IAMAI To Identify Objectionable Content On Internet

The government of India has trusted Industry body IAMAI with the task of identifying objectionable content on the net in India. The same was informed to Parliament by Ravi Shankar Prasad, Telecom Minister on Friday.

Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), which is an association of content providers, has been bestowed upon with the task of making a list of objectionable websites, particularly porn sites, available on the net.

The websites included in the list by IAMAI will then be considered for disabling.

The top ranks at the Industry body IAMAI are currently held by the Indian heads of leading international internet giants.

Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Google India, is the Chairman of IAMAI, while Kirthiga Reddy, India Chief, Facebook, is the Vice Chairman of the industry body.

According to Prasad, currently, the government doesn’t have any proposal to formulate a policy to censor content on the net.

“Government takes action, whenever sites/URL pages with objectionable contents infringing any law of the country are brought to its notice by law enforcement agencies, or when court issues direction to block any URL of websites,” said Prasad in Rajya Sabha.

Prasad had informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that the Modi government had blocked 32 websites, including web-pages, in November last year. The request for the same was sent by the Anti-Terrorism squad of Mumbai and was accompanied by a court order.

According to the Anti-Terrorism Squad, the 32 blocked web pages and websites were being used to promote "jihadi" propaganda and for luring Indian youth into joining "jihadi" activities and ISIS.

All these blocked websites and web pages were later unblocked after their owners guaranteed to comply with the law and its rules and also follow consultation with the Anti-terrorism squad.

As per the official information shared in the Lok Sabha, the owners of these blocked websites took the help of the social media website Twitter to respond to the government’s ban and assured work within the law.

IAMAI To Identify Objectionable Content On Internet

The government of India has trusted Industry body IAMAI with the task of identifying objectionable content on the net in India. The same was informed to Parliament by Ravi Shankar Prasad, Telecom Minister on Friday.

Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), which is an association of content providers, has been bestowed upon with the task of making a list of objectionable websites, particularly porn sites, available on the net.

The websites included in the list by IAMAI will then be considered for disabling.

The top ranks at the Industry body IAMAI are currently held by the Indian heads of leading international internet giants.

Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Google India, is the Chairman of IAMAI, while Kirthiga Reddy, India Chief, Facebook, is the Vice Chairman of the industry body.

According to Prasad, currently, the government doesn’t have any proposal to formulate a policy to censor content on the net.

“Government takes action, whenever sites/URL pages with objectionable contents infringing any law of the country are brought to its notice by law enforcement agencies, or when court issues direction to block any URL of websites,” said Prasad in Rajya Sabha.

Prasad had informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that the Modi government had blocked 32 websites, including web-pages, in November last year. The request for the same was sent by the Anti-Terrorism squad of Mumbai and was accompanied by a court order.

According to the Anti-Terrorism Squad, the 32 blocked web pages and websites were being used to promote "jihadi" propaganda and for luring Indian youth into joining "jihadi" activities and ISIS.

All these blocked websites and web pages were later unblocked after their owners guaranteed to comply with the law and its rules and also follow consultation with the Anti-terrorism squad.

As per the official information shared in the Lok Sabha, the owners of these blocked websites took the help of the social media website Twitter to respond to the government’s ban and assured work within the law.

Tech Mahindra, GE, Cisco & Others Unites To Form India IoT Panel

Industry veterans from Vodafone, Tesco, Tech Mahindra, Philips, GE and Cisco have joined hands to form an Internet of Things panel in India. The panel will try to build open source Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to solve issues and problems in specific areas such as agriculture, healthcare and education.

The panel will be led by an industry body called Institution of Engineering Technology and Dr. Rishi Bhatnagar, global head for digital enterprise services at Tech Mahindra will be the panel’s chairman.

Other members of the panel include Joy Ranjan Cheruvanthoor, senior Vice-President-strategic alliances and M2M at Vodafone Business Services; Babu Narayan, senior principal scientist at GE Software Research; and Cisco Systems’ principal engineer Mukesh Taneja. Robin Saxby, who is the founder of ARM holdings, has been chosen to be one of the global advisors to the panel.

Internet of Things involves connecting everything from wearable devices and traffic signals to waste control systems and door locks to a huge network.

“The panel will have six working groups on Internet of Things applications which will concentrate on IoT approaches that are being applied across market segments and various businesses. Besides these, the core panel will have a special working group around Internet of Things Labs and on regulatory and legal points," said Bhatnagar in a statement to Economic Times.

The Internet of Things panel will also work on creating a startup accelerator that would combine various components of IoT into useful products.

According to Shekhar Sanyal, country head at Institution of Engineering Technology, India, “There is a large startup ecosystem in Internet of Things space in India. We will provide technical and business mentorship to such startups and also help connect them with investors."  Snayal gave this statement to ET.

The government of India wants the country’s IoT industry to touch the magic figure of $15 billion (Rs. 94,500 crore) by the year 2020. The government is currently working on its 1^st IoT policy. Companies expect a significant amount of business from Internet of Things related work and local based software developers such as Tech Mahindra, Infosys and Wipro have already started working on making its way into the market.

The panel will also try to collaborate with other industry bodies which are working on the same issues and problems as them.

Tech Mahindra, GE, Cisco & Others Unites To Form India IoT Panel

Industry veterans from Vodafone, Tesco, Tech Mahindra, Philips, GE and Cisco have joined hands to form an Internet of Things panel in India. The panel will try to build open source Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to solve issues and problems in specific areas such as agriculture, healthcare and education.

The panel will be led by an industry body called Institution of Engineering Technology and Dr. Rishi Bhatnagar, global head for digital enterprise services at Tech Mahindra will be the panel’s chairman.

Other members of the panel include Joy Ranjan Cheruvanthoor, senior Vice-President-strategic alliances and M2M at Vodafone Business Services; Babu Narayan, senior principal scientist at GE Software Research; and Cisco Systems’ principal engineer Mukesh Taneja. Robin Saxby, who is the founder of ARM holdings, has been chosen to be one of the global advisors to the panel.

Internet of Things involves connecting everything from wearable devices and traffic signals to waste control systems and door locks to a huge network.

“The panel will have six working groups on Internet of Things applications which will concentrate on IoT approaches that are being applied across market segments and various businesses. Besides these, the core panel will have a special working group around Internet of Things Labs and on regulatory and legal points," said Bhatnagar in a statement to Economic Times.

The Internet of Things panel will also work on creating a startup accelerator that would combine various components of IoT into useful products.

According to Shekhar Sanyal, country head at Institution of Engineering Technology, India, “There is a large startup ecosystem in Internet of Things space in India. We will provide technical and business mentorship to such startups and also help connect them with investors."  Snayal gave this statement to ET.

The government of India wants the country’s IoT industry to touch the magic figure of $15 billion (Rs. 94,500 crore) by the year 2020. The government is currently working on its 1^st IoT policy. Companies expect a significant amount of business from Internet of Things related work and local based software developers such as Tech Mahindra, Infosys and Wipro have already started working on making its way into the market.

The panel will also try to collaborate with other industry bodies which are working on the same issues and problems as them.

Grofers Raises $10 Million In Funding Led By Tiger Global Management

Gurgaon-based on-demand delivery startup Grofers has raised $10 million (around Rs 62 crore) in series A round of venture capital funding led by investment firm Tiger Global Management with participation from existing investor Sequoia Capital India. Notably, we at IndianWeb2 have selected Grofers among Top 10 Gurgaon Startups in 2014.

The deal values the startup at $33 million around Rs 205 crore. Currently available in Delhi and Mumbai, the latest raised funds will be used to expand into more cities, with Bangalore first on the list. After Bangalore, it hopes to expand into other major cities soon, including Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kolkata.

Founded in 2013 by IIT graduates Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar, Grofers wants to help local shops by not only providing them with a mobile platform for their inventory, but also facilitating on-demand delivery within 90 minutes.

Grofers claims to process 30,000 deliveries a month, with a fifth of those orders placed through its mobile apps.

"Local retailer penetration in India is very high and there are a lot SKUs (stock keeping units) available to customers in a small catchment area. We want to bring that SKU availability online," said Grofers co-founder Dhindsa.

Dhindsa, who earlier worked at Zomato, said he expects Grofers' orders to increase from 180 a day now to 3,000 by end of this year.

In just few weeks this is Tiger Global's 9th investment in an Indian startup, earlier to this just couple of days back Tiger Global made mass investment in 4 startups in one go and earlier to that invested whopping $10 million in Culture Machine Media Pvt., a Mumbai-based startup followed by investment of $4 million in News In Shorts, a Noida-based mobile app startup.

'Startup Accelerator India' - First Pilot Incubator To Promote Tech-Startups Of Visakhapatnam

The coastal city of Visakhapatnam is all set to get its first incubation facility that will promote technology based startups in the city. The incubation facility is called 'Startup Accelerator India' and intends to incubate 100 startup companies and nurture 1,000 students as first generation entrepreneurs over the next five years.

