Gaana, India’s largest online music broadcasting app, is expanding its mix of unique and exclusive audio content, by adding Mirchi Murga and Hansi ke Phuwarey, two of Radio Mirchi’s most popular humor shows.

Mirchi Murga with Naved is Radio Mirchi’s most popular comedy segment, having won the best Radio Sparkler Award at Indian Excellence in Radio Awards (ERA 2015). Naved has donned many different avatars for years, with his jokes taken sportingly by some (and not so sportingly by others).

In addition, Hansi Ke Phuwarey with Sud, by comic Sunil Grover, is a very popular series known for its deadpan humour. Hansi ke phuwarey has Sudarshan aka Sud reading out jokes from a book with the same title (HKPh). On Gaana, a new joke will be released every day, building a daily listening habit.

These two programs are now live on Gaana, and Radio Mirchi and Gaana intend to add more original content soon. These offerings will also be promoted across Radio Mirchi’s 44 radio stations across India.

Along with its extensive music catalog, live radio stations, and other music experiences, Gaana has been expanding its original content library, with over 10 new series. With specials such as Sit Down Comedy with Rajneesh Kapoor, or The Asha Verdict with Asha Bhosle, Gaana’s specials add a new dimension to the product.

Prashan Agarwal, COO Gaana said

Radio Mirchi’s humor content is some of the best out there, and we’re excited to share it with our consumer base. Gaana is becoming a home for all premium audio content, with millions of listeners starting with music, and finding more and more everyday on the platform.

Prashant Pandey, MD and CEO of ENIL (Radio Mirchi) said

Mirchi has created some very good on-air personalities and in digital media with its RJs. We are happy to have this partnership with Gaana, where Mirchi’s prank calls can now be heard by his global fan base. We expect as much consumption to come outside India as from India as well.

About Gaana

Gaana.com, India’s No.1 music streaming service from Times Internet offers a vast repertoire of more than 1 crore songs across 21 languages. It has generated over 48 million+ downloads on the mobile making it India’s most popular and fastest growing music service. For more information, please visit Gaana

Vodafone Business Services (VBS), the enterprise arm of Vodafone India, has tied up with Microsoft as a Cloud Service Partner. As part of this tie-up, VBS to offer Office 365 to Indian businesses to give them enterprise-grade productivity and collaboration services.

Under the tie-up, Vodafone Business Services will enable Indian businesses of all sizes to access Microsoft Office 365 comprising the familiar Office applications suite from the cloud, along with business-class collaboration tools and services to help them work easier and collaborate better from anywhere. The Microsoft Office 365 productivity suite offered on a pay-per-use Software as a Service (SaaS) model works across multiple devices, provides built-in, enterprise-grade security features, tools for teamwork and increased productivity as well as extensive privacy and compliance controls.

With the service delivery and support entirely managed by Vodafone, Office 365 is easy to deploy and manage, delivering ease of doing business and enhanced productivity to enterprises of all sizes.

Vodafone Business Services is a leading Total Communications Partner to large Indian and multinational companies, public sector enterprises, SMEs and start-ups all over India with solutions across mobility, fixed line, IoT and Cloud.

Announcing the tie-up with Microsoft, Nick Gliddon, Director, Vodafone Business Services, said

We are pleased to partner with Microsoft to bring the Office 365 suite to our enterprise customers. We are confident that the pay-per-use Software as a Service (SaaS) model will make our customers’ business future-ready by giving them predictable IT costs and taking care of the technology upgrades and scalability worries. Vodafone is acknowledged as an enterprise mobility leader. With our cloud platform and tie-up with Microsoft, we are now well positioned as a total communications partner to our enterprise customers.

Announcing the tie-up, Meetul Patel, General Manager, Marketing & Operations, Microsoft, said

We are excited to have Vodafone Business Services as a Cloud Partner. Our tie-up will give Indian enterprises of all sizes affordable access to Microsoft’s suite of collaboration and productivity services – across devices, anywhere, anytime, and worry-free.

Couple of days back, we had covered the #StartSomething initiative by Espark-Viridian, a startup accelerator which is a joint-venture between the Entrepreneurial Spark, UK and Viridian Ventures, India. Today we have a chat with Mr Vibhuti Channa, Director of Viridian Ventures about the accelerator, how to apply for the October cohort, entrepreneurship, scaling up, etc.

