Ather Energy, the smart electric two-wheeler start-up, announced a fresh round of funding of INR 180 crores from Hero MotoCorp for 26-30% stake. The funding marks the third round of investments in Ather Energy, which is building the S340-India’s first smart, electric scooter. Previous rounds of investments in the company were by Tiger Global and Sachin & Binny Bansal, promoters of Flipkart, in their personal capacity.
Speaking on the investment, Tarun Mehta, CEO and co-founder of Ather Energy said
The funding is a strong validation of our product roadmap and technology capability, endorsed by one of the biggest global automotive players. We believe smart connected electric vehicles are the future and India will be an important global player in it. Our vision is to fast forward to that future and this investment will help us leapfrog several years of automotive experience.
This new round of capital infusion will be used by Ather to sustain momentum in its journey
of building a future-ready product platform and to accelerate the infrastructure and ecosystem development around electric vehicles in the country.
The Board of Directors of Hero MotoCorp, in its meeting held on October 26, 2016, approved an investment of up to Rs. 205 crore, of which the immediate tranch is of Rs. 180 crore.
Commenting on this investment, Pawan Munjal, Chairman, Managing Director & Chief
Executive Officer, Hero MotoCorp said
As the market leader and a global automotive major, Hero takes the lead in many areas that benefit the environment, customer and industry. Adoption of environment-friendly fuel is a priority for Hero, as is propagating sustainable manufacturing through green facilities. One of our strategic priorities, therefore, is to engage with the external ecosystem, including start-ups in adjacent areas.
Hero MotoCorp intends to enhance its participation in the EV space by pursuing its internal EV program in addition to partnering with Ather. Ather is the best start-up in the two-wheeler EV space and we firmly believe that they are on the way to become one of the leaders in India, potentially even globally. They bring together a vision with high aspiration, ability to progress rapidly and the humility to learn and improve continually. We are excited to be a strategic investor and see this as an important step in building the necessary ecosystem needed to support commercialisation of EVs in the country.
About Ather Energy
Ather Energy Pvt. Ltd. is an automobile design and manufacturing company founded in the year 2013 by IIT Madras graduates – Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain. Ather is committed to building smart, connected, uncompromising vehicles and seeks to re-imagine urban commute with the help of technology. The team of about 150 employees is currently developing an electric two-wheeler, which will be completely designed and made In India. They are presently in their stage of product testing and vendor finalisation for their first product, the S340. For more information, please visit Ather Energy
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.
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)
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 Futureand 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.
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.
Gone are the days when a wedding was merely an event in a person’s life, acknowledging the change in the living. It is soon becoming a milestone that marks the grandeur celebration of new beginnings and with each passing year, the show is becoming all the more interesting. From the pre-wedding photo shoots to inviting the gambolling celebrities, the wedding industry has witnessed a drastic change in the recent past and this is nothing but music to the ears of entrepreneurs like Himanshu Kapsime and Manish Garg, co-founders of Shaadisaga.
Shaadisaga, is an online platform that caters to the to-be-weds in terms of their wedding needs, focusing primarily on weddings ranging between INR 10 Lakhs to 1.5 crores. With the focus of being convenient and cost effective, Shaadisaga offers the couples and their families a host of wedding services, making itself a one stop shop solution for all the wedding needs.
Started by Himanshu Kapsime and Manish Garg, IIT-Delhi graduates, Shaadisaga truly understands that today’s users expect high degrees of personalization and cross comparison is the key to conversions. With requirements being tailored at every step, the company, with a strong team of 25 employees, offers its users an option to choose from a pool of around 2500 best vendors, as per their requirements and hire them directly with price and quality assurance – The ShaadiSaga Seal of Trust.
ShaadiSaga Team
Himanshu Kapsime, the CEO and Co-Founder of the organization is a 2012 graduate with prior experience in working with a US based MNC. He is actively responsible for managing the technological and product development portfolio for the company. Manish Garg, the COO and Co-Founder of the organization is a 2011 graduate with prior experience in working with an Indian startup unicorn. Apart from the co-founders, the company has a workforce of 10 employees with a permanent set up in Delhi.
Commenting on the unique proposition of Shaadisaga, Co-Founder Himanshu Kapsime said
At ShaadiSaga, we provide the best planning experience to couples. From idea & inspirations to hiring different service providers, we are focused on making the entire process a piece of cake. Couples are able to gain the same level of trust with us as they do when they hire services through reference of their own friends and family members. Our team uses technology to essentially bring the offline wedding planning experience onto an online platform, while adding convenience and cost effectiveness.
