Top Startup Funding This Week [26-31 December]

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.

TA Associates Invests $25.5M in Shilpa Medicare

Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company Shilpa Medicare LTD has raised Rs 172.425 crore ($25.5 million) from US-based private equity investor TA Associates Management Lp. TA Associates’ director Naresh Patwari will join the company’s board as an additional director, the firm said.

On-Demand Delivery Startup ShadowFax Raises $10M

Hyperlocal logistics startup Shadowfax Technologies Pvt. Ltd has raised $10 million (Rs 68 crore) in Series B funding led by existing investor Eight Roads Ventures, an investment arm of Fidelity International Ltd. The investment will help Shadowfax build its network, consolidate its market position and stabilise performance in existing cities, Eight Roads said in a statement.

Nandan Nilekani Invests $5M More in 10i Commerce

Bengaluru-based ecommerce startup 10i Commerce Services has raised $5 million in funding from Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani. With the latest investment, the former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has so far invested about $10 million in 10i Commerce in several tranches.

Dekkho Raises $1.2M in Seed Funding; Set to Disrupt the Video Streaming Space

Dekkho, a new-age streaming platform, has raised $1.2 million from seven marquee angel investors in one of the largest seed funding rounds in India. The company offers a viewing experience that is uncluttered and curated, has high-quality content sourced from leading content providers from India and abroad, consumes less internet bandwidth, offline viewing facility, offers exclusive access to new content, and – above all – is free. Established in March 2016, Dekkho is the brainchild of Tanay Desai and Vinay Pillai.

Fitness App HealthifyMe Receives An Additional Funding of $1 Million

Bengaluru-based health/fitness app, HealthifyMe today hit 1 million downloads on Google PlayStore. With a rating of 4.3/5, HealthifyMe is ahead of all the other apps in this space. Adding to this success, the app has also received an additional $1 million (INR 6.7 crores) in funding from Dubai based investor Neelesh Bhatnagar whose company NB Ventures has been actively investing in Indian startups.

InstantPay Bags Rs 34 Cr Funding

Delhi-based digital payments and financial services company InstantPay has raised Pre-Series A funding from Singapore-based investors RB Investments and Kaleden Holdings. The funding, which is part of a pre series A round, will be used for the development of new products and geographical expansion across the country. A part of the funding will be used to build the brand and for marketing.

Omnichannel Book Renting Platform JustBooks Gets Funding From CoCreate Ventures

Omnichannel book renting platform, JustBooks has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from investment firm CoCreate Ventures that has set up a Rs 15 crore ($2.2 million) fund to help startups pivot or turn around.
JustBooks plans to deploy the raised funds towards revamping its digital presence, developing its technology for better customer management and loyalty programmes, and bringing more human resources to manage the brand and introduce new categories in books.

Online Event Booking Platform BookEventz.com Raises Pre-Series A Funding

BookEventZ, an online Event-Booking platform, raises an undisclosed amount in a successful Pre-Series A round from Lead Angels, Mumbai Angels and Letsventure. Existing investors also participated in this round. Key investors of this round include Girish Mathrubootham (Co-Founder Freshdesk), Anbu Pandian (‎CEO PanZeea Solutions) and Ishan Singh (Director Recapital Ventures) who led previous angel round as well.

Top Image Via: ShutterStock

10 Hottest Gurgaon Startups To Watch in 2017

The millennium city, Gurgaon which went through a much infamous name change this year to Gurugram, saw its already hip startup scene reaching new heights in 2016. While a lot of new startups entered the scene with their out-of-the box, innovative ideas, the already existing ones also made sure that they kept themselves relevant by reinventing themselves and launching new products/ideas.

Here are the Top 10 Gurgaon Startups which made a name for themselves this year:

InOne -- Artificial intelligence/E-Commerce

Founders: Ankit Sharma, Aashish Gupta, Rahul Gupta

Founded by IIM Bangalore graduates, InOne (fomerly Yana AI) is a chat based transaction engine fully powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Whether one wants to get groceries delivered to their house, hail a cab or want contacts for businesses, services around their household, all one has to do is simply message or speak to InOne. Even if you don't want to order anything, you can normally chat with Yana and unwind after a long tiring day. The app compares across multiple vendors to get its users the best price and quality.

The platform's AI engine is 100 percent automated with no human being getting involved to reply if a certain query of a user doesn’t goes through. The AI engine makes use of machine learning technology, including neural networks and natural language processing in order to make sure that users get exactly what they are asking.

Fitso -- Artificial Intelligence/Fitness

Founders: Saurabh Aggarwal, Naman Sharma and Rahool Sureka

Founded by three IIT-Delhi alumni, FITSO is a social platform that enables people with similar interests of fitness, to connect with each other, participate in various fitness activities happening around them, compete with each other to win assured exciting prizes, hire professional coaches and much more.

Founded in August, 2015, Fitso was in news in January this year for being successful in raising a whopping $2,00,000 in angel round, from Varun Khurana, Ex CTO, Grofers; Samar Singla, CEO, Jugnoo and Vinay Bansal, CFO, Wildcraft. It is important to note that the startup had raised funds in just three months of its operations.

Staqu -- Artificial Intelligence/Fashion Data

Founders: Atul Rai, Anurag Saini, Chetan Rexwal, Pankaj Sharma

Staqu Technologies Pvt. Ltd is an artificial intelligence (AI) focused startup meticulously working on an automated image understanding technology that could cater automation utilising the image-related big data, since 70% of the content on internet right now is images.

The startup's products include Fashin, an Artificial intelligence powered fashion discovery app that consists of visual search, automated meta tags based filters, fashion extraction from videos, amazing deals and discounts and real time price comparison; and Vistoso, a camera filter app that that lets users create paintings from their daily snaps using deep learning and artificial intelligence and then buy merchandise with users' artwork on it.

The startup was in news this year for raising an undisclosed amount of funding from Indian Angel Network (IAN). The funding round was led by Bikky Khosla, Neeraj Singal and Ajay Gupta on behalf of IAN. The startup plans to utilise the funds in building its technology and strengthening its team. In August, the startup once again made waves for entering into a research partnership with Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Delhi to boost its research in the field of artificial intelligence and deep learning

GAMOOZ -- Augmented Reality

Founder: Gaurav Wadhwa

GAMOOZ is a software startup committed towards getting India acquired with the amazing world of Augmented Reality. The GAMOOZ app is an an Interactive Books Platform based on Augmented Reality, which lets children scan the pages in a book to reveal hidden content, which helps them in learning more from the book, in a much more fun and interactive way. The platform allows Book Publishers to add more fun and interactivity to their books so that the students get interested in reading them.

The platform supports a Millions of Interactive Books. A user just needs to download GAMOOZ app, and then he/she can interact with any of the GAMOOZ powered books. Whenever a user scans a page, the app immediately provides for video, audio and animated content relevant to that chapter using mixed reality.

Prokure -- Internet Retail

Founder: Dhilbar Roshan, Shubham Agrawal

Claiming to be future of retail, Prokure is looking to organise the unorganized retail using the internet. It is a online wholesale marketplace where retailers can discover and purchase goods directly from the manufacturers or large suppliers.

Nearly 92% of the retail in India happens in unorganized sector and this sector is highly fragmented and non-transparent. The supply chain in the unorganized retail is broken leading to high cost of goods sold, high cost of supply chain, limited product discovery, and limited product availability etc.

Prokure's technology solution is an effort to fix this broken supply chain. By making use of the Prokure app, retailers in every category can discover and order all the products in that category. The startup connects the retailers directly to the manufacturers and wholesalers, which ends up eliminating a lot of middle layers in the supply chain leading to significant price reduction. The deliveries are fulfilled by third party.

EduRev -- Ed-Tech

Founder: Kunaal Satija & Hardik Dhamija

EduRev, which is an abbreviation for Education Revolution, is a ed-tech startup that started its pilot operations in March 2015 and officially launched its portal in May this year. The team started with operations in Chandigarh, and has now expanded to New Delhi, Pune and Haryana.

EduRev is an educational network that connects students and teachers with courses and learning material, based on a crowd-sourced library. Over 40,000 students who have joined the EduRev network platform which contains over 100 courses and more than 70,000 documents, videos and tests. The startup also sells efficiency and management platforms to institutions and teachers to help them digitize their classrooms.

In addition to its portal's official launch, the startup was in the news this year for raising an undisclosed amount of funding in a Pre-Series A round from Pradeep Reddy Kamasan, who is part of Hyderabad Angels group.

