets and provides financing for sustainable economic development. 

“We are delighted that OeEB, Development Bank of Austria rest strong trust in SCNL by making us their first choice of funding in India. The funding from OeEB will help us to strengthen our ongoing credit lending services to a larger section of existing and potential customer base and accelerate our reach across India,” H P Singh, Chairman and MD, SCNL said. 

With an outstanding portfolio of Rs 7,182 crore and serving over 3.6 million customers, SCNL has been given MFI1 grading, the top industry grading by CARE.

“Increasing financial inclusion is one of our main strategic goals. We are therefore proud to work with SCNL – an experienced partner in the field of microfinance. Especially, women often have very limited access to financial services, which is why we are particularly happy that our funds will support female entrepreneurs and contribute to improving gender equality in India,” Sabine Gaber, Member of the Executive Board of the Development Bank of Austria said.

Satin Creditcare Network Limited is a leading microfinance institution (MFI) in India with presence in 22 states and about 83,274 villages. The company’s mission is to be the one-stop solution for excluded households at the bottom of the pyramid for all their financial requirements. 

It also offers a bouquet of financial products in the non-MFI segment (comprising of loans to MSMEs), a housing finance subsidiary, business correspondent services, and similar services to other financial institutions through Taraashna Financial Services Limited, a business correspondent company and a 100 percent subsidiary of SCNL.

In April 2017, SCNL incorporated a wholly-owned housing finance subsidiary, Satin Housing Finance Limited for providing loans to the affordable housing segment. In October 2018, SCNL forayed into the digital lending space with “Loan Dost” to target millennials.

In January last year, it received a separate NBFC license to commence its MSME business, Satin Finserv Limited.

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

(Edited by Suman Singh)

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The Telangana government on Thursday signed eight memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with various companies, including Intel, Nvidia, and Adobe, in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The MoUs were signed in the presence of IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao after he declared 2020 as the 'Year of AI' at a meeting with industry bigwigs.

Intel, the Public Health Foundation of India, and IIIT- Hyderabad jointly signed the agreement with the government for setting up a research centre in applied AI in healthcare and smart mobility.

IIT-Kharagpur signed an MoU to set up a centre of excellence in AI and a research and development park.

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The state government also signed MoUs with IIT- Hyderabad, Wadhwani AI, Hexagon, and Innovation Norway.

"In line with our vision and our approach, AI will be our focus for the coming year and beyond. While we are calling 2020 as the 'Year of AI', this event would set in motion a set of initiatives, which would potentially make the next decade as Telangana's decade of AI.

Telangana is ready to capture the global AI opportunity, the Minister said.

He asserted that the efforts in AI would take forward and add to Telangana's growth story, which aims to establish Hyderabad as among the top 25 global AI innovation hubs.

Nivruti Rai, Country Head – Intel India and Vice President – Data Centre Group, Intel Corp, said AI is going to create $13 trillion to the world economy.

Principal secretary, IT and industries, Jayesh Ranjan said as part of the 'Year of AI', there would be year-long programmes and activities in the emerging technology and some of them are long-term in nature.

Earlier in October, a top company official of Hexagon Capability Center India (HCCI), the research and development unit of Swedish technology major Hexagon AB, said that it will set up an AI community centre in Hyderabad next year in association with Nasscom.

The upcoming AI centre will be accessible to all from high-school level, and will provide free education on AI topics, HCCI Vice-President and Country Manager Navaneet Mishra said after presenting awards to winners of a 24-hour hackathon – Hexathon – which was conducted recently by the company.

"With Nasscom, we are trying to open an AI community centre, which is planned for next year. It will be not only for students, but also for those who have become experts and those who finished engineering degree," Mishra said, adding the idea was to push AI in the community as well.

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

(Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)

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The government has given sanction for setting up 2,636 charging stations in 62 cities across 24 states and union territories under the FAME India scheme, which will encourage original equipment manufacturers to launch new electric vehicle models, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Friday.

The Department of Heavy Industry had invited the expressions of interest from entities for availing incentives under the FAME India Scheme Phase II for deploying charging stations within cities.

