Linode launched Rise, a startup program built to give bootstrapped and venture capital-backed startups an escape from the trappings of free infrastructure credits.

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Linode built Rise for founder-led startups designed around capital-efficient business models and the use of open-source and third-party applications to reduce cloud lock-in.

Qualified participants in the program receive:

• A three-year discount program: a 100% discount for the first $10,000 in spend each month during the first year of membership; a 50% discount in year two; and a 25% discount in year three. There are no caps in years two and three.
• Lifelong discounts based on usage.
• Access to technology consultants to help build an infrastructure growth strategy, with Linode giving members 20 free hours in their first quarter and a 20% discount thereafter.
• Unlimited guidance on architecture, migrations, and software deployments from experienced IT and cloud professionals.
• Membership to a rich community of members, alumni, advisors, and Linode resources.
• Free 24/7/365 award-winning customer support via phone, email, or social media.

Cloud infrastructure costs are a startup’s highest expense after people costs. They are also the most unpredictable, a deadly combination for early stage companies managing tight burn rates.

Jonathan Hill, vice president of revenue operations, Linode, said

We created Rise to address a serious challenge for pre- and early-revenue startups who often get locked-in to the big three cloud providers with the enticement of never ending infrastructure credits. The problem is that many only qualify if they have taken investment from an approved venture capital or private equity firm.

But not every founder wants to give up equity in exchange for raising capital. Businesses that take conservative amounts of fundraising, if any at all, are the ones that need the most financial assistance. We built a program that serves founders of all sizes, not just those who have the best long-term financial benefit to our business.

Heavily influenced by the open source movement it was born from, Linode remains driven by a mission to make cloud computing less complicated, less expensive, and more accessible to every developer regardless of where they are located or what their resources are. Throughout its history, the bootstrapped company has rebuffed outside investment, freeing it to put its customers first in every decision it makes.

Learn more about Rise and apply at LiNode For Startups.

Brigade REAP [earlier coverage here] chose five startups from 122 applicants as part of its 9th cohort of startups who will be part of a program that follows an intensive eighteen-week long cycle to help them unlock value and scale their business. The five startups were chosen from 8 finalists who participated in two jury rounds.

The startups were evaluated based on 10 criteria including innovation, relevance to the Industry, magnitude of the problem being addressed, pedigree of the founding team etc.

Nirupa Shankar, Director, Brigade REAP, said

Since inception, our focus has been to accelerate innovation in the real estate sector and to help deliver and enhance efficiencies both for the industry and the customer. The objective is to help inventors and innovators create sustainable and scalable businesses.

In the past, startups have seen an increase of over 150% YoY growth in revenue, 42% of the startups have raised funding within 12 months of graduating with the real estate industry being actively involved in not just giving business but also investing in many of these startups.

Once the onboarded startup’s progress has been demonstrated, stakeholders clearly identified, business plan firmed up and customer and investor pitches ready, Brigade REAP enables access to customers for potential investors for fundraise.

Final five startups chosen for Brigade REAP 9th Cohort

• Angirus – Eco friendly technology to make building materials that are made from 100% waste materials for the affordable housing industry.
• MetroGuild – Convert flat buyers to customers through hyper-personalized relationship building marketing and sales.
• GoFloaters – Enable individuals and teams to work from anywhere through its wide network of on demand work spaces.
• Strawcture – Green Building Material – bio panels that convert waste to value.
• Vision Earthcare – Waste water rejuvenation.

John Kuruvilla, Chief Mentor, Brigade REAP, said

We have a very stringent selection process where the jury evaluates each incoming application based on the nature of the problem, the founding team, whether the company has any early traction and whether their solution is unique.  Our role is to help the chosen startups to sharpen their value proposition, create or re-examine their business plans and pricing models and identify customers.

Brigade REAP has six pillars of engagements with startups that are onboarded including product, technology, business model, people, go to market and scale.

The second jury included renowned industry stalwarts such as M.R. Jaishankar [CMD – Brigade Group], Samir Kumar [MD – Inventus Capital], Vipul Roongta [MD – HDFC Capital], Sanjay Mehta [Founder & Partner – 100x.VC], Ram Chandnani [MD Advisory & Transaction Services – CBRE], Kumar Vembu [CEO – GoFrugal Technologies] and Mohan Parvatikar [Director – Brigade REAP].