So, lets start with the Q&A…

Espark-Viridian(EV) is a JV, can you please give a brief about the team and Viridian’s association with Entrepreneurial Spark?

We have a partnership with Entrepreneurial Spark under which we have been operating accelerator centres in India for over a year now.

Can you please walk us through the complete programme or what is the planned curriculum over that 18 month period?

The programme is a comprehensive one that gives access to the entrepreneurs to dedicated enablers, mentors, service providers, suppliers, office space and potential investors for their businesses.

Off late there are many accelerators- Microsoft Accelerator, Kyron, TLabs, GSF, etc. why should an entrepreneur choose EV accelerator (or how does it differ in offerings) over other accelerators (that are present in India for quite sometime)?

The fundamental differentiator is the enablement programme which envisages a dedicated enabler who works with an entrepreneur on a one on one basis through the entire relationship that an entrepreneur is with us in the programme. This facilitates a regular tracking of the business and the entrepreneur is challenged and stretched at every stage to ensure that the outcome is robust and in line with his dream for the business.

How strong are your connections to mentors/investors etc. involved with the accelerator? How much time would the selected startups get with the mentors?

The mentors and entrepreneurs are linked up at a stage when it is believed that the entrepreneur requires the necessary intervention and support. The duration is determined by the specific need that may arise for such support.

Do the selected startups have to part away with equity? Are there any fixed costs that selected startups need to bear during the tenure of the programme?

The accelerator does not take an equity stake in the entrepreneur’s business.

How are the previous cohorts of Espark-Viridian (EV) doing right now? Can you please share some details about the traction, revenue, funding, etc. of couple of startups from the previous cohort.

We have 25 graduates from our programme thus far of whom 5 have successfully secured seed funding.

What does the EV team look for in the startup team that is applying for the accelerator programme?

We look for people who have an entrepreneurial mindset – someone who is willing to take the risk, is open to being challenged and work hard. This is not an easy journey and one should be resilient to ride the tumbles with equanimity in the quest for success.

EV is present in select cities in India, is it mandatory for the shortlisted startup to relocate to any of these cities or they can work remotely (and get necessary support from mentors etc.)?

It is possible to operate from locations where we are not present and be a part of the programme.

When you choose a startup, do you look at companies which are solving local problems or companies which have a global mindset?

We are sector agnostic and are open to companies that are addressing areas across sectors and geographies.

Should a startup be in any particular stage (i.e. Idea/Growth etc.) in order to apply for the Programme?

We are happy to support start ups at any stage between idea and scale up.

Any priority or focus on sectors that the programme would focus on (Can a hardware startup apply for the programme)?Is your programme also open to Social Enterprises?

We are open to people from any sector and do have people on board from the social enterprises space as well.

Apart from Idea, what are some of the key things your team looks into while assessing the applications?

We look at the entrepreneurs mind set which is critical to the success of the business. We look for openness, resilience and a spirit to get challenged in a positive manner.

Some insights into the industry partners for the Programme?

Some of the partners we work with include banks, payment gateways, cloud space, software support apart from other service support areas.

2016 is a tough year for startups (especially for companies that are in the growth stage), can you please some tips for entrepreneurs looking to raise funds and how they can see through these turbulent times?

It is critical that entrepreneurs remain hard nosed and ruthlessly focused on driving value for their businesses. The fundamentals of doing business and driving the bottom line will never change irrespective of the industry or times we live in. As long as entrepreneurs bear that in mind they will not have a problem riding through these times.

If you are an entrepreneur and willing to apply for the October 2016 cohort of the Espark-Viridian accelerator, please visit the Application Page. If you have any further questions about the accelerator, their offerings etc. please leave a comment and we would have it answered from the EV Team.

What is the first thought that comes to your mind when you are leaving your home for a different city (be it for work, studies, etc.) Apart from the accommodation, locality; people who are concerned about us would be worried about one important factor that keeps us going – Food 🙂 Don’t we all miss the home-cooked food when we are away! In fact, when you are at home (enjoying home cooked food); you would sometimes crave for hotel food/junk food, etc. However, at the end of the day Home Cooked food always has one ingredient that is missing in outside food – Taste and Affection (with which the food is made).