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"By installing all these charging stations, it is expected that at least one charging station will be available in most of the selected cities in a grid of 4 km x 4 km, which will boost the confidence of users of electric vehicles in terms of range anxiety and also this will encourage the OEMs to launch the new electric vehicle models which they were hesitant because of lack of charging infrastructure," the Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises said.

Under the second phase of the FAME India (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India) scheme, 317 EV charging stations have been sanctioned in Maharashtra, 266 in Andhra Pradesh, 256 in Tamil Nadu, 228 in Gujarat, 205 in Rajasthan, 207 in Uttar Pradesh, 172 in Karnataka, 159 in Madhya Pradesh, 141 in West Bengal, 138 in Telangana, 131 in Kerala, 72 in Delhi, 70 in Chandigarh, 50 in Haryana, 40 in Meghalaya, 37 in Bihar, 29 in Sikkim, 25 each in Jammu, Srinagar, and Chhattisgarh, 20 in Assam, 18 in Odisha and 10 each in Uttarakhand, Puducherry and Himachal Pradesh.

Sanction letters to the selected entities will be issued in phases after ensuring availability of land for charging stations, signing of necessary agreements/MoUs with concerned partner organisations like city municipal corporation/discoms/oil companies etc.

Subsequently, selected public entities are required to initiate the procurement process in a time-bound manner for deployment of sanctioned charging stations.

The Department of Heavy Industry had invited the Expressions of Interest from large cities, smart cities, state/union territory capitals and cities from special category states for submission of proposal for availing incentives under FAME India Scheme Phase II for deployment of EV charging infrastructure within cities.

In response thereof, about 106 proposals from public/private entities for the deployment of about 7,000 EV charging stations were received. After evaluation of these proposals as per EoI, on the advice of Project Implementation and Sanctioning Committee (PISC) the Government sanctioned 2,636 charging stations to 62 cities submitted by 19 public entities for 24 states.

Out of these 2,636 charging stations, 1,633 will be fast charging stations, whereas the remaining 1,003 slow charging stations. About 14,000 chargers will be installed across the selected cities.

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Data is the new oil, especially in the Indian retail industry. Since almost a decade ago, ecommerce has changed the way consumers look at retailing in India. 

Organised retail and ecommerce have brought in superior supply chain capabilities and price efficiencies that have brought down the end cost for the consumer. However, organised retail makes up only 10 percent of India's consumption story. Small stores and distributors have been able to survive with their small net margins of three percent without technology. 

But, over the last six years, there have been concerted efforts from brands and startups to work with distributors and kirana establishments by providing them technology and empowering them with data to change the way they reach customers.

Will 2020 be the year when these retail establishments are powered by technology? Let’s find out.

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RV Enterprises is a Rs 7.9 Cr B2B marketplace for granite exports

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Are you an operator VC or an investor VC? This question is an inherent part of the startup ecosystem.

In Silicon Valley, there are VC firms like Kleiner Perkins and a16z that are classic examples of successful operator VCs. For better context, an operator VC is someone who “has been there and done that” as an entrepreneur or intrapreneur.

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So does being an operator in your past life significantly help in this business?

“I don't think there is any single formula for success. In any business and venture, you know just one of the businesses. I think there are enough archetypes on both sides of what it takes for you to know how to be a successful investor,” says Tarun Davda, Managing Director, Matrix India.

Citing some examples of Operator VCs, Tarun names Andreesen, First Round Capital - all US-based companies. In India, he takes the example of Matrix founded by Avnish Bajaj, an entrepreneur who successfully built and sold Baazee to eBay.

“Suvir Sujan, from Nexus Venture Partners, was also with him as a Co-founder; Bejul Somania from Lightspeed, from what I know ran a couple of companies. Shailendra Singh from Sequoia, K Ganesh from Growthstory, and a couple of the partners at Prime Venture were there too,” says Tarun.

