Online Bus Ticketing website TicketGoose raises $2.9 million funding

Online bus ticketing portal TicketGoose, has $2.9 million (Rs 18 crore) in fresh funding from US-based investor Indventure. The fund raised will be used to further enhance overall portal development and workforce.

Ticketgoose provides information like price, availability and booking facility for buses to more than 3000 destinations in South India and currently have more than 250 bus travel partners.

Launched in August 2007 TicketGoose is a ticketing web portal launched with a goal to provide online services to everyone travelling by bus. It is considered as strong contender of another famous online bus ticketing portal - RedBus.in, although RedBus offer its services to almost all Indian regions TicketGoose is more concentrated to south of India.

TicketGoose is promoted by Chennai based Efficsys InfoTech India Pvt. Ltd. Efficsys, established in 2007. As per TechinAsia website last year, the startup was processing 4,000 to 5,000 ticket bookings a day, which led to $8.19 million in sales revenue for that year. The team is aiming at $20.5 million in revenue for 2013.

TicketGoose users can also book the return ticket and can also cancel the tickets online. TicketGoose ease the customers to book bus tickets by walking into its channel partner outlet which includes Corporate Sectors and Ticketing Agents. Ticketgoose is also fast expanding its IT software solutions for private Omni Bus Operators which will enable them to go online and offer their inventory on real time basis.

Dhoom 3 the Game launched on Windows Phone

99Games Online Private Limited in collaboration with Yash Raj Films Private Limited (YRF) has launched Dhoom:3 The Game exclusively on Windows Phone today. An endless 3D racing game where the player dons the digital avatar of Aamir Khan’s character in the movie (slated for release on 20th December), is chased by Abhishek Bachchan and Uday Chopra, who play two cool cops. To get into the characters’ skin and onto their bikes, all you need to do is download the game from the Windows Phone Store.

The  graphics used in the 26MB download size movie based game are indeed slick and sharp with cool cops and superbikes, mean streets and a tenacious anti-hero.

Set against the backdrop of Chicago, the game opens with a heist by the character played by Aamir Khan. He then needs to dodge the crime-fighting duo comprising ACP Jai Dixit and Ali (Abhishek Bachchan and Uday Chopra). What ensues is a thrilling, action-packed chase on super bikes through the mean streets of Chicago. To win, players have to overcome heavy traffic and dodge obstacles, collect coins and achieve the maximum score.

If you play sharp and smart, you can arm yourself with cool power-ups. While the powerful Sonic Pulse weapon will blow away everything in your path, the Shield protects you from traffic and bombs. Players can use the Nitro Boost to achieve maximum speed and zip ahead. Apart from the cool bikes and suit upgrades, these power-ups can help you improve your score and climb the Leaderboard.

"With Dhoom:3 The Game, we have pushed the boundaries of mobile gameplay. The game delivers amazingly slick graphics and an immersive action-packed gameplay for Windows Phone users," said Rohit Sobti, Vice President – Licensing & Merchandising, YRF.

Rohith Bhat, CEO, 99Games Online Pvt. Ltd. said, "Dhoom:3 The Game is the first mobile game we have developed since we signed a multi-year, multi-title licensing agreement with YRF Licensing, for developing and publishing mobile games based on the Dhoom franchise. It’s been an exciting journey, and trust me, this game really brings together the best of Dhoom:3 and the Windows platform for a deeply immersive user experience."

Safecity.in Mapping Unsafe areas for Women in India

Safecity.in is a new portal that provide information & aggregation platform to help identify hotspots in a city where women abuse,verbal comments, graphic behavior, menace or any type of sexual harassment has been reported. Any women can report any bad incidence happened to them to website which in turn identify locations where women have experienced or witnessed any type of sexual harassment. This platform only provides information based on voluntary unverified reports.

Any one can submit report of bad behaviours against women on portal in any cities of India by searching the city from search box and share the incident by writing details of it. One can submit report as news, pictures or even videos.

One can also submit report via mobile android app - SafeTrac and also via tweet over twitter using hashtags #pinthecreep or #safecity and help the portal to map unsafe areas over a map and aggregate all the reports.

As per the number of incidence reported in the portal, region in and around New Delhi lead all other Indian region with 789 indecent behaviour against women till date followed by Hyderabad region,

One of the best feature of portal is user can get alerts as emails of any kind of sexual harassment in 1-100 KM of his/her living area.

One of a anonymous user reports incident of Chandni Chowk, New Delhi location she wrote - "While walking down the streets of chandni chowk during afternoon , two men bumped into me and pinched my breasts and then making weird facial expressions."

The portal has different wherein you can submit reports and get alerts such as - catcalls/Whistles, chain snatching, commenting, indecent exposure, sexual invites, rape/sexual assault, touching or groping etc.

Although internet penetration in India is only 12% something and women of rural areas where Internet is still a luxury kind of thing and SafeCity.in might not get report submission from rural areas and may not even managed to map unsafe areas in rural regions. Nevertheless, this good effort made by the portal might alert the urban women population on unsafe areas around them.

Snap2life mobile app connects printed world to the web

Snap2Life is an augmented realty based mobile app that in short combines the printed world to the Web. The snap2life app detects preset images and links the user in seconds with defined websites, images and product videos or sweepstakes.

If you search something on Google it will show you results of probably million pages online and only from web world however all that is missing the print media and billboards, Snap2Life fill this gap and include print world too when you shot an image via this mobile app.

The Snap2Life App for iPhone and Android Devices link, the user through the photographing an image in seconds to image films, Product videos, websites or sweepstakes. The subject here is the key.

The snap (shot image) can be anything like the metro sign , the bus stop , the fast-food chain , the drugstore chain, petrol station brand, the parking sign , the logo of the road card provider , a snap of the cinema chain or a newspaper logos. Snap2Life app will than you the results page with result from not just online content but it could be from print world too like - calendar,newspapers, magazines, catalogs and posters which will vary depending upon the shot images.

The company claims that Snap2Life is better than a QR Code since they just need the motive and no special code. The company explains that magazines, catalogs or posters are read on daily by millions of people however related content and offers can not be made ​​available to them when they read them, Snap2Life does this by creates a direct link between a subject (image captured by mobile via Snap2Life app) and its associated online content.

The app is developed by Prisma Global Limited based out of Mumbai and Berlin and the company has also won The Mobby 2013 award acknowledged as a distinctive mobile application in the Augmented Realty sector and was accepted as the most innovative and state-of-the-art technology. The company was recognized for the 'Best use of mobile media in advertisement' in the category of Marketing and Advertising.

Musafir.com a Travel Portal with Sachin Tendulkar as stakeholder launches in India

Today, a new travel portal Musafir.com launched in India with Sachin Tendulkar as a minority stakeholder in it as well as brand ambassador of portal. Musafir.com is UAE-based travel portal and Sachin hold 7.5% stake in it. The master blaster Sachin Tendulkar launched the portal in a press conference in Mumbai with turban on his head and even named his this turban face character as - 'Shekhu Shekhawat'.

"Musafir.com has been the most different from all the ads i have done till date" said Sachin Tendulkar at launch.

Musafir.com is the UAE's first premium-experience travel website now ready to launch operations in India. Currently it offer flights to over 3,000 destinations and stays in over 46,000 properties around the world.The company is now venturing in the exciting Indian travel market with the promise to establish the same company ethos which made musafir a success in the UAE.

Musafir.com was founded by Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Thani, Sachin Gadoya and Albert Dias in August 2007 and was inaugurated by Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Thani on April 23, 2009.

With Sachin on board of Musafir.com's promotion the travel portal might give stiff competetion to leading online travel agencies (OTAs) such as MakeMyTrip, Yatra.com or ClearTrip. Although these OTAs, sell only about 15% of international tickets sold daily and rest 85% are sold by mostly brick-and-mortar travel agents.

Sachin Tendulkar is the second celebrity in the last two years roped in by travel companies as a stakeholder. Last year, actor Salman Khan bought a minority stake in Yatra.com.

