Mumbai-based medtech startup Generico has raised $3 million in Series A funding from Tomorrow Capital and Whiteboard Capital, along with angel investor Gagan Goyal.

Generico sells generic medicines through its 20 physical pharmacies across the city. With the freshly raised round, Generico plans to expand to 100 cities including Pune, and a few cities in Gujarat. According to media reports, founder Siddharth Gadia says this expansion will take place over the next 10 months.

The company sells generic medicines at 80 percent discount and branded medicines are available for 15 percent lesser price. It also provides a subscription service where a customer gets to avail 15 percent additional discount.

In order to have a sustainable business model, the startup said it plans to raise more funds in the near future. Generico believes that consumers can save up to 80 percent by switching to generic medicines. According to the company website, a generic medicine is an equal substitute for its brand-name counterpart.

According to media reports, Rohini Prakash of Tomorrow Capital told the media that there will be a movement from the unorganised to the organised sector, applicable to the retail pharmacies as well, and they believe the Generico team has the potential to build a scalable and valuable business. The startup's business model will be able to reduce the out-of-pocket expenditure on healthcare, he added.

Having a very similar model is government-backed Jan Aushadhi Scheme. It provides low-cost medicines to customers, but the supply, however, is controlled by the government. Generico's Siddharth Gadia focuses on regions where Jan Aushadhi stores are not available in the vicinity.

Generico's medicines are sourced from government approved manufacturers, thus ensuring quality, said a release. Besides having brick-and-motor outlets, the company also allows customers to order medicines over WhatsApp and phone calls, the delivery for which is done within six hours from when the order is placed. In case of customer dissatisfaction, the company takes returns and refunds the money back to the customer, within 30 days of sale.

Website

Edtech startup Toppr has raised $35 million from Kaizen Private Equity and existing investors SAIF Partners, Helion Ventures and Eight Roads Ventures. Also participated in the round were Alteria Capital and Times Group’s strategic investment arm, Brand Capital.

Toppr has now raised a total of $58 million and plans to use these funds to improve its e-learning platform in its mission to make learning personalised.

The company currently has over six million registered students with over one million app downloads. It claims to have more than 29,000 educators with distribution in 15 cities.

The announcement comes a few days after its rival Byju’s raised $540 million from Naspers, a global internet and entertainment group, along with participation from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

"This is a Series C funding by new and existing investors. It is a reflection of our highly engaging product, robust business fundamentals, and the faith that the investors have in us. This capital will be used to create brand awareness, accelerate user acquisition, increase our geographical footprint and invest in training and development,” said Zishaan Hayath, Founder and CEO of Toppr.

The e-learning market is vast in India with corporate professionals and startups alike doing well in the market. According to a report, the online education market in India is poised to grow at a CAGR of 20.02 percent during 2017-2021 period.

Founded in 2013 by Hayath and Hemanth Goteti, Toppr started by offering courses to Class XI and XII students. The company caters to students between fifth and 12th grades, and offers questions, solutions, concepts, practice tests and videos for students signed up on the app and prepare them for competitive entrance exams such as IIT JEE mains and advanced, BITSAT, and NEE.

“A robust pedagogical approach that keeps students engaged and delivers outcomes, thoughtful use of artificial intelligence, and a strong management team are aspects of Toppr that convinced us about the company’s ability to continue making a significantly positive difference to the way children learn. We are pleased to join hands with SAIF Partners, Helion Ventures and Eight Roads Ventures in this path-breaking venture,” said Sandeep Aneja, managing partner at Kaizen PE.

The Mumbai-based startup had raised Rs 15.5 crore in debt funding led by Alteria Capital in May this year.

The  microblogging site has been hit by security incidents in the past as well. But with regard to the latest, Twitter assured its users that “no action is required”.

After Facebook, Quora, and most recently Google+, now it's Twitter's turn to be hit by an “unusual” data leak. The vulnerability was noticed on one of Twitter’s support forms – the same one that account holders access to contact the microblogging site regarding issues with their accounts.

The unusual activity surrounding the affected customer support form API was noticed on November 15 and by November 16, the bug was fixed, Twitter announced via a blog post shared on Monday. While no sensitive user information (like phone numbers) is said to have been exposed, the company confirmed that country codes of users’ phone numbers as well as “whether or not their account had been locked by Twitter” might have become accessible.

“Importantly, this issue did not expose full phone numbers or any other personal data. We have directly informed the people we identified as being affected. We are providing this broader notice as it is possible that other account holders we cannot identify were potentially impacted,” the company said in the post.

Upon discovering the breach, however, Twitter immediately launched an investigation, which brought to notice a bigger concern.

“We noticed some unusual activity involving the affected customer support form API. Specifically, we observed a large number of inquiries coming from individual IP addresses located in China and Saudi Arabia,” Twitter explained. Although, the site couldn’t link the breach to any malicious intent at the moment, it did warn about a possible state-sponsored attack.

If indeed malicious intent is involved in this security breach, chances are that this situation could have implications on whistleblowers or political dissidents, TechCrunch suggested.

While this is not the first time that the microblogging site has been hit by a security incident, with regard to the latest incident, Twitter assured that it has resolved the issue and that “no action is required by account holders”.

The site added: “ If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact Twitter’s Data Protection Officer, Damien Kieran, by completing the online form located here.”

Pedl is focusing on cycle quality to ensure we're in the bike sharing space race for the long run, says Zoomcar CEO Greg Moran.

Just yesterday several of  Zoomcar's customers got an email stating that the company would be putting an interim stop to its Pedl services pan-India by December 21. Now, Greg Moran, Co-founder and CEO, Zoomcar, has confirmed to YourStory, that it is indeed just an interim stop and that Pedl operations will be resumed later next year. 

"The problem wasn't the bookings or getting consumers to use the service; the problem was the hardware, availability of the vehicles, and their quality," Greg said.  He said in the past 11 to 12 months, Pedl had over 3 million transactions, much more than any other platform. Zoomcar continuously introduced new features to improve the overall Pedl experience, be it a more flexible end-trip mechanism or a pioneering, industry-leading subscription model.

"We are currently working with manufacturing partners to make the cycles studier and of better quality. We are looking at a 20x to 30x scale, and for that kind of scale it is important that we create and build the right form factors and hardware, to ensure that we continue in the  race for the long run."

Greg said Zoomcar was committed to different forms of mobility, and cycle or bike sharing was an important aspect. "With growing number of customers, we want to ensure that the brand gives them the best experience possible. For that, cycles need to be available and of a quality that works for Indian roads. We are extremely bullish about the market and the space. The consumer behaviour and number of transactions we have seen are testament to the existence of a market. We will soon be redeploying cycles in the market," he said.

Earlier this year, Zoomcar raised $40 million in Series C funding led by Mahindra & Mahindra. Operational for five years, Zoomcar has a fleet of nearly 3,000 cars spread across 26 cities. Apart from Zoomcar, even Ola entered the bike sharing space in 2017 with Pedal. There are also other players like Yulu, founded by Amit Gupta, Co-founder of mobile advertising platform Inmobi; Letscycle, and 2018 Tech30 startup Mobycy. Recently Bounce (earlier known as Metro Bikes) took over the assets of Chinese bike sharing unicorn Ofo in India.

As 2018 draws to a close, one cannot help but reflect on the year gone by. In terms of marketing, this has been an exciting year with its share of interesting new strategies and tactics. Here is a look at the top three trends in marketing that gained traction this year and are likely to accelerate in 2019 and beyond.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) 

There was a time when one could not possibly visualise how something as abstruse as AI could add value to marketing. We as marketers have come a long way since, with AI powering several marketing initiatives and increasing in scope. IDC’s top 10 worldwide CMO predictions for 2019 includes four predictions that are AI centric and advises CMOs to be ready for AI everywhere. Analysing data for deriving insights, customer segmentation and targeting, personalising the customer experience across all touchpoints (web and email for example), programmatic media buys and content creation are some areas where AI played a crucial role in marketing this year.

