Hyperlocal Sharing App Pulse Raises $500k in Pre-Series A Round from SAIF Partners

Pulse, a social networking app enabling users to stay connected with college/school communities around them in a fun, visual way has raised $500k in funding from SAIF Partners. Pulse provides users a full-screen visual experience of streams of colleges around them, with customized stickers to make the experience more fun and engaging! With the freshly raised funds, Pulse aims to expand its presence to other cities including Pune, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Manipal, Chennai, Hyderabad, etc and to ramp up its technology team.

Pulse was co-founded by IIT Roorkee alumnus Karthik Vaidyanath, and Prakhar Khanduja, in late October 2016. The core idea behind the app was to create a platform for the millennials, where they would not only consume content that is locally relevant to them, but also create and share it with a very geo-specific community.

The main USP of Pulse is that it gives its users access to hyper-local content around them, and a platform to contribute to & share it with a wider group within college, and across college communities.

“Typical broadcasting social networks like Facebook & Twitter have limited users posting daily as it’s a public broadcast to the world with limited privacy. Contrary to broadcasting, through our elaborate on-ground market research we realized that by narrowcasting to the relevant audience within & across nearby colleges, and giving the content hyper-local relevance, it greatly boosted content interactions as well as significantly reduced the inhibition of users for content creation. Hyperlocal social networking & narrowcasting is the next wave of social networking.”, said Karthik. Pulse has almost 30% of its users posting daily, with a DAU/MAU ratio of ~25%.

The ability to add highly relatable locally-relevant stickers to the images has been received extremely well by the college communities. Moreover, the app has been designed to perfectly suit the Asian millenial target market - It utilizes minimal internet bandwidth and one can view content as well as post completely offline.

“The inception of Pulse happened when my nephew told me how he misses out on events in his college. Thats where we went on ground for 3 months and met over 5000 kids from various colleges and schools across India to understand how they think. Then we got a few of them to work with us for a few weeks and we collectively came out with all the features with them. This exercise also showed us how users today quickly prefer adding a sticker to their pictures to express their emotions over typing a caption, which itself is a huge market. And with the feedback we’ve got, Pulse has made content creation more intuitive for users. Pulse is the first consumer app in India which is made by the college kids and for the college kids,” said Prakhar Khanduja, Cofounder, Pulse.

“College & school students in India did not have yet have a platform that was built ground-up for them and this had created a white space for a product to emerge. We really like the way the team has gone about building a platform that provides young users relevant content in the form of full-screen multimedia rich stories, which is something they understand the best,” said Mayank Khanduja, SAIF Partners.

With an on-ground team of just two people, in a very short duration Pulse has managed to rope in most of the major colleges around the Delhi-NCR area through their unique community program. Pulse aims to be the de-facto app for millenials to know what’s happening in their college communities around them.

Pulse had raised $500K seed from SAIF Partners a few months back. With Pulse getting great reviews throughout colleges in Delhi, the next phase is to scale up across colleges outside Delhi/NCR including Pune, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Manipal, etc.

Pulse, in the previous round of funding, had raised capital from eminent Angel Investors like Rajan Anandan, Rajesh Sawhney, Anupam Mittal, Uday Shankar (CEO, StarTV), Anand Chandrasekaran, Amit Ranjan, etc. They’re currently in talks with investors in India, China & the US for a larger round.

Image : Prakhar Khanduja, Cofounder, Pulse

This Social Startup is Solving India's Infamous Sanitation Problem

India, the world's second largest population, has always had a dismissive performance when it comes to sanitation. While the situation is still average in urban areas, the rural blanket of the country is the one in which owing a toilet is still considered a luxury rather than a necessity. According to experts, the reason for this huge urban and rural divide when it comes to sanitation can be traced back to India’s historic caste system, where people thought if one had to have a toilet it had to be very fancy and expensive.

Seeing the sad performance of India in the global sanitation index, a number of companies are sprouting in the Indian startup market to cater to this problem and provide some quick as well as long fix solutions. One such social venture trying to make a change is Svadha.

A WASH startup (acronym stands for Water, Sanitation & Hygiene), Svadha is said to be the only company that is meticulously working towards driving an unorganised rural WASH market to a solution-driven organised sector. The startup aims to make people forgo of the old caste system belief about toilets and make them realise that toilets are for everyone, irrespective of which caste, class or religion you belong.

According to Forbes, currently, India’s rural sanitation market can be estimated to be worth approximately $25 billion. Out of this total figure, about $10 to $14 billion is from the demand for rural toilets alone.

Founded in the year 2014 by Garima Sahai, a former lawyer and World Bank specialist with expertise in international human rights laws, and social activist KC Mishra, Svadha is supported under the Toilet Board Coalition’s first Toilet Board Accelerator program 2016. Sahai and Mishra initially began their Svadha journey in 2012, two years prior to formally launching, by running a series of pilot tests.

[caption id="attachment_111532" align="alignnone" width="700"] As part of the Toilet Board Coalition's accelerator program, Svadha held a workshop with members from Kimberly-Clark, Accenture, and Intellecap in April to discuss key focus areas for scale-up preparation and how to further push their marketing efforts.[/caption]

India can make a concrete improvement in its sanitation woes by employing good business solutions. Modi government's 'Clean India', Swachh Bharat mission is pressing for substantial actions--recognising the very fact that business has a crucial role to play at innovation at all level.

Social startup Svadha offers rural consumers number of sanitation solutions – right from sustainable waste management solutions to proper brick and mortar buildings with latrines. These solutions are sold through locally based entrepreneurs who have been well trained by the startup to follow up with all the post-sale management and repairs. The startup's packages cost ranges between $27 to $230.

According to Svadha, the success of their business lies in building a good network of local entrepreneurs who can be trained by them to become a “one-stop” shop for consumers who are looking to purchase and maintain their sanitation product without having to run around to different small vendors with unreliable stock.

Svadha's Sahai believes that they have managed to get through such a highly subsidised sector mainly because they're supporting the local entrepreneurs instead of competing with them.

Since India's staunch social caste system still prohibits toilet construction, especially in rural areas, Svadha decided to take the matter head-on by entering the market from a largely tribal Indian state, Orissa. Currently, they are trying to work their way into the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, which currently have the worst figures for open defecation in the country.

According to Sahai's statement to Forbes, the mail dominance factor that exists in India is also one of the main reasons for the sad state of sanitation in the country. The males in the country predominantly believe that is not as important for them as it is for females to have a toilet. This is the very reason that Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, states with male dominant societies that prohibit women from expressing themselves, have unfortunately fallen way behind when it comes to sanitation.

Sahai further backs this claim by stating that statistics have shown that the percentage of available toilet and sanitation services is much higher in South India where matriarchal societies have existed for generations when compared to Northern India.

Irrespective of the part of the nation, the one common issue that the country on whole faces is the severe lack of toilet facilities. Svadha's mission to make sure that each home in India has one toilet of its own, rather than depending on community toilets. They also aspire to make a statement by proving to the entire world that providing toilets and maintenance for their products isn’t just a free service, but they can also make good money from it.

Svadha's plan is to reach operational break-even by the end of next year and reach cash-flow break even and scale up by the year 2018.

Via Ambika Behal@Forbes

Jungle Ventures Closes its Second Fund at $100M

Jungle Ventures has announced the final close of its second fund on target at $100 million. The new fund is ten times larger than Jungle’s first fund, raised in 2012 – and has established it as one of the largest early stage venture capital (VC) firms in the region.

Support from existing investors was strong and new investor interest was largely driven by demand from institutions and strategic family offices from Asia and the U.S. The investor base is well diversified and includes names such as Temasek Holdings, International Finance Corporation, National Research Foundation of Singapore, Hubert Burda Media as well as leading family office investors such as the Kewalram Chanrai Group and Khoon Hong Kuok.

Commenting on the development, Amit Anand, Founding Partner, Jungle Ventures, said, “This is a significant milestone for Southeast Asia’s fast growing startup ecosystem and we are grateful for the faith existing investors and new partners have shown in us. With an exceptional team of 15 investing and operational professionals we intend to continue to invest and help build the best technology companies from this region.”

Since inception in 2012, Jungle is amongst the few VCs that have successfully exited companies via M&A to global brands such as Twitter, HomeAway, Rakuten and Shopclues. Jungle believes that M&A’s will continue to dominate the exit landscape in the region.

The Fund will largely target Series A and select Series B investments primarily in Southeast Asia, as well as, on a more opportunistic basis, businesses in India and Australia particularly where such businesses may benefit from expansion into Southeast Asia.

Mr. David Gowdey, Managing Partner, Jungle Ventures said, “The closing of the second round at $100 million is a strong testament to our investment strategy. We look forward to working more closely with exceptional founding teams and catalyze them to be regional or global category leaders.”

Jungle invests across all early stages of start-ups and has investments in Singapore, Indonesia, India and other hotbeds of entrepreneurial activity in South Asia.

Global Accessories Company CAPDASE Joins Hands with YMS Mobitech

CAPDASE, a global pioneer in mobile accessories, has inked a strategic partnership with YMS Mobitech Pvt. Ltd, India’s largest app-based e-distribution ecosystem to spread its reach across YMS’ network of 11,262 retailers and 361 distributors across 383 cities. CAPDASE also announced its intent to set up its first manufacturing unit in India, outlining an aggressive sales target of 60 million dollars over the next three years.

