Revv to Double Its Fleet Size in the Festive Season; Plans to Add 400 Cars in the Next Three Months

Revv, the Delhi-NCR based self-drive car rental company, has already established itself as a hassle-free and convenient platform for customers to rent cars. Now, the company is on an expansion spree and plans to double its fleet of cars from the present 300 to 700 in the festive season.

Revv started its operations in July 2015 in Delhi/NCR with nine cars. Today, the rental car platform has 300 cars and is actively present in four cities, including Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chandigarh. The fleet comprises 60% SUVs, and the remaining fleet consists of sedans and hatchbacks. Revv has also allowed self-driven car companies to register their fleet on its platform, and currently ~30% of their fleet is comprised of this.

Anupam Agarwal, Co-Founder & CEO of Revv said, “Our concept of 100% doorstep delivery service along with our maniacal focus on customer experience has already given us strong traction and repeat-user base. We will now use this launchpad to scale-up quickly and expand our services in several cities across India. The repeat usage has been a very encouraging trend for us, in addition to the sheer width of use cases for which customers are making bookings. It has also turned our thinking towards new, innovative products which are tailor-made for upcoming and large use cases”

By December 2016, Revv intends to expand its operations to 8-10 cities and expand the fleet size to 1,000 by March 2017. The self-drive car rental company is also keen to focus on intercity travel and clock 7,500 transactions every month by December.


Revv was founded by Anupam Agarwal and Karan Jain, two ex-Associate Partners from McKinsey. It is funded by Ananth Narayanan, the newly hired CEO of Myntra, the CEO of DEN Online, more than 10 Directors and Partners from McKinsey (including the heads of logistics and automotive practices), senior executive from an investment fund, and a German soccer professional.

Revv’s portfolio comprises primarily of SUVs and and ultra-luxury cars. It aspires to be the largest self-drive car rental company in India, with a fleet of 30,000+ cars in 4-5 years.

Mumbai-Based BigMyGig Lets You Search and Hire Artists For Events

A Mumbai-based startup named BigMyGig is on a mission to help artists get their due. Functioning as an online artist search and discovery tool, BigMyGig acts as a bridge between artists and customers. It helps people to book an artist for any and every event without having to go through the trouble of searching for the right artist for days and days.

India has a pool of talented people, but a majority of them end up giving up on their dreams and talent midway because they aren't able to get themselves enough shows/events. This mainly happens because the artists have poor reach and improper representation, meaning a user wanting to book an artist doesn’t have sufficient avenues for reaching out to the artist of his/her choice and need. BigMyGig is an online initiative by alumnus of Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies to change this situation for once and all. With one of them being an event manager the past and other being a performing artist, they very well understand the problems being faced by both artists and event organisers.

The founders, Ramalingam Subramanian and Pratik Rathod, initially began BigMyGig as an offline company managing artists so as to garner a strong learning curve to provide specific, full-proof solutions to the various problems faced by emerging as well as established artists.

Ramalingam Subramanian, Founder & CEO, BigMyGig, has a rich experience of working with various big brands for Cipla, Coca-Cola, and TCS. Hence, he comes with a deep understanding of marketing and technology. He has previously founded an event management firm named Splash and had an important role to play in startups like kollegebugle.com, kickoffers.com, dalchinitiffins.com etc. At BigMyGig, he handles Client Relations, Technology and Marketing.

Pratik Rathod, Founder & Director, BigMyGig, likes to describe himself as an artist by heart. He has 10 years of experience in teaching music coupled with varied experiences with Arvind Lifestyle Brands Ltd. in handling brands such as USPA, Flying Machine, Ed Hardy amongst others. At BigMyGig, he is responsible for Artist Management, Design and Client Servicing.

The online artist search and discovery tool can instil the principles of trust and transparency in the entertainment industry, something which will can help the industry and the artists thrive at a greater pace. The tool provides artists the freedom to set their own prices and negotiate directly with the clients. BigMyGig just plays the role of a facilitator. With features like pre-payment guarantee, real-time portfolios, and direct negotiations, BigMyGig makes sure that the artists are able to spend more time with their art, rather than worrying about shows or payments.

BigMyGig does face stiff competition from a host of online and offline competitors. But, they have tried to carve out an identity of their own in the entertainment industry. Instead of being a simple marketplace like its competitors, the startup makes use of technology merely as an enabler to business.

BigMyGig for Event Organisers



The tool provides an event organiser the luxury of searching through over 1200 digital portfolios and shortlisting the ones they like. BigMyGig's search engine has been built on the principle of relevancy, making sure that every artist requirement is accurately serviced. By making use of the Packages feature of the tool, an event organizer can book a complete Entertainment Package for an event.

BigMyGig for Artists



For the artists, the tool has an Invitation Model in line, which basically compromises of a 3 stage filtering process. The artists are required to send requests to join BigMyGig through dedicated links on the company's website. After this, they have to go through a screening process. According to BigMyGig, artists are invited only when they successfully meet all the quality parameters. This way, the company ensures that every artist on BigMyGig is verified and validated.

BigMyGig has received a warm welcome from the entertainment industry, having already engaged 1250 artists and reaching 650 event organisers. With the launch of the consumer version of the tool, it is expecting to touch the 50 Lakhs mark, as top line for the year ending 2016-17. Though currently a bootstrapped venture, it is open to partnerships in order to scale up and expand its audience.

9Apps Ties up With Disney to Offer 300 Mobile Games in India

9Apps, part of Alibaba Group, has tied up with Disney India’s Interactive business to host and promote over 300 popular mobile games from its gaming catalogue. As India’s most popular third-party Android app market, 9Apps will now showcase games that include Inside Out Thought Bubbles, Mickey Cup, Minnie Cake Factory, Toy Story: Smash It!, Where’s My Water?, Lion King, Cricket World Cup Fever, ABCD2, Arjun: The Prince of Bali and many more.

Announcing the association, Mr. Ebrahim Popat, Country Manager, 9Apps said, “With over 250 million monthly active users around the world and a strong presence in India, our association with Disney India’s Interactive business aims to target the local market and add value to our loyal and vast user base in the country. We are glad to see more top players like Disney India choosing 9Apps as a medium to popularise their games. This is a positive indication that our capacity in providing customised promotion service has been recognised by both – key players and the industry.”

It is the first time Disney has partnered with a third-party app market in India to promote some of its most popular games world-wide.

“Technology plays a key role in furthering the reach of our beloved content amongst consumers on a platform of their choice. We have a great selection of gaming content based on our beloved characters and rich franchises, and with its growing popularity in India, 9Apps is definitely an association of choice to promote our rich catalogue of games and widen our consumer touch-points,” said Sameer Ganapathy, VP & Head, Interactive - Disney India.

The collaboration falls under 9Apps' Top Developer Program, an initiative under which 9Apps aims to foster an ecosystem for digital content developers to reach out to their target audience. Last quarter, 9Apps also launched a $20million InDev Program to help Indian independent and startup developers with specially designed solutions, especially in user acquisition and monetisation.

9Apps is one of the most popular Android app marketplaces with more than 250 million monthly active users who generate over 800 million app distributions every month and 26 million app downloads every single day.

CloudCherry Receives $6M in Series A Funding from Vertex Ventures, Cisco Investments & IDG Ventures India

Bangalore & Singapore headquartered CloudCherry, a SaaS-based Customer Experience Management platform, announced yesterday that it has raised their Series A Funding of $6M from Vertex Ventures, Cisco Investments and IDG Ventures India. This capital infusion will be used for CloudCherry’s global expansion, with a strong focus on the US, South East Asia and the Middle East. CloudCherry’s CEM platform is enjoying tremendous success in Asia already, with many leading brands using the platform to understand Customer Experience today. The product is also seeing exciting early wins in the North American markets and is set to welcome many more soon.

CloudCherry was founded in 2013 by Vinod Muthukrishnan, Vijay R Lakshmanan, Prem K Viswanath and Nagendra CL, with the support of angels Prof. Sriram Subramanian (late), Dr. Bala V Balachandran and Hariharan B. CloudCherry provides an industry-leading Omni-channel, SAAS based Customer Experience Management (CEM) platform that helps brands track, measure and improve Customer Experience and Delight. Currently, CloudCherry works with brands in various sectors like BFSI, Retail, e-Commerce, Healthcare, Manufacturing and Hospitality. Some of the company’s clients include prominent brands like World of Titan, HDFC Bank, Central, Voonik, Caratlane and several others.

The CloudCherry brand is owned by Customer Analytics Technologies Inc., based in Pleasanton, CA, with offices in Singapore, Bengaluru & Chennai.

Vinod Muthukrishnan, Co-founder & CEO of CloudCherry said, "We’re delighted to receive our Series A funding from globally recognized investors like Vertex Ventures, and a leading corporate investor like Cisco Investments who recognize the massive potential in the space of Customer Experience, and what our product offers. And of course, it’s great to have IDG Ventures India, who have played a tremendous role in getting us to where we are today. With this funding and their support, we are many steps closer to making our presence globally and becoming the name synonymous with Customer Experience!"

Ben Mathias, Managing Director and India Head of Vertex Ventures said, “We believe the next generation of global SaaS companies will be built out of India. CloudCherry is one such company that has been able to leverage India’s deep technology talent to build and sell products in a global market. Vinod, Vijay, Prem and Nagendra have done a tremendous job in building a solution that is driving significant ROI for many customers across the world.”

