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|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

YourDOST, a technology start-up aiming to establish a unique platform for mental well being and emotional support, has completed its first round of Angel funding. The venture which has been operational since December 2014 through the web portal, offers complete support to people looking to discuss any kind of emotional issues by providing them instant online access to experts along with the much required anonymity. YourDOST is also available to people on mobile now with the launch of its mobile app on android platform and available for free download from Android Play Store.

Commenting on the venture, Richa Singh, Co-Founder & CEO, YourDOST

With YourDOST we aim to create awareness and reduce the stigma associated with mental wellness in our society. We all face problems, stress, and anxiety at some point in our life but mostly we are not willing to talk about these fearing social implications, being judged and for the fear of being judged. We are confident that technology combined with empathy and right kind of experts will go a long way in helping people going through a various emotional and mental challenges and equipping them to better deal with it.

Bootstrapped for initial period of its operations, YourDOST has raised close to USD 400,000 [Rs. 2.5 crores] in Angel round to fund its marketing and expansion needs. Owing to the uniqueness of the idea, the start-up has been able to attract established entrepreneurs and professionals like Phanindra Sama [Redbus Founder], Aprameya Radhakrishna [TaxiForSure Founder], Aneesh Reddy [Capillary Founder], Nagesh Grandhi [Hyderabad Angels] and many more into its investor portfolio.

Started by Richa Singh, an IIT-Guhawati alumnus in partnership with Puneet Manuja, IIM-B alumunus & Prakhar Verma, a computer science graduate from BMSCE, Bangalore, in last 10 months of its operations, YourDOST has received tremendous response from the market with close to 70,000 users so far and the number growing at about 40% month on month. With 10,000 registered users currently, a team of 75+ experts service around 300 one to one interactions on a daily basis.

Adding further, Richa said

We are delighted with the response received from the users so far. We have received very good traction from the users by word of mouth and it is very encouraging for a young team like us. With the first round of funding in place and having such experienced people on board with us as investors and mentors, we are certain that YourDOST will benefit immensely from their association and guidance

YourDOST – Addressing the need gap

Access and awareness towards mental & emotional well-being is very restricted in India and comes with several taboos associated with it. Here are some facts highlighting this challenge

  • According to government estimates, 1 in 5 people in India need counselling, either psychological or psychiatric
  • For an estimated 70 million+ people living with psycho-social problems and disabilities, there are less than 50 government mental health establishments.
  • According to a report by WHO in 2011, 1 out of 7 people in India i.e. 15% of Indian population was suffering from depression in 2015, this has seen an alarming rise with 20% of Indian population being depressed today.
  • 50% of corporate India is suffering from chronic stress. In fact as per a survey by ASSOCHAM earlier this year, highlights that the rate of emotional problems such as anxiety and depression has increased by 45-50% among corporate employees in the last eight years.
  • According to medical experts, 4 in 5 people suffering from severe mental ailment in India choose not to treat it which causes early death by at least 15-20 years as compared to mentally healthy people

Dealing with societal pressure, pressure to perform and excel at work, family and marital issues, stress of studies, constant lifestyle comparison with the peer group due to over exposure to social media and several other factors have led to severe disturbances in our emotional stability. While the stress is on a constant rise, discussing it openly or dealing with it medically is still a taboo in our country.

This huge need gap and Richa Singh’s personal experience of a friend losing her life at IIT due to placement pressure led to birth of YourDOST to provide people with convenient yet anonymous access to experts consisting of life coaches, psychologists and other experienced individuals. Through this online platform which is available as a free service both through web portal and mobile app, users can choose to get into a live chat, find answers over email or book an appointment with the expert of their choice.

YourDOST team strongly believes that awareness at this stage is key; people need to know and acknowledge the importance of mental wellness, then comes the next step of seeking help.

About YourDOST

YourDOST is one of its kind online emotional wellness platform to get support from experts consisting of life coaches, psychologists and other experienced individuals. Launched in December 2014, YourDOST is available to people via its web platform & also on mobile through its recently launched mobile app on android platform. YourDOST allows instant access to users to a team of 75+ experts and share their problems through an online interface be it a live chat or email query or even book one on one interaction with the expert of their choice. The key aspect of this venture is that people are kept completely anonymous throughout the platform.