Sanjay Mehta, Founder & Partner 100X.VC, said

Real estate is the largest asset class by far, but it is still in the early stages of technology adoption. While I have been investing in diverse sectors, Proptech as a sector is definitely to watch out for. Each of the finalists in REAP’s Cohort 9 are solving very interesting problems – for e.g., startups that are recycling waste to create new building blocks for construction and interiors in a scalable manner.

The final five that were shortlisted should have an exciting 2021 as they get into REAP to scale their product and business offerings.

Visit Brigade Reap for more information on the programme.

In the quest of building a robust startup ecosystem in Haryana, India Accelerator – India’s only institution with Global Accelerator Network has recently entered into an MoU with startup Haryana and the Department of Information Technology, Electronics and Communication [DITECH]. The association strategically creates an ecosystem in the state that stimulates innovation and growth of disruptive startups.

DITECH Haryana has signed a Memorandum of Understanding [MoU] with India Accelerator in the presence of Special Secretary, DITECH, Rajnarayan Kaushik, Chief Technology Officer, DITECH, Mr. Nitin Bansal and Munish Bhatia, General Manager & Partner, India Accelerator.

In the past decade, the adoption of technology has paved the way for innovative startups to emerge in the country. With the newly signed MoU, India Accelerator provides immense support to the startups registered with Startup Haryana through knowledge sharing at different stages of their entrepreneurial journey. It further extends its services free of cost to highly-potential startups thereby, creating a holistic and sustainable ecosystem in the state of Haryana.

Ashish Bhatia, CEO, and Founder, India Accelerator said

Partnership between India Accelerator and Startup Haryana will be a big step to bring Public-Private collaboration to build the startup ecosystem in the state of Haryana. India Accelerator will be helping startups in Haryana by bridging the gap between industry and startups.

The growth of a startup depends on access to capital, strategic partnerships, customer exposure, mentor guidance, and more. As part of the collaboration, India Accelerator provides access to its exclusively designed online program to equip the community of young entrepreneurs with the right knowledge, mentorship, and connections to move beyond the early stage of the startup.

Additionally, it also provides access to a comprehensive platform for every student, professional, or entrepreneur who can set and achieve their personal and professional goals with the help of personalized mentorship programs.

While giving information about ongoing efforts to foster Startup ecosystem in the State, Special Secretary, DITECH, Rajnarayan Kaushik, said

The association between Startup Haryana, DITECH, and Startup Ecosystem Partners will help in creating an ecosystem that stimulates independent thinking and innovative ideas to help Startups in different stages of their entrepreneurial journey in addition to sharing of knowledge/information for promotion of the startup ecosystem in Haryana.

India Accelerator is a formal partner with Global Funds such as Emphasis Ventures [EMVC], SGAN & Global Accelerator Network Venture Funds along with its own network of investors. The startups in the cohort will get access to varied investment options and massive perks by India Accelerator under its membership with GAN like AWS, IBM Cloud, Google Cloud, SendGrid, Zoho, HubSpot, and more.

Savings and investment platform Sqrrl has collaborated with leading tax planning and return filing platform ‘Quicko’ to facilitate the process of Income Tax Return filing for 14.6 million users. As the last date of filing ITR is approaching, many professionals will rush to chartered accountants to help them out with lengthy and complicated tax filing processes.

As a ‘Do It Yourself [DIY]’ financial planning platform, Sqrrl saw the growing need of consumers in the market looking for a simpler alternative to the otherwise tedious process of tax filing and decided to join hands with Quicko for a seamless platform to assist millions of customers.

By partnering with Quicko, Sqrrl has simplified not only the basic salaried ITR filing process, but also the more complex ones like filing of capital gains tax. Mutual fund investors are often puzzled when it comes to computing and filing capital gains tax. With Sqrrl now, investors can seamlessly file their capital gains taxes as well as their basic salaried ITR. The ITR filing service is a part of their membership called Sqrrl Prime which offers free investing, filing ITR, getting accidental coverage and much more.

Historic data shows that the number of people filing taxes in India is lesser than expected. In fact, over the recent times the government of India has been actively working to increase the tax base of the country. By offering the tax e-filing feature, we aspire to de-complicate and simplify the tax filing processes so that more and more people can file their taxes conveniently.

