EMERGE App- A complete system for business dealing with traditional offline distribution & online e-commerce sales

Emerging as a top player in our own fields is a dream that we all harbour since we're children. EMERGE App, a Singapore, Bangalore based startup helps businesses stay at the top of their games.

The startup offers a complete system for growing business who are into traditional offline distribution and online e-commerce sales. Its full suite of features are capable of managing a business' entire operation right from multi-channel sales to purchasing, product, inventory and simple accounting management. If a business has more than 2 employees, EMERGE's full user access management allows privacy settings to be applied to different parts of the app.

The EMERGE app has been conceived and executed by Benjamin Yee, who has a rich six years experience in running trading/wholesale, software and advertising business. Apart from EMERGE, Yee has also founded Drooling Apparel Asia Pacific Pte Ltd (b2b garments), which is considered a pioneer in Singapore for digital marketing of Tshirt Printing. Prior to taking the entrepreneurship route, Yee served as the Non-executive director at Lange Macrea Pte Ltd., a famous advertising agency.

It has been over 15 years now that the operation productivity space has been disrupted by small software vendors providing on-premise deployment. Such business model normally price their services at well above $3000 per customer. Hence, the price factor ends up preventing the accessibility of such softwares to startups and small businesses.

Though there are a number of SaaS who are targeting the online ecommerce merchant such as Tradegecko and Stitch Labs but there aren't many for merchants selling offline.

Currently, the global SaaS market is valued at a whopping $100B and is estimated to grow to $130b by the year 2020. A large portion of this will be going into operations management (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) and EMERGE wishes to have a large pie of it.

With a talented team of 10 spread across three countries, namely Singapore, Vietnam and India, EMERGE has customers all over the globe. They are actively serving about 50 companies worldwide, with most of their clients based in the US and Europe. Their customers come from a diverse range of industries, ranging from healthcare, tooling systems, jewellery to the food and beverage industry.

The startup is having a good run in India too and is gaining a lot of traction from the Indian market. The startup's current plans for India includes integrating with major Indian e-Commerce players and fulfilment services.

Though already funded, the startup is currently on a lookout for a funding of $500K to further expand its reach and services.

Impact Analytics Raises $750K from Aarin Capital & Others

Business intelligence and data science company Impact Analytics which provides analytics solutions across sectors including retail, financial services, education, pharma and others, has raised $750,000 in funding. The funding was led by early-stage venture capital firm Aarin Capital, which was founded by TV Mohandas Pai and Dr Ranjan Pai.

The other investors who participated in the round include Michael Herzig, serial entrepreneur, and Ashish Lakhanpal, CEO of Kismet Capital.

“We have a team of 55 across Bengaluru and the US. The current round of capital will be utilised for product development and to expand the team. We are focused on the business-to-business enterprise data space,“ said Prashant Agrawal, founder of Impact Analytics. Previously Prashant was a part of the private equity and corporate finance practice of Boston Consulting Group in India.

Impact Analytics provides a mix of strategic business consulting, data science and technology solutions.

Image Source: ShutterStock

10 Things in Tech You Need to Know from This Week

The tech sector had a buzzing week. If you had a busy schedule and missed out on your readings, here's IndianWeb2 giving you a quick recap of the top 10 things that happened in the tech sector this week.

1) Facebook Introduced ‘Wedge 100’, A New Open Source Technology To Make 100GB Internet Access A Reality

In order to further increase the popularity of Facebook and enhance the experience of its existing users, Facebook through its Wedge 100 project aims to make 100-Gigabyte data connection a reality via a new state of open source technology.

2) Banks open-source the Blockchain Platform developed by them

A group that includes more than 70 of the world's biggest financial institutions has developed a new blockchain platform named Corda. The code, which has the potential of becoming the industry standard for the nascent technology, is now available publicly. New-York based financial technology company, R3 CEV, brought the consortium together and made Corda possible.

3) Self-driving cars won't work in India

nuTonomy, a MIT startup which had recently decided to put self-driving cabs on the roads of Singapore, has predicted the concept might not work in India. The traffic situation in India is quite dense which makes it unfavourable for self-driving technology to deal with since the brains behind autonomous vehicles are computers, which function on a set of rules.

4) Telangana government planning to come up with IoT, Smart Technology Policy To Encourage Startups

In order to encourage IoT based product development companies and other innovations in Telangana, the state government has come up with a unique IoT and Smart Technology Policy.

5) Visa Open Sources Its Blockchain Platform

San Francisco-based Chain has released an open source version of its Chain Core software. The source code of Chain’s proprietary blockchain can be accessed on the startup’s webpage on the famous code-sharing website, Github. With its this initiative, the startup aims to transform the blockchain narrative from the PowerPoint presentation to the prototype. Prior to this, anyone wanting to use the Chain Core software had to join hands with one of Chain's collaborators, which includes names such as Nasdaq, Visa, Fidelity, Citigroup, and Capital One.

6) Indian Smartphone maker Karbonn is making use of Artificial Intelligence to boost e-commerce

While world’s top smartphone manufacturers are working on bringing Artificial Intelligence into smartphones, Indian Smartphone maker Karbonn has decided to use the technology to aid commerce. The company's new Fashion Eye smartphone allows users to click the photo of whatever garment they like after which the AI engine gets to work and gives the users information about where they can buy that particular garment or a similar one across online sellers.

7) New Open Source Tech May Soon Bring Free Calls For Everyone In The World

Free audio calls to everyone in the world might become a reality in the near future. All thanks to a man named Mikeal, who has been doing Open Source for over a decade now. The project, Roll Call, aims to give everyone in the world a power to make Free Calls for Everyone in the world.

As of now, the project offers the following features:

a) It offers reliable audio-only calls between multiple participants.

b) Users can drag audio files into the call window and play into the call.

c) It offers built-in call recording, with podcast quality recording of every participants local audio sent continuously to the recorder.

d) It has almost no reliance on infrastructure, the app is hosted in gh-pages on GitHub.

8) Internet of Things Takes Down the World Wide Web

The largest International platform, Internet, recently came under a attack caused by a large distributed denial of service (DDoS). The attack was facilitated by hundreds of thousands of Internet-connected devices—from Web cameras to routers—that had been hacked to contribute to the attack. This detail made many industry experts term the attack as the onset of the doom of the Internet.

9) IBM Acquires Sanovi Technologies to Expand Disaster Recovery Services for Hybrid Cloud

IBM has signed an agreement to acquire Sanovi Technologies, a privately held company that is known to provide services such as cloud migration, hybrid cloud recovery, business continuity software for enterprise data centers and cloud infrastructure.

According to industry experts, all these capabilities of Sanovi along with advanced analytics will enable IBM to bolster its Software Defined Resiliency strategy and delivery of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery services for clients currently in the midst of a digital and hybrid cloud transformation.

10) ICANN Introduces .Google, .Apple,.ibm, and Other Branded Internet Addresses

Recent changes in the two-year old internet rule which had limited the use of top-level domains has now brought .xyz, .movie and .paris into existence in email addresses and websites.

The new rule is capable of giving brand names a whole new importance in their internet addresses. In fact, tech giant Google has already paved the way for companies to flaunt their brand names in the digital realm. The company recently published a new website, blog.google, that makes use of the .google domain name, rather than the commonly used .com.

Top 5 New Tech Inventions Launched in 2016

Each year, the advancements in the tech sector reach new heights. As the year 2016 comes close to an end, we at IndianWeb2 decided to give you quick recap of five of the best new technologies that made their way into our lives in this year.

1) Lumma- Grips that combine all lights needed on the bike

If you're one of those who love cycling, irrespective of whether for health reasons or environment reasons, this product is going to help you tremendously. Haven't you ever wondered if all the other vehicles have their own source of light, why should people who cycle be deprived of this basic necessity? Lumma solves this problem and makes cycling at the crack of the dawn and the dark of the night as safe as possible.

Data has revealed that one of the major reasons for accidents involving cyclists is the lack of visibility. Lumma makes cycling safer by integrating front lights, rear lights and side lasers in each of the grips. All these lights when combined end up creating a light contour around the cyclist and his/her bike. Unlike any other conventional bike lights in the market, Lumma shows the cyclists the true width and increases their visibility from any angle. It's red and white lights makes the cyclist visible from a distance, and the laser projections (present in each grip) creates the cyclist's own lane.

Lumma has been tested in almost all serious cold conditions and guarantees its users an all-year-round usage. Tests have shown that these unbreakable, ultra-compact and rechargeable bike lights can run for 50-52 hours on a single charge.

2) Hover Camera Passport

Now, this one is for all photography lovers, who want to capture their best of moments with the best of tech and quality possible. Hover Camera Passport is Zero Zero Robotics’ first flagship product, developed under its flagship flying camera brand, Hover Camera brand.

Being hailed as the first Embedded Artificial Intelligence powered mass-consumer flying camera of its kind, Hover Camera Passport is extremely safe, portable and easy-to-use. A must-have gadget for frequent travellers, the flying camera follows its users and captures their travel moments in 4K from breathtaking perspectives.