Headquartered in Hong Kong, CAPDASE currently caters over 45 countries worldwide with strong presence in key smartphone markets of China, Indonesia, Philippines and Hong Kong. In 2016 alone, CAPDASE has sold more than 100 million mobile accessories. CAPDASE’s top product line includes Armour Suit Case for iPhone 7 & 7+, Quick Charger for car and wall charger, High protection tempered glass for most of the smart phone models, lifestyle car mint series, amongst others.

Making the announcement, Roy Chan, Channel Head-Asia Pacific, CAPDASE said, “While the accessories segment mirrors growth in the smartphone market, demand for varied and top-of-the line accessories is set to grow multi-fold in India. Phase 1 of our partnership with YMS Mobitech will involve reaching out to the metros and over 100 tier-1 cities and towns. Our target is to reach sales in excess of 10 mn USD in the financial year 2017-18, and grow from there.”

Talking about the collaboration, Ajay Laddha, Co-founder, YMS Mobitech Pvt Ltd said, “We are excited and honored to be CAPDASE’s partner in its offline retail journey in India. The mobile handset market in India has witnessed exponential growth over the last few years, leading to a surge in demand for mobile phone accessories. E-distribution platforms like YMS Mobitech will help high-end accessories players like CAPDASE make a successful transition from just online to offline presence as manufacturers can directly bill to Retailers as per their need – making it more efficient and at lesser cost. I am optimistic that our wide-spread and strong distribution channel will enable CAPDASE to gain valuable competitive edge and reach out to every single handset user in the country.”

Recently, YMS Mobitech announced its tie-up with leading smartphone manufacturer, Mi India to distribute its range of accessories in key states of Eastern India. The e-distribution company is also the Distributor (West Zone) for end-to-end sale of LeEco Mobiles in India.

The YMS e-distribution network boasts of over 11,262 retailers and 361 distributors across 383 cities in what is India’s largest app-based distribution ecosystem, guaranteeing on-demand sales with zero dead stock and zero loss of business opportunity. Its mobile app can keep a track of all tasks & reports via the YMS Mobile App and a web dashboard.

YMS Mobitech also creates financial products for the electronics industry, under its brand Apps You Need, and uses its technology-driven platform to sell and monitor these products. Few months ago, it also launched an accessories and IoT brand CULT.

Image : R-L Ajay Laddha, co-founder, YMS Mobitech and Stanley Chu, Founder and Director, CAPDASE

This App Lets You Earn Free Recharge Every Time Your Phone Rings

A majority of us often get irritated when our phone rings and keep it on silent most of the times, but what if I told you that you now have an opportunity to earn free recharge every time your phone rings. Sound too good to be true, right? But, Rappio, an app by a Mumbai based startup is actually making this almost unbelievable scenario possible.

Rappio is basically a mobile audio advertising platform in which a user earns money on every incoming call where the ringtone is replaced by an ad jingle.

One can even earn a free mobile recharge by inviting friends to download Rappio, the Free Recharge App. If you're thinking the app is only gold for people with postpaid connections, then you're wrong. You can even let Rappio pay your postpaid bills by letting it customise your phone’s ringtone. Once you sing up for an account on the app, you will get greeted with a cool ringtone every time along with a free recharge. What's the icing on the cake is that the app also provides its users opportunity to win more prizes by participating in their weekly contests.

How to use Rappio

1. Install the Android app and register for an account.

2. Once registration is done, you will be asked to select the ringtones of your choice to get free recharge.

3. Set the priority of ringtones to get the free mobile recharge.

4. On every incoming call, you will hear a ringtone and you will earn free recharge.

5. Once you have accumulated some significant amount, you can redeem for free recharges or pay your phone’s bill on the Redeem page.

The app has almost all popular operators like Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Tata Docomo, Tata Indicom, Idea, Aircel, BSNL, MTNL, Uninor etc. on board, so you need not to worry if your operator is going to participate in the app's service.

Rappio's team of four founders, Nirav Shah, Ishan Doshi, Sahil Mehta, and Anuj Shah, is an interesting mix of experience, entrepreneurs mindset and young minds. Out of the 4 friends, 3 are hardcore techies, while Nirav Shah is the business brain behind the startup.

Launched in April this year, the startup's mobile app has been able to garner Over 40K downloads and more than 100K daily ringtone plays. The unfunded startup plans to increase these numbers to upto 1 million downloads in next 6 months with a daily gross revenue of 3 lakhs.

First Batch of K-Start Companies, Active Intelligence and AffordPlan, Raise Series-A Funding

Kstart, a seed initiative by Kalaari Capital, announced that two of their portfolio companies – Active Intelligence and AffordPlan – have raised Series-A funding from IDG and Prime Ventures respectively. Kalaari Capital also participated in both funding rounds.

AffordPlan is an alternative finance platform that enables healthcare affordability through planned savings. Hospitals and patients can co-design flexi payment plans so that patients can obtain medical treatment and products through a manageable payment structure developed based on individual need and cash flow. Founded by Tejbir Singh (CEO) and Hemal Bhatt (COO), AffordPlan looks to address a large problem that affects a sizable chunk of the Indian population.

Active Intelligence is an AI service platform for financial services. The platform is designed to automate customer interactions, using insights powered by algorithms. Co-founded by Ravi Shankar, Shankar Narayanan and Parikshit Paspulati, the Active AI team’s expertise enables the platform to be deeply connected to a financials platform via APIs or messaging interfaces, thereby automating customer service at a lower cost.

Speaking about the companies, Kalaari Capital MD Vani Kola says “AffordPlan started with a massive problem that they identified, one that is underserved and unmet today. They then brought together deep domain expertise to understand the nuances of the problem, and creating a solution for it. They did all of that in a structured but condensed time period.” Speaking about Active Intelligence, she continues, “They have a very impressive team. They come from many years of significant management experience in the banking industry, a deep network of relationships, and a lot of domain understanding”

These are the first companies to graduate from the Kstart seed initiative to the Kalaari portfolio.

“The biggest advantage we have from a Kalaari standpoint when we work with Kstart companies, is the previously unavailable ability to observe these companies at very close quarters – the way they challenge each other as a team, the way they solve problems, the way they define and refine their strategy”, says Bala Srinivasa, Partner at Kalaari Capital. “This makes it a lot easier when they come to us for Series-A funding. Having seen them through their journey so far, we have great conviction in being able to back them.”

Muthiah Venkateswaran, Partner at Kstart adds, “Both companies have displayed incredible resilience and focus on the end game. As a startup, it is easy to get swept up in the hundreds of things you can do, and lose sight of what you need to do. Both Active Intelligence and AffordPlan have stayed focused on what they needed to do to scale and succeed, and the Kstart team is excited to watch them grow.”

The company founders expressed excitement, adding that the Kstart program played an important role in supporting and preparing them for the leap to Series-A. Says Tejbir Singh of AffordPlan, “Kstart has been a wonderful experience, with a mix of great people and invaluable advice. We feel like we had the best of both worlds – the early-stage ecosystem and guidance of Kstart, and the mature environment and mentorship of Kalaari. It has been a rich experience.”
Ravi Shankar of Active Intelligence concurs, “We were one of the first companies to enter Kstart, and it has been a fascinating ride. We had the benefit of having Bala from Kalaari be on our board from the very beginning, and have had several in-depth interactions with other senior members of Kalaari, including Vani [Kola]. Both Kstart and Kalaari are constantly enabling us to be a successful company in a competitive market.”

Active Intelligence raised $3 million in a joint round with IDG Ventures and Kalaari Capital, while AffordPlan raised $3 million in a joint round with Prime Ventures and Kalaari Capital.

Image Source: ShutterStock

Noida Based QSR Chain ‘Chai Thela’ Raises Rs 1.5 Cr from Quarizon

Noida based startup Chai Thela, a quick service restaurant chain has raised Rs 1.5 Crore from Quarizon in a seed round of funding. Targeted at every tea lover, Chai Thela is a modernized version of a roadside cart offering hygienic tea at an affordable price point. Aditya Gupta, Chairman at Quarizon has led this round of funding and will also be taking a board position in the company’s board to mentor them further.

Though tea is consumed eight times more than coffee in India and is not confined to one particular region, not many players are disrupting this hot beverage market. Also, 96 % of chai is sold from a road-side cart and in an unhygienic environment. Addressing this 10 billion dollar sector, Chai Thela was founded in 2014 by serial entrepreneur, Pankaj Judge. Pankaj realized that people mostly have vending machines for tea in offices and institutions, which doesn’t satisfy their taste buds at all. To address this need gap, Chai Thela serves tea from purified water, sulphurless sugar and serve in ITC Food graded cups at a starting price of Rs 10 to not only corporates but also to people visiting malls and related places.

Commenting on the funds raised, Pankaj Judge, Founder at Chai Thela, said, “People in India, bond the most over tea and snacks. Everyone has some memories of their tea sessions at a roadside thela but no one pays much attention to their hygiene standards. With Chai Thela, we provide freshly brewed tea and made to order snacks at a very reasonable price whilst maintaining the hygiene levels. By creating a vast presence in the country and maintaining the quality of the food & beverage we serve, we intend to be world’s most preferred tea joint. We are happy to have Quarizon on board as an investor and strategic partner. Quarizon understands scale, strategy and has the right approach for growth and we look forward to a successful association with them.”