“When IDG Ventures first met CloudCherry, we knew that the potential they had was tremendous. And in no time, they’ve really made a mark in the market, not just in India but across several countries, with a product that we’ve seen growing leaps & bounds almost every day. In this round, global expansion is the focus, and with CX becoming an everyday topic of discussion in every organization, the timing can’t be any better. Wishing the team an amazing run ahead”, Said TC Meenakshi Sundaram, Founder & Managing Director of IDG Ventures India.

Bengaluru-based Unocoin Raises Largest Funding For An Indian Bitcoin Startup

Unocoin, a Bengaluru-based bitcoin startup, has raised $1.5 million in funding from a mix of Indian and U.S. investors, the company announced on Thursday. This is Unocoin's second after a previous seed round, and the investors who participated in this round are -- ah! Ventures, Blume Ventures (which led the round) and Mumbai Angels, as well as BoostVC, BnkToTheFuture, Digital Currency Group and FundersClub.

The startup, which runs a trading platform to securely buy, sell, store, use and accept bitcoin for Indian customers, said the money raised was the largest for an Indian bitcoin startup.

The funds raised will be used by the company for a variety of purposes, including providing liquidity to its marketplace as well as scaling the exchange's operations both in India and abroad. One possible avenue would be to use some of the funds to market the exchange more effectively within India's major cities.

Unocoin, which was founded in 2013 by Harish B V and Abhinand Kaseti, raised about $250,000 in its first financing round in August 2014. The startup started from a small hometown called Tumkur, near Bengaluru. The startup currently has 100,000 users and more than 30 employees.

Bitcoin in India



In late 2013, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a warning to local consumers about the risks of using digital currencies. At the time, the central bank said that bitcoin were not backed by any central authority and that it had not granted approval to companies working in the space. Following this RBI warning bitcoin operators in the country began suspending operations.

In 2014, Indian government along with RBI was exploring digital currencies.

In a most recent statement of the RBI told that the central bank’s stance on these currencies has not changed. So, IndianWeb2 does not recommend buying bitcoins for investment purposes or otherwise.

Zenatix Launches Its IoT Based Product WattMan: Helps Retail and BFSI Businesses Save on Their Energy Bills

Headquartered in Gurgaon, Zenatix, an Internet of things (IoT)-based energy management start-up announced the launch of its new product WattMan. Built over a robust IoT stack, WattMan allows retail and BFSI Corporates ensure governance, quality of service, and risk mitigation across their distributed infrastructure through automated and intelligent controls.

The technology prowess in building the hardware (controller), firmware, software, and analytics is driven by the core IP that Zenatix has created. WattMan is a combination of hardware and software. The hardware includes sensors for monitoring energy, temperature, humidity, and other important parameters. The hardware also includes control equipment for automated control of ACs and Signage's. WattMan's cloud-based software provides accessibility and configurability over the web and mobile.

The company started building the product over 9 months ago and referring to the product, Amarjeet Singh, CTO & Co-founder, Zenatix, said, “WattMan provides a centralized system which helps consumers govern energy consumption at their geographically spread out sites and achieve significant reductions in energy bills, by understanding the energy consumption pattern at various system/ appliances levels, and by configuring actions that get automatically executed.” He added, “Besides real-time energy monitoring, we also develop sophisticated energy analytics models to achieve complex control settings which are otherwise not possible with manual control. WattMan through the energy consumption analysis, regulates the time and temperature for the signage and air-conditioners respectively to operate. It starts with time-based control that addresses many challenges with regards to energy wastage, and governance across distributed infrastructure. WattMan then takes this control to the next level by integrating with other systems to perform more sophisticated control.”

Rahul Bhalla, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Zenatix, added, “WattMan's 10-20% cost reduction contributes significantly to retailers' bottom line, which is typically a single digit number. In addition to the energy efficiency, customers will find "overall governance" and "quality of service" benefits equally appealing, as it empowers them to have a much better control and understanding of their country-wide distributed infrastructure. WattMan will allow them to move from the current black box environment, where they have zero visibility into the operations of electrical infrastructure, to a fully controllable and transparent environment, accessible over mobile.”

Zenatix’ team behind WattMan delivers technical proficiency combined with operational excellence, thus providing customers access to their distributed infrastructure on their fingertips. Vishal Bansal, COO and Co-founder of the company says, “Making hardware work in the lab and in the field are two different things. A lot of technological innovation has gone into building the product and accomplishing field stability, and we continue to enrich the product with domain specific analytics”. Zenatix has already signed up with 12 customers and WattMan has been deployed at more than 300 sites.

CII Announces Gopi Natarajan as Entrepreneur of The Year Award Winner at Connect 2016

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has announced Gopi Natarajan, Co-Founder, and CEO of Omega Healthcare as the Entrepreneur of the year 2016 at CII Connect. The award recognizes Mr. Gopi Natarajan's work in healthcare industry and his entrepreneurial success which serves as an inspiration for many young entrepreneurs.

The award was bestowed by Dr. M. Manikandan, Hon’ble Minister for Information Technology, Government of Tamil Nadu in the august presence of dignitaries and leaders from Industry, Government and Academia.

Gopi Natarajan is the Chief Executive Officer at Omega Healthcare Management Services Pvt. Ltd. and has more than 25 years of experience in the US Healthcare Industry (payers, providers, systems and services vendors). Prior to Omega, he was heading a midsized healthcare Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) company in the US with India operations as well. He also has relevant experience in healthcare IT and BPO/KPO services outsourcing during his senior management stints with Aetna, EDS, and Healtheon/WebMD.

“This award is a major recognition for Omega Healthcare and its Senior Leadership team who really pioneered the successful expansion into a Tier 2 city and perfected the model so we can expand into other tier 2 and 3 cities rapidly”, expressed Mr. Natarajan on receiving the award.

Gopi has a brilliant track record in leadership, management, and operational experience, having been instrumental in leading small-sized companies to grow into medium / large-sized companies. Gopi now spends a significant amount of time in India, overseeing the operations and growth of Omega. As a co-founder of Omega, Gopi brings an incredible amount of industry knowledge and relationships that he has built through the years while working in senior management positions in US-based healthcare services companies.

CII has been organizing CONNECT in Chennai for the past 15 years. The Connect series has been the forum for Indian ICT Industry to recognize the pioneers and trailblazers responsible for the leading trends & developments. It is jointly organized by Government of Tamil Nadu and CII.

The theme for this edition of CONNECT was “Building the Digital State: Fostering the ecosystem.” This year the event will have more focus on “How Digital Infrastructure would play a major role in the development of Digital Tamil Nadu, Smart Cities & Skill India” and its contribution to the entire world as a whole; policies and frameworks needed for ensuring the consistent growth of Digital Infrastructure.

About Omega Healthcare:

Omega Healthcare was founded by Gopi Natarajan & Anurag Mehta in 2003 to cater to the needs of healthcare billing companies in the United States. A unique strategy allowed the company to grow into the #1 offshore service provider to Revenue Cycle Management (RCM), billing services as well as healthcare IT organizations. The company has significant experience and deep domain expertise across multiple medical specialties. With a growth rate of 30-35% year-on-year, the company handles high-end, value-driven work pertaining to Medical Coding, Accounts Receivable, Data Entry and other Revenue Cycle Management services, and attracts some of the best talent in the industry.

Well-entrenched in Bengaluru, Chennai, Trichy and Manila (Philippines), Omega is fast expanding its operations and has a headcount of 10,200+ people currently.

Another unique feature of the company is the Omega Medical Coding Academy, started in August 2014 to cater to the huge demand for proficient medical coders. The academy has trained more than 2000 candidates and has successfully placed more than 1700 of them.

Omega Healthcare is ISO 9001 and 27001 certified, SSAE-16 certified, and HIPAA compliant.

Media Platform Kalaage Raises Seed Investment from Rajasthan angel Innovator’s Network (RAIN)

A networking platform connecting writers and publications - Kalaage raised an undisclosed seed investment from Rajasthan Angel Innovators Network (RAIN).

“It gives me immense pleasure on behalf of RAIN to invest in path breaking ideas and enterprises. I feel Kalaage is one such idea and has a huge potential to not only grow but provide a unique platform to writers and publications”, said Mahavir Sharma, co-founder, RAIN (Rajasthan Angel Innovators Network) who led the investment round.

The amount raised would be used in strengthening the core technical foundation, building strategic collaboration with publications and communities, entering into North American market and also expanding in the already present South Asian market.

On Kalaage writers, globally, can not only share and upload their articles/content on Sports, Literature, Technology, Entertainment, News, Politics, etc but can also send it to various print and digital publications for publishing. Thus giving writers an opportunity to not only share but also get their content published and publications with high quality content and direct interaction with plethors of writers around the world.

With 3000 writers and 1000 readers, Kalaage has a combined user base of around 4000 and 1500 articles/works have been uploaded so far. Around 120 writers have been published in 18 publications present across the platform.

Raghav Sharma, co-founder at Kalaage says that “It was a very challenging market to enter, print and publishing, and initially people were not at all getting the concept. But our users and publications were loving it and that is what made us reach this far.”

The startup is currently undergoing acceleration under Aarambh Ventures and is working from their Gurgaon based office. “Kalaage’s funding is not only testament to our commitment to find, nurture & grow innovators & original thinkers in India but also to our model of working with startups”, said Vivek Kaushik, CEO, Aarambh ventures.

According to the other co-founders Ravi Piplani and Himanshu Agarwal - the space and potential of Kalaage is very huge and the publication sector is a huge industry. And a lot needs to be done in terms of technology and product.

Kalaage.net was launched in November 2014 and the model with publications came alive in September 2015.

