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|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

With the college admission season just around the corner, Stanza Living, a unique co-living student housing platform has expanded its offering spanning over 2,000 beds across multiple educational hubs such as Delhi University – South Campus, Delhi University – North Campus, Noida, Greater Noida and Dehradun.  The company is also looking at increasing its portfolio to over 10,000 beds in the next 12~18 months.

Image Source – Stanza Living

With a ‘student’s first’ approach, the company currently operates in Delhi University’s North Campus and South Campus. Apart from offering high-quality accommodation services to students, the company also offers additional services like career enhancement opportunities as part of their Stanza Springboard programme. Additionally, Stanza Social is another unique program which the company runs under which it organizes a range of community events throughout the year and provides exclusive, discounted access to a curated list of restaurants, events, coaching classes along with goodies and rewards to Stanza’s community of student residents.

With safety and security being a huge concern for parents, Stanza residences are equipped with advanced, high-tech security systems that provide a safe and secure environment to students. A technology enabled 24-hour central command center, an on-ground rapid response team, perimeter tagging, geo-fencing and motion sensors attached to all residences are some of the unique measures used by the company to prevent unauthorized entry into its resident facilities and ensure a safe and secure environment while offering students the flexibility of enjoying their college.

Commenting on the expansion plans, Sandeep Dalmia, Co-founder, Stanza Living said

Stanza Living is not just another hostel or paying guest accommodation, but a unique community living concept created for students moving to a new place to pursue their dreams. We go beyond accommodation in what we have to offer – we see ourselves as a ‘students first’ brand and hence Stanza Social and Stanza Springboard are uniquely designed keeping the interests of the student in mind.

We recently hired 50 interns across 10-12 colleges across India and are providing them with once-in a lifetime opportunity to work in a fast-paced, constantly evolving start-up ecosystem, helping us understand and solve student problems and allowing us to train them for various skill sets such as marketing, content, sales, using digital and social media platforms.

Anindya Dutta, Co-founder, Stanza Living further added saying

We are re-imagining co-living in India with our student-first approach by providing best of living experiences with our world-class accommodation offerings. In terms of revenue, we clocked 2~3 crore in 2017-18 with all units profitable. We are currently aggressively expanding and have witnessed 20x growth since our inception.

Stanza Living, a young start-up has grown exponentially, with the numbers of beds we are managing rising from 100 to 2,000 in the last 12 months. We are excited at this pace of growth which makes us one of the fastest growing start-ups in the Indian eco-system with a strong focus on high quality delivery and execution.

About Stanza Living

Stanza Living is a technology-enabled, high-quality student accommodation concept which is seeking to disrupt the multi-billion-dollar student housing market by putting the student, as a consumer, at the heart of the product and service design, development and execution. From smart space planning in rooms to gamifying food, from creating common areas for engagement and community living to delivering reliable, predictable and standardized services to residents through back-end cutting-edge technology integration, Stanza is challenging the status quo when it comes to student community living. For more information, please visit Stanza Living

|In: Marketing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

The leading mobile marketing platform, CleverTap, has announced their powerful suite of Discovery Tools, based on automated user segmentation. These tools enable mobile marketers to quickly unearth customer insights and accelerate ROI on their marketing strategies. CleverTap’s Discovery Tools are already being leveraged by enterprise customers to build long term customer value and to create impactful customer experiences.

Today’s customers expect brands to respond to their needs immediately. Businesses that are able to predict and respond to their user’s behaviors in a timely manner are the ones that will win. While progressive marketers have been using manual means of segmenting their users into micro-segments, this is a time consuming and expensive effort. Automated segmentation goes through users behavior data, running different machine learning algorithms and models on this data and is finally able to present interesting segment of users to marketers.

This set of advanced tools will instantly identify champion users, loyal customers differentiated from hibernating users and about to churn users. Automatically exposing these user segments allows marketers to focus their creativity on finding the best ways to engage with these segments – run a loyalty program for champion users and possibly run some win back campaigns on users likely to churn to get their interest back. With automated user segments at their fingertips, marketers can optimize their mobile strategies to drive higher conversions while reducing friction points.

CleverTap’s Discovery Tools Suite includes automated segmentation using the following models

  • RFM [Recency, Frequency and Monetary]

How recently a user has visited your app in combination with how frequently a user visits are valuable insights into how marketers can engage with them. Treating someone whom you’ve seen yesterday or a week ago differently from someone you’ve not seen for a year is critical. CleverTap’s RFM model automatically segments your entire user base into 10 automatic segments [from champions to hibernating users] so that you can see what you are doing right with one group, and what you can do more effectively to connect with others.