Moving forward, we can hope to see AI continue to automate the more tactical, manual and repetitive tasks and really hone customer intelligence in order to bring us closer to reaching the right customer with the right message and at the right time.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has picked up cadence over the past three to five years with the rise of social media, ease of content creation and increase in Internet penetration. But what’s really driving influencer marketing is the need for authenticity. Consumers are jaded with the same old brand advertising. There is too much noise across all channels making it almost impossible for brands to stand out and get noticed. And here is where influencers come in, endorsing brands to their loyal followers based on usage and experience. That said, influencer marketing as it gathers steam also runs the risk of being awash with brand messaging and losing the credibility that has built its stature till date. What we can see moving forward is marketers increasing their spend on influencers, building a broader portfolio of influencers that also include micro and nano-influencers and investing in technology for managing their roster and content as well as for optimising spends.

Smart Speaker Marketing

Year 2018 saw a shipment of 99.8 million smart speakers comprising 15.5 percent of the smart home devices segment as per a recent IDC report. The category grew 43 percent in India in the second quarter of 2018. Needless to say, the wealth of data amassed by smart speakers (and by smart home devices in general), coupled with almost family like status in any given household presents marketers with an unprecedented opportunity to talk to consumers, quite literally. While 2017 alerted us to the crazy possibilities enabled by smart speakers (recall the Burger King Whopper commercial); 2018 saw marketers employing strategic, content-based applications that while having a strong brand correlation also provided value to consumers in the form of education and/or entertainment. That said, the use of smart speakers for marketing has been largely limited with Google Home and Amazon Echo being closed to paid ads.

What one can see in 2019 and beyond is an evolution in this space with consumers expanding usage, vendors building and standardising advertising models and marketers understanding how to better communicate in the voice era. However, it is critical that we as marketers start thinking about how to reach shoppers with a virtual assistant and how to engage consumers at the other end of a smart speaker in a meaningful way.

There are, of course, several other techniques that we saw marketers incorporate into their plans in 2018 - from social selling and account-based marketing to experiential marketing and more. The one common feature across all forms of marketing was, of course, data.

Marketing will continue to become much more targeted and data-driven as technologies to analyse and leverage huge reams of consumer data become more sophisticated. As data becomes the new elixir, marketers also need to exercise caution and judgment when it comes to handling consumer data in the face of growing concerns around security and privacy. And while on the one hand marketing is becoming more analytical, data-driven, and technology-based, there still exists a need for compelling content and creative in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

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

Who doesn’t like a quick weekend trip to break from work and life stress? Indians, especially millennials, are increasingly opting for quick breaks in quirky and conventionally beautiful homestays rather than going to impersonal hotels.

It is remarkable how much our physical body suffers while we chase crazy targets on little sleep and fast food. Not to mention what this running around does to your mental health. This is why people end up being saddled with physical fatigue and mental burnout. A short trip can help rejuvenate our tired bodies and stressed minds, helping us recover and start afresh. And this is why weekend getaway trips to popular destinations are registering increased consumer demand, especially amongst millennial travellers.

Short trips, lasting highs

According to BCG Google Travel Trends Report, India’s travel market is projected to grow at a rate of 11 percent to 11.5 percent and will be worth $48 billion by 2020. In recent times, India has seen a 14.4-percent year-on-year increase in foreign tourist arrivals. Business tourism too is expected to grow three-fold by 2030 from $30 billion in 2015. While it’s still in its early stages, the luxury homestays segment is gradually gaining a strong foothold in the Indian hospitality market and would be worth $3 billion by 2020 according to July 2017 report by the Boston Consulting Group.   And what makes weekend getaways such a unique proposition is the fact that they don’t require detailed planning or large budgets and can be arranged for large groups at a moment’s notice. You can take one with your family or friends for less than a quarter of the cost of a planned long holiday – all by simply driving to a nearby destination.

Moreover, since these trips are mostly taken during weekends or extended weekends, they allow for larger groups to travel together without disrupting anyone’s schedule. Such flexibility is particularly well-suited for today’s on-the-go millennial population.

However, spending quality time with people you care about, as you bond and reconnect with them, requires an exclusive and private setting which allows for such intimate interactions to happen effortlessly. This requirement is something which a hotel stay cannot fulfil It is, by its very nature, not conducive to the informal, unfettered spaces that vacationing with a group requires.

This need for exclusivity, privacy, and novelty is driving new-age travellers to choose such properties during their short vacations with their near and dear ones. These holiday villas can provide every amenity that a hotel can – swimming pools, in-house theatres, gyms, courts for sports, steam rooms – you name it. All this, with the kind of privacy and informality that hotels cannot match. With an entirely private space available to them, guests have the option of choosing the kind of stay that they want: from wild parties with fellow buccaneers to relaxing retreats that heal the body and mind.

Luxury villas are also usually located in areas that are rich in natural beauty and local culture. This is because most such properties are constructed as holiday homes by owners who want a beautiful place that they can escape to. A majority of such villas are also pet-friendly and have sufficient space for the guests’ furry companions to play around in.

Mixing business with leisure: corporate demand for luxury homestays

With so much to offer, homestays – especially luxury homestays – are becoming popular amongst corporates looking to organise office retreats, offsites, and strategy planning sessions. The informal vibe of such homes is perfect to facilitate personal interactions among fellow professionals, while the setting brings out the best of their creativity. These holiday homes are also attracting wedding photographers, TV/movie crews, and fashion and lifestyle brands, as a luxury home in a gorgeous, the natural setting makes it absolutely convenient to stay and shoot.

The concept of weekend getaways to a homestay is finding rapid adoption amongst Indian travellers. From celebrating special occasions to just escaping the hustle-bustle of the city life for a while, more and more individuals are booking their stays at holiday homes. According to BCG Google Travel Trends Report ‘Airbnb listings in India have grown by 115% over the past year. We have also witnessed almost two times growth in the number of nights booked on Airbnb in India since 2016.’ Additionally, there are other players in this market who play an active role in curating and managing the best ones, thus ensuring a smooth experience for guests as well as holiday home owners. While alternative stays or non-hotel accommodations in India currently occupy a small portion of the entire Indian hospitality market, the industry will continue to register steady growth with the increasing market demand and tech-led solutions that customise getaway experiences.

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

Workplace, the London-based Facebook division, is a communications tool for companies and businesses.

Karandeep Anand, an Indian-origin senior executive of Facebook, will head the social media giant's enterprise communications tool Workplace, the company has announced. Anand, who worked at Microsoft for 15 years before joining Facebook nearly four years ago, will work closely with Julien Codorniou, the Facebook vice president who has been the leader of Workplace, CNBC reported.

Workplace, the London-based Facebook division, is a communications tool for companies and businesses.

Anand will handle the Workplace product team, which includes developers, engineers, researchers and data scientists, while Codorniou will remain in charge of sales and partnerships, a Facebook spokeswoman was quoted as saying in the report.

At Facebook, Anand has been the head of product for a number of other divisions, including Marketplace, Audience Network and Ad Solutions, the report said.

"I'm excited to now be part of the journey of bringing Workplace to companies across the globe and help them unlock the potential of their biggest asset - people," Anand wrote on his LinkedIn profile.