RedCarpetUp

Founders: Sandeep Srinivasa, Kartik Venkataraman and Abhay Tamaria

[caption id="attachment_112566" align="aligncenter" width="700"] RedCarpetUp Founders - Kartik, Sandeep and Abhay [/caption]

RedCarpetUp lends to customers to finance their online purchases - eCommerce, groceries, travel, etc. In India, credit and finance companies are able to service less than 3% of the customer base because there is no data, no widespread credit bureaus to profile and score customers. RedCarpetUp claims to have an access to much more data which it puts to use to service customers who never had any access to credit before.

In order to avail RedCarpetUp's services, all one has to do is download the app and chat with them about their requirement. The user is then asked to upload their verification documents in order to get their credit limit. Once this is done, the user has to communicate his/her order on chat and confirm their contract by phone. After this, the user will get their order in a few business days.

Unlaze -- Personal Networking

Nihar Manwatkar

Unlaze is a personal networking app that enables like-minded people, living nearby, to connect over common interests and hobbies. In order to use the app, the users will have to sign up using Facebook, choose the activities they like and press search to look for people with similar interests in activities in their nearby area of up to a 15 km radius. Users can send a request to people whom they find interesting, get connected and start conversing on the app. The app has allows users to unlaze with others over 9 activities – Jogging, Gossip/Chatting, Cycling, Yoga, , Eating Out, Music, Dance, Travel, and Shopping. Currently, the app is only available for Android users.

The startup was in the news this year for raising an undisclosed amount of seed funding led by Dino Morea, a famous Bollywood Fitness Icon & Entrepreneur and Sujal Shah, CXO of MissMalini Media.

Magicpin -- Hyperlocal Discovery App

Founder: Brij Bhushan and Anshoo Sharma

[caption id="attachment_112568" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Magicpin Team[/caption]

Magicpin is a Hyperlocal discovery platform that allows users to search restaurants and events, and interact with merchants in their local area. It also provides its users with real-time promotions, loyalty programmes and content updates. It is currently operational in Delhi-NCR, Jaipur and Bangalore.

The startup was in the news this year for raising $3 million in a Series A round of funding from Lightspeed India.

ParkZap -- Electronic Ticketing

Pranay Sharma

Owning a vehicle in India means always having to spend 10-15 minutes finding a safe, secure and nearby location to park whenever we head out of our homes. ParkZap enables electronic ticketing and collection of parking and highway toll fares by using image-recognition and smartphones etc. The startup aims to zap away the parking troubles of Indians by providing them an online way to locate nearest parking sites to their location with an added convenience of making online cash-less payments. The startup is a part of first batch of Intel India Maker Lab.

[Top-Most Image Via - Shutterstock]

Meanwhile, India Has Its First Laser Technology-Based Check-Post

Friday witnessed Gujarat Chief Minister, Vijay Rupani inaugurating India’s very first laser technology-based advanced Automatic Vehicle Monitoring System(AVMS) equipped interstate RTO check post at Shamlaji of Aravalli district near Gujarat-Rajasthan border.

Carrying a heavy cost of Rs 4.72 crore, the check-post comes equipped with advanced ray technology. It's state-of-the-art automatic system is capable of checking overloaded vehicles and fining them.

Along with the check post project, Chief Minister Rupani also laid the foundation stones of a number of other developmental works in the tribal area of Aravalli district worth a whopping Rs. 30 crore.



All of the 16 check posts across the state of Gujarat will be now made modern and automatic at a cost of Rs 35 crore during next year. The Gujarat government will be putting this income to use for the overall welfare of poor, deprived and last-person of the state.

According to Rupani, the new AVMS RTO check post come well-equipped with laser technology and advanced tools for making the entire process transparent and eliminating the influence of middlemen and mafias at the check posts.

"We have fulfilled our commitment to provide transparent, sensitive, decisive and progressive government to the people," said Rupani at the inauguration.

The inauguration event also saw Rupani using the platform to brief people about all the steps that this government has taken so far for the overall development of poor and tribal people of the state. He also stressed that his government is looking to implement a stricter ban on hookah bars and liquor prohibition to keep the youth of the nation away from the evil of bad habits.

The event, which saw Commissioner of Transportation Department and Secretary In-charge to Aravalli District RM Jadav giving a welcome speech, also saw Principal Secretary to Transportation Department Vipul Mitra making the people gathered aware about all the benefits that vehicle owners would have because of AVMS RTO check-post.

[Images Courtesy: DeshGujarat]

Venture Catalysts Invests $3M in 15 Startups This Year

Numbers, it is said, do not lie. And if the latest numbers are anything to go by, then Venture Catalysts, India’s leading & fastest growing seed investment and innovation platform, has well and truly established itself as a frontrunner in the country’s early stage investment landscape. The platform has facilitated investments to the tune of $3 million in 15 start-ups nationally over the past one year, underlining its commitment to providing support to the country’s start-up landscape.

What is more impressive, however, is the creation of a more interconnected, holistic start-up community across the country – comprising entrepreneurs, investors, enablers and growth facilitators – that has been undertaken by VCats.By launching two regional offices in the cities of Surat and Raipur in addition to its offices in Mumbai and Delhi/NCR, the platform has become the first angel network to mobilise start-ups and investors in emerging tier-2 and tier-3 markets.This focus on nurturing entrepreneurship across geographies has also assisted VCats in emerging as the country’s largest angel network community within just 12 months of its operations and having more than 2000 investors associated with it.

Speaking on the announcement, Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder, Venture Catalysts, said, “Venture Catalysts was established with one goal in mind – to provide adequate infrastructural and financial support to the country’s growing start-up landscape. Our performance in our 1st year of launch in 2016 is a proof of our commitment to the vision of making India the start-up hub of the world and of nurturing globally successful Indian ventures from the ground up. We will look forward to building on our impressive success in the future, and venture into 8-10 more cities in 2017.”

The ticket size of the investments enabled by VCats, the diversity in the expertise of its investee start-ups, and their operational scale is also quite extraordinary. The platform facilitated seed funding in the region of $100,000 to $0.5 million into promising early-stage and mid-stage ventures across a range of high-growth sectors such as e-commerce, fintech, artificial intelligence, and logistics etc. This made VCats the first angel network to have such a diverse portfolio of investee companies to its name.

“The need of the hour, for the Indian start-up ecosystem is not just more investors, but more ‘smart’ investors. It needs greater involvement from industry experts, established businessmen and HNIs as investors and mentors in order to guide the growth journey of the emerging wave of entrepreneurs and to equip them with the knowledge and resources that are needed to succeed. VCats, with its focus on creating a holistic start-up support ecosystem, has been doing just that, facilitating investments into some very promising ventures and industry segments. We are confident that our investee start-ups are well-positioned for success, not just in India, but on a global scale,” added Dr. Ranjan.

Having received more than 3,000 startup applications in the last 12 months from around India, Venture Catalysts has well and truly established itself as a premier start-up enablement platform which assists upcoming ventures with investment, business networking, co-working, mentoring and technological expertise. The platform has strategic partnerships with leading global and national players in order to create a high-quality, end-to-end support and investment ecosystem in India.

Govt. To Provide Greater Tax Relief To Startups

Modi government has been a huge supporter and promoter of the Indian Startup industry ever since it came to power at the centre in the year 2014. Keeping in tandem with its this ideology, the government is currently considering a proposal to raise the tax holiday for startups from the current three years period.

According to reports, with this, the government aims to boost an eco-system for budding entrepreneurs and job seekers in the country. A confirmed announcement about the same can be expected to be made during the budget session next year.

While the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has recommended to increase the three years tax holiday to a seven-year tax holiday, the finance ministry may agree upon providing a breather of four-five years on profits made by the startups in the country.

Finance Act, 2016 dictates that startups in India are eligible for an income tax exemption for a period of three years in a block of five years, if they get incorporated between April 1, 2016 and March 31, 2019. In order to avail the benefits, startups are required to obtain a eligibility certificate from the inter-ministerial board of the DIPP.

Since a majority of startups hardly make any profits in their initial years, with a certain percentage even failing to survive, Nirmala Sitharaman, India's commerce and industry minister has been pitching for a greater tax support to startups for a long time now. She believes that the Indian Startup industry not only has a potential to just create entrepreneurs but also generate massive jobs, something which the country desperately needs right now.

Several startups had also pleaded her to persuade the finance ministry to increase the tax holiday period earlier this year in a meeting.

Recent trends have shown that even e-commerce biggies like Amazon, Flipkart, Urban Ladder and Paytm have faced huge losses. This further underlines the need to support startups for a longer period than the current three years period.