“The quick-service restaurant industry is highly competitive with respect to price, service, location, personnel and the type and quality of food being served. In India, people don’t have easy access to hygienic tea available at a reasonable price. Majority of the time, tea is sold through road side thelas which is quite unhygienic. Chai Thela is creating a separate market within this unorganized segment by providing made to order freshly made tea at an affordable pricepoint. We at Quarizon were kicked to have come across this modernized (hygienic and branded) version of a roadside thela which has all the capacity to build quick connects with its direct consumers.” Commented Aditya Gupta, Principal Advisor at Quarizon.

The startup presently offers 30 different varieties of tea and 25 of snacks across 9 outlets in Delhi-NCR.

Soon You Could Send Scented Odors In Your Online Messages

Smell is one of the six senses that the human beings are blessed with. It is one of the senses that we make use of almost all day, 24x7, sometimes even while sleeping. But, can smell help us express our emotions better?

Recently, a Chinese study which involved 54 people aimed to study whether humans can express their emotions with scent during digital communication. The researchers have named the concept “odor emoticon.”

Published in The International Journal of Human-Computer Studies in April this year, the study basically took place in three main phases. It involved selecting separate groups of participants, reviewing them, and then corresponding them with one another by making use of scents.

The researchers, Wei Xiang, Shi Chen, Lingyun Sun, Shiwei Cheng, and V. Michael Bove Jr., discovered that chatting which was enhanced by smell proved to be more intuitive, lead to more communication, and provided the participants a helping hand in perceiving and conveying their emotions during conversations.

Psychologists strongly believe that there exists a strong physiological connection between olfaction and the system that is responsible for emotional experiences in humans.

Odors are uniquely emotionally evocative. This is mainly because humans have a tendency to associate them to places, people and internal states. They have acquired a strong role in helping people communicate beyond what they see and hear.

Unfortunately, even despite of having its own power of induction, odor still hasn't been used or incorporated in modern day mainstream technology. According to experts, the main reason behind this is the fact that the world currently houses over hundreds of thousands of complex odors and its very difficult to replicate all of them.

But, V. Michael Bove Jr., an MIT professor and one of the authors on the study, strongly feels that the main reason behind why odors still haven't found a place in modern technology is simply because they haven't been researched that much in human-computer interaction that they should have been up till now.

A National Geographic survey conducted in the year 1986 is considered as the biggest olfaction study till date. During the survey, approximately 1.5 million subscribers of the magazine “scratched and sniffed” a page of six samples sent to them in the magazine. The results of the survey revealed how strongly age and gender influence a person’s sense of smell.

It is interesting to note that while smell dating services and pheromone parties have found a way to utilise these studies which have found a connection between odor and sexual attraction, olfaction hasn't yet found its true space in digital communication-where other senses like sound, sight, and touch are being prominently used.

But, according to Bove, this is slowly starting to change. In the Media Lab that they're currently working, there are at least three olfaction-related projects in action.

In the first phase of their research, the researchers from MIT and Zhejiang University surveyed 98 people about which odors they thought best depicted certain emotions. After this, a 50-person research group smelled the chosen odors and started aligning them with what they felt were the most accurate corresponding emotions.

According to Zhejiang University professor, Wei Xiang, who is one of the authors on the study, the most surprising finding of the study was that they got several odor emoticons. While the previous studies done in the domain had managed to strike a connection between the simple feelings/emotions like disgust and pleasantness with certain specific smells, this particular study ended up finding that “odor emoticons” might actually function in ways similar to the visual emojis that humans currently use.

Towards the end of the study, the researchers came up with 9 odor emoticons, which included “vinegar” for “envy," "apple” for “happiness,”and “rose” for “love."

During the final stage of the study, 54 new participants tried out the odor emoticons. The participants were first made to listen to pre-recorded voicemails while a prototype “Olfaction machine” secreted the pre-selected scents from the Demeter Fragrance Library by making use of an air humidifier.

[caption id="attachment_111528" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Image: Zhejiang University/MIT[/caption]

The next step involved the participants communicating on pre-selected topics like the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and 2014 World Cup via text. While chatting, the participants had an option of clicking a button with a listed emotion which would then trigger the prototype Olfaction machine to emit the odor associated with the emotion. For example, during a conversation about the tragic 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, a participant recalled an incident where a teacher had abandoned his students during the natural disaster, and chose to emit “anger” (ammonia) during the conversation.

Towards the end, the least chosen emoticon was “envy" and most frequently chosen was “happiness.”

After the experiment, majority of the participants expressed that they found it easy to connect odors with corresponding emotions, and that they had actually enjoyed using them, and found them easy to incorporate into their conversations. On the basis of their responses and feedback, the researchers came to the conclusion that smells can be potentially used in enhancing a users’ implicit understanding of the emotional content of the messages in a textual conversation.

However, the researchers have stressed that this was just an early-stage test in understanding the true potential for olfaction in human-computer interaction. Further, one major problem with the study was that it was very culturally relative. Being a China based study, many of the odor-emotion connections discovered in the project were found to be bound specifically to the Chinese experience.

[Top Image: goodtimes.sc]

Dairy Brand Osam Raises $6.7M in Series B Funding Led by Lok Capital and Aavishkaar

Ranchi-based HR Food Processing Private Limited (HR Food), which manufactures and markets dairy products under the brand ‘Osam’ has raised Rs 45 crores ($6.7mn) in Series B funding. This round of funding was led by Lok Capital advised Growth Catalyst Partners (GCP) – the third fund from the India focused VC firm along with co-investment from existing investor, Aavishkaar India II Company Ltd. The funds will be utilised by the company to expand its production capacity and further its distribution outreach into neighbouring districts in Jharkhand and Bihar.

Following the commercial launch in 2015, Osam has established itself as a leading private dairy brand in Jharkhand, with a procurement network reaching more than 10,000 dairy farmers, processing around 40,000 litres per day and selling products through a network of 3,000 plus retailers across Jharkhand. Leveraging this fundraise, HR Food has already acquired another dairy plant in Jharkhand and is looking at other acquisitions to capture a significant share of Eastern India’s dairy market.

India is the largest consumer of dairy products and the consumption of milk alone constitutes to 400 million litres per day. The dairy market is expected to grow at 16% CAGR and reach $155 bn by FY 2020. However, the per capita consumption of dairy in East India is almost 50% lower than the national average, indicating huge potential for companies like HR Food to create strong consumer brands and build large dairy businesses.

Founded by Abhinav Shah, Rakesh Sharma, Abhishek Raj and Harsh Thakkar, HR Food identified a large demand-supply gap in the states of Bihar and Jharkhand that have low penetration of organized dairy players and focused on building a seamless dairy supply chain in these underserved areas. The company positively impacts the livelihoods of dairy farmers by training and enabling them with modern practices in dairy farming, procurement of livestock, design of farms, milk procurement, processing, packaging and delivery. HR Food’s integrated model, procures milk directly from farmers in Bihar, processes it at its facility in Jharkhand and sells its products like milk, curd, lassi, and paneer to retailers.

Talking about the latest round of funding, Abhinav Shah, Co-founder and CEO of HR Food, said, “We are very excited to partner with Lok Capital for this critical fundraise and thankful for Aavishkaar’s ongoing support, which has been indispensable in building the Osam story. With this round of fundraise, Osam is well poised to deepen its outreach into key target markets in East India, with an expanded production capacity enabling our growth, and emerge as the leading dairy brand in Eastern India.”

Agri-diary is one of the important investment themes for Lok’s third fund as it offers good growth potential and the right blend of socio-economic impact and brand creation. The fund will support businesses that create value for small and marginal farmers along with generating good commercial returns. Lok believes that there is tremendous scope for agri-dairy enterprises to innovate, scale-up and address the challenges faced by the Indian agri and dairy sectors.The funding in Osam marks Lok’s first investment in dairy and second investment in the agri-diary space, following earlier investment in a Pune-based company, SV Agri Processing from its fund II – Sarva Capital.

Announcing the latest investment, Rajesh Babu, Director, Lok, said, “Given the large opportunity present in the dairy industry and the significant scope for high-quality private sector players to operate in the space, Lok is keen on backing integrated business models that make dairy and agriculture more sustainable for farmers. Osam is transforming the dairy sector in Jharkhand and Bihar through high quality customer offerings and improving farmer livelihoods by providing transparency on price, quantity and quality to over 10,000 farmers.”

Ajay Maniar, Partner, Aavishkaar said “We are extremely encouraged by the growth and build-out of Osam. We have invested in the company since the ideation stage and are delighted by the company’s progress and the validation of our investment thesis. We look forward to the founding team to continue and build on the momentum as they establish Osam as the dominant player in Jharkhand and Eastern India.

Unitus Capital was the exclusive investment banking advisor. Richa Natarajan, Vice President, Unitus Capital (UC) said, “Dairy has always been a critical part of UC’s mission given its potential to transform the lives of millions of farmers. We are very proud to have played a role in Osam’s successful fund raise and look forward to helping them scale over the coming years!”