The spokeswoman said: "We're thrilled that Karandeep is joining Workplace as its new head of Workplace, effectively immediately. Karandeep joins Workplace from Marketplace, and brings with him a wealth of experience from both a consumer and enterprise background. We're excited to have him on board."

In its two years of existence, Workplace by Facebook has big-name customers like Walmart, Starbucks and Chevron, the report said. However, it is behind its rivals like Microsoft and Slack in the enterprise communications software market. Microsoft Teams is used by 329,000 organisations while Slack by 500,000 organisations, including 70,000 paying organisations, the CNBC report added.

Vivriti Capital, a Chennai-based lending platform for corporate entities, has raised Series A equity funding of Rs 200 crores from Creation Investments, an investment management company focused on financial services.

Started in mid-2017 by Gaurav Kumar and Vineet Sukumar, it received approval from the Reserve Bank of India to float a non-banking finance company (NBFC) in January 2018. The central bank had come out with final guidelines in October 2017 for peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms, according to which P2P lending companies will be regulated as NBFCs and will come under the purview of the RBI.

Vivriti will use the fresh capital to further scale up the lending to corporates, and expand its online market platform by strengthening its technology such as advanced analytics, end-to-end workflow automation, credit scoring systems, portfolio monitoring mechanisms and expanding the current product offering.

The company will raise more capital to further support its scale.

In a statement, Gaurav Kumar, Founder, Vivriti Capital said,

“The current capital raise will be used for lending, as well as investment in our technology platform. We have seen unprecedented support from clients and investors on our platform, which has resulted in achieving such scale. Given this scale, we will be soon raising more capital.”

The platform works with over 150 clients across 12 sectors and 100 investors. "The company already has a host of marquee deals in its kitty including arranging the first securitisation transaction for students’ loans, the largest bond issuance for affordable housing segment in India and many more," the company stated.

Lending space in India

The lending landscape has become competitive in India with a host of players in this space. Some of the prominent competitors in this space are Lendingkart, Capital Float, OfBusiness and now wallets like Mobikwik, and Patym too are eyeing this segment.

Technology-based SME lending platform OfBusiness raised Rs 200 crore in Series-C financing, led by Creation Investments and Falcon Edge, with existing investors Matrix Partners and Zodius Capital participating in the round.

In July 2018, Lendingkart bagged debt funding of Rs 300 crore led by Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC. Earlier, Bengaluru-based Capital Float also raised $22 million in equity funding from ecommerce behemoth Amazon Inc. The investment marked the close of Capital Float’s Series-C round, standing at $67 million.

It was a weekend of sun, fun and funds as VC representatives from around the world gathered at the Startup India Global VC Summit in Goa. The two-day event saw global fund managers, venture capitalists and ecosystem partners from Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the United States in attendance with representation from the investors, the government, academia, media, enterprise and entrepreneurs.

A joint initiative by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the Government of Goa, the theme for the event was 'Mobilizing Global Capital for Innovation in India', with an aim to showcase startup opportunities which can, in turn, attract global capital to the Indian market.

India’s best is on the horizon

The focus of the summit was on the return-generating potential of India’s vast and diverse market monetised through cutting-edge technologies and supported by investor-friendly regulations. Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu, was optimistic about the India growth story saying, "The worst is over and best is yet to come."

“There is no market, which is as exciting as India. This is a new phase in India’s growth story,” Prabhu said, inviting investors to participate in this story. According to him every sector is set to experience phenomenal growth. Noting the drive of infrastructure creation in the country under the Narendra Modi-led government, Prabhu said this was a dire need for such a large country.

The sun rises on the Indian funding ecosystem

The Indian funding ecosystem has evolved significantly over the past three years, with funds raised increasing steadily. In the last three years alone, $29.2 billion dollars have been invested in the Indian startup ecosystem across equity and debt funding. This year alone, the number is close to $11 billion. Investors are taking pole positions in companies that are well established and have a proven ability to scale. In 2018 itself, of the 712 equity funding deals, 32 had an investment size of $100 million or more.

VCs are now very clear about where they want to place their bets, exits are on the rise, and a new breed of investors from the East are making their presence felt like never before. What has been a defining trend this year is the entry of foreign fund houses, specifically from China, Japan and South Korea. So far, much of the capital raised by Indian startups had come from the US. But that has changed this year with Chinese investors showing a great deal more interest in Indian startups.

The dawn of a promising startup ecosystem in Goa

Goa is a preferred holiday destination in India, and now with the recent impetus from the government, it is emerging as an important startup ecosystem too.

The state has big plans for growth, and a single-minded vision of making Goa a top startup destination in Asia by 2025. There is a massive thrust on facilitating entrepreneurship and enterprise to nurture growth, and create value and jobs. Goa has been a preferred destination, because of its unique talent pool, high GDP, and good literacy rate. And now with revised policies and schemes, it’s re-inventing itself as an important startup ecosystem.

Our aim is to galvanise the startup ecosystem and give it the support it needed to grow and become not only one of India’s most vibrant hubs but also feature among the top 25 destinations for early-stage startups in Asia by 2025. It is our mission to see at least 100 early-stage ventures succeed over the next five years through this policy.

Shri. Manohar Parrikar

Honourable Chief Minister of Goa

The government has been serious about nurturing the ecosystem and it shows. The Department of Information Technology, Government of Goa, in collaboration with NITI Aayog and Nucleus Vision, also hosted India’s first-ever International Blockchain Congress on August 5, 2018 in Goa. The event brought together world-renowned blockchain experts and thought leaders to deliberate on how India can be made the next blockchain capital of the world.

Approaching the vision with the spirit of collaboration

Leading Goa’s engagement initiative is Rohan Khaunte, the state’s Minister for Revenue, Information Technology and Labour & Employment, who also delivered a keynote at the summit where he compared Goa's culture with the culture of startups. Rohan has also been championing technology to drive economic growth as well as bring in greater transparency in governance.  

An ardent believer in the power of startups and businesses as growth catalysts, Rohan said, “We have always seen businesses not just as revenue per square feet but employment per square feet. We want our youth to be job providers and not just job seekers. We are also looking at businesses to add value beyond just generating employment. We believe they have the expertise and capability to upskill which can further boost the job economy in the state.”

We are also approaching our vision with the spirit of collaboration. With an entrepreneur community-based approach, our policy is an industry-friendly scheme formulated by talking to people in the industry.

Shri. Rohan Khaunte

Minister for Information, Revenue, Labour & Employment, Government of Goa

“To place Goa on a long-term double-digit growth trajectory on startup investment, we are ready to bring changes in our startup policy based on investors’ needs. The investors will assess the state startup policy and if they want any change then we will do so.” Khaunte stated.

During the summit, he also met key ecosystem partners to understand how the government could up its entrepreneurship-friendly quotient. Neera Inamdar, Head of Business Development at iVentures, who met the minister said, “The change in the perspective of the government and its collaborative approach to improve the ecosystem can help tremendously. We see the government taking an initiative to understand what companies really need. Also, getting out of the metros and showcasing a state like Goa, where things are changing, brings a new state’s efforts into perspective and expands on India’s vast entrepreneurial landscape.”

Goa, now a permanent venue for the annual VC summit

Happy with the conversations, collaboration and connections catalysed by the summit, Suresh Prabhu announced that Goa will be a permanent venue to host Startup India Global Venture Capital Summit every year on the first Friday of December. It was a decision acknowledged as much needed and a step in the right direction, by all ecosystem partners.

As the sun set on the summit in Goa, it marked the dawn of possibilities for the venture capital ecosystem for India.

Since November 2016’s demonetisation, digital payments in India grew by a massive margin in a matter of weeks. Initiatives such as BHIM UPI and Aadhaar-linked wallets normalised what was earlier just an alternate method of transacting.