Success on both sides

He adds that while there are successful examples of operator VCs, there are several successful non-operator VCs as well. Tarun explains,

“These are people who have come from consulting, financial services, or banking backgrounds. If you look at Michael Moritz, John Doerr, or Bill Gurley in the US - all of them are extremely successful investors but haven’t built or run companies themselves. If you look closer home, Ravi Adusumali from SAIF Partners has been very successful. He comes from financial services, banking, and consulting background. In both, I think one can build success. There are multiple formulae for success - one just needs to find their formula in terms of what works and stick to it.”

From an intrapreneur to an operator VC

While Tarun Davda currently is the Managing Director and Partner at Matrix India, earlier, he was an intrapreneur and successfully led two internet businesses – StepOut and BigRock. Tarun calls his entry into the venture capital ecosystem - Tarun accidental.

“I was running StepOut, pitching various Series B investors to raise my Series B round of funding. In that context, I met a bunch of people from venture funds both in India and in the US. I met Avnish from Matrix in that context, we hit off, and I thought he asked me some of the smartest questions as he understood the business well.”

“For various reasons, though Matrix was interested in investing at that time, we didn’t go ahead with the investment and this was more from our side. The interaction left a very good impression in my mind in terms of the kind of work and the quality of team Matrix had at that time. Our fundraise didn’t go off smoothly after that, and so we decided that it would make sense to sell the business. So, we ended up selling it to match.com," adds Tarun.

He continued to stay in touch with Avnish, and soon Tarun joined Matrix.

An operator VC can always tap into the insight and expertise that comes from being an ex-entrepreneur, and on the other hand, there’s always the risk of slipping back into operator mode and trying to micro-manage and get over-involved with your startup and founder.

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The positives of an operator VC

Tarun believes that by definition an operator VC has more empathy because he has been in that position. They have seen what it is like to run a company, and go through all the difficult times.

He says,

“An entrepreneur has all eggs in one basket, you have been through that journey so there's a lot of humility and respect for what any founder is going through. There's a lot of empathy. So, I think that is definitely one advantage. The second is more obvious, you’ve got a bunch of experiences that you have been through as an operator, a lot of mistakes that you have made and you can pass on some of those learnings to founders, especially in early-stage ventures, where a large number of founders we back are either running their first gig or are very young and it is their first attempt.”

The pitfalls - the idea

Tarun says that as an operator VC, one tends to get overly excited by an idea because at the back of the mind somewhere, they keep saying “I can see how one would execute against this idea,” and then they quickly realise that as a VC they aren’t the one executing it and so the entrepreneur needs to be able to see how that idea would be executed.

Tarun says it is also important to understand over time as a VC you are going to be involved in around 10-12-15 companies.

“You are not going to have time to keep up with how quickly the businesses are evolving, keep up with every minute detail, you are not going to be hiring the team, or setting strategy. So, you quickly realise that even though the idea makes a lot of sense, you probably backed yourself and not the person who is going to be running it. So, that is one pitfall. I think, there have been examples where I have done that and you know it has not gone as well and it clearly is a learning.”

Getting too involved

The next problem is that there is a bias early on to get too involved. One of the biggest advantages of a VC is that you’re able to stay away from the day-to-day details and observing things from a distance gives a lot of perspectives.

He believes when you have less emotional involvement, you have a broader perspective without the day-to-day involvement.

“Also, the best founders just don’t like it, they just want you to stay away. You have to put your faith in them. You have backed them for all their positives and negatives and they expect you to then trust them in building the company the way they would want them to be built. Sometimes by staying too involved there will be natural disagreements and that’s not something that one wants to get into,” says Tarun.

Bring in a distance

Citing his personal example Tarun shares that when he joined, Avnish was clear in the first 12 months that there “would be no portfolio work until you spend at least 12 months sourcing yourself”.

“I remember for the first 9-12 months I didn’t attend a single portfolio meeting, I didn’t get involved in any work related to any of the companies that Matrix had already invested in and in some ways, it was more like 'hunt what you eat.' Go out there, source deals, meet people, find somebody you want to back, and that’s when you get involved in helping build a company. It was extremely hard because as an operator you are used to seeing results every week, or every two weeks,” he says.