ShaadiSaga is the best suited solution for couples to plan their wedding as they save around 20-30% of wedding budget and 2 months of planning time with us, while ensuring better quality and experience. We are currently 25 people strong team and will be adding more people as we expand in further cities.
This is a high touch industry and a really tough business to crack. It will take a determined & passionate team with loads of perseverance. I saw the commitment in Himanshu & Manish, so decided to back them.
The revenue of INR 50 lakhs per month and growing, stands testament to the incessant progress of the company. Given the astute business acumen of the core team at ShaadiSaga, we are excited to back these entrepreneurs and their journey to take Indian wedding industry by storm.
The recent fund infusion will be utilized for increasing the base of partners associated with the platform and building technologies ensuring better customer experience, faster on-boarding, smoother communication, and higher conversion rates.
Giving an investor’s perspective, Harshad Lahoti, Founder and CEO of ah! Ventures said Statistically the Indian wedding industry, valued at $40 billion, is proving to be one of the sturdiest in today’s market. Considering the high growth rate of 25-30% YOY, promising start-ups in this space were deserving investors attention and Shaadisaga was undoubtedly cut above the rest. From the very beginning, we witnessed Shaadisaga take calculated business decisions making them the rare breed of startups who knew their priorities. The venture focuses on taking one key step at a time, be it a technological advancement or on-boarding of key partners and that according to us has been the edge that sets them apart. We at ah! Ventures are confident of seeing Shaadisaga as a pioneer in this industry.
ah! Ventures is India’s first full-spectrum (seed, angel & VC) investment network and platform comprising of over 800+ 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 12500+ startups, 725 seed/angel investors and over 85 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 pumped in close to INR 90 crores in over 29 investments spread across varied industries and domains.
ah! Ventures is in the process of closing another investment in the coming week.
About Shaadisaga
Started by Himanshu Kapsime & Manish Garg, IIT Delhi graduates, ShaadiSaga truly understands that today’s users expect high degree of personalization and trust for their wedding planning. ShaadiSaga is India’s fastest growing online portal that enable couples to conveniently plan their wedding through vendor discovery and planning advice from wedding experts and visual inspirations. Users can choose from a pool of over 6000 service providers from venue to makeup and hire vendors as per their individual requirement, with price and quality assurance. For more information, please visit Shaadisaga
About ah! Ventures
ah! Ventures is a startup focused growth catalyst that brings together promising businesses and investors by creating wealth creation opportunities for both. ah!’s unique model serves investors, entrepreneurs and enablers through a unique blend of customized services, skill, and industry & domain experience.
Founded in 2010, ah! Ventures has systematically disrupted India’s early stage funding ecosystem through its innovative approach toward startup investing. First of its kind initiatives like the CLUB ah! network & platform, ah! Angels (India’s largest angel network), ah! Seeders and ah! VC networks (India’s first seed & VC investment networks respectively), have brought together and integrated the otherwise previously segregated startup funding life-cycle, 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 assist startups in their growth and expansion, has today made ah! Ventures not just one of India’s most respected change leaders, but also a formidable industry force to recon with.
While everyone else is claiming it to be a funding slowdown, Indian Angel Network, world’s largest group of angel investors show no such signs. IAN announced an undisclosed investment in Bengaluru based movers and packers startup, Pikkol. Angel Investor, CEO & Managing Trustee B.PAC, Revathy Ashok and Raj Rathi led the round of investment on behalf of IAN with Raj Rathi joining the company board to further guide the team in becoming a leader in the moving and relocation industry in India.
Conceived as the brainchild of a group of enterprising young men, Pikkol is a technology centric relocation service provider where customers can generate tailor-made solutions for their relocation needs. They make use of strong analytics based technological back-end and logistics network for servicing the orders adding reliability and accountability through operational interventions.
In spite of a crowded relocation services market, there are hardly any players who offer standardized and quality relocation services. Pikkol was born out of extensive research done in the logistics and home services segment that helped the team identify the problems that consumers face while relocating. Since the market is flooded with vendors with minimum expertise, it’s a challenge for consumers to find a trusted mover. With the aim to address this pain point, Pikkol was conceptualized in April 2015 by Deepu Chandran, Suraj Valimbe, Siby Mathew and Jayaram Kasivisweswaran
Currently, this unorganized industry is a constant source of dissatisfaction for customers. We felt that many of those problems related to accountability, reliability and transparency could be solved with technology and operational excellence. Customer experience is the key area that we majorly concentrate on. Really delighted that team IAN for backing us up.