Myntra Appoints Former Wipro Executive Dipanjan Basu as Chief Finance Officer

Myntra, a Flipkart Group company, announces the appointment of Dipanjan Basu as the CFO. A seasoned leader with expertise in a multitude of Finance and Business functions, Dipanjan brings over 15 years of experience to the fore. He moves into his new role at Myntra from Wipro, where he was the Chief Finance & Operating Officer for Wipro’s Digital & Consulting Business.

Dipanjan brings with him a wealth of experience in the space of financial management and operations control, building and setting up new businesses, M&A and investments in startups. He also oversaw the finance function for the Manufacturing & Healthcare business at Wipro and has been instrumental in driving billion dollar deals and leading business process reengineering at Wipro. Dipanjan started his career at Wipro as a young professional and built his way up to being one of the youngest Vice Presidents at Wipro. Dipanjan also had a two year stint with Quatrro Risk Management Services where he was the CFO of the company.

In his new role at Myntra, Dipanjan will be overlooking the finance function of the country’s largest online destination for fashion. Dipanjan is expected to streamline and further enhance important processes as the E-commerce major is witnessing strong growth.

Welcoming Dipanjan Basu to Myntra, Ananth Narayanan, CEO, Myntra said, “Apart from being an exceptionally talented individual, Dipanjan is also a people leader. His skills and expertise in finance and operations will be of immense value to Myntra, especially at this juncture as we scale our business to meet ambitious targets. I would like to welcome him on board on behalf of the Myntra family.”

Speaking on his new assignment, Dipanjan Basu said, “I am looking forward to my stint with fashion E-commerce at Myntra. I believe that my new role will be both exciting and challenging and also a great learning experience. As Myntra is witnessing a steady growth, I should be able to leverage my experience and knowledge to support and further develop the system.”

Dipanjan is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and was ranked 7th in India in the CA final exams. He is also a rank holder in the intermediate and foundation examination of ICAI. Dipanjan is slated to join the team at Myntra on the 17th of October.

IntelleGrow Launches India’s First SME Debt Pool Program in Collaboration with Symbiotics, Geneva

IntelleGrow, a leading venture debt financing arm of Intellecap Group, launches India’s first SME Debt Pool Program in collaboration with Geneva-based leading global investment company Symbiotics to bring international financing to small corporates and medium enterprises (SME) in the country through innovative financing structure. This collaboration is aimed at supporting social enterprises in India which find it difficult to raise sufficient debt facilities to meet their funding needs. Under this arrangement, the first structured finance transaction has been closed with financing of a pool of seven SMEs amounting to approximately INR 320 million (USD 5.3 million). This launch is a part of IntelleGrow’s thrust in fostering innovative financing to SMEs in collaboration with international partners like Symbiotics. It also adds to Symbiotics’ growing expertise in the area of emerging market impact bonds.

The transaction saw multiple Indian SMEs from diverse impact sectors grouped together to raise funds on European capital markets via a single bond securitization issuance. IntelleGrow acted as the sole India-based origination partner which facilitated assessment, underwriting and monitoring of the pool drawn from its portfolio of enterprises to whom it has lent earlier. SMEs have received INR 320 million debt financing with fixed interest payments without any forex risk. This innovative instrument is very useful for capital starved Impact SMEs often known as “missing middle” as they are largely under-banked. This funding is especially helpful in funding both the working capital needs and also the capacities of growing SMEs. This pool includes a Milk processing company which has a presence in more than 1,000 villages in North India and aims to increase its milk procurement capacity from more and more farmers. It also included an SME engaged in collection of waste paper in an organised manner and facilitating its recycling. Another engaged SME is enhancing access of oncology curatives while yet another SME in this pool is developing warehousing infrastructure for agri-produce. These diverse enterprises are enhancing livelihood opportunities besides contributing to social development.

Speaking on this association, Nitin Agrawal, Deputy CEO of IntelleGrow said, “We are keen to grow this collaboration with Symbiotics and help in facilitating more such SMEs from our portfolio with innovative structured financing options meant to bring patient debt funding to Indian SMEs.”

This pool program enables impact investors to invest in a group of impact-driven Indian SMEs, which don’t have to pledge hard collaterals as security unlike existing market accesses. This comes in the backdrop of thrust from Make in India campaign besides the Start-up India and Stand-up India also creating an ecosystem projected to further improve the GDP contribution and employment generation by early-stage enterprises and start-ups in India. IntelleGrow and Symbiotics are planning to put forward similar structures in the near future.

Image Source: ShutterStock

Bengaluru Startup Builds A 'Smart Stethoscope' To Make It A Next Household Device

In a last decade, medical devices such as - Digital Thermometer, Glucometer and BP Monitor has become household instrument and unlike time of 80s or 90s where people need to visits doctors and hospitals for routine checkup and diagnoses people now are using these digital devices more often without leaving home. However one such medical instrument -- Stethoscope, is yet to become a household device.

From 1816 to 2016, it has been two centuries since the stethoscope was invented to help the mankind. In its 200 years of survival, from being a simple wooden pipe to what it is now, the device has undergone several changes. And now, a Bengaluru based startup is bringing the stethoscope to everyone's home by inventing a Smart Stethoscope called the Taal.

Invented by a two-year-old startup MUSEinc, the Taal is a low-cost, highly functional digital stethoscope, that aims to improve the quality of diagnosis, and reduce the time that is currently required to measure cardiovascular parameters among many other possible applications. The device consists of a circular hardware device, that is paired with a smartphone app and can function across species from cats to humans.

smart_stethescope

Even today, a majority of the doctors make a choice between electronic and acoustic stethoscopes. Though Taal isn't the first digital stethoscopes to hit the market, what makes it different from others is the fact that MUSEinc team has inserted a processor that enables automation of the calculation of the heart rate and recording of other sounds from within the body.



Founded in 2014 by Arvind Badrinarayanan and Sumukh Mysore, MUSEinc is a medical device startup aims to produce advanced, affordable and customizable devices for a variety of needs.

The startup is in the final stages of development and testing of the Taal digital stethoscope which the startup claims to be the most affordable and effective device of its kind in the world.

The startup has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo for Taal to raise USD 50,000 and till writing this article it has raised $4,625 USD from 65 backers.

Designed to be used by both medical professionals and patients, the device gives its users graphical representation of heart waves on the mobile, and allows them to send it to doctors. This means, a patient wouldn't require any additional training in order to understand what he/she is hearing from the stethoscope's earplugs.

Taal hasn't only become a hit in its home country India, but has also found takers abroad. According to the startup, a couple of doctors in the US are already using the device.

Taal can be of great help to doctors in remote areas for getting a second opinion, or come to a better diagnosis with help from hospitals in bigger cities.

Locally made in Bengaluru, Taal's innovators for now wish to keep the technology in the open source. The device even comes with a long, rechargeable battery life of up to 24 hours.

Here are some of other features that makes Taal stand out.


  • Compact Size- Taal says goodbye to the decades old rubber tubes that are a major inconvenience for doctors when carrying about a workplace or travelling. It's compact design and lightweight makes it convenient enough to even fit into a pocket.



  • OLED Display- Taal comes with an alphanumeric OLED display screen that displays a real-time digital sample of the heart rate. It even shows Taal's battery status.


  • Flexibility of Use- The Taal, with its POGO charging port and Lithium Ion batteries can be used and charged anywhere.



  • Audio Filtering- Taal comes with a noise cancelling analog circuit that works towards removing S1 (first heart sound) and S2 sounds from ambient noise, in order to make heartbeats and other internal sounds clearly audible to the users.



  • Socially enabled: The Taal even allows its users to record and share sounds with others with the Taal mobile app, or download and email it.



Apart from MuseInc, Cooey is another Bengaluru-based medical device startup that had launched 'smart' medical device and its - a Smart Glucometer -- a small, pocket-sized device that is portable, connects to a smartphone using the 3.5mm headphone jack and transfers the readings automatically into its mobile app.

Bengaluru Startup Builds A 'Smart Stethoscope' To Make It A Next Household Device

In a last decade, medical devices such as - Digital Thermometer, Glucometer and BP Monitor has become household instrument and unlike time of 80s or 90s where people need to visits doctors and hospitals for routine checkup and diagnoses people now are using these digital devices more often without leaving home. However one such medical instrument -- Stethoscope, is yet to become a household device.

From 1816 to 2016, it has been two centuries since the stethoscope was invented to help the mankind. In its 200 years of survival, from being a simple wooden pipe to what it is now, the device has undergone several changes. And now, a Bengaluru based startup is bringing the stethoscope to everyone's home by inventing a Smart Stethoscope called the Taal.

Invented by a two-year-old startup MUSEinc, the Taal is a low-cost, highly functional digital stethoscope, that aims to improve the quality of diagnosis, and reduce the time that is currently required to measure cardiovascular parameters among many other possible applications. The device consists of a circular hardware device, that is paired with a smartphone app and can function across species from cats to humans.

smart_stethescope

Even today, a majority of the doctors make a choice between electronic and acoustic stethoscopes. Though Taal isn't the first digital stethoscopes to hit the market, what makes it different from others is the fact that MUSEinc team has inserted a processor that enables automation of the calculation of the heart rate and recording of other sounds from within the body.



Founded in 2014 by Arvind Badrinarayanan and Sumukh Mysore, MUSEinc is a medical device startup aims to produce advanced, affordable and customizable devices for a variety of needs.

The startup is in the final stages of development and testing of the Taal digital stethoscope which the startup claims to be the most affordable and effective device of its kind in the world.