YourDOST aims to reduce the stigma attached to seeking help for mental wellness in our country and with the use of technology wants to make expert help widely and instantly available to people looking for emotional and mental well-being.

[Image Source* – YourDOST Blog]

|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

Shirsa Labs, an Ed-tech startup has raised USD 250K angel capital funding through ah! Ventures, a startup focused growth catalyst bridging ideas and money. Founded in 2013 by Sukhada Tendulkar & Mandar Desai, Shirsa Labs uses online engagement platform Planet of GUI to entertain and educate children mainly in the age group of 6-13. The deal was solely advised and syndicated by ah! Ventures and led to closure on its private equity investment platform, CLUBah

Shirsa Labs is India’s first dedicated content driven engagement learning platform for kids. Shirsa aims to stimulate the intellectual and learning skills of children by using a healthy combination of online and offline interactive methods.

It has multiple games, worksheets, videos, DIYs which engages kids and boosts their cognitive learning. Each offering is crafted using the most recent findings from the field of child development. Every child undergoes a free assessment and is provided with a detailed report on his/her cognitive profile with a customized program. This program is scheduled for kids to play 30 minutes a day and 3/4 times a week. A detailed quarterly report is sent to the parents to help them monitor child’s progress on the platform.

Sukhada Tendulkar, Co-Founder & CEO of Shirsa Labs said

In the larger context of children’s growth and development, we strongly felt that there is a huge open space where significant value can be created for children, parents and educators. Kids love play online, parents want actionable information and educators can teach better when children are motivated. We have connected these points and want Shirsa Labs to be a collaborator in this exciting eco-system that must work together.

Sukhada sees Shirsa Labs as a new category creator which she calls “enter-cation”; derived from ‘entertainment and education’.

Sukhada adds

Children today are exposed to multiple gadgets and online medium. There was a fight for my television time with my mom and today the exact same thing is happening for the gadget and internet time. The digital native generation deserves a better solution to the problem and we are here for all those young kids who love playing online.

Mandar Desai, Co-Founder & CFO of Shirsa Labs, further elucidates

Parents can be assured that children are safe on our platforms. We have the best content from across the world. Partnered with biggies like NatGeo, Discovery, and many more, gives us an access to tons of content which is loved by kids. Child safety is our utmost priority. Our scalability & real life connect positions us uniquely to deliver significant value to the young ones.

Through the online Economy, Children earn Geekos [the currency on the platform] which they spend to buy uniquely matched stuff from the platform. As we understand the child more on the platform through analytics, we generate insights and personalized recommendations for parents.

Kunal Ambasht, Director & COO, Shirsa Labs said

Its proposition philosophy is based on the most recent researches in India and other countries that agree on one common finding about the key role motivation plays in learning outcomes of children. Learning is the foundation of multiple cognitive skills and learning styles. Non-school based solution which complements the learning at schools for K1 to K8.

Our team is an interesting cohort of artists, technologists, educators and business professionals. All of us are driven by a common passion for providing equal opportunity for learning and development to children from a wide spectrum of social and economic background.

Shirsa has developed a multi-pronged approach to attract children using a personalized story-line, engage parents with quantified reporting and involve educational institutions with goal based co-curriculum lab solutions. Both virtual and real world tools have been utilized to create a comprehensive product for the three stakeholders mentioned above.

Manuel Fernandes, the Tech wizard at Shirsa Labs adds

Technology, smartphones, internet and data analytics are the most powerful tools at our disposal today. Used intelligently, they provide us an unprecedented opportunity for creating engaging products across multiple platforms and hence reaching out to millions.

The startup will use this round of funding to strengthen its team further and are in talks with senior industry people for the same. Shirsa aims to make Planet of Gui app, number 1 in edutainment category in India. With its flagship product the startup is eyeing at the entire global market. This is a global platform and team Shirsa is committed to reach to maximum potential.

Giving an investor’s perspective, Harshad Lahoti, Founder & CEO of ah! Ventures said

The market that Shirsa is targeting is phenomenally large. India has over 100 million students enrolled in K1- K8 which is almost 20 to 200 times that of US and UK respectively. Besides, evidence of increasing enrollment in private schools in rural India – from 18% in 2006 to 25% in 2011 to over 30% today – is proof enough that even rural India is exploring newer and innovative avenues of teaching and learning. This coupled with the fact that Shirsa has over 70,000+ registered students, access to over 2,000+ schools and unique content sharing partnership with the likes of NatGeo, Discovery and others have made a compelling case for investment for the CLUB ah! investors. ah! Ventures is thrilled to be a part of this journey.

