Govt. Censored GitHub, Vimeo & 30 Other Websites in India

Multiple reports are coming in about an extremely unusual bout of Internet censoring in India. Sites like GitHub, Vimeo, DailyMotion, Pastebin etc have been blocked by various ISPs across India on the orders of Modi-led Government.

In this bizarre Internet censorship of Indian govt., DoT (Department of Telecom) has issued a notice to various Internet Service Providers in India to block a total of 32 miscellaneous websites in their network. The notice doesn’t state the reason for this move.

Insane! Govt orders blocking of 32 websites including @internetarchive @vimeo @github @pastebin #censorship #FoEx pic.twitter.com/F75ngSGohJ

— Pranesh Prakash (@pranesh_prakash) December 31, 2014

The above tweet was made public by Pranesh Pakesh, a director at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore.

In a recent update about blocking these 32 website in India, The head of the Bharatiya Janata political party has claimed that the sites were listed because they content from ISIS.

Gupta added that those sites which cooperate and remove the suspected ISIS content will be unblocked. Nonetheless, looking in from the outside, it certainly seems like the issue could have been handled in a clearer way that didn’t involved issuing blanket censorship blocks.

Most of the websites in blocking provided by govt. like GitHub, Archive.org are as harmless as PMO India's own website and people are still wandering about the reason for this kind of bizarre censorship. Notably, Github is a site that is used by every 2nd software engineer in the world and consider as back-bone of tech-startups of India.

Github, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Archive.org are used by millions across India and have nothing to do with such malpractices and the censorship of these sites is extremely surprising. While Github is ranked 101 in the word among millions of sites worldwide, Vimeo is ranked 119.

Ironically, Indian govt. in November'14 announced that it is planning to create Github like repository of software that can be created collaboratively and most recently appointed Slideshare co-founder Amit Ranjan to head this open source project. And now this move of government is opposing its own ideas.

Lets hope that Modi-led NDA Government realizes their blunder and works on revoking the censorship as soon as possible.

10 Promising Delhi Tech Startups in 2014

2014 proved to be a great year for startups. Many new startups put their foot in the market and many of the existing ones climbed up the success ladder. New Delhi, the National Capital of the country proved to be a thriving base for many of these startups. We have created a list of top Delhi-based startups that made their mark this and we have not included startups from Gurgaon, Noida or other NCR area as these region often included in Delhi region. See our other post for Gurgaon here - 10 Most Promising Gurgaon Startups In 2014. And for now, lets look at the top 10 startups based in New Delhi that made 2014 their year.

Tripoto -

Love travelling? Then, this is the site for you. Founded in 2013 by Anirudh Gupta and Michael Lyngdoh, Tripoto acts as platform for travellers to discover and discuss travel plans, stories, photographs, itineraries, write reviews etc. It aims to connect individuals interested in travelling to one another. The startup eases the process of discovering and searching independent, personalized and authentic information on a single platform. According to the website, it gets over 3 lakhs monthly unique visitors and 6.5 Lakhs unique page views. To make it easier for travelers, the startup also offers an iOS and Android app for them to use on the go.

The Delhi based startup was successful in raising $400,000 in seed funding in November this year. The round was led by Outbox Ventures.

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Limetray -

Nowadays having an online presence is considered more important than having a physical presence. In this age of online presence, restaurants are having a hard time in making ends meet. Limetray helps these restaurants in having a web-presence, which finally helps them in targeting the right customer base for themselves.

Co-founded by Akhilesh Bali and Piyush Jain, Limetray is a product startup that helps restaurants to market, sell and engage more to customers online. They provide a suite of tools like social media marketing, user content aggregation etc. that helps merchants in building a consistent brand presence across the web.

---

Mypoolin -

Do you love hanging out with your bunch of friends but when it comes to dividing money for the bill, it always turns out to be a mess with someone’s feelings getting hurt? Well, not anymore. Mypoolin strongly believes that money should never get in between friendships and therefore the organization has worked out a system to make the process of money collection between friends, family and relatives fast and absolutely hassle free. The site is very easy to use. It consists of just three easy steps. Firstly, put in the purpose and the target amount to get started with the pool. Second, Invite people to contribute and the third and the final step involve the money getting transferred to your account.

The startup was founded in 2014 by Rohit Taneja and Ankit Singh. Within the first two weeks of its launch, the startup saw pools over Rs. 50,000 being formed by users for weekend getaways, corporate parties and gifting purposes.

---

PressPlay -

Travelling on buses for long distances can turn out very boring. In order to make bus travelling more entertaining and less boring, PressPlay is unique startups which provides passengers on inter-city buses with tablets for a cost of a mere Rs.100. The tablets can be easily attached to seats and comes with pre-loaded mix of Television shows, movies, documentaries, music and games. They have also designed a special catalogue by keeping in mind the requirements of children.

The startup was founded by George Abraham and Anand Sinha in December 2013. Abraham and Sinha both worked as country heads for Zomato before they quit their job to start PressPlay. Once a bus is about to depart for its journey from the starting point, a PressPlay operator comes to the bus and pitches the tablet to the passengers. In order to make sure that people don’t leave with the tablet after the journey, the tablet comes with a hardware which gets locked to the seat in front.

In August 2014 PressPlay raised $500,000 (Rs.3 crore apprx.) in funding from a group of angel investors.

Read more about PressPlay here

---

Greymeter -

In India, there is a big gap between companies and university students and Greymeter works towards bridging this huge gap. The website works as an online skill demonstration and employment platform where students demonstrate their inner capabilities, tackle real world challenges, win rewards and at the end, get hired. It helps students in realizing their true calling and then gets them placed in their dream jobs.

Co-founded by Shad Ahmad and Akshay Bhagat, Greymeter helps students in honing their skills by making them face real world challenges, something which they can’t learn through books. It also provides leading challenging solvers with an acknowledgment certificate.

---

Fisike -

We live in a fast paced world and in this fast paced world, we often end up ignoring our health. But, with Fisike, all this is bound to change. It is a secure, free and HIPAA instant messaging application for physicians and their patients. The startup provides a platform to clinical practices and healthcare providers to connect with each other and engage with their patients. It helps the patients in getting rid from the hassles of password protected .zip file and encrypted emails. Fisike provides a cloud based HIPAA complaint data service along with an auditable way to share healthcare data with appropriate controls and limiting access to authorized medical personnel only.

Founded by Varun Anand Fisike is a bootstrapped healthcare tech startup is currently available as an Android app.

---

ClinchPad -

 


ClinchPad is a modern CRM application which unlike traditional CRMs focuses on deals rather than contacts. It is a web based sales CRM application, designed for small teams looking for an organized and efficient way of tracking their leads. As a CRM ClinchPad’s main focus is on managing your sales pipeline through a visual interface. It is an alternative to traditional CRMs and is built for small teams looking to break away from a cluster of spreadsheets to a more organized way of tracking leads.

ClinchPad is a SaaS-based startup based out of New Delhi. ClinchPad has been incubated by GSF Accelerator, a multi city accelerator in India. ClinchPad got graduated from GSF Accelerator program in August 2013.

ClinchPas was founded by Cheenu Madan who has previous experience in SaaS space, having worked on Bloomberg Law, a SaaS product, while working with Bloomberg in New York City. He has a Masters degree in Computer Science from University of Florida.