The startup has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo for Taal to raise USD 50,000 and till writing this article it has raised $4,625 USD from 65 backers.

Designed to be used by both medical professionals and patients, the device gives its users graphical representation of heart waves on the mobile, and allows them to send it to doctors. This means, a patient wouldn't require any additional training in order to understand what he/she is hearing from the stethoscope's earplugs.

Taal hasn't only become a hit in its home country India, but has also found takers abroad. According to the startup, a couple of doctors in the US are already using the device.

Taal can be of great help to doctors in remote areas for getting a second opinion, or come to a better diagnosis with help from hospitals in bigger cities.

Locally made in Bengaluru, Taal's innovators for now wish to keep the technology in the open source. The device even comes with a long, rechargeable battery life of up to 24 hours.

Here are some of other features that makes Taal stand out.


  • Compact Size- Taal says goodbye to the decades old rubber tubes that are a major inconvenience for doctors when carrying about a workplace or travelling. It's compact design and lightweight makes it convenient enough to even fit into a pocket.



  • OLED Display- Taal comes with an alphanumeric OLED display screen that displays a real-time digital sample of the heart rate. It even shows Taal's battery status.


  • Flexibility of Use- The Taal, with its POGO charging port and Lithium Ion batteries can be used and charged anywhere.



  • Audio Filtering- Taal comes with a noise cancelling analog circuit that works towards removing S1 (first heart sound) and S2 sounds from ambient noise, in order to make heartbeats and other internal sounds clearly audible to the users.



  • Socially enabled: The Taal even allows its users to record and share sounds with others with the Taal mobile app, or download and email it.



Apart from MuseInc, Cooey is another Bengaluru-based medical device startup that had launched 'smart' medical device and its - a Smart Glucometer -- a small, pocket-sized device that is portable, connects to a smartphone using the 3.5mm headphone jack and transfers the readings automatically into its mobile app.

Education eCommerce Startup Fastudent Raises Pre-Series A Funding

Fastudent, Indian B2B2C education e-commerce marketplace has announced a Pre-Series A fund raise from a group of investors including Kanwaljit Sing (Fireside Ventures), Ajay Lakhotia (former Vertex Venture Director) and Pavan Ongole (former SoftBank Director). Ashish Gupta, Trustee Ashoka University and former COO of eValueServe who invested in angel round also participated.

Founded by Gaurav Barman and Geetanjali Khanna, the e-commerce start up will utilize this round of funding to expand into Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune etc and strengthen their technology platform. Fastudent currently offers this service to schools in Delhi NCR only.

Commenting on the funding, Kanwaljit Singh, Founder Fireside Ventures , said: “Fastudent has tapped into a consumer need for School-endorsed education supplies - coupled with the convenience of e-commerce deliveries. The young & dynamic team intends to service the education fraternity like never before by creating a highly personalized brand experience for its audience."

Fastudent with its current capability to service the complete education bandwidth viz. from Playgroups to Post Graduation, has partnered with more than 200 education institutes. Using Fastudent’s exclusive technology platform, the institutes can now have their own customized white labeled e-Commerce stores .The Company runs end to end operations to support the transactions received on these stores from order receipt till the last mile delivery.

With a dedicated consumer base of 1.2 million students, Fastudent has serviced more than 90,000 orders till date.

Ajay Lakhotia, ex-Vertex Venture, added "Vertical E-Commerce has the capability to build specialized products and services around its target audience and develop deeper engagement with customers. Fastudent could eventually become the 8dol.com of India." (8Dol.com, a Chinese campus O2O services provider backed by several VC investors, and has raised an extended Series B round worth RMB200 million ($30 million).

Servicing an unprecedented range of academic supplies ranging across 32 categories including Books, Stationery, Digital Learning, Branded Merchandise, Augmented Reality, Sports, Uniforms, Shoes and more, the edTech startup boasts of a focused educational catalogue of 1,00,000 + products, spanning across 500 brands.

“...I believe Fastudent will be India's #1 student network aligned with parents and teachers. From a curated marketplace for every purchase in a school year, to a deeper understanding of their needs around learning…” added Softbank’s Pavan Ongole.

Speaking about the development, Geetanjali Khanna, Co-founder & COO, Fastudent added, “India’s education supplies market is highly fragmented and disorganized, we at Fastudent are relentlessly engaged to bind the Indian education sector. Our focus is to provide a blended module of consultative, customized and modularized digital learning to learners. We aim to make "Education a happy experience" for students, parents and institutions."

Ashish Gupta who invested in the previous round stated , " The model has blended into the existing education ecosystem faster than our expectations."The last few months have been phenomenal in terms of the numbers and the market validation has been extremely encouraging. In the coming months, the team is going to build a strong foothold in the education supplies market.”

In November 2015, the company had secured seed investment from a group of marquee angel investors led by Mr. Ashish Gupta, Founder and Trustee at Ashoka University.

Education eCommerce Startup Fastudent Raises Pre-Series A Funding

Fastudent, Indian B2B2C education e-commerce marketplace has announced a Pre-Series A fund raise from a group of investors including Kanwaljit Sing (Fireside Ventures), Ajay Lakhotia (former Vertex Venture Director) and Pavan Ongole (former SoftBank Director). Ashish Gupta, Trustee Ashoka University and former COO of eValueServe who invested in angel round also participated.

Founded by Gaurav Barman and Geetanjali Khanna, the e-commerce start up will utilize this round of funding to expand into Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune etc and strengthen their technology platform. Fastudent currently offers this service to schools in Delhi NCR only.

Commenting on the funding, Kanwaljit Singh, Founder Fireside Ventures , said: “Fastudent has tapped into a consumer need for School-endorsed education supplies - coupled with the convenience of e-commerce deliveries. The young & dynamic team intends to service the education fraternity like never before by creating a highly personalized brand experience for its audience."

Fastudent with its current capability to service the complete education bandwidth viz. from Playgroups to Post Graduation, has partnered with more than 200 education institutes. Using Fastudent’s exclusive technology platform, the institutes can now have their own customized white labeled e-Commerce stores .The Company runs end to end operations to support the transactions received on these stores from order receipt till the last mile delivery.

With a dedicated consumer base of 1.2 million students, Fastudent has serviced more than 90,000 orders till date.

Ajay Lakhotia, ex-Vertex Venture, added "Vertical E-Commerce has the capability to build specialized products and services around its target audience and develop deeper engagement with customers. Fastudent could eventually become the 8dol.com of India." (8Dol.com, a Chinese campus O2O services provider backed by several VC investors, and has raised an extended Series B round worth RMB200 million ($30 million).

Servicing an unprecedented range of academic supplies ranging across 32 categories including Books, Stationery, Digital Learning, Branded Merchandise, Augmented Reality, Sports, Uniforms, Shoes and more, the edTech startup boasts of a focused educational catalogue of 1,00,000 + products, spanning across 500 brands.

“...I believe Fastudent will be India's #1 student network aligned with parents and teachers. From a curated marketplace for every purchase in a school year, to a deeper understanding of their needs around learning…” added Softbank’s Pavan Ongole.

Speaking about the development, Geetanjali Khanna, Co-founder & COO, Fastudent added, “India’s education supplies market is highly fragmented and disorganized, we at Fastudent are relentlessly engaged to bind the Indian education sector. Our focus is to provide a blended module of consultative, customized and modularized digital learning to learners. We aim to make "Education a happy experience" for students, parents and institutions."

Ashish Gupta who invested in the previous round stated , " The model has blended into the existing education ecosystem faster than our expectations."The last few months have been phenomenal in terms of the numbers and the market validation has been extremely encouraging. In the coming months, the team is going to build a strong foothold in the education supplies market.”

In November 2015, the company had secured seed investment from a group of marquee angel investors led by Mr. Ashish Gupta, Founder and Trustee at Ashoka University.

This Bangalore-Based Startup is Solving The Problem of Urban Rental Landscape for Singles

There are 3 Lakh single migrants in Bangalore drawing a salary of above INR 25,000 pm. However, there is a significant trust deficit between home owners and single tenants. Single tenants in cities struggle with locations, privacy, quality & security of living spaces and lack of flexibility in deposits and terms of rentals.

As a solution to the above problem, YourOwnROOM -- a Bangalore based startup lease the property from the owner, rent out the individual bedrooms with common shared living and dining areas to singles and manage their rental payments and maintenance issues.

Instead of bargaining with property dealers and hanging around to lookout for vacant room for singles, people can browse rooms and flats online from their own bedroom anytime. YourOwnROOM offers brokerage free online managed room rentals to urban singles. As a new entrant in online managed rentals space, YourOwnROOM is trying to dent this segment through a perfect marketplace model all along giving rental assurance to the house owners. It is offering a plethora of services especially for those who are looking for temporary but ideal living spaces in new cities during different stages of their life.

Modernizing the Traditional Home Renting Process



YourOwnROOM is one of the fastest growing online managed home rental platform committed to deliver better services and solutions to both home owners and tenants. It is backed by a robust technology platform and revolutionizing the way by which room rentals are managed across the country. It aims to be the most trusted brand in this particular space and offering end to end management of the rental process to homeowners and tenants alike. The startup has launched by Prabhat Kumar Tiwary (CEO and Founder) and Sachin Joshi, (Chief Sales & Product Officer and Co-Founder) in Feb 2016 to bridge the gap between tenants and home owners. Prabhat says, "We see ourselves as the right solution to every tenant who is looking to carve a special accommodation for him or her in a new city. We are also helping every home owner who is looking for quality profile tenants as well as continual premium rent."