3) ZORE - A New Generation of Gun Storage

Owning a gun is a serious responsibility, and in these times when gun violence is at its all time peak, it becomes an even greater responsibility. Zore is a cartridge-shaped lock that allows gun owners quick access to their weapons when required. Further, to make sure that the gun doesn't ends up in wrong hands, it also offers its owners with tampering alerts.

Its electro mechanical dial has been designed with a special focus to allow quick unlocking under any circumstance. In order to unlock Zore, the user just has to turn the dial a few notches back and forth according to their set PIN code, regardless of the dial's starting point and the initial dialing direction.

The product comes with an optional smartphone app that allows its users to be connected to their guns 24x7. This means, even while one's gun is stored at their house, they can receive gun-movement notifications, as well as notifications for dial movement via the app. While one can unlock their guns directly from the app, locking the gun is only possible through the mechanical lock button.

4) CRONZY Pen – Over 16-million colors in your pocket

Who doesn't need a little extra dash of colors their lives? We all do, don't we? The Cronzy pen makes this possible as it can write in over 16-million colors. Yes, 16-million colors.

From writing notes to creating colorful sketches, the Cronzy pen can help its users do all that a regular pen can, but it can do so in 16-million different colors. It's built-in "color scanner" allows one to scan any color of their preference and then re-create it in their sketchbook, diary, and canvas etc. Just point the pen at any object, whether it's a green leaf or a pink mug - and the pen's ink color will become same as that of the scanned object. It's App, which is available on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, allows it users to select the desired color and its shade, save frequently used and favorite scanned colors onto their device and share colors with other users.

The pen's mechanism is based on solenoid valves that are used in various other devices. Having received great response for its working prototype, the company expects to start the production and delivery very soon.

5) Ticwatch 2: The Most Interactive Smartwatch Yet

Ticwatch 2 can be easily called as the most interactive Smartwatch currently in the market. The elegant timepiece not only alerts its users about all their notifications and phone calls, but it also effectively records their workouts and provides them with the option to share them with the world. Further, the Ticwatch 2 can also help its users hail a cab when in need and even look up a restaurant when in hunger.

It's intuitive interaction, lifestyle convenience, unique Ticwear operating system and innovative design sets it apart from all the Smartwatches ever born.

Let's see if 2017 can prove to be as much as exciting for the tech sector as this year was.

ICANN Introduces .Google, .Apple,.ibm, and Other Branded Internet Addresses

Tech giant Google is making way for companies to flaunt the name of their brands in the digital realm.

The company recently published a new website, blog.google, that makes use of the .google domain name, rather than the commonly used .com. The new website has consolidated nineteen previously individual Google blogs.

The search giant's website is at the forefront of a much expected boom in the websites category as it has taken advantage of a recent change in the internet rules that had limited the use of these suffixes, called the top-level domains. This is has now brought .xyz, .movie and .paris into existence in email addresses and websites.

The new internet rules can also end up giving brand names a whole new importance in their internet addresses. In fact, many top companies have already requested and received approval for using domain names. This includes .samsung, .ibm, .apple, .kindle and .canon.

This isn't just limited to tech companies. The list of approved domain names also includes . mcdonald, .hbo, .ford, .delta, .statefarm, .nike, .oldnavy and .homedepot.

It is important to know that approval is just the first step. While one can't really predict right now how enthusiastic a majority of the companies will be about the new domain names. But, so far, search giant Google is emerging as one of the most enthusiastic beaver.

According to a statement given out by Google's spokeswoman Andrea Faville, while Google is extensively exploring other ways in which they can use .google, the search giant believes blog.google is a fun way to use their own branded domain. Google has now brought the blogs together on a new central website called the Keyword.

What could become a little difficult task for the search giant is the financial commitment to others. With the application fee of a whopping $185,000 and an annual operation fee of $30,000, owning their own domain names might remain only a dream for all the mom-and-pop shops.

But still, there are quite a number of companies other than Google that are considering the new domain names as a good investment.

Currently, if you input canon.com in your web browser, you'll be automatically redirected to global.canon. Similarly, famous French bank BNP Paribas uses group.paribas. Branded domains can help in adding distinction to an internet address, too.

Renting out generic top-level domain (GTLD) names also has the potential of becoming a very financially viable business. In a January auction this year, GMO Registry bid a extravagant $41.5 million to win rights to sell .shop domain names. And then in July this year, Nu Dot Co ended up wining the .web domain with a bid of $135 million.

All this bidding money ends up in ICANN, a nonprofit organization that overlooks all the internet plumbing on behalf of governments, universities and companies, as well as the public.

It is interesting to note that a number of brand holders were initially opposed to this expansion of the domain names, but they still ended up signing up for them. Out of the original 1,930 applications filed for generic top-level domains, 246 have been branded.

[Top Image- techgyd.com]

Top 15 best business apps for Android Devices

Our mobile apps have the power of acting as our true friends when dealing with the day-to-day workload of office. With the corporate world progressing at an accelerating rate, humans do require help from time to time in order to surf through the hectic schedules and physically drowning times. Here's our pick of the top 15 Android apps that every working professional must have on their smartphones.

1) Docs To Go Free Office Suite

If making power-point presentations, excel sheets, word documents is an important part of your job, then this particular app is a must download. The app allows its users to view the native Microsoft documents which are of type: power-point presentations, excel and word etc. In order to have an access to all the features of the app, one will have to pay a small amount.

2) CamCard Free - Business Card R

The app not only acts as a business card scanner but also as a reader. It helps its users to search LinkedIn, make notes, and group the contacts etc. All that the user is required to do is to use the Smartphone to click a picture of the business card and it will automatically have the information in the address book. Currently, the app, which is capable of recognising 16 different languages, occupies 15 MB memory on the phone and requires an Android version 2.0 to function properly.

3) Advanced Task Manager

A business app which not only helps a user in listing and running all their tasks on time, but also makes sure that it doesn't drain out their phone's battery while in the process. In order to kill a particular task using the app, all that the user has to do is long press on that task and just click the button “force stop.”

4) Business Calendar

Being on time is considered as a good quality, especially in the professional world. While there are a number of calendar business apps available, this particular business calendar application comes with both graphical and textual presentation. The app provides its users a choice to view events based on a specific day, month or week. The app requires an Android version of 2.1 or higher to run and will occupy 1.6 MB memory in the device.

5) Box

The app allows its users to not only edit and share Microsoft documents but also stay connected with their team from anywhere, at anytime. It also allows users to save important documents in external memory and view them whenever they want without an internet connection.

6) File Manager

If you have an android version of 1.6 or above, then this particular app is a must download. The File Manager App is supportive of 19 different languages, allows the user to search as well as share different files, supports remote as well as local file systems, file shortcuts and many more. Further, it would just acquire 2.3 MB space in the phone's memory.

7) Google Drive
Everyone is acquainted with the Google Drive, but did you know that it also comes as an app? Probably the best business Android app in the free category, the Google Drive business app allows its users to store as well as access all their important files from any place, at anytime. The app, which requires 7.2 MB memory space and an android version of 2.1 or higher to function, allows its users to even share their music files, video files, pictures and various other documents as well.

8) Skype

Since nowadays businesses are no longer limited to one particular place/location, the Skype app allows people to be in touch with colleagues, vendors and customers from all around the globe. By using Skype, one can save a hefty amount of money as the app allows one to make free video calls and voice calls anywhere around the world. Not only this, one can also send send pictures, files and videos using the Skype app. The app would acquire just 15 MB of your phone's memory space.

9) Dropbox

Yes, your favourite Dropbox also comes in the form of an Android app. It allows it users to store and share hefty documents with one or more than one person anywhere, at anytime.

10) Splashtop 2 Remote Desktop

The app is considered as the fastest remote desktop app to allow access to Windows, Mac and Ubuntu from either an android phone or tablet. It acquires just 12 MB space and is compatible with all the desktop applications and PDF documents. In fact, it allows a user to use 5 computers together with one splashtop account.

11) Astro File Manager

The free business app allows its users to manage as well as organise all their files and other stuff like: music, videos, pictures, videos, and documents on one's Android phone as well as tablet.

12) Google Maps

One of the most important business apps which makes sure that you're always on time for all your important meetings. It does so by suggesting routes which are the shortest and have the least traffic.

13) Facebook Pages Manager
If you're a social media manager with the responsibility to handle multiple Facebook pages, then this particular app will sort your life forever. The app allows one to add multiple Facebook pages under one umbrella. Using the app, one can post, schedule pictures, statuses, videos and events etc. Not only this, one can even change a page's profile picture and cover picture right from the app.

14) WPS Office + PDF

If you have an android version of 2.1 or higher, then this particular app is a must have. The app, which will occupy just 13 MB memory space, is supportive of 23 different file formats. It even supports cloud-storage, mail integration and has many more such features on offer. The app comes with an excellent user-interface and can function on both Android phones and tablets.

15) SMS Backup & Restore

The app,which requires an android OS of 1.6 or higher, allows its users to restore and delete all the messages. It also comes with the ability of exporting data to HTML or web page format. Using the app, one can even merge multiple conversations of the people who have more than one phone number.

Karbonn's Fashion Eye uses AI to boost e-commerce

We all have found ourselves in situations when we see someone wearing a particular garment and we develop instant liking for it and want it for ourselves. While it is easier to inquire when the person is a friend, it becomes a little awkward when we don't know the person. Well, not anymore.