Read more about ClinchPad here

---

Partiko -

 


This one is for all the party animals out there, who need all the information about the latest and happening nightlife events that too all under one roof. Partiko is an online platform that allows party goers to check all the information about the nightlife events which includes the coming DJ, location, party theme, booking details, music type etc. The users can even subscribe to it and get all the information as regular Whatsapp alerts. The startup caters to the events happening in the Delhi NCR region for now.

Partiko was founded in July 2014 by Amanjot Malhotra, an IIT Roorkee graduate. It is a bootstrapped startup till date but it will soon start seeking seed funding to expand to other parts of the country.

---

Oravel -

 


Founded in 2011 by Ritesh Agarwal, Oravel is a startup that deals in social marketplace for serviced apartments, private rooms all across the country. The website allows users to book more than 3500 affordable serviced apartments, boutique guest homes, holiday rentals, palaces etc.

In 2014, Oravel Stays Pvt. Ltd received a funding of $650,000 from Lightspeed Venture Partners and DSG Consumer partners.  It even launched a new website called Oyo rooms, where oyo stands for ‘on your own’. The new website acts as a marketplace for serviced apartments.

---

TaxiPixi -

 


TaxiPixi is a Delhi based startup which provides Tourist Cab and Radio Cab booking service. Different in working to other taxi booking apps like Uber or Ola, this application lets the user send taxi request directly to the drivers of various Radio Taxi Companies-which includes drivers from Dot Cabs, Meru Cabs, Green Cabs, Mega Cabs, Air Cabs, Easy Cabs, gCabs, Quick Cabs and other such companies. The startup claims that user can book a Radio Cab in less than 1 minute and even faster i.e. under 30 seconds, if he or she is using the application on a Wi-Fi or 3G network.

Founded by Kajal Dubey, Jitender Sharma and Gaurav Agarwal, TaxiPixi is becoming quite popular amongst the Indian Radio Taxi customers.

Read more about TaxiPixi here

10 Promising Delhi Tech Startups in 2014

2014 proved to be a great year for startups. Many new startups put their foot in the market and many of the existing ones climbed up the success ladder. New Delhi, the National Capital of the country proved to be a thriving base for many of these startups. We have created a list of top Delhi-based startups that made their mark this and we have not included startups from Gurgaon, Noida or other NCR area as these region often included in Delhi region. See our other post for Gurgaon here - 10 Most Promising Gurgaon Startups In 2014. And for now, lets look at the top 10 startups based in New Delhi that made 2014 their year.

Tripoto -

Love travelling? Then, this is the site for you. Founded in 2013 by Anirudh Gupta and Michael Lyngdoh, Tripoto acts as platform for travellers to discover and discuss travel plans, stories, photographs, itineraries, write reviews etc. It aims to connect individuals interested in travelling to one another. The startup eases the process of discovering and searching independent, personalized and authentic information on a single platform. According to the website, it gets over 3 lakhs monthly unique visitors and 6.5 Lakhs unique page views. To make it easier for travelers, the startup also offers an iOS and Android app for them to use on the go.

The Delhi based startup was successful in raising $400,000 in seed funding in November this year. The round was led by Outbox Ventures.

---

Limetray -

Nowadays having an online presence is considered more important than having a physical presence. In this age of online presence, restaurants are having a hard time in making ends meet. Limetray helps these restaurants in having a web-presence, which finally helps them in targeting the right customer base for themselves.

Co-founded by Akhilesh Bali and Piyush Jain, Limetray is a product startup that helps restaurants to market, sell and engage more to customers online. They provide a suite of tools like social media marketing, user content aggregation etc. that helps merchants in building a consistent brand presence across the web.

---

Mypoolin -

Do you love hanging out with your bunch of friends but when it comes to dividing money for the bill, it always turns out to be a mess with someone’s feelings getting hurt? Well, not anymore. Mypoolin strongly believes that money should never get in between friendships and therefore the organization has worked out a system to make the process of money collection between friends, family and relatives fast and absolutely hassle free. The site is very easy to use. It consists of just three easy steps. Firstly, put in the purpose and the target amount to get started with the pool. Second, Invite people to contribute and the third and the final step involve the money getting transferred to your account.

The startup was founded in 2014 by Rohit Taneja and Ankit Singh. Within the first two weeks of its launch, the startup saw pools over Rs. 50,000 being formed by users for weekend getaways, corporate parties and gifting purposes.

---

PressPlay -

Travelling on buses for long distances can turn out very boring. In order to make bus travelling more entertaining and less boring, PressPlay is unique startups which provides passengers on inter-city buses with tablets for a cost of a mere Rs.100. The tablets can be easily attached to seats and comes with pre-loaded mix of Television shows, movies, documentaries, music and games. They have also designed a special catalogue by keeping in mind the requirements of children.

The startup was founded by George Abraham and Anand Sinha in December 2013. Abraham and Sinha both worked as country heads for Zomato before they quit their job to start PressPlay. Once a bus is about to depart for its journey from the starting point, a PressPlay operator comes to the bus and pitches the tablet to the passengers. In order to make sure that people don’t leave with the tablet after the journey, the tablet comes with a hardware which gets locked to the seat in front.

In August 2014 PressPlay raised $500,000 (Rs.3 crore apprx.) in funding from a group of angel investors.

Read more about PressPlay here

---

Greymeter -

In India, there is a big gap between companies and university students and Greymeter works towards bridging this huge gap. The website works as an online skill demonstration and employment platform where students demonstrate their inner capabilities, tackle real world challenges, win rewards and at the end, get hired. It helps students in realizing their true calling and then gets them placed in their dream jobs.

Co-founded by Shad Ahmad and Akshay Bhagat, Greymeter helps students in honing their skills by making them face real world challenges, something which they can’t learn through books. It also provides leading challenging solvers with an acknowledgment certificate.

---

Fisike -

We live in a fast paced world and in this fast paced world, we often end up ignoring our health. But, with Fisike, all this is bound to change. It is a secure, free and HIPAA instant messaging application for physicians and their patients. The startup provides a platform to clinical practices and healthcare providers to connect with each other and engage with their patients. It helps the patients in getting rid from the hassles of password protected .zip file and encrypted emails. Fisike provides a cloud based HIPAA complaint data service along with an auditable way to share healthcare data with appropriate controls and limiting access to authorized medical personnel only.

Founded by Varun Anand Fisike is a bootstrapped healthcare tech startup is currently available as an Android app.

---

ClinchPad -

 


ClinchPad is a modern CRM application which unlike traditional CRMs focuses on deals rather than contacts. It is a web based sales CRM application, designed for small teams looking for an organized and efficient way of tracking their leads. As a CRM ClinchPad’s main focus is on managing your sales pipeline through a visual interface. It is an alternative to traditional CRMs and is built for small teams looking to break away from a cluster of spreadsheets to a more organized way of tracking leads.

ClinchPad is a SaaS-based startup based out of New Delhi. ClinchPad has been incubated by GSF Accelerator, a multi city accelerator in India. ClinchPad got graduated from GSF Accelerator program in August 2013.