The facility will be set up at Sunrise Startup TRIP Incubation Tower, Madhurawada IT layout with help of Govin Capital, a Singapore based company.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) regarding the same was signed between B Sreedhar, Secretary, ITE&C of Andhra Pradesh Government and Govin Capital’s Managing Director, Anand Govindaluri on 21^st February in Visakhapatnam. Palle Raghunatha, the Minister, was also part of the event held in Visakhapatnam.

Govin Capital has plans of incubating some hundred startup companies over the next five years. It also intends to nurture around one thousand students as first gen technocrat entrepreneurs in the same time frame.

The Singapore based company wants to partner the AP government as a pilot incubator in promoting technology startups in the coastal city of Visakhapatnam.

As a part of its initiative to promote the startup culture in the state, the Andhra Pradesh government has even constructed an incubation tower of 50,000 square-feet at the place.

The primary focus would be on offering ‘Bootup-Startup-Scaleup model’ and nurturing students into first gen technocrat entrepreneurs .The Innovation and Startup policy 2014-20 was announced by the government a few months ago.

The Andhra government plans to establish around hundred Accelerators/Incubators and incubate five thousand startups and companies by 2020.

'Startup Accelerator India' - First Pilot Incubator To Promote Tech-Startups Of Visakhapatnam

The coastal city of Visakhapatnam is all set to get its first incubation facility that will promote technology based startups in the city. The incubation facility is called 'Startup Accelerator India' and intends to incubate 100 startup companies and nurture 1,000 students as first generation entrepreneurs over the next five years.

The facility will be set up at Sunrise Startup TRIP Incubation Tower, Madhurawada IT layout with help of Govin Capital, a Singapore based company.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) regarding the same was signed between B Sreedhar, Secretary, ITE&C of Andhra Pradesh Government and Govin Capital’s Managing Director, Anand Govindaluri on 21^st February in Visakhapatnam. Palle Raghunatha, the Minister, was also part of the event held in Visakhapatnam.

Govin Capital has plans of incubating some hundred startup companies over the next five years. It also intends to nurture around one thousand students as first gen technocrat entrepreneurs in the same time frame.

The Singapore based company wants to partner the AP government as a pilot incubator in promoting technology startups in the coastal city of Visakhapatnam.

As a part of its initiative to promote the startup culture in the state, the Andhra Pradesh government has even constructed an incubation tower of 50,000 square-feet at the place.

The primary focus would be on offering ‘Bootup-Startup-Scaleup model’ and nurturing students into first gen technocrat entrepreneurs .The Innovation and Startup policy 2014-20 was announced by the government a few months ago.

The Andhra government plans to establish around hundred Accelerators/Incubators and incubate five thousand startups and companies by 2020.

Dharavi Slums-Made Products To Go National Via Snapdeal

Snapdeal customers will now have direct access to the goods of local, skilled artisans and craftsmen from all over India. The ecommerce giant recently launched products manufactured by Dharavi slum area on its website, notably, it is one of the largest slums in the world. Snapdeal has entered into a partnership with DharaviMarket.com in order to provide a nationwide platform to small and medium businesses and local artisans of Dharavi.

According to information available on its website, DharaviMarket.com is a profit initiative which aims to make the skills of the squatter settlement more accessible to the middle/upper classes while providing the local, skilled artisans and craftsmen direct access to global and local markets. Dharavi aims to provide good quality, world class products at reasonable prices as the customer buys directly from the manufactures, eliminating the middle men and their costs. This way the craftsmen get the true cost of their craft, sweat and labor.

Snapdeal’s this partnership with Dharavi is in line with its mission to create one million successful entrepreneurs within a period of next three years and enable thousands of small businesses and artisans to sell their goods nationally while supplying locally.

An exclusive store called ‘Dharavi-Snapdeal store’ has been created on Snapdeal’s website as a part of this initiative. The ecommerce giant will provide complete assistance on online cataloguing of products. It will also make use of its analytics based market insights to refine the product offerings on ‘Dharavi-Snapdeal store’.

This partnership with Snapdeal will help Dharavi scale up its business. It will also help all the artisans/craftsmen under DharaviMarket.com to showcase their talent and products on a national platform by listing them on Snapdeal.com.

Speaking to The Financial Express about the partnership, Amit Maheshwari, Vice President – Fashion, Snapdeal.com said, “At Snapdeal.com, we are constantly exploring innovative ways of promoting entrepreneurship and digitally enabling small-and-medium-sized businesses. Partnering with DharaviMarket.com is a Snapdeal endeavour aimed at empowering local artisans by providing a platform to promote and sell their indigenous products to a nationwide audience through a sustainable model.

The Dharavi-Snapdeal store currently has some three hundred products listed on the website. The store offers a wide variety of products from men’s clothing, fashion accessories and luggage.

Dharavi Slums-Made Products To Go National Via Snapdeal

Snapdeal customers will now have direct access to the goods of local, skilled artisans and craftsmen from all over India. The ecommerce giant recently launched products manufactured by Dharavi slum area on its website, notably, it is one of the largest slums in the world. Snapdeal has entered into a partnership with DharaviMarket.com in order to provide a nationwide platform to small and medium businesses and local artisans of Dharavi.

According to information available on its website, DharaviMarket.com is a profit initiative which aims to make the skills of the squatter settlement more accessible to the middle/upper classes while providing the local, skilled artisans and craftsmen direct access to global and local markets. Dharavi aims to provide good quality, world class products at reasonable prices as the customer buys directly from the manufactures, eliminating the middle men and their costs. This way the craftsmen get the true cost of their craft, sweat and labor.

Snapdeal’s this partnership with Dharavi is in line with its mission to create one million successful entrepreneurs within a period of next three years and enable thousands of small businesses and artisans to sell their goods nationally while supplying locally.

An exclusive store called ‘Dharavi-Snapdeal store’ has been created on Snapdeal’s website as a part of this initiative. The ecommerce giant will provide complete assistance on online cataloguing of products. It will also make use of its analytics based market insights to refine the product offerings on ‘Dharavi-Snapdeal store’.

This partnership with Snapdeal will help Dharavi scale up its business. It will also help all the artisans/craftsmen under DharaviMarket.com to showcase their talent and products on a national platform by listing them on Snapdeal.com.

Speaking to The Financial Express about the partnership, Amit Maheshwari, Vice President – Fashion, Snapdeal.com said, “At Snapdeal.com, we are constantly exploring innovative ways of promoting entrepreneurship and digitally enabling small-and-medium-sized businesses. Partnering with DharaviMarket.com is a Snapdeal endeavour aimed at empowering local artisans by providing a platform to promote and sell their indigenous products to a nationwide audience through a sustainable model.

The Dharavi-Snapdeal store currently has some three hundred products listed on the website. The store offers a wide variety of products from men’s clothing, fashion accessories and luggage.

10 Expenses Every Startup Should Avoid

While opening something new, we usually have a rush of emotions. Whether it would be successful? How much will it be successful? What will I do if this happens? What will I do if that happens? During such times, the best thing to do is to calm down and think intelligently from your brain. Your initial steps in the industry are the foundation on which you will stand for the rest of your lives. So, there is a dire need to differentiate between what is good for your business and what is not.

Many new Entrepreneurs fall into the trap of going overboard and spending too much on things that aren’t that important while starting up. It is important to note that while starting a new business, it is very important to control your expenses. Just don’t spend on things because you can right now. Always think about the future and avoid unnecessary expenses. In order to help new entrepreneurs better manage their expenses while starting up, we at IndianWeb2 have combined a list of ten expenses that one can avoid while starting up a new business.

1. A fancy office - Everyone aspires to work in a fancy office with an up to date gym, café and a gaming centre to relax when we need a break from the rigorous schedule. But, all this can wait. While starting a new business the focus should be on business and not on the office. All this can happen when the startup starts making a decent profit.




2. Staffing - You need to see if your startup requires and has enough money to cater to the demands of permanent staff. Outsource till the time you’re sure that your startup is ready to have a staff of its own. Don’t just waste money by employing people you don’t require or can’t afford.




3. Buying email marketing lists or followers - Avoid putting in your money in such scams. While you might see your Twitter followers and Facebook likes increasing at a humongous rate, you’re never going to see a return on your spending.




4. Expensive Subscription based services -
   Most of the times, project management software and other subscriptions either have some a cheaper version or a free alternative. Use these alternatives till the time you require the features of a paid solution.




5. Expensive Equipments - Everyone aspires to have the latest and the fastest technology in his/her hand, but that doesn't mean it is an indispensable business expenditure.  Only invest in equipments that will truly add to the productivity of your startup.
   



6. Business trips or parties - While starting up, every rupee in the pond counts. Don’t indulge in unnecessary office parties or trips. Only spend on business trips that will prove fruitful for the business in some or other way.




7. Investing money before you're sure you will make it back - Always think twice before investing a huge amount of money. Until and unless you have extremely generous investors and enough money to cover the losses on your own, refrain from making such huge investments. A business should be able to survive on its own means.