Knowing the people behind this Idea



Prabhat Kumar Tiwary -- CEO and Founder
He is a Sloan Fellow with a Master degree in Business Management from Stanford Business School. He has over 20 years of global experience in software product development, IT application services and Digital Technologies etc. He spent the initial part of his career working for Ness, ARI, Wipro and ALIT. He has also worked in senior leadership positions managing P&L and organizations of up to $100 M at Xchanging, MphasiS, Zensar & HP. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi.

Sachin Joshi -- Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder
He has 16 years of experience working for large Technology organizations like EDS, MphasiS and Cognizant. He has experience in building Enterprise Platforms and Products with deep expertise in SaaS, Social Media, Social Analytics, Business Analytics, Mobility and Digital Payments.

All set to hit the competition


Prabhat and Sachin consider Nestaway, Homigo, Square Plums and CoHo homes its closest and biggest competitors. Grabhouse, Zenify and Fella homes are few other competitor to an extent. They realized well that there are multiple players across the segment but very rare who facilitate support together to both occupants and house owners. Sachin Joshi Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder, YourOwnROOM says, "Our primary differentiator is the fact that while most players only facilitate listing and bringing together the owners and tenants on a common platform, the end to end managed business model we offer to both owners and tenants is unique. Both owners and tenants, we believe require a certain amount of hand-holding and this is what we offer." He further adds, "We understand the huge demand that exists among urban singles for quality living. If in the past, the primary considerations in choosing a living space was the cost, to the upwardly mobile discerning urban single today, the quality of life has taken precedence over the cost factor. Location and quality of the living spaces are prized above all since, in cities today; these two factors determine the difference between a fulfilling life and a mundane rat race like existence. Tiwary boasts, "Other players in this field, we believe, do not stress on the location and quality of the living spaces they offer. Besides, the flexibility of lease terms we offer and amount of deposit we asks remains unmatched."

Milestones



Within a year of its launch, the startup has experienced fast growth in past 6-7 months as it has INR 60 Lakhs revenue for the year, and expected to cross 1 Crore soon. Presently it is having 100 + happy customers in Bangalore and expanding fast in Pune and NCR area. Tiwary adds, "So far, we have more than 50 attractive hand-picked properties in convenient locations all over Bangalore with having 100 + happy customers. We are expecting 1CR revenue for the year.” He confirms, “A fully functional robust technology platform with an app to be launched soon."

Future Plans


To this point YourOwnROOM is fully operational in Bangalore and Pune and expanding gradually into Delhi and NCR area. The startup targets to establish 250 tenants in first year in Bangalore & Pune. In second year it is planning to add 1,000 more tenants in same cities. Afterward, in third year it is targeting to add 4,000 tenants in Mumbai & NCR. Next to this, the company is planning to penetrate into Chennai, Hyderabad and other Tier II cities to add more number of lodgers and house owners in its network.

Top Image - Team of YourOwnROOM (Credits - YourOwnRoom@Facebook)

Hotel.com Founder Inder Sharma Launches Hotelbids - A Last-Minute Hotel Bookings App

Hotelbids Hospitality Pvt Ltd, subsidiary of US Company Hotelbids, Inc. based in California, launched its much awaited App in India, with presence over 2500+ hotels in 69 cities. Response from the hotels was so positive that company registered all these hotels in just last 6 months.

Hotelbids - Stay@Your Price is an app (Android & iOS) that targets last-minute hotel bookings. The app is the brain child of Inder Sharma, a serial entrepreneur and founder of Hotel.com in 1996. Having been connected with the hospitality industry for over 20 years, he realized customers were not getting what they deserve. Hundreds of online travel agencies (OTAs) claim the best deals, even though the difference in price remains just few rupees. Every night approximately 1.7 million rooms go empty globally. This gap created a need for a platform which is both customer-centric (to get the best deal) and hotel-centric (to fill to capacity).

“Until now, customers had to go to various travel sites to hunt for the best price for the same room at the same hotel. Plus, no one site gives consistent rates. At Hotelbids, consumers don’t search, the search comes to them. They just set their price and the specifics desired, the rest comes to them,” says Inder Sharma President and Founder HotelBids.

To use this platform, a customer uses the app to request hotels in a particular city. This request is broadcast to all hotels in the Hotelbids network, which can respond immediately to accept the offer. Customers can then review the specifics of the hotel before making their decision. In this simple and transparent way, both hotels and customers win. It is a two click last minute room booking app.

Hotelbids, Inc is founded by serial entrepreneur Inder Sharma’s incubator iBOS, based in Los Angeles, California (USA), and Aneesh Chopra who is the CTO of the company with a development and marketing office in Gurugram (Haryana).

Mr. Sharma has founded over 13 companies including Hotel.com. Hotelbids is funded by hospitality professionals from the USA. Hotelbids is now a valued member of AAHOA (Asian American Hotel Owners Association), whose members collectively own approximately 23,000 hotels in US. In India, Hotelbids did a soft launch in July, 2016 and now the app is available at Google Play and App Store and plans to expand to major international markets soon. The company has begun the hotel registration process in United States and will launch in USA in January 2017.

InstaCar Brings First FDI to Madhya Pradesh, Gets $1M from Hongkong Investors

InstaCar – an online outstation taxi marketplace- based in Indore has bagged a seed round of $1 million from Honking -based Swastika Co Ltd. This is the first foreign direct investment to a startup in Madhya Pradesh. Within two months of its launch this year, the startup has onboarded 500+ cars in Madhya Pradesh itself

These are some of InstaCar’s standardization features that make it stand out:

1. 15 Point check for each car and drivers.
2. Background Verification of drivers
3. InstaCar Availability and Confirmation.
4. One Way Optimization on maximum routes.
5. Transparency of Physical Actual Condition of Car.
6. Monthly Auditing of Cars

One of InstaCar’s biggest selling propositions is that only responsible drivers trained in quality customer service are allotted to drive these cars. “We provide on-the-go snack, water bottles, tissue papers etc to ensure that the customer feels comfortable,” shares Co-Founder Priyanshi Choubey.

“India currently is flooded with taxi and rickshaw aggregators within cities while Ola recently launched its outstation services, but the solutions we are offering like choice of car make & model selection, actual photographs, background-check of drivers, luggage carrier, pet-friendly cars etc are the differentiators and is probably a unique business model in India as well as global market,” shares Co-Founder Ishan Vyas.

“This is a market which has existed since past 100 years. People have specific requirements with outstation rented cars. Look at this market – there are business travelers, leisure travelers, college and office groups, families, couples, solo travelers, medical tourists and so on. Since the biggest share in the Indian eCommerce space is that of travel aggregators, we knew outstation taxi market is a gold mine,” adds Ishan.

The founding team

InstaCar founders come with diversified backgrounds. Founder and CEO Ishan Vyas owns a web and mobile application development firm by the name of Aspricot having clients in 33 countries, InstaCar is his 2nd Venture. He comes from a technology background with huge experience in machine language processing.

Anurag Gupta is an IIM Kolkata alumnus and has an award-winning chain of salons by the name of Shear Genius. He brings in more than 20 years of experience in handling various business operations and has been instrumental in bringing robust processes to InstaCar.

Priyanshi Choubey is an MBA in eCommerce and brings in her deep understanding of technology from her three-year experience.

InstaCar chosen for its operations and business model

Investment company Swastika Co Ltd is based out of Hongkong and chose InstaCar for its robust process of operations and a diversified experience. “We all have run profitable businesses before that helped us bring in learning into InstaCar especially in terms of operations. We have an advanced technology that allows us to keep a seamless tracking to ensure that none of our trips goes empty along with a robust backend to enforce our quality parameters,” informs Ishan.

Instacar investment has brought Central India’s startup ecosystem into the notice of South Asian investors who have mostly funded startups in Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi.

Vibrant Gujarat Delegation Meets Airbnb, Amazon & 500 Startups Across San Francisco, Seattle & San Diego

As part of the run-up to the country’s most prestigious global summit, Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2017, the Government of Gujarat has been sending delegations consisting of top government officials and industry leaders to various countries. One such delegation visited the US West Coast which held meetings in San Francisco, Seattle and San Diego. The delegation led by Mr. Dhananjay Dwivedi, IAS, Secretary, Government of Gujarat held back-to-back meetings with over 20 firms in a span of just four business days.

During the visit, the delegation interacted with Airbnb, 500 Startups, Amazon, Docusign.in, Gilead Life sciences, Prysm Inc., Panchil, Semantify, TripBorn, Verizon Enterprise Solutions, Varian Medical Systems, University of Berkeley, UL, Applied Materials, ResMed, Cidara Therapeutics, Illumina, and EAG.

Speaking on the visit, Mr. Dhananjay Dwivedi, IAS, Secretary, Science and Technology Department, Government of Gujarat said, “The United States of America is an important country for Vibrant Gujarat and I am extremely delighted by their decision to partner with us again at Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2017. Some of the US based companies are changing the way we do business here, especially tech-based companies like Airbnb, Docusign.Inc & Amazon; Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit will be the perfect platform for exchange of ideas and potential partnerships. I look forward to welcoming the delegation in January.”

The delegation had a successful visit with some of the top corporates expressing their desire to be a part of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2017. It is important to note that India is currently very active on some of the US tech-based platforms across different verticals like hospitality, online retail and public transportation, offering huge potential to the industry giants. Their participation at Vibrant Gujarat is likely to further boost the tech-industry in India.

About Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit

The Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, which started in 2003 to rekindle the pace of investments in the state, has since established itself as one of the most important international business events in the country. Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit is an example of the visionary approach of the Government of Gujarat towards inclusive and sustainable development by ensuring policy coherence and effective investment promotion. Far from the regional investment fair that characterized the first Summit in 2003, the biennial Summit has become a unique forum for idea exchange, knowledge sharing, networking, explore business opportunities, sign cooperation agreements and partnerships, while setting the policy agenda to meet some of the current global challenges.

Having successfully organized seven constructive summits, Government of Gujarat, as part of its journey towards sustainable long-term growth and inclusive development is organizing the 8th edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit from the 10th to 13th of January 2017 at Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar. The central focus of the 8th edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit is “Sustainable Economic and Social Development”. The Summit will bring together Heads of States and Governments, Ministers, leaders from the corporate world, senior policy makers, heads of international institutions and academia from around the world to further the cause of development and promote cooperation.

Nexus Backed Druva Raises $51M in Funding to Support Its Aggressive Growth Strategy

Druva, the leader in cloud data protection and information management, today announced $51 million in funding that will further drive the company’s global objective to transform the way enterprises protect and manage information.

The new funding brings Druva’s total capital raised to $118 million, and will continue to support its aggressive growth strategy. The round is led by existing investor Sequoia India and joined by new investors – Singapore-based EDBI, as well as Blue Cloud Ventures and Hercules Capital. This round also includes contributions from other existing investors including NTT Finance, Nexus Venture Partners and Tenaya Capital. The capital will be used to accelerate both product innovation and adoption, all while enhancing product capabilities across Druva’s secure cloud platform. In addition, the capital will be used to further drive sales and marketing, and continue the company’s global expansion.

“Our customers are entering a new era of public cloud and Druva is at the forefront. The fragmentation of data, combined with increasing regulatory needs, is making enterprises everywhere rethink how information is best managed. In today's age, simple is genius, and Druva's 82 NPS speaks to how our cloud-first approach is simple yet disruptive,” said Jaspreet Singh, Druva founder and CEO. “We are at an inflection point and Druva’s ability to evolve and innovate is proving to be nothing short of a game changer. This new capital enables us to continue to serve customers through notable innovations, partnerships and additional global expansion.”

Druva’s cloud-first architecture offers a unified approach to data protection. Unlike the traditional approach of managing data silos like backup, DR and eDiscovery, etc., with Druva, information is backed up once, and the platform enables advanced management and discovery analytics capabilities. This dramatically increases the availability and visibility of business critical information, while reducing the risk, cost, and complexity of managing and protecting it. The platform is built natively on public cloud platforms like AWS and Azure, and delivers unmatched scale and cost advantages, all while reducing the data risks inherent in today’s fragmented data environment.

“Druva is at the cutting edge of leveraging cloud to solve data protection challenges for today's enterprises. The team's ability to deliver multiple best-in-class solutions on common scalable architecture makes us very excited about what the future holds,” said Shailendra Singh, Managing Director at Sequoia Capital India Advisors. “It has been six years since Sequoia India's first Series A investment. We are thrilled to continue to partner with Druva to build an enduring company.”

“The risk of business data loss increases as workforce mobility becomes ubiquitous. Druva’s superior solution to safeguard critical data through their unified cloud-native platform mitigates such risks whilst enhancing IT productivity and cost savings,” said Swee-Yeok CHU, Chief Executive Officer and President at EDBI. “EDBI looks forward to supporting Druva as it expands into new markets in the region through Singapore.”

This new funding round comes as Druva experiences strong growth and demand for its cloud-based data protection and information management solution. Over the last two years, Druva increased its global presence, growing to over 400 employees and expanding direct presence, launching subsidiaries in both Japan and Germany, while simultaneously growing its enterprise customer base by more than 1000. New customers gained during the period included NASA, Chipotle, LiveNation, Hulu, Marriott, Leidos, NBC Universal, ServiceNow, Stanford University and others.

“Druva is embracing the full potential of the cloud, enabling our enterprise to solve problems it once took several different solutions to solve – and at a compelling cost of ownership. We have seen Druva grow rapidly and it is clear they are setting the pace in the industry,” said Scott Wiggins, Group Information Technology, Chief Information Officer at ANDRITZ, Inc.

Stayzilla Signs MOU with Gujarat Tourism to Encourage Homestays in the State

Stayzilla.com, the aggregator for verified homestays in India and Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited (TCGL) signed an MOU to jointly promote and market homestays and alternate stays in the state of Gujarat. The MOU was signed and exchanged by Mr. S.J.Haider (IAS), Principal Secretary (Tourism) of Gujarat Tourism in the presence of Hon. Union Minister of State for Tourism and Culture, Dr. Mahesh Sharma and Hon. Tourism Secretary, Mr. Vinod Zutshi, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India.

After signing MoUs with Madhya Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation and Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board, this tie-up firmly establishes Stayzilla as a leading player in the industry of homestays and alternate stays. Under this agreement, Stayzilla and Gujarat Tourism will share the current base of homestays on each other's digital platforms to bring more awareness on homestays in Gujarat. Stayzilla will also aid verification procedures and jointly promote the concept of homestays in the state. All homestays registered with TCGL will receive technological and operational support to run. Also, Stayzilla & TCGL will jointly conduct education and training sessions for TCGL registered homestays on best practices such as online usage, content management, operations and expense management, which will benefit the hosts of the homestays.

The company is closely working with various state tourism departments for joint promotion and marketing of homestays. Stayzilla has recently signed MoUs with Madhya Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation and Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board to enhance homestay concept among the travelers in these states. There have been around 600 workshops conducted pan India, at various locations, with the hosts from different corners, out of which about 80 workshops were conducted in various towns and cities of Gujarat. This has helped in boosting homestay supply in Gujarat over the last 6months, thereby bringing up the number of verified homestays in the state to over 400.

Commenting on this announcement, Ankit Rastogi, Vice President, Marketplace, Stayzilla said, “We, at Stayzilla, have maintained that the key to increasing tourism is the availability of quality and affordable rooms, pan India. The shortage of rooms cannot be solved efficiently by constructing hotels within a short frame of time. We are excited about the fact that various State Governments in conjunction with the Central Government have come together in realizing this. Gujarat has emerged as one of the most popular states in the country for travel, thus playing a significant role in India’s tourism potential. This MoU, like the others, will help in building a vibrant ecosystem for Homestays in Gujarat.”

For travelers across the globe and the country, Gujarat offers a massive coastline along its southern fringes with the mighty White Rann of Kutch offering an enchanting landscape of white sand desert. Besides, Gujarat has carved for itself a position as a pilgrimage destination with its extremely popular pilgrimage circuit of Somnath, Porbandar and Dwarka in the West. Furthermore, the philosophy of Gandhi draws many globetrotters to this place, added by its richness in culture, heritage, food and flora and fauna.

Stayzilla has a wide range of homestay options in many of these towns such as the ‘French Haveli’, which is a 150 year old restored Gujarati home in Ahmedabad, ‘Divan’s Bungalow’, a boutique homestay with rich heritage in Raikhad and ‘Deewanji ni Haveli’, a 250 year old restored haveli in Ahmedabad.

Stayzilla, which has presently over 8000 homestay units in its portfolio is working at grassroot level for unlocking more and more numbers of registered homestays in the country. The company is conducting town hall activities across 4500 cities to create awareness about homestays and alternate stays.

Men’s Grooming Brand Beardo Raises $500k from Venture Catalysts at a Valuation of INR 40 Cr

Actor turned entrepreneur Suniel Shetty backed men’s grooming brand Beardo raises seed funding of 500k $ from Venture Catalysts.

The investment round was led by Raj Vazirani - RHV enterprise, Siddharth Somaiya of Godavari Biorefineries & Somaiya Group, CA Anuj Golecha & Dr Apoorv Ranjan Sharma -Co-Founders, Venture Catalysts and many other experts from the FMCG space.

Ahmedabad headquartered Beardo was founded in October 2015 by Ashutosh Valani & Priyank Shah.

Today men’s grooming industry targets over 25 million users with a market size worth almost `6000 crores. Understanding this need to introduce products that specially cater to taking care of one’s beard, body & looks, Beardo was born after 8 months of extensive research & founder’s experience.

Beardo, men’s personal care and grooming brand began with just beard oils and today their range includes beard washes, beard balm, beard & hair growth oil, serum, face washes, beard & hair wax, soaps, beard combs and many more.

Beardo's provides wide personal hair and body care offerings. They market product under two category Beardo & Beardo Lite (Premium brand). It is currently top selling brand in men’s grooming category on India’s top e-commerce sites: Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal & Nykaa. They are clocking around 500 orders per day. It has also forayed its presence in 500 salons across Ahmedabad, Pune, Mumbai, Surat & Delhi. In just the 10 months of its operations, it has crossed the GMV of INR 120 lakhs per month. Source of revenue generation mainly comes from online & distributors, online sales & salon sales.

The company has also successfully roped in Suniel Shetty, a veteran actor as a brand ambassador. The experience of an actor in the growth of this business will certainly contribute extensively.

Ashutosh Valani, Co- founder, Beardo says, “Raising funds from Venture Catalysts will certainly help our business to expand our reach offline and upgrade logistics and infrastructural needs. Besides infusing funds, VCats have been tremendously co-operative in providing mentorship, quick evaluation and super quick decisions”.

Dr. Apoorv Sharma, Co-founder, Venture Catalysts says, We feel Beardo is tapping the highly emerging Indian men’s grooming space. This space has recently created lot of buzz in the industry. Talented and experienced founders of Beardo are building awesome business while keeping in mind the product’s quality, margins, distribution & expansion reach.