A latest report by Kotak Institutional Equities highlights that the losses of 14 e-commerce companies — including travel portals, e-retailers, furniture sellers, food ordering and delivery players — jumped an annual 138% to Rs 10,670 crore in the financial year 2015-16, courtesy increased employee costs and advertising spending.

India is considered as the youngest startup nation in the world with 72% of the startup founders less than 35 years of age. The country houses approximately 4,750 startups, the highest after the US and the UK.

The starting of the year saw PM Modi unveiling a package of incentives to boost startups in the country by offering them a tax holiday and an inspector raj-free regime for three years, and capital gains tax exemption. He also announced SIDBI managed 'fund of funds’ of Rs. 10,000 crore. The fund will invest in Sebi-registered Alternative Investment Funds which, in turn, will be investing in startups.

Amazon.in Officially Introduces Global Program ‘Amazon Launchpad’ to Support Indian Startups

Amazon.in has officially announced the launch of its much anticipated global program – Amazon Launchpad in India. This program will make it easy for Indian Startups to launch, market, and distribute their products to millions of Amazon customers across India and around the world through a dedicated store.

Amazon Launchpad has tied up with various partners operating in the ecosystem, such as DIPP’s Start Up India initiative and will offer Startups a streamlined on-boarding experience, access to custom product pages with unique content, marketing support to aid product discovery, and access to Amazon’s global customer base & fulfilment network, all geared toward helping Startups scale up their businesses and successfully launch their innovative products. With this unique program, Indian Startups can overcome many of the challenges associated with launching new products.

The new Amazon Launchpad store on Amazon.in features over 400 innovative products ranging from Wearable Technology, Smart Homes, Food & Beverage, Health monitoring, Educational Toys & more. Even before its launch, over 25 Indian Startups have already joined the program and are looking forward to leverage Amazon’s marketplace expertise and infrastructure to create awareness and drive sale. Featured Indian Startups include Witworks, Leaf Wearables, Ducere Technologies, Seventh Sense Technologies among others.

Amit Agarwal, VP and Country Head, Amazon India said, “Amazon has always encouraged and supported innovation. By bringing Amazon Launchpad to India, we are excited to support the Government’s ‘Start-up India’ initiative and encourage innovation from the Indian start-up community. India has great minds which invent amazing products and we will support their growth by helping customers discover their new products not just in India but other countries around the world. We hope that Amazon Launchpad has a positive impact on the economy by further promoting ‘Make in India, adding further impetus to the current interest in Indian Startups and also creating additional employment opportunities.”

Commenting of the launch, Jason Feldman, Director Global Innovations, Amazon said, “Amazon Launchpad is an exceptional opportunity for Indian Startups to get access to big consumer markets nationally and internationally. Through this program small entrepreneurs and innovators can go leverage the Amazon platform to increase the scale of their businesses and even get easy access to global markets. With Launchpad, we hope to augment the innovation culture in the Indian youth and help build the India story”.

Globally, Amazon Launchpad works with more than 100 venture capital firms, crowd-funding services, and accelerators/incubators. In India, Amazon.in has partnered with Startup India, NASSCOM 10,000 Startups and Indian Angel Network (IAN), amongst others, to help identify and enrol Startups from their network/portfolio. Amazon.in has also roped in a few strategic partners such as NITI Aayog, Government of Maharashtra, Government of Telangana and TiE. Any startup that is interested in participating in Amazon Launchpad can apply online through the application page. If a startup is not supported by the current partner network, the application shall be evaluated by Amazon.in for the startup’s fitment to the program.

Startups interested in joining Amazon Launchpad may come from any part of the country. They need to have a promising, unique and ready-to-ship product compliant with Amazon policies in order to get listed on the store. Launchpad products and Startup Application Form that can be accessed on www.amazon.in/launchpad.

“NASSCOM is very excited to support and partner with the Amazon Launchpad program in India – the timing couldn’t have been better- the  nascent but promising Indian hardware/IoT product ecosystem can now fully leverage the firepower of Amazon’s distribution and marketing capabilities,” says Dr. R. Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM.

According to Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary DIPP, Government of India “In line with the Hon’ble PM’s vision, the government is keen to promote Startups in India to bolster entrepreneurship and innovation. We want to build a conducive environment so that robust and innovative Startups mushroom from India. India has so much of talent and energy, and the opportunity to support Startups is such a fantastic one. We welcome Amazon’s new program, Amazon Launchpad which complements the vision of our Startup India initiative which is to nurture innovation and Startups for sustainable economic growth and large scale job creation. We expect Amazon’s Launchpad program to greatly boost the morale of young entrepreneurs and make them successful.”

Companies that are part of Amazon Launchpad will receive the following benefits:

• Brand Development: Custom product pages in the new Amazon Launchpad store showcase unique content that helps bring a startup’s brand and products to life through photography and video. A dedicated Q&A section allows founders a chance to tell their story and connect with customers in a more personal and engaging way.


• Customer Reach: Amazon’s most powerful marketing tools – including on-site merchandise placements, personalized recommendations, external program PR, and access to advertising – give products added visibility.


• World-class Fulfilment: Startups also enjoy access to Amazon India’s fulfilment network and fast, unlimited shipping with Amazon Prime, along with exceptional customer service.


• Global Expansion: When Startups are ready to reach customers outside India, Amazon Launchpad can help them expand globally to nine Amazon marketplaces around the world.

“The biggest roadblock for a hardware startup is not product development but finding early adopters for its product. Amazon Launchpad is just the right platform to find them. We can expect this to be a game changer for India's hardware startup ecosystem” - Paras Batra, Director Sales & Marketing, Leaf Wearables

“Amazon Launchpad is a great enabler for commercializing hardware innovations. Startups get to showcase cool new gadgets and get to retail quicker. Perfect channel to take our portfolio startups from 'Build to Scale' ” - Avinash Kaushik, Founder & Director, Revvx Hardware Accelerator

All Consumers on www.amazon.in and the Amazon mobile shopping app have an easy and convenient access to 95 million products across hundreds of categories. They benefit from a safe and secure ordering experience, convenient electronic payments, Cash on Delivery, Amazon’s 24x7 customer service support, and a globally recognized and comprehensive 100% purchase protection provided by Amazon’s A-to-Z Guarantee. They can also enjoy Amazon.in’s guaranteed next-day, two day delivery, Sunday and Morning delivery on products fulfilled by Amazon.

FICCI Launches "Travel Tech Launchpad" For Travel Startups in India

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), one of the largest and oldest apex business organizations in India, has always promoted the strengthening of travel and tourism ecosystem in India, and has in fact been a front leader in the cause. The organisation understands that with changing times, technology has come into playing a pivotal role in the evolution of travel business. And now, as a part of its mandate to increase the country's digital drive in the travel and tourism industry, FICCI, has unveiled its maiden initiative "Travel Tech Launchpad" focused at travel startups.

Travel Tech Launchpad will act as a platform that will encourage travel startups to strive for growth and innovation during the second edition of FICCI's flagship event titled “Digital Travel, Hospitality and Innovation Summit," which is scheduled to be held on March 22-23 next year in India's capital, New Delhi.

"FICCI is launching The Travel Tech Launch pad with an objective to encourage entrepreneurship and technology innovation in the field of Travel & Hospitality" said Rahul Chakravarty, Director and Head - Tourism, FICCI in a statement.

Travel Tech Launchpad 2017 is being organized by FICCI in association with Agnitio Consulting LLP, Nucleus Partners, TravHQ Media and Charson Advisory.



FICCI's Digital Travel, Hospitality and Innovation Summit will provide travel startups in the country an opportunity to learn about the industry right from the industry experts. In addition to this, they will also get to exhibit their business ideas, and display their products and services. The summit can prove to be a great chance for travel startups and entrepreneurs to connect with the right set of ecosystem partners. The summit is expected to see a number of travel startups, hospitality and technology companies from across India and abroad gather under one roof. The summit will also see the presence of some of the leading startup investors like Inventus Capital, Kae Capital, Sequoia, and several other angel/venture capital firms.

The Indian Travel and tourism sector still has a huge unexplored potential. Though it has been on a steady growth path for quite some years now, still the industry needs to keep exploring new technologies and innovations in order to be at par with its foreign contemporaries.

According to data from IBEF, the travel and tourism sector’s direct contribution to India's GDP is expected to grow by a whopping 7.2% per annum during the ten years period from 2015 to 2025. The tourism sector saw investments worth $42.9bn in the year 2015. This is expected to reach $132.9bn by the year 2025.