Food is a vast topic and so are the delicacies in India. In every state, every city and every home (in India), you would find that one Special Dish that you would have craved for 🙂 Each dish has its own unique identity. What if one of your neighbours has made her special dish for lunch , whereas the other neighbour has made another delicacy and you had the privilege of choosing either of them right from the comfort of your home/office! Connecting Foodie with the celebrated home-cook via Technology would be an ideal solution.

Now every home-cook or home-based cook can showcase their passion for cooking, Culinary delights and become a mini-entrepreneur with an enabler – Eat Social. There are many startups that are operating in the Home Cooked Food On the Cloud category (I would not term them as Food-Tech Startups), I got a first-hand experience about it on Eat Social when I ordered Dinner from its Android app when I was in North Bengaluru.

Below review is based on the overall experience with Eat Social and it covers aspects like App Review, TAT (Turnaround Time), Food Quality etc.

Let’s get started with the review…

Eat Social : Home Cooked Food On the Cloud

Eat Social is a social (hyper-local home food) platform where your neighbourhood Home Chefs will share their tasty healthy home cooked food with you. Cooked Food is one category in commerce where Delivery Time matters the most and hence, Eat Social restricts food delivery if your address is not within 5~7 km of the chef’s location.

The restriction of distance has a positive impact on Customer Retention & Customer Delight since you ensure that the customer gets Quality Home cooked food !!

Eat Social : In Depth Review

Eat Social app is currently available for Android and can be downloaded from here For users who are on non-Android platforms, Eat Social is accessible via Eat Social’s web app The app has functionalities for Foodie & Home-chef bundled into one i.e. there is no separate app for the seller.

Eat Social for Home Chef(s)

A passionate Home cook willing to register as a Chef on Eat Social has to create a profile, upload quality photographs of the dishes, available quantity & preferred timings (Lunch/Dinner/Treats). Food can be listed either as Veg/Non-Veg.

Though Veg/Non-Veg is a distinct category, it would have been better if there was a third category – Vegan

Eat Social : Food Experience

Similar to an e-commerce platform, where sellers are rated, Chef on Eat Social are rated based on his/her performance (which is closely tied to Food Quality, Delivery Time, Packaging, Customer Delight etc.). When we ordered the dinner, it was nicely packed and it arrived within the stipulated time. Delivery Time, Quality, Packaging, and Food Safety are the key KPI’s for the food business and Eat Social scored well in all those areas. The quality of the food was great and the quantity also adhered to the number mentioned in the description.

The UX of the Eat Social app is clean & minimal and a Foodie has to key-in his/her location & address and order food from your favourite Home-Chef based on the availability. There is a separate section named ‘TREATS’ where chefs can upload specialty dishes based on occasions (Onam, Diwali, Christmas etc.)

The overall experience with the Eat Social app was smooth and so was the end product (home cooked food that was not only packaged well but also had great taste). We loved the concept of Super Diner – Silver Spoon Premium Delivery Program (loosely modeled on Amazon Prime) where regular Foodie’s on Eat Social Platform need to pay Rs. 200 and they can enjoy free delivery for a month (there is no restriction on the number of orders placed on the platform). It is an interesting strategy to maintain ‘Customer Stickiness’. The app also has ‘Refer a Friend’ feature where you would be incentivized on the first order placed by your friend/contact on Eat Social given the condition that (s)he has used your Referral Code when installing the Eat Social App. Customer can opt for online payment (using PayUMoney) or Cash On Delivery (COD) while ordering food on Eat Social.

Whether your wife (if you are married :)) needs a break from her kitchen or you are a bachelor (craving to have delicious home-cooked food) or want to have home-cooked food for lunch/dinner at your office, Eat Social is the option for you!!

Eat Social : Scope for Improvement

No matter how good your product is there is always room for improvement. Below are some of the improvements that can make the entire ‘Eat Social’ experience more enriching:

1. Virtual Kitchen Tour : One factor that is very important in the ‘Food’ Category is ‘Hygiene’ and that can be the very first ‘Barrier’ in customer’s mind before (s)he takes the step to order food. ‘Virtual Kitchen Tour’ of the top-5 (or more) chefs could be very effective to convert these tentative foodies into compulsive foodies.

2. Customer Testimonials : Everyone enjoys having lip smacking food and it is very important to translate those emotions into customer endorsements. Effective Customer Testimonials helps build brand trust and acts as a medium to gather feedback (that can be used to improve the product). As mentioned in Boast ioA website with a hundred testimonials will generate more leads and close more sales than a website with no testimonials every time.

