All Posts in Technology

|In: e-commerce|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Expert members within IEEE, the world’s largest professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for humanity, believe that a shoppers’ eyes & heart will be a window to their wallet. Retailers will begin to harness eye-tracking technology and heart rate monitors for brick and mortar stores in order to gain a better understanding of their customers’ shopping preferences.

Eye-tracking technology will allow retailers to identify where their customers’s eyes go in certain aisles or departments within the store, which will better inform them on where to merchandise certain products. In addition, heart rate monitors could help retailers recognize the level of customer excitement towards a product. Retailers can monitor which products are causing the most excitement, and, if leading to sales, can have a better understanding of which products they should more-heavily promote.

Christopher James, IEEE Senior Member said

Changing heart rates in a retail setting can usually be linked to changes in emotion, with an increased heart rate being indicative of excitement. In order to monitor changes in heart rate properly, the customer would really have to ‘connect’ with the merchandise to show changes that are discernible beyond normally physiologic fluctuations associated with day-to-day life.

3-D Printing: Reinventing the Way we Shop

IEEE experts also believe there are vast opportunities for 3-D printing. As this technology becomes more advanced, customers will no longer need to go to physical stores to buy an item. Customers will be able to buy an item directly on a company’s website, as usual, but once the transaction is confirmed, the company will send a file or barcode allowing the customer to print the product directly from their personal 3-D printer. Products could include clothing accessories, automotive parts or musical instruments, just to name a few.

George K. Thiruvathukal, IEEE member and professor of computer science at Loyola University, Chicago. said

3-D printing is becoming more applicable for a range of products and will continue to push the boundaries for a number of industries, including retail. We are still in the early stages of 3-D printing and although there are still many barriers to mainstream consumer adoption, there are great opportunities that this technology could lend towards education and the Do it Yourself [DIY)] movement, such as promoting the ability to create and innovate.

M&M: Mobility and Merchandise

Electronic payment technology is quickly becoming a preferred option for purchasing items. Technology companies are making it easier for customers to make electronic payments through their cell phones, which are beginning to be integrated by major retailers.

Kevin Curran, IEEE Senior Member and reader in computer science at the University of Ulster, Ireland said

Many components that enable NFC-smartphone electronic payments have been steadily falling into place. Millions of consumers are becoming familiar with the idea of electronic payments and now it is becoming a common use case for individuals to use their phone’s fingerprint authentication sensor to make payments – the phone really is becoming the modern wallet. As near field communication [NFC] technology becomes standard in more phones, so will the availability of electronic payments with retailers.

Your [Purchase is] Only a Day Away…

Until consumers are able to print their own products on a regular basis, one-day delivery will become commonplace. The market is still in its infancy with companies currently testing and developing processes. Receiving purchased products via the Internet will become even more streamlined, with more major retailers being able to accommodate deliveries within a few hours. Based on data about shopping habits, retailers will be able to gauge which products are purchased most often by region and can secure inventories appropriately so that delivery time can be optimized.

Tom Coughlin, IEEE Senior Member and founder of Coughlin Associates stated

Top online retail companies have pioneered the use of flying autonomous drones to deliver products to customers. Although this technology is still in the development phase, drone deliveries could allow fast delivery of time-critical items to remote locations. Greater use of unmanned aerial vehicles will depend upon resolving safety concerns, and will likely cost more than delivery through conventional channels.

IEEE Future of Retail Interactive Infographic

IEEE developed an interactive info-graphic, which includes the technologies listed above as well as further considerations, to showcase what the future of retail will look like both physically and digitally over the next few years. You can view the info-graphic by visiting IEEE Transmitter. 

[Image Credit* – IEEE]

|In: Incubators|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Target India hosted a Demo Day for the third batch of start-ups graduating from the Accelerator Program. The five start-ups, Find Me A Shoe, TimeFlex, BugClipper, Discover Dollar & House of Blue Beans showcased transformative ideas developed during the four-month immersive program.

Navneet Kapoor, president and managing director, Target India said

Being the first mover in this space in India, this initiative has provided us a unique opportunity to work with some of the best entrepreneurs, who have the potential to solve global retail problems. We have already worked with 15 start-ups over three batches and it has been tremendously exciting and satisfying to see start-ups mature their product journeys through this engagement, while helping Target accelerate its innovation journey. We are committed to growing the scope of this initiative and will continue to nurture path-breaking ideas that hold the potential to disrupt the retail industry.