ClinchPas was founded by Cheenu Madan who has previous experience in SaaS space, having worked on Bloomberg Law, a SaaS product, while working with Bloomberg in New York City. He has a Masters degree in Computer Science from University of Florida.

Read more about ClinchPad here

---

Partiko -

 


This one is for all the party animals out there, who need all the information about the latest and happening nightlife events that too all under one roof. Partiko is an online platform that allows party goers to check all the information about the nightlife events which includes the coming DJ, location, party theme, booking details, music type etc. The users can even subscribe to it and get all the information as regular Whatsapp alerts. The startup caters to the events happening in the Delhi NCR region for now.

Partiko was founded in July 2014 by Amanjot Malhotra, an IIT Roorkee graduate. It is a bootstrapped startup till date but it will soon start seeking seed funding to expand to other parts of the country.

---

Oravel -

 


Founded in 2011 by Ritesh Agarwal, Oravel is a startup that deals in social marketplace for serviced apartments, private rooms all across the country. The website allows users to book more than 3500 affordable serviced apartments, boutique guest homes, holiday rentals, palaces etc.

In 2014, Oravel Stays Pvt. Ltd received a funding of $650,000 from Lightspeed Venture Partners and DSG Consumer partners.  It even launched a new website called Oyo rooms, where oyo stands for ‘on your own’. The new website acts as a marketplace for serviced apartments.

---

TaxiPixi -

 


TaxiPixi is a Delhi based startup which provides Tourist Cab and Radio Cab booking service. Different in working to other taxi booking apps like Uber or Ola, this application lets the user send taxi request directly to the drivers of various Radio Taxi Companies-which includes drivers from Dot Cabs, Meru Cabs, Green Cabs, Mega Cabs, Air Cabs, Easy Cabs, gCabs, Quick Cabs and other such companies. The startup claims that user can book a Radio Cab in less than 1 minute and even faster i.e. under 30 seconds, if he or she is using the application on a Wi-Fi or 3G network.

Founded by Kajal Dubey, Jitender Sharma and Gaurav Agarwal, TaxiPixi is becoming quite popular amongst the Indian Radio Taxi customers.

Read more about TaxiPixi here

Gurgaon-based Messaging App Yup! Raises $500K In Seed Funding, Eyeing $10M In Series A

Gurgaon based Instant Messaging App Yup! has raised a $500,000 (over Rs 3 crore) seed funding round led by Arun Khanna, chairman of Olive Telecom, and Harsh Khanna, test lead at HTC, VC Circle reported.

"The funding is being used to turn Yup! into a go-to destination to access all kinds of information that are of human interest, with a single click," said Tushar Malhotra, co-founder of Yup!.

Yup! is an instant messaging app developed by Gurgaon-based Nucleus Research Pvt Ltd founded in June this year by Malhotra and Yogesh Huja. Yup! is now targeting to raise $10 Million in a Series A round of funding, and has already appointed US-based accounting and advisory firm Grant Thornton to run the mandate. The capital would be used for marketing and also to roll out the app in eight languages including Hindi, Tamil and Punjabi.

What differentiates Yup! from other IM apps is its one-click interface and its ability to work on low bandwidth, therefore is easy to use and smooth to operate. Yup! acts almost like an online pager machine, wherein all you require is a single click, to send your message across to other app users. The app houses some in-built templates which consist of important messages one may require to send urgently. It also contains several other features like opinion polls etc.

Yup! is available across all platforms, including iOS and Android competing with other messaging apps like WhatsApp, Line, WeChat and India's home-grown IM service Hike, which recently raised whopping $65 million from Tiger Global. According to Malhotra, the app has seen over 2 lakh downloads since launch.

PM Narendra Modi Joins LinkedIn

After becoming the second most followed politician worldwide on Twitter and enjoying a great popularity on Facebook, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has joined World's largest professional networking site 'LinkedIn'. You may see PM Narendra Modi on LinkedIn here.

Till date the PM of India have got more than 3.5 Lakhs followers and moreover LinkedIn has chosen Modi under its 'Influencer List'. Modi's phenomenal success in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections can be attributed to his terrific use of social media during poll campaigns. Modi and his political party is known for spending whopping sum of money over social media and online campaigns for him and his party to gain publicity and public outreach.

The whole profile summary of Modi on LinkedIn is very metaphorical and why shouldn't it be, as what a politician could write in summary of his profile and of course it is not written by him personally. Notably, there is nothing in particular in education section of his profile apart from mentioning Gujarat University in it.

After Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and now LinkedIn the only major social media platform left for Modi is Pinterest which is more famous among fairer sex. We hope that IT team of Modi will see Pinterest as its next target to woo female population or better say 'female voters' of India.

Bangalore-Based Edutech Startup SuperProfs Raised $3 Million From Kalaari & IDG Ventures India

Bangalore-based Edu-Tech startup SuperProfs.com has secured Rs 18 crore (about $3 million) in its Series A round of funding from Kalaari Capital and IDG Ventures India reports VCCircle. SuperProfs is an online platform that connects students preparing for various competitive exams with professors.

The funds will be used by startup to invest in R&D and mobile technology, as well as to expand product offerings and study material, add more courses to its platform, in addition to expanding operations across India.

Earlier in September 2012, the startups raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Indian Angel Network.

SuperProfs is operated by its parent company Aurus Network Pvt Ltd which was founded in 2010 by IIT Kanpur alumni Piyush Agrawal and Sujeet Kumar. The online startup connects best professors to students through its platform and make classrooms more accessible, opening up more learning possibilities for students and wider reach for professors.

SuperProfs, which claims over 25,000 registered users and 100 professors, partners with top professors from across India and broadcasts their live courses online by live transmission of HD quality videos at low bandwidth. Students can compare teachers based on teaching methodology, verified ratings and reviews. SuperProfs.com has partnered with professors from Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai for various competitive exams like CA, CS, CMA and GATE.

"Besides tier 1 cities, we are increasingly witnessing a significant number of students from tier 2 and 3 towns, who earlier could not prepare well for such exams due to a lack of good teachers in their city, adopting online exam preparation at SuperProfs.com. We are happy to have Kalaari and IDG as our partners in our mission to make quality education accessible to the masses," said Agrawal, co-founder of Aurus Networks.

Flipkart Asks Karnataka Govt To Create Database of Employed Persons To Help Identify Applicant's Criminal Past

Bangalore based e-commerce giant Flipkart has asked the Karnataka government to take the lead in creating a database of employed persons in the state, a step that could help in screening job applicants with a criminal past, reports Economics Times.

Flipkart is headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka with over 12,000 employees helping it ship packages to people across the country, and Flipkart believes that it is challenging to run a foolproof background check of employees based on the current model of police verification.

"We have asked for a central repository that can help us," Mekin Maheswari, chief people officer at Flipkart, told ET, adding that he remains hopeful that the government will soon act on it.

Notably, in India there is an absence of central repository as far as individuals' criminal records are concerned thus there is big loophole that if there is a case registered against a person in a police station of one district that it could be missed by another police station in another district where an individual is applying for a job.

"Things get complicated if a prospective employee hails from another state. How do we make sure he has not committed any crime in his native place, although he may have a clean record in the place where he is working," said Guru Prasad Srinivasan, director of staffing at Ikya Human Capital Solutions, a Bengaluru-based staffing firm.