“Also, there is always something happening, you are running some marketing campaign and or seeing some experiment working or not working. It did help me correct that early urge of getting involved too deeply with any of the portfolio companies. The last problem is that of micromanagement. I see the role of an investor as guiding, coaching, and asking the right questions but, eventually helping the founder get to the answer versus answering because I think that is, a dangerous territory,” adds Tarun. 

Listen to the podcast here.

(Edited by Rekha Balakrishnan)

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Amazon’s new Echo Flex is an interesting device that furthers the company’s pledge to bring the Alexa voice assistant to as many places as possible.

The Echo Flex speaker comes in a compact package that plugs directly into an outlet. It is a boxed-shaped device, unlike other Echo speakers that are mostly cylindrical in shape. And, there are no cords and cables in sight.

The small and portable speaker is about 2.8 inches tall and 2.6 inches wide. It stays nearly invisible when plugged in, and is designed to go everywhere - bathroom, kitchen, living room, etc.

Additionally, there’s a USB port at the bottom to help you charge phones (and other devices) or connect to other modules.

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Microphones and Alexa

Like earlier Echo speakers, the Flex sports an always-on microphone, which means that the Alexa assistant can be enabled with a simple voice command.

But, the Echo Flex has only two microphones compared to the Echo Dot’s seven. Alexa’s responses come via the built-in speaker and the two microphones are to detect your voice.

Unsurprisingly, the device has a slight speech detection problem. While it can hear and respond well to your voice commands within a radius of eight to nine feet, it can hardly catch what you’re saying beyond that.

However, the Flex can do all things any other Echo device can – play the news, answer questions, perform various skills, control smart lights, etc. 

There is a light indicator to let everyone know that Alexa is listening in. But you can also turn it off with the ‘microphone off’ button.

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How to better the sound output

On the side of the Echo Flex is a 3.5mm audio output jack, which allows you to connect to a more powerful speaker to get better sound output.

You can even connect to external speakers via Bluetooth. This is advisable if you place the Echo Flex in a larger room.

Amazon India categorically states in its product listing that the Flex “is not optimised for music playback”. So, the output lacks depth and is not great for listening to music. It is, however, extremely useful in enclosed spaces like a kitchen.

Connecting the Flex to a proper speaker fixes the sound issue.

But this is ironic because the Echo Flex was meant to be a portable Alexa-enabled device that can be with you everywhere. Hence, attaching it to an external speaker ruins the core experience.

Should you buy it?

The Echo Flex is Amazon’s cheapest Alexa device till date, retailing at an MRP of Rs 2,999.

So, if you’re just starting out with Echo devices, this might be the one to buy. It helps you carry a voice assistant to all parts of the house.

But, if you want a ‘smarter’ experience with better sound quality and higher reception to commands, you should give this a miss and opt for the Echo Dot (which was Amazon’s entry-point Echo speaker before Flex launched).

The question is: Who is Amazon targeting with the Flex?

It might be a narrow audience segment, but an affordable price point is always a plus, especially in markets like India!

(Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)

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The words ‘internet’ and ‘WiFi’ are used daily in our conversations. Today, our world comes to a standstill when the internet or the WiFi connection is down. It is not wrong to say that the internet has become a type of currency that connects the world. 

With the internet, you can get educated, find jobs, order food, and sell your services and products. However, in India, access to the internet is still expensive. 

Tapping into this market is Wifi Dabba. Launched in 2016 by Shubhendu Sharma and Karam Lakshman, the startup provides an affordable, fast internet service in India where a large part of the population is currently unserved or underserved. 

“We aim to lower the cost of internet to make easy accessibility possible for the next billion internet users,” Shubhendu Sharma, Founder and COO, Wifi Dabba says.

Having raised funds from YCombinator and a few other investors, Wifi Dabba installed over 1,000 hotspots in Bengaluru, offering internet connectivity for as low as Rs 2 for 200MB. The startup also provides connectivity to over 10,000 co-living spaces in the city, and users enjoy prepaid billing and roaming on WiFi. 

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The inception

The founders say that Wifi Dabba emerged from the shortcomings of another app. In the summer of 2016, the duo was busy signing up taxi drivers for their recently launched app, 'Stepni' that helped them come together on an interactive platform. 