Mobile wallets were promoted vigorously and a host of Indians accepted these as their preferred payments option. However, the truth remains, that in spite of the implementation of these methods, uptake by the economy has remained slow.

There lies a gap between implementation and uptake of digital payment technologies, and cash still exists in a major way in the Indian economy. Apart from a major lack of security, usage of cash has several drawbacks including handling costs and rampant cases of counterfeiting. Most sectors, especially the cash-heavy retail sector, bear the burden of cash, and a viable solution is still not available. Innovative startups have identified the gaps affecting the digital payments landscape in India and are working towards a universally acceptable solution.

Sound-wave technology – Bridging the gaps

 Currently, 800 million people in India currently possess mobile phones. Among them, only 200 million people own smartphones. This means that a whopping 600 million people in India have basic phones that are incapable of accessing NFC, QR codes or even the basic facilitators of digital payments. Therefore, a large part of India’s economy has no way of making or accepting digital payments at all. Due to this reason, cash is still considered as the most widely used mode of payment.

Cash continues to hold sway in the country given its sheer interoperability. For instance, a 100 rupee note will retain its value throughout the country whether it is at a retail outlet or a toll booth. However, without the presence of the right medium, such as internet connection or infrastructure to accept digital payments, digital wallets cannot be viable. But, this issue is currently being resolved by technology strong startups that are leveraging sound as a medium for digital payments.

Through the power of sound, these companies are creating a payment method as seamless, if not more, as cash. It is expected to do away with the need for possessing a smartphone or an internet connection in order to transact digitally.

Sound-wave technology is working towards financial inclusion by enabling even feature phones to make digital payments. Being a software element, it can be easily integrated into existing hardware, making it cost effective. With its futuristic solution, sound-wave technology is inclusive and can help developing countries as well as technologically advanced nations to bridge all economies towards a cashless ecosystem.

Revolutionising the retail sector through sound-waves

Sound-wave technology is all set to transform the way the retail sector in India carries out its transactions. From large supermarkets to pop-up stores, all retail outlets will soon jump aboard the sound-wave bandwagon, boosting the entire economy.

The fact that is encouraging the retail sector to adopt sound-wave technology is its low cost infrastructure and seamless integration with EDC machines, POS terminals as well as mobile wallets. There is no additional cost of hardware attached to its adoption. This means that small-scale stores that have not been able to invest in digital payment infrastructure as of now, can do so without worrying about the financial aspect. Because this requires only a software update on existing infrastructure, the investment and cost involved are significantly less.

Another advantage of sound-wave technology is the security factor. New-age sound-wave technology startups such as ToneTag are adopting innovative security measures such as blockchain to reduce the risk of fraud and theft that have been the single most widespread pitfall in the retail sector, contributing to a significant amount of loss.

Retail and sound-waves: The foreseeable future

Sound-wave technology is quickly gaining traction in the retail sector and the buzz is not expected to die down any time soon. The positive impacts of this technology are endless. While customers receive a quick and hassle-free way of making payments, retailers can end their cash dependency in the most seamless manner. Soon, people will not be required to carry around bulky notes and plastic cards that can be easily misplaced.

When sound-wave takes the forefront of digital payments, all anyone will need is their mobile phones to make quick on-the-go payments.

Apart from its simplicity, sound-wave technology can also integrate messages in the broadcast feed from television, radio and digital signages. Audiences consuming the broadcast with the network’s app can receive real-time notifications, promotions, offers, CTA and surveys directly on their phones.

While every aspect of sound-wave is perfectly suited to the needs of the Indian customer, the only challenge now is a lack of awareness. Once customers are aware of such a universally-acceptable technology, it will give direction as well as momentum to startups working in this space.

These companies need the guidance and support of the government to be able to achieve the goal of a digital ecosystem and reduce cash usage in the country.

The retail sector in India is poised to hit the $1 trillion mark by 2020. This presents a unique opportunity for sound-wave-based technologies to grow in tandem with the sector. With such a boost, it will experience exponential growth and the sector will be able to significantly increase customer satisfaction. Once the entire economy enjoys freedom from cash, India can finally be recognised as a truly digital nation.

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

River Ganga’s uninterrupted flow is as important as making the river pollution free if the Ganga rejuvenation drive has to show desired results.

Until a few decades ago, river Ganga flowed with gay abandon and descended with rapidity into the plains. Today, the waters have withdrawn from its banks and downstream of the hydropower and irrigation projects that have hindered its flow, the Ganga is totally dry.

The demand to restore and maintain the wholesomeness of the Ganga has grown from all quarters of society over the years. The union government, through its National Mission for Clean Ganga, issued a notification on October 10, 2018 laying down the flow specifications. The ecological flow (e-flow) or the minimum quantity of water that the various stretches of the Ganga must necessarily have all through the year for the ecosystem and biodiversity requirements is specified in it.

What does the e-flow notification say?

As per the notification, the upper stretches of the Ganga — from its origins in the glaciers and until Haridwar — would have to maintain 20 percent of the monthly average flow of the preceding 10 days between November and March, which is the dry season; 25 percent of the average during the lean season of October, April and May; and 30 percent of the monthly average during the monsoon months of June-September.

For the main stem of the Ganga, from Haridwar in Uttarakhand to Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, the notification specifies minimum flow at various barrages — Bhimgoda (Haridwar) must ensure a minimum of 36 cubic metres per second (cumecs) between October-May and 57 cumecs in the monsoon; and the barrages at Bijnor, Narora and Kanpur must maintain a minimum of 24 cumecs in the non-monsoon months of October-May, and 48 cumecs during the monsoon months of June-September.

The new norms would require hydropower projects located along the river to modify their operations so as to ensure they are in compliance. Power projects that don’t meet these norms as yet would be given three years to comply and “mini and micro-projects” would be exempt from these requirements. The Central Water Commission (CWC) would be the designated authority to collect relevant data and submit flow monitoring-cum-compliance reports on a quarterly basis to the National Mission for Clean Ganga, according to the notification.

Minimum flow directive inadequate

This is likely to become a template for notifications on other rivers in the country. But does this mean we will never see the Ganga dry ever as claimed by Nitin Gadkari, Union Water Resources Minister? No, say legal, water and environmental experts who deliberated on this at the India Rivers Week 2018 held at the World Wildlife Fund in New Delhi in November this year.

The forum discussed the impacts of hydropower projects, interlinking of rivers, waterways, dredging, river-front development, unsustainable sand mining, encroachments into the river and extraction of groundwater. It was of the view that the government had made little effort to assess the impact of these interventions on the river.

River needs unobstructed and not just continuous flow

“E-flow is a regime of flow in a river that mimics the natural pattern and is about maintaining the river’s hydrological integrity. It is not just a flow of water, but of nutrients and sediments. Because a lot of our rivers are already regulated, and the challenge is to put in place a meaningful e-flow,” says Jagdish Krishnaswamy, ATREE, Bengaluru.

Prof Vinod Tare, Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur who was involved in the preparation of the Ganga River Basin Management Plan as a part of the consortium of seven IITs says, “The government hasn’t disclosed the existing ecological flows at various stretches but has gone ahead and set the minimum levels, which are not place-specific.” Earlier, the BK Chaturvedi committee had recommended the release of 20 to 30 percent of water from hydropower projects as an interim measure until the IIT consortium suggested the desired e-flows.