  • Flows

Users traverse through your apps via a thousand different paths. Some sophisticated users navigate it optimally, but many others get stuck and need help at different steps along their paths to conversion. CleverTap’s Flows lets you instantly visualize all possible paths of all your user segments. Using conversion percentages, you can identify the most optimal paths in your app. Provide an improved customer experience to user segments that are getting stuck and help them reach their destinations within your app.

  • Pivots

With a few clicks, breakdown your users into weekend vs. weekday warriors; users who consume content in the afternoons vs. nightowls. CleverTap’s Pivots give you unlimited combinations of data visualizations to make your data actionable by providing the ability to pinpoint each cell as a segment of users. Easily discover your best customer segments without needing a data scientist to try hundreds of permutations and combinations to get to the same answer.

Sunil Thomas, Chief Executive Officer at CleverTap, said

Today’s users don’t have the time and patience to visit your app and dig for the information they need. Brands almost need to anticipate and dynamically react to their users’ needs. With the launch of Discovery Tools, we aim to automate a large part of how marketers discover their valuable customer segments. These tools will significantly improve marketing efficiency and help marketers spend their marketing dollars effectively.

About CleverTap

CleverTap helps consumer brands retain their users for life. It? is a powerful mobile marketing solution that brings together user data from online and offline channels on one centralized platform. Everyday, thousands of brands leverage CleverTap’s machine learning models to orchestrate differentiated customer engagement strategies that help marketers drive omni-channel growth. For more information, please visit CleverTap

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Here to widen perspectives and reach out to internet viewers in a unique manner, BISBO covers current news events in an engaging manner – animation. This format encourages people to understand the most complex world issues and news in a way that is fun and easy to follow. The idea of BISBO was conceptualized 25 years ago but the journey from pen to YouTube transitioned only in 2016.

Image Source – Startups

Within a short span of 2 years BISBO has managed to break the clutter and garners 1.5~2 million views a month on YouTube, Facebook & Instagram. The platforms content is suitable for all ages, however 80% of its viewers are in the bracket of 18~44 years. Interestingly, a sizable number of UPSC candidates use BISBO’s videos as a study source!

The channel has gained popularity amongst its audience for its 5-minute news pieces that are comprehensively covered. An approximate of 30 videos are released every month, in English, Hindi & Bengali, covering several topics like politics, international events, science and tech, entertainment, crime, finance, health, wildlife, lifestyle alternatively.

BISBO wins the Bets StartUp in Asia award by SuperBrands 2018.

Using animation allows BISBO to reconstruct the sequence of events and break it down into interesting parts that are easily understandable. The channels aims to provide an opportunity to explore topics in detail and still have fun.

Shakir Ebrahim – Founder & Creator, BISBO said

By providing sources and references in each video, we not only point interested readers in the direction but also have managed to establish ourselves as credible source of news and information.

BISBO is closing in on 1 Lakh subscribers on YouTube already and is growing sufficiently to target 25 Lakh by end 2019 expanding its library to 8 Indian languages. It was recently awarded Best Start-up in Asia this year from over 6,000+ startups across India, Bangladesh, Malaysia & Singapore by SuperBrands. Complete list of winners can be found here.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Ather Energy launched their disruptive intelligent, electric scooter Ather 450 & their previously unveiled variant, the Ather 340. The Ather 450 is designed for city riding conditions, it comes with a top speed of 80 km/hr, a range of 75 km and one of the quickest accelerations of 3.9 seconds from 0-40 km/hr in the scooter market. Limited pre-orders have opened on Ather’s website and, their experience centre, AtherSpace  at Indiranagar will open for test rides on Friday, 8th June.

Image Source – Ather Energy

The Product

The Ather 450 has been designed to solve for problems limiting current electric two-wheelers, like slow charging speeds, low powered motors, and short battery lives. It can fast charge to 80% at a rate of 1 km/minute. It comes with a 3.3kW BLDC motor that can comfortably ride up 18-degree slopes, making steep parking lots, flyovers, and roads an easy climb. And for the first time in the category, Ather 450 comes with parking assist, which allows riders to reverse into tight parking locations.

The key differentiator of the Ather 450 are its intelligence features, seamless charging and ownership experience. The Ather 450 has a 7″ touchscreen dashboard that allows onboard navigation with options of alternative routes and saved locations. It comes with the Ather app that enables push navigation from the phone to the vehicle dashboard, remote monitoring of the vehicle health, charge monitoring and managing service requirements. Finally, with the Over-The-Air [OTA] functionality, the vehicle is capable of improving over time with continuous improvement and addition of new features and functionalities.