Udacity Partners With InShorts and Urban Clap to Bridge The Industry-Academia Divide

Udacity, a global leader in disruptive learning technologies, has partnered with leading tech startups such as InShorts, Urban Clap, Daily Hunt, Wittyfeed and more to help their Nanodegree holders land a high paying job. With rapidly changing technologies, the global demand for new-age skill sets in digital and analytics is largely unmet by traditional education system, which leaves students in a perennial fix. In a bid to bridge this industry-academia gap, Udacity has partnered with these startups to help students access job opportunities easily.

Students who take up any Nanodegree courses from Android Development, IOS, Full Stack, Front End, Data Analysis or Machine Learning at Udacity will get an opportunity to directly interview with these leading startups. The average salary offered for this would be around 6-18 lakhs for 0-3 years of experience. Students who are in their final year or pre-final year of their undergraduate courses can also take up this programme.

The courses offered by Udacity are specially designed by industry leaders AT&T, Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Amazon, Cloudera etc.. The idea is to have industry perspective in mentoring candidates who will soon be available in the job market. Taking the same idea forward, the Get Hired initiative is aimed at connecting industry ready candidates with leading tech startups for jobs with high paying salaries.

Vardhan Koshal, Country Manager at Udacity said, “The industry for on-demand online courses is on a rise and there is a significant opportunity for students to upskill themselves. Our Get Hired initiative will help students get first-hand industry experience and knowledge, which in turn will make them ready for real life job challenges. We are very excited to partner with leading startups of the country who will provide Nanodegree graduates a wide range of career opportunities.“

Commenting on the partnership, Deepit Purkayastha, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Inshorts, said, "At Inshorts we intend to make content consumption and discovery on mobile very easy and technology serves as the strongest enabler towards this goal. We are always on the lookout for top quality tech talent. We are pleased to partner with Udacity to discover candidates who have the right skills and necessary exposure to build world-class mobile experiences.”

Image Source: ShutterStock

Aasaanjobs Ventures into Recruitment​ ​Process​ ​Outsourcing Segment

Aasaanjobs.com, one of India’s leading online recruitment marketplace that connects entry level job seekers with employers, today announced its entry into the bustling RPO segment. The company wants to serve corporate players who usually goes for high-volume hiring and those which are hiring perennially.

Commenting on the service portfolio addition, Siddharth Gupta, VP, Sales & Marketing, Aasaanjobs.com said, “We recognized the growing trend of RPO in the last couple of years and wanted to quickly grab and build on the opportunity. With our team of 50+ skilled recruiters from various industries, I think that the top corporates, especially from BFSI or IT sector, hiring in volume will find our RPO solutions an extremely valuable proposition.”

“The industry has noticed that the RPO model has led to improved interview to acceptance rate by almost 17% and cost-benefits realized by organizations went up to 36% when compared to traditional models of hiring, and hence the appeal of RPO from bigger corporates”, he added.

Unlike traditional recruitment models, outsourcing of the hiring process help in reducing the overall cost per hire, reduces the time to hire by 29% and also enhances the quality of service for all stakeholders. RPO enables external service providers to offer customized recruitment solutions to corporate houses.

Recently Aasaanjobs has announced the launch of its latest service in IT recruitment as part of its plan to expand its verticals in job search and employment.

Samsung Considering Splitting Into Two: Report

According to reports going around in the South Korean tech market, South Korea's tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is considering splitting itself into two. The idea has reportedly been proposed by Elliott Management, the United States based activist hedge fund.

A split has been suggested because it would allow the company's founding Lee family to strengthen their position in the global Smartphone leader brand, which is considered as the crowing jewellery of the humongous Samsung Group business empire. The split was suggested last month by the Elliott Management so as to boost their shareholder value.

Though the company has formally denied commenting on the issue, but a Samsung's board of directors has been called on for tomorrow. Whether it is to decide on Elliott's proposal of splitting the company into two, isn't clear yet.

Further, reports also suggest that the Korea Exchange separately has asked Samsung to comment on whether it is planning a spinoff by 6pm (0900 GMT).

According to a report in the Seoul Economic Daily, Elliott Management has suggested the company to divide itself into a holding vehicle for ownership purposes and an operating company, pay a $26 billion special dividend, promise to return at least 75% of the free cash flow to investors and also agree upon appointing some independent directors.

While Samsung Group and the Lee family haven't said a word on the company's restructuring plans, but there's no denying the fact that the conglomerate's reorganization efforts have been on a fast pace since Jay Y. Lee took over the company in May 2014.

The tech giant has sold non-core assets while going through a merger of two major affiliates last year so as to consolidate stakes in the key affiliates under a company controlled by Jay Y. Lee and his two real sisters, as the founding Lee family wants to secure a stable and secure transfer of control.

Aspiring Minds Appoints Sushant Dwivedy as Sr. Vice President - Enterprise Client Solutions

Aspiring Minds, a global job skills credentialing leader, continues to expand its leadership team with the appointment of Sushant Dwivedy as Sr. Vice President- Enterprise Client Solutions. In this role Sushant will be responsible for leading the enterprise business and scaling it by expanding market coverage and driving customer satisfaction.

Coming with the wealth of experience in building business, Sushant has held leadership roles and driven growth in software and services organizations at scale. An engineering graduate from Osmania University and MBA from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, Sushant kick started his career in channel management at Wipro. A fifteen year stint at Microsoft provided him experiences leading sales and distribution, marketing and program management. Post that, he moved on to lead enterprise businesses at Avaya and Xerox building strength in their ITS/ITES, Government and BFSI verticals.

At Aspiring Minds, Sushant will be responsible for leading the enterprise business and help scale our extensive suite of enterprise business solutions spanning talent assessment, benchmarking and recruitment. In the enterprise business segment, Aspiring Minds provides industry leading solutions for IT/ITes, BFSI, Automotive, Telecoms, BPM, Retail, Manufacturing, Life Sciences and Hospitality, among others.

Commenting on the appointment, Himanshu Aggarwal, CEO & co-founder, Aspiring Minds, said, “Over the years, Aspiring Minds has attained the pole position in talent solutions and is now the largest enterprise assessment solution provider. After having worked with 100s of large corporations across sectors, our success has increased our customer’s expectations which we plan to consistently exceed. Sushant’s leadership and experience will help us strengthen our market leadership position, driving growth and client success”.

Sushant added, “ Aspiring Minds has a growing suite of world class assessment solutions technology and is at the helm of exponential growth. I'm looking forward to work closely with Aspiring Minds team and help the passion-filled young company continue its rapid expansion by driving enterprise sales, development and support for products and solutions.”

Aspiring Minds continues to expand rapidly with an expanding product portfolio, solutions across a range of sectors including IT, ITES, BFSI, Automotive, Manufacturing, Life Sciences etc and global operations in half a dozen countries.

TheMentorpreneurs & Venture Catalyst to Launch ‘IDEATE’ For Early Stage Startups

In a growing early stage startup ecosystem in India, where more than 15,000 startups are supposedly born annually – and many end up prematurely owing to lack of right guidance – comes a much-needed initiative in form of IDEATE. A uniquely build 6-month intensive hands-on Mentoring and Startup Coaching Module, IDEATE is designed by TheMentorpreneurs – a leading mentor connect platform and Venture Catalyst – India’s premier early stage investment and co-working centre, in association with other leading ecosystem partners and startup advisors.

The core objective of IDEATE is to select early stage start-ups and then handhold them for 6 months, connecting them with mentors, investors, funding platforms and offering a complete guidance to help them establish and scale up more effectively. Selected startups would be charged nominal fees for the entire program.

Launching the program, Ms. Shraddha Patil, Co-founder, TheMentorpreneurs said, “Since operating in early stage startups for more than last few years, we realised that lot of new entrepreneurs are seemingly high on count of passion and zeal for new ventures – but then often stumble on basics of running and scaling their business. This lead us to structure IDEATE – where we would help these start-ups not just with right connects, but also would work closely with them to work on customised business growth and sustenance strategies. Some of the unique elements that we are also bringing include crowdfunding support, connect with corporates and personalised growth dashboards – which we believe are very novel to this ecosystem and can prove to be game-changers for fledgling startups.”

IDEATE is supported by some leading entrepreneurial advisors – including Rahul Narvekar, Ajeet Khurana, Revathy Roy, Rakesh Sidana, Surya Prakash Mohapatra, Shweta Shalini, Apoorv Sharma, Sachin Tagra. Its course advisors include Romil Shah, Satish Kataria, Amit Mishra, Devesh Chawla, Paritosh Sharma, Ashutosh Kumar and Bhavesh Kothari.

Reiterating their support to IDEATE, Dr. Apoorv Sharma, President and Co-Founder, Venture Catalysts, said, “With the increasing competition and demanding markets, it becomes really challenging for early stage startups to focus on multiple areas of business and yet deliver the best outcome. We have seen this challenge while making our investment decisions – and felt that if such a guidance can be offered to startups at its infancy stage itself – and that too without need to offload any equity just for this – this could really be a boon for early stage ventures and can help us also to have far more robust deal flow to invest into. We are glad to partner with TheMentorpreneurs into this initiative and wish them all the luck for this endeavour.”