IIT consortium study ignored

The IIT consortium, in turn, had recommended the release of about 50 percent of water as e-flows for maintaining the wholesomeness of the river. Tare was disappointed that the recommendations of the IIT consortium were ignored and the government went ahead with the 20-30 percent flow figures without any public discussion. The study by IIT consortium was exhaustive and suggested site-specific limits on e-flow. Agreeing with Tare, Shashi Shekhar, former secretary of the water resources ministry says, “The targets for the minimum flow are way below what’s needed for the ideal health of the river. Water is both a part and product of riverine ecology. If you remove the product, the part gets destroyed.”

Shekhar points to the decline in the baseflow in the Ganga river basin. This is also corroborated by a study by IIT-Kharagpur published recently in Scientific Reports magazine that points to “unprecedented low levels of water in several lower reaches” in the last few summer seasons. The study suggests that this was “possibly related to the groundwater depletion in the Gangetic aquifers, which is also impacting the riverine ecology and food security of the people”.

In the notification, the government has brushed aside the need to halt construction activities along the Ganga. Without this, it is difficult to maintain the Gangatva or the essence of the Ganga,” says Manoj Misra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan. “The Centre’s Namami Gange programme is about cleaning up the river focusing on “nirmaldhara” (unpolluted flow) at the cost of the other important related aspect of “aviraldhara” (uninterrupted flow).

The scientific concept of longitudinal connectivity i.e., the need to modify the design of hydroelectric projects and dams to ensure water flowed continuously, as well as of lateral connectivity with the floodplains during monsoon has been ignored. “The free migration of aquatic species has been completely ignored by the notification. Keystone species in the river such as Mahseer or Snow Trout need to be preserved in all seasons,” says Suresh Babu, director, River Basin Programme, World Wildlife Fund.

E-flow implementation process dubious

Questioning the central government’s recent notification on environmental flow, Himanshu Thakkar of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) points to a joint report of the Ministries of Environment & Forests and Water Resources of 2015 that presents the scientific methodology on assessment of e-flows in a river. “The present notification does not have a scientific basis and is ad hoc. Further, it is alarming that the notification mandates minimal flows three years from now,” says Thakkar. He raises doubts on the e-flow implementation process as the notification says the minimal flows have to be ensured by the project developers and the Central Water Commission, totally oblivious of the conflict of interest involved. The notification also leaves the technical modifications needed to comply to the e-flow levels with the developers.

The government has also come up with a draft Ganga Protection Bill that does not unambiguously list the adverse impacts of various interventions like dams, hydropower projects and waterways on the river. Nor does it entail oversight by a Ganga council as suggested by Prof. Agarwal.

“Setting aside 20-30 percent flows of a river for e-flow is a contentious decision and looks like an allowance to free up the rest of the water. The fear is that the planners will begin to build more and more hydroelectric dams in the upper reaches and dams in the middle stretches across the river to extract the remaining 70-80 percent water. This could be a way to fool people and make way for more dams,” says Mallika Bhanot of Ganga Ahvaan, an Uttarakhand-based NGO working for the protection of river Ganga.

“Without the downscaled data available at the district level, discussions about e-flow are meaningless. Such data needs to be pooled together and a generally agreed modelling exercise can give the state of water availability in the Ganga basin and a reasonably accurate idea of e-flow,” says Dhruba Das Gupta, project director at SCOPE, Kolkata.

The government has had a spotty environmental record and has been swinging back and forth on its decisions. Instead of coming up with a significant policy change, what the government has done is to bring out a half-baked e-flow, going back on its promise to step up the “aviralta” and the “nirmalta” of the Ganga. What is required is a credible roadmap to clean the Ganga and restore its flow.

The age of automation is upon us. We are already seeing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in various walks of life. From smart voice assistants to self-check-outs at stores, automation is already changing the way we shop, live and do business. And market research is no exception. Every brand or business needs research and intelligence to improve its product or service offerings. It also needs to track opportunities and risks, trends, competition and market forces to thrive. Market research acts as a guiding star for businesses to map their journeys.

Technological advances have ensured that market research, like others, is more accurate and efficient, and less time-consuming. Traditional methods of market research could include telephone surveys, door-to-door visits, in-person focus groups, and interviews. These methods are time and cost intensive, and also involve a lot of manpower. Traditional approaches come with yet another key limitation — geography.

However, the rise of the smartphone and the Internet has changed market research in many ways. The omnipresence of smart devices means potential respondents are always connected, irrespective of where they are in the world. Social media also makes it easy for market researchers to engage with respondents better and gather data in quick time. Online communities, wherein respondents interact and answer queries, survey through email or messenger apps such as WhatsApp, have all changed market research. Online surveys let firms create huge database of information and overcome barriers of geography and time. Another offshoot of technology in market research is the rise of ‘in-the-moment’ feedback or surveys, where real-time responses and data are of the essence. Thanks to the tracking of GPS location data, market researchers can collect data by automating surveys for customers who have entered or exited/just engaged with a brand.

 AI and ML changing market research

The biggest game-changers in market research will be the use of automation by way of AI and ML. As per a report from eMarketer, 75 percent of developer teams will use AI technology in one or more business applications or services by 2018. Products based on Natural Language Processing can help in reporting surveys, while platforms powered by AI can create research reports using machine learning. One instance of machine learning in the market research sector is the use of text analytics in survey analysis. Market researchers often have to use open-ended queries when they can’t necessarily get answers via tick boxes. However, the results are overwhelming, because chunks of text come into the picture. Analysing this can be time-consuming and not always efficient. Text analytics help segment these responses and help researchers analyse by identifying intent/sentiment, topic, and other such trends. Text analytics also help in sifting irrelevant text and show researchers the answers/mentions they are looking for. This enhances online qual market research where you need to get an understanding of feelings, thoughts or behavioural patterns of respondents or prospects.

The rise of DIY tools

An offshoot of automation is the use of ‘do-it-yourself’ tools for market research. DIY is faster and easy. There are ready-to-use templates and automated reporting, thereby saving costs and time for clients. Researchers can choose tools that are ideal for their specific projects, and select their samples and kind of reporting from one source. This method will save time and make it easy to share results and analyse with the help of dashboards.

The rise of automation and DIY in market research will mean certain roles will change. Programming surveys, finding respondents for surveys or analysing open-ended answers are already being automated. But this shouldn’t be seen in a negative light as it makes space for qualitative, insight-rich researchers who have greater soft skills. Letting the machines take over whatever is labour-intense means creating more mind space for big and visionary thinking that machines can’t do. Brands can leverage DIY survey tools in combination with a range of social media channels and build loyalty, tell their story and engage with consumers.

With so many advantages including accuracy, compliance, quick execution of tasks and savings in costs, there’s every reason to believe that automation is the way forward. Automation can lead to synergies between man and machine, and make research less tedious and more insightful. However, it is also important that various solutions and processes pertaining to automation can’t function as niche or siloed solutions — what market research automation needs is an integrated end-to-end platform approach where the entire gamut of insights are available under one umbrella. As automation will gain in momentum, market research will pave the way for greater meaning and relevance in a brand’s decisions.

So what does automation in market research mean in the Indian context? The country is poised to become the third-largest consumer market by 2025, as per a report by Boston Consulting Group. The report also says that consumption expenditure will triple to touch $4 trillion by 2025. This means brands that want to benefit from this growth would need to gain comprehensive and real-time insights into the mind of customers or prospects, their needs, pain points, and aspirations. This jettisons market research firms into the picture. The market research firms that have adapted to the latest technological advancements, primarily automation, AI and ML, will emerge winners. It is, after all, a survival of the smartest.

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

In this edition of our weekly startup jobs roundup, YourStory brings you a curated list of the top event-related openings for jobs in the Indian startup ecosystem.

December is the annual festive/event season, and many companies are looking out for talented individuals to host jaw-dropping parties and premium business events. Are these jobs the right fit for your talents?