Omnichannel Book Renting Platform JustBooks Gets Funding From CoCreate Ventures

Omnichannel book renting platform, JustBooks has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from investment firm CoCreate Ventures that has set up a Rs 15 crore ($2.2 million) fund to help startups pivot or turn around.

JustBooks plans to deploy the raised funds towards revamping its digital presence, developing its technology for better customer management and loyalty programmes, and bringing more human resources to manage the brand and introduce new categories in books. Previously, JustBooks was part of Bengaluru-based services firm Strata Retail & Technology Services Pvt Ltd.

As per the terms of the deal, the newly-formed company, JustBooks Solutions Pvt Ltd has acquired the business and brand JustBooks from Strata Technology Services through an asset sale. Strata was running the omnichannel book renting service with over 1 million books and with a presence across 13 cities. CoCreate Ventures assisted JustBooks Solutions in the acquisition.

“With over a million books in our omni channel network and immense consumer loyalty, we are now looking to scale in terms of new channels and products to enhance this experience,” said Sridhar Rajaram, chief executive of JustBooks.

Co-founded by TeliBrahma founder Suresh Narasimha and former partner at Ojas Ventures Pavan Krishnamurthy, CoCreate Ventures typically invests Rs 1 crore and focuses on companies that are undergoing or need transitions such as a pivot to capture the market. It is looking for opportunities around health, education, fintech, and retail.

Other online portals for used books in the market include  Pen and Parchment (P&P), Bibliofreaks, Noida-based Second Hand Books India and SellBuyBook. In August this year, Amazon India also launched a ‘Used Books’ store category.

Image Source: ShutterStock

Two Ex-Executives of RockeTalk Launches 'VOIZD' - A World’s First Audio Based Anonymous Social Networking App

It's 2016, and it's no secret that the world has become a place where no one can voice their opinions without being judged or trolled by people holding different point of views. Whether its politics, a social subject or any other topic; you just can't escape the wrath of the people having different ideologies than yours. This is the very reason that many of us prefer keeping quite or just distance ourselves from expressing ourselves altogether.

This is the very dilemma that Sameer Agarwal, co-founder, VOIZD, faced during the 2013 general elections and post elections phase, which prompted him to start working on a mobile app called Voice Without Fear. A part of parent company Voizd Inc., Voice Without Fear, is an anonymous mobile app which gives everyone and anyone a platform to freely express their opinions and thought in their own voice without the fear of getting judged, labeled or trolled.

The USP of the app is that the users get to share their views/opinions anonymously and in voice without the entire persistent real name trapping of other networks. A user can upload a 30-second anonymous (optional) audio clips to express their thoughts.



The app, which is being touted as a network of real people expressing their real thoughts, makes sure that their users' identity remains fully protected, so that they can be 100% themselves without having to filter their opinions according to society rules. Users get a non-judgemental platform to divulge their deepest of secrets to an unknown audience, and respond to each others secret confessions or questions. The app, which was beta launched in Sep 2016, comes with content discovery based on trending topics, emotions, proximity, and relevant topics.

It was during the much-hyped 2013 general elections and post elections phase that Sameer realised that openly expressing his view points about the elections was inviting him death threats and troll attacks. At first, he thought it was a one off thing and would boil down in a few days. But, he soon realised that our country has become intolerant towards opinions and thoughts which are divergent from mainstream.

While this particular incident did motivate him to start working on the app on paper, what really pushed him to bring it from paper to reality was a conversation he had with a close acquaintance. During his conversation, he realised that almost all the traditional social spaces that are live today are owned by English speaking Audience and people who are not very comfortable with English or written form get hard end of the stick. This is why he decided to have Audio/ Voice based expression as the mainstay of the App, so that everyone gets to speak their mind. In addition to giving everyone an opportunity to speak, what voice also does is, it keeps the essence, emotion, tonality of the person's opinion/view fully intact, which leads to a deeper connect between the poster and the listener.

About the Founders

Sameer Agarwal, Founder, VOIZD, holds a MBA in Internal Business and Marketing, and has a 10 year experience in entrepreneurship. He was most awarded winner in Mobile Marketing in the earlier venture (2013-14). Some of his professional accomplishments include acquiring 20-million users for RockeTalk as it’s CMO, with a hyper-lean budget and achieving a $ 2million revenue as Ad Sales Revenue Head within 16 months. He also has coss function experience in Mobile Tech, Marketing and Sales

Pooja Daswani, Co-Founder, VOIZD, is a specialist in Campaign and Audience Management with a 6 year experience in Mobile Social Media and a 3 year experience in Design and User Experiences.

Journey till now...

The VOIZD beta app, which was only exposed to just 100 people in mid Sep this year, has now organically grown to over 2000 users. It is now doing over five thousand posts and over one lac public conversations, from topics ranging from Relationships, Gender issues, Fashion and Abuse. According to their trends, 70 % of their current users are women and are highly vocal.

VOIZD is currently bootstrapped by the founders, though the team is meticulously working towards growing the network further and is looking for funding.

One of the best things about Voice Without Fear app, is that it is completely sign up hassle free. This means, all one has to do is download the app and start expressing themselves and get the true taste of freedom of speech.

Nurturey Launches “Smartest Personal Assistant for Parents”

Headquartered in London, UK and established in April 2014, Nurturey allows parents to manage their lives around kids by leveraging technologies such as AI and data sciences through its product on Android and IOS.

The app acts as a smart personal assistant that guides parents all throughout their parental journey. A multi skilled (Knowledgeable, Self driven, Alert and Caring) Personal Assistant, Nurturey is the only comprehensive platform that seamlessly supports parents from pregnancy through to early years of parenting. Once parents sign up, the PA uses variety of digital productivity tools relevant to the age, gender, personality, interests or other aspects of their kids. The PA integrates information to automatically build meaningful memories and helps share tasks among the family members.

According to Tushar Srivastava, Founder & CEO, Nurturey, “Modern day parents are overwhelmed with the amount of information and resources available. Parents are perpetually anxious about knowing and doing the right thing at the right time. Nurturey’s AI driven PA is designed to take the anxiety away by automatically organizing information, track growth using benchmarks and connects parents to the relevant information/ resources – basically, proactively performing much of the parenting tasks.”

At the moment, the app is best suited to parents who have conceived and/ or have kids up to 5 years of age; however this will extend to up to 8 years soon. Some examples of the tasks includes scheduling immunization, tracking milestones and physical growth, identifying best advice on eating habits and physiologists tips etc. for the growing kid and a learning parent.

Nurturey has already received 2 rounds of funding amounting $350K from Angels based in the UK and EU. The company is expanding in India, UK and the US; and has plans to cover other markets.

IvyCamp Expands Presence to Silicon Valley, California

IvyCamp, India’s unified technology-based platform that leverages the Global Alumni Network to help entrepreneurs announced their international expansion plans to Silicon Valley. The company is in the process of onboarding marquee Angel investors, Early stage funds and Mentors from the Valley that are actively looking to work with early stage Indian Startups.

The Silicon Valley chapter of IvyCamp will undertake initiatives to support Indian startups with planned development, guidance in venture creation and provide access to global networking and capital. In addition, it will attempt to create platforms for stakeholders from the private sector, large corporations and innovation agencies that have been collaborating and investing in the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Vishal Gauri, Co-Founder IvyCap Ventures Advisors Pvt. Ltd will lead the Silicon Valley operations. Commenting on the announcement, Vishal said, " I think the ecosystem in the Valley is the most vibrant in the world and the Indian Startup ecosystem will benefit greatly from the expertise that the mentors and investors from the Valley will bring in. Startups in India are working on ideas that have a global scale and we see a large opportunity here for them to expand and collaborate in Silicon Valley".

Dr. Anju Gupta, President of IvyCamp remarked, "We already have a number of Alumni from Silicon Valley on our platform that engage with our Indian Startups. This move will expand the support we can provide our Indian Startups also support the growing interest from Alumni in that region."

IvyCamp operates a unique model where it leverages its robust alumni network around the world to assist startups and entrepreneurs in India. This can be in the form of mentorship, funding and networking. IvyCamp is already working with multiple startups on its platform on this model and has assisted startups such as GrabOnRent, FTCash, IdeaBubbles and Mr Hot Foods.

FreeCharge and Food Tech Platform Faasos Tie Up for e-Wallet Payment Solution

FreeCharge, Indian digital payments platform today announced its partnership with Faasos, one of India’s leading Food on Demand business as an e-wallet payment solution provider.