8. Expensive clothes - Don't be a show off. Of course it is extremely important to look smart and professional, but you can do the same by shopping smartly from places which might not be branded but have good stuff to offer.




9. Expensive printing or shipping costs - Having logo and business cards can be counted as necessary expenses for a company. But, the young companies can save a lot on their shipping and printing costs. There’s no need for a startup to spend unnecessarily on fancy, expensive stationary when the same can be done with regular stationary.




10. Non-measurable outreach efforts - Don't spend on things whose results you can't measure. Whether it’s branding or PR, marketing, if you can’t measure the results of your efforts, you shouldn’t spend an extravagant amount of money on it. While starting up, only invest money on things you know would help your business.

10 Expenses Every Startup Should Avoid

While opening something new, we usually have a rush of emotions. Whether it would be successful? How much will it be successful? What will I do if this happens? What will I do if that happens? During such times, the best thing to do is to calm down and think intelligently from your brain. Your initial steps in the industry are the foundation on which you will stand for the rest of your lives. So, there is a dire need to differentiate between what is good for your business and what is not.

Many new Entrepreneurs fall into the trap of going overboard and spending too much on things that aren’t that important while starting up. It is important to note that while starting a new business, it is very important to control your expenses. Just don’t spend on things because you can right now. Always think about the future and avoid unnecessary expenses. In order to help new entrepreneurs better manage their expenses while starting up, we at IndianWeb2 have combined a list of ten expenses that one can avoid while starting up a new business.

1. A fancy office - Everyone aspires to work in a fancy office with an up to date gym, café and a gaming centre to relax when we need a break from the rigorous schedule. But, all this can wait. While starting a new business the focus should be on business and not on the office. All this can happen when the startup starts making a decent profit.




2. Staffing - You need to see if your startup requires and has enough money to cater to the demands of permanent staff. Outsource till the time you’re sure that your startup is ready to have a staff of its own. Don’t just waste money by employing people you don’t require or can’t afford.




3. Buying email marketing lists or followers - Avoid putting in your money in such scams. While you might see your Twitter followers and Facebook likes increasing at a humongous rate, you’re never going to see a return on your spending.




4. Expensive Subscription based services -
   Most of the times, project management software and other subscriptions either have some a cheaper version or a free alternative. Use these alternatives till the time you require the features of a paid solution.




5. Expensive Equipments - Everyone aspires to have the latest and the fastest technology in his/her hand, but that doesn't mean it is an indispensable business expenditure.  Only invest in equipments that will truly add to the productivity of your startup.
   



6. Business trips or parties - While starting up, every rupee in the pond counts. Don’t indulge in unnecessary office parties or trips. Only spend on business trips that will prove fruitful for the business in some or other way.




7. Investing money before you're sure you will make it back - Always think twice before investing a huge amount of money. Until and unless you have extremely generous investors and enough money to cover the losses on your own, refrain from making such huge investments. A business should be able to survive on its own means.




8. Expensive clothes - Don't be a show off. Of course it is extremely important to look smart and professional, but you can do the same by shopping smartly from places which might not be branded but have good stuff to offer.




9. Expensive printing or shipping costs - Having logo and business cards can be counted as necessary expenses for a company. But, the young companies can save a lot on their shipping and printing costs. There’s no need for a startup to spend unnecessarily on fancy, expensive stationary when the same can be done with regular stationary.




10. Non-measurable outreach efforts - Don't spend on things whose results you can't measure. Whether it’s branding or PR, marketing, if you can’t measure the results of your efforts, you shouldn’t spend an extravagant amount of money on it. While starting up, only invest money on things you know would help your business.

Now, Micromax Too Started Investing In Startups

Gurgaon-based consumer electronics company has bought a significant minority stake in an India analytics startup as it aims to transform into a services company from just a mobile phone vendor, reported Economics Times.

Micromax however didn't provide full details of deal such as name the company in which it bought the stake, financial terms of the deal or its acquisition targets. It is also reported apart from this anonymous Indian startup in which Micromax has invested the company is also investing in a Silicon Valley-based startup that operates in the online price comparison space but again the name of the startup has not been disclosed.

Micromax is keen to invest between $0.5 million and $20 million in a startup that can be an early-stage venture, a matured one or something in between. It is looking for a stake between 5% and 26%; the higher range will give voting rights and board membership.

Micromax started as an IT software company in 2000 and worked on embedded platforms. It entered the mobile handset business, and became one of the largest Indian domestic mobile handsets company operating in low cost feature phone segments by 2010. As of Q3 2014, Micromax is the tenth largest Smartphone vendor in the world and giving a stiff competition to Samsung in Indian market for No.1 spot.

Investing in startups is the logical next step for Micromax, which has an 18% market share in India, to differentiate itself in the crowded and fastest growing smartphone market of the world.

Micromax has set up a five-member merger & acquisition team headed by Kumar Shah and the team is evaluating and talking to multiple startups in India, Asia, Europe and the Silicon Valley, in areas of healthcare, gaming and entertainment besides analytics and comparison shopping.

Food Ordering App TinyOwl Raises $16 Mn From Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital & NVP

Mumbai-based food ordering app TinyOwl has raised Rs 100 crore from Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital and Nexus Venture Partners in Series B round. Earlier TinyOwl raised $1 million in August 2014. followed by a $3 million Series A round in December 2014.

The company plans to utilize the Series-B funding to expand its footprint to over 50 cities in the country and on technology to enhance end-user experience.

TinyOwl is a Mumbai-based company founded by IITB alumni in 2014 and is currently operating in Mumbai city only. The app available for Android and iOS platform smartly detects user's location and show restaurants in his/her vicinity and allows users to order food from multiple restaurants in one go at no extra fee.

TinyOwl has associated with more than 4,000 restaurants in Mumbai and processes about 2,000 orders a day and Currently has two products - 'TinyOwl for food' from nearby restaurants and 'TinyOwl HomeMade' for healthy food from local chefs. The startup currently has a team strength of 400 employees.

TinyOwl is facing a stiff competition from other players in market such as FoodPanda and TastyKhana. Moreover, food discovery portal Zomato has already announced that will launch a food order service in India next month.

Ola To Get $500 Mn Funding From DST Global At $2.5 Billion Valuation

Indian home-grown ridesharing app company Ola Cabs is all set to get between $400 million and $500 million Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's investment fund DST Global. Ola is in advance talk stage for getting this whopping investment which could make Ola to be valued at $2.5 billion.

The funding speculation comes on the back of Ola's acquisition of TaxiForSure, making the combined entity the largest tech-backed cab aggregator service in the country.

The final terms of the financing deal are currently being negotiated, as per reports. The latest round of fund-raise for Ola puts it right up in the league of the most valuable internet firms in India.

In May 2014, DST Global invested $200 million in Flipkart. DST Global has already made investments in China's largest cab-hailing app company KuaiDi Dache, which is backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Japan's SoftBank Corp.

E-Commerce giant Flipkart is currently valued at over $11 billion while Snapdeal valued at $2-billion post investment of SoftBank Corp. Ola's $210-million fund-raise, led by Japan's SoftBank Corp in October last year, valued it at around $650 million (pre-investment).

DST Global, Milner is an investor in Facebook, Zynga, Twitter, Flipkart, Spotify, ZocDoc, Groupon, 360Buy.com, Planet Labs, and Alibaba.

Google Launches Android For Workplaces

Smartphones these days have become essential tools to help us complete important work tasks like checking email, editing documents, reviewing sales pipelines and approving deals and Android is arguably the most used platform in smartphones and tablets with over a billion people today carry Android smartphones.

However, smartphones and tablets are underutilized in the workplaces or for working professionals of companies and organizations. Google thus launched Android for Work program to tap into that potential. With a group of partners, Google is trying to help businesses bring more devices to work by securing, managing and innovating on the Android platform.

In June last year, Google has announced about its plan for Android for Work program at the I/O event and it took a little more than 7 months for tech giant to fully design the program and launch it today.

Smartphones supported by the new initiative will be able to keep an employee's work and personal apps separate, and a special Android for Work app will allow businesses to oversee key tools such as email, calendar and contacts.

Google said it is partnering with more than two dozen companies including Blackberry Ltd, Citrix Systems Inc, Box Inc.



Android for Work features four key technology components:

• Work profiles – We’ve built on the default encryption, enhanced SELinux security enforcement and multi-user support in Android 5.0, Lollipop to create a dedicated work profile that isolates and protects work data. IT can deploy approved work apps right alongside their users personal apps knowing their sensitive data remains secured. People can use their personal apps knowing their employer only manages work data and won’t erase or view their personal content.


• Android for Work app – For devices running Ice Cream Sandwich through Kitkat, or that don’t run work profiles natively, we’ve created the Android for Work app. The app, which delivers secure mail, calendar, contacts, documents, browsing and access to approved work apps, can be completely managed by IT.


• Google Play for Work – It allows businesses to securely deploy and manage apps across all users running Android for Work, simplifying the process of distributing apps to employees and ensures that IT approves every deployed app.