This deal was concluded through ah! Ventures’ private equity investment platform, CLUB ah!. CLUB ah! is India’s first full-spectrum startup investment network and platform comprising of over 500 investors, including some of the renowned angels and early-stage VCs.

CLUB ah! platform today has over 4500+ startups, 465+ seed/angel investors and over 65 VCs & institutional investors, making it one of the largest platform of investors and startups. The network also recently secured its first profitable exit from Ed-tech venture Harness Handitouch within 2 years of its investment. CLUB ah! has till date invested close to INR 60 crores in over 20 startups spread across varied industries and domains, including Shirsa Labs.

Shirsa will be the second Ed-tech startup in recent times that ah! Ventures has helped raised capital for apart from iDreamCareer. Previously they have also invested in many other Ed-tech ventures like LogicRoots, TestBook, uFaber and Harness Handitouch.

ah! Ventures is in the process of closing 3 more deals in the coming weeks.

About Shirsa

Shirsa Labs, based on the latest findings about child learning & stimulation, has built an after-school world especially for children where learning is fun and personalized. Planet of Gui got its name from Joy Paul Guilford whose theory “Structure of Intellect” was a major breakthrough that lead to impacts on schools, teachers and parents around the world. For more information, please refer Shirsa labs

|In: Incubators|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

PayPal, the global leader in online payments have announced the selection of four new Financial Technology [FinTech] startups – CashFree, D-Rewards, Notifie & ftcash – as new entrants into its ‘Start Tank’ Incubation Center in Chennai. The announcement was made after the final round of pitching during the 4th Start Tank Incubation Challenge on Friday, which saw more than 125 startups apply for a place in the incubator this year.

Start Tank demonstrates PayPal’s commitment to enabling the startup ecosystem in India. Launched in 2013, the incubator provides an obligation-free environment for early-stage startups to evolve at its exclusive facility in PayPal’s technology center in Chennai. PayPal offers incubated startups with technology and business mentorship, infrastructure support and networking opportunities with both investors and customers.

As PayPal looks to transform money and become an everyday part of people’s financial lives, Start Tank has aligned its focus around startups in the Payments and FinTech space. Applications called for startups focused on core payment features such as wallets, gateways and remittances, as well as payments enablers and adjacencies like bio-metric authentication, security and financial inclusion.

Anupam Pahuja, General Manager, Technology, Asia-Pacific, PayPal said

I am excited to see the entrepreneurial space in India take-off in just a short few years. Today, India ranks third among global startup ecosystems in the world PayPal’s Start Tank has been tremendously successful since its inception. All of our incubated startups so far have either successfully secured funding or are finalizing strategic partnerships. We are delighted to welcome this promising new batch of startups into Start Tank, and look forward to them scaling even greater heights through our incubation program.

ThinkTankWinners

Start Tank Incubation Challenge winners

CashFree

Founded by Akash Sinha & Reeju Datta, enables payments to provide a better buying experience for consumers making online and cash transactions. By keeping payments at their core and building tools on top of it, they want to simplify the way people pay for their products they buy every day.

Reeju Datta, Founder, CashFree said

Being associated with a brand like PayPal is a huge step forward for a young payments startup such as CashFree. Globally speaking, we don’t think there is anyone better than PayPal to handle problems associated with payments on a large scale. We hope to leverage this  expertise of PayPal, specifically in the areas of risk management as that will be one of the key issues for our startup as we scale-up.

D-Rewards

Founded by Vijay Krishna & Shoaib Mohammed is a cloud-based CRM tool for offline small business retailers that enables end-to-end customer engagement using loyalty as a platform for profiling. It features in-house analytics & targeted promotions, bridging the gap between the business and its customers.

Vijay Krishna, Co-Founder & Head of Business Strategy, D-Rewards said

D-Rewards was designed to bring ease of customer engagement for businesses, keeping in mind the customers and the various ways through which they can be pampered. It has been an exciting journey so far, engaging 20000 consumers part of 48 outlets across Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad using our product to give out 8.5 lakhs in loyalty & selectively target customers with customized offers.

