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|In: Accelerator|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

DesignGild, a first of its kind design led startup accelerator from the house of MIT Institute of Design, announced the launch of its first batch of the accelerator programme with two startups QtPi from Bengaluru and RxHealth from Pune. The boot camp for these startups commences on 22nd May in Pune. The selected startups are from diverse technology spaces.

QtPi and RxHealth will be part of a robust six month immersive accelerator program that leverages the rich design thinking and design doing experience of MIT ID. The program will give startups an exposure to latest design methods, co-working space, access to prototyping facilities, IPR consulting and facilitation, business development support, public relations and processes that will enable them to unlock business opportunities.

A set of experienced design mentors and a dedicated design team will work together with the startups on various stages from design strategy to operations. To name a few, DesignGild’s mentors include Mr. Atindrya Bose – Ex Country Head- Sony [Playstation business], Snehal Vasani – Managing Director, Kitchen Grace [Part of Asian Paints], Sachin Tagra – Associate VP – Brand Capital, Ashish Despande – Co Founder, Elephant Design; Vice President, Association of Designers of India and Apurva Chamaria – VP & Head – Corporate Marketing, HCL Tech, Abhimanyu Kulkarni, Design Head – Philips, Nachiket Thakur – Director – Innovation & Entrepreneurship – Science & Tech Park, Shekhar Badve – Director LokusDesign, Jay Dutta – Design Partner at Saif Partners.

DesignGild also has a strategic partnership with The Institute of Healthcare Design Thinking, USA.

Speaking on the launch of DesignGild’s first batch, Harshit Desai, COO, DesignGild said

We are extremely delighted to onboard the two startups. DesignGild aims to empower these startups and help them build their product with innovation. The focus of the accelerator is towards strategic design consulting, business model innovation, and hands-on design services to enable seamless integration of design in business. We would be happy to mentor the two selected startups, RxHealth and QtPi who are unique in their own fields.

Prof. Anant Chakradeo, Dean, MIT Institute of Design said

DesignGild has been set up by the MIT Institute of Design, as one of the country’s first design-focused accelerators. The aim of the accelerator is to provide high-quality design mentorship and resources to passionate individuals and teams to create design-led businesses. With this MIT ID will add a new offering to its student by creating the much needed ecosystem under one roof.

Here are the profiles of the startups selected for the accelerator programme

QtPi [Robotics for everyone]

QtPi founder Jaison Leon is an industry veteran from MS, Yahoo, Oracle and Tech Mahindra with software and mechatronics background. QtPi has done years of research to eliminate fatigue caused by theoretical learning and mix with exciting practical.

The company has built ‘plug and play robotic kit’, consisting of Arduino based main board, sensors, actuators, building blocks and mobile app. The kit can be used by 7+ year old kids to build infinite types of robots. QtPi has list of projects & tutorials to assist early adapters. It also works with college students to develop innovative projects using QtPi kit or to design their own product.

RxHealth [Bringing DRS in Healthcare]

Founded by Rohan Prakash, RxHealth is the world’s first Health Informatics Company based in Pune that is catering expert system software in the field of computer-aided prognosis. It uses the avant-garde artificial intelligence solutions that recognize accurate and honest medical diagnosis support.

The principle objective is to provide the best healthcare services to every patient everywhere. It’s non-intrusive, seamless technology converts good doctors into excellent doctors by continuously upgrading their knowledge base and reference network. It helps doctors in better diagnosis and prescribing the most effective treatment to patients thus bringing down the time and cost of recovery.

On the patient side, its technology creates more aware and informed patients by providing them personalized information regarding preventions, doctors, consultations, treatment options, cost, time, precautions etc. The long-term objective is to create an effective, efficient and seamlessly integrated technology lead medical services ecosystem for better healthcare delivery.

About DesignGild

DesignGild is a startup eco-system that provides high-quality design mentorship and business development support to create Design-led businesses, based in Pune. It is leveraging the power of Design to create business value. It provides the right platform to incubate & accelerate innovative business ideas through a design focused road map. It achieves this by leveraging its vast network of experienced design professionals, consultants, academicians, researchers and students. DesignGild believes that they can take a start-up from one plane to a completely new and better one by playing on their strength : Design Thinking. DesignGild will support the selected start-ups to convert innovative ideas into valuable business propositions. DesignGild is an MIT ID initiative. For more informaion, please visit DesignGild

|In: Food-Commerce|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Ketchupp, a technology company in food discovery space, has rapidly grown to 1.04 million users showing 16x growth in last 6 months [from 60K users in October 16 to 1.04 million users in April 17]. It has been witnessing strong growth based on automated platform which helps them track trends stitching with their in-house food IP data and algorithms.