Many of the start-ups, who have graduated from this program, have continued to work with Target beyond the program. For example, Whodat Spaces continues to offer virtual reality guest experiences & Visarity helped us with digital marketing solutions over the last few months. Future engagement opportunities with the current batch are being evaluated.

Strengthening innovation capabilities within the organization, the third batch also provided three internal Target teams a platform to work alongside the five external start-ups. These teams will grow and implement their ideas at Target.

The third batch focused on themes like Merchandising, Digital Marketing, Omni-channel, Mobile, Supply Chain & Analytics Technology, along with areas like Finance and DevOps that are core to retail technology. The five start-ups which presented at today’s Demo Day were:

Along with the graduation of its third batch of start-ups, Target is also excited to announce a partnership with GOQii, a wearable technology start-up. With a focus on wellness, Target is undertaking various initiatives to promote team member well-being. Making healthy living easier and more fun, every team member in India will be given a GOQii device to help track their well-being goals. This is one of the largest corporate wellness group purchases of GOQii devices to date.

Target is now accepting applications for the fourth batch of the Accelerator Program. You can apply for the same here. Scheduled to commence early next year, the four-month initiative will be run out of a specially designed, energetic and creative hub at Target India’s office in Manyata Tech Park, Bengaluru

[Image Credit* – ExcellMktg]

|In: India|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

National Instruments [NI], the provider of systems that enable engineers and scientists to solve the world’s greatest engineering challenges, today successfully hosted its 12th edition of NIDays in Bangalore. The event was attended by over 500 engineers, academicians and researchers who witnessed the launch of a wide range of products that are designed to revolutionize the Industrial Internet of Things [IIoT]

At the seminar, NI India launched the latest version of its flagship product – LabVIEW, with enhancement in speed and memory usage. NIDays offered 18 technical sessions and tutorials with over 30 products and application demonstrations. It allowed visitors to learn about the latest hardware platforms and applications in the industry.  Speakers and exhibitors from various industries including automotive, telecom, semiconductor, smart machines, aerospace and defense, etc. joined the event to discuss and discover how to accelerate productivity for software-defined systems in test, measurement & control.

Robert Morton, Vice President, EMEIA, National Instruments said

We are excited about using the Internet of Things in a way that benefits the society at large through connected devices and by incorporating the generated data into meaningful usages. We are investing heavily into technology that makes this process easier for scientists and engineers to not only rapidly prototype this but also deploy systems.

The conference also witnessed the launch of wide range of products which includes:

  • Highest Bandwidth CompactDAQ chassis to date, the new 14-slot USB 3.0 chassis, can stream measurement data at over 225 MB/s
  • The world’s first PXI chassis with PCI Express 3.0 technology can stream with system bandwidth of up to 24 GB/s each direction
  • The world’s first Intel Xeon-based 8-core PXI Express Embedded Controller can turn 24 GB/s of data into valuable insight
  • The newest Single Board RIO controllers based on dual core ARM processor and ARTIX-7 FPGA technology, which runs the new security enhanced distribution of NI Linux Real-time
  • NI Wireless Test System [WTS], which dramatically lowers the cost of high-volume wireless manufacturing test for the increasing number of things with a wireless connection, a high-performance

Jayaram Pillai, Managing Director – IndRAA at National Instruments said

We are extremely excited and motivated to witness the breadth and sophistication of applications that 2015 NIYantra participants have created. Aiding in improving the education system and providing hands on experience to students and engineers is a reward for the years of our efforts. NIYantra is committed to support and help these budding individuals with access to our technologies to create applications that can solve problems that humanity face as a whole.

Engineering Impact Awards

NI’s annual technical application contest – Engineering Impact Awards, enables NI customers to showcase innovative projects based on NI software and hardware. The contest this year had a total of 67 teams and the winners will get a chance to participate in the Global Engineering Impact Awards held in Austin annually during NIWeek. This year’s winners were ARAV Technologies for their vision based pre-dispatch inspection from the SME category, Mahindra & Mahindra for their automated infotainment systems testing solution from the Systems category, SRM University for their full duplex cognitive radio implementation using NI USRP RIO 2943 from the Academics category and Digilogic Systems for their portable DRFM based radar echo simulation system from the Alliance Partner Category.