When asked Suneil Shetty, what enticed him to associate with the brand, he added “I personally prefer to associate with brands that I can vouch for and Beardo is one such brand. The men’s grooming industry is currently booming and I am extremely thrilled to play an active role in influencing this revolution.”

Venture Catalysts is India’s leading & fastest growing seed investment and innovation platform. It invests $100K – $250K in very early stage startups that has potential to create enduring value for over a long period of time.

Venture Catalysts brings lethal combination of Capital, Mentoring and Business Network to help investee companies to succeed. Our innovation platform provides value to startups through its angel network, funding, community, services and co-working facility.

FinTech Startup EarlySalary.com Enters Hyderabad to Offer Instant Loan

EarlySalary.com, a Fintech startup, today announced its operations in Hyderabad, the sixth market after a successful launch in Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi NCR. The app has received 1,95,000+ downloads across its Android & iOS mobile app platform.

Hyderabad has experienced a surge in young working professionals, besides it being a home to major technology companies. EarlySalary sees a huge market in Hyderabad where young salaried professionals who have just began their career need a helping hand at the end of the month. A mobile app based product like EarlySalary allows them to instantly apply for and get a short term loan. The loans are approved and disbursed by RBI approved NBFC. The super-fast decisioning on the app is enabled by the social algorithm and artificial machine intelligence. Available on Android & iOS store, the loans amount is available from Rs. 10,000 up to Rs. 1,00,000 for a tenure period of 7 to 30 days.

Targeted at young working professionals who run out of salary money during the month end, Pune based Fin-tech Startup helps users sustain lifestyle without the need to borrow money from friends and relatives. The company uses new age technology which power first of its kind Social Worth Score which combines credit bureau reports to social media details of the user & decisions within few minutes. The unique social worth scoring has enabled faster underwriting with minimal human intervention. The loan approval takes few minutes with the successfully developed and implemented social algorithm and a scorecard. User can get instant fund transfer to their bank account and can use it as per their requirement.

Commenting on the launch, Akshay Mehrotra, Co-founder & CEO at EarlySalary.com, said, “EarlySalary is a short term lifestyle loan. We are excited to bring our innovative offering to the rescue of young professionals facing month-end cash crunch in Hyderabad.” He further added “This festive season starting with Dussera, go out and spurge a little with EarlySalary and don't let your cash crunch come in the way of celebrations”.

The co-founders Akshay Mehrotra and Ashish Goyal, each one has over a decade of experience up their sleeve. They have an expert combination of marketing and finance.

Why You Should Upgrade Your Wireless Router

If you have been using your wireless router for a couple of years, maybe you should consider upgrading it. Some of you may ask - Why should I replace something that works? Well, although your old wireless router may still work properly, the new one will work much, much better.

Why should you replace the old router?


If your router works properly, chances are that you will not even think about getting a new one. This is the reason why most users still have routers that operate on older wireless standards.

We understand that you are completely happy with your current wireless connection, but that is maybe because you are used to it. If you knew that you can have better internet speeds, better coverage and a much more stable performance you won’t think much about the upgrade. So, in case you plan to upgrade your computer or other equipment, think about replacing the router as well. Basically, all your wireless devices communicate with each other through this device so better connection coverage and speed are always welcome.

To be more precise, newer routers work with newer standards. This means the speeds are higher and the interference is much lower. You can be sure that if the router you use is obsolete, you are not getting the maximum out of your tablets, game consoles, and smartphones and so on.

Wireless Standards – Finding the Ones Supported by Your Router


If we have grabbed your attention, it is time to check the standards supported by your router. You can do this in several different ways but the simplest would be to check the router itself. Chances are that the supported standards are printed on the bottom of the router or maybe on the router package box. According to this site another way would be to Google the router model number and check its specifications or login to the router settings using 192.168.1.1 and checking the supported standards in the router settings page.

For your information, when checking the supported standards you should look for something like

  • 802.11ac – newest and best at the moment


  • 802.11n – not so new, but still OK


  • 802.11g – begging for an upgrade



The best option would be to see "802.11ac" printed on your router. If you see “802.11n”, you can still use your router. This is definitely not the best option, but it can do the job. However, if you see -”802.11g” it is really necessary to upgrade your wireless router.

Generally speaking, there are great chances that your router supports 802.11n standards, since recently distributed routers mainly support the latest standard - 802.11ac.

Also, the good news is, if you have an up-to-date router supporting the 802.11ac standard, you will still be able to use older devices with it.On the other hand, if things are the opposite, you have a router which supports old standards, and you have wireless devices supporting 802.11ac, then things are not so ideal. It’s definitely time for upgrade.

Just like you can see the standards printed on the router, you can also check which standards your devices support if you want.

We have to mention that we don’t force you to upgrade (replace) your router or other devices every time a new standard appears. However, we want to let you know how important your router is and just like other components of your network, it also needs to be upgraded from time to time. With it you can be sure you are getting maximum from all the latest wireless devices you use.

Finally, replacing the wireless routers to support the latest network standards is definitely something that won’t cost too much, and at the same time the impact of this upgrade will be more than visible.

[Top Image - Shutterstock]

Jaipur-based Augmented Reality Startup To Change The Way Consumers Interact With Print

Technology has completely revamped the way the world of news functions nowadays. With the Internet in our hands, on our smartphones, our tabs, the print medium has taken a major hit. Seeing this, the newspapers decided to make a move into the online medium as well, but the profitability that came with a paying newspaper readership has now become a thing of the past.

More and more people are now preferring mobile news over physical newspapers. Seeing the readers making the switch, the advertisers are even switching to Google adverts for cheaper options. It won't be wrong to say, that the newspapers might be looking towards a path of extinction in the coming few years. But RAMS Creative Technologies, a small tech start-up based out of Jaipur, has something up its alley which could help in bringing them back into action.

The startup has conceived YeppAR, an augmented reality application with an aim of changing newspapers forever. Viewing a newspaper through the app instantly brings the story to life. All the related news stories pops off the page giving the user the option to browse through them. The app ends up solving the limited space problem with the print medium. Not only this, YeppAR also allows the user to link to stories a media organisation has produced after the actual issue has gone to print. This particular function can prove to be of great relevance for media organisations having both online and print platforms. These organisations can leverage their up-to-dats online news pieces to keep fuelling their print business, while consequently also driving-in traffic to their websites through their magazines and newspapers.

While many people read newspapers everyday, but in order to do more research or get more current information on the matter, they are forced to access television or the internet. Hence, in order to get a complete picture of an issue, one has to go through a number of mediums. YeppAR puts an end to all this and brings everything under one single umbrella.

How YeppAR works?



Whenever a document linked with YeppAR is viewed through the app, it comes alive on the user's smartphone. This can be through 3D visuals, more images, videos, and more information about the content of the document. The app basically ends up enhancing the know-how about any incident or event that’s printed in the newspaper with the app enabled logo.

YeppAR for Newspapers



yeppar_2

Along with retaining the readership of the newspapers, YeppAR can end up winning and bringing back advertisers interest into newspapers. The app ends up wholly revamping the dry and static print ads and makes them more interesting and engaging. For example, with the app, a simple print ad of a movie ends up becoming a playable trailer of that particular movie. Not only this, the ad can also be linked to a ticket booking site, which would give newspapers a chance to generate money from both movie makers as well as the ticket booking websites.

The startup has recently partnered with Jaipur edition of Dainik Bhaskar, a Hindi news daily, for pilot of what AR can do to print content.




YeppAR for Restaurants





Restaurants can incorporate the augmented reality app in their menus in order to make the experience better for its diners. Using YeppAR, an ordinary looking food menu can be used by the restaurant to give out information like 3D images of the dish, serving portions, ingredients, accompaniments, videos of the dish being made and reviews of previous diners. All this can help the diners make their choice faster.

According to Rahul Mangal and Ankush Sharma, the Founder and the CEO of YeppAr app respectively, technology is the only solution to elate the experience of the customers and make them more aware about each cuisine on the menu. The app has already collaborated with a number of renowned restaurants in Jaipur.

While currently only dealing with newspapers and restaurants, the app does have plans to cover more industries like, education, health, retail etc. in the near future. Their mission is to instill in people the habit of scanning anything for information, the way they type and search on Google.

Jaipur-based Augmented Reality Startup To Change The Way Consumers Interact With Print

Technology has completely revamped the way the world of news functions nowadays. With the Internet in our hands, on our smartphones, our tabs, the print medium has taken a major hit. Seeing this, the newspapers decided to make a move into the online medium as well, but the profitability that came with a paying newspaper readership has now become a thing of the past.

More and more people are now preferring mobile news over physical newspapers. Seeing the readers making the switch, the advertisers are even switching to Google adverts for cheaper options. It won't be wrong to say, that the newspapers might be looking towards a path of extinction in the coming few years. But RAMS Creative Technologies, a small tech start-up based out of Jaipur, has something up its alley which could help in bringing them back into action.

The startup has conceived YeppAR, an augmented reality application with an aim of changing newspapers forever. Viewing a newspaper through the app instantly brings the story to life. All the related news stories pops off the page giving the user the option to browse through them. The app ends up solving the limited space problem with the print medium. Not only this, YeppAR also allows the user to link to stories a media organisation has produced after the actual issue has gone to print. This particular function can prove to be of great relevance for media organisations having both online and print platforms. These organisations can leverage their up-to-dats online news pieces to keep fuelling their print business, while consequently also driving-in traffic to their websites through their magazines and newspapers.