Image Source – Ketchupp

Ketchupp works on a 3C concept of Content, Community & Commerce on the lines of global players such as Houzz, Polyvore, Motoroso who had great success and are aligned towards conversational
commerce.

Chirag Taneja, co-founder of Ketchupp said

With AI starting to interpret images, we are not far from wherein technology would be interpreting that you are on your way home or what is available in your kitchen. With all that info available readily, one would need to map consumer food behavior to suggest/recommend ‘What to EAT’ basis your food preferences and people who have similar tastes/profiles. On enterprise front, we are doing initial testing/pilot runs with large companies in developing capabilities around sales forecasting, cross sell analytics, etc.

More than 50% of the consumers come from ‘super’ metros of Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru and remaining comes from other metros of the country.  Ketchupp [mobile first, website only food discovery platform] in India is solving the consumer’s problem of ‘What to Eat’ by focusing on 3 micro moments in the consumer’s journey i.e. a) Consumer wants to know about food b) Consumer wants to plan around food c) Consumer wants to buy/order food. The company leverages AI driven data mining algorithms to enable a consumer discover awesome food that he/she will love to eat.

Ketchupp had earlier raised seed round funding led by India Quotient. The team is investing this fund to make a robust product through analytics, big data and enabling tech solutions.

Ketchupp works on a very differentiated, efficient and tech-driven business model wherein mined consumer insights are mapped with Ketchupp’s in house food IP data, thereby solving consumer’s pain point in a meaningful way.

The small team based out of New Delhi has impressively scaled to 9 cities with a monthly [April 17] user base of 1.04 million Ketchupp has turned out to be a boon not only for the consumer but also for the food brands. As India’s biggest food discovery platform, it has enabled brands to communicate to their relevant audiences in a cost effective manner.

The need gap for a food discovery player in market can be gauged by not only the search volume of food related keywords searched on Google but also by increasing number of users seeking food recommendations on social media from their trusted friend network.

Ketchupp is actually an instant answer to three micro moments in food a) User wants to know about food – What is a gluten free diet? b) User wants to plan around food – What should be the menu for next week’s House party at my home and c) User wants to buy/order food – I want to have cheese burst pizza in office right now.

Ketchupp’s new feature – Meal Finder is also getting substantial traction from users other than the already popular National Foodie Calendar [Celebration of 365 days of 2017 around food].

Ketchupp founded 1.5 years ago by Narender Kumar [Civil Engineer from IIT Delhi], Abdul Khalid [Computer Science Engineer from IIT Delhi] and Chirag Taneja [MBA from FMS, Delhi] intends to be the one stop destination for food lovers in the country.

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

Jhakaas Technologies, a technology-driven platform that Enables local businesses launched a new store for merchants on their app to update their inventory and replenish stocks on a timely basis. The USP of the platform is that merchants will be able to browse and make transactions in multiple languages including all local languages.

Image Source – Jhakaas

The next generation mobile app caters to the day-to-day needs of the consumer entailing services such as grocery shopping, restaurant hunting, ordering medicines, on call cakes and sweet delivery, vegetable shopping, wine shops and much more and helps cater to the un-organized market. Currently, the app includes more than 35 categories in their offering and are targeting to cover 80 categories in the upcoming months. It is currently available in Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bangalore and soon will be launched in tier II and tier III cities by end of next quarter.

Jhakaas Technologies has introduced additional features on their user interface called Store Mangement. The merchants or the offline business operators have access to the online portal to list their products, run promotions and manage relationship with customers and many more tasks for business growth. Currently, the app is available in English but since the company is targeting tier II and III cities, regional languages such as Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, and Telugu will be introduced by next month.

The expansion plan includes targeting various cities such as Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. All in all, roughly 20 new cities will be covered in their expansion strategy. Another feature that the app offers to all its merchants is of sending across pop-up notifications to their present customers about various updates regarding discount offers, new products available & reminder options like replenishment of stocks based on the inventory level which is a USP which other competitors are not offering currently. Besides this, the merchants can select the radius and serve customers near their vicinity.

Commenting on this introduction of features Bharat Mandot, Co-Founder, Jhakaas Technologies stated

Jhakaas, as its name suggests, will provide you the best possible options for all your daily needs.  With the launch of this unique platform, we aim to serve the unorganized market by use of our technology. Through this feature, while creating their own store, merchants would be able to switch their visibility options on the app.

With the launch of this store, we aim to cater to 2 lakh merchants in the next six months. Jhakaas stands out vis-a-vis the other competitors as the company works on a fixed fee model and provides businesses with a simple way to create and manage their mini-app within minutes at a minimal cost starting at just Rs. 10/day.