Each selected startup will also be provided with personalized dashboards which can be used by mentors and investors to track their progress thus enabling them to understand the growth potential and scale. In this program, startups will be exposed to the fundamentals of efficiently running and managing their business by experts from the industry. They will also be guided towards the implementation of the same in the practical world thus ensuring growth. The startups will attend sessions on weekends and implement the same on following weekdays within their business. This will help them to implement the right business strategies and discuss the challenges during the course of the program for feedback and correction incase required. The entire program would be closely monitored by progress charts via personalized dashboards to maintain focus during the entire program duration. The startups selected for Ideate would be mentored to formulate, develop and commercialize their ideas.

Startups get ready to Ideate-Innovate-Elevate your dreams.

The applications for IDEATE are now open and startups can visit www.thementorpreneurs.com/ideate for further details.

Image : TheMentorpreneurs' Team

10 Top Things in Tech This Week

Here's www.indianweb2.com once again with its Top 10 tech news for this week. So, no need to dig or surf anywhere else, statiate your tech hunger for tech in this week roundup article.

1) Meet Lakshmi, India’s First Robot to Be Appointed as Customer Care Executive at a Bank

Kumbakonam-based City Union Bank recently debuted Lakshmi, India’s very first banking robot. It took the bank more than six months of hard work to develop Lakshmi, an artificial intelligence powered robot that is the country’s first on-site bank helper. The robot is capable of answering intelligently on more than 125 day-to-day bank related subjects.

Whether you want to know about the current interest rates on home loans or even know your current account balance, Lakshmi can tell you all. Apart from this, it has also been programmed to connect to the core banking solution.

All around the world, very few banks have employed robots at their branches to help both their staffers and customers. With Lakshmi, City Union wants to bring a whole new experience to India.

2) This Tiny WiFi Device Developed By Stanford Engineers Supplies Missing Link For the Internet of Things

Conceived by a Stanford University research team led by Sachin Katti, an associate professor of electrical engineering and of computer science, and Pengyu Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher, HitchHike is a tiny, ultra-low-energy wireless radio that promises to be the thing that the Internet of Things was looking for since long.

The 2 in 1 Hitchhike prototype is a processor and radio all in one. Although it is about the size of a regular sized postage stamp, but its engineers still feel that it can be made smaller so that it can be easily implanted in bio-devices like a wireless heart rate sensor.

HitchHike is being termed by its developers as the first and only self-sufficient WiFi system that has the power of enabling data transmission by making use of just micro-watts of energy—almost zero. Further, one of its many plus points, is that it can be used as it is with the existing WiFi without any additional equipment or any major modification.

3) Google, Microsoft and Others Create Guidelines For Improving IoT Security

Nowadays, personal computers are no more the only devices connected to the internet. A variety of devices embedded with Internet connectivity and functions have also joined the party. This very class of devices, famously known as the Internet of Things or IoT, and has ended up giving birth to a new level of security and privacy risks.

In order to curb these, the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group or the BITAG- an alliance formed by world technology giants Microsoft, Google, Verizon, Intel and a number of other players in the tech industry- has laid out a set of guidelines so as to improve the security on Internet of Things devices.

They are as follows:

a) IoT Devices should make use of the best current software practices. This should include a strong mechanism for secure, automated software updates.

b) IoT Devices should use strong authentication by default and not use common or easily guessable user names and passwords (e.g., “admin”, “password”).

c) IoT Devices manufacturers should follow best security and Cryptography practices by securing communications using Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Lightweight Cryptography (LWC). If devices rely on a public key infrastructure (PKI), then an authorized entity must be able to revoke certificates when they become compromised, and manufacturers should take care to avoid encryption methods, protocols, and key sizes with known weaknesses.

d) IoT Devices should be restrictive rather than permissive in communication.

e) IoT Devices should continue to function even if the internet connectivity is disrupted.

f) IoT Devices should continue to function even if the cloud back-end fails

g) IoT Devices should ship with a privacy policy that is easy to find and understand.

The report has also recommended that IoT devices manufacture should make sure that the devices are not reachable via inbound connections by default. Since BITAG is just an advisory group, it can’t legally enforce any of its recommendations on IoT device manufacturers, but can only give them crucial points to think on and act.

4) Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2017, By Gartner

Gartner’s Vice President and a Gartner fellow himself David Cearley has come up with top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for the year 2017. Mesh, intelligent and digital-are the three main themes that forms the basis of Cearley’s list, which he announced at the recently held Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2016 in Orlando, Florida.

5) Its Official, Facebook Internet Drone Aquila Is Not For India, Says Facebook India Chief

The Mark Zuckerberg led company has decided not bring its unmanned solar-powered drone, Aquila, to the Indian subcontinent. Aimed at providing infrastructure for affordable internet connectivity in remote areas all around the world, Aquila could have made substantial difference in India’s below-average internet connectivity scenario.

The social networking decision to not bring Aquila to India was recently confirmed by Facebook’s India and South Asia managing director, Umang Bedi to a website.
Though Aquila might not be coming to India, Facebook is still looking at a sustainable development effort in the country via one of its new initiatives called the Express Wifi. The project is in its early stage pilot, with the social networking giant working with telcos and entrepreneurs.

Express Wifi is going to allow users to purchase internet from local data providers, and according to a leading daily, it has already successfully been offered at 125 rural Wifi hotspots as part of the pilot. As soon as the pilot materialises, we can expect more details on the project.

6) This New Technology Could Light The World Using Gravitation

Gravity is the miracle that keeps us grounded on this very planet Earth, but years pass by that we even acknowledge its presence. But, did you know this marvelous downward force also has the potential of lighting the whole wide world?

The GravityLight Foundation is focused at bringing a safe and bright future to all those areas of the world with limited or no electricity access through its innovative GravityLight lamps, which make use of the power of gravity. The Foundation, which is a UK Registered Charity, is working towards alleviating poverty and protecting environment through innovative designs.

Developed by designers Jim Reeves and Martin Riddiford, GravityLight is a simple, low-cost gear-train and generator that makes use of a descending weight to power a perpetual light source. The lamps give people who are currently living in a dark after the sun goes down a possibility to add new possibilities and dimensions to their lives.

7) The supercomputer of the future is nearer than we thought

Scientists at the prestigious Sussex University have recently claimed that they are almost close to building a large scale quantum computer. According to the Professor Winfreid Hensinger, the technology can prove to be a real game changer since quantum computers could be capable of solving in milliseconds the problems that are estimated to take even the fastest supercomputer millions of years.

8) Dutch scientists make use of color-changing graphene bubbles to create ‘mechanical pixels’

Researchers from Netherlands' Delft University of Technology have discovered what could one day most possibly give birth to a new type of display technology: bubbles of graphene that change color as they keep expanding and contracting.

According to the researchers, these ‘mechanical pixels’ could have the potential of making screens that are more durable, flexible and energy efficient than the current LED technology in the market.

9) Google’s AI has developed more proficiency at lip reading than humans after watching thousands of hours of TV

Researchers from tech giant Google’s Artificial Intelligence division DeepMind and the University of Oxford have used artificial intelligence to create what they claim is the most accurate lip-reading software that the world has ever seen.

By making use of thousands of hours of BBC TV footage, the scientists have successfully trained a neural network to annotate video footage with a decent 46.8% accuracy. Though that might not seem very impressive at first, but when the same footage is tested on a professional human lip-reader, he can only get the right word 12.4% of the time.

10) China's LingLong launches DingDong smart home speaker to take on Amazon Echo

LingLong, a China based tech firm, has launched the country's first voice-activated smart home speaker, DingDong, which tech experts consider can give Google's Home and Amazon's Echo a run for its money.

The device, which understands Mandarin, Cantonese and basic English, makes use of voice interaction to do various tasks such switching on home appliances and playing videos/music.

Top 10 Startup Funding This Week

Here is a list of top funding deals that happened in Indian Startup Ecosystem this week. Check out the brief description about all of them.

Cisco Investments Joins Helpshift’s $23M Series B Round of Funding

Helpshift, the company revolutionizing the customer support industry through enterprise-level, in-app customer experiences, has announced that Cisco Investments has recently joined their Series B funding round, which follows previous investors such as Intel Capital, Microsoft Ventures and Salesforce Ventures. As one of Cisco Investments’ portfolio companies, Helpshift and Cisco will also explore opportunities to integrate Helpshift’s in-app customer support solutions with Cisco’s leading contact center solutions.

Cloud Telephony Company Knowlarity Raises $20M in Series C Round Led by Delta Partners

Knowlarity, the leading cloud communications platform in emerging markets across Asia, has announced the successful raise of $20 million in its Series C funding round. The latest investment in Knowlarity, which is Asia’s largest cloud telephony company, was led by Dubai-based private equity firm Delta Partners. The round also saw participation from Knowlarity’s existing investors, Sequoia India and Mayfield, and included a small debt-based investment from Blacksoil and Trifecta Capital. Signal Hill, a leading independent M&A and private capital advisory firm was the exclusive financial advisor on this transaction. The latest investment takes the total funds raised by Knowlarity so far to $41 Million USD making it the most capitalised cloud telephony company in Asia.