Book My Show

Events Marketing - Live Entertainment

This job will require a good knowledge of the various fields of marketing including social media, outreach marketing and digital marketing. The position will give you a first-hand experience about the country’s leading events and what it takes to sell tickets for them. Excellency in MS Office along with great communication and interpersonal skills are also expected from the ideal candidate. Click here for more info.

Live Entertainment Assistant Manager - Project Management

This role will require you to manage and participate in setting, distributing and supervising all project related timelines with a special focus on the budget. Thriving in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment, the perfect candidate is expected to perform functions such as the creation and maintenance of a project checklist with timelines, assigning responsibilities and taking appropriate actions to achieve timelines. Click here for more info.

Live Entertainment Senior Manager - Project Management Sports

If setting and supervising sports project related timelines with a special focus on budget management excite you, this is the perfect role. The ideal candidate is expected to deliver events on time within budget, manage supplier relationships to get the best rates and coordinate with venue authorities. Click here for more info.

Cox and King

Team leader – B2B sales

Candidate should be from Travel /hotel/Airline background with adequate knowledge of Travel agents in the particular region. The ones who are into Visa or interested in Visa Department would have an added advantage. Click here for more info.

Senior Executive Business Travel

The ideal applicant needs to have experience in handling a corporate travel desk and have sound knowledge of ticketing, VISA and hotel booking for corporates. Click here for more info.

OYO

Business Development Manager

In this position, you are expected to constantly research and identify key properties, which can be acquired to do business with OYO. Your role will include meeting property owners and sell OYO’s vision of providing comfortable stays for many. Furthermore, you will help the brand in building a joint business plan with the property owners in order to have a profitable business association. Click here for more info.

Human Resources Business Partner

Candidates are expected to become the peoples’ advisor and a partner for the hub head, build and implement a culture of passion, ownership across the hub and furthermore, provide coaching to the hub head, and functional heads on an ongoing basis on leadership, people management, motivating and engaging teams. Click here for more info.

Head Of Operations

The expectation from the candidate includes the ability to engage with different stakeholders - central teams, vendors, property owners, local teams, the ability to run the Hub like a full-fledged business and grow it exponentially and Executing complex operations and solving problems persistently and at lightning speed. Click here for more info.

HerStory looks at the big milestones of 2018, the instances that united the sisterhood and showed that women can - and will - change the world around them.

History, they say, is always written from the perspective of the powerful, the strong, or the rich. The year 2018, however, showed us something different. In fact, this year will go down as a landmark year – one in which women showed they could speak up, take on patriarchy, demand justice, and seek redressal.

We look back to see what were some of the big milestones, movements, and issues that rallied women to come together and demand change. Here are some ways in which 2018 became a landmark year for the Indian woman:

GST and sanitary napkins

Talking about periods continues to be taboo in India. A social experiment revealed how a woman carrying a pack of sanitary napkins in a transparent bag at a bus stop had everyone in a tizzy even as, 20 metres away from her, multiple men stopping to take a leak and being caught on camera did not shock.

Imagine women’s consternation when the Goods and Services Tax - rolled out in 2017 – was slapped on feminine hygiene products. It had everyone, from women to NGO’s and social entrepreneurs working in this sector up in arms. The year 2018 saw multiple campaigns across the country; the demand was one: make feminine hygiene products tax-free. In January 2018, school girls from Gwalior started a campaign, and wrote and sent messages on sanitary napkins to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In July 2018, after the 28th GST Council meeting, the tax was removed on sanitary napkins.

Women 1, World 0.

Read more about how sanitary napkins got out of the GST net here.

#MeToo Movement

This movement had every abuser ducking under the desk, checking Google every few hours for his name. That was the power of the #MeToo Movement. It showed the country that if you thought women were fair game, then maybe it was time to think twice.

Actress Tanushree Dutta showed courage and took that one step that liberated thousands of women and led them to speak up in public, in communities, at workplaces, and even their homes against sexual abuse and harassment. Women in media, arts, sports, advertising, entertainment, and corporates spoke up.

The movement was well received by everyone who had suffered some form of abuse, irrespective of gender. The patriarchy fought back with people blaming the victims and gaslighting them (click here to find out what that means) and asking why they woke up years later (here’s why). But MeToo started a process of healing; stories of abuse, molestation, and rape that had not been spoken about were shared. The burden, pain, trauma and fear of being shamed that many women were carrying around for decades were washed away - somewhat.

MeToo, which put the spotlight on some very well-known names, also woke up organisations and led them to re-examine workplace safety of employees. And though it is a long-drawn and an uphill battle, in the face of resistance, lack of empathy for survivors, and rigid patriarchy, women are just getting started.

And men who think they have gotten away should think again. If you haven’t been outed, remember it will be #TimesUp for you soon.

Women 1, World 10

Entry into Sabarimala

With the thick veil of patriarchy also encroaching on women’s right to worship, a Supreme Court verdict took on tradition to allow menstruating women between the age of 10 and 50 to worship at Sabarimala temple in Kerala. Unfortunately, things took an ugly turn when many women devotees were forced to turn back and protests against the decision erupted across Kerala and the entire country. Women journalists were heckled, and not allowed to report, while self-styled “protectors’ vowed to shed blood so that the temple could be closed. Till the time of this story going to press, no woman has been allowed to enter though attempts have been made. Just goes to show that religion is mightier than a Supreme Court decision.

But the attempts continue in full swing.

Women 1, World 100

Major judgements

In October came the landmark judgment by an all-women Supreme Court bench that no means no; that no woman - even those labelled of “easy virtue” – could be violated and raped. (Read more about the judgment here). This also shows why we need more women to look at rape and molestation cases, especially given the rampant abuse, patriarchy, and bias that India is steeped in.

Continuing its landmark judgment spree this year, the Supreme Court also ruled that adultery is no longer a crime and is unconstitutional and discriminatory against women. The court pointed out that having a sexual relationship with a woman without her husband’s consent deprived women of agency. While adultery was no longer a crime, it could be the basis of divorce; in case there was a case of suicide based on an affair that would be seen as a crime.

The other landmark judgment this year was when a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court struck down Section 377 of the Indian penal code. This - the judgment that gay sex is no longer a crime in India and is legal - means that the LGBTQIA community in India can finally come out of the closet.

Women and LGBTQIA 1, World 0

What did you think was a major milestone this year for women? What do you think about the #MeToo Movement and the entry of women into the Sabarimala temple? Share your views in the comments section below. 

This former Police Commissioner, with his edtech startup  ConceptOwl, wants to prepare students from Tier II and Tier III cities for entrance exams without having to go to Kota and Hyderabad.

Rajan Singh graduated from IIT-Kanpur, went on to serve in the police force and today runs edtech startup ConceptOwl.

If that is not an impressive list of achievements, we are not sure what is! Rajan was with the Indian Police Service for eight years and served as the Police Commissioner of Thiruvananthapuram for three of those, managing a force of 3,500 policemen. However, the urge to tread a different path soon led him to the corporate world. "After having served half my tenure as a Commissioner Police, I got bored and decided to leave," says Rajan.

He went on to study at Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and joined McKinsey & Company as a consultant. From there, he moved on to New Silk Route Private Equity where he focused on growth stage companies in Asia.

But Rajan always wanted to be an entrepreneur and start his own company.

"As an investor, I used to meet a lot of entrepreneurs. I saw that the only thing which made them different from us professionals was the ability to take risks. I did not want to regret not taking a chance in life. I quit my job and took the risk of becoming an entrepreneur," he says.