Currently, the company has tied up with 50,000 merchants across Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bangalore and is expected to grow its network to more than one lakh merchants in the next six months. The company is aiming to close at least 800 merchants every single day. More than 5000 merchants tie up with Jhakaas every week. The application is available on both Android and iOS versions. The company has positioned itself as a technological support platform to commit to the betterment of the unorganized sector.

About Jhakaas Technologies

Jhakaas – a way to easy living is a technology-driven platform that aims to enable local business. The next generation mobile app provides for the day-to-day needs of the consumer entailing services such as ease in grocery shopping, restaurant hunting, on call cakes and sweet delivery, vegetable shopping, wine shops, ordering medicines and much more. Jhakaas works on a minimum maintenance and fixed reasonable charges model with merchants so as to provide affordable and profitable deals to the vendors. The process of merchant enrollment is easy and contains no additional charges. The app was developed to provide ease in business through advanced competitive technology and also give the small & medium level merchants a competitive edge.

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

Wheelstreet, India’s leading Bike Rental platform launches operations in Hyderabad with a large fleet of two wheelers at affordable rental pricing. The launch follows a study conducted among Millennials and office goers in Hyderabad, who reinforced the need for more convenient rental options in the city.

The study suggests that businesses today cater to two key trends – Sharing Economy and Building Communities. Realistic price points, convenient accessibility and availability of two wheelers would encourage people to share instead of buying bikes according to the data collated by the company. Most respondents also reiterated the need for more bikes as a convenient mode of transport in a fast growing city like Hyderabad. Affordability was another factor that came out in favour of bikes.

Moksha Srivastava, Co-Founder and CMO, Wheelstreet said

Wheelstreet aims at re-solving problems related to intercity and intra-city travel, with affordable pricing and easy access to the bikes along with convenient pick up and drop facilities. Supported by a strong technology backbone we aim to redefine local commute, specifically in the two-wheeler sector. I also see the emergence of Sharing Economy as a radical shift in the mind-set of future generations which reinforces our business model and its growth potential.

Now Hyderabad’s bike lovers can rent a bike at prices as low as Rs.13/hour on Wheelstreet. The company has launched over 200 brand new bikes which include two wheelers such as Scooty Pep, Honda Activa, Royal Enfield, Bajaj Pulser, TVS Apache, etc. Pick up and drop facility are available at prime locations including Hi Tech City, Gachibowli(2), Panja Gutta, A S Rao Nagar, Banjara Hills, S R Nagar and Madhavpur(2). These locations were strategically chosen to cover important areas in Hyderabad. In addition to the above-mentioned location, there are 10 more centres which will be added to the website shortly.

One can access the bike options, the pricing and availability on WheelStreet or on the WheelStreet app available on Play Store.

About Wheelstreet

Wheelstreet is a bike rental aggregator that works with independent vendors enabling them to offer personalized services including different pricing structures for the same bike, multiple pickup locations, a huge fleet of the latest bikes and real time availability on the platform. It is a marketplace for vendors and people looking to rent bikes. Wheelstreet.com was launched in November, 2014 and is headquartered in Bengaluru. The company was founded by Moksha Srivastava and Pranay Shrivastava, two friends in their early twenties. For more information, please visit Wheelstreet

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Vamaship, world’s first integrated logistics platform has bagged the coveted award, The Most Promising Start-up from the Indian Merchants Chamber in April, 2017 from Dr. Lalit Kanodia -Vice President IMC, Dr. Ganesh Natarajan-Chairman, IMC Digital Technology Committee, Padmabhushan Dr. F.C Kohli, Former TCS CEO, Dr. Arvind Pradhan -Director General, IMC

Indian Merchants chamber is one of the most reputed, oldest and recognized organization representing interests of Indian trade, commerce, and industry. IMC has played a significant role in consolidating Indian business interests and making the Indian economy self-reliant. They are a legendary organization which has relentlessly pursued the agenda of identifying opportunities, addressing critical issues and driving Indian businesses with the single-minded focus of sustainable growth.

The awards night gave the industry’s most prominent personalities a chance to network with their peers and be acknowledged for their outstanding performance and innovation.

Bhavik Chinai, CEO & Founder and Rohit Chemburkar, CTO & Co-Founder of Vamaship, won the award for ‘The most promising start-up’

Bhavik Chinai-CEO, Vamaship stated excitedly

We are honoured and humbled to receive this prestigious award from IMC, and it’s incredibly motivating for Team Vamaship to work harder toward our vision of becoming the world’s shipping partner.