• Built-in productivity tools – For everyday business tasks, we’ve created a suite of business apps for email, contacts and calendar, which supports both Exchange and Notes and provides document editing capabilities for documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

ARM, IBM Offers Starter Kit For Making IOT Devices

To all the innovative developers out there, IBM, the software giant, has something in store for you. IBM on Monday announced a new development starter kit that will allow people to make their own connected/ IoT devices that too in a few minutes.

The ARM mbed IoT starter kit for IBM IoT foundation will allow hobbyists to make Internet of Things (IoT) products that are cloud ready and capable of transmitting and receiving data for alert or analysis.  The starter kit will have ARM'S mbed Operation system and connect into the software giant’s BlueMix Cloud, which will help the users in the development of applications and services.

The kit has been especially designed for those who have little or no experience in the field of web or embedded development.  The prototype designs available in the kit will assist hobbyists through the entire process of making a new device and then connecting it to the software giant's BlueMix cloud service.



According to the product's page on the ARM website, the ARM mbed IoT starter kit will get data from "the on-board sensors into the IBM cloud within minutes of opening the box."

According to data available from Verizon, there are almost 1.2 billion of Internet of Things devices already available in the market and this figure can touch a whopping 5.4 billion in a period of next five years. With its development starter kit, IBM and ARM are hoping to cash on this wave of mass adoption of IoT products.

The current situation of the IoT market is not that good. The market is highly fragmented with a variety of communication standards, hardware and operating systems in use. IBM and ARM have plans of bringing a level of consistency in software and hardware across internet of things devices.

The starter kit includes a board with a Freescale K64F Kinetis microcontroller, which further has an ARM Cortex M4 processing unit running at a whopping 120Mhz. The board is linked to IBM’s BlueMix cloud service with the help of an Ethernet connection. Other contents of the kit includes a Pulse-width modulation control line to receive digital signals, a five-way joystick, 1MB of flash storage, a 128 x 32 graphics LCD, accelerometer, temperature sensor, a speaker and potentiometers.

According to a statement by ARM, the starter kit currently has Ethernet for connectivity, but there's a possibility it may also include cellular or Wi-Fi in the near future.

No detail about the availability and pricing of the starter kit are available right now. Keep watching this space for more on ARM mbed IoT starter kit.

ARM, IBM Offers Starter Kit For Making IOT Devices

To all the innovative developers out there, IBM, the software giant, has something in store for you. IBM on Monday announced a new development starter kit that will allow people to make their own connected/ IoT devices that too in a few minutes.

The ARM mbed IoT starter kit for IBM IoT foundation will allow hobbyists to make Internet of Things (IoT) products that are cloud ready and capable of transmitting and receiving data for alert or analysis.  The starter kit will have ARM'S mbed Operation system and connect into the software giant’s BlueMix Cloud, which will help the users in the development of applications and services.

The kit has been especially designed for those who have little or no experience in the field of web or embedded development.  The prototype designs available in the kit will assist hobbyists through the entire process of making a new device and then connecting it to the software giant's BlueMix cloud service.



According to the product's page on the ARM website, the ARM mbed IoT starter kit will get data from "the on-board sensors into the IBM cloud within minutes of opening the box."

According to data available from Verizon, there are almost 1.2 billion of Internet of Things devices already available in the market and this figure can touch a whopping 5.4 billion in a period of next five years. With its development starter kit, IBM and ARM are hoping to cash on this wave of mass adoption of IoT products.

The current situation of the IoT market is not that good. The market is highly fragmented with a variety of communication standards, hardware and operating systems in use. IBM and ARM have plans of bringing a level of consistency in software and hardware across internet of things devices.

The starter kit includes a board with a Freescale K64F Kinetis microcontroller, which further has an ARM Cortex M4 processing unit running at a whopping 120Mhz. The board is linked to IBM’s BlueMix cloud service with the help of an Ethernet connection. Other contents of the kit includes a Pulse-width modulation control line to receive digital signals, a five-way joystick, 1MB of flash storage, a 128 x 32 graphics LCD, accelerometer, temperature sensor, a speaker and potentiometers.

According to a statement by ARM, the starter kit currently has Ethernet for connectivity, but there's a possibility it may also include cellular or Wi-Fi in the near future.

No detail about the availability and pricing of the starter kit are available right now. Keep watching this space for more on ARM mbed IoT starter kit.

Tiger Global Makes Mass Investment In 4 Indian Startups

Tiger Global, one of the top investing VC body in India has invested in a host of startups in India which includes language learning platform CultureAlley, expense tracking app MoneyView, on-demand logistics startup Grofers and fashion discovery platform Roposo.

Tiger Global has invested in some eight Indian startups in recent weeks as it prepares to set up its new office in the country in Bengaluru, after shutting down in 2009, to be led by Flipkart's former CFO, Kalyan Krishnamurthy.

The average ticket size for the deal is likely to be around $4-5 million each.

The New-York based VC firm is led by Lee Fixel, 35, who swept into India earlier this month intends to deploy up to Rs 1,555 crore ($250 million) in India by March this year. A sizeable portion may be invested across 15-20 early-stage deals.

Earlier, just 10 days ago Tiger Global has invested US$4 million in News In Shorts, a Noida-based mobile app startup.

Additionally, in month of February only Mumbai-based startup Culture Machine Media Pvt. Ltd has raised a whopping $10 million from Tiger Global in its Series B funding round.

Notably, Tiger Global has played pivotal role in Flipkart success as it has invested close to $800 million across several rounds in Flipkart. Apart from the sheer size of his firm's investments in India - it has so far invested nearly $1.5 billion (Rs 9,300 crore) in Indian startups.

Tiger has also bought stake in taxi app Olacabs, online marketplace Shop-Clues and online property search platform CommonFloor.

Tax Info Portal TaxSutra Get Funding From Ex-Infosys CFOs

Mumbai-based online startup TaxSutra, a portal providing real-time tax-related information, analysis and insights to corporates and professionals has raised US$160,000 (around INR 1 crore) from former Infosys CFOs V Balakrishnan, TV Mohandas Pai and board members of Infosys.

Taxsutra will use the funds to scale up the company, improve technology and product development.

"Leading corporate boards are struggling with lack of quality information and analysis to mitigate their risks while taking business decisions. TaxSutra provides that critical information backed by a high quality team of founders and professionals," Balakrishnan said.

Founded in January 2011 by media professionals - Arun Giri, Ameya Kunte and Arun Anant, Taxsutra is a B2B subscription-based portal on direct tax, indirect tax, transfer pricing and corporate laws. It provides instant news alerts and incisive analysis on both domestic and international tax.

Giri has previously worked at CNBC18 and UTVi Business News, and Kunte has worked with Ernst & Young (now EY) and PwC while Anant, an engineer and management graduate, has worked at UTV News Ltd, Bennett Coleman & Company Ltd, IRIS Ltd, Lintas Worldwide (Lowe & Partners) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.

"We have a host of new product launches lined up over the next 12-18 months that will cater to the information/analysis needs of tax/law professionals,” Arun Giri & Ameya Kunte, founders, TaxSutra Services, said in a joint statement.

TaxSutra claims that over 5,000 tax professionals receive its daily alerts. Its subscribers include Fortune 500 companies, leading MNCs, tax firms, law firms and the regulators.

Twitter Launches An Official Wordpress Plugin, Finally !

Twitter has now finally released an official Twitter plugin for WordPress that brings a bunch of Twitter functionality to your site easily.

Twitter since its inception i.e. from 9 years of its launch, Twitter has never released an official plugin to make WordPress and Twitter go hand in hand. Until today.

The official Twitter plugin for WordPress helps sites powered by WordPress embed Twitter content and grow their audience on Twitter, announced Twitter in its official blog post.

The new plugin will bring whole lot of features; it automatically generates Twitter Cards for your pages, enables Twitter Analytics, embeds video and adds a tweet button to posts in the admin interface.

Here's what the new Twitter WordPress plugin does out of the box:

• Lets you add a one-click sharing button so visitors can tweet out your stuff


• Lets you more easily embed tweets, and customize the color scheme of embedded tweets to match your site's look. You can change the link color, border color, and pick from a “light” or “dark” look


• Automatically builds Twitter Cards when you share stuff to Twitter


• Helps you add a follow button to your layout


• Tracks ad conversions if you’re running a Twitter Ad campaign for your wordpress blog

Within few hours of its launch, WordPress is reporting that it already has over 159,000 downloads.

E-Commerce Startup IndustryBuying.com Raised $2 Mn From SAIF Partners

Delhi-based industrial e-commerce platform IndustryBuying.com, has raised $2 million in seed funding from early stage venture capital firm SAIF Partners.

The received funding will be used by IndustryBuying.com to continue traffic growth, expand product coverage and drive massive revenue growth. It also plans to build custom e-commerce products to bring corporate buying online.

Industrybuying.com claims to be India's largest e-commerce platform for industrial supplies which have 500 brands, 1000 suppliers and 1.5 lakh products online.