In 2012, he began his entrepreneurial journey with edtech company CourseBrew, but his "passion was science and at CourseBrew, the learning was not science-specific," so he quit. In 2o16, he started ConceptOwl - a teacherless online-in-classroom educational platform to help students prepare for entrance exams.

The ConceptOwl journey

ConceptOwl was started in Thiruvananthapuram and Rajan sought to provide affordable science coaching programmes across Tier II and Tier III cities.

"Students in these areas lack quality coaching and lakhs are forced to migrate to cities like Kota or Hyderabad," he says.

The platform, with a website and application, tied-up with Kota's Bansal Classes for tests and practice.

In 2017, Rajan, along with Bansal Classes, started classroom teaching for students of standard 9 to 12, offering Maths and Science coaching in an independent center.

tied up with schools and began classroom programmes. However, he soon had to start teaching Physics himself as the company was unable to retain good teachers, as they shifted to Tier I cities for better opportunities.

"While teaching, I realised that students' attention levels and engagement would shoot up whenever we gave them problems to solve," he says. Thus, in early 2018, team ConceptOwl started creating videos, aiming to recreate a live-class experience along with problem-solving activities.

Currently, ConceptOwl's coaching programmes are available at Rs 20,000 per year, for classes 7 to 10 and at Rs 30,000 for classes 11th and 12th, and are a combination of online and offline education.

Concept 'Owl'

How did the name come about?

Rajan says, "'Concept' links back to our goal of bringing back focus to concepts instead of just cramming. Also, my daughter is a Harry Potter fan and I found Hedwig cute. Not only that but owls generally symbolise wisdom."

In a ConceptOwl class, the teacher is replaced by a facilitator or Classroom Manager, who manages the teaching as per the script. "A pre-recorded video allows effective structuring and scripting for the teaching process," says the founder.

A facilitator is a Science graduate who can engage with students, enforce discipline and manage the class. They show videos on a smart television screen or projector, ask questions and collect doubts from the students. In case of a doubt, if the facilitator is unable to solve the problem, he forwards it to a team of instructors, also called the 'real-time remote instructors.'

These instructors either send responses or shoot a video to be shared with the class. With six instructors as part of the team, ConceptOwl also has five instructors working on an hourly-basis.

"Instructors are usually experts in the domain and besides having their concepts clear, they are able to solve problems and elucidate the concepts to the students," says Rajan.

Homework, assignments and tests are given online, and all students enrolled in the startup’s courses are required to have an Android device with internet support.

While it currently operates as an after-school programme, ConceptOwl will soon start a franchise programme where a franchisee does not have to spend anything on instructor salary as the company will provide scripted videos themselves.

They cover school syllabus as well prepare students for entrances. "We teach Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Math," says Rajan.

Proof of concept

What started as a team of five, consists of 25 people now.

"We are all from small towns and can attest to the problem (of the lack of good coaching centres) first-hand," says Rajan.

Nisha Salim, who manages Product and Operations, was the first hire for ConceptOwl. Before that, she was running her own copywriting business. One of the other core members, Jayadevan, has a teaching experience of 30 years.

According to the KPMG 'Online Education in India: 2021' study, the Indian online education market was worth $247 million and had around 1.6 million users in 2016, and is set to grow to $1.96 billion and 9.6 users by 2021.

While there are several prominent players in the edtech market like Byju’s, Khan Academy, Notesgen, AlmaMapper and Stuvia, ConceptOwl’s model - combining aspects of traditional offline and modern online learning - sets it apart.

"While there are plenty of online players, parents still prefer sending their children to physical coaching centers," says Rajan.

The company claims to have a revenue of Rs 2 crore and says it is almost breaking even. He adds that ConceptOwl is poised to grow 10 fold in the next year.

It has raised Rs 3.5 crore since its inception, and its principal investor is SunTec Business Solution.

Rajan has tested the business model in two locations and is now rolling out the programme in 15 schools with 700 students in the districts of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Alleppey. His goal is to reach 100 locations in the next 12 months, primarily in South Indian states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and some parts of Andhra Pradesh as well as North East India.

The ConceptOwl team is also building programmes in Hindi and other regional languages to reach out to millions of Tier II and Tier III students and provide them the same quality learning as found in metro cities.

Website

A spurt in angel tax notices to startups by the tax department has again raised concerns in the startup community, and may signal that their actual financial performance may be lower than the projected while raising funds.

The commerce and industry ministry will take up the issue of angel tax notices being sent to startups with the finance ministry, Union Minister Suresh Prabhu said in a recent tweet.

The Minister was responding to a tweet by T.V. Mohandas Pai, Chairman of Manipal Global Education, who sought government intervention on the tax notices sent to startups. Media reports have said that over the last few weeks, several startups have received notices from the tax department asking them to pay taxes on their angel investments raised.

Several startups have also raised concerns on being sent notices as it would affect their cash flows.

A PTI report quoting an income tax official said, “Notices issued on angel tax to startups may be for those that are not recognised by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP)”. In April, the government had given interim relief to startups, allowing them to avail tax concession if the total investment, including funding from angel investors, did not exceed Rs 10 crore, the PTI report said.

Under Section 56 (2) (viib) of the Income Tax (I-T) Act, if a privately-held company issues shares at an amount that is higher than the face value, or than the fair market value, the difference between the issue price and fair market price is taxed as income in the hands of the startup.

The current spurt in angel tax notices indicates that the issue price of shares by startups might have been inflated in the past based on optimistic projections. However, based on the actual performance over the last few years, the income tax department deemed several angel investments to be higher than the fair market value and has sought to tax the difference.

The IT Department compares the revenue projections that startups give to investors while raising funds with the actual performance, and the difference in share value is calculated to levy the angel tax.

Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion says the government is committed to 'protecting bona fide investments into startups'.

After several startups received notices from the tax department and amid talk of the return of angel tax, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has taken up the issue with the Department of Revenue (DoR).

A press statement from the DIPP said: “The DIPP, in consultation with the Department of Revenue (DoR), has put in place a mechanism since April 2018 to grant exemption from the provisions of Section 56(2)(viib) of the Income Tax Act to genuine investors in recognised startups. DIPP has again taken up this matter of issue of IT notices with the DoR so that there is no harassment of angel investors or startups. The government is committed to protecting bona fide investments into startups.”

Union Minister Suresh Prabhu in a recent tweet said the commerce and industry ministry would take up the issue of angel tax notices being sent to startups with the finance ministry.

A PTI report, quoting an income tax official, said, “Notices issued on angel tax to startups may be for those that are not recognised by the DIPP.”

In April, the government had given interim relief to startups, allowing them to avail tax concession if the total investment, including funding from angel investors, did not exceed Rs 10 crore, the PTI report said.

Under Section 56 (2) (viib) of the Income Tax (I-T) Act, if a privately held company issues shares at an amount higher than the face value, or the fair market value, the difference between the issue price and fair market price is taxed as income in the hands of the startup.

The IT Department compares the revenue projections that startups give to investors while raising funds with actual performance, and the difference in share value is calculated to levy angel tax.

The fresh funding, that comes less than five months after Shop 101 raised $5 million in Series A, will be used to enhance the technology platform and scale the supplier network.  

Mumbai-based social ecommerce platform, Shop 101 has secured $11 million (80 crore) in Series B funding round led by Kalaari Capital and Unilever Ventures, the company confirmed on Thursday.

The latest round also saw participation from existing investors including Stellaris Venture Partners, Vy Capital and Ramakant Sharma, co-founder of Livspace.

With the freshly raised funding, Shop 101, co-founded in 2015 by IIT graduates Abhinav Jain and Aditya Gupta, will be looking to enhance its technology platform, strengthen its core leadership and product team, and scale the supplier network. Incidentally, the latest funding boost for the leading social ecommerce startup comes less than five months after Shop 101 raised $5M in Series A led by investors Stellaris Venture Partners and Vy Capital.