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. For more information, please visit Vamaship

|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Zippserv, India’s first real estate risk assessment firm announced that they have closed their Seed Fund round of Rs. 2.5 Cr from undisclosed sources. Headquartered in Bengaluru, the company will be using these funds for their expansion beginning with Mumbai and Pune in the coming months.

For generations now, buying homes in India has been riddled with uncertainties and for most first-time home buyers the experience has been more exasperating rather than an occasion to cherish. The average Indian home buyer has hence had to navigate various challenges including inconsistent and unreliable builder reviews based on hearsay, uncertainty over the genuineness of property documents, poor quality of construction, lack of occupancy certificate, etc.  Zippserv was then founded in an effort to provide unique insights for home buyers to help them make their decision using transparent data driven scientific methodologies and the help of unbiased experts drawn from various streams of property validation and approval.

ZippServ Founders – Sudeep [Left] and Debashish [Right]

Zippserv’s tech enabled platform helps in verifying the veracity of ownership papers, validating legal wrangles, encroachment related issues, adherence to bye-laws and quality of construction. Zippserv today provides a one stop shop to alleviate any concern related to property purchase be it both old and new.

ZippServ Co-Founder Debashish Hota said

We are elated with the response that we have received in Bangalore in the past 15 months of our operations ever since our launch. This seed fund round will help us to scale rapidly to other cities and to also organically expand our portfolio of services to cater to commercial and industrial segments.

In line with recent government initiatives such as the Real Estate Regulatory Authority [RERA] announcement, our vision is also in line with it to bring in more transparency into the real estate sector. In fact our business model has been designed in such a way so as to champion the needs and concerns of home buyers, without any influence from developers or their patrons.

ZippServ, a real estate risk assessment platform had earlier launched a free Google Map-based Risk Assessment Tool ‘Zippserv Protect’. Last year when BBMP held the demolition drive to eradicate the lake and storm water drain encroachments, Zippserv made its in house technology freely available for Bengalureans who were confused with these sudden developments. Today it is being used by hundreds of home buyers, developers, legal professionals, land surveyors and government departments on a daily basis.

Zippserv was launched in December 2015 by Sudeep Anandapuram and Debashish Hota. They conduct over 400 property due-diligence related services monthly and to date are estimated to have saved over Rs. 300 crores of their customers’ precious earnings.

About ZippServ

ZippServ is an online platform providing comprehensive risk assessment for safeguarding real estate investments. The platform provides the right blend of professional expertise for legal & civil engineering due diligence, fraud and forgery detection, and technology to ascertain encroachments and city planning violations-all under one roof. For more information, please visit ZippServ

 

|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

News Corp VCCEdge,  India’s leading publisher of alternative investment, deals and startup news, data and information and part of globally diversified media, education and information services group, News Corp, has released its Startup Deal Report Q1 CY2017.

Capturing funding deal activities encompassing private equity, venture capital, angel/seed investment transactions for the seventeen quarters ending March 2017, the report also offers information on mergers and acquisitions with sector and region-wise analysis.

Highlights of Startup Deals report

Startup funding sees grim times

  • Startup funding activity slowed down drastically with deal-making slipping 47.45% vis-a-vis Q1 CY2016
  • Cumulative deal values dipped by 45.76% Q-o-Q

Consolidation soon after a record year of startup funding in the year 2015

  • M&A deals in the startup space witnessed a 75% jump Q-o-Q
  • Acquisition of Citrus Payments Solutions [$130mn], One Mobikwik [$41mn], ZipDial Mobile Solutions [$31mn] and Local Cube Commerce [$16mn] are amongst the top M&A deals

Investors show preference for late stage funding

  • Angel and seed investments fell both in volume and value terms with deal volumes reduced to half with 120 deals in Q1 CY2017 in comparison to 245 deals in the same period last year
  • Series A funding declined 65% in deal value on a Y-o-Y basis
  • Series B funding value improved 22% in the FY Q1 compared to the same period last year, despite deal numbers being lower by 16%.

Fin-tech in; Food-tech, Travel-tech on the way out

  • Fintech with 11 deals worth $18.5 mn, Food Tech with 8 deals worth $11.1 mn, Travel Tech with $11.3 mn from 4 deals, Health Tech with $8.43 mn from 10 deals and Real Estate Tech with 2 deals worth $10 mn were the top sectors that attracted investor interest
  • Health Tech remains a strong bet in terms of deals bagged

Bengaluru Outshines Delhi in Growth of Startup Funding Deals

  • 24% of start-up deals were cracked in Bangalore at a total deal value of $96 mn with 67.5% being at the seed stage
  • Second is Delhi-NCR in terms of deal volume with 38 deals worth $44 mn
  • 60% of deals in Mumbai were in the angel stage with cumulative deal values touching $34 mn
  • Hyderabad with 15 deals to the tune of $4mn and Chennai with 5 deals amounting to $12 mn made it to the top 5 investment destinations of India.
  • Investment pattern : Angel and seed investments seem to be the dominant theme across cities without exception.