One of India's leading smartphone manufacturer, Karbonn, is currently working on a unique use of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to aid commerce. They are calling it visual commerce.

“We are now dabbling with artificial intelligence, a first for commerce. So with our new Fashion Eye smartphone, users will be able to click the photo of a shirt after which the AI engine will throw options of where you can buy the same or a similar product across online sellers,” said KarbonnMobiles' Executive Director Shashin Devasare in a statement to a national daily.

It is interesting to note that while a number of world's top smartphone manufacturers are currently working on bringing AI into smartphones, Karbonn has decided to use the technology to aid commerce. This isn't something new, Karbonn has since its inception has had a very different opinion of the Indian market and believes that volume is what the country needs. “There are a lot of multinationals who think 250 million is a huge number, but it is their outlook. Our interest is in the next half a billion users, that is where Karbonn is focused," said Devasare.

Karbonn also believes that it is completely unfair that expectations from technology are going to be different for India's rural market. Though they do accept the fact that affordability is hugely different. According to them, while these customers might have agreed to make some compromises, but those aren't big enough to brand them as a completely different breed altogether. Hence, Karbonn is trying its best to address these differentiated customers. The company's aim is to bring out the smart telephone experience in a beautiful and simple manner.

According to Devasare, the Smartphone market in India has unfortunately started showing signs of having reached a tipping point, though it has only achieved a mere 30 percent penetration. The 3.9 percent growth that Gartner recorded in the first quarter of this year can easily be dedicated to the sales of the entry level smartphones.

One of the ways to steer past this problem is to provide the customers with an optimised hardware experience while also dedicating time to make the software relevant and rendered in terms of user-interface and the right language. In fact, language can be considered as the biggest hurdle for adoption of smartphones in the Indian market. This is the reason that Karbonn has always dedicated good focus on the language feature. It's K9 Smart entry-level device, which offered its customers native access to Indian languages and showed that the feature prompted an impressive 93 percent users to switch on the data and at least 50 percent of them to started using the language in their phone's operating system, has been bestowed with the title of being a top seller in terms of volume.

The Indian Smartphone maker has now decided to join hands with Indus OS in order to bring 21 languages to some of its new phones.

Ather Energy Raises Rs 180 Cr Investment from Hero MotoCorp

Ather Energy, the smart electric two-wheeler start-up, today announced a fresh round of funding of INR 180 crores from Hero MotoCorp for 26-30% stake. The funding marks the third round of investments in Ather Energy, which is building the S340 - India’s first smart, electric scooter. Previous rounds of investments in the company were by Tiger Global; and Sachin and Binny Bansal, promoters of Flipkart, in their personal capacity.

Speaking on the investment, Tarun Mehta, CEO and co-founder of Ather Energy said, “The funding is a strong validation of our product roadmap and technology capability, endorsed by one of the biggest global automotive players. We believe smart connected electric vehicles are the future and India will be an important global player in it. Our vision is to fast forward to that future and this investment will help us leapfrog several years of automotive experience."

This new round of capital infusion will be used by Ather to sustain momentum in its journey of building a future-ready product platform, and to accelerate the infrastructure and ecosystem development around electric vehicles in the country.

The Board of Directors of Hero MotoCorp, in its meeting held on October 26, 2016, approved an investment of up to Rs. 205 crore, of which the immediate tranch is of Rs. 180 crore.

Commenting on this investment, Pawan Munjal, Chairman, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, Hero MotoCorp said “As the market leader and a global automotive major, Hero takes the lead in many areas that benefit the environment, customer and industry. Adoption of environment-friendly fuel is a priority for Hero, as is propagating sustainable manufacturing through green facilities. One of our strategic priorities, therefore, is to engage with the external ecosystem, including start-ups in adjacent areas. Hero MotoCorp intends to enhance its participation in the EV space by pursuing its internal EV program in addition to partnering with Ather. Ather is the best start-up in the two-wheeler EV space and we firmly believe that they are on the way to become one of the leaders in India, potentially even globally. They bring together a vision with high aspiration, ability to progress rapidly and the humility to learn and improve continually. We are excited to be a strategic investor and see this as an important step in building the necessary ecosystem needed to support commercialisation of EVs in the country.”

Earlier this year, Ather unveiled the S340, an uncompromising electric vehicle with a Lithium ion battery pack, top speed of 72 kmph and a range of 60 km. But what sets Ather apart is the fundamental promise of a richer ownership experience. On the product, this manifests through vehicle intelligence which enables on board navigation, pre-emptive diagnostics, remote configuration and personalised ride profiles through a touchscreen dashboard and mobile app.

The experience extends to the go-to-market strategy with a combination of online sales complemented by experience centres that will bring the brand to life. The ownership experience also ensures convenience through door step delivery and servicing and a mobile app for remote access and configuration. Ather also aims at setting up a ubiquitous charging infrastructure in every city it will operate in, partnering with government and private enterprises.

YES BANK Partners With ToneTag for Sound Based Payments on YES PAY Digital Wallet

YES BANK, India’s fifth largest private sector bank has tied up with ToneTag, a proximity communication company to integrate and deploy ToneTag sound based contactless payments on their mobile wallet YES PAY. The technology will allow YES PAY wallet users to make ‘cardless’ payments at merchant outlets through their mobile phone. The live demonstration of Yes Pay app using ToneTag Sound wave technology , was showcased at Nasscom Product Conclave 2016 in Bengaluru yesterday.

YES PAY wallet is YES BANK’s digital wallet that enables social media and smartphone users to send and receive money, split bills, budget, recharge mobile or DTH subscriptions, make utility bill payments and shop online. Any smartphone user can download the wallet app and register seamlessly ToneTag is a technology that enables sound based communication. The Software Development Kit (SDK) only requires a speaker and a microphone to work. It can utilize the in-built mic or speaker of any device to enable data transfer through soundwaves and hence it supports most existing devices such as PCs, POS, EDC devices and mobile phones including feature phones and wearables.

Since the ToneTag patented Software Development Kit (SDK) supports any hardware, the only prerequisite is the integration of the ToneTag SDK at both merchant (POS or Mobile devices) and customer interaction points (Mobile apps). The SDK contains features such as patented noise filters, three levels of encryption, tokenization, white box cryptography and multifactor authentication to ensure security and reliability.

Payments through ToneTag allow businesses to streamline their checkout process by providing a seamless transaction experience for both the customer and the retailers. ToneTag delivers unparalleled convenience to the customer as one can pay in-app at any physical location with just a click of a button.
Since the technology is software only, and can be deployed very easily as an app download or update.It further advances ToneTag drive to reduce cash usage and promote a better payment experience for all.

Ritesh Pai, Senior President & Country Head– Digital Banking at YES BANK, said – “Contactless payments based on sound tones is something we haven’t seen before and is a very interesting concept brought forth by ToneTag. As IoT sees greater investment, consumers will become increasingly reliant on contactless payments , ToneTag is our bet at making YES PAY Wallet future-ready. We are bullish about our alliance with them as we continue to strive in making payments seamless for end users.”

He further added, “YES PAY Wallet is an innovative product for smartphone users with features such as social media integration pushing the digital divide. ToneTag is thrilled about the partnership with YES BANK to provide their users with our payment technology.”

“With ToneTag, YES Pay Wallet users can enjoy an NFC like payments experience without the associated hardware dependencies, which is a significant improvement over current technologies such as QR codes that are being used in the market for in-store payments,” said Kumar Abhishek, CEO, ToneTag, in a statement.

L&T Infotech Announces ‘Workplace by Facebook’ Partnership

Leading global IT services and solutions provider L&T Infotech announced a strategic partnership with Workplace by Facebook, an enterprise collaboration platform that redefines internal communications and changes the way work is done within an enterprise.

Workplace brings the well-known features of Facebook like News Feed, Groups, Chat, Reactions, Live, and Search to organizations helping employees stay connected in a secure environment. The platform also extends collaboration beyond the company through Multi-Company Groups that allow employees from different companies to work together.

As a Global Service Partner, LTI has built a team of dedicated Senior Digital Consultants to help organizations rollout the platform and bring its transformative potential in simplifying communications. The comprehensive services from LTI include change management strategy, adoption roadmap, setup, installation, integration, use-case development, and API extension and development.

LTI has also adopted and implemented Workplace as its own exclusive platform for communication and collaboration across the globe connecting more than 20,000 employees in 22 countries. This first-hand experience has given the company unparalleled expertise and a unique advantage to help organizations fast track their own implementation and maximize the platform’s benefits.

Announcing the partnership, Siddharth Bohra, Chief Business Officer and Head - Analytics & Digital, LTI said,“Workplace by Facebook reimagines business communications by bringing the familiar social experience to the enterprise environment. As one of the early adopters of this platform, LTI is well positioned to help companies realize the potential of this platform by enabling global collaboration, bringing about a culture change and fostering innovation”.

IBM to Acquire Sanovi Technologies to Expand Disaster Recovery Services for Hybrid Cloud

IBM today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Sanovi Technologies, a privately held company that provides hybrid cloud recovery, cloud migration and business continuity software for enterprise data centers and cloud infrastructure. Adding these capabilities along with advanced analytics will better enable IBM to bolster its Software Defined Resiliency strategy and delivery of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery services for clients undergoing digital and hybrid cloud transformation.