RedBus.in launches App for Windows devices

RedBus.in, India's largest online bus ticketing company has launched the redBus.in app for Windows 8 and Windows Phone. The app delivers several new features now available to Windows users. These include directions to boarding points, bus tracking, journey tips, and history as well as instant notifications for bus location and special offers – right on the home screen. Powered by Windows Azure, the Bus Buddy feature comes into play when a bus has GPS tracking or for providing helpful reminders to customer such as "carry an umbrella", "carry a charger", etc.

You can now download the app right away from the Windows Phone Store and the Windows Store

RedBus.in is offering tickets for over 12,000 routes across India including 700+ luxury bus operators. Other key players which provide bus booking via mobile apps are - PayTM and MakemyTrip which bus booking via SMS also.

"The redBus.in app leverages the best of Windows to ensure users have a uniquely differentiated experience. We are especially happy about features such as instant notifications, bus tracking and directions to boarding points,” said Joseph Landes, General Manager – Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt. Ltd. He further added, "The Windows Phone Store and Windows Store are growing at an unprecedented rate, which underscores the growing consumer and developer momentum for Windows devices."

Commenting on the collaboration between redBus.in and Microsoft, Phanindra Sama, CEO, said, "The redBus.in Windows app is ideal for the modern consumer who is always on the move and to whom time is of essence. Windows Phone and Windows 8 are the most trusted and widely used platforms and therefore we are excited to launch the redBus.in app on these devices."

RedBus.in also announced a special offer wherein Windows 8 users can get Rs. 75 off for a minimum purchase of a Rs. 500 ticket. The offer is available until 31st December, 2013 at select retail outlets.

Intel Capital Invested in Savaari and Perptuuiti

Intel Capital has invested $65Mn in 16 tech startups including two Indian tech startups - Savaari, a Bangalore based Car Rental startup and Perpetuuiti Technosoft, a Mumbai-based enterprise IT company. Aaprt from India Intel Capital announced 16 new investments spanning 9 countries and totaling $65 million.

Savaari provides online car rental services in India currently for 60 cities of the country through 158 vendors. The Bangalore based startup had previously raised Rs.5 crores of funding from Inventus Capital. Savari so far has covered 1 crore KMs since 2006, and did 10 Lac trips.

Perpetuuiti Technosoft on other hand provides services such as business continuity consulting, IT disaster recovery management and business process automation. Mumbai based Perpetuuiti has customers like TCS, IBM, Vodafone and others.

Intel Capital this time has invested in 16 startups of varied sectors such as cloud, datacenter, mobile technologies and consumer-related services. Intel Capital is Intel's global investment and M&A organization, makes equity investments in innovative technology start-ups and companies worldwide and so far invested more than US$11 billion in over 1,322 companies in 54 countries.

Other than 2 Indian Startups Intel Capital's other investment includes  cloud consultancy CloudFX (Singapore); cloud storage software provider Cloudian(Japan/USA); community website and services platform CSDN (China); 3-D software developer DotProduct(USA); cloud file service Fileforce (Japan); interactive video platform Interlude (Israel); high-speed connectivity products company Lintes Technologies (Taiwan); mobile news syndicator Mobiles Republic (France/USA); visual merchandising and analytics solutions Prism Skylabs (USA); hybrid storage provider Reduxio Systems (Israel); chip simulation acceleration Rocketick (Israel);semiconductor materials developer SBA Materials (USA); open source database solutions SkySQL (Finland); and wireless electricity developer WiTricity (USA).

Solar Startup Claro Energy get funding from Angel investors

Just few weeks back we have published a story on how solar startup in India is booming like never before, this time its Delhi based Claro Energy which has raised undisclosed amount of funding from a group of angel investors in India, Singapore, the US and Canada.

Claro Energy offers solar-powered water pumping solutions to meet irrigation water and drinking water needs of rural population in power-deficit regions in India.

The investment was led by Sheetal Bahl who is the MD of startup consultancy cum angel network Growx Ventures and an independent angel investor. Other investors include Abraham Thomas (co-founder at Quandl), Arun Singhal (MD at Standard Chartered Bank) and Kashyap Deorah - a serial entrepreneur who recently sold his new mobile payments venture JustChalo to OpenTable.

Claro claims gross margins of 30-35 per cent. But cashflow is volatile, as a lot of it goes in giving bank guarantees (for participating in tenders) or in ramping up the payroll.

Sometime back Claro told Business Standard that - The key constraint is funding, or the lack of it, which could hurt growth. Though its model is not capex heavy — it places an order for equipment when it gets one — lack of capital will inhibit its ability to grow. It doesn’t have access to working capital; a credit line of ~1-2 crore could do it a world of good. Banks don’t give unsecured lending, and want collateral.

Now that Claro Energy has got the funding as desired the funds will surely give a boost to startup of young entrepreneurs - Soumitra Mishra and Kartik Wahi who are just 29 odd years of age who has also selected among India's Hottest Young Entrepreneurs by BusinessWorld.

Recently Claro sets up one of India's largest solar powered tube well pump in Patna Bihar with capacity of 7.5HP AC solar powered pump.

Apart from Irrigation/ solar power water pump the startup is also providing a wide range of portable solar powered water purification systems. These systems are ideal for remote villages where water purification and electrical power are unavailable. These systems come Solar photovoltaic Electrically Powered for areas without electrical power.

Solaborate is a Social & Collaboration Platform for Tech Professionals and companies

Solaborate is a new social and collaboration platform dedicated to technology professionals and companies, allowing them to connect, collaborate and create an ecosystem around products and services. Solaborate provides technology professionals a central place with the right tools and services to collaborate in real-time in order to make them more productive.

Today, Solaborate has launched into public beta and welcomes wider use of its real-time communication and social productivity tools with the launch of its public beta and a new Solaborate mobile app for Android. Integrating most of its currently available Web features, through Solaborate’s mobile app users can access personal, company, product and service profiles while sending and receiving messages, posting on walls, asking questions, providing commentary, discovering people, companies and more.



In May, Los Angeles Based Startup -Solaborate has received $1M in seed funding, which the company has used to perfect its platform, taking it from private to public beta in just five short months. As part of this move, Solaborate now offers audio calling, video conferencing, file sharing and screen sharing along with social and collaboration capabilities via easy, powerful integrations with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+.

Solaborate is a new way for the technology community to be more productive. Technology professionals and companies are invited to connect, collaborate and discover opportunities while creating an ecosystem around products and services. The public beta will feature top global technology companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, SAP, Facebook, IBM, Samsung and Cisco. Users can now post on a wall, follow, message, share rich media content and much more.

Unlike other social and collaboration platforms, Solaborate allows video calling straight from the browser and simultaneous use of screen sharing with video calling, without downloads or plug-ins. Users can also send instant messages and share photos and rich media files straight from their browser. Companies can use Solaborate to support and demonstrate products and services while offering a more personalized customer experience.



"We are excited to announce that Solaborate is now publicly available both on the web and mobile to everyone in the technology ecosystem. Our mission is to connect technology professionals and provide a dedicated place for you, your company and your products and services by providing all the tools and services to allow you to be more productive. We understand that it’s important for technology professionals to be able to stay connected and engaged, whether they’re at the office or on the go," said Labinot Bytyqi, the Founder and CEO of Solaborate.

Li-Fi is a New Faster Alternative to Wi-Fi

A new data connectivity technology has been invented by Chinese scientist named as - Li-Fi (Light-Fidelity), it is a label for wireless-communication systems using light as a carrier instead of traditional radio frequencies, as in Wi-Fi — Wireless-Fidelity.

In an experiment in Shanghai's Fudan University of China, four computers were successfully connected to internet through 1-watt LED bulb using light as a carrier instead of traditional radio frequencies, as in Wi-Fi.

Chi, who leads a Li-Fi research team including scientists from the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences explained that the new discovery dubbed as 'Li-Fi', a light bulb with embedded microchips can produce data rates as fast as 150 megabits per second, which is speedier than the average broadband connection in China.