The Ather 450 comes with a home charging Point, that will be installed by the company at either owners’ homes or workplace. Features like surge protection, authenticated power draw, and remote charge monitoring makes Ather’s Point a fast, safe and intelligent charger.

Ather Energy has a new dealership and service model. While the ordering, payment, and test ride scheduling is online, the brand has opened its experience centre, AtherSpace to give customers an in-depth look and experience of the product. The servicing woes are also taken away by a seamless doorstep pickup and service that can be scheduled through the Ather app.

The Pricing

Ather is offering a unique no-hassle, pricing model. The total cost includes what consumers pay upfront to buy the scooter and a monthly subscription that will take care of most operational expenses.

The Ather One plan entitles customers to free public and home charging, periodic maintenance inclusive of consumables, breakdown assistance and unlimited data services for the dashboard at only Rs. 700 + GST per month, which is way lower than the sustenance cost of present scooters.

The Ather 450 is priced at Rs. 1,24,750 on road and the Ather 340  is priced at Rs. 1,09,750 on road. This is inclusive of subsidy @ Rs. 22,000, GST, road tax, smart card fee, registration card, and insurance.

For the first set of consumers, Ather Energy is offering the first year of the subscription plan for free. The company will also provide a home charging Point with the Ather 450 and a charging cable with the Ather 340. The price of these products and their installation will be waived off for these consumers.

[L-R] Swapnil Jain, CTO & Co-Founder, Ather Energy and Tarun Mehta, CEO & Co-Founder, Ather Energy

Announcing the launch of the products, Tarun Mehta, Co-founder & CEO, said

We started building electric scooters four years ago at IIT Madras and we are super excited to launch not only the Ather 340, but also our higher performance flagship variant, the Ather 450. It has been designed with quick acceleration, great handling, high storage space and new-to-category features like park assist, remote diagnostics, and onboard navigation. In the last 4 years we have not only built the scooter, but an ecosystem for an electric vehicle future.

Be it the suppliers and partners who were entering the EV market, the charging infrastructure that had to be set up for consumers and the engineering talent itself to build the products. Between the Ather 450 & Ather 340 launching and AtherGrid being up and running in Bengaluru, we are really looking forward to expanding into Chennai & Pune in the coming months. These are exciting times to be a part of the industry.

About Ather Energy

Co-founded in 2013 by IIT graduates – Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, Ather Energy is one the few hardware startups in India. The company designing India’s first truly intelligent electric scooter and is backed by the founders of Flipkart, Tiger Global and Hero Motocorp.

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

The newest entrant in the taxi business in the metropolis has also vowed to be the greenest on this World Environment Day. While rival taxi companies are slowing down on EV plans, S3 Cabs has got the approval and tie up for a mobile bio-diesel distribution pump. The pump will be used to fill bio-diesel for its cabs across Mumbai.

Speaking on the development Sohel Kazani, Managing Director – Interport Impex Pvt Ltd said

I am very excited that we have received a fantabulous response from the drivers and riders both. As a company, Sahyadri Smart Safe Private Limited was a late entrant in the business, but we always wanted to be the path leaders. Going forward with our vision, we have procured the equipment and supply for bio-diesel distribution.

The mobile bio-diesel distribution van will travel all over the Mumbai and have fixed timings at South Mumbai and near all Mumbai entry points. In the first stage we only want to supply the fuel to our taxis, if we are surplus, we will distribute it to other vehicles too.

The average consumption of fuel by the cab owners based on 300km per day traveling amounts to 30 liters of diesel, and that equals to INR 2200 per day. A 40% reduction would mean INR 880 saving per day on fuel account or as much as INR 26000 approx a month by using bio-diesel and the oxy-power unit. A pilot study made us understand that it keeps the fuel systems and fuel injector cleaner thus reducing the vehicle maintenance cost and increasing the mileage. It will also help in additional employment generation. We would like to work closely with the government to make the shift to biofuels happen and we hope that they lower the GST on bio-diesel to 5%.

Bio-diesel blend has been made a mandate in many countries. The government had recommended a blend in 2017 but the same has not been made compulsory. Bio-fuels also reduce the emissions making the environment cleaner.

It would help the economy by reducing crude import; India imports approximately 8 Lakh crores of crude oil annually. Also, it is priced lower than convention diesel, resulting in savings for the drivers. Shifting to bio-fuels is also a long-term solution to the problem of rising fuel prices. There is no major infrastructure change required compared to EVs where major infrastructure investment is required on charging points.