However, being incubated at Start Tank opens up new windows of opportunities for us. We currently don’t have an advisor or mentor on board to guide us through the process of setting up a startup and we hope to benefit from PayPal’s expertise in this field.

ftcash

Founded by Sanjeev Chandak, Deepak Kothari  & Vaibhav Lodha aims to empower the under-served micro-merchant sector with the power of mobile payments. It provides seamless solutions for micro-merchants to accept payments through multiple payment instruments including debit cards, credit cards and mobile wallets.

Sanjeev Chandak, Chief Executive Officer, ftcash said

It feels great to win PayPal’s Start Tank incubation challenge and we look forward to the experience. It has been less than a year since we launched Ftcash and there is still a long way to go. We hope to leverage PayPal’s technical and business acumen to improve our product as well as service offerings to our customers.

Notifie

Founded by Dr. N. Raja Chinnathamby & Arun Nedunchezian aspires to be the one-stop messaging platform for a two-way business to customer communications via Smartphones.

The platform supports various multimedia formats and aims to be the ideal replacement for traditional SMS. Notifie currently has five paying customers from the education, financial and retail industries.

Arun Nedunchezian, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Notifie said

For a startup, validation is everything and to receive that from a company like PayPal is highly satisfying. Notifie currently has five paid clients. However, there are several factors that goes into making a startup successful and we look forward to learning those nuances from PayPal. We look up to the company as a successful startup and hope to get their support in helping us reach the next level.

PayPal’s Start Tank incubator was launched in 2013 in partnership with The Indus Entrepreneurs [TiE] Chennai. The Start Tank incubator has previously hosted six startups and provides access to global mentors, angel investors and venture capitalists.

Three companies incubated at Start Tank – Kobster, Fantain and DoPartTime – successfully graduated in May 2015. Kobster also secured an undisclosed amount of seed investment, while PiQube, another startup currently being incubated at Start Tank, recently raised $500,000 from The HR Fund.

In 2014, PayPal’s ecosystem work was recently recognized with the ‘Ecosystem Enablement for Startups’ award from Zinnov, in July 2015.

About PayPal Start Tank

PayPal India formally launched its startup incubator in association with TiE Chennai in November 2013. The exclusive facility in PayPal’s Chennai technology center provides an obligation-free environment as well as technology and business mentorship for select startups to evolve. It has an office area of more than 11,000 square feet with a world-class incubation space, state-of-the-art conference rooms and other amenities.

Start Tank is located globally across PayPal offices in London and Chennai and provides access to global mentors, angel investors and venture capitalists. More information about Start Tank here

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

Imagine a world where all information was personalized just for you and your specific areas of interest. This might seem like an unreachable goal, but this is a new norm for the Indian e-commerce Industry. abof.com [All About Fashion], an online one-stop fashion brand for clothing, footwear and accessories targeted at the millennials, is seeking to redefine the Indian online shoppers’ experience by showcasing personalized and curated shop-able content that is sharply customized to the tastes and interests of the individual.

abof.com recognizes that every person has what it takes to be reborn as a star and seeks to make its consumers dress fashionably and look famous.

abof has chosen to innovate in the presentation of user experience, design of the website and selection of merchandise. This is presented as exciting dose of fashion content, style tips, trends and fashion news, which combines the visually stunning picture-led approach of Instagram with short and sweet Twitter-like shopable stories. This approach may seem alienating and even chaotic to a mature audience, abof believes that their millennial consumers connect with this approach comfortably.

Prashant Gupta, President & Chief Executive Officer, abof.com said

We seek to make abof the one stop destination for all the fashion needs of the millennials. Apart from adopting a tone of voice and visual language which we believe will connect with them better, we have gone one step  further to deliver personalized shop-able content to our customers based on their information, real-time behavior and preferences. Our ‘What’s Hot’ section is in fact the landing page of abof.com which defines our commitment to inspiration and discovery based commerce.

Built for fashion conscious millennials, who have a unique take on their personal style, abof begins its engagement with its customers right from the start with a unique style quiz that helps understand the persona of the consumer and the style preference. Based on this information, abof customizes its ‘What’s Hot’ section to deliver more accurate, relevant, and personalized content that truly matters to them.