The problems associated with police verification as part of background check has reportedly prompted several firms, including Symphony Teleca and Nest Software, to ask staffing companies not to go for police verification at the time of hiring.

As more people shop online, consumers will want to know who is knocking at my door and Flipkart's urge to the state govt. for envisaging central database is a precautionary measure and taking lessons from Uber rape case the e-commerce giant doesn't wants to take chances as thousand of delivery men delivers packages across the country from door to door. In Uber case, investigations revealed that the taxi aggregator had not even done the basic police verification on the driver, who hailed from another state and employed in another.

As of now, however, Bengaluru city police said they are unable to concede Flipkart's request as the outcome of a verification sought depends on the way a person's name is spelt.

10 Biggest Startup Funding Round In India 2014

1. Flipkart - $1 Billion

India's e-commerce giant Flipkart On 29 July 2014 announced that it raised $1 billion from Tiger Global Management LLC, Accel Partners, and Morgan Stanley Investment Management and a new investor Singapore sovereign-wealth fund GIC. This $1 billion funding of Flipkart was biggest funding ever by any Indian startup in history. Earlier in May this year, the e-commerce giant had already raised $210 million from Yuri Milner’s DST Global and its existing investors Tiger Global, Naspers and Iconiq Capital.

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2. SnapDeal.com - $627 Million

In October 2014, Snapdeal received its 6th round of funding from Softbank with investments worth $627 million in fresh capital. This makes SoftBank the largest investor in Snapdeal followed by eBay. After Flipart's billion-dollar funding, SnapDeal was in lot of pressure as a competition thereafter Japanese telecom giant Softbank came to India in October with bagfuls of cash to invest in Indian startups and luckily chose SnapDeal at its primary portfolio company from India.

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3. Ola – US$210 million

After SnapDeal, Ola was second investment portfolio company of Softbank in India. In October, Japan's Softbank pumped in whopping US$210 million in Ola Cabs making the online cab booking startup become strong enough to compete against global players like Uber. Softbank's investment in Ola is secong funding for Ola this year as earlier the startup had raised US$41.5 million already.

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4. Flipkart – US$180 Million

After famous billion-dollar funding of Flipkart in July, the Bangalore based e-commerce giant in the year-end again grabbed fresh $180 million in third round of funding led by Hongkong-based investment firm Steadview Capital which made the e-commerce startup among World's 5 biggest startups in the world as this funding allowed Flipkart's to be  valued at $11 billion or roughly Rs 69,000 crore.

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5. Quikr – US$90 million

In March 2014, online and mobile classifieds venture Quikr has raised $90 million from a group of investors led by Swedish investment firm Investment Kinnevik. It was fifth major funding round – and the seventh in total – for the Gurgaon-based startup. The funding gave boost to Quickr to give tough competition to its rivals in India and primarily OLX. Earlier Quickr had raised $60 million funding led by Tiger Global Management.

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6. Housing.com – US$90 Million

In December 2014, the two-year-old Mumbai-based real estate portal Housing.com has raised $90 million (Rs.574 crore apprx.), combined from Japan's Softbank and existing investors like Nexus Venture, Helion Venture as well as the venture capital arm of telecom company Qualcomm. New investors such as Falcon Edge and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's DST Global also participated in the funding round.

Housing.com has raised a total of over $121 million since its inception and the startup is now valued at about $250 million.

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7. Hike – US$65 Million

In August 2014, Indian messaging app Hike raised US$65 million led by Tiger Global Management along with participation from Bharti SoftBank (BSB), a joint venture of Bharti Enterprises and Japan’s Softbank Corporation. Till date, this series C round of funding by Hike was the largest round of funding by messaging startup. Hike is Indian answer to global messaging app like WhatsApp, Line, and WeChat.

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8. Zomato – US$60 Million

In November 2014, online restaurant discovery tool Zomato closed US$60 million round of funding at a post-money valuation of ~US$660 million. This round was led jointly by Info Edge and Vy Capital along with existing investor Sequoia Capital. This takes Zomato's total funding to over US$113 million. Info Edge now owns 50.1% of Zomato.

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9. Hungama – US$40 Million

In July 2014, Mumbai-based Hungama Digital Media Entertainment parent company of Hungama.com raised $40 million in an investment led by Bessemer Venture Partners and participation from the existing investor Intel Capital. Hungama is one of the oldest internet company in India founded in year 1999.

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10. Delhivery – US$35 Million

In September 2014, Gurgaon-based e-commerce logistics services company Delhivery closed a $35 million round of funding, led by Multiples Alternate Asset Management along with its existing investors Times Internet and Nexus Venture Partners. The transaction is the largest round of funding raised by an Indian e-commerce allied venture till date.

10 Most Promising Gurgaon Startups In 2014

Gurgaon is one of the important startup hub in India which has nurtured many successful startups which now has become big brands such as MakeMyTrip, Zomato, Quickr, ixigo etc. However from couple of years Gurgaon hasn't seen a big startup coming out but this year, in 2014, the millennium city has seen bunch of promising startups that have been noticed by whole startup ecosystem in India.

We have shortlisted 10 of most promising startups from Gurgaon which made real good impact and are unique, interesting and have already created a waive of interest in masses.

Roposo

 


Roposo.com is India's first fashion-focused social-network only for women to discover and shop new fashion products from across 5000 online brands and 150 e-commerce portals. These products are curated and recommended to each user as per her individual taste. Because Roposo is social, users can observe and follow trends that are created real-time by other users.

Roposo.com, now has over 2 lakh products across 5,000 brands from more than 150 vendors. All of these products are curated and recommended to each user as per individual taste.

Founded by three IITians - Mayank Bhangadia, Avinash Saxena and Kaushal Shubhank. Roposo has recently raised bridge funding successfully through existing investors bringing the size of the total investment close to $1 million. The initial funding was raised from India Quotient, 5 ideas start up Fuel and co-founder of Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal as an angel investor.

Read more about Roposo.

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LoudCell

 


LoudCell is an IoT-based energy management solutions startup based out of Gurgaon and its offerings are based on IoT (Internet of Things) and cloud technologies. One of its product 'LoudCell iFMS' is an Intelligent and highly integrated fuel tracking and management platform for power generators. The products help you monitor and record your diesel and energy usage in real-time. You get complete insight into the energy flow right from purchase all the way to final consumption, bringing wastage, inefficiencies, leakage and pilferage into focus, helping improve efficiency, and reduce wastage and pilferage.

The startup was founded by Ramesh Gupta and Ashish Srivastava. Ramesh is an alumnus of IIS in Bangalore, Gupta earlier founded Guptacom Technologies whereas Ashish is an alumnus of University of Illinois at Chicago, and previously worked in companies, including VIOM Networks and Aviat Networks.

This Gurgaon-based IoT startup has been backed by Asia's largest angel investment body - Indian Angel Network (IAN).

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Grofers

 


Grofers is a hyper-local delivery service that connects consumers with their local merchants. Users can use Grofers's app to buy anything from groceries, cakes, flowers to personal care products and get it delivered within 90 minutes to their doorstep. Grofers manages its instant delivery network with a fleet of over 150 delivery boys and an in-house dynamic delivery assignment and tracking application.