The new Li-Fi technology will much cheaper as well as much efficient and speedier than traditional Wi-Fi technology that existed almost in every offices and netizens' urban homes worldwide. 10 sample Li-Fi kits will be on display at the China International Industry Fair that will start from November 5 in Shanghai.

Li-Fi has the advantage of being able to be used in electromagnetic sensitive areas such as in aircraft, nuclear power plants, oil & gas installations and other places without causing interference. However, the light waves used cannot penetrate walls which makes Li-Fi significantly more secure relative to Wi-Fi.

If the light is blocked, then the signal will be cut off and in order to use Li-Fi one has to replace old-fashioned incandescent bulbs with LED light bulbs. However there is long way to go for Li-fi to become as commercially successful as Wi-Fi currently is.

The term Li-Fi was coined by Professor Harald Haas from the University of Edinburgh in the UK and first used in his 2011 TED Global talk on visible light communication and Li-fi refers to a type of VLC technology that delivers a networked, mobile, high-speed communication solution in a similar manner as Wi-Fi.

[Image Credits - ExtremeTech]

Semiconductor Startups in India to get $100-million fund from Walden International

California headquartered VC firm Walden International is launching a specialised fund of US$100 million (Rs. 612 crores) to invest in semiconductor startups in India and startups which make softwares for semiconductor chips. As per report by ET the  fund will begin investing later this year and has already identified four startups, two each in Bangalore and Hyderabad.

The VC firm has not though, the names of chosen startups, but as per IndianWeb2 speculations it has to be iWave or Saankhya Labs as far as semiconductor startups from Bangalore is concerned. Walden will invest around $2 million each in semiconductor startups

Lip Bu Tan, chairman and co-founder of Walden International said - "We are looking for companies which have innovative solutions to offer in the low power consumption space. There are strong laws to protect such IP in India."

Walden International has previously invested in Indian companies like E4E and Quatrro BPO.

Funding for Semiconductor startups in India is not as easy as for other tech startups in India, for couple of years only few companies managed to get fundings. Recently only Tejas Networks and Cosmic Circuits have successfully raised capital. Tejas Networks raised angel funding of $5 million and later received around $ 73 million (. 445 crore) in risk funding from global investors such as Goldman Sachs, Battery Ventures, Sandstone and Intel Capital.

Apart from these only funding for any semiconductor startup was back in 2009 when Bangalore's Ojas Venture Partners has made an investment in city-based Arigami Semiconductor Systems, which is coming up with techniques and intellectual property (IP) to enable digital chip designers to build more efficient datapath intensive digital designs and takes inspiration from Vedic mathematics.

Moreover on a positive side, the central government of India has also announced new initiatives for the semiconductor industry. Last week, the government invited global firms to set up chip fabrication units in the country and said it would reimburse a quarter of the capital expenditure incurred to set up such units.

Micromax named Hollywood Hugh Jackman as Brand Ambassador

Hollywood star Hugh Jackman is ready to sizzle it up with the Micromax Canvas Turbo, a new series of tablet from India’s leading handset manufacturer Micromax that is yet to be released. Hugh Jackman popular in India for it's characters in supernatural movie X-Men (Wolverine) and Les Miserable.

With this, Micromax become the first Indian mobile operator to have roped in a Hollywood star as its brand ambassador. Micromax is largest handset seller in India after Samsung and first Indian based mobile handset brand that came up with this much success.

On being brand ambassador for Indian mobile brand Hollywood star Hugh Jackman said - "I am a huge lover of India as it is one of the most exciting countries in the world and we also share our love for cricket. Phones are genuinely time saving devices that can help you live a better life while juggling around with different situations,"

Hugh Jackman will endorse the soon-to-release Canvas series smartphones for Micromax and the company set to market its brand not only in India but overseas as well and Hugh Jackman is best suitable and popular face to do so. Micromax has updated it offical website as well Twitter official profile with Hugh Jackman photo in background.

Last month Micromax announced the launch of its first flagship tablet in the Canvas series. The new smartphone will have quad-core 1.2GHz MT6589 processor, and may be the first Canvas handset with a 1080p display.

Report: 67 percent of Online Shoppers in India refer Social Media before Shopping Online

Around 130 million Indians are connected to the Web via fixed and mobile broadband, over 60 million are registered on Facebook and 20 million on LinkedIn. According to study done Frost & Sullivan, nearly 50 percent of young urban Indians spend more than two hours on social media sites daily.

On other hand e-commerce is on boom in India with more and more e-stores opening in India every month and leading portal already roping the boom with cash, funds coming in their way freely. Frost & Sullivan has done a study on impact of Social Media on online shopping behavior in India.

Frost & Sullivan found that consumers in India are increasingly relying on social media such as Facebook, twitter or mobile social media apps to make their purchases either as informed choices, or through peer conditioning. Analysis finds that over 67 percent of urban Indians are influenced by social media in their purchasing decisions.

The survey conducted between age group of 18 to 35 to assess the impact of social media on online purchasing trends among Indians, 60 percent of the respondents indicated that they shopped online once a month. It also highlighted that over 40 percent of the respondents expected to increase their online shopping budgets over the next 12-15 months.

Other major findings of survey are :

• 60 percent of internet users in urban India spend four hours and more a day browsing for various purposes such as entertainment, networking, business, academics, shopping, etc.
  
  


• For over 30 percent of the survey respondents, friends or peer-reference influenced their online shopping behaviour.
  
  


• 17 percent were influenced by social media sites that included ads, product reviews, recommendations, product launch announcements, etc.


• 40 percent of the respondents purchased one or more items after seeing it on a social networking site and or through advertisements on these sites.

It is in fact true, as e-commerce portal in India especially Flipkart, Myntra, SnapDeal, LensKart and Zovi.com are increasing their spendings for advertisements on  social networking sites such as Facebook.

Kochi based Sentinel bags U.N. award for intelligent app

An app developed by Kochi, India based student startup company Mindhelix Technosol bagged prestigious UN-sponsored award for its mobile app invention called - Sentinel. Sentinel is personal security app by MindHelix Technosol.

The app is runner-up of World Youth Award Summit 2013 in Power2Women category and only startup representing India. ‘Sentinel’ is among the 18 startups selected from among 400 entries for the awards which will be presented in Sri Lankan capital Colombo later this month.

Actually, the app Sentinel is an essential app for women especially in India, which in case of emergency send alerts to friends and family of sender. With just one click from the application and user send SMS, emails and Interactive Voice Response calls to all your emergency contacts making sure that you are safe.

The app also provide live tracking from the application that puts user in emergency situation over a map that is available only to emergency contacts with location, travel history, direction of travel and helps the first respondents to reach you as fast as possible.

The application triggers an alerts even if the user in not connected to internet by sending SMS with location to server. The interactive map gives information about the current location as well as location history. The application help achieves the six millennium goals of the UN that include women’s safety.

The app is available for Android as well for iPhone mobile users free of cost for limited time. The company behind the app is part of startup incubator center - The Startup Village, Kochi.

The student startup which developed this app is founded by Kallidil Kalidasan and Christin George. The company has also developed Sentinel Mobile Application for Corporates : Sentinel for Corporates is a mobile phone based personal security application to be used by the Corporate employees,  available on Android, iPhone and Windows Phone  8, the App constantly keeps track of each employee using GPS  and dynamic cell tower location services.

MyGola.com raises $1.5 million funding from Helion Venture Partners

MyGola.com, an online travel planner has raised Series A funding of US$1.5 million from Helion Venture Partners, one of India's largest funds and investor. Existing investor Blumberg Capital also participated in the round. Helion Venture Partners, is also invested in MakeMyTrip and Redbus earlier.

This series of funding brings the total capital raised by MyGola to US$2.6 million so far. Earlier in 2011 MyGola has raised $1 million in seed funding from Dave McClure of 500 Startups, Blumberg Capital, and several other angel investors.

Along with funding Ashish Gupta, co-founder of Helion & also Junglee.com (now amazon) has joined the board of MyGola.com.