NIYantra Awards

In order to foster the spirit of innovation in engineering students and expose them to the essence of experiential education through contest, NI hosted its annual Graphical System Design contest NIYantra. This contest helps undergraduate engineers to design their project ideas and convert them into working models using NI hardware and software over a period of six months. 

NIYantra 2015 witnessed abstract submissions from 204 teams spread across engineering colleges in India. The winners were from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, Mumbai for their project development of a scavenger bot which is an autonomous street cleaner and Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering College, NCR for the development of a smart bin which is aimed at being a solution to Swachh Bharat. The runners up were from Kumaraguru College of Technology, Coimbatore for the development of a tennis tutor.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Helpchat, the chat-based personal assistant app that helps you get more things done has recorded an overwhelming response to its ‘Festive Season Help’ feature. The service was introduced to assist Helpchat users in navigating through the many deals and discounts across online and offline retail channels during Dussehra and Diwali time. Helpchat processed more than 1 lakh consumer queries during this time.

Of all the request on the app, 60% were related to online shopping. 42% of the weekly request focused exclusively on the best e-commerce discounts and deals. The category that witnessed maximum traction is mobile phones wherein consumers posted several request regarding potential purchases via popular marketplaces such as Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal etc.

Ankur Singla, Founder and CEO, Helpchat said

We have received an exceptional response to our ‘Festive Season Help’ feature. It is exciting for us to see that in a short span of time, Helpchat has indeed become the default behavior of consumers. During the festival season, a very large number of users turned to our  platform for different kind of request, like from where to buy their Puja Samagri, the best deals on consumer electronics, top offline sales to the best location for a Ravan effigy in their cities. We are pleased to be the personal assistant of choice for the entire spectrum of our users’ needs.

About 50% of the request on Helpchat came from Tier 1 geographies like Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune & Hyderabad. More than 80% of the users belonged to the age bracket of 25-35 years and almost 35% of them were female. Besides online shopping, the other areas that recorded maximum request during this festive season were offline sales [23%], apparel shopping [19%], help with choosing the best electronics and appliances [11%] & queries about local Puja shopping [5%].

About Helpchat

Helpchat [earlier called Akosha] launched it’s personal assistant chat app in January 2015 and raised Rs. 100 crores from Sequoia Capital in June 2015. It recently opened a Bangalore office to add more engineers and product people to its team. Be it anything, from recharging your phone to tech support, from travel booking to holiday guidance, from grocery to food ordering, from shopping assistance to finding deals & coupons, from finding gifts to suggesting the best electronic item, from doing a web check-in to getting your laundry done – Helpchat can get all of them done for you.

|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

AHA Taxis [a division of WAAH Taxis Pvt Ltd], India’s leading online aggregator for outstation travel has raised an undisclosed round of angel funding from ah! Ventures, a startup focused growth catalyst bridging ideas and money. The deal was solely advised and syndicated by ah! Ventures and led to closure on its private equity investment platform, CLUBah.com

AHA Taxis was founded in April 2015 by Amit Grover [ex-Infosys, Asian Paints, Onida, IIT-IIM alumnus], along with Praveen Samariya [ex-Times Internet, IIT alumnus], Kunal Krishna [ex-Headstrong, Copper Mobile], Kumar Arayan [ex-Swiggy, Askmebazar, NIIT] & Shivam Mishra [ex-Crazzy, college dropout]. The team complements each other on several fronts of technology, operations and marketing, all of which are critical to success in the outstation taxi sector in India. Additionally, AHA Taxis has roped in marquee advisers including Puneet Gupt of Times Internet and Vikas Taneja of Games247

AHATaxis

AHA Taxis helps travellers save cost on outstation travel by charging only for actual kilometers travelled. Traditionally in Indian road travel, the taxi owners charge a return fare from customers even for one way trips, as they are not assured of passengers on return journey. AHA Taxis provides service in 100+ cities currently and is expanding to another 100 cities by mid-2016. Customers can book an AHA Taxi by going on the website as well as mobile app available on Android Playstore.