3. Eat Social App Distribution via SMS & QR Code  : Currently, users can download the Eat Social app from the Play Store, 9Apps Store (Direct) but there is a definite need to have a mobile app landing page for downloading the app. A common theme is the use of SMS (text messaging) to deliver the app download link to user’s mobile phone. There was no QR Code format (of the Eat Social App) which is an absolute necessity since it helps in customer acquisition and tracking app conversion rate.

4. Identification of next logical expansion : Foodies and Home chefs are the pillars of the Eat Social eco-system. Getting more Chef’s and Foodies on-board would be an on-going task for the Eat Social team, but it is important to capture footprint of visitors (on Eat Social) who are from places (in Bengaluru other than North Bengaluru).

A small Notify Me page where the user enters his/her pin-code can act as important data for their team to identify next logical expansion for Eat Social i.e. whether we need to expand to South Bengaluru/East Bengaluru/Only one specific locality in Bengaluru etc.

Eat Social : Closing Thoughts

The overall Eat Social experience was fantastic (effortless meal booking, hassle free online payment, on-time delivery and above all delicious food)!! The future of India would be shaped by entrepreneurs and Eat Social is a classic example of how food can act as a medium to empower women who can now take their cooking skills beyond their own kitchen and transform themselves into ‘Home Chefs’ or ‘Food Entrepreneurs’! Whether you are a bachelor missing home cooked food or a loving husband who wants to give his wife ‘Delightful Break’ :), Eat Social will come to your rescue.

Eat Social (for Android) can be downloaded from here, here. Non-Android users can visit Eat Social here. If you have used Eat Social before, please leave your experience/feedback in the comments section… 

Internet has become an integral part of consumer’s life and before online shopping became more mainstream, travel triggered the e-commerce boom in India. Companies like MakeMyTrip, Cleartrip, Yatra are some of the prominent  players in the Online Travel Aggregator (OTA) segment. These companies are the pioneers in the Horizontal Travel Segment and are online travel agencies that enable customers booking of flight, hotels, tours, recreational activities etc. There are other players like OYO Rooms, WudStay, Treebo Hotels, Vista Rooms etc. that are a part of the Online Budget Segment and act as enablers for hotel discovery and rentals.

Credit to the rising internet penetration, the online hotel booking sector is rapidly growing and is set to become USD 1.8 bn in 2016. There is a significant headroom for growth in the sector, with the ease of access to information and details online propelling consumer confidence to book hotels online [Source*].

The Opportunity – Last minute hotel deals

Though the hospitality industry is growing at a burgeoning speed with new hotels being launched every month, global investments being made; there is still a huge imbalance in the demand-supply cycle. Due to excess supply of hotel rooms inventory, an average of 40% of hotel rooms are unsold in India.

As Budget accommodation is fastest growing segment in India, most of the Online Travel Aggregators are looking at grabbing a piece of the market share [Source*]. However, this also involves an overhead cost of property inspection, standardisation, training hotel staff etc. Hence, there is still lot of room for disruption in the last minute 3*, 4* & 5* hotel booking space, as there are no very few startups that service the needs of the millennial , SME & Corporate travellers. Be it business trip, personal trip; travel can be impulsive and customers would look out for last minute hotel deals.

This is where Mumbai based Last Minute Keys sensed an opportunity and wanted to provide a platform for travellers so that they do not loose out of ‘Deals’ for un-planned trips and for Hotels so that they can liquidate their inventory for today, tomorrow  and day after on a real time basis, which is not available with other OTA’s

Last Minute Keys has partnered with quality 3*, 4* & 5* hotels thus ensuring that there are low no overhead costs since these top-rated quality hotels already maintain high standards!

Let’s have look into Last Minute Keys’s differentiators, market size, funding plans etc.

Last Minute Keys – Presence and Key differentiators

As mentioned earlier, Last Minute Keys is dynamic platform for hotels to liquidate their inventory for today, tomorrow & day after on a real time basis. Customers can only do the booking three days prior to their travel and enjoy awesome savings on last minute booking.

Unlike the other last minute players in the market that have either integrated API’s of other online portals & have merely just positioned themselves as last minute players, Last Minute Keys have one on one contracts with each and every hotel that are listed listed on their platform.

Currently Last Minute Keys has tied up with more than 400 hotels in 12 cities (Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Jaipur, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Cochin & Goa) & plans to expand to 1000 hotels in over 25 cities in India in a short span of time.