“However, due to expensive internet charges and poor connectivity throughout Bengaluru, the taxi drivers were not using the app regularly. That’s when we decided to fix the connectivity problem with a reliable and affordable service,” Karam Lakshman, Founder and CEO, Wifi Dabba adds.

“Dabba in Hindi means a box, and Wifi Dabba is exactly what it reads – access to the internet in a box,” Karam told YourStory.

In 2016, Wifi Dabba first started offering paid public WiFi at chai tapris and paan shops. Here, users could purchase tokens for data starting at Rs 2 for 200MB with 24-hours validity. In 2017, with further development in technology, the startup started offering 1GB data for Rs 2.

It also tested a free-internet model supported by ads in 2018 where users could get access to free internet after watching an ad every 45 minutes. Alternatively, they could also pay for uninterrupted service by purchasing data.

Wifi Dabba has also deployed a mesh network in a densely populated area in Hubli which has served about half a million users in over three months. Since 2019, it has been focussing on solving the middle-mile problem and has developed a supernode – a technology that delivers the laser-based mesh. The lasers are eye-safe, and can throughput up to 100GB per second speed within a 20 km radius with no use of fibre. 

What does Wifi Dabba hold for 2020?

“In 2020, we will begin rolling out supernodes across the city, and offer Wifi Dabba connections to homes, retails, and enterprises. Home and retails will get a Wifi Dabba Giga router which will connect to the supernode,” Shubhendu says. 

He adds that the startup will not use the ad-model anymore but instead, offer access via solving a Captcha Code – a simple puzzle that asks users to identify a car in a picture, etc. For uninterrupted connections, a customer can purchase data at the price of Rs 1.20 per GB.

“Enterprises can opt for a dedicated supernode and take advantage of the 20GBPS throughput with a lease-line-like quality,” Shubhendu adds.

At first, the startup is going to deploy a network across Bengaluru and target the rest of India in the future. It claims to be the cheapest Gigabit internet connection, allowing users to access the internet by simply solving a puzzle – similar to Captcha Code verification, or by watching an advertisement. 

Users can pre-order for a Wifi Dabba connection for their homes, retail outlets, and offices from the startup’s website. Each connection comes with a Wifi Dabba Giga router powered by DabbaOS. Anyone can log in or register to the network using a mobile number and a one-time password (OTP). The same mobile number can be used to access multiple devices at once. 

The dream team

Shubhendu and Karam met in 2010 at CIIE, IIM-Ahmedabad while working there. Since then, the duo has worked on 33 businesses with varying levels of success. While Karam handles the technical part of the startup, Shubhendu looks after the business. Wifi Dabba has a 40-member strong team comprising of engineers, designers, network architects, and field executives. 

The present and future

According to Karam, India, at present, has over 450 million mobile data users and 20 million broadband users. While the demand evidently exists in the market, there must be some factors that have resulted in such a small penetration of broadband. 

“We would like to address this by lowering the cost of access. Our key differentiator would be the in-house innovation and ownership of the full-stack of technology. We build everything in-house, unlike traditional companies that have different vendors for different parts of the process,” Karam says.

When asked about the startup’s revenue numbers, Shubhendu says that Wifi Dabba is still in the development phase, and is moving to the deployment phase. Hence, revenue isn't a priority for the startup at the moment.

(Edited by Suman Singh)

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The year was 2012 and Abhinav Asthana was at Yahoo, building the front-end architecture of an app. While working with APIs, he realised that the tools for API development were incomplete and managing APIs was challenging. Specifically, there seemed to be plenty of communication issues with different teams, rendering tracking of API updates a hassle.

At that time, Abhinav was also the Co-founder and CTO at TeliportMe, where he was building APIs and discovered the same problems he had encountered at Yahoo. It was clear to him that these were universal problems with API development.

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So he went on to create the first prototype of the Postman app, which was designed to deal with these problems.