"The amazing momentum the industrybuying.Com is experiencing is encouraging and we believe our capital infusion can help them grow faster. The Industrial e-commerce model is proven in the US and Chinese markets," SAIF Partners Principal Mukul Singhal said in a statement.

The startup was founded by brother and sister duo Rahul and Swati Gupta. Prior to that, Rahul was working as a debt instruments trader at a large Wall Street investment bank. Rahul has a B.Tech in Mech. Engineering from IIT Delhi and a Masters in Operations Research from Columbia University. Swati has over 12 years of experience in Supply Chain Management, Management Consulting and Private Equity Operational Advisory businesses. Swati is a graduate from Delhi College of Engineering and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

"Nobody in India was doing what Grainger.Com and Amazonsupply.Com have done in the US. We saw the gap and launched our ecommerce operations. Our vision is to be for Industry what Flipkart or Snapdeal are for consumers," said Rahul, co-founder, industrybuying.com.

Just a couple of days back, along with few others SAIF has invested $3 million in NoBroker in Series A round of funding, Nobroker is a Bengaluru-based peer-to-peer property listings startup.

Noida Startup Squadrun Raised Seedfunding From Founders Of Zomato, Slideshare, Toppr & Others

Noida-based mobile marketplace startup Squadrun has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from a group of angel investors which includes top technology entrepreneurs - Amit Ranjan who sold his startup SlideShare to LinkedIn, Deepinder Goyal, founder of Zomato, Girish Khera, co-founder of medical animation studio Scientific Animations and Zishaan Hayath, founder of online test preparation startup Toppr.

Angel investors from Powai Lake Ventures also participated in the round. Previously, Squadrun has received funding from Kae Capital.

SquadRun is a mobile marketplace. It helps businesses crowdsource micro-tasks that require human intelligence. From the user side, SquadRun is a gamified app that allows anybody with a smartphone to make money on a per task basis. A few use cases that SquadRun's mobile army is currently being used for - Content moderation, Data tagging, Categorization, Comparison, etc.

Founded in 2014 by Apurv Agrawal, Kanika Jain and Vikas Gulati, Squadrun claims to be India's first mobile workforce which acts as a platform for businesses to outsource small tasks/data jobs ('gigs') to a mobile workforce ('players') to collect useful information and opinions for their brands.

Squadrun was accelerated by 91Springboards and notably two of Squadrun co-founders - Apurv and Kanika are 91Springboard members and Apurv is founding member.

SquadRun has already worked with over 7000 users and 35+ diverse businesses. The raised funds will go in product development and expanding team.

Infosys To Make Second Startup Investment In An IoT Startup

Infosys, the software giant, is about to make its second startup investment under its new CEO Vishal Sikka. It will also be the company's second investment this year. The software giant is looking to invest in an Indian startup that makes air quality detectors. The investment is a part of the company's strategy to identify more and more next generation technologies under the newly appointed CEO. Vishal Sikka joined the company as a CEO in August last year.

"There is a small company we are investing in that makes an air quality detector that you can just drop in stores, in hospitals, in mines and it detects air quality and it is connected to the cloud and you can stream the data," said Sikka.

The name of the startup that Infosys has its eyes set on was not revealed by Sikka. He just revealed that the company specializes in Internet of Things (IoT), which is an emerging network of non-computing and computing devices interacting with each other and creating huge amount of data that can be easily converted into new revenue streams and business insights.

Infosys is likely to close the deal with the air quality detector maker company by April this year. “The world around us is fundamentally being reshaped by software, and IT companies are not serving IT needs. So investing in these companies is essential," said Sikka in the interview.

Infosys, India’s second biggest software company, made its first startup earlier this year. The Bangalore based IT company bought a minority stake in a startup for around $15 million (Rs.90 crore).

This new investment by Infosys syncs with Sikka’s strategy to bet big on big data and artificial intelligence. He believes that these can become big revenue earners in the future.

According to Martin Haemmig, a global expert on corporate venturing, Wipro, Infosys, TCS have all understood that "linear" growth models for outsourcing no longer holds for the future, hence, they need to look at "exponential" growth models through innovation. Haemmig gave this statement to the Economic Times.

Infosys To Make Second Startup Investment In An IoT Startup

Infosys, the software giant, is about to make its second startup investment under its new CEO Vishal Sikka. It will also be the company's second investment this year. The software giant is looking to invest in an Indian startup that makes air quality detectors. The investment is a part of the company's strategy to identify more and more next generation technologies under the newly appointed CEO. Vishal Sikka joined the company as a CEO in August last year.

"There is a small company we are investing in that makes an air quality detector that you can just drop in stores, in hospitals, in mines and it detects air quality and it is connected to the cloud and you can stream the data," said Sikka.

The name of the startup that Infosys has its eyes set on was not revealed by Sikka. He just revealed that the company specializes in Internet of Things (IoT), which is an emerging network of non-computing and computing devices interacting with each other and creating huge amount of data that can be easily converted into new revenue streams and business insights.

Infosys is likely to close the deal with the air quality detector maker company by April this year. “The world around us is fundamentally being reshaped by software, and IT companies are not serving IT needs. So investing in these companies is essential," said Sikka in the interview.

Infosys, India’s second biggest software company, made its first startup earlier this year. The Bangalore based IT company bought a minority stake in a startup for around $15 million (Rs.90 crore).

This new investment by Infosys syncs with Sikka’s strategy to bet big on big data and artificial intelligence. He believes that these can become big revenue earners in the future.

According to Martin Haemmig, a global expert on corporate venturing, Wipro, Infosys, TCS have all understood that "linear" growth models for outsourcing no longer holds for the future, hence, they need to look at "exponential" growth models through innovation. Haemmig gave this statement to the Economic Times.

YouTube For Kids Launched By Google

Children nowadays know how to operate smartphones even before they start crawling. By the time they’re 2 or 3, they know better about their parent's electronic devices than the parents themselves. Earlier, the kids were hugely dependent on Encyclopedia and their parents to provide them with knowledge about certain new things and topics but with Internet, all this has changed.

Nowadays if they need answers for any of their query or want to learn something new, they head straight to internet. While Internet has become children's' best friend, it has become a worrying point in their parents’ lives. There's a plethora of content available on the net which might not be appropriate for young kids. Keeping this in mind, Google, the internet giant, has taken some steps in order to change that downward frown on parent's head into an upward smile.

Taking first step in this direction, Google has launched YouTube Kids. The California based company has been working on the concept for a year now. The internet giant worked closely with parents on this project as they wanted to create a family-friendly version of the video sharing site YouTube. The new YouTube Kids is said to be simpler for kids to understand. It also boosts of a bigger and better interface.



The application can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and Apple App store. The internet giant has not divulged any details about the desktop version of the app yet.

The selection of videos on YouTube Kids is limited to what the Internet giant believes is "appropriate for the whole family". Music, Explore, learning and shows are the four channels and play list categories available for the children’s version of the video sharing website.

One can simply search whatever content one is looking for in the app. The application even comes with voice search for kids who can’t type or spell. Children can search for children’s shows, mathematics lessons and a lot of DIY arts and crafts videos. Apparently, there are a lot of train videos available for kids.

The App also comes with a number of parental controls. The app lets parents set a timer in the app which helps them in curtailing their children’s screen time. It even allows parents to turn off a video’s sound effects and background music to keep things quieter. The parents can even disable the search option in the app to limit their kids to videos available on the app’s home screen. There is also a feedback section in the app where parents can provide their opinions and suggestions about the app.

YouTube For Kids Launched By Google

Children nowadays know how to operate smartphones even before they start crawling. By the time they’re 2 or 3, they know better about their parent's electronic devices than the parents themselves. Earlier, the kids were hugely dependent on Encyclopedia and their parents to provide them with knowledge about certain new things and topics but with Internet, all this has changed.

Nowadays if they need answers for any of their query or want to learn something new, they head straight to internet. While Internet has become children's' best friend, it has become a worrying point in their parents’ lives. There's a plethora of content available on the net which might not be appropriate for young kids. Keeping this in mind, Google, the internet giant, has taken some steps in order to change that downward frown on parent's head into an upward smile.

Taking first step in this direction, Google has launched YouTube Kids. The California based company has been working on the concept for a year now. The internet giant worked closely with parents on this project as they wanted to create a family-friendly version of the video sharing site YouTube. The new YouTube Kids is said to be simpler for kids to understand. It also boosts of a bigger and better interface.



The application can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and Apple App store. The internet giant has not divulged any details about the desktop version of the app yet.

The selection of videos on YouTube Kids is limited to what the Internet giant believes is "appropriate for the whole family". Music, Explore, learning and shows are the four channels and play list categories available for the children’s version of the video sharing website.

One can simply search whatever content one is looking for in the app. The application even comes with voice search for kids who can’t type or spell. Children can search for children’s shows, mathematics lessons and a lot of DIY arts and crafts videos. Apparently, there are a lot of train videos available for kids.