With Sanovi’s software, IBM will further empower clients to redefine their disaster recovery strategy in the face of unprecedented industry change. The addition of Sanovi’s orchestration technology to IBM’s existing resiliency portfolio offers a solution that helps simplify and automate the disaster recovery process, helps to manage recovery workflows, and can help to reduce recovery time, operating costs, and disaster recovery drill testing time. From a central dashboard, resiliency professionals can automate and monitor recovery point and time objectives in their disaster recovery environments by application, server, or data base to work towards business driven recovery outcomes. We feel that this will be a crucial differentiator for clients making decisions on their risk posture, as many still use paper based exercises or sample tests based on estimations that potentially mischaracterize actual recovery time and recovery point objectives of their applications.

"Our clients are embracing a digitized world where applications need to be ‘always-on,’” said Martin Jetter, Senior Vice President, Global Technology Services, IBM. “As a cloud-native company, Sanovi will strengthen our resiliency portfolio to manage the broad range of applications, data, and IT systems of our clients balancing digital and hybrid cloud transformation with increased regulatory compliance.”

Upon close, which is expected by the end of 2016, IBM plans to integrate the Sanovi capabilities into the IBM Global Technology Services unit. IBM Resiliency Services is continuously evolving to learn, anticipate and confront the growing range of natural and man-made risks surrounding businesses today and was named a Leader for the second consecutive year in Gartner’s June 2016 Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service. Moving forward, IBM envisions leveraging Watson Analytics to expand Sanovi's Disaster Recovery Management (DRM) capabilities and enable organizations to move from business continuity planning to more proactive resiliency programs that help anticipate potential failures before they happen.

“IBM’s technology leadership in hybrid cloud infrastructure and resiliency services makes it a clear choice to bring end-to-end services to our customers and transformational value to IBM’s existing client base,” said Chandra Sekhar Pulamarasetti, Co-Founder & CEO of Sanovi. “Together, we will provide next-generation resiliency solutions for robust hybrid cloud deployments across the globe.”

In addition to being available as part of a managed resiliency service, IBM plans to make Sanovi DRM available as a stand-alone software license for partners and customers looking to optimize in-house and vendor run resiliency programs.

Today, IBM operates over 300 global delivery data centers and 46 IBM Cloud Data Centers across 68 countries to help companies worldwide maintain continuous business operations, protect their data, and improve overall resiliency for any size organization.

Founded in 2003, Sanovi is headquartered in Bangalore, India, and operates in the United States, the Middle East, and Asia. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Image Source: ShutterStock

StarClinch.com is India’s largest online portal for talent and celebrity booking

A one-year old Delhi-based startup has managed to become the largest Indian online booking platform for artists of all ilks. Whether you're looking for singers, comedians, magicians or photographers, StarClinch.com promises to help you land the perfect talent for your needs.

Launched in March 2015, the online artist-booking website boosts of artists nationwide across 14 categories – namely singers, LIVE bands, instrumentalists, photographers, comedians, magicians, anchors, speakers, dancers, variety artists, models, makeup artists, celebrity appearances, and DJs.

Varun Agrawal, a former investment banker and Founder & CEO of StarClinch.com, started the startup when he recognised the demand for more diversity in the entertainment business, especially in the recent times and the spiralling growth of the industry. StarClinch is aiming to exploit these previously untapped opportunities in the industry in order to reach out to new audiences across the country. Agrawal's graduation in Engineering (Comp. Sci.) and post-graduation in Business Administration from FORE School of Management helped him in his startup journey.

As of today, the organization has over 30 employees working across five departments – Product Development, Networking, Business, Content, and Digital Marketing. Together they have reached the benchmark of 9000+ artist registrations, and have engaged with over 1100 artists for B2C transactions.

StarClinch is currently facing close competition from Yahavi.com, Gigstart.com and Artistivity.com, who are also engaged in the same artist-registering (B2B) and artist-booking (B2C) business. The startup's website with its user-friendly interface, which includes dedicated tabs for information on content, booking information, social-media links of the artists, has helped the startup have its own standing in the market. The website currently has three subscription plans for artists, which come with certain deliverables. In addition to this, the startup, which had managed to make bookings worth 2 cr just in a span of 11 months from the establishment of business, also boosts of having dedicated teams for B2B and B2C dealings.

Up and running successfully for the last one-and-a-half years without any sort of investor-funding, StarClinch has also been able to build a strong presence on the smartphone operating system Android. An iOS release is also in the pipeline.

Drawing in an impressive 30000 visitors per month, and generating a monthly revenue of 15–20 lacs, the startup has a market-estimate of $10 Bn as on 30 September 2016. And, StarClinch doesn't want to stop here. The startup now aims to touch the 50,000 artist-registrations mark by the end of next year.

Paytm Adds Alibaba Group MD K Guru Gowrappan to Its Board

Indian mobile payment and commerce company, Paytm has announced that K. Guru Gowrappan, Global Managing Director of the Alibaba Group will join its board as an Additional Director.

Guru is responsible for driving strong growth in Alibaba’s international markets. He is in charge of international product and business development strategy, which includes bringing all Alibaba products together into one final strategic plan and executing it in key markets. At Paytm, he will be regularly engaging with business, product and tech teams to ensure strong and scalable growth for the company.

Speaking on the announcement, Paytm founder-CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said, “It’s an incredible feeling to officially welcome Guru, a long-standing friend and ally to Paytm. We are at an important juncture in the company’s evolution, and Guru’s strong expertise in global business and product development will guide us through executing key strategic initiatives for the company.”

"I am honored to join the board of a company I have observed and admired over the last couple of years," said Guru. “It’s both exciting and fulfilling to be trusted with the opportunity to mentor the incredible team at Paytm as the company moves into the next chapter of its growth.”

Guru has more than 15 years of experience in the Internet industry and is one of the top leaders in scaling mobile product and business execution globally. Prior to Alibaba, he was the Chief Operating Officer at mobile search engine Quixey. He led Product, Business, and Marketing-based organizations and played a major role in the company’s global development and financial strategy.

Guru has served as the COO for emerging initiatives at Zynga, a social gaming company. He was elected the Head of Zynga Japan and drove the company to a successful IPO. He has also worked at Overture, where he helped define the multi-billion dollar search marketing industry. Once the firm was acquired by Yahoo, he held many leadership roles, most recently as Global Head of Product, Program Management and Operations at Yahoo.

Guru was a co-founder of two Indian startups and an active angel investor and adviser. He has deep experience in various areas including global management and scaling, M&A integration operations, mobile product and technology management.

10 Ways You Will Screw-Up Raising Capital For Your Startup

Whenever an investor or a customer doesn't go for our pitch, we often spend hours contemplating what went wrong and where. We go through the entire episode again and again so as to make sure that we don't do the same mistake ever again. While this is for sure an important exercise to do in order to rectify one's mistakes, you don't need to spend your precious time doing the same. We, at IndianWeb2, decided to help out our entrepreneur buddies identify some of the basic mistakes that they might be committing while making their pitches to their investors or customers.

1) You don’t believe in Yourself

First things first, in order to make others believe in your product, you need to first make them believe in you. Remember, when you pitch, you're representing your brand. Their first impression isn't your product or your company, it is you. Hence, believe in yourself. Have confidence in yourself and your talent, even if the sailing gets rough. If you start questioning yourself even at the slightest bumps on the road, maybe you aren't meant for this. So, believe in yourself no matter what. This would give you confidence to crack through even the toughest of the crowds.

2) You don't care about who is investing their money in you

Just because someone has big pockets, that doesn't mean they make an ideal investor. Before making the pitch, do your due diligence on the company, institute or the people with whom you're planning to get in bed with. This would help you in knowing if they make a good fit for your startup. When it comes to investors, always think long term. Make sure that the deal does justice to them too, and isn't just all about you because if it is, they will see right through that and you will lose your chance then and there. Hence, do your homework and make it a lucrative deal for both the parties involved i.e. you and the investor.

3) The Message of you and your brand conflict

A teetotaller will find it twice as hard to sell beer than someone who actually drinks it. Case in point, you and your brand shouldn't demonstrate conflicting ideologies. If you and your brand are completely opposite in nature, it somewhat makes it difficult for people to place you and your brand and makes it hard for them to trust you. Hence, make sure your brand and you are fully in sync and send out the same message.

4) You can't differentiate your brand from the crowd

The competition is tough in each and every sector. Whether it's ecommerce, real-estate or tourism industry, there are multiple players in the arena trying to get to the top. Hence, your brand should be able to differentiate itself from its numerous competitors in the market. In order to do this, one needs to meticulously study their potential market and offer them something that they aren't getting currently. This will give you an advantage over others and capture the interest of your potential investors.

5) Your Team isn't efficient

At the end, you might have an excellent business idea but if you don't have an efficient team to successfully execute the same, everything goes down the drain. Don't hire anyone just for the reason that they are your relative or an acquaintance. Everyone on the team should be able to justify their role and have talent that some way or the other contributes towards the development of the startup.