The company plans to utilize the raised funds in product development and expansion. They will also be concentrating on enhancing capabilities of moving teams and continual behavioral and transactional training as part of their product enhancement.
The USD 2-3 Billion packers and movers market is highly unorganized and fragmented. With increased mobility of workforce and higher urbanization, relocation market is expected to grow at 10% per annum and reach USD 5 Billion by 2020. In developed markets relocation market is close to 0.2%-0.3% of the total GDP.
Raj Rathi, the IAN lead investor who is joining the board commented on the investment said
Relocating to a new place is already a difficult task. On top of that, when you have to deal with vendors who refuse to understand your situation adds more to the woes. This is where Pikkol will break the cluttered market. While the traditional players redirect their customers to other vendors without providing any post move assistance, Pikkol aims at providing standardized logistic services with both pre move and post move assistance.
They are using technology to create better experience for the customers. What makes them stand out from other vendors in the market is their customer centric approach which is rarely found in this segment. I am pretty excited to mentor them in their journey of being the market leaders.
While most of the online portals and traditional players in the industry claim to provide reliable packers and movers to customers but do nothing more than just passing customer details to vendors, Pikkol choose to be different and intends to usher a new wave of change in the relocation industry in India by being tremendously customer centric. Having serviced more than 10,000 moves to more than 40 destinations in India in the past one year, it incorporates innovative use of technology to identify and solve pain-points of this utility service by setting up benchmarks in service quality and transparency through data driven methodologies.
About Pikkol
Pikkol is a technology centric relocation service provider that offers standardized service experience and tailor-made relocation packages for customers. Its adaptive algorithm captures the inventory and computes the right truck size, packing requirements, and price to ensure that the process is completely hassle free for its customers. Pikkol seamlessly integrates with home service providers to ensure that pre-move and post-move services can be availed by the customer. The pre-move services currently include electrical, plumbing, carpentry, appliance un-installation and installation.
The booking system in Pikool , let the customer enter all details and make a booking in less than 5 minutes while a traditional move involves survey from vendor and multiple rounds of negotiation. The state-of-the-art adaptive algorithm which runs the backend of Pikkol system analyze the details and compute the right truck size, packing requirements, distance and special requirements to automatically quote the charge of the move. The system generated quotes ensures complete transparent pricing and the customer need not shell out any extra charges during the course of move. Assigning a personal move coordinator with every move and tracking the move at every stage ensures that all customer requirements are met and the service quality and standards are maintained. For more information, please visit Pikool
About Indian Angel Network
The Indian Angel Network is the world’s largest business angel group. With close to 400 investors from 10 countries, IAN’s presence spans 7 locations, which includes cities in India and UK. IAN has invested in startups from diverse industries/sectors. The investor group comprises successful and established entrepreneurs as well as dynamic CEOs. They not only invest in innovative startups but also provide valuable inputs on strategy, in addition to providing access to their vast global networks. IAN’s portfolio, with over 100-odd companies, spans 17 sectors across 7 countries. IAN portfolio companies have given 70x returns in 6 years, 21x in 30 months, 22x in 60 months, and 6x in 15 months; with ventures such as Druva, Stayzilla, and Webengage well on their way to become unicorns. For more information, please visit IAN
Hike Messenger, India’s only homegrown messaging platform and the largest Indian internet company by users, announced that it has raised a Series D financing of over USD 175 Million in a new funding round led by Tencent Holdings Limited and Foxconn Technology Group valuing the company close to USD 1.4 Billion. Existing investors Tiger Global, Bharti and the SoftBank Group also participated in this round. This is the fourth venture capital round and the biggest to date for Hike, taking the total investment to over USD 250 Million so far.
Talking about Tencent’s investment in Hike, Tencent President Martin Lau said
Hike deeply understands India; a highly diverse market with many nuances. It is on a mission synergistic to ours, which is to enhance the quality of human life through internet services. With our investment, Hike will be able to leverage our deep domain expertise in the messaging platform space to provide more value to its users in India.
Talking about Foxconn’s investment in Hike, FIH Mobile CEO, Calvin Chih said
Messaging platforms are where consumers and their social networks reside and represent significant investment potential, particularly in a market like India, where most people will access the internet for the first time on their mobile phones.
As a leading provider of mobiles technology and Internet of Things solutions, FIH Mobile understands the value that mobile platforms, such as Hike Messenger, bring to our business portfolio and our strategy for delivering cutting-edge products and solutions that meet the needs of our customers and consumers, enabling us to achieve sustainable business growth. Hike with its hyper-local strategy is clearly the company of choice for us to co-invest with our partners, SoftBank and Tencent.