About abof.com

abof.com is a go-to online destination for the best in fashion shopping, news and trend watching! abof.com has got the most trendy and celebrity-inspired apparel, footwear and accessories that belong in every fashionista’s wardrobe in India. If one wants to get famous, abof assures fast deliveries of the best in branded clothing! Start Shopping Now!

|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

ORIGA leasing, a highly innovative asset financing companies has raised INR 7 CR from ah! Ventures, 500 Startups and other high profile investors across sectors.

ORIGA Leasing was set up by Shrirang Tambe in May 2013 with a core philosophy of ‘Access to Finance’. It provides alternative financing through its asset leasing solutions to high growth companies across segments such as healthcare, sanitation, waste management, alternative energy, manufacturing and service oriented businesses.

ORIGA Leasing focusses mainly on leasing of assets which generate revenues for its clients. It has developed an highly innovative solution of Asset Life Cycle Management [ALCM] which helps its clients conserve their capital for working capital and marketing while ORIGA takes care of their assets in totality. Thus, the internal accruals and leasing funds the next expansion plan.

ORIGA is the first company in the alternative financing ecosystem with respect to asset leasing for high growth business models. According to industry reports, the market for alternative financing is conservatively estimated to be $50 billion.  There is a huge gap between the conventional financing available and the need of new age companies. ORIGA is critically positioned right in between to bridge that gap.

Shrirang who is excited to have a technology fund ‘500 Startups’ as its investor said

One of the key aspects of ORIGA Leasing is to invest significantly in building a robust technology-right from customer acquisition to asset management. In addition to innovativeness in our leasing products, we also aspire to become world’s largest fintech leasing company. We expect to touch an asset book for USD 100 million within the next three to four years just in India. Fund raised will be used towards leasing of assets, people and technology.

According to Ulhas Deshpande, Investor and Board member ORIGA

It is an innovative business model that would immensely help mid size entrepreneurs gain access to much needed funding. In fact the market opportunity is huge considering that 46% of the SME financing in Europe and 72% of SME financing in America takes place through asset leasing. In India, it is less than 1% of the total credit disbursed.

ORIGA is upbeat about having strong technology in place to deliver the leasing product. This, it believes, will not only scale up the business but will also provide opportunities to take it to other geographies facing a significant credit gap.

Giving an investors’ perspective, Harshad Lahoti, Founder & CEO, ah! Ventures says

ORIGA  Leasing is one of the first companies in India to provide asset leasing solutions for the high growth unbanked and under-banked SMEs. Their hybrid model offers a perfect blend between online discovery and offline delivery of financial products thus helping achieve scale. We believe that the each vertical of Origa has the potential to touch millions of dollars by themselves and ORIGA could, within the next decade, very well aspire to become a bank and contribute to the ongoing financial inclusion drive of India.

Pankaj Jain, Partner at 500 Startups said

The most exciting thing about ORIGA is that it is democratizing how SMEs in India can procure and manage assets that typically have a high capex. This is an incredibly large market that’s been underserved by traditional sources of credit. It’s another example of disrupting the status quo in Indian finance and we are thrilled to be a part of the story.

Both ah! Ventures & 500 Startups invested in ORIGA through the CLUB ah! platform. CLUB ah! is India’s first full-spectrum startup investment network and platform comprising of over 500 investors, including some of the renowned angels and early-stage VCs.

The network also recently secured its first profitable exit from Harness Handitouch within 2 years of its investment. CLUB ah! has till date invested close to INR 30 crores in over 13 startups spread across varied industries and domains.

CLUB ah! platform today has over 4000+ startups, 460+ seed/angel investors and over 68 VCs & institutional investors, making it one of the largest platform of investors and startups. The network also recently secured its first profitable exit from Harness Handitouch within 2 years of its investment. CLUB ah! has till date invested close to INR 55 crores in over 17 startups spread across varied industries and domains, including ORIGA.

Nitesh Damani, Director of Sugal & Damani Group and one of the key investors said

ORIGA Leasing, through its business model, will contribute significantly to various initiatives of the Government such as Swacchh Bharat Abhiyan, Make in India and Startup India. It was exciting to see that all the sectors ORIGA started off with in 2013 are foremost in the initiatives taken by the present Government.

Shrirang concludes saying

Financing through asset leasing for revenue generating assets creates capacities, capacities creates jobs and income, which finally goes towards contributing to the GDP of the nation. We are inculcating a new thought – financial inclusion at B2B level.