At the commercial inception of the cab services, S3 had provided a patented technology registered as ‘Oxy Power’ to all its drivers. This technology requires an external fitment in the car and helps in the better utilization of the fuel resulting in 20% and 30% reduction in fuel consumption. Reduced fuel consumption helped the taxis to operate at flat fares all the times. Now with Bio-Diesel, there will be further 5%~10% reduction in fuel costs resulting in Net overall 40% reduction in fuel bill to be paid by the taxi owners.

Biodiesel can be used in any diesel car without any additional modification as in the case of CNG. It is cleaner and more efficient than regular diesel. Biodiesel can be used alone or blended with regular diesel in any proportions. Nitin Gadkari, hon. Minister of Road Transport has been advocating the use of bio-fuels for a very long time. He has mentioned on several occasions that there is an urgent need to re-think and revisit transport infrastructure and fuel dependency across not just India, but the globe.

|In: IOT|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

As per United Nations’ Water Development Report 2016, one of the most serious problems mankind faces today is the scarcity of water for drinking and domestic use. In India, 63 million people are still lacking access to safe drinking water, according to statistics from World Bank. While potable water shortage is a matter of global concern, experts have in the recent past stressed that efficient processes and technologies for conservation, management and proper utilization of water systems is crucial to address the growing water crisis.

Image Source – IoT

With an eye to innovate in terms of water resource management, Chariot Tech Private Limited, a company that operates New-Delhi based IoT start-up Chariot, has recently tied up with Axioma Metering, a market leader in energy and metering products’ manufacturing in the Baltic region.

The partnership intends to change the face of water metering in India by introducing an umbrella of IoT technology-enabled smart water meters, which will be equipped to monitor, analyze, and appropriately manage water networks across the country.

Commenting on the collaboration, Nilay Mehrotra, Co-Founder & CEO, Chariot said

In today’s era of rapid urbanization, management of the water systems is a critical component for the sustained socio-economic growth. At a time when our country is facing the threat of a full-blown water crisis, Axioma and Chariot’s partnership is not only going to benefit the Smart Cities mission, but also the country’s citizens extensively.

Coupled with the power of the Internet of Things, the adaptation of smart water metering on a large scale has the potential to enable responsible water usage within communities, which in turn, can emerge as a permanent solution to India’s water mismanagement woes. With the help of advanced analytics-based optimizing strategies, we dream of a future where every household gets a fair share of clean water supply.

With the thrust on Smart Cities and Digital India recently, maintaining operational efficiency in terms of urban planning and infrastructure development for residents has become all the important. The outlook and growth trajectory of Smart Cities of the future will largely depend upon smart infrastructure; this is exactly where OEMs need to partner with startups, to derive support in meeting their software and hardware requirements.

Vaidas Jakubavicius, CEO, Axioma Metering said

Apart from being a manufacturer of world-class heat and water metering devices, we at Axioma Metering believe in constant innovation, R8D, and up-scaling. While we already assume a leadership role in developing ultrasound technology-based metering products in Baltic countries, we are indeed delighted to partner with Chariot in India, so as to bring a new dimension to the smart water metering scenario in this country.

With sustainability and high-tech resource monitoring at its heart, we are sure that this tie-up will provide immense value to Indian cities and states, which are already poised for a digital revolution.

Smart water meters provide real-time tracking for the flow and distribution of water networks in a specified area, while also monitoring consumption and expenditure. By studying usage patterns and parameters, predicting water loss due to leakage and enhancing water utility becomes easier. Over a period of time, this also helps in directing the water resources to low-yield areas which are in need the same.

Explaining further on the significance of the tie-up, Raj Garg, Co-founder & CTO, Chariot added

Chariot has introduced a first-of-its-kind Universal IoT platform to India, and also has to its credit executing a project in Maharashtra on Smart Water Metering. Since inception, one of our key focus areas is to help the governments in making efficient choices by leveraging the power of emerging technologies.

Through this partnership, we look forward to combine Axioma’s expertise in the metering sector with our own in the IoT solutions front; the ultimate aim is to support administrative bodies and regional stakeholders to manage their water needs.

As a digital enterprise, Chariot’s Universal IoT platform, which is agnostic to any IoT protocol and device types currently available, delivers comprehensive Platform-As-A-Service [PaaS] and Software-As-A Service [SaaS] solutions for developing and operating big data, predictive analytics, and so on.

On the other hand, Axioma designs and manufactures mechanical and ultrasonic devices for heat and water metering that are exported to 36 countries across the globe; it has already established a strong presence in European countries, and posted annual turnover of approximately 25 million euros. The company will be consolidating its foothold in the Indian arena through this partnership.