The service has build a network of over 150 merchants across different categories and has processed over 150,000 deliveries so far. Grofers gives its users an option to buy from their favorite stores around them that are listed in the application. The list of merchants also include big retailers like Le Marche, Needs, Binge and Sucre.

Currently operational in Delhi NCR, Mumbai and Bangalore, Grofers recently raised its seed round funding from Sequoia Capital.

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TargetingMantra

TargetingMantra provides a personalization platform along with analytical tools, that can help e-commerce, media firms and other online business to increase its ROI by delivering a more relevant experience to its customers. TargetingMantra learns user models for predicting preferences of customers and use real-time data that comprises how customers are interacting on the website, their past data, their personal preferences.

TargetingMantra's personlization platform is currently providing more than 15 solutions for personalization such as – 'Similar items', 'People who bought also bought', 'Frequently bought together', 'New Arrivals', 'Best Sellers', 'Recommendations for customers based on their interest', 'Recommendation Emails', ‘Customized Banner Ads’, etc.

The startup is founded by Ex-Amazon employees - Saurabh Nangia & Rahul Singh who as a team member worked for Amazon's own personalization and recommendation system. In September this year, the startup has raised $1.1 million from three investors — 500Startups, Nexus Venture Partners and One97 Mobility Fund.

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Nearify

 


Nearify event discovery app helps you discover everything that's happening within a 50 km radius around you or anywhere else on the planet. Additionally, you can use Nearify to find out about the various events happening in the far-off places as well, in case you are travelling and wish to plan out your itinerary. Nearify hosts around 10 million events from 52 cities around the world.

The app uses technology to aggregate data related to events from the web, which goes through a proprietary data processing engine for quality and relevance. It then collates that events’ data into a common format for users to consume. Apart as a website, Nearify is also available as an Android and iOS app.

Nearify is a product of Gurgaon-based Navelroots Internet Pvt. Ltd. founded by IIT Kanpur alumni – Mayank Kumar, Saurav Singh and Vivek Srivastava and in September this year the startup has raised funding between $0.5 million and $1 million from Seedfund Advisors, India Quotient and Bedrock Ventures, a seed and early-stage investor.

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Survey42

 


Survey42 is a simple easy to use Do-It-Yourself (DIY) online telephone survey building tool integrated with most advanced text to speech engines. It supports more than 20 languages. You simple create questions and options in Survey42’s survey editor, which is as easy as using any other text editor, upload your phone number, and make it live and you start getting results in just a couple of hours.

Setting up telephone surveys is generally a complicated process. You need to understand IVR and various other technical stuff. Also, it generally involves a setup cost. Overall, the entire system becomes very costly even if you want to get a simple survey done. Survey42 abstracts this entire process to make things simple for you. You just need to create question and option in a simple survey editor, Survery42 attach to a IVR system, convert them into audio data using text to speech engine and dispatches them to your users.

Survey42 is founded by a technology enthusiast Amit Gupta, an IIT-Delhi graduate. The startup has raised around USD 20,000.

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Ruplee

 


Ruplee is a revolutionary mobile payment app thugh which you can pay at your favorite restaurants with your mobile phone. The Ruplee application make it easy to make payments easier using smart devices. The app makes it super simple to make payments at a restaurant and also maintains a record of all the payments. The user just has to check-in with the app whenever he/she goes to a restaurant. This check-in notifies the merchant. After the user has enjoyed his meal, all he has to do is ask for the bill and pay using his credit or debit card.

With Ruplee you can also keep a tab of your payment history and monitor all your spending. Built by payment and security experts, Ruplee is very secure to use as all your credit/debit card data is safely stored and encrypted. Payments can only be authorized once you enter your CVV and 3D secure pin.

Ruplee is a bootstrapped mobile startup based out of Gurgaon founded by Natasha Jain, a self-raised entrepreneur who holds a Masters Degree in Management Science Engineering from Stanford University.

Read more about Ruplee.

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Mettl

 


Mettl is an online assessment tool to measure, analyze and improve people skills. Mettl is a promising online e-assessment & testing platform for job seekers as well as for companies and organization for prospective hires or even existing employees. The tool can help measure the hard skills that are directly required for the job profile rather than just the knowledge that can be easily acquired by rote learning.

Mettl is founded by Tonmoy Singhal and Ketan Kapoor. Tanmoy is an MBA from IIM Bangalore and a graduate from IIT Kanpur. Ketan is also a graduate from IIT-Roorkee and IIM-Calcutta Alumunus. In August this year, Mettl has raised $4 million Series A round led by IndoUS and existing investors to accelerate product development. Earlier, Mettl had raised angel funding from Blume Ventures, Dr. Puranjaya Singh, Naveen Tewari of Inmobi and others.

Read more about Mettl.

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MadPiggy

 


Madpiggy is a first of its kind mobile application based direct marketing platform, which helps users earn rewards for viewing and sharing ads. Madpiggy (‘Money-Ads-PiggyBank’) is a marketing platform for brick and mortar retailers as well as e-commerce retailers, to publish their deals and run a calibrated marketing campaign around there deals.

Currently with total of 25 members in their team based out of Gurgaon, Madpiggy has signed up more than 100 retailers from Gurgaon and is building its user base across India to launch its C2C product to other metro cities across India by 2015.

MadPiggy completely self-funded startup founded by Abhishek Kumar (IIT-Roorkee and ISB Hyb. alumnus) and Deepak Chauhan.

Read more about MadPiggy.

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Droom

 


Droom is India's first mobile marketplace to buy and sell used and new automobiles. Currently, an invitation only beta app, Droom is the most comprehensive mobile app ever conceived to simplify the automobile buying and selling experience. For Sellers there is an opportunity to get the fastest best price offers by becoming a Verified or a Pro-Seller. For the buyers there are options of searching through comprehensive listings and finding a committed Seller.

Droom is funded by some of the leading global venture investors and the company is based out of Gurgaon, India.

Delhi Startup Mypoolin Solves The Problem Of Money Collection From Friends, Family Or Anyone

Founded in Delhi in 2014 by Ankit Singh and Rohit Taneja, Mypoolin.com is probably the smartest way for collecting money in a group. The organization solves the problem of money collection (and settling) in a group for various use cases like group -gifting, traveling together, and attending parties/events as a group and even social mini-projects. You can invite along your friends, family or anyone to form a pool.

"They are in the business of payment aggregation and splitting and help in fast and convenient collection (and settling) of money among friends, or colleagues. Within the first 2 weeks of launch, they saw pools of over INR 50,000 being formed by users for corporate parties, gifts for college buddies and weekend getaways.

Rohit, who is IIT-Delhi alumnus, primarily looks after the design and user experiences (UX designs) at the company. With a prior work experience in Sony as a product designer, he gives an insight into his venture saying "We use proprietary algorithms for product/event recommendation and CakePHP application. Made as an API for B2B2C plugins, it is compatible with all major platforms. Also, an android app is on its way to go a step beyond and make payment settlement and collection social and as friction-less and seamless as possible."