6) You Don’t Believe in Your Brand

Passion is what makes all the difference in the startup world. You should have the utmost passion for your brand. No, it is not like you need to think about it or work on it 24 x 7, but if you wake up one fine day and don't want to go to work, maybe that's a wake up call for you. So, the point here is, that one needs to themselves believe in their brand in order to make others believe in it.

7) Your reputation isn't that good

If you have a bad reputation in the market, then this might be acting as 'THE' problem for you to cracking that deal or landing yourself the investor you're eyeing. The business world is circular in nature, you're bound to run into your previous customers/investors sometime again in the future. Hence, always try to maintain a good reputation in the market and always think twice before making a wrong move.

8) You don’t see both sides of the table

While you know what you're looking for in an investor, you should also invest some time in researching what your investor wants. You don't need to ask them directly. You can do your own research and see with whom they do their business and whom they have turned down in the past and why. Do your homework and always be prepared.

9) You're not fun to work with

If you're an unpleasant person to work with, this might serve as a huge disadvantage for you and your business. It has been found that people don’t mind spending money with people who they have a good time with.

10) Dissension Amongst Your Ranks

Things can turn really ugly for you if there is dissension amongst your ranks. Always make sure that you and your team settle your issues inside the office rather than in front of a client. If a client sees that you can't work as team, there's a good chance that they won't trust you with their money.

While there could be many other reasons which could be acting as roadblocks for you, but this list would give you a good place to begin with.

[Top Image- gatherforbread.com]

Savings Discovery App Scandid Acqui-hires Hyperlocal eCommerce Platform Snabar

Pune-based mobile-first savings discovery platform Scandid has acquired Snabar. Snabar is a hyper-local e-commerce product that bridges the gap between online and offline shopping by seamlessly connecting the buyer and local seller intuitively for a vast array of products ranging from electronics, home and furniture products to accessories, children’s products and apparel for men and women.

Snabar also informs customers of discounts available in their locality so they can make purchases from shops with the greatest discount in a time and cost-efficient manner. Once a customer enters a product in the Snabar search box, the app showcases a list of shops, locations and prices, and the customer can decide whether they want to visit the store or opt for home delivery within a five-hour turnaround time. If a user opts to make an in-store purchase, once they upload their bill they receive cashback.

“We are excited to welcome Snabar into Scandid,” said Sushil Choudhari, co-founder of Scandid. “There are a lot of exciting synergies between the two teams on the product and vision for shopping assistance. The acquisition will help Scandid expedite our milestones and metrics.”

“We believe that the combined partnership along with our operational experience in wider areas will give more firepower to Scandid,” said Onkar Bhagwat, CEO of Snabar, who will be joining Scandid as a Product Manager. Onkar will be overseeing development of a seamless user experience on Scandid. On the other hand, Akash Shinde, CTO of Snabar, will be taking his decision soon about joining Scandid.

Founded by Sushil Choudhari and Bhaskar Thakur in 2013, Scandid is a digital shopping assistant that helps customers save money by comparing prices, discovering products across online and local retailers. Although based out of Pune, Scandid was incorporated in Silicon Valley.

The Scandid app, available on Android, iOS and the Web, allows customers to compare prices of over 30 million products from a vast network of over 200 retailers, including online biggies such as Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, Shopclues as well as local neighborhood shops. In the past 12 months, Scandid has helped customers save more than INR 6 crores on online shopping, through additional features such as barcode scanners and location-based promo plug-ins.

Scandid recently secured its Pre-Series A funding from a variety of sources including Mohandas Pai and Micromax. Prior to this, Scandid had also raised funding from Silicon Valley-based investors in 2015.

With the acquisition of Snabar, looks like Scandid is on the lookout for talent and technology to continue to build a user-friendly shopping and savings assistant platform. Scandid shares a lot of synergy with Snabar, as both platforms bridge the gap between online and offline shopping through high-end technology, hence the strategic acquisition.

With over 7 million installs and more than 3.6 million registered users across India, Scandid sure is showing a lot of traction among online buyers in the nation, and it will be interesting to see how its growth increases in the months to come with the acquisition of Snabar.

Scandid has been gaining users at a steady pace through word-of-mouth and referrals from happy customers, and they aim to double their user base and engagement with the recently secured funding within the next six months – the acquisition of Snabar is one of the first series of major announcements the company has made since securing funding.

Personal Finance App Walnut Adds Anurag Sinha as Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer

Walnut, Indian personal finance management app, has added Anurag Sinha as Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer. Anurag has worked with ICICI Bank as Deputy General Manager, Strategic Investments & Payment Solutions. At Walnut, he will be responsible for leading the company’s business development and strategy, and also expanding the company’s product portfolio. He will play a pivotal role in introducing new product features in collaboration with banks and NBFCs.

Commenting on the development, Amit Bhor, CEO and Co-Founder said, “We are excited to have Anurag on board with us. The Walnut team will benefit immensely from his wealth of knowledge and experience, and his insights will allow us to strengthen our relationships with financial institutions. Anurag’s expertise in payments and lending is an invaluable asset to us as we add new products and monetization capabilities to Walnut.”

Anurag comes with over 13 years’ of extensive experience in the banking and finance sector. He joined ICICI Bank in 2003 where he led several teams to build and scale-up businesses across areas such as payments, digital banking, lending, strategic investments & structured finance. Anurag represented the Bank at numerous forums including the RBI, IBA and NPCI. Anurag has an MBA degree from IIM Bangalore and a B.Tech degree from IIT (BHU), Varanasi.

“Walnut has made Banking and Personal Finance approachable and user-friendly. I am delighted to be a part of a young and agile team that shares the same vision of de-mystifying banking and personal finance for mobile consumers. We are looking to introduce innovative financial products for our users and I look forward to working with the team at Walnut to expand the business further”, added Anurag Sinha, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer.

RentoMojo Appoints Khushboo Gupta as Vice President- Product Management

RentoMojo, Indian online rental solutions company, continues to expand its leadership team with appointment of Khushboo Gupta as Vice President-Product Management. Khushboo will be responsible for leading Product team and scaling it further to ensure product excellence.

Coming with the wealth of experiences in Product and Business Strategy, and Management Consulting, Khushboo has contributed significantly in growth of companies like Deloitte and InMobi. Post her completion of MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, she moved on to tech startup, InMobi as Founder Staff team and later moved on to Head department of Strategy Operations and App download Business.

At Rentomojo, her core focus will be on building all products in a scalable fashion to expand beyond the current asset classes. Khushboo will be working towards building RentoMojo as a highly engaged brand from consumer’s point of view. By handling strategic initiatives and decisions, she will be responsible for creating successful product roadmaps for the organization.

Commenting on the appointment Geetansh Bamania, CEO & Founder, RentoMojo, said, “Khushboo’s proven experience in bringing industry-leading products from concept to production will allow RentoMojo continue to rapidly expand its product inventory. Her vision on delivering best-in-class customer experiences combined with in depth expertise in strategy will be of significant value to the company. We believe Khushboo will do justice to her position and her esteemed contribution will help in reaching various milestones for the company.”

Khushboo added, “The rental commerce market is growing in India and it is great to be a part of this innovative startup at the forefront of this booming category. I look forward to working with the team as they continue to scale and offer value to a new generation of online consumers. Currently, we are focusing on customer experience, growth, operational efficiencies and proprietary fintech products. I am extremely excited to be a part of the challenge of bringing new products into this dynamic marketspace.”

UK Based IoT Startup LetsTrack Launches in India

Letstrack, a revolutionary App to App and App to Device solution that goes way beyond just ‘whereabouts’ but also helps you gather quality information that can help you strategize, plan, manage and optimize things you do in your everyday life launches in India. Letstrack announces launch of its App and Devices in India for B2C and B2B consumption that will change the way we do things in our everyday lives.

Started and based at Stratford, East London UK, with a vision to make our society safer, happier and more productive, Letstack is reshaping and reorienting utility of Internet and technology (IOT) to next level.

Letstrack provides analyzed and crystallized practical, quality information served on our Smartphones, Web Browsers and Emails in forms of push notifications, updates, reports and live feeds through easy to understand info-graphics and text for everyday consumption so as to benefit from it with ease. Women and Child Safety, Automobile safety and optimization, Team and Fleet Management are few of the top concerns that will get immediate benefit, support and application from Letstrak App and Devices solutions.

Lestrack Kiddo, Letstrack Personal Tracker, Letstrack Bike Series, Letstrack Basic+ and Letstrack Prima are few of the key Devices, which are now available in India at prominent online portals, neighborhood Mobile & Accessories Stores and big Electronic & Gadget Retail Chains.

Be it your bike, car, yacht, or any other vehicle or even tracking your children to and from school, tracking systems can have eyes on everything you hold dear. The uses are endless.

Commenting on the launch, Mr Vikram Kumar, Founder and CEO, LetsTrack said, “We need tracking everyday and everywhere. The goal is to make it accessible and expedient to families and businesses. Our vision is to make world safer, happier and more productive.”

Letstrack is a cutting-edge futuristic, progressive and intuitive app and device combination, which will help you in improving safety & security, enhance happiness, reduce worry and concern in all walks of your life.