“Our vision at Shop101 is to democratise commerce by empowering existing entrepreneurs as well as those who want to start a business. We help an entrepreneur right from setting up a new business to scaling it pan-India with technology and marketing solutions,” said Abhinav Jain, Co-founder and CEO of Shop101.

He added that smaller towns and cities have been boosting their sales, with more than 70 percent of the share coming in from these places.

“We have grown over 50 percent month-on-month over last year and empowered entrepreneurs across the country with reliable and scalable technology, extensive range of products on supply platform, pan-India logistics and payment solutions.” Abhinav said.

By providing an advanced technology platform, Shop 101 allows its wide user-base – such as established merchants and budding entrepreneurs including housewives, college students and young graduates – to build a business with zero investment by selling online and across WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and other social channels.

Speaking about the latest investment, Vani Kola, Managing Director of Kalaari Capital said, “We are impressed with the Shop101 team as they have built an innovative product that has enabled them to scale both supply and demand significantly in a short period of time. We are excited to partner with them to enable benefits of online commerce to micro-entrepreneurs and consumers alike.”

With social commerce growing rapidly, Shop 101 seems to be further tapping on the opportunities by combining their understanding of customer needs the with trust derived from personal relationships.

"The Social Selling platform is tapping the large Indian ecommerce market potential beyond Metro cities. We believe Shop101 is well placed to grow this market," added Pawan Chaturvedi, Investment Director of Unilever Ventures.

In an exclusive interaction with YourStory, Nicolas Cary of Blockchain.com makes a compelling case to adopt crypto assets and highlights their importance for a financially secure future devoid of transparency issues.

Nicolas Cary co-founded Blockchain.com in 2011 along with Peter Smith and Ben Reeves. They raised $70 million for the cryptocurrency wallet and blockchain solutions company from notable investors such as Google Ventures, Lakestar and Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Blockchain.com currently serves 30 million people across the world who use it to exchange cryptocurrency. Even billionaire Richard Branson is an investor in the US-UK company.

In a conversation with YourStory, Nicolas breaks down how cryptocurrencies should really work, and tells us why blockchain and cryptocurrency are the future.

Edited excerpts of the interview:

YourStory: Why did you choose to work with cryptocurrency? Take us through your journey. 

Nicolas Cary: We started off with a simple idea. We wanted to make cryptocurrency easy for everyone to use. When we started working on Blockchain.com, doing basic things like making a payment using cryptocurrency was complex and intimidating. Users had to download large software packages and keep a copy of the distributed database synced to the network.

While Bitcoin had some early promise, it was never going to take off without a better user experience. A few years later, we now have 30 million people who rely on our wallets to send, receive, store and exchange cryptocurrency. We have raised over $70 million from leading investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners, Google Ventures, Lakestar, and Richard Branson. Our mission is to build an open, accessible, and fair financial future, one piece of software at a time.

YS: How does cryptocurrency work?

NC: Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum rely on decentralised networks that allow users to transact directly, peer-to-peer, without a middleman to manage the exchange of information. These networks use the same pioneering technology that made Skype a household name for telephony. Thanks to these networks, it’s now possible for someone in Dubai to send money to someone in Chennai instantly, without having to wait in lines, pay large fees, or worry that the money might get locked up somewhere.

YS: What does “burning the coin” mean? One hears a lot of crypto miners and startups using this term.

NC: It’s a bit tricky to understand this without a deep explanation into the mechanics of proof-of-work and proof-of-stake cryptocurrency systems. Here’s one way to think about it: coin burn in cryptocurrency refers to sending some coins to a public address from which those particular coins can never be spent because the private keys of such an address are unobtainable or have been destroyed... think of it like throwing away the keys to a vault.

Burning coins has varying applicability depending on the crypto network but a benefit includes increasing supply scarcity. For example, if you were to take half the supply of wine in the world and pour it down the drain, wine prices would increase worldwide, because the supply has become drastically limited. The same economic principle can be programmatically designed into a currency supply.

YS: As a medium of exchange, how do you determine the value of a trade of a particular product?

NC: In order for money to be useful, it should serve as a medium of exchange and a store of value for any goods. Cash and coins are a handy medium of exchange for face-to-face transactions, but if their supply increases drastically, their purchasing power diminishes, making them less valuable. Gold, on the other hand, is a historically stable store of value; there’s a fixed amount of gold in the earth's crust and it comes into circulation at a relatively consistent rate. But using gold as a medium of exchange is very inconvenient. It’s almost impossible to pay someone in gold these days.

The price of money is determined by the same market dynamics that determine the price of all things: supply and demand. I would argue though that we need to revisit the utility of “old” money in an increasingly digital world. This is one of the reasons why cryptocurrency is so interesting. We now have a type of money that inherits the transactional ease of real-world cash, with the elemental properties of gold, ie., limited in supply and counterfeit-resistant. This is one of the reasons Bitcoin is referred to as “Digital Gold”.

Sizing the potential market for cryptocurrencies is challenging. There are varying methods for doing this. Right now the market cap is roughly $230 billion. This means that it’s larger than Twitter, Snapchat, and IBM combined. Using a displacement measurement, if cryptocurrency replaces obsolete systems like Western Union and MoneyGram, then its total worth would exceed $500 billion. But cryptocurrency will revolutionise more than just international payments; it will likely fuel entire new internet-based business models, ecommerce, asset issuance, and could begin to replace cash. As more use cases become obvious the potential for cryptocurrency expands. When money becomes digital it inherits capabilities that were historically limiting.

YS: How is a crypto exchange different from a central bank?

NC: A crypto exchange is a marketplace where people can buy and sell crypto assets. These are businesses and for-profit entities. A cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or Ethereum can be thought of as computer program that issues assets, similar in function to how a central bank issues sovereign currency, except the software rewards the participants of the network directly for helping secure and process transactions. Digital coins come into circulation on a predictable and programmatic schedule determined by the network design.

YS: How can central banks be replaced by crypto exchanges?

NC: Many central banks around the world are conducting research on cryptocurrencies to better understand their features and how they can inform the future design of money. It’s very likely that central banks will be encouraged to move in a digital direction as leading research has indicated that digital money can move around an economy more quickly than cash. Increasing monetary velocity makes economies grow, and also brings in more revenue for governments. At this point, it looks more likely that cryptocurrencies will coexist alongside central bank monies. In the future, it’s possible that a central bank would issue a sovereign crypto asset, making for a compelling value proposition that combines the trust of a central bank with the digital benefits of crypto assets.

YS: In global trade, a bank facilitates information and transactions exchange. If the crypto world replaces a bank, who regulates global trade, price, and currency movements?

NC: Financial services are highly regulated because history has taught us some very expensive lessons regarding what happens when there’s a lack of transparency between counterparties in economic transactions. Bad actors run away with funds, centralised services are prone to compromise or, worse, collusion, which will harm consumers. We trusted banks but they collapsed time and time again. The system takes hundreds of billions of dollars in fees from us and billions of people are excluded from access to basic financial tools entirely. This is the beauty of blockchain technology. Using mathematics and a distributed database, we now have a way for all people to record transactions on a global record keeping system that’s transparent, and can be used by anyone. The software is free and open source, so anyone can study how it works.

YS: What are your thoughts on the uncertainty surrounding the future of crypto assets in the world of finance?

NC: People now have a choice. They can choose control over their financial sovereignty. They can choose freedom. Cryptocurrency gives people all over the world, regardless of their origin, race, or gender, the key to their financial future.