[caption id="attachment_97766" align="aligncenter" width="700"] MyPoolin Core Team[/caption]

With an MBA degree from FMS-Delhi, Ankit handles the business end with focus on strategy and marketing for the company. Prior to setting this up, he has worked in Procter & Gamble and Intuit. He says "We have B2B plugin partners such as Gitanjali - Jewelsouk, Peppercloset, Exotic India Art where we power group gifting of gift vouchers and products. We are also coming up soon on YepME, Jabong, Cox & Kings and other major sites. We have also partnered with crowd funding websites such as Catapooolt for accelerating campaign donations and are soon coming up on milaap.org. Meanwhile, our users keep surprising us with the use-cases for which they use MyPoolin.com for collecting or settling money among their friends. Few of them are group gifting, group trips and movies/events."

The 3 easy steps you need to follow to get started: 'Put in the purpose and the target amount to get started with the pool'; 'Invite people and they contribute, all in a single click' & 'Once collected, get the money transferred to your account or redeem online'. That's it!

User invites friends to chip in money for a target amount via Facebook or E-mail. All invitees are directed to the site and can see who all have been invited for the event, how much has each invitee contributed and how much money has been collected. In case of group-gifting, order is placed only when the entire amount is collected or the group wants to cash out. Also, the amount is refunded in full in case the group event is cancelled.

Rohit adds "Currently we are in bootstrapped mode. The first 3 months were critical as we tried to soak in all the critical feedback and iterate the product. It was very exciting to develop something that has not been developed before from scratch. Also, it was crucial to remain lean and flexible during this period and focus on developing the product to solve the core pain point for the customers rather than providing multiple ‘nice to have’ features"

With a strong message for future entrepreneurs, Ankit says “Be bold to push out something new into the world but don't be arrogant. Be humble but don’t be timid. Most importantly, persevere and it always pays off one way or the other."

Electronic Development Fund For Startups; Another Promise By Govt.

During a visit to the Kerala's Startup Village, India's IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad announced that the government will set up an electronic development fund for start-ups across the country soon. Last month we reported that Indian government is planning a Rs 10,000-crore electronics development fund to support ambitious startups in attaining scale and this is a different fund from the Rs 10,000-crore venture fund announced in the Budget for startups in micro, small and medium enterprise (MSMEs).

"The central government has come up with the concept of electronic development fund with the government partnering with angel funds to fund startups in IT, electronics and manufacturing," said Prasad

Prasad added that the central government is promoting electronic manufacturing in a big way by giving many incentives to electronic clusters across the country.

"Until now, we have received investment proposals worth Rs.18,000 crore from foreign players and others in the field of electronic manufacturing. Out of this, around Rs.4,000 crore worth of projects have been approved," he said.

With regards to the incentives, he said if a state government or any other body provides 100 acres of land for setting up manufacturing units, the central government will provide a funding support of Rs.50 crore straight away. Also, for every Rs.100 invested by someone in a factory, the government will invest Rs.25, he said. This is apart from the incentives given by the state.

Earlier in July 2014, India’s finance minister Arun Jaitley announced in his maiden budget speech an INR 10,000 crore (US$1.6 billion) fund for tech startups in India and now it already been almost 6 months nothing has happened so far.

After INR 10,000 crore fund for startups, a number of organizations have eagerly come forward since then to help the government manage the fund and invest the money. But the Ministry of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises, which is supposed to implement the budget proposal, has yet to come out with a plan of action. And now that IT Minister has made another promise for startups in India we are yet to see course of action from government.

Tata AirPod: India's Tiny Air-Powered Prototype Car

Indian car maker Tata, which has been famous in the past for developing the cheapest car on the Earth, is all set to present its customers with a consumer friendly air powered car. Tata is the midst of developing a concept car called the Airpod which will run on 'air' as a fuel.

The Airpod will be powered by compressed air. This idea of a car powered by compressed air has been in the development stage for several years now but has proved to be commercially unviable to build. The car is extremely light in weight and is built with the help of a technology licensed from Luxembourg’s MDI, a company that is famous for producing zero pollution engines since the 90s.

The Airpod is most likely to be a one seated car that will be able to run at between 45 and 70 kilometers per hour. The car's engine is powered by a tank of compressed air, which can either be taken in while driving with the help of an electric engine or pumped in through a charging station. The car also has the ability to recapture some of the energy during braking. The concept is still under development but once complete, it has the ability to offer more environment and pocket friendly recharging option without waiting for something like lithium air battery by IBM.



MDI has been working rigorously on the technology for some time now. In early 2007, the company signed a licensing agreement with Tata and in 2011, a concept car was launched for the same.  The engine was successful tested in two Tata cars in May this year. The successful testing gave MDI and Tata a green flag to proceed to the next stage. The next step involves finding out a way to develop a product that can be launched in the market.

In 2013, Tata Motors has successfully tests two cars with AirPod technology. It has the capability of driving at speeds between 45-70kmph. The air used to power the engine can either be pumped in via a charging station, or taken in while driving with the help of an electric motor. It sounds like a good idea but don't expect to see it on the roads anytime soon as development is expected to be made "over the coming years".

A brand new Tata Airpod is expect to hit the market in the future at $10,000 and it'll cost $1 to fill the tank.

Tata AirPod: India's Tiny Air-Powered Prototype Car

Indian car maker Tata, which has been famous in the past for developing the cheapest car on the Earth, is all set to present its customers with a consumer friendly air powered car. Tata is the midst of developing a concept car called the Airpod which will run on 'air' as a fuel.

The Airpod will be powered by compressed air. This idea of a car powered by compressed air has been in the development stage for several years now but has proved to be commercially unviable to build. The car is extremely light in weight and is built with the help of a technology licensed from Luxembourg’s MDI, a company that is famous for producing zero pollution engines since the 90s.

The Airpod is most likely to be a one seated car that will be able to run at between 45 and 70 kilometers per hour. The car's engine is powered by a tank of compressed air, which can either be taken in while driving with the help of an electric engine or pumped in through a charging station. The car also has the ability to recapture some of the energy during braking. The concept is still under development but once complete, it has the ability to offer more environment and pocket friendly recharging option without waiting for something like lithium air battery by IBM.



MDI has been working rigorously on the technology for some time now. In early 2007, the company signed a licensing agreement with Tata and in 2011, a concept car was launched for the same.  The engine was successful tested in two Tata cars in May this year. The successful testing gave MDI and Tata a green flag to proceed to the next stage. The next step involves finding out a way to develop a product that can be launched in the market.

In 2013, Tata Motors has successfully tests two cars with AirPod technology. It has the capability of driving at speeds between 45-70kmph. The air used to power the engine can either be pumped in via a charging station, or taken in while driving with the help of an electric motor. It sounds like a good idea but don't expect to see it on the roads anytime soon as development is expected to be made "over the coming years".

A brand new Tata Airpod is expect to hit the market in the future at $10,000 and it'll cost $1 to fill the tank.

E-Commerce In India In 2015 - Infographics

Since 2012, e-commerce in India has grown the fastest in the Asia-Pacific region. With over 250 million internet users and growth being shown at an extremely fast rate, e-commerce in India is estimated to reach $20 billion in 2015, which is eight times ($2.5 billion) the amount it was worth in 2009.

Its been 10 years since 2004, when eBay acquired India's Bazee.com to 2014 when Flipkart counted among world's biggest 5 startups with worth of $11 billion company.