About ORIGA

Guided by the philosophy of “Access to Finance”, ORIGA extends asset leasing solutions to enterprises that aim for business expansion. ORIGA puts more emphasis on innovation and high growth business model than on the credit history of the applicant. It thus acts as a growth engine for entities at all stages. The leasing solutions offered by ORIGA to the entities help them build capacities that empower them financially to scale up and provide the last mile delivery of their services and goods in a highly effective manner. For more information, please refer ORIGA

|In: Hyperlocal|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Helpchat, the chat-based personal assistant app that helps users get more things done, records a phenomenal 1 million downloads in just eight months since launch. The app is rated 4.5 on the Google Play Store. The unprecedented response to the app is testimony to the company’s unrelenting effort in simplifying daily tasks and becoming the default behaviour of users for a variety of daily needs.

It has registered maximum traction in Bengaluru, followed by Delhi-NCR and then Mumbai. The services that are most popular with users include mobile recharges, laundry, food ordering, household services, shopping deals and coupons etc.

Helpchat is a personal assistant app that completes task on users behalf, has passed on $6 million worth of user requests to its partner businesses in last 3 months. Helpchat customer promise is to provide user the best available option for a particular task and get it done on user’s behalf.

Speaking on the success of Helpchat, Ankur Singla, Founder and CEO, Helpchat, said

Since inception, we, at Helpchat have had a single-minded devotion to amplifying the users’ ability to get things done. The overwhelming response is a manifestation of our committed efforts. We use these figures as impetus to push us further and propel us to achieve greater things as we go ahead.

Helpchat has recently launched an automated conversational feature to help users schedule their laundry, order food, get suggestions on the best shopping deals etc. Forward-thinking initiatives such as this have enabled Helpchat to carve a special niche for itself in the consumer mind-scape.

As Helpchat has already registered a million downloads, its current focus is going to be on delivering a superb experience to its existing users. Through word-of-mouth publicity it aims to soon reach its target of one lakh daily active users.

About Helpchat

Helpchat is the personal assistant app that helps you get more things done. Be it anything, from recharging your phone to tech support, from travel booking to holiday guidance, from ordering food to shopping assistance to finding deals & coupons, from finding gifts to suggesting the best electronic item, from doing a web check-in to getting your laundry done – Helpchat can get all of them done for you.

|In: Android|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

InstaCab, a venture founded by IIT KGP alumni, is an InterCity cab aggregator has re-branded the product and services to new brand name: Roder.in. Roder.in aims to make over-expensive outstation cab travel affordable and accessible to everyone. Moreover, Roder.in has expanded the services to 12 more cities in North India.

The venture of the parent company, Vecto Technologies Pvt Ltd,started off as a marketplace for taxi industry, the first product was launched in Aug 2014. After generating GMV of INR 1 million in just under 4 months, the team identified serious problems in the outstation taxi industry, which had been neglected by the major players in the market.

They aim to eliminate “the return-fare” concept from the market by optimizing resources so that customer only pays for the distance travelled. With a fleet of 2500 drivers, does not own cars, its “one-way rates” operations are spread across more than 350 routes covering North India [increase from 32 routes last month], providing good connectivity with well-maintained cabs at affordable prices.

Roder.in has expanded and started accepting booking requests from the following cities: Chandigarh, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Agra, Dehradun, Rishikesh, Haridwar, Jaipur, Ajmer, Pushkar, Kanpur, including Delhi-NCR.

Roder.in will continue expansion to new markets in North India for the next quarter to create a wide network of cabs, with which customers will be able to avail one-way rates to travel between cities across North India.

It offers three types of cars: mainly hatchbacks, sedans and multi-utility vehicles. With this, the initial months of this year from January to October has seen over 1500 outstation trips with average size being to the tune of 5,000 generating a GMV of around INR 8 million.

Roder.in is a technology platform and aggregates cabs for outstation travels. They maintain and optimize fleets across cities in a particular region to provide one-way rates to the customers. They charge commission per ride provided to the operators. They focus heavily on driver verification and cab verification to ensure customer safety.