Amit Grover, Founder, AHA Taxis, explains

Very few of the present cab providers offer intercity ride, “AHA” being one of them. Having said that, the primary problem with a regular cab is that you get charged for the return trip too.  Here, “AHA Taxis” takes the lead by providing you the taxi and charging you only for the actual kilometers travelled. We are aggregating demand and supply using website and mobile app to make it a win-win situation for all stakeholders – taxi owners, customers, society and environment.

 AHA Taxis has served outstation trips across 100+ cities for thousands of happy customers. AHA acts as an online bridge between drivers and customers offering significant value addition – it charges the customers for only one way trips rather than double fare for pick and drops. The drivers get a matching customer for their journeys instead of going empty, which enables them to earn more without extra investment.

Amit Grover further elucidated

Taxi sector has been developing by leaps and bounds in India, with OLA and Uber serving local travel, we felt that there is a gap in outstation travel which needs to be addressed by using technology and marketing. Our brand promise is to make taxis affordable, easily available and focus on customer safety – something none of the past and present players have been able to solve simultaneously at scale. After last few months of discovering our product market fit, we felt the need for investments to grow and ah! Ventures has come in at the right time to support us in this venture.

This deal was concluded through ah! Ventures’ private equity investment platform, CLUB ah!. CLUB ah! is India’s first full-spectrum startup investment network and platform comprising of over 550+ investors, including some of the renowned angels and early-stage VCs.

CLUB ah! platform today has over 5000+ startups, 475+ seed/angel investors and over 75 VCs & institutional investors, making it one of the largest platform of investors and startups. The network also recently secured its first profitable exit from Ed-tech venture Harness Handitouch within 2 years of its investment. CLUB ah! has till date invested close to INR 60 Cr in over 20 startups spread across varied industries and domains, including AHA Taxis.

AHA Taxis plans to use the funds raised by investing equally in technology, marketing and operations. Having an asset light model, the company can efficiently scale up capabilities on consumer and vendor support side. Currently the company is clocking almost 100% MOM growth on all metrics, and with angel investors backing, aim to achieve 10x growth within a year. The company plans to expand to newer geographies, with a focus on tier 2/3 towns, and start coverage of non-tourism sector beyond usual routes like Delhi to Jaipur, Agra, Haridwar and Chandigarh. AHA Taxis intelligent technology coupled with human acumen will help the company cater to the long tail of the consumer demand. In long term, AHA Taxis’ vision is to provide an alternate to Indian Railways!

Giving an investors’ perspective, Harshad Lahoti, Founder & CEO of ah! Ventures, said

Taxi aggregators typically don’t own any cabs or employ drivers; they connect customers with drivers through a tech platform, the front-end for the customer being an app. This is the same asset-light model that AHA Taxis has implemented. Besides, big money is making its way into this sector.

According to the Association of Radio Taxi India, the taxi business in the country is growing at 20-25 per cent a year. The organised taxi sector accounts for just four to five per cent of the industry and totals $800 million. By 2020, it is expected to grow almost 10 times to $7 billion. Revenues for taxi service providers are expected to grow at a CAGR of about 25% during 2014-19. Also, over the last decade, the consumer base in India is moving from a price sensitive mind-set to a convenience-first mind-set fuelling further demand for such services.

Our Investment in AHA Taxis is at the opportune time as we believe strongly in the potential of the business in India. They are already clocking 100% MOM growth on all metrics. As such, we are extremely confident of the team led by Amit and had no second thoughts on wanting to be early investors in AHA Taxis. We are positive of their service offering & technology and also of their ability to create significant shareholder value.

AHA Taxis is ah! Ventures’ second investment in this month. Earlier this month ah! Ventures invested USD 250K in an online game-based engagement learning startup Shirsa Labs. Besides they recently closed two back to back investments of over 1M USD each in Origa Leasing and Ewya Media.

ah! Ventures is in the process of closing 2 more deals in the coming weeks

About AHA Taxis

AHA Taxis [a division of WAAH Taxis Pvt Ltd] is India’s leading online aggregator for outstation travel. They offer online taxi booking to customers for one way fares, return journeys and multi city booking. Their vision is to give freedom of choice to their customers worldwide for traveling safely where they wish to while saving costs and at the same time benefit the taxi drivers with increased profits.