In 2009 the e-commerce market worth was $2.5 billion which ramped up to $6.3 billion in 2011 and then shoot up to $16 billion in 2013 which mean eight folds increase in just 4 years and and about 200% growth every year.

This infographic by vouchercloud takes a look at the growth of e-commerce in India and predicts the levels it could reach in the not too distant future.

VC Firm Aavishkaar To Raise Biggest Funding Focusing Social Sector

Mumbai based venture capital firm Aavishkaar is all set to raise $400 million (Rs 2,500 crore) in 2015, which would be the biggest amount raised by any fund focusing on the social sector or impact investing in India. Notably, Aavishkaar Venture Management Services is India's biggest social entrepreneurship-focused venture capital fund.

Aavishkar would raise two separate funds, a $100 million and a $300 million one within the next 12 months. "We hope to close the first fund by the end of March as we are half way there. We are also raising a separate $300 million fund which would be closed by the end of 2015," said Vineet Rai, CEO and managing director, Aavishkar.

The initial $100-million fund would be an Africa-focused fund while the $300-million fund would focus entrepreneurs and start-ups in India. In the past 12 years, Aavishkar had raised $112 million and invested in the early stage social sector enterprises. However, with its upcoming $300 million India-focused fund, it plans to invest in companies at a later stage. This would also be the first time an Indian VC is investing in Africa.

Aaavishkaar was founded in 2001, with a vision to catalyze development in India's undeserved regions and a 10-year goal to invest in 300 start-up companies and raise US$1 billion over the next ten years. So in the past decade, Aavishkar had made 48 investments across eight sectors with 100% seed stage investments and have achieved 11 Full and 4 partial exits and with 90 per cent of the companies having rural and semi-urban markets as their focus.

Over the last decade, Aavishkaar has established a successful track record with over US$ 155 million under management and a diverse portfolio of high-impact businesses at various levels of growth. This spans a range of sectors, namely agriculture, dairy, education, energy, handicrafts, health, water and sanitation, technology for development, micro-finance and financial inclusion.

How To Raise Funds For Startups In India

Money is very important and it becomes even more important when it comes to a startup. You have an idea and a passion to work on it with all you have got but money is where all the problem starts. This guide illustrates one way how to raise money for a startup, especially for first-time entrepreneurs.

Angel Investing -

You can start by looking for angel investors for your startup. Angel investors are basically successful entrepreneurs who have made their fortune in the business and are now looking to invest their money back into startup businesses. Whether it’s Facebook, Google or Twitter, all these world famous businesses have had angel investors in the past. Angel investors bring more than just money to the startups. They come with a bank of connections and advice which can prove to be very beneficial to the startup. Some of the biggest Angel networks that connect entrepreneurs to investors are Investors Circle, Golden Seeds and Tech Coast Angels. Angel investors can indeed prove to be the Angels for your startups.

Bank Financing -

This is the most famous and used means to raise money for your startup. When taking a banking loan, your banker may demand that you have your loan agreement guaranteed by the Small Business Association (SBA). Once the agreement is guaranteed by the SBA, the loan is approved. The SBA is basically a government agency which guarantees up to eighty percent of the value of the loan for applicants. Only applicants who meet their criteria are guaranteed by the association. If you don’t want to go the SBA way, you can also use some other form of security such as your home etc. to get your loan approved.

Business Partner -

Let's assume that you've a brilliant idea for a business but have no money to invest in it. You can either drop the idea altogether or turn to your wealthy friend or acquaintance for help. Many of the top businesses have received seed funding from a co-founder. While selecting a business partner, you’ve to be extra careful about certain points. You should make sure that their own business aspirations and goals are in sync with yours because as a business partner, he/she will also have a control over the direction of the business.

Family and Friends -

Family and friends are the ones who stand with you through your thick and thin. If you don’t want to take the pressure of a bank loan, you always have an option of turning to your friends and family for help. They can loan you money on flexible and mutually agreed terms and conditions.

Crowd funding -

Though Crowd funding as a means of raising money for startups is still in its initial stages, it is slowly becoming popular with the young entrepreneurs. Crowd funding as the name suggests means receiving funding from the crowd. In this, the public makes use of their own personal funds to fund your startup idea. You just need to put your idea on a crowd funding idea and people can then choose how much money they want to give to your idea. Many of the crowd funding sites work on a reward based model where people who agree to invest in a particular business idea are given a reward such as the product that is going to be produced. Some famous crowd funding sites include Fundable, Indiegogo and Kicstarter.

Venture Capital -

You even have the option of turning to Venture Capitalists to raise funds for your startup. Venture Capitalists are people who invest in early stage businesses that have a high potential to grow in future. They traditionally receive equity in the startup business in return for funding it. However, nowadays the trend involves demanding a mixture of debt financing and equity.

Convertible Debt -

This means of raising money has become popular in the last few years. It has become popular because of its phenomenal success with Y Combinator Startups. Yuri Miller and SV Angel have offered $150,000 in convertible debt to every Y Combinator Startup. A convertible note by an investor converts the debt to equity in sometime in the future. This conversion is at a discount to the next funding round that the business raises and has a cap, which means if the business is successful in raising a huge round, the debt investors have protected themselves from getting diluted. In Convertible debt, you don’t have to set a valuation. This is taken care in the next round of financing. Plus, it helps to keep the costs lower as it requires less paperwork.

Second Mortgage -

You even have the option of second mortgage for raising money for your startup.

Credit Cards -

They can be used as a temporary measure between getting your company started and obtaining other financing such as getting your bank loan approved. Most of the credit cards have interest rates as high as 10-20%, hence they are not considered a good source of loan term capital. Many entrepreneurs in the past have used credit cards as a source of money for their businesses when they had no other option. Even Google, the search giant, was funded by credit cards by its founders in the mid 1990s.

Incubator Funding -

You can even get your startup incubated in incubators in India such as Microsoft Ventures (Bangalore), Startup Village (Kerala), IAN Incubator (Delhi), CIIE, IIM-Ahmedabad or global incubators like 500Startups, TechStars or Y-Combinator. These incubators offer more than just money to the startups. They even provide the startup with the much needed guidance and mentorship along with the money. The startups get to be a part of a huge network of successful entrepreneurs that helps them in getting in touch with potential customers and partners. At the end of the program, the startups are provided with an opportunity to present their ideas in front of venture capitalists and angel investors.

How To Raise Funds For Startups In India

Money is very important and it becomes even more important when it comes to a startup. You have an idea and a passion to work on it with all you have got but money is where all the problem starts. This guide illustrates one way how to raise money for a startup, especially for first-time entrepreneurs.

Angel Investing -

You can start by looking for angel investors for your startup. Angel investors are basically successful entrepreneurs who have made their fortune in the business and are now looking to invest their money back into startup businesses. Whether it’s Facebook, Google or Twitter, all these world famous businesses have had angel investors in the past. Angel investors bring more than just money to the startups. They come with a bank of connections and advice which can prove to be very beneficial to the startup. Some of the biggest Angel networks that connect entrepreneurs to investors are Investors Circle, Golden Seeds and Tech Coast Angels. Angel investors can indeed prove to be the Angels for your startups.