While many people read newspapers everyday, but in order to do more research or get more current information on the matter, they are forced to access television or the internet. Hence, in order to get a complete picture of an issue, one has to go through a number of mediums. YeppAR puts an end to all this and brings everything under one single umbrella.

How YeppAR works?



Whenever a document linked with YeppAR is viewed through the app, it comes alive on the user's smartphone. This can be through 3D visuals, more images, videos, and more information about the content of the document. The app basically ends up enhancing the know-how about any incident or event that’s printed in the newspaper with the app enabled logo.

YeppAR for Newspapers



yeppar_2

Along with retaining the readership of the newspapers, YeppAR can end up winning and bringing back advertisers interest into newspapers. The app ends up wholly revamping the dry and static print ads and makes them more interesting and engaging. For example, with the app, a simple print ad of a movie ends up becoming a playable trailer of that particular movie. Not only this, the ad can also be linked to a ticket booking site, which would give newspapers a chance to generate money from both movie makers as well as the ticket booking websites.

The startup has recently partnered with Jaipur edition of Dainik Bhaskar, a Hindi news daily, for pilot of what AR can do to print content.




YeppAR for Restaurants





Restaurants can incorporate the augmented reality app in their menus in order to make the experience better for its diners. Using YeppAR, an ordinary looking food menu can be used by the restaurant to give out information like 3D images of the dish, serving portions, ingredients, accompaniments, videos of the dish being made and reviews of previous diners. All this can help the diners make their choice faster.

According to Rahul Mangal and Ankush Sharma, the Founder and the CEO of YeppAr app respectively, technology is the only solution to elate the experience of the customers and make them more aware about each cuisine on the menu. The app has already collaborated with a number of renowned restaurants in Jaipur.

While currently only dealing with newspapers and restaurants, the app does have plans to cover more industries like, education, health, retail etc. in the near future. Their mission is to instill in people the habit of scanning anything for information, the way they type and search on Google.

Meet The Four Indian Scientists Behind Gravitational Waves Discovery

In what can be considered as a landmark discovery earlier this year, 60 scientists from India have contributed in successfully detecting gravitational waves, first hypothesized by the genius Albert Einstein almost a century ago.

Opening a new window to the world of studying the cosmos, the discovery is a fruit of a worldwide collaboration between scientists.

Here are the front runners from India who made this discovery possible:

1) Name: Sanjeev Dhurandhar


dhurandar

Age: 64
Occupation: Emeritus professor, IUCAA, Pune

Pune born scientist Sanjeev Dhurandhar was one of the 1,000 key scientists actively involved in discovery of the gravitational waves. As early as the 80's, when the whole world was obsessing on electromagnetic wave, Sanjeev was sure about this scientific marvel's existence.

While Dhurandhar was adamant about his belief, the scientific community wasn't very welcoming to him initially. During his PhD, when he tried seeking funds for building the world’s biggest 100-metre interferometer to detect gravitational waves, he was politely turned away for not having enough credibility. For the unaware, Interferometers are basically investigative tools used in various fields of science and engineering.

Fast forward today, the Pune born scientist is now considered as the foundation holding up the country's gravitational wave research. He has successfully developed novel algorithms on the way to extract gravitational wave signals from the noise created from sources such as black holes, and how to do the same with several detectors – all of this has been put to use in discovering the gravitational wave.

2) Name: Anand Sengupta


sengupta

Age: 40
Occupation: Faculty, Physics, Indian Institute of Technology - Gandhinagar

When Anand Sengupta was first informed about the first gravitational wave, he didn't believe it to be to be true and thought of it as a mere “injection”. He thought that it was just another case of textbook injection to make sure that the search groups are doing their working properly, all the protocols are in their proper place for due diligence and that frequent checks are being carried out by various programmes.

But, when he finally realised it was true, he was very joyous for his and his team's efforts. He does however feel that though the discovery is a historic one, it is just an isolated one in nature. He believes that more detections are needed and there is also a requirement to locate the sources by using other telescopes.

He and his group meticulously worked on matched filtering algorithm in order to pull out the weak signals.

The group is currently working on an algorithm that will be able to successfully separate background noise from the true gravitational wave event by making use of machine learning.

3) Name: Parameswaran Ajith


ajith

Age: 35
Occupation: Leads astrophysical relativity group, International Centre for Theoretical Sciences – Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore

Ajith was vacationing in Kerala when he got informed about a “trigger” in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors that primarily looked as it was from a binary black hole. The trigger in the LIGO detectors triggered Ajith to cut short his vacation in Kerala and come back to work in Bangalore. It was after three weeks of continuous work that his team was successfully in getting its first results. After this, the team's preliminary results came out in just ten days which were then sent for further revision and review.

In what could be considered a major coincidence, just three months prior to the discovery, Ajith and his group at ICTS-TIFR had released a paper where they had talked about the method to infer the mass and spin of the black holes that determines the shape of the gravitational wave.

4) Name: Archana Pai


pai

Age: 42
Occupation: Faculty, physics, Indian Institute of Science Research and Education, Thiruvananthpuram

A faculty of physics at the Indian Institute of Science Research and Education in Thiruvananthpuram, Pai believes that even more than the event itself, the fact that the discovery was made in the 100th year since Albert Einstein first predicted it, matters more to her.

According to her, even though her group did believe that the detection of the gravitational wave would require more sensitivity and that would possibly happen in the advanced LIGO, she didn't expect the first defection to happen this soon. But, after the initial awe and surprise, they started following what the data was meaning to communicate. Pai and her group of talented scientists tested the gravitational wave from the event and found it to be in consistency with Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Even India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi was joyous about India's contribution in this discovery and tweeted, "Immensely proud that Indian scientists played an important role in this challenging quest."

Meet The Four Indian Scientists Behind Gravitational Waves Discovery

In what can be considered as a landmark discovery earlier this year, 60 scientists from India have contributed in successfully detecting gravitational waves, first hypothesized by the genius Albert Einstein almost a century ago.

Opening a new window to the world of studying the cosmos, the discovery is a fruit of a worldwide collaboration between scientists.

Here are the front runners from India who made this discovery possible:

1) Name: Sanjeev Dhurandhar


dhurandar

Age: 64
Occupation: Emeritus professor, IUCAA, Pune

Pune born scientist Sanjeev Dhurandhar was one of the 1,000 key scientists actively involved in discovery of the gravitational waves. As early as the 80's, when the whole world was obsessing on electromagnetic wave, Sanjeev was sure about this scientific marvel's existence.

While Dhurandhar was adamant about his belief, the scientific community wasn't very welcoming to him initially. During his PhD, when he tried seeking funds for building the world’s biggest 100-metre interferometer to detect gravitational waves, he was politely turned away for not having enough credibility. For the unaware, Interferometers are basically investigative tools used in various fields of science and engineering.

Fast forward today, the Pune born scientist is now considered as the foundation holding up the country's gravitational wave research. He has successfully developed novel algorithms on the way to extract gravitational wave signals from the noise created from sources such as black holes, and how to do the same with several detectors – all of this has been put to use in discovering the gravitational wave.

2) Name: Anand Sengupta


sengupta

Age: 40
Occupation: Faculty, Physics, Indian Institute of Technology - Gandhinagar

When Anand Sengupta was first informed about the first gravitational wave, he didn't believe it to be to be true and thought of it as a mere “injection”. He thought that it was just another case of textbook injection to make sure that the search groups are doing their working properly, all the protocols are in their proper place for due diligence and that frequent checks are being carried out by various programmes.

But, when he finally realised it was true, he was very joyous for his and his team's efforts. He does however feel that though the discovery is a historic one, it is just an isolated one in nature. He believes that more detections are needed and there is also a requirement to locate the sources by using other telescopes.

He and his group meticulously worked on matched filtering algorithm in order to pull out the weak signals.

The group is currently working on an algorithm that will be able to successfully separate background noise from the true gravitational wave event by making use of machine learning.

3) Name: Parameswaran Ajith


ajith

Age: 35
Occupation: Leads astrophysical relativity group, International Centre for Theoretical Sciences – Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore

Ajith was vacationing in Kerala when he got informed about a “trigger” in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors that primarily looked as it was from a binary black hole. The trigger in the LIGO detectors triggered Ajith to cut short his vacation in Kerala and come back to work in Bangalore. It was after three weeks of continuous work that his team was successfully in getting its first results. After this, the team's preliminary results came out in just ten days which were then sent for further revision and review.

In what could be considered a major coincidence, just three months prior to the discovery, Ajith and his group at ICTS-TIFR had released a paper where they had talked about the method to infer the mass and spin of the black holes that determines the shape of the gravitational wave.

4) Name: Archana Pai


pai

Age: 42
Occupation: Faculty, physics, Indian Institute of Science Research and Education, Thiruvananthpuram

A faculty of physics at the Indian Institute of Science Research and Education in Thiruvananthpuram, Pai believes that even more than the event itself, the fact that the discovery was made in the 100th year since Albert Einstein first predicted it, matters more to her.

According to her, even though her group did believe that the detection of the gravitational wave would require more sensitivity and that would possibly happen in the advanced LIGO, she didn't expect the first defection to happen this soon. But, after the initial awe and surprise, they started following what the data was meaning to communicate. Pai and her group of talented scientists tested the gravitational wave from the event and found it to be in consistency with Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Even India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi was joyous about India's contribution in this discovery and tweeted, "Immensely proud that Indian scientists played an important role in this challenging quest."

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