Last Minute Keys – Key benefits for Hoteliers and Customers

HoteliersThere is a huge demand-supply gap in the hospitality industry due to which at times there would be huge unsold inventory particularly in off seasons. Hotels would be open to offer rooms at a discounted rate in order to minimize losses by increasing the overall occupancy ratio.

Last Minute Keys offers the hotels a cutting edge extra-net platform, through which the hoteliers are able liquidate their last minute inventory dynamically based on supply & demand.

CustomersLast Minute Keys offers guaranteed lowest prices to their customers for last minute bookings (bookings over next 72 hours) as the platform only lists deals offered by hotels for their unsold inventory, which are the sold at rock bottom rates.

Hotel rooms are perishable in nature, hence any unsold rooms sold through the hotels on Last Minute Keys platform is additional revenue for them, customers on the other hand, land up getting a great deal at the last minute, hence making it a win-win situation for all.

Last Minute Keys – The team

Last Minute Keys team comprises of veterans that bring in tremendous experience from the Travel & Tourism Space and also have close knit relationships with hoteliers throughout India as well as International hotel chains. They have deep rooted understanding of the nitty-gritties of the hospitality industry.

Manoj Gursahani, Co-founder & CEO: He has over 3 decades of experience in the Travel & Hospitality segment and has a complete 360 degree understanding of how the dynamics of the Industry works including e-commerce, MICE segment etc. Read more about Manoj here

Mahesh Shirodkar, Co-founder: He is the Managing Director of Tamarind Global, one of the largest hotel room consolidators in India. Read more about Mahesh here

Naveen Varadharajan, Co-founder: He is spearheading and overseeing the technology innovations at Last Minute Keys. He also heads the InsatiableGroup and BOB Tech Solutions as Director & CEO. Read more about Naveen here

Last Minute Keys – Technology

It is a mobile-only travel marketplace and it is currently present on the Play Store. Customers can book a last minute discounted room in just a few taps on their mobile. The hotels present on their platform are hand-picked and have excellent ratings on TripAdvisor which is a seal of Quality Guaranteed.

In contrast to other online travel agencies and travel marketplace, prices displayed on Last Minute Keys are Final Prices (with no hidden charges).

Last Minute Keys – Marketing

The team at Last Minute Keys believes that a good product can speak for itself. They are relying on good customer reviews and ensuring that the customer gets an awesome stay at the best price! They are now marketing the product via Digital Media so that they can reach to potential customers.

Last Minute Keys – Funding

Last Minute Keys is currently self funded and is looking to raise funds for further expansion. Post funding, they plan to launch Last Minute Keys for B2B market segment. There is also a plan to have a Day Room Use & Night Room Use Tariffs integrated in all their platforms (existing & forthcoming)

As per Traxcn, USD 8 bn has been globally invested in online travel in 2015~16 with Horizontal and Accommodation being the top funded sectors [Source*]

Last Minute Keys – Scaling up and Customer Acquisition

Travellers can book hotel-rooms via the Last Minute Keys app. Since their potential partners are boutique and premium hotels, an iOS app would be a must-have for further customer acquisition.

There is a plan to cater to the B2B segment with the following offerings:

Travel agents: Last Minute Keys plans to offer web based platform to Travel agents, along with offering attractive commissions as a major chunk of hotel rooms are still sold through the travel agents. Hence, it is very critical to have a Travel agent facing platform as well in order to increase the conversion rates.

SME’s/Corporates: A tailor-made solution for HR’s of Small & Medium Enterprises (SME) as well as large corporates. Attractive loyalty programs would be a major playing factor in the corporate ‘Customer Segment’

In our opinion, since most of the SME’s & large Corporates manage their employees’ travel through their Travel Desk (or Corporate Travel Agencies), last minute Lead Generation for corporate travel agencies could also be a model to explore!

Last Minute Keys – Expansion Plans

Many of the impulsive travellers might require a stay only for a day, Last Minute Keys plans to introduce Day & Night use Room Tariff’s where customer can book a hotel room for minimum period of 10 hours (10 am~7 pm or 9 pm~8 am).

Other future plans are Tie-up with international last minute hotel players via API integrations. This would be a win-win situation for both the parties since international last minute deal companies can enter the Indian market & service their Indian customers whereas Last Minute Keys can expand its services to more than 300 cities worldwide! Selling last minute hotel deals on e-commerce websites is another area that is to be explored.

