Kotak Mahindra Bank announced the launch of Kotak Now-India’s first truly digital account opening process on mobile. ‘Kotak Now’ is an end-to-end digital process where verification of KYC documents and signature is done via a video call with the bank. This is a complete end-to-end online account opening experience, without any need of physical interaction or bio-metric verification. The entire process is 100% paperless.
The account opening process is simple, and takes only a few minutes. Once the Kotak Now app is downloaded, the prospective customer can upload KYC documents (PAN card, and either Aadhar Card or Passport), and the image of the signature. Thereafter, on entering a few personal details, the Customer Relationship Number (CRN) and Account Number is generated. The app automatically selects a branch closest to the customer’s address for correspondence. The account is activated, after a video call with a bank executive.
‘Kotak Now’ is in sync with Honourable Prime Minister’s vision of ‘Digital India’. India is on the verge of a telecom transformation as 4G speed becomes a reality for the country’s average household. High speed data connectivity will also revolutionise banking transactions and open new vistas of innovation. While majority of banking transactions have already gone digital, ‘Kotak Now’ aims to completely digitise banking by offering paperless account opening via mobile.
Deepak Sharma, Chief Digital Officer, Kotak Mahindra Bank, said
About 50% of all transactions in the last few years have moved to digital channels like net banking and mobile banking. Additionally, most services are now being made available on-the-move to customers via these platforms. However, the account opening experience for Indian consumers was still a challenge, and has thus far required high level of manual effort from their end. ‘Kotak Now’ is in-line with our mobile first approach and is a path-breaking step in making banking truly digital.
Kotak has played a pioneer’s role in the digital banking space. ‘Kotak Now’ is yet another addition to Kotak’s long list of innovative digital initiatives. In March 2014, Kotak launched ‘Jifi’, the first-of-its-kind social bank account that combines the power of social media with conventional banking. It was also the first bank in the world to offer Hashtag Banking, whereby customers can bank via Twitter. This was followed by ‘Kaypay’ – the world’s first bank agnostic instant funds transfer platform using Facebook and Social Commerce, which integrates social media banking with e-commerce. In June 2015, Kotak launched ‘Kotak Bharat’, a multi-lingual mobile banking app which requires no internet connectivity.
‘Kotak Now’, developed with the patented technology of Germany-based WebID Solutions, reduces the time involved in opening a bank account and also ensures data security.
Currently, ‘Kotak Now’ enables customers to open a Jifi account through this process. Other savings account variants will be introduced in a phased manner. ‘Kotak Now’ can be downloaded from Google Play Store.
VeriSign, Inc, a global leader in domain names and internet security, announced that approximately 7.9 million domain name registrations were added to the internet in Q2 2016, bringing the total number of domain name registrations to approximately 334.6 million across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of June 30, 2016, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief.
The increase of approximately 7.9 million domain name registrations globally equates to a growth rate of 2.4 percent over the first quarter of 2016. Domain name registrations have grown by 38.2 million, or 12.9 percent, year over year.
The .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth in the second quarter of 2016, reaching a combined total of approximately 143.2 million domain name registrations in the domain name base. This represents a 7.3 percent increase year over year. As of June 30, 2016, the .com domain name base equaled 127.5 million domain name registrations, while the .net domain name base equaled 15.8 million domain name registrations.
New .com and .net domain name registrations totalled 8.6 million during the second quarter of 2016. In the second quarter of 2015, new .com and .net domain name registrations totalled 8.7 million.
During the second quarter of 2016, Verisign’s average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load was approximately 130 billion queries per day across all TLDs operated by Verisign, with a peak of nearly 179 billion queries. Quarter over quarter, the daily average query load increased 4.9 percent and the peak decreased by 5.0 percent. Year over year, the daily average query load increased by 17.0 percent, and the peak decreased by 1.5 percent.
Verisign publishes the Domain Name Industry Brief to provide internet users throughout the world with statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry.
The second quarter 2016 Domain Name Industry Brief, as well as previous reports, can be obtained at Verisign.com/DNIB
About Verisign
Verisign, a global leader in domain names and internet security, enables internet navigation for many of the world’s most recognized domain names and provides protection for websites and enterprises around the world. Verisign’s Security Services include intelligence-driven Distributed Denial of Service Protection, iDefense Security Intelligence and Managed DNS. For more information, please visit Verisign
On-demand repair services & refurbishment company, Gadgetwood raises approximately USD 6 million in funding from Carpediem Capital, an India focused private equity fund, and its investors. Abhishek Sharman, Founder and Managing Director of Carpediem Capital will be joining the board of the company as part of the investment.