Micro-Enterprise Lender AYE Finance Raises Rs 70 Cr in Series B Round

Delhi-based non-banking finance company AYE Finance (AYE) has closed its Series B round of funding of Rs 70 crore from LGT IV and its existing investors SAIF Partners and Accion. AYE is a rapidly-growing provider of loans to micro and small, enterprises across India. It was founded in 2014 by career bankers Sanjay Sharma and Vikram Jetley. AYE uses an innovative approach to make working capital loans available to these underserved enterprises by using a proprietary innovative underwriting methodology that has allowed AYE to enhance its portfolio to more than Rs80 crore.

B2B Commerce Startup Udaan Raises $10M from Lightspeed

B2B online marketplace Udaan has secured $10 million in its Series A round of funding from VC firm Lightspeed Venture Partners India and Lightspeed US. The deal, which closed in October, values the Bengaluru-based startup at about $40 million, according to two sources aware of the transaction.

SoftBank Invests Another $5M in Housing

SoftBank Group Corp, a leading investor in several Indian tech startups, has put in an additional $5 million in a bridge round in real estate portal Housing.com, according to three people aware of the development. SoftBank, the lead investor in Housing, had invested $15 million in the company in January this year.

Vymo Gets $5M in Series A Funding from Sequoia India

SaaS-based predictive sales analytics startup Vymo has secured $5 million in its Series A round from VC firm Sequoia India. This is Sequoia India's third funding announcement this month in the enterprise serving software-as-a-service (SaaS) space, after Freshdesk and Zarget.

Indian Language Social Platform ShareChat Raises $4M in Series A Round

ShareChat, the Indian language social platform, has closed a $4 million Series A round of funding, led by Lightspeed India Partners, and from existing investors, SAIF Partners and India Quotient. The funding round also saw participation from Venture Highway (through VH Capital). Sharechat is building the largest social content network in India with a focus on small town users and vernacular content.ShareChat is the only platform available to a large audience coming to the internet for the first time, in India.

Fintech Startup Numberz Raises $650K in Seed Funding

Gurgaon-based Paradime Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs cash-flow management startup nu,mb,erz, has raised seed funding of $650,000 from investors Kae Capital and Khosla Impact. The company, which started in July last year, was earlier known as getfiscal.in.

The startup is also looking at the next round of funding of around $3-5 million, without mentioning a timeline for the closing.

Bot Protection Platform InfiSecure Raises $600k in Seed Funding from IDG and Axilor Ventures

InfiSecure, a bot protection technology startup has raised $600K in seed funding from IDG Ventures and Axilor Ventures. InfiSecure was launched in March 2016 as a SaaS platform for real-time bot detection and fraud protection. InfiSecure sanitizes a website’s traffic and improves business metrics using a 24×7 active SaaS solution.

Mumbai Based Networking App Nodd Raises $147K in Angel Funding

Identifying a huge opportunity in the professional networking space, 11 entrepreneurs turned investors pump in Rs 1 crore ($147K) in Noddapp.com. Mumbai-based Noddapp.com is an app based networking platform that helps individuals to discover and meet like-minded people through innovative curated experiences, using data analytics, experiences, and algorithms.

Apart from these top 10 funding deals, here are a few startups which have also secured funding for their growth and expansion:

Proximity-based SAAS platform Kloseby has raised $100K Seed funding from an undisclosed investor.

Bengaluru-based career advice platform TapChief has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Paytm, TaxiForSure founder Aprameya Radhakrishna; Fisdom founder Subramanya Venkat; and Venk Krishnan of NuVentures among others.

Gujarat-based Hubilo, a startup that provides integrated end-to-end online solutions for event organisers has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a group of investors including Girish Mathrubootham, the founder of Freshdesk.

Mumbai-based Servify has raised an undisclosed Pre-Series A amount as investment from Blume Ventures and BEENEXT.

Indore-based fitness discovery platform, froyofit has raised an undisclosed amount in Pre- series A round of funding.

Safety solutions provider Better Place Safety Solutions has secured an undisclosed amount of funding from Venture Highway.

Edtech startup Edutainment Spearheads (flagship product, Volt) has secured an undisclosed amount in Seed funding from YMS Mobitech, a tech-based distribution company.

Tech enabled laundry service provider, UClean, has raised an undisclosed amount in Seed funding, led by franchise and retail solution group, Franchise India.

Bats on Delivery, an on-demand food and essential commodities delivery services firm, has raised its angel round of funding from a Delhi-based businessman.

Datasigns Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a mobile first financial technology startup has secured an undisclosed amount in angel funding.

Image Source: ShutterStock

This New Technology Could Light The World Using Gravitation

Gravity is the miracle that keeps us grounded on this very planet Earth, but years pass by that we even acknowledge its presence. But, did you know this marvelous downward force also has the potential of lighting the whole wide world?

According to current statistics, till the year 2015, about 1.1 billion people all around the world were still living without access to energy. A majority of these people are surviving by depending on kerosene lamps, which a number of studies have claimed is immensely harmful to their health. In fact, inhaling the toxic fumes coming from these kerosene lamps is almost equivalent to smoking 170 cigarettes a year. This unintentional ingestion of kerosene is currently the leading cause of child poisoning in developing countries all around the world.

In addition to the respiratory issues, these kerosene lamps also pose a number of other problems. For example, in the Indian subcontinent alone, about a million people suffer moderate to severe burns by overturned kerosene lamps every year.

The GravityLight Foundation is focused at bringing a safe and bright future to all those areas of the world with limited or no electricity access through its innovative GravityLight lamps, which make use of the power of gravity. The Foundation is a UK Registered Charity that is working towards alleviating poverty and protecting environment through innovative designs.



Developed by designers Jim Reeves and Martin Riddiford, GravityLight is a simple, low-cost gear-train and generator that makes use of a descending weight to power a perpetual light source. The lamps give people who are currently living in a dark after the sun goes down a possibility to add new possibilities and dimensions to their lives.

By exploring the potential that the simple but infinite force of gravity has to offer, the GravityLight Foundation has been successfully able to substantially reduce a number of issues related to energy inaccessibility and risks to public health, and thus making way for a brighter and safer future for those who currently need it the most.

So, how does the GravityLight lamps work?

When gravity is doing its natural thing and pulling the rocks to planet Earth, the force ends up pulling a strap, which in turn spins gears, driving an electric generator to power an LED. Though it is a chain reaction, but it ends up working successfully. Each of such journeys to the ground ends up creating enough energy to keep the light running continuously for 20 minutes. The device can easily reduce the crucial issue of energy expense in the developing countries of the world as after the initial purchase of a GravityLight lamp, there are no operating costs, and the lamps last for several years.

After having its second successful crowdfunding campaign, The GravityLight Foundation is currently on a 50 Night Tour across 50 villages of Kenya. The tour aims to introduce the kerosene lamps using people of the Kenyan population the wonders of a GravityLight lamp.

Introducing Mastodon - An Open Source, Decentralized Version Of Twitter

If sharing your thoughts on social media platforms is an important part of your daily life, then this particular news piece might breathe in a new freshness in your social media schedule.

Social media networking apps like Twitter and Facebook have often being accused of monopolising their users posts and feeds, and if this particular thing bothers you too, then now is the time to switch to Mastodon, a free, open-source social media server.

Mastodon, just like Twitter, is a microblogging platform. But, unlike the 140 characters social networking site, it is neither centrally owned and nor is commercial. This means, the users won't have continuously worry about what would end up happening to their posts and accounts if and when it gets acquired by some company.

The free, open-source social network server, is being pitched as a decentralized alternative to all commercial platforms, as it avoids the risks of a single company monopolizing your communication. Anyone can run Mastodon and join-in in the social network seamlessly.

However, there is one small glitch for Mastodon. Like any new social networking site, Mastodon is also currently facing a slightly tough time in getting news users to its platform. But, if you want to get the ball rolling, you can easily add your Twitter followers to your Mastodon profile by making use of this tool here. A user also has an option of running the app as a closed instance, as in keep it completely private to a specific group of coworkers or friends.

Donning a look almost similar to the popular Tweetdeck, Mastodon make use of a column-based user-interface for its user's timelines, mentions, and compose field. The platform gives its users the option to share their thoughts via links, texts and even attach media to their posts.

So, if you want to jazz up your daily social media schedule, then Mastodon is surely worth a try.

[Top Image: assets.mastodon.social]

Paytm & Seasoned Entrepreneurs Invest in Bengaluru Based Career Advice Platform TapChief

TapChief (owned by Pilani Experts Technology Labs Pvt. Ltd) has announced that it has raised an undisclosed sum from PayTm, Aprameya Radhakrishna of TaxiSure, Subramanya Venkat of Fisdom and Venk Krishnan of NuVentures amongst others.

TapChief, a platform to seek advice from industry experts for students and startups was founded in early 2016 by BITS Pilani alumni Shashank Murali, Binay Krishna & Arjun Krishna.

“There is a strong onus on skill development across sectors due to the rapid pace at which the industry is evolving. Our vision is to break the numerous barriers in knowledge sharing through this thriving open community of help-seekers & experts across the globe.” says TapChief CEO Shashank Murali.