FreeCharge which has presence in the Food & Beverages category through merchants like foodpanda, Zomato, Swiggy, Freshmenu, Innerchef, Domino’s, Mcdonalds, Haldiram’s, CCD, Barista will further strengthen its position through this association.

Speaking on the partnership, Sudeep Tandon, Chief Business Officer, FreeCharge said, “We are glad to have tied up with Faasos as their e-wallet partners. This gives both the partners a potential to serve each other’s customer base and opens avenues of future innovative launches for their customers. The diversified geographical reach of Faasos is only set to grow bigger and we hope the association brings in good results for both the organizations.”

Faasos serves over 15,000 daily customers across 130+ locations in 14 Indian cities - Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, New Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Ghaziabad, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Indore, Bhopal, Nagpur. It prides itself on being a one-stop catering solution to all ordering occasion i.e. from breakfast, lunch, dinner to evening tea and snacks.

“Faasos is all about unique, memorable and delightful experiences, and it is only possible when each aspect of ordering is made seamless. Post demonetization, we witnessed a 60% spike in online payments which now contribute to over 80% of transactions. It was very critical to integrate more online payment players on our platform to further boost smooth payment experience for our customers. FreeCharge came in as an obvious, and an important choice amongst wallets. We see a lot of value in this partnership which we believe will be symbiotic. While on one hand it will give our user base an added payment option, on the other it will give FreeCharge users a gastronomic experience on India's largest Food platform,” said SagarKochhar, Head of Marketing, FAASOS.

FreeCharge users ordering on Faasos can also avail a limited period Cashback offer of flat Rs. 75 off while placing orders on their app/website for a minimum of Rs. 75.

Online Event Booking Platform BookEventz.com Raises Pre-Series A Funding

BookEventZ, an online Event-Booking platform, raises an undisclosed amount in a successful Pre-Series A round from Lead Angels, Mumbai Angels and Letsventure. Existing investors also participated in this round.

Key investors of this round include Girish Mathrubootham (Co-Founder Freshdesk), Anbu Pandian (‎CEO PanZeea Solutions) and Ishan Singh (Director Recapital Ventures) who led previous angel round as well.

BookEventZ has served more than 73,000 event enquiries, booked over 5000 events with GMV crossing INR 50Cr. The website aims to make the booking process an easier, smarter and quicker experience for the people by showing them virtual tour of the venues, giving availability and getting them best rates.

Currently, booking over 250 events monthly, BookEventZ has good business from various types of events such as Weddings, Corporate Parties, Conferences, Social Get-togethers etc.

“With this round of funding we are looking to reach 1500 event bookings monthly giving business worth INR 15 Cr to our Vendors. We will soon have online event management tools for our users to design invites, get RSVP and manage vendors. Also users will soon be able to book all vendors (photographers, decorators & artists) at standard prices from website," said Shriti Chhajed, Founder BookEventZ.

“Co-founders Shriti and Harsh have shown that they can stay the course and have executed on the plan so far. They continue to leverage technology and innovative ways to strengthen their positioning as a technology partner for venues. I am happy to continue on their board and support their growth. This is a real business that solves a pain point and uses technology to automate processes,” said investor Ishan Singh, Director Recapital Ventures.

L’Oréal Invests an Undisclosed Amount in a Partech Ventures’ Fund

L’Oréal has announced a strategic investment in the early stage fund Partech International Venture VII managed by Partech Ventures, an international venture capitalist firm headquartered in Paris, France, with offices in Berlin and San Francisco. This investment complements L’Oréal’s comprehensive strategy to connect to the world’s hottest startup scenes and the opportunity to participate in the financing of promising early stage digital businesses.

With its focus on tech and digital champions, Partech Ventures will help L’Oréal tap into innovations and services that can transform people’s relationship to beauty through prediction and personalization tools, artificial intelligence, marketplaces and new services.

“Our unique relationship with Partech Ventures will give us access to a high quality and comprehensive sourcing of the best B2B and B2C digital players and contribute to the Group’s global strategy of Open Innovation. It will create value across the board for our brand and marketing teams and will connect us to new ideas and partners to better engage and serve our consumers,” said Lubomira Rochet, Chief Digital Officer for L’Oréal.

“We are very proud to work with L’Oréal, global leader of the beauty industry, as one of our strategic partners,” said Philippe Collombel, co-Managing Partner of Partech Ventures. “L’Oréal has been amongst the first groups to understand the full potential of digital transformation, and to integrate new tech partners and tools within its offer and organization. This partnership embodies Partech Ventures’ international DNA and will enable win-win business opportunities for L'Oréal and our portfolio companies.”

L’Oréal’s investment in a Partech Ventures fund follows the Group’s investment in the Founders Factory, a digital accelerator and incubator, announced last May. These partnerships will deepen and support L’Oréal’s broader digital innovation strategy which also includes L’Oréal’s Research and Innovation Technology Incubator located in San Francisco that has spearheaded a number of game changing digital services.

Image : Lubomira Rochet, Chief Digital Officer for L’Oréal

10 Most Innovative Bangalore Based Startups in 2016

India's very own 'Silicon Valley,' Bangalore had an amazing 2016. The year saw many new startups with innovative, out of the box ideas capturing the Indian startup scene. Here's Indianweb2.com giving you a load down on all the Bangalore Startups that caught the world's eye this year.

Graviky Labs

Carbon Capturing | Founders- Anirudh Sharma

Graviky Labs is one of the few carbon capturing startups in the world and only such startup in India. It is taking stock of the growing pollution situation in the country by creating paint and ink from pollution itself. The startup has built a contraption that gets connected to the exhaust on the tail pipe of a vehicle, and once it is done collecting the raw carbon, the soot, it take it through a purification process which successfully converts that air pollution into printing ink. The same procedure can be done using chimneys or boats to collect effluence and then convert that into ink.

The startup has entered into a partnership with Tiger Beer, the famous Heineken Asia Pacific-owned alcohol brand, and had already made 150 litres of Tiger Air Ink from air pollution by September this year. The startup has also made a breakthrough device that can traps pollutants exiting a car's exhaust pipe which is then re-purposed and made into ink.[Read More]

Signzy

(L-R) Ankur, Ankit and Arpit | Pic Via - punemirror.indiatimes.com/

FinTech | Founders -- Ankit Ratan, Ankur Pandey, Arpit Ratan

Signzy makes use of a unique combination of Artificial Intelligence and advanced cryptography to provide a digital on-boarding solution for banks, NBFCs and several other financial institutions. The startup aims to make digital regulatory processes secure, simpler and more compliant than ever.

The year 2016 has been an extremely successful one for the startup as it has won several laurels and awards. This year, the startup has won the Payment System Innovation Contest 2016 IDRBT competition, which was sponsored by RBI. It also became one of the 400 startups recognized by DIPP. In addition to this, the startup was 3rd among Indian fintech players using technologies such as AI and blockchain (2016) in IBM SmartCamp, Top 30 among global fintech players at Silicon Valleys largest fintech accelerator (2016), and Top 25 among USISTEF entries selected for Empowering Citizens Category(2016).

Bempu Health

IoT/Healthcare | Founders - Ratul Narain

The Bangalore-based medical device social enterprise has been successful in garnering applause from all over the world for setting on a mission to make hypothermic newborn deaths a thing of the past, especially in India, by inventing Bempu, a continuous temperature monitoring bracelet combined with an inbuilt thermometer. The device ensures that a premature and low birth-weight newborn maintains a healthy temperature.

The startup made India proud this year by being the only Indian company to be selected among 12 global innovators who will be receiving millions in funding from Saving Lives at Birth partnership, which started in the year 2011 and includes US Agency for International Development, the Government of Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, U.K’s Department for International Development, Grand Challenges Canada, and the Korea International Cooperation Agency. [Read More]

FluxGen Engineering Technologies

Renewables & Environment | Founders: Ganesh Shankar, Dr. Gopala Krishna Murthy, C N Thimmapiah, Vinod Prabhu

The startup aims to develop IoT based products for sustainable technologies with a special focus on rural development. The startup's flagship product, "Energy and Water Manager" (EWM) makes use of energy and water micro-grids. It employees Internet of Things (IOT) to solve the prevailing problems that are present in Indian micro-grids.

The startup's vision is to push towards technologies that are associated with renewable energy systems so that energy by renewable energy become economically viable as well as the engineering wisely reliable. The startup's founders are alumni of Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Management and Indian Institute of Science. FluxGen’s customers include Indian Railways, Robert Bosch and Titan.