About Chariot Tech Pvt Ltd

Chariot is an IoT startup based out of New Delhi. Chariot was born in March 2017 as a brain child of two founder Nilay & Raj. Nilay & Raj started this company as a home automation company but suddenly struggled choosing optimal technology for the product. This confusion gave birth to chariot universal IoT platform. Nilay met Raj through a common friend on Raj’s birthday and started discussing random ideas over a coffee which finally resulted into birth of Chariot. Chariot till the time of formation have been growing at a rate of 45% month on month with a lot of enquiries from both domestic and global market. Chariot has successfully executed a project in Maharashtra on Smart Water metering using chariot product. For more information, please visit Chariot

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

With an aim to strengthen its core business and serve the needs of the builders, realty start-up Rentprop4u [earlier coverage here] has announced the launch of the bulk homes business vertical. Named ‘Happy Homes’, the vertical will strive to serve builders and property owners by taking care of the entire building or multiple buildings right from renting them out to managing the properties.

With this initiative, Rentprop4u aims to resolve some of the common hassles faced by property owners and builders with regard to renting. A major concern of owners while letting out a property is to find the ideal tenant. From finding the right tenant and performing a complete background check to offering assured rentals and managing the property, Happy Homes offers full-service rental and property management for owners.

Ravi M, Co-founder, Rentprop4u, said

Builders or owners of multiple units are usually bogged down with numerous problems that accompany property ownership such as rent collection, building repairs and others. We believe that a number of owners will be happy to handover these chores if they find someone trustworthy. Our objective is to take the worry out of renting out homes. Our Happy Homes vertical hopes to make the lives of builders and owners easier by taking on those responsibilities.

With the addition of the new vertical, Rentprop4u plans to acquire 1,000 units in bulk properties by the end of the year. By investing in bulk inventory, we see good returns. Additionally, managing bulk properties is more profitable because of the common use of resources.

As for tenants, Happy Homes will take on all the responsibilities right from offering an EMI facility for the security deposit to setting up gas, internet and telephone connections, furniture, waste management, housekeeping and 24/7 security in addition to minimum paper work and maintenance. Owners can now heave a sigh of relief knowing that Rentprop4u can take care of everything from paper work and rent collection to maintenance.

Launched in 2016 with the vision of taking all the worry of owning and renting a home, Rentprop4u has 520 plus registered properties across Bengaluru. The company aims to expand to other parts of city and South Indian states over the next year.

About Rentprop4u

Rentprop4u is a Bengaluru-based realty start-up offering property management and rental solutions to owners and tenants. Established in 2016, Rentprop4u currently has 1,100 plus registered users and more than 650 happy customers.

The company offers an end-to-end online rental solution for tenants to find suitable properties at zero brokerage with minimal paperwork, while owners can make use of Rentprop4u’s services to manage their properties and maximize their rental income.

|In: Accelerator|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

SMARTup is a series of round table knowledge sharing and networking events being organized by ah! Ventures & meetingsandoffices as part of their endeavour to connect the start up fraternity and create valuable business centric conversations between domain specialists and entrepreneurs.

The focus of these events would be to deal with issues and problems that plague young companies and divert their focus from their core competences and business. Issues such as business planning and strategy development, aligning immediate and long term goals, generating investor interest, scaling a business, managing cash flows, building sticky relationships & customer loyalty, getting paying customers, regulations, compliance, understanding term sheets, understanding how to go about building your tech as a non-techie without a tech co-founder, sales and marketing processes, how to focus on and enhance the logic of business, what is the role of IoT in business, when do you need AI and what does Ai mean beyond chatbots for your business etc. will all be amongst the critical topics that would be covered under the series. [Source]

Note – Himanshu Sheth’s Blog is also an Outreach Partner for the event !

SMARTup is a focused and enriched networking and knowledge sharing experience that will bring tremendous value to entrepreneurs and young businesses. Each SMARTup event shall have limited seating.

SMARTup has travelled across 10 cities in India and of the 190 startup companies that participated, 10 are already shortlisted for funding on the ah! Ventures Funding Platform. Chennai startups, it’s your turn now to talk in 1-on-1 Meetings with investors to scale your business and reach the next level. You could be the next startup on the funding shortlist!

Minimum 3 1-on-1 Investor Meetings Guaranteed to Gold Pass Participants !!!

The event would be held at CoWrks OMR, Chennai on 16th June, 2018. For registration, please click on the link below