The CEO and Co-founder of Postman tells YourStory, "I realised many years ago that APIs were playing a more and more important role in every system. Because of this extraordinary importance, it seemed critical that developers had proper tools to debug, track, and manage these APIs. Unfortunately, there was no tool to handle this, which made it very challenging to work with APIs."

Abhinav built Postman primarily to solve this issue for himself and found that it worked well enough. He then decided to put it up on Chrome Web Store as an open-source REST client, and the app quickly gained popularity.

This gave him and his co-founders the necessary push to take Postman up full time. Abhinav officially set up Postman in October 2014 with Abhijit Kane and Ankit Sobti.

Launched as a product in November 2015, Postman has pioneered the transition of software approach from code-first to API-first. At the time, Postman was one of the most popular apps on the Chrome store. It also evolved to become a robust native app for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Postman is the leading collaboration platform for API development, used by more than nine million developers and more than 400,000 companies around the world. It is currently the only complete API development environment, and its popularity has soared because of its simple and intuitive UI that allows developers to manage every stage of the API lifecycle.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Postman has an office in Bengaluru, where it was founded.

Earlier in June 2019, the startup announced that it has completed its Series B funding round with $50 million, led by CRV and Nexus Venture Partners. It had earlier raised seed funding of $1 million in 2015, and Series A funding of $7 million from Nexus VP in 2016.

(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)

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Over the years, video streaming platforms have gained immense popularity. In particular, YouTube has the highest number of users logging on. Be it entertainment, education, news or business, everything is available on the platform.

Many organisations and companies make use of this platform for product marketing and company promotion. While these companies focus on strengthening their social media presence and strategies, they also pay special attention to building a wide community on YouTube.

YourStory has curated a list of jobs with a primary basis on YouTube: 

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YouTube Channel Manager

Zwende

Experience needed: 2-3 years

Zwende is on the lookout for an effective multi-tasker with exceptional communication skills to take on the role of their YouTube Channel Manager. The selected candidate will be responsible for content strategy, scheduling and delivery execution, community building, engagement and collaborations to improve the growth of the channel. They will work with the Graphic Design team to develop video content aligned with overall strategy. Additionally, they will function as a resident expert on video content.

For more information, click here.

SEO Analyst – YouTube

Pinnacle HRM

Experience needed: Not specified

As a YouTube SEO analyst, candidates will be expected to advise the best practices and growth strategies for the company’s YouTube channels. They should perform competitive analysis and specific keyword research to ensure efficient growth in the online space. They must provide recommendations for content development and regularly monitor YouTube analytics dashboards. Having a strong knowledge of popular SEO tools like YouTube analytics, TubeMate and TubeBuddy is a must.

For more information, click here.

YouTube Manager

Oliveboard

Experience needed: Not specified

The edtech startup is looking for a cheerful YouTube manager who can effectively manage their YouTube channels from creation to promotion. They should develop videos based on exam patterns, syllabus and share various tips and tricks for an easy study. They will coordinate and manage the freelancers to produce quality content. They will also conduct video interviews with influencers. Candidates with basic video editing skills and online video experience can apply for this role.

For more information, click here.

YouTube Marketing Expert

Zarantech Software Pvt Ltd

Experience needed: 1-4 years

The company is on the lookout for a YouTube Marketing Manager with excellent communication skills and a knowledge of different marketing and SEO techniques. The candidates should work on making the videos effective. They will be responsible for marketing the videos to generate more engagements and views. Expertise in use of keywords, hashtags, titles and description is a necessity. Familiarity with YouTube video posting and marketing is a prerequisite.

For more information, click here.

YouTube Manager

Premium Consultants

Experience needed: 1-2 years

Successful candidates will be responsible for designing and managing complete operating plan, programming and content strategies. They should focus on viewership growth for existing and newly created YouTube channels. They must manage promotions and ads for the channels. They must develop data-driven recommendations to ensure that goals are achieved.

For more information, click here.

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Launched in 2014, PhotoSparks is a weekly feature from YourStory, with photographs that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In the earlier 425 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.