MUSEinc

Medical Device | Founders- Arvind Badrinarayanan, Sumukh Mysore

The two-year-old medical device startup aims to produce advanced, affordable and customizable devices for a variety of needs. It has made a name for itself by developing Taal, a low-cost, highly functional digital stethoscope, that aims to improve the quality of diagnosis, and reduce the time that is currently required to measure cardiovascular parameters among many other possible applications. The device consists of a circular hardware device, that is paired with a smartphone app and can function across species from cats to humans.

Though Taal isn’t the first digital stethoscope, what makes it different from others is the fact that MUSEinc team has inserted a processor that enables automation of the calculation of the heart rate and recording of other sounds from within the body. [Read More]

Creo

Smartphone | Founders- Sai Srinivas, Shubham Malhotra, Rachit Rastogi

(L-R) - Shubham Malhotra, Rachit Rastogi andSai Srinivas -- Co-founders of Creo,

Ever since smartphones came into our lives, nothing much has actually changed in them. All the smartphones, irrespective of the brands and configurations, are almost the same. Indian smartphone startup Creo understands this problem and promises to offer something new and different everyday when it comes to Android phones.

The startup's flagship product, Mark 1 comes with frequent updates to the phone’s Android skin that are so unique that the smartphone users will be "getting a new phone every month."

Creo's aim is to build an OS with features that no other Smartphone has ever had, and which they can easily get licensed to the international hardware manufacturers. After launching and finding a base in the Indian market, they will work on expanding to Southeast Asia. [Read More]

Cooey Technologies

IoT Health | Founders- Manu Madhusudan

An end to end health monitoring IOT platform, Cooey aims to collect (device), store, analyze and provide insights of the vital signs of patients. It connects a user with various health services and provides them personalized services according to their health state.

The startup was in news this year for launching India’s first IOT glucometer that wirelessly syncs data with a smartphone. The small, pocket-sized device is portable, can connect to a smartphone using the 3.5mm headphone jack and transfers readings automatically into the Cooey mobile application. [Read More]

OmiX Labs

Biotech | Founders: Sudeshna Adak, Abhinanda Sarkar

Infectious diseases make up for nearly 50% of disease burden in India and more than 50% people in this percentage belong to people at the bottom of the pyramid and are children below the age 5. Delay in diagnosis and treatment leads to increased risk of complications, higher morbidity and mortality and increased treatment costs to patients. This is where OmiX Labs comes into action. It is a technology platform that allows cost-effective DNA testing for early diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases.

The startup, which is in its nascent stage, aims to bring substantial advancements in the field of molecular diagnosis and provide access to lower income groups, who mostly do not have an access to laboratories.

Cardiac Design Labs

Medical Devices | Founders -- Anand Madanagopal, Ajax Thomas, Praveen L Murthy, Mosin Badkar

Cardiac Design Labs is a start-up company engaged in the design and development of, state-of-the-art, next generation medical products. The company has built a medical diagnostic device -- MIRCaM, that combines communications and heart monitoring technology and is designed for use in rugged rural conditions. Through the device, the patient can be monitored from home by doctors. The cardiologist will be able to remotely interact and diagnose the patient using his cell phone.

The device priced at one-sixth the cost of other comparable devices can identify Arrhythmia and coronary heart diseases. The device is an important invention in a country like India where 35.9% deaths occurs due to heart diseases.

Preksh Innovations

Augmented Reality | Founders -- Kodandarama M A, Sathvik Muralidhar, Saikat Sinha, Sharath Chandrashekar

Founded in the year 2015, the Augmented Reality solutions company provides omni-channel solution for consumers to seamlessly interact with a brick and mortar store offline as well as online at their own convenience.

The startup came into the limelight this year for its last year's achievement of launching World’s first patented augmented Reality solution for retail and filing two patents for same. The technology solution provided by the startup can be rendered on AR gadgets to allows consumers to shop from stores while sitting at home, and provides an experience similar to the way one shops in offline stores. [Read More]

[Top-most Image via - Shutterstock]

Top 5 Internet Of Things Trends Of 2016

The year 2016 saw the world of Internet of Things (IoT) finally realising its true potential and coming in the forefront. Merging the physical world with the digital world, the IoT industry has started on its path to glory and going at a great rate.

Here are the top 5 IoT trends of this year.

1) Drones become a part of our World

While drones have been in our sight for quite sometime now, their commercial use has been on a halt due to some regulatory barriers. But this year saw these barriers easing up to a certain extent, paving the way for these commercial small unmanned aircraft to soon deliver a whopping wealth of data.

The year finally witnessed drones taking off to deliver new data and innovative business models. The new FAA regulations released in August in regards to low-altitude operation of commercial small unmanned aircraft, unlocking the way for new data and business models founded on the base of this new data.

From this year, Farmers Insurance has started testing the usage of drones for detecting wildfire hazards and sensors to detect motor vehicle damage. These actions are a part of the company's corporate imperative to acknowledge and embrace the world's emerging technologies so that they're able to solve the claims of their representatives faster than ever.

Even Travelers started making use of drones to take live photos and videos of any property damage, thus providing the data to claims agents' devices in real-time and doing away with the way the agents used to climb the roofs themselves.

2) Say hello to a new world, courtesy IoT

This year the world saw IoT entering almost every sphere of our lives. While fitness monitors and connected cars are well-known IoT devices, this year the Internet of Things also entered into retail, utilities and municipalities etc.

IoT and Electricity generation

GE Power, the New York Power Authority, is making use of sensors and predictive analytics for the purpose of reducing unplanned downtime and making 16 generating facilities.

IoT and Retail

IoT has also revolutionised the entire retail sector by linking the physical and digital worlds together in an ecosystem of smartphones, stores, computers, wearables, vehicles and more.

IoT can transform the Cities into Smart Cities

Governments all around the world have acknowledged the great role that IoT can play in transforming cities into smart cities, thus transforming the municipal life altogether. Public safety, water management, environment, transportation and energy conservation are some of the verticals that are being seen as potential beneficiaries of the Internet of Things revolution.

IoT and Food

By making use of low-power wireless sensors and putting gateways to monitor walk-in refrigerators and freezers, Chick-fil-A has turned its focus to the 'Internet of Chicken' for the purpose of improving food safety. Whenever the temperature is below a certain threshold, the system automatically issues warnings.

IoT and Air Travel

IoT technologies are now being deployed by airport operators, airlines, airplane manufacturers and other aviation and travel industry suppliers for the purposes of increasing the experience of airline travellers, as well as improve the safety, performance and maintenance of the planes. For example, the Miami International Airport introduced a mobile app called MIA Airport Official this year so as to provide detailed information to passengers based on their location and needs.

3) IoT and Digital Transformation

Internet of things and digital transformation go hand-in-hand. The data from devices, and the analytics to crunch the derived data, is paving the way for a complete digital transformation of the enterprise.

While connecting the devices is the first step in an IoT production, the real magic takes place when analytics successfully transforms the data into business intelligence.

The General Electric is currently undergoing a drastic change because of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and digital transformation. The evolution is proving to be a great preview of things that are coming for the industrial sector.

Whirlpool is also keeping pace with the changing times and has embraced HANA software. It is also enthusiastically working with IBM on its much-hyped IoT predictive analytics platform.

Avnet, a known technology wholesaler, is currently in the midst of building an Internet of Things solution for predictive machine maintenance of machines that can pick, pack and route products around its fulfillment centers. The sensors are capable of instantly altering the employee in case of potential mechanical breakdowns.

4) Security and privacy still the biggest concerns

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, known as the Internet of Things or IoT, and has ended up giving birth to a new level of security and privacy risks.

If an urgent focus is not laid on security and privacy of IoT devices, these devices have a potential of turning into weapons of mass destruction.

5) IoT leading to changes in Staffing and Training

In order to stay relevant, tech workers will have to keep their skills updated in tandem with the changes being brought in by IoT and digital transformation. IoT is currently in the midst of an explosion, but unfortunately there aren't enough people with the right skills to manage the escalating IoT project. This unavailability of talent and skills is possibly one of biggest challenges IoT is facing right now.

Via @Cio

Brainwonders, a Dermatoglyphics Expert, Announces Expansion Plans; Targets New Cities for 2017

Brainwonders, an expert in the science of Dermatoglyphics and the only company with a patented product on Dermatoglyphics, has announced mega expansion plans for 2017. The company will expand to 250 more domestic and international cities in the coming year with increased focus on major metro regions. Brainwonders has revolutionized the concept of educational counseling through DMIT i.e. Dermatoglyphics Multiple Intelligence Test since its launch in 2011.