TapChief currently facilitates career & business advice where users can schedule a telephonic consultation with any of the 5000 listed experts on the platform. These experts include CEOs, Entrepreneurs, Consultants & Senior Executives from over 2000+ organisations. Students can also opt for the Job Coach program where they get trained for Job Interviews and Placements by professionals from a company of their choice.

Every expert can set their own consultation charges and TapChief charges a fixed commission on every paid consultation on the platform.

“There is a strong onus on skill development across sectors as India’s startup landscape evolves,” said Madhur Deora, chief financial officer, Paytm, confirming the deal.

“Over 40% of our experts do this on a pro-bono basis while the experts who do charge for their time usually donate their earnings to charitable organisations and NGOs through our platform. Having seen over 50000 minutes worth of interactions on TapChief, the backing of a strong consumer-centric brand like PayTm will help us gear up for the next phase of growth” added Shashank.

In April, the startup raised $150K funding from Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma. In June, TapChief named as India's best startup at Seedstars Bangalore.

Google, Microsoft and Others Create Guidelines For Improving IoT Security

While IoT keeps climbing the popularity charts, the other thing which is growing at almost twice the pace along with it is the security concern associated with it.

Nowadays, personal computers are no more the only devices connected to the internet. A variety of devices embedded with Internet connectivity and functions have also joined the party. This very class of devices, famously known as the Internet of Things or IoT, and has ended up giving birth to a new level of security and privacy risks.

In order to curb these, the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group or the BITAG- an alliance formed by world technology giants Microsoft, Google, Verizon, Intel and a number of other players in the tech industry- has laid out a set of guidelines so as to improve the security on Internet of Things devices.

Formed in the year 2010 to produce best practices for broadband security, the BITAG published its recommendations for IoT manufacturers in a report titled Internet of Things (IoT) Security and Privacy Recommendations. The Report explores in detail the technical aspects of the security and privacy of networked consumer devices.

In the 8-pages long document, the BITAG mentions that “the nature of consumer IoT is unique because it can involve non-technical or uninterested consumers; challenging device discovery and inventory on consumer home networks.” It further added that IoT devices can be hijacked to create “Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, perform surveillance and monitoring, gain unauthorized access or control, induce device or system failures, and disturb or harass authorized users or device owners.”

This is exactly what happened in the case of Mirai, the malware that is responsible for causing one of the worst denial of service cyberattacks that the world had experienced in the last few years. Recently the malware had spread and infected internet-connected devices in over 177 countries all around the world.

In October, Mirai caused massive outrage when it targeted Dyn, a major name in the domain name service (DNS) provider sector. The case saw Internet of Things being put to use to break the internet.

In order to avoid such cases in the future, the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group made a number of recommendations for the manufacturers:

1) IoT Devices should make use of the best current software practices. This should include a strong mechanism for secure, automated software updates.

2) IoT Devices should use strong authentication by default and not use common or easily guessable user names and passwords (e.g., “admin”, “password”).

3) IoT Devices manufacturers should follow best security and Cryptography practices by securing communications using Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Lightweight Cryptography (LWC). If devices rely on a public key infrastructure (PKI), then an authorized entity must be able to revoke certificates when they become compromised, and manufacturers should take care to avoid encryption methods, protocols, and key sizes with known weaknesses.

4) IoT Devices should be restrictive rather than permissive in communication.

5) IoT Devices should continue to function even if the internet connectivity is disrupted.

6) IoT Devices should continue to function even if the cloud back-end fails

7) IoT Devices should ship with a privacy policy that is easy to find and understand.

BITAG is a non-profit, multi-stakeholder organization that is focused on bringing together engineers and technologists in a Technical Working Group (TWG) to develop consensus on broadband network management practices and other related technical issues that can affect users’ Internet experience, including the impact to and from applications, content and devices that utilize the Internet.

The report has also recommended that IoT devices manufacture should make sure that the devices are not reachable via inbound connections by default. Since BITAG is just an advisory group, it can’t legally enforce any of its recommendations on IoT device manufacturers, but can only give them crucial points to think on and act.

The lead editors of the report were Jason Livingood, Vice President - Technology Policy & Standards at Comcast and Nick Feamster, Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University. Douglas Sicker, Executive Director of BITAG, Chair of BITAG’s Technical Working Group, Department Head of Engineering and Public Policy and a professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, chaired the review itself.

[Top Image: logicworks.net]

Personal Device Assistance Platform Servify Raises Pre-Series A Funding

Servify - a personal device management platform for gadgets, consumer electronics and home appliances, has announced that it has raised Pre-Series A investment led by Blume Ventures and Beenext. The investment round also saw participation from existing investors including Germany based Barkawi Holdings GmbH, TM Service Technology Holdings Gmbh and Sreevathsa Prabhakar, Founder of Servify.

Sreevathsa Prabhakar, Founder & CEO of Servify said, “Our vision is to build a platform where consumers can get seamless post-purchase experience for all their devices - be it mobile phones or electronics or any home appliances they own. To enable this, the Servify technology platform connects consumers with brands, resellers and the service ecosystem through deeper integrations. The fund raise will help in further enhancing our product, service and technology offerings.”

“We have doubled our user base recently and now manage over half a million devices on our platform. A major part of this investment will be deployed in aggressively building our product, engineering and business teams. We are also building a state-of-the-art centralized service and repair facility in Mumbai and have already received authorization from multiple brands for this. The facility is expected to go live in the first week of December,” added Pravin Jadhav, Chief Product & Growth Officer at Servify.

Karthik Reddy, Managing Partner at Blume Ventures said, "Blume was an early believer in Sreevathsa and team and is happy to be a co-lead in this round as well. With the additions of Pravin and other key team members, Servify continues to build a foundation for what will become a scalable business in device lifecycle management like we've never seen before. No one has attempted a full stack approach of purchase-to-disposal of electronics before, at this scale."

Teru Sato, Founder & Managing Partner of Beenext said, “What I value most about Servify is its great and experienced founder, their strong alliance network in the OEM & retail space, the problem they are solving with their platform approach and the kind of customer insights they are expected to generate in the process. We are very happy to partner with them in this journey.”

Started in late 2015, Servify is a Mumbai based startup that is building a device ownership platform to help users manage their post-purchase ownership experience of mobiles, personal gadgets, electronics and home appliances. The platform integrates with OEM brands, retailers, carriers and service providers to facilitate seamless after-sales service experience for customers.

Its Official, Facebook Internet Drone Aquila Is Not For India, Says Facebook India Chief

While Facebook has constantly boosted about having a special corner for its Indian users since they form the second-largest user base for the social networking site, but unfortunately this time their action isn't in coherence with their this speech. The Mark Zuckerberg led company has decided not bring its unmanned solar-powered drone, Aquila, to the Indian subcontinent.

Aimed at providing infrastructure for affordable internet connectivity in remote areas all around the world, Aquila could have made substantial difference in India's below-average internet connectivity scenario.

The social networking decision to not bring Aquila to India was recently confirmed by Facebook's India and South Asia managing director, Umang Bedi to a website.

Earlier in the month, India's Aquila dreams were fanned by an ET report which quoted Robert Pepper, Facebook’s connectivity public policy director, divulging the fact that the California-based giant was currently in the midst of talks with a number of Indian telcos for the trials of the drones.

What makes Aquila so interesting to the world is the fact that solar-powered drone's wingspan is wider than a regular Boeing 737 and is capable of staying in the air for up to a whopping 90 days at one go, delivering internet connection in remote areas where fibre connectivity hasn't completely reached yet. The drone has a potential of delivering internet in a 96.5-km radius. Unfortunately, Aquila is currently under investigation in the United States after it recently met with an accident.

Whether or not this investigation has something to do with the project being scrapped for India can only be speculated about, at this moment.

Though Aquila might not be coming to India, Facebook is still looking at a sustainable development effort in the country via one of its new initiatives called the Express Wifi. Though the project is still in early stage pilot, but the social networking giant has already started working with telcos and entrepreneurs.

Express Wifi is going to allow users to purchase internet from local data providers, and according to a leading daily, it has already successfully been offered at 125 rural Wifi hotspots as part of the pilot. As soon as the pilot materialises, we can expect more details on the project.

According to Bedi, not only is India Facebook’s second-largest market, but it is also “the most strategic market” for the company.

Facebook's Express Wifi initiative comes after Facebook’s Free Basics was banned by India's Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) earlier this year for violating the principles of net neutrality. Free Basics pitched to provide some of the websites such as its own absolutely free of cost. But, with the Express Wifi initiative, Facebook will be adhering to all the rules and regulations of the land.

According to Bedi, Facebook's vision for India is to remain a "loved and trusted brand.”

[Top Image: rark.in]

Indore Based Fitness Discovery Platform Froyofit Raises Pre-Series A Funding

Indore based Fitness discovery platform Froyofit has raised an undisclosed amount of pre series A funding in a round led by Dr. Pooja Gandhi who is an Indian actress and producer and works mainly in Kannada and Tamil cinema and has two filmfare awards to her name. Pooja will also be the face of Froyofit in South Indian market.

Froyofit is a fitness app available on android and iOS platforms and caters mainly to the tier-2 market of fitness enthusiasts.