Letstrack is available on both iOS and Android platform.

Image : Vikram Kumar, Founder and CEO, LetsTrack

After Chennai, Cab-Aggregating Platform UTOO Rolls Out Services in Hyderabad

After successfully altering the paradigm of the cab industry in Chennai, the mobile app-based taxi hailing service UTOO (pronounced as You Too) has rolled out its services in Hyderabad on 26th October 2016. Commuters in the city can now enjoy UTOO’s superior services and sustainable business practices. UTOO’s brand promise – We Care For UTOO (You Too) involves the refreshing approach of providing services at prevailing market prices without ever demanding ‘surge rates’. The current fleet comprises of Datsun Go+ in the Compact segment & Nissan Sunny in the Sedan segment and users can look forward to a professional, courteous service from the drivers. The platform is committed to leveraging best-in-class technologies to offer engaging features powered by a robust partnership with leading technological partners. Further, UTOO will also be rolling out a loyalty program to reward our frequent commuters.

The company is poised to redefine the urban commute marketplace by building ethical relationships with driver partners, through wealth sharing and a string of other welfare measures. Drivers in Hyderabad can sign up for UTOO’s program which empowers sub-prime drivers to become Home owners by facilitating 100% funded home loans to make their dream of house ownership a reality. In addition to this, the drivers can also avail of the car ownership scheme and numerous other welfare benefits provided by UTOO. By nurturing mutual trust, UTOO aims to counter the strong under-current of dissonance amongst driver partners that has been created due to the power imbalance between traditional aggregators and drivers.

Chinnakannan Sivasankaran, Chief Mentor and Strategist, UTOO, expressed his enthusiasm about the launch, commenting, “UTOO’s premium services will perfectly complement the vibrant city of Hyderabad. Though the taxi hailing business in India is growing at over 20 to 25% annually, the organised sector is dominated by only a few local and international players, which leaves room for new and ground-breaking platforms to improve the arena. UTOO is bound to be a game-changer in Hyderabad by providing users with better rides and driver partners with fair & equitable returns.”

After beginning operations with a fleet strength of around 1000 cars in Chennai, UTOO aims to scale up vertically to rapidly improve network density. The platform is slowly expanding to other regions and will be rolling-out its services in 9 cities with atleast 100,000 cars in the first phase. The second phase will cover 104 cities and comprise an additional 180,000 cars. With Hyderabad being an initial venue for its aggressive roll-out strategy, UTOO is all set to transform the daily commute experience in the City of Nizams.

New Open Source Tech May Soon Bring Free Calls For Everyone In The World

I have always wondered, with such technology advancement that mankind has been able to achieve over the years, why hasn't making free audio calls to everyone in the world become a reality just yet. Well, the idea has finally stuck an innovative man by the name Mikeal.

According to Mikeal, he has been doing Open Source for over a decade now, but Roll Call is the first time that he has started a project like this. On the surface, Roll Call's objective is very simple. The project aims to giving everyone in the world a power to make Free Calls for Everyone in the world.

Since this technology is peer-to-peer, Mikeal assumes the project would require almost little to no infrastructure spendings. Till now, there hasn't a reliable project that has been able to accomplish this. This problem ends up getting even more complex when some important additional requirements are added.

According to Mikeal, people in countries that sanction censorship and block services should be able to access it easily and reliably. Further, third parties shouldn't be able to track users or listen to their calls. But, users should be provided the luxury of recording calls and use the recorded audio to produce new media like podcasts.

While Roll Call hasn't been able to achieve all this yet, it does do a lot of the following cool features:

1. It offers reliable audio-only calls between multiple participants.


2. Users can drag audio files into the call window and play into the call.


3. It offers built-in call recording, with podcast quality recording of every participants local audio sent continuously to the recorder.


4. It has almost no reliance on infrastructure, the app is hosted in gh-pages on GitHub.

Mikeal claims that most of the open source work that he has done so far has been on platforms and libraries for developers. But, in order for Roll Call to become successful it needs to be a product.

If you want to help him in his project, you can head to his GitHub Github.com/mikeal/roll-call.

[Top Image - Shutterstock]

After Banks, Now Visa Open Sources Its Blockchain Platform

Recently we wrote an article on how Corda, a Blockchain platform developed by banks is now open-source so as to provide firms with an opportunity to innovate and build products on top of it. And now, Visa has decided to open-source its Blockchain Platform.

It has been a few years that financial firms and banks have been tinkering around with the code that gives power to cryptocurrencies such as the Bitcoin, so that they're somehow able to overhaul their slowly decaying infrastructure. They have now decided to stop the tinkering and release their code out in the open.

San Francisco-based Chain has made a decision to make its platform available to the public. The startup has released an open source version of its Chain Core software to developers and anyone else interested. The source code of Chain's proprietary blockchain can be accessed on the startup's webpage on the famous code-sharing website, Github.

By releasing its technology's recipe to the public, the startup is looking to give everyone the power to contribute applications, tweaks, and bespoke networks on top of its software.

With its open source initiative, Chain aims to transition the blockchain narrative from the PowerPoint presentation to the prototype. Any development team anywhere in the world can access, download and freely install the platform, and then freely start a network, or connect into a network.

Prior to this, anyone wanting to use the Chain Core software had to join hands with one of the startup's collaborators, which includes names like Nasdaq, Visa, Fidelity, Citigroup, and Capital One. The startup has been successful in raising more than a whopping $40 million in funding from its investors till date.

The San Francisco-based startup is just one of the companies competing in the competitive race to extend a helping hand to banks to build permissioned blockchain systems, meaning one that needs a clearance from some authority to join, for transferring, tracking assets as part of a distributed ledger. Recently, the startup also announced about its plans to launch a product that will give businesses the luxury to send big sums of money across borders over a blockchain, instantly without any intermediaries.

Chain's decision to release its code out to the public is in alignment to the very spirit of the distributed ledger tech. Its progenitor, Bitcoin, actually began as an open source project back in the year 2009, and was thus successful in attracting the interest of a passionate group of volunteer core developers after its launch.

Chain in in partnership with tech giant Microsoft is also launching a test network, for coders to experiment. Microsoft has agreed to supply the cloud infrastructure for the same with its Azure business. The two companies are also partnering with a consortium of research universities having deep interest in a blockchain technology called IC3, or the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts, which includes University of California, Berkeley and Cornell University.

[Top Image- meritalk.com]

Satvacart Raises Its Third Angel Round, Targets Profitability by May 2017

eGrocery retailer, Satvacart today announced the closure of its Angel Round 3 with Serial Entrepreneur & Angel Investor Nimit Panigrahi joining the current round. The firm had earlier announced the participation of ad guru Abhijit Awasthi, SP Vijay of Tarento Technologies and Karan Chellani at the beginning of Angel round3.

Announcing the development, Rahul Hari, Founder and CEO, Satvacart said "The closure of Angel Round 3 reinforces the validity of our business model and the confidence that we enjoy among investors. With this funding, we plan to enhance our technology and data analytics capabilities to make the business ready for scale up and become self-sustainable, before replicating the business across other geographies. We will be hiring talent across Technology, Data Analytics and Retail for our future expansion and are open to aqui-hiring as well as acquisitions."

Performance highlights:

* Improved average revenue per user (on a monthly basis) by 100% over the past 8 months.

* Increased wallet penetration in active households to 25% currently vs 13% in January 2016. Planning to increase it further to over 70% in the coming months.

* With almost zero discounting, increased the number of transactions per active household per month for on-demand grocery to 2.71 now vs 1.9 in January 2016.

Nimit Panigrahi is a serial investor and entrepreneur. An alumnus of Cass Business School (London), he has extensive experience in business strategy, financial modeling, risk consultancy & mitigation and brand building. After his crucial stint with the corporate world, Nimit co-founded an Insurance broking house and a boutique HR Consultancy. Post their success Nimit entered into real estate as a developer in Eastern India. He has further ventured into building an exclusive and diversified portfolio of technology ventures which include – Thumbbell – a Health & fitness marketplace; Lolchef – a Food delivery app; and FiFi - an artificial intelligent fitness app.

Commenting on his decision to invest in eGrocery sector when investors appear to be shunning it, Nimit said, "I am happy to collaborate with Satvacart on its growth journey. The team has been doing a tremendous job by focusing on single geography and cracking the viability part before cracking the scalability part."

“I have studied the business models of some of the globally successful eGrocery players such as Ocado and Fresh Direct. The problem is not in the sector but with the business model. I see a huge opportunity in this sector primarily because the entry barriers have now been set. Given the recent shutdowns, it will be extremely difficult for any new player to enter into eGrocery or secure funding. Any future scale-up will happen among the existing players only, who have a sound and sustainable business model. And this is where the value creation opportunity lies." added Nimit.

Tapesh Singhi, Partner, Palaash Ventures said, “We are extremely happy with the performance Satvacart has given over the past two years. With right decisions, the company has not only managed to survive in a tough market with heavily funded players, most of whom have shut shops now, but has also attained unit level profitability and cracked the business model."