[Image Credit* – AHA Taxis]

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

TechProcess Payment Services Ltd., India’s leading payment solutions company have announced a successful implementation of its mobile-first payment platform, Paynimo for Berggruen Group owned Keys Chain of Hotels. With this, the customers of the Keys Chain of hotels will be able to avail secure & convenient services such as online payments including hotel services at minimal taps.

Paynimo’s value proposition comprises harnessing the potential of existing payment methods in the consumers’ hands and facilitating cashless transactions. The platform operates independent of stashing cash in it. Thus both consumers and merchants can opt for a secured ecosystem to transact without cash.

 

Kumar Karpe – CEO, TechProcess Payment Services Ltd. said

We believe Paynimo will be an enabler for a seamless payment experience for Keys Hotels customers across India and serve a great purpose on enhancing customer experience. Our secured payment platform will act as a ‘Super Wallet’ and it will spur the activation of debit, credit and prepaid cards. We are delighted to partner with Keys Hotels, which has always been ahead of times in its approach to ensure customer delight.

Paynimo powers a consistent user experience across different platforms, channels and devices. The platform also gives a single dashboard view to the hotel industry enabling them to look at all reservations on a single view. Its superior payment checkout experience enables an end consumer to complete transactions securely, and with minimal taps.

Key Features of Paynimo

  • Customers of 25 hotels across 14 cities will now be offered more than 170 payment options including – card payments, Net-banking, NEFT/RTGS, IMPS, e-wallets etc.
  • Instant and simultaneous payment confirmation to the Keys Hotels and its clientele
  • Safe and convenient transactions, friction-less checkout, auto pre-fill of OTP and complete in-app payment flow
  • Converts an existing smart phone into Virtual MPOS
  • Enhanced reservation experience and seamless payment
  • Single Dashboard view for the Keys Hotel to keep a track on all the reservations

It is India’s first truly revolutionary payment gateway that allows both offline and online businesses to collect e-payments. Paynimo converts regular SMS and email reminders into actionable payment links, allowing merchants to e-collect from consumers. With ready-to-use APIs, it can be instantly integrated with billing systems for quick go-to-market!

About TechProcess Payment Services Ltd

TechProcess Payment Services Ltd. has been pioneering electronic payments in India since 2000 by setting up BillJunction, India’s first electronic bill presentment and payment service. TechProcess has been building, managing and servicing the e-payments ecosystem through its innovative cloud based payment platforms which have been adopted by leading brands. The service offerings cover the entire gamut of non-cash modes of electronic payments such as card payments, Net-banking, NACH, NEFT/RTGS, IMPS, e-wallets and the like. For more information, please visit their website

|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Goodbox, a conversational-commerce mobile app has raised $2.5 million from Nexus Venture Partners. Goodbox allows businesses to create a commerce-ready store within minutes that provides seamless discovery, ordering and payment. Consumers can buy from their trusted stores across multiple categories without having to download multiple apps.

The company had earlier raised seed funding from the Manipal Group, Aprameya Radhakrishna [co-founder, TaxiForSure] and Charan Padmaraju [co founder, redBus].The current funds will be used for merchant acquisition & building the team.

Goodbox allows businesses to create a store on the Goodbox app that resembles the physical environment where the merchant can chat with their customers, upload their product/services catalog for search and discovery, take orders, accept payments and get logistics support. Most customers and merchants already use generic messaging apps to place an order over a message. Goodbox significantly improves the customer experience by integrating e-commerce capabilities with messaging and with time saving features for quick or repeat orders. Customers can buy from and pay their trusted businesses through one window and reduce app fatigue of having to download multiple apps for multiple things.

Goodbox is operational in Bangalore with over 1200 merchants already signed up, including supermarkets, restaurants, laundry chains, rental providers, movers & packers, canteens, salons and thali services. The company’s mission is to get every business to create their store on the app and make that their primary way to interact with consumers.