The App also comes with a number of parental controls. The app lets parents set a timer in the app which helps them in curtailing their children’s screen time. It even allows parents to turn off a video’s sound effects and background music to keep things quieter. The parents can even disable the search option in the app to limit their kids to videos available on the app’s home screen. There is also a feedback section in the app where parents can provide their opinions and suggestions about the app.

Delhi Govt. To Make Taxi App Uber 'Inaccessible'

Newly formed Delhi government's transport department has started consultation with the central government to block the internet address (IP) of taxi hailing app Uber under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act if Uber does not obtain a radio taxi licence to ply its cabs in the national capital, reported Economics Times.

Blocking Uber's IP will mean the company's website and mobile phone application will no longer be accessible in India, effectively shutting down operations in a country which the San Francisco-based startup Uber estimates is its largest market outside the United States.

Additionally, yesterday Uber announced that it is partnering with Safetipin, a smartphone app that attempts to gauge the relative safety of neighborhoods, to help gather data and distribute it to local governments. Earlier, Uber even introduced a panic button aimed at enhancing safety for passengers in India, where the car service has come under increased scrutiny after a driver allegedly raped a female passenger late last year

Uber has operations across 10 cities in India with over 10,000 cabs registered on its platform."We have initiated a process with the central government to block (Uber's) IP address in India if the company doesn't abide by law," said a senior official in the Delhi transport department.

Uber and other taxi app companies were banned from operating in Delhi after the alleged rape of a passenger by a driver on the Uber network in December 2014. Subsequently, the transport department modified radio taxi laws and directed Uber and rivals Ola and Taxiforsure to obtain licences to operate legally in the city. While Ola has obtained a licence, Uber, which terms itself as a technology company and not a transport provider, has been demanding that it be regulated under the Information Technology Act.

Delhi transport department has given Uber time until today (February 25) to submit a revised application for a radio taxi licence.

The court, which is hearing the case of the alleged rape, had raised the issue of banning IP addresses of taxi app companies after the state government complained that the companies continued to ply in the national despite the ban.

CommonFloor Launches 'Retina', World’s First Virtual Reality Innovation In Real Estate

 

CommonFloor.com, India's leading online real estate platform introduces CommonFloor Retina, world's first virtual reality innovation in real estate that is available to the masses. This technological breakthrough offers 'real' property experience for the seekers allowing them to view/review/assess multiple properties from anywhere at any point of time.

Commenting on the launch of the biggest technological innovations witnessed by the real estate world, Sumit Jain, Co-founder & CEO, CommonFloor.com, said, "As a new-age online realty player, technology and innovation are part of our core DNA. Property buying demands huge time and financial investment by the buyer and it is our constant endeavour to create tools and technology that makes property search easy for the consumer and gives them a wow experience. CommonFloor Retina is a result of one such quest that adapts technology smartly to the consumer's advantage."



Lalit Mangal, Co-founder and CTO, CommonFloor.com said, "We believe in making strategic investments in building cutting edge technology. This product is pegged to be a game changer in the real estate industry in India and globally. We will work closely with the builder community to scale-up the number of projects listed, thereby helping property buyers to choose from as many projects that may want to visit."

JC Sharma, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Sobha Limited, "CommonFloor has been instrumental in transforming the way we view properties. Their latest introduction, CommonFloor Retina is indeed commendable. This state-of-the-art technology product will enable our customers to take a virtual tour of the property they wish to see in the comfort of their home. It allows them to experience both the interiors and exteriors of the property in an interesting manner and saves a lot of time, especially if one need to choose between several properties."

To use CommonFloor Retina, a user simply needs to sport the headgear to experience virtual tour of the property of his/her choice. This offers buyers an unforgettable experience and insights about the property from the perspective of space and ambience among other features.

The simple magnet on the headgear acts as a navigation tool. The App also saves the builders the cost and space to construct a model apartment. "It is an interesting product that can help a home buyer visualize the building and apartment under consideration in greater depth. It should be useful to customers who cannot be physically present at the property location before buying, and also to people who have already purchased a property and want to share it with their family & friends," said Vyoma Pandit, Senior DGM, Marketing, Brigade Group.

Launched in 2007 by Sumit Jain, Lalit Mangal and Vikas Malpani, CommonFloor.com has the largest number of property listings with more than 1 lakh residential projects listed on their platform from over 200 cities. The platform has already mapped 10M homes and is committed to map every property in India on its platform. The Company has a team of 1000+ employees and their constant endeavor is to get the best talent to work with them.

Gurgaon-Based PepperTap Raises Funding From Sequoia Capital

PepperTap, a mobile first hyper-local grocery delivery service based out of Gurgaon has secured an undisclosed amount in seed round from Sequoia Capital. PepperTap has already raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from a US based bluechip VC fund and now the startup is in advance stages to close its next round of funding which is around $10 million.

On February 12, 2015, PepperTap has launched its mobile application on iOS platform as it is already available on Android platform. The service of PepperTap is currently available only in Gurgaon.

PepperTap have range of 5000 unique products including grocery & staples, fruits & vegetables and household goods with the promise of delivery within 2 hours or at customer’s preferred time slots. The company's business model is unique to India and similar to Instacart in the US.

PepperTap is a location based platform that allows customers to shop from a catalog that is specific to their
location. It is committed to make daily life easy and hassle­free for customers by offering them timely service, just when they need it.

Founded in November 2014 by Navneet Singh and Milind Sharma, who were previsouly employed with another startup from New Delhi - Delhivery, thereafter both established NuvoEx, India's premier e-commerce focussed reverse logistics company. Initially when they started PepperTap it was operating from a 200 sq. ft. office.

PepperTap is the fastest on-demand grocery delivery service in India that provides convenience, on-time and on-demand delivery to its customers. PepperTap connects directly with the local vendors and supermarkets to provide
necessities to the masses. A smart way to save time and fuel.

Green-Tech Startup Sets Up India’s Largest Biomass Cook-Stove Factory In Gujarat

Mumbai-based green-tech startup Greenway Grameen Infra, an incubatee company of IIM Ahmadabad’s Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), has set up India's largest manufacturing unit for biomass cook stoves in Vadodara, Gujarat. Greenway is a product design and distribution start-up that aims to serve rural India through quality-of-life-enhancing home-appliances and has already sold over 250,000 cook stoves. With a capacity to manufacture 8 lakh units per annum, their aim is to replace the usage of traditional mud stoves (chulhas) that are known for grave negative health and environmental impacts and achieve greater scale.

"Our flagship product, the Greenway Smart Stove, is a high-efficiency cook stove that burns all biomass fuels (wood, cow-dung, etc.) while reducing smoke by 70%, fuel use by 65% and GHG emissions by 1.5 tons/year. The USP of these stoves is that they are durable, without moving parts, and are portable," said Neha Juneja, co-founder, Greenway. The idea of Greenway Cook Stoves was born when Ankit Mathur and Neha Juneja, fresh MBA graduates from IIM Ahmadabad and FMS Delhi, were traveling through rural areas to undertake energy projects.

"Till recently we used to get these cook stoves manufactured by a local vendor. The Government's commitment to 'Make in India' and renewable sources of energy, was a key decision-making criterion for us to initiate our own plant for manufacturing these”, said Neha. The stoves are also certified by the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Government of India. Having bagged many awards for their unique design and affordable product, Greenway was one of the two Indian companies to have won the prestigious Ashden Clean Energy for Women and Girls Award at the International Ashden Awards 2014. “With this new manufacturing capacity, we shall now be able to achieve economies of scale and produce more efficiently and hope to be able to pass on the benefits to the end customers through lower prices", she added.

Greenway received its seed funding from CIIE. Talking more about investing in Greenway, Vipul Patel, Associate Vice President at CIIE says, "Not many start-ups are coming up with innovative appliances that cater to the rural market have their own manufacturing base. However, having one has its advantages. It reduces vendor dependency, helps to have better control on quality, and lowers costs effectively. As investors, we are happy to see such companies setting up their manufacturing units in India and contributing towards the Government's 'Make in India' initiative." Incidentally, Greenway chose Gujarat to set-up its manufacturing plant. "While we are headquartered in Mumbai and most of our customers are in the southern states, we felt that Gujarat offered a very conducive environment for new businesses", added Ankit Mathur, co-founder of Greenway who has been leading setting up of the new plant.

"Cooking with biomass fuels on traditional mud stoves has been the number one health risk in India and even worse, they contribute to 25% of the global black carbon emissions. This cooking method is also inconvenient and arduous, requiring mostly female users to spend an average of 5 hours a day in a smoke-filled kitchen, constantly tending the flames. Yet there is an acute lack of products designed for these users, and for rural consumers in general. Greenway saw that need and decided to address it by combining technological innovation & user co-creation to solve energy issues facing rural consumers," says Neha.

Raspberry Pi Powered FusePOS Offers Cloud Storage And POS Functionality

People on the lookout for an amazingly priced point-of-sale system, might have found the best match in a new hardware called the FusePOS. This new piece of hardware comes with optional cloud data storage and is powered by the wonderful Raspberry Pi, a low cost credit card sized microcomputer.