Bank Financing -

This is the most famous and used means to raise money for your startup. When taking a banking loan, your banker may demand that you have your loan agreement guaranteed by the Small Business Association (SBA). Once the agreement is guaranteed by the SBA, the loan is approved. The SBA is basically a government agency which guarantees up to eighty percent of the value of the loan for applicants. Only applicants who meet their criteria are guaranteed by the association. If you don’t want to go the SBA way, you can also use some other form of security such as your home etc. to get your loan approved.

Business Partner -

Let's assume that you've a brilliant idea for a business but have no money to invest in it. You can either drop the idea altogether or turn to your wealthy friend or acquaintance for help. Many of the top businesses have received seed funding from a co-founder. While selecting a business partner, you’ve to be extra careful about certain points. You should make sure that their own business aspirations and goals are in sync with yours because as a business partner, he/she will also have a control over the direction of the business.

Family and Friends -

Family and friends are the ones who stand with you through your thick and thin. If you don’t want to take the pressure of a bank loan, you always have an option of turning to your friends and family for help. They can loan you money on flexible and mutually agreed terms and conditions.

Crowd funding -

Though Crowd funding as a means of raising money for startups is still in its initial stages, it is slowly becoming popular with the young entrepreneurs. Crowd funding as the name suggests means receiving funding from the crowd. In this, the public makes use of their own personal funds to fund your startup idea. You just need to put your idea on a crowd funding idea and people can then choose how much money they want to give to your idea. Many of the crowd funding sites work on a reward based model where people who agree to invest in a particular business idea are given a reward such as the product that is going to be produced. Some famous crowd funding sites include Fundable, Indiegogo and Kicstarter.

Venture Capital -

You even have the option of turning to Venture Capitalists to raise funds for your startup. Venture Capitalists are people who invest in early stage businesses that have a high potential to grow in future. They traditionally receive equity in the startup business in return for funding it. However, nowadays the trend involves demanding a mixture of debt financing and equity.

Convertible Debt -

This means of raising money has become popular in the last few years. It has become popular because of its phenomenal success with Y Combinator Startups. Yuri Miller and SV Angel have offered $150,000 in convertible debt to every Y Combinator Startup. A convertible note by an investor converts the debt to equity in sometime in the future. This conversion is at a discount to the next funding round that the business raises and has a cap, which means if the business is successful in raising a huge round, the debt investors have protected themselves from getting diluted. In Convertible debt, you don’t have to set a valuation. This is taken care in the next round of financing. Plus, it helps to keep the costs lower as it requires less paperwork.

Second Mortgage -

You even have the option of second mortgage for raising money for your startup.

Credit Cards -

They can be used as a temporary measure between getting your company started and obtaining other financing such as getting your bank loan approved. Most of the credit cards have interest rates as high as 10-20%, hence they are not considered a good source of loan term capital. Many entrepreneurs in the past have used credit cards as a source of money for their businesses when they had no other option. Even Google, the search giant, was funded by credit cards by its founders in the mid 1990s.

Incubator Funding -

You can even get your startup incubated in incubators in India such as Microsoft Ventures (Bangalore), Startup Village (Kerala), IAN Incubator (Delhi), CIIE, IIM-Ahmedabad or global incubators like 500Startups, TechStars or Y-Combinator. These incubators offer more than just money to the startups. They even provide the startup with the much needed guidance and mentorship along with the money. The startups get to be a part of a huge network of successful entrepreneurs that helps them in getting in touch with potential customers and partners. At the end of the program, the startups are provided with an opportunity to present their ideas in front of venture capitalists and angel investors.

News Corp Acquires Indian startup 'BigDecisions.com'

BigDecisions.com, which is a financial advisory startup firm based in Mumbai, India, has been acquired by News Corp led by Rupert Murdoch for an undisclosed amount. The same was announced by News Corp on Saturday.

According to a statement released by News Corp, "BigDecisions.com aims to help Indian consumers make smarter financial decisions through interactive, decision-making tools powered by sophisticated algorithms and data."

BigDecisions.com was founded by Gaurav Roy and Manish Shah in the early part of the year 2013.

"Our latest investment builds on our adding belief that a digital India needs more trusted, reliable and independent data. BigDecisions.com will help Indians make the most important decisions by using accurate information tailored for their personal needs," said Robert Thomson, News Corp Chief Executive commenting on the acquisition.

Following the acquisition, Roy and Shah will help in overseeing a significant expansion of the Mumbai based BigDecisions.com team as well its consumer offerings.  They both will report to Raju Narisetti, News Corp Senior Vice President, Strategy.

The acquisition of BigDecisions.com by News Corp also includes FinDirect Services Pvt. Ltd. which is the website’s parent company.

As a part of its strategy to expand its presence in digital media, News Corp also acquired 25% stake in a Indian realty portal called PropTiger.com for USD 30 million (Rs. 185 Crore apporx). The deal was finalized just last month. The Rupert Murdoch led News Corp also picked up stake in PropTiger.com’s Singapore based parent company, Elara Technologies Pte Ltd.

Started in early 2013 by Manish Shah and Gaurav Roy, and operating until recently as bigdecisions.in, the BigDecisions.com platform has already helped some 40,000 users make better-informed decisions. Following the acquisition, both co-founders will help oversee a significant expansion of the Mumbai-based BigDecisions.com team as well as its consumer offerings. They will report to Raju Narisetti, News Corp Senior Vice President, Strategy.

News Corp Acquires Indian startup 'BigDecisions.com'

BigDecisions.com, which is a financial advisory startup firm based in Mumbai, India, has been acquired by News Corp led by Rupert Murdoch for an undisclosed amount. The same was announced by News Corp on Saturday.

According to a statement released by News Corp, "BigDecisions.com aims to help Indian consumers make smarter financial decisions through interactive, decision-making tools powered by sophisticated algorithms and data."

BigDecisions.com was founded by Gaurav Roy and Manish Shah in the early part of the year 2013.

"Our latest investment builds on our adding belief that a digital India needs more trusted, reliable and independent data. BigDecisions.com will help Indians make the most important decisions by using accurate information tailored for their personal needs," said Robert Thomson, News Corp Chief Executive commenting on the acquisition.

Following the acquisition, Roy and Shah will help in overseeing a significant expansion of the Mumbai based BigDecisions.com team as well its consumer offerings.  They both will report to Raju Narisetti, News Corp Senior Vice President, Strategy.

The acquisition of BigDecisions.com by News Corp also includes FinDirect Services Pvt. Ltd. which is the website’s parent company.

As a part of its strategy to expand its presence in digital media, News Corp also acquired 25% stake in a Indian realty portal called PropTiger.com for USD 30 million (Rs. 185 Crore apporx). The deal was finalized just last month. The Rupert Murdoch led News Corp also picked up stake in PropTiger.com’s Singapore based parent company, Elara Technologies Pte Ltd.

Started in early 2013 by Manish Shah and Gaurav Roy, and operating until recently as bigdecisions.in, the BigDecisions.com platform has already helped some 40,000 users make better-informed decisions. Following the acquisition, both co-founders will help oversee a significant expansion of the Mumbai-based BigDecisions.com team as well as its consumer offerings. They will report to Raju Narisetti, News Corp Senior Vice President, Strategy.