Masayoshi Son, Founder, Chairman and CEO, SoftBank Group, the longest standing investor in Hike said
Hike is one of SoftBank’s best performing portfolio companies in India and we are happy to have stayed invested in it from the beginning. The team has reached an outstanding scale in a short span of 3.5 years. As an investor, we share their vision and are happy that they are moving ahead in their journey so quickly in a competitive environment.
Speaking on the occasion, Founder and CEO, Hike Messenger, Kavin Bharti Mittal said
I’m thrilled to announce this new milestone in our journey. Tencent and Foxconn both have pedigrees that speak for themselves and such an investment especially in today’s market just goes to show the strong foundation on which Hike is being built. The new fund raise is going to allow us to push Hike to greater heights and invest in areas that will be key to our long term vision and success
I’m also equally excited to have our existing shareholders Tiger, SoftBank and Bharti follow in this round who continue to show strong support in our long term vision. I must say it’s an incredibly exciting time to be at Hike. Not only do we get to wake up every morning everyday knowing that our work will impact millions of people, we now also have two incredible new partners to do that with, as we further our mission to bring India online.
Hike also has a roster of some of the most prominent people in the technology space as angel investors such as Adam D’Angelo, Founder and CEO, Quora; Aditya Agarwal, Vice President Engineering, Dropbox; Ruchi Sanghvi, erstwhile Vice President, Operations, Dropbox and Matt Mullenweg, Founder and CEO of Automattic Inc. and Co-Founder, WordPress.
100 Million Users. 40 Billion Messages Per Month–In January 2016, Hike had announced that it has a user base of a 100 million users. 95% of Hike users are based in India and 90% of them are young and below the age of 30. Hike users, on an average, exchange 40 Billion messages per month and spend 120 min. per user per week on the platform. Hike has been built for these young consumers around 3 key pillars:
Local Expressive Content that includes Hike’s very popular 10,000+ stickers available in 40 languages, themes and multi-lingual user interface. The availability of the Platform adds to this piece as it makes relevant local content available for customers to enjoy and share with their network of friends. The Platform includes News in English and Hindi, Games (Beta) on Hike, Live Cricket, Coupons, Just for Laughs and Hike Daily.
Emphasis on Privacy that includes the innovative feature Hidden Mode that hides chats quickly and elegantly and Favorites so customers can choose who sees last seen, display pictures and status updates.
Data Constraints. Features such as Hike2SMS and Hike Direct are built for India. Hike2SMS helps send free SMS when there is no internet connectivity and Hike Direct helps share files without the use of internet.
Online jewellery in India is seeing rapid growth signs in recent times. But that is mostly focused on smaller ticket items ranging between INR 15,000 and INR 30,000. The Indian consumer has been buying jewellery in a certain way for the last decades, and for traditional and larger ticket items, this is not bound to change soon. Through Joolz, Founder Arnaud Lorie is looking to help consumers discover prices and options online and facilitate the offline process of buying the jewellery.
Founded in May 2015 with total team of nine, Joolz is an India-focused community and marketplace that brings together leading jewellery brands on a single platform. The startup aggregates and curates high-quality jewellery inventory and offers its consumers an unmatched discovery and shopping experience. Joolz is more than just an online sales platform, it enables two-way interaction between jewellery buyers and sellers through discussion, discovery and education. It is accessible as a smartphone app on Android and iOS platforms and on the Joolz website.
The primary objective of the recent fund infusion is to boost operations, products, marketing and further build up its team. The plan is to reach a new group of brands and investigate new revenue models and not to be a company solemnly focused on the online traction. The offline jewellery industry valued at over $40 billion, has a large opportunity untouched by technological initiatives.
Commenting on the unique proposition of Joolz, Founder Arnaud Lorie said
Buying jewellery is so closely intertwined with Indian culture that the act of simply selling it online is not going to create any significant impact in the market. We therefore want to be the single biggest facilitator of jewellery commerce, whether online, or more importantly offline.
Born and brought up in Belgium, the diamond capital of the world, Lorie moved to Israel when he was 18 to join the army. He then joined his family’s company International Gemological Institute [IGI], the largest certificate company for diamond and jewellery worldwide and has now been living in India for past 3 years. After training in one of the largest diamond factories in Navsari, Gujarat for 12 months, he started working on this new business venture – Joolz.
What attracted us most was the company’s rich understanding of the jewellery space and the passion with which they are planning to transform the way consumers interact with jewellery, online and offline.