Announcing the funding, Co-founder & CEO of MyGola.com Anshuman Bapna said - "Now travel is a tough segment. And travel planning is even worse. It is a fundamentally hard technical problem and often the rewards accrue only to those who manage to be close to the transaction. As a team, we’ve lived, breathed, ate and dreamt travel planning for over three years now. We threw out our first iteration and now after months of staying under wraps, we now have a product that I think is a technical and design tour-de-force."

Ansuman claims on his blog that MyGola let travelers do in 15 minutes what typically takes 6 weeks and MyGola create custom trips in 15 minutes from your chosen itinerary and tweak. MyGola also let its user book hotels and flights in the plan that users create.

Started in 2010, MyGola is based out of Bangalore with offices in US as well and claims to have World's largest collection of curated itineraries.

Interesting Diwali Online Shopping Trends 2013 (Infographic)

One of India’s major festival Diwali is coming up next month and its also shopping season & reason for Indian population. As e-commerce is on boom probably a large part of people will shop online, on this phenomena, CashKaro.com, a cash back and coupons site conducted a survey of 1,032 people about their online shopping plans for Diwali.

As per the survey a whopping 83% of respondents are planning to shop online, with the majority buying clothes, mobiles & electronics. This is in line with recent reports from Assocham where 65% increase in online shopping in 2013 has been predicted. Websites like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Myntra, Jabong, Freecultr, Zovi are running special festive offers to further attract customers.

Survey participants were 69% male and 31% female. 61% were less than 25 years old, 36% between 25-40 years old and 2% over 40 years old.

Below is the infographic of survey conducted:

• Why are people shopping online: 36% said that cheaper prices is one of the main reasons they shop online. With sites like Cashkaro.com, people can now get discounts, cashback and coupons, which makes online shopping even cheaper. 32% respondents picked convenience as a reason to shop online, especially as they look to avoid traffic jams and maddening rush on streets during Diwali. More variety online was chosen by 29%. This is especially true for tier 2 and tier 3 cities where spending power is growing but variety is limited and many popular brands are not available in local malls and markets.


• What will people buy the most this Diwali: Clothes and accessories topped the list at 30%, followed by mobiles and electronics (25%), diyas and decorations (13%), dry fruits and chocolates (12%), gold coins and fire crackers (yes they are available online and you can even get deals on these!) were chosen by 6%. 10% more men said they will buy mobiles and electronics compared to women.


• Money spent during Diwali: 56% said they spend less than Rs 10,000 during Diwali (online and offline combined) while 36% said they spend between Rs 10,000 and Rs 25,000. Only 8% of the participants are expected to spend over Rs 50,000 on Diwali this year. As one would expect, age is directly correlated to the spend amount. The 25-40 year age group is expected to spend 20% more than the under 25 age group.


• Proportion of online vs offline shopping: At this stage, 72% respondents do less than 50% of their total Diwali shopping online, as a large chunk goes towards local mithai houses and local vendors. This trend is set to change in future as already 28% respondents do over 50% of their Diwali shopping online and Indian e-commerce grows in general. Seeing the increased traffic on sites like Myntra, Snapdeal, Flipkart even brick and mortar stores like Shopper's Stop, Bata, and Big Bazaar have started selling online.


• Everyone likes a deal: An astounding 96% said that they would like to get cash back and coupons to save on their online shopping. It's a no-brainer as thousands of rupees can be saved every year.

Apple slash down prices of iPhone 4S in India

Apple recently announced that it will be launching the all new iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C in India available from 1st November onward. As an unofficial rule Apple has slash down the prices of its previous iPhone version 4S just before 2 weeks from release of its latest versions.

The official prices for iPhone 4S was Rs.38,500 earlier however recently it has cut the prices by Rs.7000, so now iPhone 4S will be available in India for new price of Rs.31,500.

Despite of price cut by Apple e-commerce portals in India such as Flipkart is still selling iPhone 4S for Rs.38,500 and IPhone 4S white for Rs.36,900

The prices for iPhone 5S announced are Rs.53,500 for 16 GB, Rs.62,500 for 32 GB and Rs.71,500 for 64 GB. It will be available in gold, silver-white and space-grey colors.

On other hand iPhone 5C, the cheapest version ever of Apple iPhones will be available for prices of Rs.41,900 for 16GB and Rs.53,500 for 32 GB available in blue, green, pink, yellow and white colors.

In iPhone accessories, the iPhone 5S cover will be available for Rs.3200 and iPhone 5C cover will be available for Rs.2300.

Snapdeal expecting to raise $200m funding

Snapdeal, one of a leading e-commerce company in India is expecting to raise fresh $200 million which is around Rs.123 crores INR. As per reports eBay, SoftBank and few private equity investors are willing to invest $150-200 million in fresh round of Snapdeal's funding.

Meanwhile there is no official confirmation from Snapdeal or eBay but the reliable sources says that this round of funding is anywhere close to $150-200.

Earlier this year eBay had taken around 10% stake in Snapdeal and as per speculation keen to increasing that stake in the Indian e-commerce company. Other expected investors looking to invest in Snapdeal is SoftBank.

This year Snapdeal has received 3 rounds of funding totaling to $102 million. In January 2011, round 2 of funding Snapdeal received a funding of $12 million from Nexus Venture Partners and Indo-US Venture Partners. In July 2011, the company raised a further $45 million from Bessemer Venture Partners, along with existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Indo-US Venture Partners. In a 3rd round of funding Snapdeal raised $50 million from eBay and received participation from existing investors - Bessemer Venture Partners, Nexus Venture and IndoUS Venture Partners.

Just a week before leading most e-commerce company Flipkart raised $160 million which made its total funding this year of around $360 million i.e. whopping Rs. 22219 crores and thus this investment made Flipkart a largest investment raised by any e-commerce company in India ever.

The news of Snapdeal raising a fresh round of funding just after week of Flipkart's $160 million funding is clear sign that a stiff competition has started in Indian E-Commerce arena.

This year Snapdeal is vigorously doing acquisitions and funding rounds as well so as to compete with other portals in its niche especially Flipkart. In June 2010, Snapdeal acquired Bangalore-based group buying site - Grabbon.com and in April 2012, Snapdeal acquired esportsbuy.com, an online sports goods retailer based out of Delhi and this year in May 2013, Snapdeal acquired Shopo.in, an online marketplace for Indian handicraft products.

Snapdeal.com expects the total sale of products traded on its platform to cross Rs 2,000 crore in the fiscal 2013-14 helped by its robust growth in the past two years and the growing popularity of e-commerce in India.

Indian Movies Portal Spuul.com to raise $10m Venture Fund

An online video streaming site for Hindi, Bollywood based movies and Indian TV shows - Spuul.com is expecting to raise e $10 million (Rs.61.72 crores as per current exchange rate) from venture capital funding source. The name of VC is not revealed yet but according to sources Spuul is in talk to finalize the funding deal.

Spuul is in discussions with venture capital firms in the United States, Britain and Singapore as per S Mohan, the co-founder and CEO of Spuul.

As per Singapore daily The Straits Times, the CEO of Spuul said that - "The funds will be used to expand our technical infrastructure and team, provide marketing activities and create content". Spuul is based out of Singapore but the portal's conent is Indian based videos and movies.

Two thirds of Spuul's current one million viewers were from India, watching movies on their PCs, smartphones and tablets. Spuul has about 1,000 movies in its library. Spuul is streaming 2,000 Indian languages movies daily and adding 30% viewers every month.

Spuul has an iOS app, an Android app, a Facebook app, and recently on 15 Oct. launched a new feature called 'Offline Syncing' for its updated Android app, where users can now watch movies offline.

Started in 2010 in Singapore, Spuul was founded by three seasoned industry and technology entrepreneurs including Sudesh Iyer (the Founder of Sony Entertainment TV in India), and S Mohan (the Founder of Accellion, buUuk and a number of other technology and venture companies).

Currently Spuul is an ad-supported subscription streaming service that legally provides online Indian content to anyone in the world offering both free and paid content. The revenue of the portal comes from ad-supported content.