Founded in 2013, by three young entrepreneurs Jayant Jha, Ankit Saraf and Anmol Gupta, Gadgetwood offers the Indian consumer, reliable repair and support services for mobiles and tablets across all brands. The company also operates in the refurbished device sales markets.
Other value-added solutions offered by Gadgetwood include warranties and insurance to new smartphone buyers, and warranty management services to warranty selling companies. Gadgetwood has state-of-the-art repair facilities and its in-house repair capabilities allow the company to offer after-repair warranty on all successful repairs. The company repairs in excess of 10,000 devices every month and is an authorized service provider for a leading mobile manufacturer.
The team at Gadgetwood is committed to high levels of customer service and satisfaction. India is the second largest mobile market globally, having sold 100 million phones last year, thereby creating a significant opportunity to service these devices. By providing end-to-end solutions for the entire product life-cycle, we aim to become the Most Preferred & Trusted Service Provider to our customers, and a leader in the organized consumer electronics repair & refurbishment industry.
We plan to utilize this round of funding towards geographical expansion, creating a nationwide network for servicing mobile devices and selling refurbished products. We intend to establish a presence in 10 cities across the country over the next year, and broaden the scope of our repairs capabilities to include, laptops, wearable tech, LED TVs, etc.
We look forward to the support of Carpediem Capital, while building a credible service organisation providing best in class services for every mobile device in the country.
The investment in Gadgetwood is very much in line with Carpediem’s philosophy to invest in emerging leaders in the organized services category.
The repairs & refurbishment market in India is highly fragmented and unorganised, and there is a significant opportunity for a company like Gadgetwood to create a scalable business servicing a large gap in the industry. Since their inception the company has strived to become the category leader in the markets in which it operates. Furthermore, we believe that the Gadetwood team is driven to provide every customer a fulfilling experience with the most personal device in the customer’s life.
Espark-Viridian, a joint venture between Viridian Ventures and Europe’s most dynamic business accelerator Entrepreneurial Spark, UK, is now accepting applications for the October 2016 Batch.
Espark-Viridian : Build People who Build Businesses
Espark-Viridian is a business accelerator that aims at growing the Indian startup ecosystem by helping entrepreneurs transform their ideas into realizable and feasible businesses, through its 18 month programme. A tested model adopted from its parent accelerator, Entrepreneurial Spark, UK, has an amazing track record and so far, there is a success rate of 88% with more than 650+ Startups enabled* [Entrepreneurial Spark, UK figures].
In sync with the government’s growing support to the young entrepreneurs, around the country, Espark-Viridian has expanded its acceleration programme to Chandigarh and Mumbai with the launch of #StartSomething campaign.
Espark-Viridian : What’s in it for YOU, the entrepreneur
Through a national network of accelerator centers that follow a programme based approach to building entrepreneurs, Espark-Viridian will provide a comprehensive platform that includes infrastructure, access to seed capital and mentoring.
In the initial 45 days of the Programme, shortlisted startups would go through an Idea Validation and Market Feasibility phase. This phase would help them understand the ground-level impact of their idea. An Enabler would be assigned to each team. The Enabler keeps track of the progress of the startup and helps them shape their ideas into a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) or make it market ready. Successful entrepreneurs, Mentors and experts from the industry act as Mentors in the Programme. Shortlisted startups would get the necessary support in the Fund Raising Process so that they can take their startup to the next-level.
The Espark-Viridian has the following to offer for entrepreneurs:
Multi center and multi sector innovation environment
A large portfolio of mentors and passionate enablers
Opportunities to raise seed funding
Pool of service providers to smoothen daily processes
Access to global markets and networking opportunities
World class infrastructure and other amenities
Weekly workshops and events to enhance business skills
In the last one year of its entry into India, close to 25 startups have graduated from Espark-Viridian accelerator across sectors ranging from tech to farming, with a belief to not only build a business, but also the entrepreneur behind the business.
Espark-Viridian : Graduated Startups
Some of the startups graduated from their earlier batch are below
Startups Graduated from the Espark-Viridian accelerator
Espark-Viridian : #StartSomething and How to apply
Espark-Viridian has key industry partners namely AWS Activate, Paytm, HeadStart, IAmWire, YourStory, and Kotak Mahindra Bank. The intake of early stage startups and entrepreneurs, for the first batch commencing this October is in process.