Ignite School of Passion is hosting the ninth edition of its Vista art exhibition this weekend at Bengaluru’s Rangoli Metro Arts Centre, featuring over 200 paintings by 100 student artists. Located near the MG Road Metro Station, the art centre also has a range of upcycled art from electronic components and wires, and has emerged over the years as a popular hub for theatre, music, dance, art, and design.

“The vision of Ignite School of Passion is making people live their passion,” explains artist and art teacher Shole Madhusudhanan, in a chat with YourStory. She founded the school in 2011, and has brought her childhood passion for colours to a much larger audience.

In its journey so far, Ignite has successfully taught 5,000 students and conducted over 18 national exhibitions and two international shows. Participating in public events helps students connect to the broader art community and movement, and not just learn colours, Shole says.

She cites Pablo Picasso in this regard: Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once they grow up. Every Ignite student is considered an artist and every artwork is framed to ensure the student artists take pride in their work,” Shole explains.

Students are taught a range of mediums such as watercolour, acrylic, oil paint, oil pastel, charcoal, and colour pencil. Ignite’s Vista platform involves an exhibition series conducted every three months.

Over the years, Ignite students have showcased their artworks at Karnataka Chithra Kala Parishad, Venkatappa Art Gallery, and Chitra Santhe. “Ignite students have participated in World Art Dubai alongside thousands of renowned global artists,” Shole proudly says.

Ignite doesn’t approach art just as a subject to be taught in a class, but a concept to be guided from within each human being. From ages five to 65, art students can choose flexible timings to study and practice.

Now in its ninth edition, the Vista exhibition features the works of over a hundred students. “It gives the students the joy and pride of displaying their art pieces in a gallery, which is the dream of every budding artist,” Shole affirms.

Preparation for the Vista exhibition began two months ago, with teachers selecting the artworks based on proficiency. “Art is all about an individual’s perspective. Every student is unique and brings a different perspective irrespective of physical ability,” Shole explains.

“Our experience shows that differently-abled students are more creative and are fast learners. We learn a lot from these students,” she adds. Ignite conducts regular workshops for students with autism and Down syndrome.

“Art at Ignite is a way of life. Art is therapeutic and touches the soul. It is a form of meditation which connects one to the inner self,” Shole describes.

She calls for broader appreciation and promotion of art as a profession in Indian society, and not just a hobby. “There is a dearth of professional art institutions that can take art to the masses,” she laments.

Success for Ignite is defined by the happiness of the students when they complete their work and thank their teacher, Shole explains. “Student testimonials are the best reward; they also result in references that define the commercial success of the institution,” she adds.

“Art needs to become affordable and must reach the masses. Promotion of art as a career option will ensure more students take up art,” Shole suggests.

The artworks at the Vista exhibition are priced from Rs 1,500 to Rs 20,000. The next exhibition will be in Coimbatore. “Exhibitions are a platform for students to display their skills and grow their confidence,” Shole explains.

“Art enthusiasts visit our exhibitions, appreciate the artists, and are amused by the perspectives. They commend the breaking of barriers of age and ability, and bring energy and enthusiasm to these exhibitions,” she proudly adds.

“Every artwork brings a story and the audience should dig a little deeper to connect to the story,” Shole advises. She also offers tips for aspiring artists.

“Live your passion. Spread happiness through the vibrant colours that you use to make life more beautiful,” Shole signs off.

Now, what have you done today to pause in your busy schedule and explore the full diversity of your creative sides?

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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Indian startups raised about $21 million in funding, across seven equity deals in the first week of January, marking a slow start for the startup ecosystem. This is a 73 percent drop from last week when Indian startups had raised $80.4 million in equity funding. 

Further, Indian startups did not raise any funding through debt deals.

The first week of January saw startups raising funds in early and growth-stage deals. However, no late-stage deals were signed by any startup during this period.

While early-stage startups cornered close to $6.28 million across six deals, there was only one growth-stage deal which was raised by Gurugram-based GoMechanic. 

This week did not include any exits or acquisitions in the Indian startup ecosystem.

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Deal of the week 

Gurugram-based automotive service startup GoMechanic raised Rs 105 crore (or $14.7 million) in Series B funding round led by existing investor Sequoia Capital. New investor Chiratae Ventures, along with Orios Venture Partners also participated in the round.