Latest on Google and NASA's Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab

In May this year Google partnered with NASA and announced the Quantum A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) Lab, a place where researchers from around the world can experiment with the incredible powers and possibilities of quantum computing.

A quantum computing is a computation mechanism that makes direct use of quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. Quantum computers are different from digital computers based on transistors. Whereas digital computers require data to be encoded into binary digits (bits), quantum computation uses quantum properties to represent data and perform operations on these data.

Although quantum computing is still in very early stage, but it is a fact that large-scale quantum computers will be able to solve certain problems much more quickly than any classical computer and can help solve some of the world’s most challenging computer science problems.

Google is particularly interested in how quantum computing can advance machine learning, which can then be applied to virtually any field, from finding the cure for a disease to understanding changes in global climate.

Quantum AI techniques could dramatically speed up tasks such as image recognition for comparing photos on the web or for enabling cars to drive themselves and notably these are some fields in which Google is already working aggressively.

Recently Google shoot some footage on work done so far on quantum A.I. and put together a short video that provides a peek behind the scenes and introduces a few of quantum computing’s mind-bending, strange, and undeniably awesome concepts.

In May 2013, Google & NASA's Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab begin and the lab is hosted by NASA’s Ames Research Center. The lab will house a 512-qubit quantum computer from D-Wave Systems, and the USRA (Universities Space Research Association) will invite researchers from around the world to share time on it. The goal being to study how quantum computing might advance machine learning.

For latest news and more updates on Google Quantum AI lab you can visit official Google Quantum page on Google+

Wishberg raises funds from India Quotient

Mumbai based startup Wishberg.com has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from early stage investment firm India Quotient, Wishberg is a social wishlist website where users can build, manage and track your wishes for free.

Wishberg lets you wish for almost anything from food to fashion, from books to movies, from adventures to travel, from cars to gadgets, yes everything indeed.

Early stage investment firm India Quotient usually targets pre-revenue startups for investment and invests anywhere between $50,000 and $500,000 (Rs.50 lakh to Rs.1.5 crore) per company and picks up stakes of between 10 and 20 per cent. The startup companies India Quotient choose are typically those that are at the pre-Series A stage of funding.

India Quotient has also invested in another online startup - InBetween, a quick food startup that specializes in sandwiches. India Quotient was founded by Anand Lunia founder of BrainVisa. Earlier IQ has also invested in early stage startups like IIMJobs.com, Red Quanta, MapMyTalent.in and DogSpot.in to name a few.

India Quotient was formed in June last year by former Seedfund partner Anand Lunia along with Madhukar Sinha (senior investment manager at Aavishkaar and earlier to that at PRADAN (Not-for-Profit).

Wishberg on other hand is a web startup conceptualized by Pravin Jadhav ans Ex-Rediff employee. Wishberg was renamed from its earlier name Tyche'd in November last year and was relased as public beta at same time. With one click users can discovers others in their social graph with similar matches and contextual social reviews. the platform provides localized information to users across 200+cities in 12 countries.

India's Tourism Ministry launches 360 degree street view Website with Genesys

Mumbai based Geospatial technology startup company Genesys has launched in partnership with India's Tourism Ministry a 360 degree street view website - WoNoBo.com. WoNoBo.com is an Internet service platform that combines various audio and visual location finding technologies like geospatial to give a complete overview of the location that the user is trying to find.

Wonobo lets its users find directions across several cities, search for places, even look inside thousands of businesses and interesting places. The 360 degree street view map is available 12 major cities in India - Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Agra, Bangalore, Jaipur, Pune, Surat, Goa and within few weeks it will be expanded to 54 more cities.

The site offers user generated content while offering social media capabilities such tagging of location for restaurants, petrol station, ATMs etc. and facilitating creation of local communities online by creating user generated stories, guides, walking tours which further helps other users to use them.

Users can also rate and give reviews of monuments they are seeing on Wonobo and help other people who wants to visit the places. The website tied up with tourism ministryo of India so as to promote Incredible India campaign by introducing theme-based city walks on Wonobo.com platform.

As of now the website doesn't offer any mobile application and is restricted to website only. When we went through the the website it is comparatively slow to other website in its niche and doesn't offer much guides, stories or walking tours as claimed possibly because it very new and launched recently.

According to Wonobo officials the website has taken an investment of about $35 million and two years of development in India.

Facebook acquires Israeli startup Onavo

Facebook has acquired Onavi an Israeli based and a privately-held startup company based in Palo Alto, CA. Onavo is just 3 year old company that make mobile apps and utilities. Onavo has developed the award-winning Onavo mobile utility apps, and later launched Onavo Insights, the first mobile market intelligence service based on real engagement data.

Facebook has acquired Onova for an undisclosed amount however the Calcalist financial news website reported that Facebook is paying between $150 million and $200 million for the acquisition.

Onavo has been founded in 2010 and got backing from Sequoia Capital, Magma Venture Partners, Horizons Ventures and Motorola Mobility Ventures.

One of Onavo developed app Onavo Extend compress your mobile data and get up to five times more out of your data plan without changing the way you use your phone and let you do more activities on 3/4G mobile data plans without breaking your data cap.

Onavo on joining Facebook team announced on its blog - "We’re excited to join Facebook team, and hope to play a critical role in reaching one of Internet.org’s most significant goals – using data more efficiently, so that more people around the world can connect and share. When the transaction closes, we plan to continue running the Onavo mobile utility apps as a standalone brand. As always, we remain committed to the privacy of people who use our application and that commitment will not change."

Notably Facebook and other mobile technology leaders recently launched Internet.org to improve access to the internet for the next 5 billion people.

After acquisition Onavo’s Tel-Aviv office will remain open for business and will become Facebook’s new Israeli office. On the constrary when Facebook acquired Snaptu and Face.com, it transferred the employees to its own offices in California, whereas Onavo already has offices ans this time Onavo office will be called as Facebook's new Israel office.

Microsoft Ventures Accelerator to have 7-city coffee meet-ups with startups in India

Starting Oct 21, 2013, Microsoft Ventures Accelerator in India will be conducting coffee meet-ups with startups across 7 cities of India. Over a period of 11 days, the Microsoft Ventures team will spend a day each in Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Kochi and Hyderabad, to meet entrepreneurs looking to find the right Accelerator to expedite their dreams as well as startup aspirants who need to have their questions answered before they take that final plunge into entrepreneurship.

Inviting all startups to attend the coffee meet-ups, Ravi Narayan, Director, Microsoft Ventures in India, said, "Informal meets like these, where you get to interact with a lot of like-minded people and experts who can answer all your questions, are very helpful. We conducted similar meet-ups last year too, and were amazed at the response."

"While the startups benefited by getting their doubts cleared, we benefited from feedback and insights that prompted us to introduce a few changes in our program that made it more robust. We intend to build deep connections with all relevant startups in India, anyone who is looking to make it big in Cloud, internet, mobile and data analytics technologies. We love startups that are solving interesting problems, requiring enormous scale. I strongly urge all startups and startup aspirants to find their nearest city, and block the date to attend the coffee meet-up," Narayan added.

Parth Saxena, co-founder of TommyJams, had attended a meet-up in May 2013, before he joined the third/ current batch of Microsoft Ventures Accelerator in India. Sharing his experience, Saxena said: "The meet-up gave us a deep insight into what Microsoft Ventures Accelerator is all about. While we knew about the program, meeting the team and sensing the work environment made us confident that this was the right way to go forward. After learning about the program in detail and clarifying some of the questions we had, we sent in our application and were selected for the third batch!"

Microsoft Ventures in India features a community evangelism program called BizSpark, an accelerator program and a seed fund, offering startups a single point of entry to engage with Microsoft. Microsoft Ventures Accelerator started operations in India in August 2012 and has had 22 companies graduating over the first two batches, with 80 per cent of them having received funding. Currently, 13 startups are being accelerated in the third batch, and are scheduled to graduate on November 29, 2013. Applications for the fourth batch are now open online (Online registration form), the last date for submitting applications being November 15, 2013. The fourth batch will commence on January 22, 2014 and graduate in May.