Image : Satvacart Founders - Rahul Hari & Deepika Saxena

IT Services and Solutions Provider L&T Infotech to Acquire Pune Based AugmentIQ

Leading global IT services and solutions provider L&T Infotech announced that it will acquire Pune based AugmentIQ Data Sciences Pvt. Ltd., an innovative start-up offering IP-based, big data and analytics solutions that help enterprises derive business benefits from big data.

As a result of this acquisition, LTI will gain access to MAXIQ, the big data platform developed by AugmentIQ, which is currently servicing one of the world’s largest credit bureaus, large banks as well as regulatory agencies. Also, the proprietary identity resolution technology from AugmentIQ is among the best in its class and can be adopted to solve the emerging needs of regulatory authorities across all markets.

MAXIQ from AugmentIQ brings the power of automation and Do-it-Yourself (DIY) to big data. Its end-to-end, self-service approach enables business users to leverage big data technologies such as Hadoop & Spark easily. It connects the power of these technologies to real business outcomes in a fraction of usual time and cost. The proposed acquisition will enable LTI to build upon MAXIQ by integrating it within LTI’s MOSAIC Decision Science platform.

MOSAIC Decision Science from LTI is designed for ease of data ingestion, data discovery, and industry specific use cases for accelerated data-driven decision making. It comes pre-packaged with more than 20 industry-specific machine learning algorithms based on deep learning techniques to jump-start the analytics journey of an organization with prescriptive and predictive analytics across business functions. MOSAIC Decision Science is powered by Microsoft Azure services in a cloud-native solution.

Announcing the acquisition, Sanjay Jalona, CEO & Managing Director, LTI said, “AugmentIQ is a very synergistic acquisition for LTI. Our clients are seeking big data solutions that can be implemented quickly and scale as per their requirements. AugmentIQ offers a very versatile platform that can expand instantly and enable accelerated data monetization. I am very happy to welcome AugmentIQ clients and employees to LTI family.”

Sachin Vyas, Founder & CEO, AugmentIQ said, “During last four years, we have grown rapidly and are working with some major clients in India and globally. We are excited about joining forces with LTI and about the opportunity to partner with hundreds of new clients. The acquisition by LTI opens up a unique roadmap for our innovative offerings to grow and mature further.”

Why Self-Driving Cars Won't Work In India

A while back, we reported about how a survey conducted by Boston Consulting Group has revealed that as much as 85 percent of adult Indians are willing to ride in self-driving vehicles. But, maybe India isn't yet to ready for Self-Driving cars after all.

nuTonomy, a MIT startup, had recently decided to put self-driving cabs on the roads of Singapore. Explaining why nuTonomy chose Singapore as its test market, Karl Iagnemma, nuTonomy's CEO, said, there are four main things to consider the most in case of self-driving cars: regulatory environment, driving climate, infrastructure and the weather. Of course, traffic density also plays an important rule, but that comes under driving climate. Further, a country might have dense traffic but if its people are adhering to the rules of the roads, it will be absolutely alright.



While Singaporeans are known to abide by the road rules, drivers in the Asian cities have a notorious reputation when it comes to navigating the roads. Iagnemma even used India as an example, which is known for its chaotic traffic.

So, the question that arises here is, if the driving climate of Singapore is perfect for self-driving vehicles — will the technology ever be able to successfully work in cities that don’t boost of a good infrastructure and law-abiding drivers?

India's capital city New Delhi's traffic situation is quite dense and it’s a more fluid driving environment, that makes it unfavourable for self-driving technology to deal with since the brains behind autonomous vehicles are computers, which function on a set of rules.

Since the technology behind self-driving is completely bound to an idea of structure, it becomes a little easier to deploy the technology in a structured environment — something which Singapore has.

This means, the less structure that the city offers, the more one will have to bank on human contextualized reasoning and decision making powers, and that makes it hard. One will have to drive based on their past experience and intuition. So, in order for Iagnemma's self-driving cars to work in India, while the core technology can be the same, but it still needs a more advanced evolution of the technology in order to be able to perform less structured contextualized reasoning.

Hence, the conclusion here is, Indian roads and drivers aren't currently ready for autonomous vehicles to function successfully. In order for them to become ready in the near future, the government will have to work meticulously towards improving the conditions of the Indian roads and its world-infamous traffic.

[Top Image- Techradar]

Furlenco Hires in Aishvarya Chanakya & Uday Kamat as Vice Presidents of Marketing & Operations Respectively

Bangalore-based Furlenco, Indian online furniture rental company has further bolstered its leadership ranks by making strategic talent acquisitions. It has recently hired Aishvarya Chanakya, as the Vice President of Marketing and Uday Kamat as its Vice President of Operations. These appointments highlight the company’s plans to further boost its core proposition and growth by leveraging the prowess of these professionals in key management roles.

Talking about the new members of the team, Ajith Mohan Karimpana, Founder and CEO of Furlenco said, “We are focussed on consolidating our presence as a disruptive player in the furniture industry by hiring experts who can add value to our existing range of products and to our distribution model. Bringing Aishvarya and Uday onboard is a step towards achieving that aim. Their comprehensive knowledge and experience in their respective verticals will definitely bring in a fresh outlook to our company and help us in realising our aims of further expansion.”

Aishvarya holds an MBA from SP Jain Institute of Management and Research and holds 11 years of valuable experience in generating advertising and communication content and developing sales & marketing strategies across two of India’s best FMCG organisations. Her last role, prior to joining Furlenco was at Unilever. She holds vital experience of brand strategy, brand advertising, product innovation, innovation management, digital and e-commerce marketing and leading teams. At Furlenco, Aishvarya will helm the functions of digital marketing, distribution and brand marketing and will also lead the creative team.

Speaking on her appointment, Aishvarya said, “Furlenco is redefining the concept of renting furniture in India. Going forward, we want to build a great consumer brand, not just a retail service brand. In this role, my efforts will be directed towards doing this via building the category of rental furniture and establishing Furlenco as a one-stop destination for awesome designs. We’re attempting to do all of this with completely in-house brand strategy and creative talent, instead of outsourcing this to external agencies”.

Meanwhile, Uday Kamat, in his new role will look after pan-India operations of Furlenco for the delivery of furniture. Uday comes with over 12 years of work experience in Supply Chain Design, Operations management and Process Excellence at Public, Private and Private Equity owned companies across North America, Europe and Asia. At Furlenco, Uday’s role will focus on designing a disruptive delivery model for the brand as far as the furniture ecosystem is concerned.

Speaking on his appointment, Uday said, “Joining the leadership team at Furlenco, which is one of the most promising start-ups in the country at present, is a matter of great pride for me. Traditional warehousing and distribution systems are optimised for retail and e-comm operations. But furniture requires a totally different treatment. My goal is to achieve a balance between growth, service levels, and cost performance. Furlenco has a great work culture and I want to enable the people working here with the right technology and processes, allowing them to drive Furlenco to the next level of growth and profitability.”

Established in 2012, Furlenco is a furniture rental company that has redefined the Indian market with its rental model, giving the urban Indian, access to high-quality and award-winning designer furniture styled as per European and tropical Indian standards. In the past 18 months, it has furnished nearly 15,000 homes with products worth over Rs 100 crore of market value. The online platform earlier this year had raised about Rs 37 crore (USD 6 million) followed by recently raising Rs 200 crore ($30 million) in a fresh round of funding through a mix of $15 million of equity and $15 million of debt. Furlenco will leverage these funds to expand to newer categories, product ranges and more cities in the next one year.

Image : Uday Kamat & Aishvarya Chanakya 

So What is the right burn rate for your company?

An entrepreneur, irrespective of whether he/she is planning to go after venture capital or not, needs to be familiar with the term burn rate. While the term is associated with valuations and raising capital for one's venture, it also forms an important aspect of the bottom line of their business with or without the availability of VC money.

The current trend of declining valuations and increase in time to raise funds has led the startup industry to conclude that the best way to survive right now is to begin raising funds early and always be cautious of having too high a burn rate because that could end up decreasing the amount of runway that the business would have until it would need more cash to run.

But the toughest question that entrepreneurs have to answer for themselves is, “What is the right burn rate for their company?” While no one can put a specific number on it, one can surely arrive at a ballpark figure based on the following factors.

How Much Time is it Taking You to Raise Capital at Your Stage in the Market?

The thing here to understand is, the earlier the funding round, the less amount of capital you require and the more reasonable the valuation the less amount of time is generally needed to raise money.

When it comes to earlier-stage capital, there are a number of capital sources available. Also, the data on which the evaluation of the investment takes place is very less and the risk of the investor getting things wrong also gets diminished. When a startup is looking to raise larger funding rounds, a more serious “due diligence" takes place. This includes: looking at the company's financial metrics, calling its customers, doing cohort analysis, evaluating the company's competitors positioning and understanding about the company's executive team's competency.

Recent trends have shown that a majority of the deals nowadays get done in a short period of 2–3 months or even shorter and that stands true even at the earliest stages.

So, the main lesson here is to always remain cautious, begin early, get to know the investors before you need the capital, do your own research on who is more likely to be a good fit for your business and make yourself understand that fund-raising is a 24x7 part of your job, and  not something you just have to do for 2-3 months every year during the “fund-raising season.”

Who are Your Current Investors?