Founded in late 2015 by IIM Alumnus Piyush Jain, Froyofit has more than 15 fitness categories on the app including but not limited to Gym, yoga, aerobics, dance, karate, pilates, swimming etc. In terms of numbers, the platform has more than 500 vendors on board across 5 cities of India including Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad, Jaipur and Indore. The fresh funds will be used for expansion to other tier-2 markets and fuel the growth in acquiring more users.

“This capital will give us additional resources to expand strategically into new markets, innovate rapidly, and deliver on our vision to make fitness discovery easy and accessible to everyone” said Piyush Jain, Founder of Froyofit. The response to the concept of fitness discovery is really overwhelming in tier-2 markets and we consider it as an achievement that in over 8 months we have a loyal fan base of more than 30,000 followers across the social media channels, says Pallavi Jain who heads the overall digital strategy of the company.

Speaking on investing in Froyofit, Dr. Pooja Gandhi says: “Coming from an industry where fitness is very important, I feel that the overall awareness about keeping the mind and body fit is rapidly increasing these days and with that the need to discover the right options becomes primary. Froyofit is a team of passionate people trying to make great discovery experience available to their users with the use of technology and they are well positioned to expand to tier-2 markets where the competition is virtually nil.”

The app features an extremely user-friendly interface, inviting users to avail services from a comprehensive range of fitness categories. A user can book free trials of all the available options and can book it through the app as per convenience.

The best part is the reviews section of the app which just like Flipkart helps you decide if you want to book a particular fitness centre or not says Amit Sharma, one of the customers of Froyofit.

Commenting on the association of Pooja as an investor and brand ambassador of Froyofit in South India, Piyush Jain, says, “We are glad to have Pooja Gandhi who has recently received Doctorate for excellence in Cinema as the face of the company in South India and feel that her guidance will be an asset for the company.”

Other startups operating in this space include Fitternity, Gympik, BYG, etc. In June this year, Bangalore-based fitness startup BYG (BookYourGame) raised funding led by Sanjay Verma (former CEO, Cushman & Wakefield, Asia Pacific) and Amit Khanna ( managing partner, Antuit-Europe) via LetsVenture.

Event Tech Startup Hubilo Raises Angel Funding from a Group of Investors

Hubilo, a Gujarat-based tech startup operational in the Event Technology space, that provides integrated end to end online solutions for event organisers has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a group of investors including Girish Mathrubootham, the Founder of Freshdesk. Hubilo serves as a single platform that makes events dynamically interactive and empowers event organizers to create, promote, manage and analyze a number of events effortlessly. Hubilo automates Event Website, HTML Emailers, White Label Event App, Ticketing and Networking Platform in 20 minutes which otherwise takes months for an event organiser to develop.

This round of angel investment in Hubilo has been made by a group of investors which include VC Karthic, Miten Mehta, Umasankar Nistala, Rakesh Patel, Akash Bhavsar, Jeevanandhan Rajagopal, Vikas Chadha, Ameet Rughani, Samad Makani, Avinash Raheja and Ashish Nanda, apart from Girish Mathrubootham.

Hubilo, founded in 2015 was incubated at iCreate with a Seed Fund of INR 15 lakh and had received a Scale up Grant of INR 8.9 lakh from the Government of Gujarat. With a user-friendly interface, Hubilo as an online convergence platform, integrates and customises a seamless technology solution for every event organiser.

Vaibhav Jain, Co-Founder & CEO of Hubilo said, “Organising an event is a tedious task wherein a multitude of activities are needed to be closely coordinated at all levels and can involve innumerable vendors as currently, more than 80% processes are done manually. We at Hubilo aim to automate this entire process of online management of events – taking over the mundane task that the organizers will be doing manually and allowing the software to do it in an easier and much more efficient way. With a strong team and vision in focus, we target to build the largest community of the event goers by powering all the major events held across the globe.”

With a take on the investment front, V C Karthik, Founder at Buzzworks said, “Along with an innovative technology and good market opportunity, the quality, commitment and integrity of the founders and the team was one of the factors that struck the chord right with all the investors. What fuelled our interest to invest in Hubilo was the growth momentum and we were able to see the growth of the company in terms of the product, traction and team at large, during the fundraising phase itself.”

Further talking about the product, Miten Mehta, Silicon Valley Angel Investor and Board Member said,“Hubilo’s AI driven deep learning application is equivalent of LinkedIn + Whatsapp – rolled in to one platform for event specific professional connections and engagement that leads to business opportunities like no other that I have seen or used in market today. I’m excited to work along with Vaibhav and team as strategic investor and board member to scale Hubilo growth and build value over next three years.”

The Asian market size for the Event Tech industry accounts for $60 billion market and is growing at a significant rate of 38 % since 2006. Thus, newly raised funding will primarily be used for expansion to new markets and technology upgradation as a part of company’s future plans.

Other startups operating in this segment are Explara, MeraEvents and Bookmyshow among others.

Curofy to Join Third Google Launchpad Accelerator Programme

Curofy, a verified doctor-networking platform has been shortlisted to participate in the third batch of Google Launchpad Accelerator programme to be held at Google Headquarters in California, USA.

The equity-free programme will begin on January 30, 2017.During each class, over 20 Google teams will provide comprehensive mentoring to late-stage app startups. The three-month programme starts with an all-expenses-paid two-week boot camp at Google headquarters.

The two-week boot camp will start with determining challenges the startups face, providing mentorship and solutions along with Google resources that enable their products/apps to scale.

Apart from Curofy, the six other startups shortlisted from India includes Flyrobe, HashLearn, Rentmojo, KaptureCRM, Happy Adda Studios and Playment.  24 other startups will also join the programme from Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Commenting on this opportunity, Pawan Gupta, co-founder, Curofy said, "Google Accelerator provides a great opportunity for Indian startups to be mentored in best product and engineering practices followed in Silicon Valley. The learning and exposure from the accelerator will prepare Curofy's product for its growth beyond India".

Launchpad Accelerator is Google’s premier program for startups developing technical products on Google platforms. The heart of the program is technical training and strategic mentorship, helping developers succeed.

For detailed list of the selected startups Click Here

Zoro.im- An App Like Skype, Viber and WhatsApp; Only Better

Communication is an art which can break or make a product/service and in today's age of technology, communication has acquired even more importance. Releasing the space that communication technologies have acquired and will be acquiring in the coming years, Jimmy Padia founded Bhavnagar-based startup zoro.im.

An all-in-one app for businesses as well individuals, zoro.im promises to deliver the best unified communication and collaboration experience. All this in addition to the calling and international roaming features that the app provides.

As mentioned above, zoro.im is available in two variants:

Zoro.im for individuals

• Free Sign-up from web or mobile device


• Chat or video call with your friends, family


• Call any where in world and pay as you go


• Roam free with zoro.im

Zoro.im for businesses

• Setup enterprise pbx in less than minutes


• Free sign-up for upto 10 users


• Complete unified communication and enterprise collaboration platform


• Works behind firewall or blockages

In order to make the app standout from its competitors like Skype For Business, Dialpad etc., the founder of zoro.im has consciously focused on architecting an app for mobile first users. Developed with next generation communication technologies, zoro.im for businesses is extremely easy to setup and use when compared to Skype for business. Further, the international calling feature offered by the app is also significantly cheaper when compared to its Skype counterpart. In addition to this, zoro.im also offers its users with integration with document management system feature, something which is yet not available in Skype. Zoro.im also offers it users with a low bandwidth option for audio and video calling.

While like zoro.im, other companies are also offering cloud based communication platform (pbx), but their mobile apps are very basic in design and interface and only offer calling features. On the other hand, zoro.im offers feature-rich apps, chat, app to app calling, RCS and collaboration.

One can Login or sign-up to zoro.im from multiple devices at the same time. It offers a truly all-platform support and works in Web browser, Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, Mac.



In order to make sure that the app doesn't end up taking a lot of space in its user's phones, Jimmy has kept the app feather-light. The app takes only 15 MB of a user's mobile memory as compared to 100+ MB of skype. Further, while the technical architecture of Skype ends up gobbling a lot of CPU and network resources, zoro.im consumes less battery and CPU.

The app, which was launched in September this year, has managed to attract more than 400 downloads till date, a number which is quite decent.

The startup, which hasn't received any funding as of now, is currently doing beta testing of the app. It is interacting with 5 partners with combined capacity of 100,000+ enterprise users.

[caption id="attachment_111396" align="aligncenter" width="700"]                                                                       Jimmy Padia at THE INDIA IT SHOW 2016[/caption]

According to Jimmy, who has a versatile experience of over a decade spanning more than 20 countries and 5 continents, having made a significant impact in fortune 100 companies, the startup aims to have a global presence as their solution caters to an international/global market. Jimmy is quite hopeful that being a part of Barclays Techstar accelerator program will help them build their reach, reputation, and better their services to a global quality level.

Jimmy is an engineering graduate from one of the oldest Engineering colleges of Asia and ranked amongst top 10 colleges in India, V.J.T.I. Ex-General Electric IT Project leader with experience in delivering complex IT projects involving multiple Technologies and cross-location team. Being part of GE's elite IT leadership program, Jimmy has got opportunities to work across several top technology platforms. He is also a trained black belt in Lean and a Six Sigma and certified Green Belt in Six Sigma. He is also the CEO and Founder of JPC Technologies.

[Top Image: zoro.im]