The program has already received several applications. If you have started a company or are contemplating starting one, but have a million questions about the what, the how and the where – this is your chance to get your answers from the experts. All you need to do is to sign up for a coffee date for the Microsoft Ventures team in your city.

Entry for the meet-ups is free for everyone. All an interested attendee needs to do is register on the link for the city of his or her choice.

The multi-city schedule is listed in the table below.

Date	City	Registration Link
Oct 21, 2013	Delhi	http://em.explara.com/event/coffee-meetup-with-microsoft-ventures-delhi
Oct 22, 2013	Chennai	http://em.explara.com/event/coffee-meetup-with-microsoft-ventures-in-association-with-iit-madras-incubation-cell
Oct 23, 2013	Bangalore	http://em.explara.com/event/coffee-meetup-with-microsoft-ventures-bangalore
Oct 24, 2013	Mumbai	http://em.explara.com/event/coffee-meetup-with-microsoft-ventures-in-association-with-ecell-iit-mumbai
Oct 25, 2013	Pune	http://em.explara.com/event/coffee-meetup-with-microsoft-ventures-pune-in-asscoiation-with-tie-pune
Oct 26, 2013	Kochi	http://em.explara.com/event/coffee-meetup-with-microsoft-ventures-startup-village
Oct 31, 2013	Hyderabad	http://em.explara.com/event/coffee-meetup-with-microsoft-ventures-in-hyderabad

 

BoxTV introduces Mobile payments and new plans

Times Internet’s premium on-demand video service, BoxTV, has recently integrated mobile payments on its platform and introduced multiple subscription packs  offering a range of plans from a super small 3 day plan (weekend pack), 7 Day plan (week pack), 15 day pack (fortnight pack) all the way up to an yearly pack.

Data on viewership patterns indicates that a lot of online content consumption happens on weekends and BoxTV’s weekend pack makes it easy for people to watch premium content  without paying for an entire month. The mobile subscription plans also enable people without credit cards to buy a subscription plan easily on BoxTV.

BoxTV has integrated a seamless process for mobile payment for smaller duration packs of 3, 7, and 15 days, which allows users to pay directly from their mobile phones. The prices range from Rs 49(for a 3 day pack) to Rs 99(7 day pack) and Rs 150(15 day pack). All a customer needs to do is to select the plan and input  their mobile numbers on the BoxTV website .The user receives a one-time password which once submitted, activates the plan for the given duration. The process does not require any credit information to watch the premium content available on BoxTV at any time. The payment will be charged to the customers mobile bill or deducted from his balance.

For the long-term users, there are multiple plans available which range from ₹199 for a monthly plan to an yearly plan priced at ₹1499. For these plans, users will need to subscribe using their credit cards on BoxTV. This provides a lot more flexibility to select a plan which best caters to their individual requirements.

"The BoxTV team is constantly working towards increasing customer satisfaction and improving overall experience, be it by introducing newer features on an ongoing basis or provide product flexibility by incorporating flexible price packs. Since inception, we received several requests from our users to provide multiple plans and payment options and that is exactly what we have introduced. With the introduction of new subscription packs BoxTV service will cater to all segments of users looking for suitable service, which provides flexibility in terms of payment and a seamless movie watching experience. The mobile payments will allow users without credit cards to watch premium content on BoxTV thereby increasing our overall user-base" said Pandurang Nayak, Business Head, BoxTV.

Social Media users in India to reach 91 Million by December 2013

Social Media in India continues to evolve as a mature digital medium. According to a latest report on Social Media in India – 2013 released by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International the number of social media users in India is expected to grow by 17 per cent and reach 91 million by December 2013 due to the increasing affordability of smartphones and availability of cost-effective data plans.

The survey was conducted across 35 cities of India.

As per the report estimates the number of social media users by October 2013 will be 86 million and by December 2013, it will be 91 million, showing an overall growth of 17 per cent since June 2013.

The number of social media users in urban India reached 78 million by June 2013.Afforadable mobile Internet plans additionally serve to increase usage levels.

Social networking through mobile phones is widely observed with 19.8 million users accessing the websites on mobiles and Facebook was the most accessed website.

Non-working women are tipped to be the next emerging demographic segment with nearly 10 per cent of them accessing social media.

Based on the number of eligible voters, data of actual voter turnout from the Election Commission of India and field interviews, the report estimates that there could be a vote swing of 3 to 4 percent in 24 states – states where the internet users are sizeable.

Google Launched person finder for Phailin Cyclone in India

The biggest super cyclonic storm in a decade - 'Phailin' is about to hit coastal Odisha and Andhra Pradesh state of India is approaching fast and is estimated to more severe than past Katrina cyclone in US. In order to manage the possible casualties and relief management Indian govt agencies has launched several websites such as - Cyclone Phailin Disaters Response and Support Portal Information and Latest Updates India and Online list of Shelters.

Google has also launched the dedicated web application for Tropical Cyclone Phailin, India called Google Phailin Crisis Response the website apart from providing search for missing person also allow people to list information about people and offers latest bulletin from the India Meteorological Department.

The Google website has map with shelters and hospitals tagged & mapped along with their location details available in regional languages of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.

If you have used the previous Uttarakhand Flood people finder application its almost the same in usage, the application has two options for users one is "I'm looking for someone" to search and find missing person and another option is - "I have information about someone" to list information about someone who has missing status.

The Phailin word is taken from Thai word which means 'Sapphire' and it is named after Thailand word because it was first observed in bay of Thailand.

India Funding for World's Largest Telescope TMT in Hawaii

The 30-metre telescope, called the TMT (Thirty Meter Telescope) is proposed to be built on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, US. India along with China, Japan and U.S. have all committed funds towards this $1.2 billion project of world's largest telescope. However the share of India's funding is not available but its said that it is close to USD $250 million.

The TMT project is led by the California Institute of Technology and the Associated Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy.

TMT Observatory Corporation is also partnered with Department of Science and Technology of India. In year 2010, a consortium of Indian Astronomy Research Institutes joined TMT project as an observer. The observer status is the first step in becoming a full partner in TMT and participating in the engineering development and scientific use of the observatory (Subject to approval of funding from Indian Government).

In 2012, India and China became partners, with representatives on the TMT board. China and India will pay a share of the telescope construction costs, expected to top $1 billion. Japan, which has its own large telescope at Mauna Kea, the 8.3-metre Subaru, is also a partner.

The question here rises for India as being only developing nation which other ground things to offer for its population other than throwing so much of money in science project of telescope which will not be deployed in India infact. India is only developing nation among all funding countries why India came as desperate funding source as rest of the countries - US, Japan and China are already developed and they can fund such luxurious projects.

But if anything to go by news sources India hopes that this TMT partnership will allow the country to acquire critical technology that would help it build a 10-meter telescope in India itself.

TMT may not hold the title of world's largest for long, however, as a partnership of European countries plans to build the European Extremely Large Telescope, which would have a 42-meter, or 138-foot, mirror.

Firefox OS Stable version released to compete with Android and Tizen

Mozilla released new Firefox OS first stable version, this is Mozilla's new mobile operating system that will compete with Android OS and Samsung backed Tizen mobile OS. Firefox OS is an open source OS with latest release brings a lot of new features and improvements that were missing on the initial release (not stable).

The Firefox OS running smartphones can be a lot cheaper options with equivalent or may be more more features than Android OS.

Firefox OS users can now send MMS messages, while the developers can use the new push notification APIs, which allow for timely notifications and reduction in battery consumption. Furthermore, Mozilla has enhanced the contact manager, which now supports Gmail and Hotmail contact import, adding a number to a contact when it’s listed in the call log, SMS message or email.Additionally, Firefox OS now have the smart dial feature, which works just as expected.

Android OS had made smartphones more affordable comparing to proprietary based mobile OS such as iOS, Windows or Blackberry. An Android smartphones can be bought within price range of Rs.8,000-Rs.15,000 easily, Firefox OS which unlike to Google or Apple backed by a non-profit organization and as Mozilla says - 'We're out to make a difference, not a profit', Mozilla will surely give a stiff competition to Android and iPhones once its available for sale across the globe.