Since travel does not only involve stay, hence it is important to address all the touch-points that deal with unplanned & impulsive travellers. Hence, they also plan to tie-up with Taxi Aggregators in order to ease their journey.

Last Minute Keys – Competition

Better pricing strategy is definitely a key USP for Last Minute Keys. Though online travel sites like MakeMyTrip (via its Last minute deals), ClearTrip (via Quick keys), Yatra etc. also cater to the impulsive traveller but that is not their key area of focus.

The Last Minute Keys team consistently monitor rates & maintain rate comparative analysis with other OTA’s. At times they offer deals that are more than 50% cheaper than their competitors. There is definitely a huge rate advantage, since it gets great deals from hotels, as hotels sell their unsold inventory at rock bottom rates on their platform.

Last Minute Keys – Conclusion


Be it individuals or corporates, there is a definite need to cater to the impulsive travellers even though it is still in it’s nascent stage. With their B2B plan, Last Minute Keys has a clear winner in terms of addressing the requirements of the corporate travel segment.

Plan a little less, live a little more. Be spontaneous! Use Last Minute Keys

Unocoin, a Bangalore based Bitcoin startup, has raised $1.5 million in a Pre Series-A round, the highest total raised for a digital currency venture in Indian history. Funding was sourced from well-known Indian entities such as Blume Ventures, Mumbai Angels and ah! Ventures along with prominent international investors such as Digital Currency Group, Boost VC, Bank to the Future and FundersClub.

Unocoin co-founder and CEO, Sathvik Vishwanath said

We are honoured to have this type of support from top investors. We started from my small hometown called Tumkur near Bangalore and our goal from the beginning was to make it easy to get bitcoin in India. A few years later, we are now headquartered in Bangalore with 30+ employees, serving more than 100,000+ customers across the country and growing exponentially. Given our steep growth rate, we’re looking to serve millions more in the coming years.

These are exciting times. India has the largest gold, inward remittance, and IT markets in the world, all of which make it a perfect home for Bitcoin and blockchain technology.

Blume Ventures, headquartered in Mumbai, has played a pivotal role in leading the Unocoin Pre Series A round. According to Karthik Reddy from Blume Ventures, it was the belief in the team at Unocoin that encouraged Blume to participate.

Karthik Reddy from Blume Ventures said

In Sathvik and team, we discovered not only the leading Bitcoin company in India, but a determination to educate all stakeholders, simplify Bitcoin’s usage, and bring another frictionless layer to payments and commerce. We are confident that Unocoin will further alter the landscape and make additional inroads into remittances and e-commerce in India.

Unocoin Co-founders: Sunny Ray (President), Sathvik Vishwanath (CEO), Harish B V (COO) & Abhinand Kaseti (CMO)
Unocoin Co-founders: Sunny Ray (President), Sathvik Vishwanath (CEO), Harish B V (COO) & Abhinand Kaseti (CMO)

Digital Currency Group, based in New York City, supports Bitcoin and blockchain companies by leveraging their insights, network, and access to capital with over 80 investments in more than 25 countries.

Barry Silbert, Founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group, said

Since making our first investment in Unocoin, it has been tremendous to see the company solidify its position as the leading Bitcoin company in India, as well as emerge as one of the fastest growing companies in DCG’s global portfolio of 80 Bitcoin and blockchain companies.  We are thrilled to welcome this fantastic group of new investors to Unocoin and look forward to many more years of rapid growth and industry leadership by the company.

Commenting on their investment into Unocoin, Harshad Lahoti, Founder and CEO of ah! Ventures said

It’s no secret that usage of bitcoin is picking up rapidly and the concept has seen a warm welcome from freelancers and retailers in India. That’s when Unocoin, a venture backed by a strong team with industry acumen and a rocketing number of users, caught our attention. We believe Unocoin will continue to be one of the strongest players in India’s booming crypto-currency market.

ah! Ventures is India’s first full-spectrum (seed, angel & VC) investment network and platform comprising of over 850+ investors, including some of the renowned angels and early-stage VCs. Founded in 2010, ah! Ventures has systematically disrupted the early stage funding ecosystem of India through its innovative approach toward startup investing. First of its kind initiatives like the CLUB ah! platform, ah! Angels (India’s largest angel network), ah! Seeders and ah! VC networks (India’s first seed & VC investment networks), have brought together and integrated the previously segregated startup funding lifecycle, under one roof. CLUB ah! platform today has over 15000+ startups, 750 seed/angel investors and over 90 VCs & institutional investors, making it one of the largest platform of investors and startups. The network also last year secured its first profitable exit from Ed-tech venture Harness Handitouch within 2 years of its investment. ah! Ventures has till date syndicated close to INR 100 crores in over 30 investments spread across varied industries and domains.