Key 5 Startup deals in Q1 CY2017

  • Bengaluru-based ID Fresh Food India Pvt. Ltd [Packaged Foods & Meats category] raised $25mn
  • Bengaluru-based Cue Learn Pvt. Ltd [Education Services category] raised $15mn
  • Gurgaon-based Square Yards Consulting Pvt. Ltd [Internet Software & Services category], Noida-based Holiday Triangle Travel Pvt. Ltd [Real Estate-Tech category] and Mumbai-based Ulink Agritech Pvt. Ltd. [Fertilizers & Agricultural Chemicals category] raised $10mn.

Sharing his views on the News Corp VCCEdge Startup Deal analysis Q1 CY2017, Gaurav Roy, Business Head, VCCEdge, News Corp VCCircle said

A rise in Series-B funding even as seed and Series-A funding trends show a decline reflects investor cautiousness in early and mid-stage funding and the increasing focus on market-readiness for funding.

The relief however is that M&A deals have picked up momentum post-2015 coinciding with the drop in funding activity in the startup space, turning into an exit route for some promoters and a major source of funding for others. Enterprises which can work on a combination of strong revenue models and continuously updated technological know-how which ensures a great consumer experience will continue to attract investors.

About VCCEdge

VCCEdge is an online financial research platform of the VCCircle Network which is owned by the global diversified media, news, education and information services company – News Corp. VCCEdge offers information on mergers and acquisitions, private equity and venture capital transactions including deal terms, structures, deal amounts and valuations. It also contains entity information on all companies involved in the transactions including target companies, investors and advisors. For more information, visit VCCEdge

|In: Fintech|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Synechron, a global financial services consulting and technology services provider have announced the launch of two new, state-of-the-art digital innovation labs in Pune and Bengaluru to advance global, digital transformation initiatives for the financial services industry.

Synechron’s Financial Innovation Labs [FinLabs] act as an innovation hub that enables businesses to experience first-hand the latest digital technologies from blockchain and artificial intelligence, to voice recognition, drones and others to look at, touch and ‘feel’ real-world business solutions and advance fintech initiatives.

With Pune and Bengaluru FinLabs open to the industry and another new facility coming up in Hyderabad shortly, Synechron now has 8 FinLabs globally, with other labs located in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Charlotte and Fort Lauderdale. Synechron also plans to roll out a flagship FinLab in its New York HQ, in the coming months.

The India FinLabs in Pune and Bengaluru are fully operational as of now and are open to Synechron clients to experience the latest digital technologies and be energized and inspired to develop transformative solutions.

Visitors can do everything, from role playing the customer journey through a typical digital engagement scenario to  prototyping around new technologies, applications and accelerators including:

  • Artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning and data science
  • Blockchain applications using Ethereum, Hyperledger and Ripple
  • Data analytics and visualizations
  • Drones
  • Gamification models
  • Tablets, beacons, biometrics and mobile applications
  • Virtual reality and augmented reality
  • Voice recognition and natural language processing via Amazon Echo and Siri

Additionally, Synechron’s India FinLabs have introduced an interactive video wall for data visualization, recognizing that user experience [UX] is the key to customer engagement and a centerpiece for the bank branch of the future.

Faisal Husain, Co-founder and CEO, Synechron, said

Our vision for FinLabs was to create more than just a trendy collaboration space. Synechron has taken the innovation lab model to the next level by creating a truly immersive technology experience that fosters development of real business applications like our blockchain accelerators while supporting FinTech innovation. Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad are leading technology markets, and as we look to cultivate top tech talent and serve our clients, we are delighted to deliver this unique value.

David Horton, Managing Director and Head of Innovation at Synechron added

The financial services industry wants to embrace cutting-edge technology to advance business strategies. Each of the technologies we are featuring in FinLabs can help address key issues like regulation, cost pressure, efficiency, customer experience and engagement to deliver digital banking and achieve fintech’s promise of disruptive innovation that simplifies our world, and makes banking better.

More details can be found here

About Synechron

Synechron, one of the fastest-growing digital, business consulting & technology services providers, is a USD 400 million firm based in New York. Since inception in 2001, Synechron has been on a steep growth trajectory. For more information, please visit Synechron