One can purchase Firefox OS on a ZTE Open handset or on an Alcatel One Touch device. More devices will be announced over the next few weeks. ZTE Open powered by Firefox OS is available at price of $249 however in India ZTE Open 3G Unlocked phone is available at eBay India at mere price of RS.6,500.

Available in 3 languages - Spanish, Polish and English 17 operators spanning the globe are currently distributing Firefox OS devices: América Móvil, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Hutchison Three Group, KDDI, KT, MegaFon, Qtel, SingTel, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia Group, Telefónica, Telenor, TMN and VimpelCom.

In Coming weeks more countries and mobile phone operators will be selling Firefox OS.

Most smartphones are made by a small number of people, all in one place, probably pretty far from where you live. Firefox OS phones are different they're made by a huge global community probably could give lot more features to users over the years gradually.

Solar Startups in India is booming like never before

India’s strategic geographical location is a boon to all solar energy companies in India and thus solar startups in India is on boom and so is funding to their emerging solar generating ideas throughout the country. Its a fact that most of the Indian geography see a lot of sunlight throughout the year and this makes India a solar power generation hub for lot big and startup companies.

Helion Venture Partners, has invested in solar power company Azure Power, which is one of the most successful solar power generating company in India operating across various states in India, both in urban and rural areas.

Mera Gaon Power (MGP), a Lucknow-based startup provide solar microgrid to provide 2 light bulbs and a mobile charging point to households that are currently without power.  Mera Gao Power builds, owns, and operates micro grids in Uttar Pradesh, India serving off-grid villages with high quality, dependable lighting and mobile phone charging services. By tailoring its micro grid design to meet the specific needs of poor, off-grid households. MGP serves more than 65,000 people and 13,000 households

In Kolkata, ONergy operates eight renewable energy centres and provides a range of products, from solar lanterns and solar home systems, to solar power installations, in the process, reaching about 700 villages. ONergy has raised the first round of investment from Halloran Foundation, Rianta Capital, CIIE(IIM Ahmedabad) and Swedish International Development Agency and for the second round of investment they are expecting around 3 crores by the end of this year.

Naturetech Infrastructure is another solar startup based out of  Lucknow, UP and just four-year-old, offers electricity to around 25 villages all over Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states if India by producing power directly to homes and SMEs. The startup has plans to install 10 more solar generating off-grids by the end of this year and generate revenue of Rs 100K (USD$ million) by the end of the current fiscal year.

Ecolibrium on other hand is a Ahmedabad based solar-energy startup of another kind, it actually manage the mis-managed energy and deliver it in smarter & efficiently, as a matter of fact around 20% of total industrial power consumed go wasted or mismanaged. Ecolibrium provide distributors smart grid equipments so as to deliver electricity from suppliers to consumers using two-way digital technology to save energy, reduce cost and increase reliability and transparency. Ecolibrium is first smart grid pilot in the country in 2010, in participation with the Gujarat Government and Torrent Power Ltd.

SolarTown Energy Solutions is Chennai based solar power product startup selling products ranging from Solar Home System, telecom tower grid products,  building roof-tops, energizing parking-lots and industrial off-grid as well. SolarTown has sold about 40 product (in the price range of between INR 25,000 – INR 2,50,000) systems all over Tamil Nadu. The company is now looking to raise funds of around of $500,000.

Aspiration Energy is yet another Chennai based startup offering solar solutions for industrial process heating and solar powering of telecom towers on a unique monthly performance based energy charges model - PAYS (Pay As You Save). Aspiration Energy is supported and seed-funded by the Renewable Search program (RE:Search) jointly administered by IIM Ahmedabad's (IIMA) Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).

Installed PV based solar capacity India
(Source: BridgetoIndia.com)

 

In an analysis by Climate Connect shows that Indian states and union territories had a target to procure 3.553 billion kWh of solar-based electricity in FY 2012-13 but would have managed to procure only about 1.576 billion kWh. This  analysis point that more solar energy generation is required and the facts cannot be ignored that startups working  around solar energy generation are multiplying as well, nonetheless few more solar startups in India wouldn't hurt anyways.

Long wait for Google Glass in India, Try this Bluetooth Sunglasses

Super Tech-gadget Google glasses might not be possible to own in India by anyone and away  from dream come true, though there is a gadget that can somehow satisfy your wish to own something like this on your eyes. Although its not even close to what Google Glass has to offer, but something is better than nothing.

Kagawa a sunglass manufacturing company from HongKong has built a gunmetal framed bluetooth sunglasses available in India in two shades - Green Aviator polarized bluetooth sunglasses and Matte Black green polarized bluetooth sunglasses.

The full-rimmed sunglasses come with polarized lenses for efficient sun-protection, an extra temple with the Bluetooth device and a plug point and USB charger. The bluetooth attach to sunglasses itself that goes into your right ears.

The price these bluetooth sunglasses are Rs.4990 and is available on Lenskart, an eyewear e-commerce portal in India, the sunglasses might not be close to features of Google glasses but the prices are somewhere close and quite high, as the price of Google glass consumer edition would be around $300-500 (Rs.18,000-Rs.30,000).

The stylish Kagawa bluetooth sunglasses have an extra temple that contains the 3.0 Bluetooth device which can be very easily be paired with your android phone or laptop. So with extra temple you can switch your normal sunglasses to bluetooth sunglasses or vice-versa.

NASSCOM nurtured 80 companies; to start 2nd phase of 10000 startups program

IT major body NASSCOM has completed the first stage of its 10,000 Startups program. NASSCOM had shortlisted 332 startups out of the 4000 applications that it received for its 10,000 Startups program and accelerated, funded and mentored 80 companies till now.

Nasscom partnered with some of the best incubators and accelerators in India as well as angels investors for funding requirements of startups such as Microsoft Accelerator, The Morpheus, 500 Start-ups, TLABS, Kyron, CIIE and IIIT Hyderabad. The shortlisted startups/ entrepreneurs will be entitled to Angel funding ranging from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 2 crore from leading angel investor networks of India.

Accelerator and mentoring -

Under 10000Startup umbrella so far about more than 20 companies were accepted in Acceleration programs, 10 companies were accelerated at the Start-up Warehouse set up by NASSCOM with the support of Govt of Karnataka. About 30 companies also received mentoring from successful entrepreneurs, industry leaders, domain experts and angel investors.

Funding -

About 5 companies raised on-the-spot funding from the SharkTank concept, 4 of these companies got funded at #Startuproots, Bangalore and 1 company got funded at Tie-the-knot, New Delhi.

So far the shortlisted startup were invited at pitch at different events organized under 10000Startups program at Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata where about 300 startups made over 1,200 pitches to over 50 angel investors, accelerators, angel investor groups and venture capitalists.

NASSCOM also conducted 15 Tech startups to 10 of India’s biggest IT Enterprises to explore Strategic partnerships / M&A opportunities through StartupKonnect platform.

List of companies accepted in various acceleration programs:

Tlabs

1. Red Button Software Labs


2. JiffStore


3. Vindowshop


4. CrowdBeans


5. Yippster


6. NewsinShorts

Kyron

1. Docspad


2. Buzzinga!


3. TeritreeiAccelerator - IIMA

1. Chauka Cricket Solutions


2. GetJugaad

Microsoft Accelerator

1. Native5


2. ArrayShield


3. Adsparx


4. SignEasy

CIE-IIITH

1. MilkorWater


2. Amaterasu Electronics


3. InCights Mobile Solutions Pvt. Ltd


4. Universal Multifunction Accelerator

TheMorpheus

1. Dwellin


2. 500 Startups


3. Anyadir

iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C to arrive in India on 1st November

Apple's latest launched iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C will be launching officially in India for sale before festival of Diwali. The company has officially announced the availability of latest iPhones yesterday.