As of now, Brainwonders is present in 30 cities and has 92 franchisees panning major states within the country. Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Delhi were the top markets in 2016 where individuals, parents, students and professionals used Dermatoglyphics to understand their intelligence levels and adopt best ways of learning.

Manish Naidu, Founder, Brainwonders, says “Right from a young age, an ideal education needs to be holistic and should facilitate the involvement of multiple intelligence-based learning. With Brainwonders, our aim is to create wonders by identifying the skills and aptitude of infants and promoting them to perfection. Dermatoglyphics uses modern and advanced technology in determining one’s inborn strengths, weak points, knacks and the most suitable career option for the candidate. The Brainwonders DMIT software specializes in maintaining accuracy and highest levels of precision.”

Dermatoglyphics is the study of ridge patterns of the skin of the fingers, palms, toes and soles to understand one’s intelligence levels and learning style. It is a complete, auto-assessment interface that is uniquely adaptive, intuitive and responsive to any child’s unique needs and skill-sets. Brainwonders is the first and only company in Asia to have tied up with Professor Lin who holds the only U.Ṣ Patent for Dermatoglyphics Technique.

CoinTribe On-Boards Former Oxigen Wallet CTO Manish Gulati

CoinTribe, one of India’s leading online lending marketplaces, has appointed Manish Gulati as its Chief Technology Officer. An NSIT graduate with over 18 years of industry experience, Manish has served several reputed tech-driven MNCs and start-ups including Yahoo, HCL, InfoEdge and Qwikcilver. In his last assignment he was CTO at Oxigen online services where he built the engineering team from scratch and scaled it up to 100+ engineers. He was instrumental in launching widely successful Oxigen wallet and its merchant acceptance solution.

In his new role, Manish will be responsible for the development of CoinTribe’s tech strategy for its SME lending marketplace, for creating the next generation of products and services including the evolution of its Platform as a Service (PaaS) and delivery of its digital consumer experience.

Prior to Oxigen, Manish was Head of engineering at Qwikcilver. He has also worked as VP and Head of products & technology at Info Edge Ltd. and conceptualized Shiksha.com, an online classifieds education marketplace. During his stint at Yahoo in Sunnyvale and Bangalore, Manish delivered several features in the advertising, recruitment and mail products. He played a key role in driving search and big data projects.

On his appointment with CoinTribe, Manish said, “I’m delighted to become a part of CoinTribe’s extraordinary team at this crucial juncture. The innovation-driven platform has greatly simplified financial infrastructure for all of its stakeholders. Technology plays a critical role in the way consumers, industries, lenders and marketplaces interact with each other. These entities leave a lot of structured information while interacting with systems via payments systems such as PoS, wallets, etc., digital records on government and classified sites, as well as in the form of digital footprint on social media platforms.”

He added further, “Besides this, unstructured information is available in the form of scanned documents and even speech. Technology can weave these disjointed pieces of information into a thread and use data science and distributed ledger capabilities to ensure any person or entity gets loan depending on its true loan repayment ability. I’m looking forward to learning and making meaningful contributions at CoinTribe.”

At the announcement, Amit Sachdev, Co-Founder & CEO at CoinTribe said, “We are pleased to welcome an industry veteran such as Manish on board. He has joined us at a very critical point in our growth journey. He brings a unique mix of experience across Technology, Product and Entrepreneurship and his track record of conceiving and developing products speaks for itself. Manish’s technology-centric prowess will be invaluable in creating a high degree of focus, speed and innovation at CoinTribe.”

Manish has also had a successful stint as an entrepreneur. He ran an online education platform – Prism Education for 5 years. The platform provided video-based tutorials for competitive entrance exams. In addition, Manish has filed a patent in dynamic content caching.

Housing.com and Tata Housing Sign Strategic Deal to Build End to End Marketing Platform

Housing.com, Indian real estate platform and Tata Housing, a subsidiary of TATA Sons Limited have signed a multi-level strategic partnership deal as part of which Housing.com will offer a full stack solution by creating an exclusive integrated pan-India brand platform showcasing their current inventory (premium homes as well as Tata Value Homes) as well as exclusive launch of their upcoming projects. The deal is considered to be the biggest of its kind in terms of delivery and scale of services being deployed.

As part of this partnership, Housing.com will implement a wide gamut of solutions that include interactive tools like Virtual Reality, creation of exclusive content through Housing.com design studio, leveraging Housing News, IREF platforms as well as Housing.com’s events and brand platform. The partnership will also entail working jointly with Tata Housing to develop new and innovative solutions to manage the home buyer experience across online and offline channels.

This platform will offer users on Housing.com an unparalleled and seamless access to an inventory of properties across all major cities in India on a single integrated platform across premium and affordable segments. As part of this agreement, Tata Housing would also be deploying some of these solutions and technologies on their digital platforms. From Tata Housing’s perspective, the brand will get exclusive access to users of Housing.com that will augment their reach which would be further enhanced through Housing.com’s call centre and channel partners including broker ecosystem.

Speaking about the partnership, Mani Rangarajan, Chief Business Officer, Housing.com said, “Tata Housing is one of India’s most trusted names in the real estate sector and has been on the forefront of leveraging technology in the space. Technology and trust are also two of the most crucial pillars on which Housing.com was founded which makes this partnership all the more special for us. The deployment of a solution of this nature and scale is unprecedented in India and we are certain that it will change the way we buy homes. We have had a long standing association with Tata Housing and look forward to strengthening the relationship in the years to come.”

Commenting on this, Tarun Mehrotra, Head Sales and Marketing at Tata Housing said, "The way we buy homes has evolved over the last few years due to the advent of technology and the emergence of digital platform. This partnership will not only give us a much wider reach, but will also enhance the overall home buying experience for our customers. Housing.com has a very deep understanding of this space and is best suited for a strategic association of this nature. We look forward to working with them to make a substantial contribution to the real estate landscape in India.”

Image : Tarun Mehrotra, Head Sales and Marketing at Tata Housing

Cisco To Help Set Up IoT Innovation hub And Smart City In Gujarat

Following up on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dream of making the whole of India digital, the state of Gujarat has decided to accelerate its digital transformation progress. In order to make this possible, Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT), and the International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology (iCreate) have signed an MoU each with global networking giant Cisco.

The MoUs aim to establish an Internet of Things (IoT) Innovation hub with iCreate at its campus near Bavla, Ahmedabad, and deliver a smart city project in GIFT. With this, the state government aims to provide a platform for local talent and innovation.

The IoT innovation centre will enable innovative entrepreneurs and startups to build smart city and IoT-based solutions. Cisco's team of experts will collaborate with some of the most talented industry partners and startups to develop proof of concepts, rightfully narrow down the functionalities and features that would be needed for digital solutions, and it would adopt rapid prototyping method.

Already recognised all over the world as one of India's greatest manufacturing hub, the IoT innovation lab can help put Gujarat on India's technology map and speed past other states
in terms of usage of innovative technology solutions to significantly increase the efficiency and competitiveness of industries.

The two MoUs were signed in the due presence of Gujarat's Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, Gujarat's Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Bhai Patel and Dinesh Malkani, President, Cisco India and Saarc.

According to Dinesh Malkani, President, Cisco India and Saarc, Digitization and Innovation are two of the key drivers of the Indian economy, leading to growth, jobs, and long-term prosperity in the country. Commenting on the MoUs signed by his company, he said,"The announcement underlines Cisco's commitment to enable Gujarat to capitalise on digital opportunities, strengthen the vibrant innovation ecosystem in the state, enhance quality of life of citizens and accelerate the digital transformation of the state."

Being developed as the country's first greenfield smart city, the GIFT City flaunts several unique features like District Cooling solution - a first-of-its-kind utility tunnel and availability of a next-generation data centre.

GIFT and Cisco are currently exploring ways through which they can deploy several smart city applications like smart transport, smart parking, traffic analytics, public Wi-Fi, smart environmental sensors along with the City Digital Platform (CDP), Remote Expert Government Services (REGS) and smart kiosk.

NowFloats Makes Two Senior Level Appointments

NowFloats, a location-based disruptive Mobile technology backed; online and offline discovery platform which helps businesses get discovered, today announced the appointment of Mr. Rajeev Goyal as the company’s Vice President of Growth & Strategic Projects. Also appoints Mr. Mukesh Lohar as their Business Head for India and Asia Emerging Markets; where he would be chiefly responsible for creating and managing business streams for NowFloats.