Along with inviting applications for the October 2016 batch for all the four centers (Mumbai, Delhi, Gandhinagar and Chandigarh), Espark-Viridian will also be hosting #SparkSessions in all the four cities, to meet aspiring startups and entrepreneurs.
GenNext Hub is the startup scalerator by Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) that is nurturing digital entrepreneurship in India. At GenNext Hub, RIL is catalysing a unique start-up ecosystem, which rests on the tripod of talent, technology and trust. This venture is aimed at spotting and encouraging talent, helping them harness their technology and backing them by putting total trust in them. The applications for the Winter 2016 program are open until Sunday, 2nd October 2016.
During the four-month-long programme, GenNext Hub conducts workshops and mentoring sessions for start-ups in the areas of customer development, market traction, operations, product road-map, fund raising and pitching. It also provides expertise in IP, legal, financial compliance, HR and specific sectorial expertise. GenNext Hub is uniquely positioned as a global programme that helps start-ups think big and grow fast.
With its structured program, GenNext Hub is able to revisit, refine and reinforce the startups’ core product offering and business model. Its rich mentor panel consists of thought-leaders, industry icons, subject matter experts and established entrepreneurs. Along with the external mentors, startups at GenNext Hub also have access to select leaders of RIL for business and technology guidance. The resources made available through GenNext Hub’s global partner network including Microsoft Accelerator, offers startups a holistic support system. Startups leverage the networking events organized by GenNext Hub for both customer and investor connects.
What truly makes GenNext Hub a Scalerator is the unparalleled access to RIL for the startups to potentially collaborate and co-innovate. With its diverse portfolio of businesses across various sectors and domains, RIL is able to provide the testing bed for the startups to validate their technology and business, execute Proof of Concept (PoC) and develop win-win partnerships.
Startups of Summer 2016
Codemojo: Retaining users is a tough job in today’s competitive world of apps and websites. Codemojo offers customer engagement with 10 lines of code & 10 minutes of API integration for omni channel businesses to increase daily & monthly active user base through loyalty, behavior, gamification, referral, wallet, etc. According to the company, the cost of retaining a loyal user is currently $4 with a 125% Year-on-Year (YoY) increase translating into a $40 Billion market. Codemojo has recently raised investment from CIO Angel Network (CAN). For more information, please visit codemojo.io/
Dattus: About 75% of the industrial equipment are over 20 years old and costs $100 Billion annually due to downtime. DATTUS is an industrial IoT company providing seamless hardware and software solutions to sense, connect, visualize and analyze industrial equipment to ensure a long lifespan and to reduce the cost of maintenance. The company was founded by winning multiple business plan competitions through which they raised $250,000. They are the winner of the MIRA Awards, ‘The Best of Tech in Indiana’ for 2016. Recently they have raised Series Seed round from U.S. based venture capitalists. For more information, please visit https://www.dattus.com/
Don’t Scratch Your Head (DSYH): Lack of seamless reconciliation of sales and inventory causes significant losses for sellers on e-commerce market places. DSYH is next generation data-analytics company that solves the reconciliation problem with a cloud-based solution. The company has engaged major market places and retailers in the Indian ecosystem to address the $500+ Million opportunity and has raised $250,000 angel investment from Venture Catalysts. For more information, please visit http://www.dsyh.in/
Happy2Refer (H2R): It is a pain to reach and engage quality passive talent through traditional job portals and recruiters. H2R is changing the way of hiring by leveraging the power of multi-degree referrals to spot and engage passive talent. The company says that the Indian staffing market is a $4.2 Billion opportunity and it has already acquired an impressive list of clientele including Nestle, Colgate-Palmolive, Shaadi.com, etc. For more information, please visit happy2refer.com/
Headspin: With growing number of mobile devices being used in various cellular networks, it is very challenging for app developers to understand how their apps behave from remote locations. Backed by Google Ventures and other major Silicon Valley based investors, Headspin makes it possible to test apps on any device with real SIM cards over cloud on massive scale. Potentially all apps with 500,000+ global users will need Headspin. For more information, please visit https://headspin.io/
Megdap: Only 10% of India’s population speaks English while majority of the digital communication happens in English. Megdap solves this problem through TexLang, a language technology platform for near time & accurate language translation. Megdap is engaged with major banking customers. For more information, please visit www.megdap.com/
NavStik: Each commercial drone application is unique and requires high level of customization. Through a single platform called FlytOS, NavStik Labs is able to address the unique need of every commercial drone application. The market opportunity is estimated to reach $100+ Billion by 2022. NavStik has recently raised investment from 7 prominent angel investors. For more information, please visit www.navstik.org/
Recipe Book: Figuring out what to cook on a daily basis is always a challenge given today’s busy lifestyle. Recipe Book is an app that makes it extremely easy to discover new and interesting recipes. The app is an intelligent recipe recommendation and discovery platform based on Image Recognition and Natural Learning Processing (NLP). They were featured in Google I/O 2016 and was the first Indian app to be in Google Play Editors’ Choice. Recipe Book for Android can be downloaded from http://tinyurl.com/z8xxub8
Tagalys: Personalizing online retailers’ website to match the individual users’ taste is a big challenge that leads to lower conversion to sales. Tagalys maximizes e-commerce revenues by personalizing visitor-product engagement across features like site search, browsing and recommendations. Tagalys is targeting customers with more than $5 Million of annual revenues which leads to an estimated total market opportunity of approximately $5 Billion. For more information, please visit www.tagalys.com/
Applications for the Winter 2016 program are open until Sunday, 2nd October 2016. Interested startups may click here to apply now!