Apple announced iPhone 5s, the most forward-thinking smartphone in the world, and iPhone 5c, the most colorful iPhone yet, will be available in Italy, Russia, Spain and more than 25 additional countries on Friday, October 25.

And in India, Mexico and dozen of other countries it will be available on Friday, November 1, said Apple officially, although the price has not been revealed for India. Even in the past Apple has always chosen the months of November and December as their launching period in India.

Every customer who buys an iPhone 5s or iPhone 5c at an Apple retail store will be offered free personal setup service, helping them customize their iPhone by setting up email, showing them new apps from the App Store and more, so they'll be up and running with their new iPhone before they leave the store. Customers can learn more about iOS 7 and their new device through new free workshops at all Apple retail stores worldwide.

iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c come with iOS 7, the most significant iOS update since the original iPhone, featuring a stunning new user interface, completely redesigned with an elegant color palette, distinct, functional layers and subtle motion that make it feel more alive. iOS 7 has hundreds of great new features, including Control Center, Notification Center, improved Multitasking, AirDrop, enhanced Photos, Safari, Siri and introduces iTunes Radio, a free Internet radio service based on the music you listen to on iTunes.

iPhone 5s and 5c will be available on Friday, November 1 in Albania, Armenia, Bahrein, Colombia, El Salvador, Guam, Guatemala, India, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and UAE. Both iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c are currently available in the US, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK.

[Photo Credit - Ridble, Flickr.com]

Menstrupedia is an Essential Online Puberty Guide for Teens

An online portal Menstrupedia has been gaining popularity among teen online users, it actually is a fun online guide to healthy periods (menstruation cycle), aiming at spreading awareness about menstruation and shatter myths around the subject in countries which are more conservative in these kind of subjects.

In country like India and south-east countries where women have lot of myths and disbelief about this natural phenomena of women , Menstrupedia.com aims at spreading awareness about menstruation and shatter myths around the subject. At menstrupedia we are devising various ways to help young girls and women stay informed about their body and managing their periods effectively.

The website offers features such as Ask questions, illustrated quick guide. The Ahmedabad based startup is also planning to release comic on the subject that will guide young girls about their changing bodies and especially about menstruation using stories adapted from real life situations, the comic will be released soon in various languages.

The Ahmedabad startup launched the portal in November' 2012 provide various other services as well as such as video journals and online comic strips called - "Tales of Changes" for young girls, where women from various NGOs spread the awareness through this comic strip to young girls.

Aditi Gupta a young entrepreneur from Jharkand, India and founder & brain-child of  Menstrupedia.com told WSJ India that - "Like most young girls, I started menstruating age 12. But only learned about what periods really were aged 15 in Class 9. Even then our teacher skipped the chapter, telling us to read it on our own".

Unlike to teen of 90's now teens have easy access to internet and the website Menstrupedia is a answer to this taboo subject in India providing resourceful guide about menstruation which helps girls and women to stay healthy and active during their menstruation.

The online portal has a team of dynamic and passionate people with complementary skills including gynecologists, subjects experts and content writers.

The online website is not just popular in India but abroad as well, apart from India it use to get visitors from 195 countries such as Canada and the Philippines

LisTopTen: Search Top 10 of Everything

LisTopTen is a new search engine for niche market, helping people to search Top10 results of everything created by everyone. Listopten helps you to find Top-10 results based on real people opinion on anything you search online and top 10 could be anything like movies, app, gadgets, cars, restaurant etc.

Listopten is concept of building a crowd sourced Top 10 of everything so that you can check user rated Top 10 things before making a decision of buying a product, watching a movie etc. such as - Top 10 Best E-Commerce Companies in India, Top 10 Best selling smartphones, Top 10 Horror movies of all time etc.

The portal is indeed useful in many ways instead searching for google one can directly search the top, the search feature of Listopten.com is also pretty good as it suggest the desired results as you type and saves lot of time to search top 10/ 10-best of  'anything'.

Listopten also helps to generate free traffic for businesses/websites from the Top 10 lists, as a free marketing tool for all business units they can create Top 10 lists and generate free traffic from our website. For example and e-commerce company can prepare a list of top 10 products it's selling, in this case the companies participating are Infibeam.com, Career Launcher, carnation.in, snapdeal.com,startupranking.com etc

Thus Listopten is providing free marketing tool for all business units to create Top 10 lists and generate free traffic from their website.

Features of Listopten portal are: Top-10 - Aggregate all Top 10 opinions of a topic and help you to discover the best 10 which as per users. My Version - i.e Make your version of crowd sourced Top 10 and help your friends and others discover your Top 10 opinions. User Reviews let you discover and share reviews on favorite items in the list. Reliability Ratings  - helps discover Top 10 list as per ratings given by other users and rate your favorite list to help others understand quality of list.



How is Top-10 list beneficial for any business?

• Help you to create free lists of Top 10 items across various category and sub categories. (Eg Top 10 Android phones under Rs 15000, Top 10 Puma T-shirts .. etc )


• Allow to add media (images or videos) to your items in one click. (Choose from already uploaded media)


• Add URL to your items to generate free relevant traffic at your website.

How did this business idea emerge?

We (founders) were sitting back at home and searching for best android phones to buy and landed on e-commerce and few review sites but they could not help to understand which one is the best among all available options. Therefore we thought there should be a site which should only show public generated results of Top 10 items in all categories so that we don’t get lost in 5000+ results coming out of Google search.

Where did your capital come from and who funded you?

Currently we are self-funded and looking for angel investors who can support us building a long-term sustainable product to serve the people searching for Top 10 things online.

What are current and future revenue models?

Few current advertising sources:

• Home page featured Top 10:


• Banner Advertisement:


• Relevant search result banner adds:

We are not looking confine ourselves making money only by traditional banner advertisements in long run. We are working on mass monetization program by which we will act as a commission agent and pass on some part of advertisement revenue to the list owners as well.

What are the future plans for Listopten.com?

We are currently focusing on building product and providing traffic to our e-commerce clients like carnation.in, snapdeal.com, infibeam.com etc. and providing an engaging platform to the users.

We are working on monetization of list and users creating Top 10 list will be given monetary advantages as per popularity if his lists.

Biggest challenges so far?

We are a small team working on a huge project which require huge data maintenance and client and user engagements on and off site.

Founding Team:

 

Hitesh Sharma (Co-founder): College dropout and former founding member of a VC funded e-commerce start-up in India, He faced a problem of finding best things online and joined hands with Amit to execute the same. Hitesh hails from a Maarwari business family in Assam and keeps deep business know how.

Amit Mehta (Co-founder): Amit kumar is a MBA graduate who quit his well settled job to get into this venture with Hitesh. Amit follows one principle in life " Move fast or die" and has vision to take this company at a height in quickest possible time. He hails from a business family in Varanasi. Amit keeps deep knowledge in the field of marketing and user engagements, he is also an artist by hobby.

Prashant Singh (Co-founder): Prashant is MCA with 5 years of experience in various companies like yellow pages and matrimony sites. He always had a dream of working at his own venture and creating some value with his skills and finally took risk and quit is job to join hands with Hitesh and Amit for a plunge into Entrepreneurship.

New Indian Passport Application App for Smartphones soon

Soon you can quickly fill passport application and apply for it via your smartphones and the updated application will be launching within time frame of 1-2 months. There won't be a new app but an additional features will be added to already available MEAIndia app.

The already available app by Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India called - MEAIndia available for Apple iOS and Android devices and at present, the app lets users look up general information, track their nearest passport center and police station, compute the required amount to be paid and track the status of the application.

We have reported in July that MEAIndia app will allow people in India to apply for passport through this app and that's too absolutely free. Today Ministry of External affairs and TCS confirmed it in making, developed by TCS which is ace software consultancy firm of India, the app will launch within one and half month as reported.

However as per procedure users still have to go to nearest Passport Seva Kendra along with the hard copies of the required documents after the ARN number is generated and an appointment is fixed.

Once the app is launched efficiency of app is still to be checked as most of the time the Gov. of India released an app the features used to be brilliant however there always been technical issues with them.