Point of sale systems/ softwares end up burning a huge hole in the pockets of small businesses as they are generally very expensive.  FusePOS can become a boon for all these small businesses as it will help them in keeping their startup costs low.  The FusePOS has the amazingly versatile Raspberry Pi as its foundation.  Raspberry Pi was recently in the news as it had sold an impressive five million units and that too within just three years of being launched in the market.

The FusePOS can be used in three different ways. Cloud, Stand alone, or Stand Alone plus Cloud Integration.

The device can be plugged in straight into a printer, touchscreen, barcode scanner, keyboard etc. and be used purely as a stand alone.

For the FusePOS Cloud, the makers have built a SaaS hosted platform. The new platform upon signup opens the software to the customer by allowing them the access to the system from anywhere, anytime with the help of an internet connection. This will be charged at a monthly subscription cost but won’t involve any lengthy contracts just a month long rolling plan. The makers have built the SaaS infrastructure from scratch.

Stand alone FusePOS can also be hooked upto the hosted cloud solution for a monthly subscription fee. The FusePOS boxes will be able to backup to the cloud. Further, the data is available instantly after backup. The customer can go online and access his/her hosted FusePOS and have up to data access to their sales data.

This new piece of hardware created by Niall Doherty and his team is currently under development and is looking to raise 3,500 Euros on Kickstarter website.

Along with launching a commercial FusePOS, the team also plans to release a community, feature delayed version available for free.

The FusePOS is a result of twelve months of hardwork put in by Niall Doherty and his small time who have worked on this project during their spare time in the midst of their day jobs.

Raspberry Pi Powered FusePOS Offers Cloud Storage And POS Functionality

People on the lookout for an amazingly priced point-of-sale system, might have found the best match in a new hardware called the FusePOS. This new piece of hardware comes with optional cloud data storage and is powered by the wonderful Raspberry Pi, a low cost credit card sized microcomputer.

Point of sale systems/ softwares end up burning a huge hole in the pockets of small businesses as they are generally very expensive.  FusePOS can become a boon for all these small businesses as it will help them in keeping their startup costs low.  The FusePOS has the amazingly versatile Raspberry Pi as its foundation.  Raspberry Pi was recently in the news as it had sold an impressive five million units and that too within just three years of being launched in the market.

The FusePOS can be used in three different ways. Cloud, Stand alone, or Stand Alone plus Cloud Integration.

The device can be plugged in straight into a printer, touchscreen, barcode scanner, keyboard etc. and be used purely as a stand alone.

For the FusePOS Cloud, the makers have built a SaaS hosted platform. The new platform upon signup opens the software to the customer by allowing them the access to the system from anywhere, anytime with the help of an internet connection. This will be charged at a monthly subscription cost but won’t involve any lengthy contracts just a month long rolling plan. The makers have built the SaaS infrastructure from scratch.

Stand alone FusePOS can also be hooked upto the hosted cloud solution for a monthly subscription fee. The FusePOS boxes will be able to backup to the cloud. Further, the data is available instantly after backup. The customer can go online and access his/her hosted FusePOS and have up to data access to their sales data.

This new piece of hardware created by Niall Doherty and his team is currently under development and is looking to raise 3,500 Euros on Kickstarter website.

Along with launching a commercial FusePOS, the team also plans to release a community, feature delayed version available for free.

The FusePOS is a result of twelve months of hardwork put in by Niall Doherty and his small time who have worked on this project during their spare time in the midst of their day jobs.

Microsoft’s Imagine Is Your All-Access Pass For The Software Tools You Need

People who love to code have a reason to celebrate. Understanding the difficulties and challenges that one has to face while learning to code, Microsoft, the software giant, has launched a new website called Microsoft Imagine where students of all ages and skill level will be able to find all that they need to create games and applications. Whether you’re a nine year old wanting to create your first game or a 22 year old college student with an aim to develop apps and sell them in app stores, Microsoft Imagine is the place to be.

Microsoft has some amazing programs like DreamSpark and Imagine Cup which connect university student developers with free tools, great opportunities and contests to learn, grow and hone their skills. With Microsoft Imagine, Microsoft wants to welcome younger students who are taking their first step in this amazing world of coding.

The website was launched by Microsoft on Dec 5, 2014 in order to celebrate the Computer Science Education Week and the Hour of Code, however the new tools were launched for free use just 4 days back. Microsoft Imagine is a cornerstone of Microsoft’s YouthSpark initiative.

For starters who have never coded before in their life, the website has free softwares like the Windows App Studio, Kodu Game Lab and TouchDevelop. WebMatrix 3 and Small basic are available for students who are ready to move into the real world of coding. These softwares will help them learn website development and programming. And for the experienced ones, there are free tools like the Unity game engine and Visual Studio Community which will let them code like experienced professionals do.

In the coming months, Microsoft plans to bring out several such projects for students which will help them code, create games, apps and that too for free. It is even contemplating expanding its Imagine Cup global student technology competition to younger students.

Microsoft’s Imagine Is Your All-Access Pass For The Software Tools You Need

People who love to code have a reason to celebrate. Understanding the difficulties and challenges that one has to face while learning to code, Microsoft, the software giant, has launched a new website called Microsoft Imagine where students of all ages and skill level will be able to find all that they need to create games and applications. Whether you’re a nine year old wanting to create your first game or a 22 year old college student with an aim to develop apps and sell them in app stores, Microsoft Imagine is the place to be.

Microsoft has some amazing programs like DreamSpark and Imagine Cup which connect university student developers with free tools, great opportunities and contests to learn, grow and hone their skills. With Microsoft Imagine, Microsoft wants to welcome younger students who are taking their first step in this amazing world of coding.

The website was launched by Microsoft on Dec 5, 2014 in order to celebrate the Computer Science Education Week and the Hour of Code, however the new tools were launched for free use just 4 days back. Microsoft Imagine is a cornerstone of Microsoft’s YouthSpark initiative.

For starters who have never coded before in their life, the website has free softwares like the Windows App Studio, Kodu Game Lab and TouchDevelop. WebMatrix 3 and Small basic are available for students who are ready to move into the real world of coding. These softwares will help them learn website development and programming. And for the experienced ones, there are free tools like the Unity game engine and Visual Studio Community which will let them code like experienced professionals do.

In the coming months, Microsoft plans to bring out several such projects for students which will help them code, create games, apps and that too for free. It is even contemplating expanding its Imagine Cup global student technology competition to younger students.

8 Startups' Expectations From Budget 2015-16

With the budget announcement for the year 2015-2016 around the corner, all eyes are set on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and what all he has in store for the citizens, companies of the country. Every industry and citizen of India expects something in the budget which will help them/him grow strong financially.  Whether the designer briefcase is able to stand on their expectations is something which we will have to wait and watch. The new government’s first budget last year gave a ray of hope to all young entrepreneurs as it announced a sum of Rs. 10,000 crore to boost capital growth in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and startups in the country. What magic does the designer briefcase unfolds this year for the startups can only be seen on 28th February.

We at IndianWeb2 have put together a list of top 8 things the startup sector can expect in this year's budget.

1. Making starting up easier - The current procedure for starting a business requires the entrepreneur to run from corner to corner, office to office in order to get all the approvals, clearances and licenses for his new venture.The sector has been long demanding the setting up of one single window for all these approvals, so that the entrepreneurs can concentrate more on his business and less in running around.The sector hopes to get its long withstanding demand of a single window getting fulfilled in this year's budget.Young Entrepreneurs were quite encouraged when the Ministry of Entrepreneurship was set and there's for sure a need for someone to give this idea a push. In India there are about twelve different ministries operating their own startup and skill development programmes and there is an extremely urgent need to bring all these programmes, schemes etc. together so that they can prove to be effective for the industry.


2. Capital problem - While things have surely changed for good, entrepreneurs still face a hard time raising money for their new venture.The startup sector expects the budget 2015 to make capital more accessible and affordable for new businesses.Angel and venture investments needs to be encouraged in the country and there's an urgent need to sort out the issues surrounding the angel tax.Currently, the venture capital firms have to deal with three set of regulations for their each and every move.These are- CBDT Guidelines for Venture Capital Companies, 1995, Guidelines for Overseas Venture Capital Investments issued by the Department of Economic Affairs of Ministry of Finance in the year 1995 and Security and Exchange Board of India( SEBI)  1996.Each of these above said regulations come with their own set of rules and regulations that make it very difficult for a venture capital to follow. For an investor, time is money and the Venture Capital investors end up wasting a lot of their time fulfilling each and every rule and regulations set by these above said three regulations. The startups would be hugely benefited if the government is able to consolidate all these three regulations into one single regulation of SEBI.