Idea Cellular, India’s fastest growing telecom operator has announced the roll out of Electronic -Know Your Customer (e-KYC) based activations for both Prepaid and Postpaid customers across its service centres in 22 circles. The pan-India roll-out of e-KYC has been enabled after the successful pilot by Idea in Delhi circle, in association with UIDAI, and as per the DoT guidelines.
The e-KYC solution allows users to avail instant verification using their ‘Aadhaar’ Number, enabling quicker SIM activation. The facility for enabling bio-metric verification of customers is being rolled out across all exclusive Idea stores, and will be extended to multi-branded prepaid outlets, in a phased manner.
Speaking about the initiative, Navanit Narayan, Chief Service Delivery Officer, Idea Cellular said
The roll-out of paperless and completely digital mode of customer acquisition based on ‘Aadhaar’, is in line with Idea’s customer centric approach. It will ensure quicker customer acquisition and greater convenience for new customers. This is also a step towards achieving a greener environment through reduced paper usage and is key to enabling the vision of Digital India by facilitating many e-Governance services to be rolled out in future.
Customers can now walk in to any Idea Company Retail Store or My Idea outlet and avail a fast, paperless and secured activation service for both postpaid and prepaid, using the Aadhaar No. and bio-metric verification process. The e-KYC process is in addition to the existing format of issuance of mobile connection to subscribers and is not be applicable for bulk, outstation and foreign customers.
IBM and Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad announced the first-of-its kind Cognitive Tech based Challenge-Cognitive Entrepreneurship Challenge. The Challenge will reach out to students and start-ups across India. Registrations started on September 5, 2016 with various rounds and the finale is expected to happen towards mid-November 2016.
Cognitive Entrepreneurship Challenge (CEC) is an IBM led initiative wherein students and start-ups will be trained via interactive workshops on Cognitive based API on Bluemix. CEC is part of Masterplan 2016-which is an annual competition held within IIM-A where students and startups build business solutions and win exciting prizes. The Cognitive track will be an integral part of Masterplan 2016.
The main objective of CEC is to encourage young entrepreneurs and the student community to build business solutions around capabilities using IBM’s Cognitive platform-Bluemix. Bluemix is a platform as a Service (PaaS) offering from IBM based on open standards and cloud to build, deploy, manage and run omni-channel applications like web and mobile, big data and other smart services. Other than the IBM Bluemix platform, students will also have access to other relevant IBM technology platforms in the areas of Analytics and Security.
The participants will be evaluated and mentored by the IBM India Watson team. Students across all engineering and management disciplines will be invited to take part in this event.
Prof. Anish Sugathan, faculty of Business Policy, and the Masterplan faculty advisor at IIM-A said
Cognitive computing is fast augmenting human knowledge, capabilities and experience. Recent applications of this technology in data analytics, financial services, medical diagnostics and public service delivery shows potential to generate tremendous societal and enterprise value.
Specifically, in the case of rapidly digitizing Indian economy, there is vast untapped potential for creative applications of cognitive technologies by enterprises, entrepreneurs and change-makers. IIM-A Masterplan 2016 is excited to partner with IBM, which brings IBM’s legendary Watson technology — that beat humans on the game of Jeopardy -to the vast pool of CEC participants and startups to help them create cutting-edge solutions.