Sandeep Singhal, Co-founder & MD, Nexus Venture Partners says

Goodbox is empowering businesses by getting them online and helping them engage with their customers. We are excited about partnering with a team that has great product thinking and proven operational strengths.

Abey Zachariah, Co-founder & CEO, Goodbox said

At Goodbox, we are committed to enabling businesses with technology by giving them a ready store on our app in a matter of minutes. We wanted to partner with someone who believes in our vision and is willing to support us in accomplishing the gargantuan mission we’ve set for ourselves. We found such synergy of thought with Nexus Venture Partners. The funds will be earmarked for our expansion in the coming months.

Goodbox has been co-founded by Abey Zachariah [ex-redBus core team], Anand Kelaginamani [IIM-B], Charan Raj [ex-Accenture), Mahesh Herle [ex-National Instruments], Mayank Bidawatka [ex-redBus core team& co-founder The Media Ant], Mohit Maheshwari [IIM-B] and Nithin Chandra [NIT-K & IIM-B].

About Goodbox

Goodbox gives an app presence to businesses. It enables a business to create a storefront on the Goodbox app. Businesses want to adopt new technologies such as being on app, having a storefront and being able to interact with their consumers real-time. However, creating or maintaining an app is a very costly and complex affair. Goodbox enables SME businesses with an app presence within 5 minutes at an unbelievably low price, along with a payment gateway. Businesses can host their menu on the app and create their business profile as well. Every business can now be on the Goodbox app and start conducting commerce with their consumers. Goodbox app for Android can be downloaded from here

|In: Events|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Accenture, in partnership with Yahoo, announced the winners of the fourth season of Innovation Jockeys, The Hunt for India’s most Innovative Minds in a glitzy award ceremony held at Ritz Carlton, Bangalore.

This year’s contest focused on the concepts of disruptive technology innovations related to the themes of Cognitive Computing and Internet of Things & Digital Application Marketplace. It aimed to discover bright, young, home-grown innovators who could conceptualize ideas that would help businesses and governments create personalized customer or citizen experiences.

The participants hailing from under-graduate as well as post graduate courses submitted innovative ideas for using technology to transform India through a micro-site developed for the contest at InnovationJokeys. The winners were announced under the following categories: Grand Prize, Cognitive Computing & Internet of Things, Digital Application Marketplace and Jury Award.

The grand prize was awarded to Team Fuzz which comprised of Akash Kumar, Akash Kumar Singh, Amit Kumar Singh & Abhishek Kumar from IES College of Technology, Bhopal, for developing Seva, Connecting India Healthy India, an application aimed at digitizing healthcare services and offering a one-stop solution to tackle long queues and unnecessary delays in providing medical care. The app is programmed to provide quick service and help the patient reach their nearest hospital in order to ensure timely treatment in case of emergencies. As a part of the award, winners will fly to Silicon Valley to experience the frontline of technology at AccentureTechnology Labs.  In addition to this, they also won a mentorship session with Nandini Vaidyanathan, CMD, CARMa Venture Services.

In the Cognitive Computing & Internet of Things category, Neeraj and Akshita Sachdeva who represented Team Eyeluminati from Manav Rachna International University, Faridabad were awarded the prize for Manovue, a wearable voice-controlled haptic device that aims to help the visually impaired by using natural language processing to provide voice-enabled guidance and vibrations.

The winning entry in the Digital Application Marketplace category belonged to Team Fivido. The members were Bhavesh from Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology and Abhijit, Gaurang who belong to the Delhi Technological University. They developed Navishoe: The Navigator on Feet, a shoe-based navigation system that relays data such as the user’s location as well as sends out distress messages without the need for a smartphone.

The Jury Award along with mentorship from Accenture was presented to Team Phoenix whose member Krithika from Amrita School of Engineering, Madurai developed the application Innovative divide & conquer for novel purpose. The application used machine-learning techniques to develop a cognitive system that attempts to grade short answers and aids candidates to learn faster.

The entries were rigorously evaluated by the panel of judges comprising the following:

All category winners were awarded trophies and tech gadgets such as iPads and Pebble Smartwatch. The top five popular entries walked home with Amazon kindles. The entire awards ceremony was also live tweeted using #InnovationJockeys for all parents, college team mates and other contestants. For more information, please visit InnovationJockeys