Under this association, people can log on to https://sqrrl.quicko.com/ to file tax from a wide range of tax filing plans depending on their needs. Individuals can choose the most basic DIY tax filing plan, wherein, for eg. salaried individuals just have to upload their Form no. 16. Once uploaded, all the required data would be extracted from their Form no. 16 and is used in furthering the process. Soon after confirming that all the details are correct, the candidate will be redirected to Quicko. For complicated business-related filing, users can also opt for CA assisted plans.

Commenting on the partnership, Samant Sikka, Co-Founder, Sqrrl said

This partnership with Quicko will especially be useful for those mutual fund investors who often get confused while computing and filing capital gains tax. We have specifically curated an option for mutual fund investors to file the capital gains statement which will be of great help for regular investors in the market.

The aim of this association is to make the tax filing process as seamless as saving and investing, on the platform.

Vishvajit Sonagara, Founder, Quicko said

We are glad to partner with Sqrrl to extend the ease of filing ITR through our platform. Tax filing is often considered as a tedious process, through our partnership we wish to simplify the process of tax filing for the larger group.

Do not miss – Samant Sikka on his startup journey with Sqrrl

As we adapt to the new normal, the adoption of the cloud contact center has certainly increased. Most successful businesses are investing in technology that helps them increase their business efficiency. Reduced cost pressure, high data security, and flexible contact center operations are the top drivers of the increase in cloud adoption.

Most startups are opting for a cloud solution, making virtual business infrastructure a reality. Large enterprises that once believed in keeping an in-house contact center are also planning to move to cloud contact center software to scale up their businesses and cut down on the infrastructure costs.

What is Cloud Contact Center software?

A cloud contact center is a software that is hosted over internet, is easy to deploy, and comes with enterprise-grade security. A cloud contact center meets the needs of inbound and outbound calling operations and is run over the internet to provide uninterrupted customer service and support.

A highly flexible, agile, and robust cloud contact center software enables the businesses to manage their omnichannel contact center operations seamlessly. It has in-built capability to add channels like Voice, Email, Social Media [such as WhatsApp, Google’s Business Messages, Twitter DM, Instagram, Facebook Messenger], Video, and Chat.

What makes Cloud Contact Center the choice of SMEs and Enterprises?

Let us now look at some of the cloud contact center benefits that might help you decide on the best cloud call center software for your business.

Ease of Installation

Cloud contact center software does not require any hardware installation, therefore, making it highly flexible to deploy in hours. You can choose from the variety of cloud contact centers such as Private Cloud, Public Cloud, and Hybrid Cloud. Each business has a unique usecase and they need a customized solution according to their business needs.

For instance, if you have a small e-commerce startup, you can choose a public instance that stores your data on cloud with several other users. But, if you are a bank, you need a private cloud to ensure maximum level of data security.

Reduced Cost Pressure

Let’s consider a scenario where the businesses are spending 10-15% of their on-premise contact center cost in managing the infrastructure, building up a physical office, and providing right tools and services to the contact center agents.

More often than not, this function runs on razor-thin margins, especially in BPO companies.

Let’s imagine this cost goes away in a remote work environment with a cloud contact center software. The additional saving of 10-15% cost on setting up infrastructural facilities in the physical office environment can be invested in alternate channels, tools, and equipment for the remote workforce.

Hiring Diverse Workforce

With remote work becoming the new reality, businesses are turning towards a remote hiring model to get an access to a wider pool of talent across multiple geographies, putting away the barrier of relocating.

This has manifold benefits such as:

• • • Businesses working for different time zones can access the global talent pool, ensuring that they provide native experience to each customer
    • It helps in hiring parents who find it difficult to move out of their homes to work in a physical office environment
    • Working remotely eliminates the need for traveling to reach the office daily and employees like to be given flexibility. With Remote Working Solutions, employees are more likely to accept job offers that do not involve traveling
    • People nearing retirement can also be given the opportunity to work remotely

Flexibility & Scalability

In an on-premise set up, it becomes difficult for organizations to scale their business without worrying about operational overheads. But, in a cloud contact center software, you can choose a ‘pay as you go’ model and add additional contact center agents during the peak holiday season without any hassle.

A cloud contact center also provides the flexibility to login from any device, any browser, and any location, allowing you to provide an ease-of-use to your agents. This, in addition to other benefits, helps you overcome the IT infrastructural challenges.