Boris Silver, Co-Founder and President of FundersClub, said

We are thrilled to partner with and back Unocoin as a portfolio company in the FundersClub community. We were impressed with the company’s vision, team, growth, and large market opportunity. Blockchain technology has tremendous potential and we’re excited to support Unocoin as they continue to innovate, lead, and execute in the space.

FundersClub focuses on backing disruptive, technology-enabled startups starting at the seed stage. Their portfolio holdings include fast-growing, disruptive technology companies like Slack, Instacart and Coinbase. Over the past 4 years, the FundersClub portfolio has attracted >$1.2B of follow-on capital from other top VCs.

Addressing the role of Bitcoin in the Indian economy, Simon Dixon, CEO of Bank to the Future and fund manager of Bitcoin Capital, said

In India, 95% of the people do not have credit cards and 50% are unbanked due to the country’s poor financial and payments infrastructure. We believe Bitcoin has a role to play in India in the long term and are happy to join the round of the leading bitcoin company in India.

Sharing the story behind Unocoin, Co-founder and President of Unocoin Sunny Ray said

We started this company with the mission to bring bitcoin to billions. Bitcoin opens up a world that simply wasn’t possible before. When we got started four years ago, we saw a once in a lifetime opportunity to build out a secure platform for people to easily access bitcoin. Empowered with our current round of financing from many of the best investors in the world, we believe that Unocoin is strategically positioned to reach millions of people in the next few years. In the near future, we believe that bitcoin has the potential to take market share from gold, substantially reduce the cost of remittance and potentially bank the unbanked.

When we first learned about Bitcoin back in 2012, we knew that Bitcoin was going to be a big deal. The question we kept asking ourselves, however, was: ‘How do we bring the benefits of Bitcoin to Indians while systematically protecting against the downside risks?’ In the absence of clarity, we were the first company in India to seek out and work closely with top techno-legal firm in the country, Nishith Desai and Associates. We were also the first Bitcoin company in India to implement a comprehensive compliance and banking like framework to address these challenges.

Unocoin’s Vishwanath added

We believe that we’re at the dawn of a new evolution where money itself is being reinvented. We love seeing so many of the smartest cryptographers, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world working together to scale Bitcoin to the masses. Over the past year, we’ve also been innovating at light-speed: we’ve recently launched a merchant point-of-sale (POS) app, a mobile trading app, an auto-selling feature for remittance users, systematic investment planning (SIP) to mitigate against volatilty risk, integration with NETKI to simplifly Bitcoin addresses, created an over the counter (OTC) desk for large traders,integrated with purse.io for discounts on Amazon, launched an API for developers and more. Over the coming months and years, we’ll continue to build practical, useful features and tools on top of Bitcoin.

Vishwanath concluded, “We have a clear vision here at Unocoin: let’s Make Money Simple.”

About Unocoin

Started in 2013, Unocoin is a Bangalore based technology startup and is India’s first entrant into the bitcoin industry. The company operates India’s largest BTC-INR trading platform which enables Indians to buy, sell, store, use and accept bitcoin. Every month, Unocoin processes transactions worth more than INR 200M for its 100,000 customers. In just 3 years since inception, the company has drawn more than 30 top investors from 5 countries. Unocoin is responsible for industry leading innovations such as the Bitcoin Systematic Investment Plan (SIP), Bitcoin Point of Sale (POS) App and Bitcoin Over-The-Counter trading (OTC).  For more information, please visit unocoin.com

About ah! Ventures

ah! Ventures is a growth catalyst that brings together promising businesses and investors by creating wealth creation opportunities for both. ah!’s unique model serves investors, entrepreneurs & enablers through a unique blend of customised services, skill, and industry & domain experience. Founded in 2010, ah! Ventures has systematically disrupted the early stage funding ecosystem of India through its innovative approach toward startup investing. First of its kind initiatives like the CLUB ah! platform, ah! Angels (India’s largest angel network), ah! Seeders and ah! VC networks (India’s first seed & VC investment networks), have brought together and integrated the previously segregated startup funding lifecycle, under one roof. This, coupled with ah! Impact network, an impact investment network for investing in social enterprises and ah! Mentors network, a mentor network to engage with startups in their growth and expansion, has today made ah! Ventures one of India’s most respected change leaders and a formidable industry force to recon with.