Joolz, in a short span of time has reached an average selling ticket size of about INR 25,000 in an industry where the offline ticket size is still hovering at INR 15,000. It has even managed to clock sales that have ranged up to INR 3 Lakhs.
The online jewellery market in India is expected to grow at $3.6 billion over the next three years, which in itself makes the sector a lucrative one to invest in. In addition to that, given the background of the founder and their in depth understanding of the business, this enterprise has from the very beginning started off on the best foot possible. Jewelry business in India, as is in any part of the world, closely related to the culture and the emotional binding of the people buying it and only a team with understanding of this fact can successfully drive a business in this sector, to the top. We at ah! Ventures see that spark in Arnaud & his team and we are sure to see them being game changers in this industry.
ah! Venture has immensely helped in quick closure of this round. Fast and efficient, they managed to add great value in terms of executions and and in bringing valued investors on board.
ah! Ventures is in the process of closing 2 more investments in the coming week.
About Joolz
Joolz is an online jewellery community and a marketplace that facilitates jewellery retail, both online and offline. Joolz aggregates and curates inventory to offer consumers an enjoyable and rewarding shopping experience. Through behavior analytics the jeweler will get to know his customers and be able to curate to them, in order to increase sales and set trends. Joolz is not just a sales platform; it is a community that breeds interaction, education, discussion, and feedback analysis. For more information, please visit Joolz
About ah! Ventures
ah! Ventures is a startup focused growth catalyst that brings together promising businesses and investors by creating wealth creation opportunities for both. ah!’s unique model serves investors, entrepreneurs and enablers through a unique blend of customized services, skill, and industry & domain experience.
Founded in 2010, ah! Ventures has systematically disrupted India’s early stage funding ecosystem through its innovative approach toward startup investing. First of its kind initiatives like the CLUB ah! network & platform, ah! Angels (India’s largest angel network), ah! Seeders and ah! VC networks (India’s first seed & VC investment networks respectively), have brought together and integrated the otherwise 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 assist startups in their growth and expansion, has today made ah! Ventures not just one of India’s most respected change leaders, but also a formidable industry force to recon with.
Vamaship, world’s first integrated logistics platform, founded by Bhavik Chinai & Rohit Chemburkar had raised $500K in their first round of funding from the BVC Ventures, Mumbai. Soon they will be announcing their second round of funding by end of 2016.
Vamaship is a technology-driven logistics platform launched in October 2015, where shippers can ship through India’s best logistics companies, creating a win-win for all the stakeholders. Traditionally, shippers never had visibility of the right price for shipping and logistics companies are not able to reach thousands of SMEs due to limited sales resources, Vamaship brings the two stakeholders together.
In 9 months, Vamaship is now facilitating shipping of any commodity through air, ocean and surface, in India to over 10,000 pin codes and 200+ countries globally.
Vamaship has 100+ partners which include e-commerce logistics companies, freight forwarders, trucking brokers, trucking companies and courier companies. It has over 500 customers ranging from 50 year old listed entities to 2 day old Instagram sellers.
Growing at over 100% month-on-month, Vamaship has a strong team of serial entrepreneurs and domain experts from logistics, consulting and technology, and is mentored by the managing director of the world’s largest diamond company. It’s big successes has been collaborating with the world’s third largest bauxite mining company for their global logistics, taking over shipping for Caratlane – India’s largest jewelry website and the one of India’s fastest growing lifestyle start up, Label Life. It is also witnessing incredible feedback and support from all customers to help make the platform better each day. Instead of competing, Vamaship has partnered with logistics startups like Blackbuck.
Speaking on this, Bhavik Chinai, CEO of Vamaship said
We are delighted at the phenomenal response we’ve received from shippers and logistics companies. We’re gearing up for expanding rapidly by going international, hiring and setting up offices in smaller towns in India. Currently with offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, we are planning to expand our sales penetration to 20+ cities to activate over 10,000 SMEs. We’ll announce our next, larger round within 6 months
In the first round, we invested in upgrading our technology and be in sync with global best practices. With the next round, we intend to invest in further automation and better tech tools and upgrade our existing processes to ensure an extraordinary shipping experience, each time.
About Vamaship
Launched in October 2015, Vamaship is a revolution in logistics that connects shippers with industry’s best logistics companies. Vamaship as a market place facilitates shipments to over 10,000 pin codes in India and to 200 countries from India. With a nationwide network of partners, Vamaship brings the best of technology and logistics to create a seamless shipping experience. Vamaship is focused on the vision & mission to become the world’s shipping partner and to set global benchmarks in service quality, growth rate and stakeholder satisfaction, respectively. For more information, please visit Vamaship