3. Growth Scale - One of the primary concerns that startups have nowadays is the Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT). According to the current directions, an unlisted private company needs to pay MAT at 18.5% if the company is making a substantial amount of income under the Information and technology act, but  may not be showing profits on paper when income is calculated according to the rules under the Companies Act. For Startups this becomes a major hurdle as they have to pay a huge chunk of their incomes in taxes when they could have used the money to expand their businesses. Further, there are startups who are not making any profit at the moment but end up incurring loses due to taxes that they have to pay. This ends up affecting the cash flow of these startups.The budget this year can help such startups by making special provision of MAT for startups. The government can make special provisions where the startups don't have to pay MAT for an initial period of five years or make the top line 25 Crores. Such provisions will provide startups enough space for breathing to grow and set their business.


4. Thinking outside India - The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) scheme played a major role in the initial success of India's Information and Technology industry.  The government  needs to introduce such STPI like schemes for startups in order to encourage entrepreneurs to come with more and more unique ideas and startups.The STPI scheme initially provided the new IT companies with physical spaces to work. It later went on to provide statutory support and good infrastructure facilities to technology based companies. There's an urgent need for such a scheme for all the startups (not just IT companies) and ring fence these new businesses in order to protect them from all the infrastructural and regulatory hurdles. All these schemes can also be synchronized with the Modi government's Make in India campaign.


5. Ease of Business - India as a country has a very bad image internationally when it comes to doing business in the country. All the successive governments haven't been able to much about the issue but the Narendra Modi government seems to be promising. Most of the regulations and rules that one needs to follow to run a business in this country are mainly old and obtuse. There is an urgent need to change these archaic rules according to current situations and scenarios. Manufacturing startups particularly find it very hard to survive as the powers of an inspector makes the acquiescence cost very high.Different taxes like VAT, excise, octroi and service only add up to the startup's troubles as they find it extremely difficult to come in terms with the complexities at play. This budget, the government mantra should be rules and regulations that are easy to identify and follow.


6. Ease of Exiting - If opening a business is difficult in India, it is approximately ten times more difficult to close a failed business venture. As a country India should make sure that if an entrepreneur fails in his/her venture, he is able to close his venture without much difficulties and start afresh. The existing process of exiting can be made so much easier if India's government focuses on digitizing it.In this age of technology when everything from booking tickets to  mobile recharging can be done online, the government can make similar arrangements of filling documents for a new venture. This would make the lives of new entrepreneurs so much easier as they will not have to run from pillar to pillar to get the business started.


7. Encouraging Risk Financing - There's a paradox situation at play here. Currently. the Foreign Institutional Investor (FIIs) registered with SEBI are allowed to freely invest and disinvest without taking prior approvals from FIPB/Reserve Bank of India.However, foreign based Venture Capital firms wanting to invest in startups based in India are required to take prior approval from RBI or FIPB. Same is the process when a foreign based investor is looking to sell his/her stake in a startup to a another foreign Venture Capital firm. Majority of the PE and Venture Capital firms operating in India are from foreign lands and such lengthy processes of approval makes it very unattractive for investors.


8. A detailed outline of the Rs. 10,000 crore startup fund declared in last year's budget - While the government was able to gain much appreciation about its declaration of  Rs. 10,000 crore startup fund in last year's first budget, much wasn't released about how the fund will be used by the government. According to some experts, the fund must be used for promoting financing in the form of quasi-equity, equity and various other forms of risk capital. While another school of thought believes that the money should be used for promoting entrepreneurship in universities and colleges.

8 Startups' Expectations From Budget 2015-16

With the budget announcement for the year 2015-2016 around the corner, all eyes are set on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and what all he has in store for the citizens, companies of the country. Every industry and citizen of India expects something in the budget which will help them/him grow strong financially.  Whether the designer briefcase is able to stand on their expectations is something which we will have to wait and watch. The new government’s first budget last year gave a ray of hope to all young entrepreneurs as it announced a sum of Rs. 10,000 crore to boost capital growth in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and startups in the country. What magic does the designer briefcase unfolds this year for the startups can only be seen on 28th February.

We at IndianWeb2 have put together a list of top 8 things the startup sector can expect in this year's budget.

1. Making starting up easier - The current procedure for starting a business requires the entrepreneur to run from corner to corner, office to office in order to get all the approvals, clearances and licenses for his new venture.The sector has been long demanding the setting up of one single window for all these approvals, so that the entrepreneurs can concentrate more on his business and less in running around.The sector hopes to get its long withstanding demand of a single window getting fulfilled in this year's budget.Young Entrepreneurs were quite encouraged when the Ministry of Entrepreneurship was set and there's for sure a need for someone to give this idea a push. In India there are about twelve different ministries operating their own startup and skill development programmes and there is an extremely urgent need to bring all these programmes, schemes etc. together so that they can prove to be effective for the industry.


2. Capital problem - While things have surely changed for good, entrepreneurs still face a hard time raising money for their new venture.The startup sector expects the budget 2015 to make capital more accessible and affordable for new businesses.Angel and venture investments needs to be encouraged in the country and there's an urgent need to sort out the issues surrounding the angel tax.Currently, the venture capital firms have to deal with three set of regulations for their each and every move.These are- CBDT Guidelines for Venture Capital Companies, 1995, Guidelines for Overseas Venture Capital Investments issued by the Department of Economic Affairs of Ministry of Finance in the year 1995 and Security and Exchange Board of India( SEBI)  1996.Each of these above said regulations come with their own set of rules and regulations that make it very difficult for a venture capital to follow. For an investor, time is money and the Venture Capital investors end up wasting a lot of their time fulfilling each and every rule and regulations set by these above said three regulations. The startups would be hugely benefited if the government is able to consolidate all these three regulations into one single regulation of SEBI.


3. Growth Scale - One of the primary concerns that startups have nowadays is the Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT). According to the current directions, an unlisted private company needs to pay MAT at 18.5% if the company is making a substantial amount of income under the Information and technology act, but  may not be showing profits on paper when income is calculated according to the rules under the Companies Act. For Startups this becomes a major hurdle as they have to pay a huge chunk of their incomes in taxes when they could have used the money to expand their businesses. Further, there are startups who are not making any profit at the moment but end up incurring loses due to taxes that they have to pay. This ends up affecting the cash flow of these startups.The budget this year can help such startups by making special provision of MAT for startups. The government can make special provisions where the startups don't have to pay MAT for an initial period of five years or make the top line 25 Crores. Such provisions will provide startups enough space for breathing to grow and set their business.


4. Thinking outside India - The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) scheme played a major role in the initial success of India's Information and Technology industry.  The government  needs to introduce such STPI like schemes for startups in order to encourage entrepreneurs to come with more and more unique ideas and startups.The STPI scheme initially provided the new IT companies with physical spaces to work. It later went on to provide statutory support and good infrastructure facilities to technology based companies. There's an urgent need for such a scheme for all the startups (not just IT companies) and ring fence these new businesses in order to protect them from all the infrastructural and regulatory hurdles. All these schemes can also be synchronized with the Modi government's Make in India campaign.


5. Ease of Business - India as a country has a very bad image internationally when it comes to doing business in the country. All the successive governments haven't been able to much about the issue but the Narendra Modi government seems to be promising. Most of the regulations and rules that one needs to follow to run a business in this country are mainly old and obtuse. There is an urgent need to change these archaic rules according to current situations and scenarios. Manufacturing startups particularly find it very hard to survive as the powers of an inspector makes the acquiescence cost very high.Different taxes like VAT, excise, octroi and service only add up to the startup's troubles as they find it extremely difficult to come in terms with the complexities at play. This budget, the government mantra should be rules and regulations that are easy to identify and follow.


6. Ease of Exiting - If opening a business is difficult in India, it is approximately ten times more difficult to close a failed business venture. As a country India should make sure that if an entrepreneur fails in his/her venture, he is able to close his venture without much difficulties and start afresh. The existing process of exiting can be made so much easier if India's government focuses on digitizing it.In this age of technology when everything from booking tickets to  mobile recharging can be done online, the government can make similar arrangements of filling documents for a new venture. This would make the lives of new entrepreneurs so much easier as they will not have to run from pillar to pillar to get the business started.


7. Encouraging Risk Financing - There's a paradox situation at play here. Currently. the Foreign Institutional Investor (FIIs) registered with SEBI are allowed to freely invest and disinvest without taking prior approvals from FIPB/Reserve Bank of India.However, foreign based Venture Capital firms wanting to invest in startups based in India are required to take prior approval from RBI or FIPB. Same is the process when a foreign based investor is looking to sell his/her stake in a startup to a another foreign Venture Capital firm. Majority of the PE and Venture Capital firms operating in India are from foreign lands and such lengthy processes of approval makes it very unattractive for investors.


8. A detailed outline of the Rs. 10,000 crore startup fund declared in last year's budget - While the government was able to gain much appreciation about its declaration of  Rs. 10,000 crore startup fund in last year's first budget, much wasn't released about how the fund will be used by the government. According to some experts, the fund must be used for promoting financing in the form of quasi-equity, equity and various other forms of risk capital. While another school of thought believes that the money should be used for promoting entrepreneurship in universities and colleges.