JetPrivilege, the loyalty and rewards management programme and the frequent flyer programme of Jet Airways, India’s premier international airline, has introduced shop.jetprivilege.com, a unique online shopping website that rewards JetPrivilege members with JPMiles every time they shop on the platform.

JetPrivilege has launched the platform with Flipkart as its first shopping partner. Over the next few months, JetPrivilege will add more shopping partners to the platform giving members the option to earn JPMiles across a number of product categories.

Members can earn up to 16 JPMiles for every INR 100 spent on Flipkart, but only when they access the e-commerce website via the portal shop.jetprivilege.com. The JPMiles accumulated by shopping can then be redeemed for award flights across 1,000 destinations, or at the JetPrivilege Reward Store, which has over 500 products to choose from.

Manish Dureja, Managing Director, Jet Privilege, said

JetPrivilege is committed to finding new and innovative ways for its members to earn JPMiles. We know that our members like the convenience of online shopping, and so we are delighted to introduce shop.jetprivilege.com in partnership with Flipkart to give our members a more rewarding shopping experience.

Samardeep Subandh, Chief Marketing Officer, Flipkart, said

At Flipkart we are constantly seeking more ways to engage and delight customers. Flipkart and JetPrivilege are market leaders in their own space and together, we can help provide a great shopping experience for millions of Indians online. We are very excited to partner with JetPrivilege for this initiative and through this partnership we aim to make the customer shopping experience truly comprehensive for JetPrivilege members.

G7CR Technologies have announced the launch of its Business Enablement & Automation Program (BEAP) for SMEs, the world’s first free suite of custom solutions for SME automation. The ITaaS based solution is aimed at enabling SMEs turn digital disruption into competitive advantage by offering business process automation in an innovative business model giving them the experience of customized as well as standardised low-cost end to end managed solutions scalable to their growing business needs.

Image Source – LinkedIn

Leveraging Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, G7CR would provide software development, migration, adaption, implementation and 24*7 support for SMEs at no cost, while the client would pay only on the cost per click basis for cloud usage, at actuals. BEAP provides an ideal way for an SME to obtain a custom developed business automation application or existing standard solution depending on their specific needs from G7CR at affordable price points.

With capital investment on non-core functions such as IT, being eliminated completely, automation will enable SMEs shift focus more on their CORE business functions while becoming more productive and competitive. G7CR provides solutions across industries as well as the entire stack of industry-agnostic horizontal services to meet the needs of SMEs.

Dr. Suraj Baliga, Founder, Clinikk Healthcare said

G7CR’s delivery excellence coupled with innovative and scalable solutions for IT led innovation is working as the backbone for SMEs such as Clinikk with its mission of providing accessible, affordable and high quality supervised care as the healthcare buddy for physicians and patients alike.

Christopher Richard, MD & Chief Software Architect, G7CR Technologies said

Lack of financing coupled with fast paced digital disruption are proving to be major constraints for most SME’s today as they try to scale up and become increasingly competent. The IT-as-a-Service offering for SMEs would help accelerate their growth while freeing up vital resources such as financing for core business functions.

About BEAP Solution Offering

BEAP is a SaaS-based solution offering for the SMEs and is available on a pay-per-click basis, at Microsoft cloud actual rates, with no solution development, maintenance or support cost. It enables small businesses to adopt Cloud-based IT capabilities and optimize their overall IT and infrastructure cost while focusing on profitability and core business growth.

About G7CR Technologies India (P) Ltd.

G7CR Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. is a global leader in Consulting, Outsourcing, Technology, Cloud Sales & Support, and Corporate Training. The company has its headquarters in Bangalore, India and serves across the globe with over 700+ employee strength. With a proven record of achieving customer success in various industry verticals such as telecom, healthcare, education, IT, consulting etc., G7CR has seen more than 500% growth in size and turnover in past 3 years and is currently one of the fastest growing companies in India. For more information, please visit G7CR