Maximum Data Security

With cyber-attackers becoming more sophisticated, it becomes a prime concern for the businesses to ensure maximum data security to their customers. Data theft not only costs the sensitive information, but also ruins the brand’s reputation, and customer’s loyalty.

But, with a cloud contact center software, backed by PCI-DSS compliance regulations, you can store all your data securely over cloud. In addition to adhering to the compliance standards, the data can be masked for securing data further.

For instance, when the agents are working remotely, it is near to impossible to keep track of each of their activities, but with a robust cloud contact center solution, you get enterprise-grade security features such as barring the screen recording, number masking, and more.

About the Author

Tanya Bansal is an enthusiastic individual, Marketing Executive at Ameyo, keen to learn customer problems, helping businesses find the right solutions effortlessly. Along with that, always being poised by the words, she finds her solace in reading and imparting her knowledge with students through multiple teaching programs.

As India continues to take rapid strides towards digitization across sectors, Indian tech start-ups are now witnessing a gradual road to recovery. National Association of Software and Services Companies [NASSCOM] launched the findings of the Start-up Pulse survey II, titled ‘Indian Tech Start-ups – On the Road to Recovery‘. NASSCOM revisited its first tech startup pulse survey, conducted back in April – May 2020, to understand what the current perspectives are, what has changed and what the next 6 months look like for the tech start-up ecosystem in the country.

As per the findings of the NASSCOM Start-up Pulse Survey II, revenue acceleration and funding has improved the cash availability with start-ups. 43 percent of tech start-ups have a runway for more than 6 months, compared to 8 per cent in the earlier survey.

Covid-19 has accelerated digital adoption and tech startups can leverage this opportunity with enterprise and SMB clients for product adoption. Greater focus on the shift to online has also created new business opportunities. There has been an increased interest from VCs and funding agencies to invest in seed-early stage start-ups. Government initiatives such as Atmanirbhar Bharat, digitalization of India, a greater focus on sustainable business models is attracting VC interest for Indian tech start-ups.

Almost 25 percent of the surveyed start-ups have been able to raise funds or find prospective investors as compared to 7% in the earlier survey. Sectors like Edtech, Healthtech, SaaS, SMB continue to attract investor interests.

Sharing her thoughts, Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM, said

The Indian start-up ecosystem has set a global benchmark in remained resilient during this disruptive year. Setting an example for many other industries across the globe to follow and learn from how Indian start-ups converted challenges into opportunities.

A Large tech start-ups pool, strong innovation focus and entrepreneur’s zeal have been the growth drivers of this ecosystem. We are pleased with the way the ecosystem has been supportive of each other during these difficult times and hope that the industry remains its robust zeal to further contribute to reviving the economy.

While the ecosystem continues to be cautious, it is increasingly looking at hiring talent with the right competencies. As per the findings of the survey, hiring freeze at tech start-ups dropped by 20%. Jobs with the right skills continue to be in demand. Digital skills – data, AI, product management, cloud architects continue to be in high demand across the tech start-up ecosystem.

Demonstrating agility and resilience, tech start-ups continue to build sustainable operating models. Start-ups are adopting multiple short- and long-term strategies to tackle COVID impact. 72 percent tech startups are enhancing their product offerings and investing in deep tech solutions that enable automation and analytics for their clients. Around 60-70 percent of tech start-ups are relooking at their business models – expanding to newer verticals, building partnerships and enhancing existing solutions.

COVID- 19 challenges have necessitated tactical and strategic shifts amongst tech start-ups leading to rapid diversification and focus on deep-tech as the ‘New Normal’.

40 percent of deep-tech focussed start-ups built AI-based solutions, over 60 percent Agritech and Health-tech start-ups are focused on AI-based solutions.

It is likely to be a more judicious mix of revenue and operational efficiency going forward.

Although pre-Covid funding levels may take longer, almost 50 percent of tech start-ups expect to reach pre-Covid revenue levels in the next 6 months. 

However, to ensure this road to recovery, continued support from the ecosystem is required. NASSCOM calls out 5 key imperatives for start-ups to sustain growth momentum – Optimize operational metrics; expand or pivot towards growing or upcoming verticals; ‘Vocal for local’ products and solutions and creating a larger social & economic impact; fostering trust-based partnerships with ecosystem players and customers; and lastly, enable and encourage digitization of impacted areas e.g. Local stores, supply chain cogs.