A company's burn rate has a direct correlation with its existing investors. The entrepreneurs should always have open conversations with its investors and know about their comfort levels and also the level of support they're most likely to extend to the company going forward.

This is mainly because if your company has a strong lead investor who has a market reputation of always having the back of his or her entrepreneurs in the tough times and that investor agrees to give you comfort by writing you your next cheque then your company can end up with a higher burn rate than if you don’t have a strong lead investor in your kitty.

If your company mostly has angels or you don’t feel that your existing investors will be able to support you without any new outside capital then you might want to land yourself a smaller burn rate.

Are Your Current Investors Over Their Skis?

Do a thorough research of your investors, and evaluate if their pockets are big enough to bail you out in case of difficult situations. This means, you must have a decent sense of your existing investors’ capacities in relation to your company.

How Strong is Your Company's Access to Capital?

While focusing on existing investors is one way of talking about “access to capital” because if you already have VCs in your kitty then your company has “access.” And then you're just trying to assess whether you will be able to land new VCs or whether your current VCs will be capable of helping you in tough times.

In this case, “access to capital” is being majorly used in the context of fund raising because it can become an important determinant of your likelihood of raising capital.

If your company has successfully raised angel money and maybe has some capital courtesy seed funds that aren't that popular in the market — then your company's access to capital may be less strong than you anticipated.

How Complicated is Your Cap Table?

Entrepreneurs often end up ignoring Cap Table issues. The advice here is to openly have a chat with all your VCs or maybe at least with the ones that you trust the most.

What is Your Risk Appetite as an Entrepreneur?

It is almost impossible to assess a company's right burn rate without having a proper knowledge of their risk tolerance. To put it simply, while some companies are willing to go at it hard and accept any consequence if they aren't able to succeed. Other people might tend be more careful and have a lot at stake if the business doesn’t pan out successfully.

Assess your company's burn rate and keep in mind that the burn rate should be in line with your: Access to capital and risk tolerance levels.

How Reasonable Was the Company's Last Valuation?

Take into account how reasonable your last valuation was. If you are able to raise $1 million at a $4 million pre-money on a limited revenue company and if your investors are constantly telling you that they’re very concerned about your future because they are doubtful that outsiders will be able to fund you at the level you're currently performing then you have to be more careful about your burn rate — even if it results in slashing of costs.
The problem can be solved by the following four solutions problem:

a) Try confirming inside support to continue funding — even if outsiders won’t pitch in

b) Cut burn rate enough so that you're eventually able to grow into your valuation

c) Try to adjust your valuation down proactively so that outsiders are still able to fund you at what the market thinks is a normal valuation for your stage and performance

d) Go at it hard and keep your fingers crossed that the market will eventually end up validating your innovation even if the price is higher than what the market might be wanting to bear

[Top Image-blog.otssolutions.com]

iAugmentor Labs invests in Volunteer4India, An Online Volunteering Marketplace for Students & Youth

iAugmentor, a technology-enabled learning platform, has invested in Volunteer4India, an online aggregator for brand sponsored Social causes, NGOs and student/youth/employee volunteers. Volunteer4India (V4I) harnesses the energy of new millennial volunteers through a technology (Web/Mobile App) enabled volunteering platform. It connects them to Corporates wishing to execute their cause marketing mandates, Colleges who wish to encourage their students to apply their academic knowledge on real-world challenges, and NGOs requiring operational and execution support for their projects & Government initiatives.

This platform allow volunteers to sign up for real-world projects initiated by Brands, as part of their cause marketing programs – thus providing practical insights and exposure to operational, on-ground issues. This complements iAugmentor’s vision of enhancing employability for India’s youth – through projects that are operationally challenging, socially gratifying and which enhance their social media profile for future career payoffs. By making volunteering cool, accessible, fun – youth learn by doing, and in the process derive pride through association with social initiatives of Brands they respect.

This is a step further for iAugmentor, with a stated mission of bridging the employability gap, arming today’s youth with career-ready skill sets. This investment will further iAugmentor’s vision to build Classrooms without walls and provide a window to real world issues and practical applications of academic knowledge. Such activities also develop essential values and skills that Corporates value - including leadership skills, teamwork, communication, and empathy.

iAugmentor sets the benchmark for the education sector by providing a comprehensive and interactive platform that goes beyond the brick and mortar concept of education, choosing unique virtual modes for through augmented skill-based learning.

Commenting on this development, Sameer Sikka, Chief Learning Officer, iAugmentor said, “Through this strategic investment, iAugmentor moves closer to actualizing its vision of “Universities of the Future” and furthering its employability agenda. Volunteer4India complements iAugmentor's tech-enabled, AI driven platform with exposure for youth to learning derived through operational exposure & leadership experience in solving real world problems.”

Welcoming this development, Ranjoy Dey, CEO of Volunteer4India commented, "We see iAugmentor's strategic investment into Volunteer4India as a validation of the importance of exposure to real-world problems, industry insights, hands-on operational exposure as well as on-project mentorship in enhancing employability.”

Image : Ranjoy Dey, CEO of Volunteer4India

Ambee and Foodiebaba Secure Investments from Omaxe and iProspect India in The Vault

With more than Rs. 3 crore already invested into promising ventures in just two episodes, the funding windfall on The Vault, a one-of-its-kind reality show in India, shows no signs of abating! The latest episode of the show, aired on television recently, saw the entrepreneurial dreams of two start-ups – Ambee and Foodiebaba – fulfilled with a cumulative investment of Rs. 45 lakh by investors on the show.

Bangalore-based Ambee, Unique Gadget to protect air pollution, secured an investment of Rs. 25 lakh from Mohit Goel, CEO – Omaxe Limited, in exchange of 15% equity. On the other hand, Foodiebaba, a desserts and snacks delivery service from New Delhi, managed to get a sweet deal by securing Rs. 20 lakh in exchange of 26% equity from Vivek Bhargava, CEO – iProspect India. The third start-up featuring on the show, BookMyChotu, a unique domestic help service, didn’t manage to cinch any offers, but got valuable advice from the investors on the show.

Jatin Goel, Creator, The Vault, said, “Given how The Vault was conceptualised as a unique platform to give aspiring entrepreneurs a chance to gain investments and visibility, we are extremely delighted with the response to the show so far. The fact that several start-ups have already secured investments from some of the leading entrepreneurs in the country is very encouraging and motivates us to aspire for greater heights. We are confident that the interest that the show has generated will play a vital role in nurturing entrepreneurship across the length and breadth of the country.”

By giving budding entrepreneurs a unique opportunity to pitch their business ideas to a panel of investors on television, The Vault has been garnering great praise for its unique approach to boost entrepreneurship in India. Open to emerging start-ups, SMEs, the student community as well as household & rural ventures, the show gives television exposure to innovative business ideas and highlights what goes on behind closed doors during an entrepreneur-investor funding pitch.

Image Source: ShutterStock

Pickrr Raises Pre-Series A Funding from Swastika and Other HNI Investors

On-demand, first-mile logistics startup, Pickrr today raised an undisclosed pre-Series A funding from Hong Kong-based VC firm Swastika and other HNI investors. This is the second round of funding for the Delhi-based firm.

Pickrr had initially raised a seed round of funding from Karan Talwar of BNT Talbros Group, Prashan Agarwal, Co-founder of 19miles, and, earlier, had co-founded PropTiger; and from early and mid-stage VC firm Palaash Ventures.

Founded in 2015, Pickrr has seen an average of 100% month-on-month growth and currently fulfills more than 6000 orders/day in Delhi-NCR alone.

Pickrr works as an asset-light, intelligent shipping solution with aggregated courier partners. The two most important aspects the company focuses on are providing its business customers the best end-to-end logistics solution and strengthening its technology platform, incorporating AI and machine learning.

With the current round of funding the team is looking at strategic expansion into multiple cities. “We are already profitable and sustainable at our home ground Delhi. We are planning to beef up our technology offering to cater to multiple needs of our business customers” says Rhitiman Majumder, Co-founder, Pickrr.

Although there are a few other companies offering similar services, Pickrr’s business model and strong focus on tech, easily help them stand out as one of the strongest players. Rhitiman further adds: “The key difference is our full tech-enabled platform which helps us gain efficiency in courier aggregation and establish a first-of-a-kind first-mile logistics model, which in turn gives us a sustainable and scalable reverse logistics model. This combination gives our customer the best possible shipping experience and soon enough our customers too realised the value we were bringing to their operations. We were able to turn in profits in less than six months of our operations.”

“Our intelligent dashboard provides our business customers with all the reports and transparent analytics in a simple format to manage their business,” adds Rhitiman.

The logistics space is fast growing in India. Logistics Market India 2015-2020, a report by Novonous, suggests that the logistics market is close to $300 billion and is poised to grow at a CAGR of 12.7 percent by 2020.

In terms of the future vision, the team aims to carve out a niche in this huge market by revolutionizing both forward and reverse logistics and fast connecting all the loose ends via technology. They will be launching two major SAAS-based products by the end of this year.

“Further, for our customers, we will be launching more analytics-based tools to increase the delivery efficiency of the products by decreasing returns and getting hassle-free money reconciliation, which is not provided by any other player. This will help us in retaining more customers without resorting to any price wars” says Rhitiman.