GoMechanic will use these funds to expand to 30 cities by 2020, and further scale up its operations.

Early and growth-stage deals

Fashor, a Chennai-based online women’s apparel brand raised $1 million in Pre-Series A funding led by Sprout Venture Partners, IP Ventures, and Venture Catalysts. The round also saw participation from a few HNIs. 

Delhi-based WealthBucket, an online platform for mutual fund investments, raised $3 million (Rs 18 crore) from NorthStar, angel investor Vinod Khatumal, and other HNIs. 

Zerodha’s fintech incubator, Rainmatter invested Rs 2 crore of seed funding in online tax planning and filing platform, Quicko. 

New Delhi-based university admissions and career guidance platform, Leverage Edtech Private Limited, which operates education platforms – Leverage Edu and Univalley – raised over $1.5 million led by existing investors DSG Consumer Partners and Blume Ventures. Saama Capital Founder Ash Lilani and PayU CEO Amrish Rau also participated.

Hyderabad-based interior design startup Super Surfaces announced its Series A round funding of $500,000 from NRI investor Vishnu Reddy.

Pune-based agritech startup Shivrai Technologies, which runs and owns enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform FarmERP, raised Series A funding of an undisclosed amount from Singapore-based strategic investor, Technogen.

(Edited by Suman Singh)

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Are you a startup looking to SCALE your business and work with leading business in the country? Or, you are a corporate or SME looking for innovative products and services to grow your business.

Be it for a startup, corporate or SME, YES SCALE Marketplace by YES BANK, is the perfect platform for you. It is as easy as adding products to your cart on an e-commerce platform; Only this time, it is relevant solutions!

What is YES SCALE Marketplace?

YES SCALE Marketplace is an industry-first online marketplace of innovative solutions that eases the process for startups to jointly go-to-market with YES BANK, enabling them to explore ‘live’ banking use-cases to deliver better customer experience, register their solution and further assist startups in completing their solutions with banking integrations (API Sandbox) to jointly go-to-market with the Bank to 20K+ corporate & MSME clients.

The platform features a pool of 100+ innovative solutions for use cases across various sectors including Supply Chain and Logistics, Clean energy, Agritech, Lifesciences/Healthtech, Edutech, AI and IoT-enabled solutions, among others.

So, how does it work?

This platform creates a ‘one-stop-shop’ experience enabling businesses to not only view and discover multiple solutions, but also explore them in detail through demos and seamlessly integrate banking on their platform.

While startups can list their products on the platform or build products based on trending banking use cases, corporates and SMEs, who are looking for a specific SaaS solution across various sectors, can login to the platform, explore solutions and features that startups provide, add these to the cart and process the order. The backend team then helps process the right startups which can offer relevant solutions to the corporate/SME and take the transaction forward.

Supporting startups to scale up

YES Bank’s mission is to support startups by taking their technology to cities where the penetration is low like Ahmedabad ,Pune , Jaipur among others , as compared to larger cities. To further build traction and usage of the solution marketplace, they host a series of exclusive showcases across the country called SCALEUp Drive. 

The main objective is to support startups by ensuring that trending solutions are showcased in their cities. The Drive aims to provide startups with the opportunity for an exclusive trial of their solutions and matches them with the right requirements to scale. 

The bank provides go-to-market opportunities and API sandbox to co-create solutions with their banking integration. Moreover, customers welcome startup ideas based on the credibility that YES Bank as a brand has to offer. 

Last month, the SCALEUp Drive held in Gurgaon saw startups from the supply chain sector come together to co-create solutions using YES Bank’s technology. The showcase at Ahmedabad witnessed startups from the education and commercial sector, presenting their innovative solutions to interested corporates and SMEs. 

Participate in the SCALEUp Drive in your city

YES SCALE marketplace is bringing innovations to Pune and Jaipur in 2020. Register for the Drive in your city today!

PUNE

Friday | 10 January 2020

Pune

Register Here

JAIPUR

Thursday |16 January 2020

6:30 PM onwards

Golden Tulip, Jaipur