Dr. Prashant Pradhan, Watson India Lead, IBM India / South Asia said
We are pleased to partner with IIM-Ahmedabad on the first-ever Cognitive Entrepreneur Challenge in India. In the cognitive era, we see various ecosystem constituents coming together to co-create game changing applications to solve real world challenges. IBM is committed to creating this innovation ecosystem by opening up Watson APIs to the world. India as a region has tremendous potential for applying Cognitive at scale, and Indian entrepreneurs have shown tremendous creativity and passion in applying technology to create value. So we really see this as the start of an exciting partnership, and a testimony to our commitment to make India Digital
Online go-to-destination portal for fun-tastic activities & trips, interesting experiences and exciting deals-TripXOXO ties-up with India’s leading integrated e-payment processing company CyberPlat for a 360-degree content distribution across India. TripXOXO has over 25,000 tours, activities and experiences available for booking from over 140 countries.
With this tie-up TripXOXO will be able to reach out to their potential customers-families, solo travellers, couples, small groups and business travellers through CyberPlats wide network of distributors and channel partners across the country. CyberPlat’s network currently services over 300+ partners and reaches out to over 500,000 touch points in the B2B and B2C space covering retail networks, online websites, mobile based businesses, self-service kiosks, POS-terminals, cash desks, amongst others, both in rural and urban India. This association will help TripXOXO increase their market penetration and increase sales volume.
TripXOXO has over 1000 attractions and experiences from all over India on their website and allows booking for attractions like Adlabs Imagica, Kidzania, EsselWorld, food & vineyard tours, sailing trips, bike tours, road trips and many other exciting travel options. They also facilitate airport transfers at more than 2000 airports across the world.
The portal also offers dining deals in more than 100 cities across the world, real time tickets to 300+ monuments, 5000+ tours in less $10 USD and more than 150 free tours that makes TripXOXO a promising platform for all outbound solutions across the globe and for the Indian traveller they provide the comfort of paying in INR for all bookings.
Ms. Heena Akhtar, Founder, TripXOXO said
With CyberPlat we will get a nationwide distribution channel for our products. Every neighbourhood will have an authorized partner where customers can make the bookings. We will also have the facility for offline payment collections which will make the booking process easier, especially, for customers who like to pay in cash. Through this association, we will have a wider reach and our customers will get an easy access to our gamut of products and services.
Commenting on their tie-up, Alok Jha, MD, CyberPlat India said
Almost 41% of travel gross bookings takes place online today, with the increasing Internet and mobile Internet penetration rates playing a vital role in the Indian online travel market growth story. It is estimated that by 2020 almost all travel related transactions could happen online. This growth is also contributed to the increasing disposable income of the middle-class segment which plans at least one vacation per year.
Tractions coming from tier II and tier III cities from across India are also increasing, with numbers noticeably multiplying every 6 months. Also, maximum travel related searches and bookings are primarily being done from smartphones with the use of cards. This makes our services thoroughly viable for TripXOXO as our products enable our channel partners and consumers to enjoy seamless transactions. Our retail partners will also have a new, exciting range of services for their customers with this association. They can now book nearby attractions, amusement parks, activity tickets etc.
About CyberPlat
CyberPlat is India’s leading and most reliable integrated electronic payment processing and distribution company for financial institutions, service providers and retailers. The company provides multi-channel solutions that are comprehensive, innovative and cost-efficient. They are payment products aggregators enabling payment collection, micro flexible top ups,solutions providers to companies across different verticals including retail, financial services, online, m-commerce and Kiosk/ATM networks. For more information, please visit CyberPlat
About TripXOXO
Founded in 2015 by Heena Akthar, a travel industry veteran, TripXOXO is an online go-to-destination for travelers looking for fun-tastic activities & trips, interesting experiences and exciting deals. From a planned family vacation to a backpacker’s delight, this platform offers 5000 plus travel experiences which comes with a lowest price guarantee. With more than 25,000 trip ideas and 100+ categories, this platform provides an array of distinguished support to travellers out of which transfer services at more than 2000 airports, hassle-free ticket bookings for amusements around the globe, local assistance with multi lingual support – all at the comfort of paying in INR. For more information, please visit TripXOXO
the verge of a telecom transformation as 4G speed becomes a reality for the country’s average household. High speed data connectivity will also revolutionise banking transactions and open new vistas of innovation. While majority of banking transactions have already gone digital, ‘Kotak Now’ aims to completely digitise banking by offering paperless account opening via mobile.