Do give Roder spin & share your feedback/comments [Download Link]

About Roder.in

Roder.in, an online marketplace of outstation cabs, founded by IIT-KGP alumni is revolutionizing travel between cities by offering cabs at half the rates than market for one-way journeys. Launched in 2014, they are growing at tremendous pace and aim to make long distance travel affordable & accessible to everyone.

|In: Entrepreneurship|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Ever since the Modi government has come in to power, it has resulted in major changes in the economic landscape. Significant change has come in the way startups have mush-roomed in India. With the government moving in the right direction to make India a ‘Startup Nation’ it has become a boon for investors, entrepreneurs & aspiring entrepreneurs i.e. the entire startup eco-system.

At the recently commenced Economic Times Startup Awards 2015, Nikesh Arora, President of SoftBank stated “We are a country where the demographics are right.And we are at a point where technology is going to allow us to leapfrog tremendous amounts of developments that have happened in the West”. Ankit Bhati, the co-founder of taxi app Ola which won the Startup of the Year award stated “It is springtime for entrepreneurship in India, as young people with ideas build technology-led ventures that are changing the way Indians live, work and play“.

India is on the cusp of an entrepreneurial revolution. However, successful entrepreneurship is the ultimate balancing act. Endless optimism, unwavering courage and dogged determination of founders have to be balanced with thoughtful leadership, intellectual honesty and maturity to overcome gritty challenges. Fueling the passion of entrepreneurship, Delhi chapter of TiE has come up with the 2015 edition of the TiEcon Delhi on 16th, 17th October.

Key Highlights of TiEcon Delhi 2015

TiE the Knot – This exclusive forum will feature high potential companies [tech & non-tech] who have demonstrable products and are looking to raise their first seed investment. Five such high potential companies will be shortlisted and will pitch to a select group of individual investors who will be looking to make on-spot invest commitments in a high impact televised format covered by CNBC TV18. More about it here
Mentoring in Motion – Mentoring in Motion in association with Carzonrent. Get an opportunity to get mentored on the move literally, TiEcon Delhi 2015 gives you an opportunity to pick up the Charter Member and accompany him to TiEcon in a pre-booked cab. Dedicated face time with the Charter Member gives the delegates an opportunity to pitch/discuss and get mentored by some of the best minds. More about it here
Chai with Chartered members – Meet designated TiE Charter Members over tea and coffee at pre-specified lounges in an intimate setting. Hear their stories and get to know them up close and personal. More about it here
Mini MBA for entrepreneurs – The TiE Institute we will be hosting a series of sessions/workshops @ TiEcon Delhi 2015, covering critical aspects in areas such as fund raising, personal branding, attracting talent, building partnerships and so on. The sessions will cover the basics and deliver practical and tangible insights for entrepreneurs which are what is required to succeed rather than just another success story. More about it here
TiEcon Delhi attracted more than 1500 participants last year, and is likely to exceed that number this time, since there is no better opportunity for entrepreneurs to connect with potential mentors, investors and collaborators.

TiE Hackathon

With an aim to support industry-disrupting, and innovative digital solutions and to fuel the thriving Indian entrepreneurial landscape, TiE along with HackerEarth would have a 2-day hackathon. The Themes are for developers to create breakthrough digital technologies, products or business models across three categories. The Hackathon will be a 24-hour marathon of learning, creativity, building stuff, big enough to transform businesses and industries by re-inventing business processes, operational efficiencies and customer service innovations. For more information, please refer this link

Agenda & Registration

TiEcon Delhi is a 2-day event that is scheduled on 16th, 17th October.  You can have a look at the complete agenda in ‘Agenda’ section of TiEcon Delhi. Vani Kola, 2x Entrepreneur & MD of Kalaari Capital would chair TiEcon Delhi. The key highlight is the Fire-Side chat on 17th October with Ritesh Agarwal, Founder, OYO Rooms who is definitely an inspiration to many aspiring entrepreneurs.

There is awesome line-up of Speakers spanning different industry verticals namely e-commerce, e-learning, social entrepreneurship etc. You can expect some excellent tips on Starting Up, Scaling Up, Getting Funded etc.

You can register for the TiEcon Delhi here The registration fees are as below:

If you are an entrepreneur or aspiring to be an entrepreneur or willing to join a early-stage/growth-stage startup than you should definitely not miss the power-packed TiEcon Delhi 2015 You can follow TiE Delhi & TiEcon Delhi here & here.