Mukesh Lohar comes with 15 years of rich experience in setting up SMB and SaaS businesses, pre-sales and strategy working with multiple companies such as Knowlarity Cloud Telephony, Tata Communications Ltd. and Bharti Airtel Ltd and has several awards in his name, including the much coveted ProClub and Blue Ribbon award. He is passionate about everything that has got to do with Cloud, SaaS, mCommerce, digital and mobile marketing. He is an alumni of IILM and IIM, Lucknow GMPE dropout.

Rajeev will assume the responsibility of growing the discovery platform’s business through the use of empirical and scalable methodology. He will be also be leading the company’s Digital Desh drive. It is an initiative by NowFloats which aims to unravel exactly how the Tier 2, 3 and even 4 cities are using technology innovatively in their everyday life. This is an anti-survey of sorts because it is a quest to document the real stories behind those numbers of increasing internet users in India.

He brings with him over 17 years of experience across Digital Search Marketing, Ecommerce, Online Grocery, Payment Solutions, SME Financing, Consumer Internet and VAS in organizations across verticals, including, Vodafone, Ericsson, Videocon, Spice and Askme. He is adept at running large teams and deliver on key organizational goals such as revenue, scale and operational efficiency. During his 7 year stint with Vodafone, he led the company’s VAS Vertical (Including Internet (3G/2G Business).

Prior to joining NowFloats, Rajeev was the Group Vice President for Operations, Strategy and Go-To-Market for Askme. In this leadership role, he was primarily responsible for heading operations across business lines, incentive management across teams across business lines, managing Go-To-Market for all new launches and rollouts, providing strategic direction to the organisation in terms of geographical expansion, consolidation, rollouts, back-end efficiencies, customer Engagement and sales force management.

Speaking on the top leadership appointment, Jasminder Singh Gulati, Co-founder & CEO NowFloats, commented, “Roping in Rajeev is an important strategic decision on our part. He strongly believes in growing exponentially rather than incrementally and his role at NowFloats will evolve with time. His philosophy is that when one works in a startup environment, one’s Key Result Areas is everything that one is capable of doing, and not limited to a "role". This will define how he contributes to NowFloats in the coming times.”

“Rajeev’s experience includes handling expansions and rollouts, GTM, operations, CLM, backend, CRM, loyalty programs, call-center management, customer service, seller/merchant acquisition, merchant on-boarding, content, telco alliances, product pricing and packaging, taxonomy, quality, audits, sales management, consumer internet, VAS etc, and we will be able to viably leverage such myriad expertise at NowFloats.”

Elaborating on the roles and responsibilities of Mukesh Lohar, he added, “In addition to managing the end to end business lifecycle, Mukesh will be responsible for helping the company in strategic acquisitions and funding, creating International Business and Channel sales verticals and managing our 28 sales offices across India and other offices that we will be setting up over the coming months. Mukesh’s objectivity of sales successes keeps him achievement oriented which has won him many coveted awards in the past. We are extremely confident that his strong relationship oriented approach will go a long way in strengthening our ties with partners and customers.”

Rajeev Goyal, Vice President, Growth & Strategic Projects, NowFloats, commented, “I am extremely elated to join NowFloats. Businesses face many hurdles to get an effective digital presence, which includes investing time and effort in creating an impactful website, content freshness, updating of business relevant content in real time, online discovery, generating potential leads and subsequent conversion. This is where NowFloats comes in. The platform boasts of a magnanimous market share currently and is bullish on riding an aggressive growth gradient.”

Reiterating the conviction, Mukesh Lohar, Business Head for India and Asia Emerging Markets, NowFloats said, “I am immensely excited to be a part of this fastest growing local content discovery platform globally. The company’s digital marketing solutions for organic SEO is helping millions of enterprises solve their discovery issue and give online identity. I would definitely like to extend my expertise and experience in delivering the best of solutions to our esteemed stakeholders.”

NowFloats extensively uses Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning, NLP & big data analysis to help clients update their business website and also enables them to optimize their website for localized discovery by potential consumers.

Image : Rajeev Goyal, VP Growth & Strategic Projects, NowFloats

Dekkho Raises $1.2M in Seed Funding; Set to Disrupt the Video Streaming Space

Dekkho, a new-age streaming platform, has raised $1.2 million from seven marquee angel investors in one of the largest seed funding rounds in India. The company offers a viewing experience that is uncluttered and curated, has high-quality content sourced from leading content providers from India and abroad, consumes less internet bandwidth, offline viewing facility, offers exclusive access to new content, and – above all – is free. Established in March 2016, Dekkho is the brainchild of Tanay Desai and Vinay Pillai.

Dekkho currently has over 12,000 hours of programming, which is made available by partnering directly with top digital channels such as Sony Music, Being Indian, Zee Music, Blush, Miss Malini, Times Group, ScoopWhoop, AIB, East India Comedy and Culture Machine. Content from national and international artists such asColdplay, Beyonce, Badshah, Papon, ArjunKanungo, Micheal Jackson, Sia and Chain Smokers is also available on the platform, as is regional content in six Indian languages. By making such a diverse content catalogue available for free, Dekkho gives its users an opportunity to enjoy entertainment across the board without worrying about the costs of multiple OTT subscriptions.

Speaking on the launch, Tanay Desai, Co-founder, Dekkho, said, “Smartphones have become the first screen for new-age Indian viewers, especially when it comes to fresh entertainment. We are looking to revolutionise the way entertainment is consumed and delivered in India and create India’s first social video network, where users are closely connected to their favourite content creators. Indian consumers are far from paying for online content. We aim to create a sustainable, three-way ecosystem for content producers, advertisers, and users through a free-to-use service. We feel premium consumption will be primarily driven by three key factors – content diversity, user experience, and availability before anywhere else. Moreover, users will no longer have to find a compromise between quality and affordability with the launch of Dekkho.”

“Content producers will eventually have to rely on a third party aggregator with stronger technology expertise. With a strong focus on young Indian viewers and their entertainment requirements, Dekkho will be the perfect platform for content developers to deliver their content to their target audiences. Through our team’s extensive global OTT experience, we understand the pulse of a young Indian viewing audience. This makes us confident that we will soon become the default destination for all online video-based Indian entertainment content across Android, iOS, and web platforms,” adds Vinay Pillai, Co-founder, Dekkho.

Dekkho reaches out to 2 million social media users on a monthly basis prior to launch. It has partnerships with several premium content developers who benefit from greater discoverability, better monetisation, and cost-saving on tech investments enabled by it. Strategic partnerships with brands such as Paytm, Mobikwik, Lava, LeEco, and Micromax allow Dekkho to extend its diverse array of rich entertainment content to users in its partner ecosystems. The long-term vision is to create a video streaming culture through adaptive transcoding and subsidised data tariffs with multiple telecom service providers over the next five years.

Gurgaon Gets Its First Startup Incubation Centre

Yesterday saw the launch of the millennium city, Gurgaon's (now Gurugram) first startup incubation centre. Termed as the 'innovation campus', the centre was launched by Haryana's chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar during a Good Governance day event at the Haryana Bhawan in the capital city, Delhi.

The centre has been set up in Gurgaon's Udyog Vihar Phase-I by Haryana government's IT department in collaboration with National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom).

The centre will be contribute towards the Haryana government's pledge of creating a start-up ecosystem in the state that will enable all innovative, enthusiastic entrepreneurs with an opportunity to develop interesting concepts and businesses addressing the problems, especially in the state's rural pockets.

India is a land of youngsters with numerous innovative, out of the box ideas. While there's no shortage of ideas and talent, the one thing that the country lacks is providing an opportunity to such people to turn those ideas into reality. Such incubation centres are a great step towards providing the young entrepreneurs in the country a chance to spread their wings and make their dreams come true.

The year 2016 saw many government and private incubators seeing the light of the days in various parts of the country. Some of the states that saw the launch of new startup incubators this year include Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad.

Exfinity Venture Partners Raises Rs 300 Cr for Its Second Fund, Exfinity Technology Fund - Series II

Exfinity Venture Partners (Exfinity), a technology venture capital firm, has announced the final close of its second fund - Exfinity Technology Fund - Series II, with a corpus of Rs. 300 crores. The Fund is fully subscribed and investors include CXOs, Marquee Industrialists, Family Offices, UHNIs and Institutions.

This is Exfinity’s second fund which followed its first fund that earlier raised Rs. 125 crores. With this close, Exfinity’s total AUM across funds now stands at Rs 425 crores.

Exfinity is a deep technology venture capital fund backing B2B companies mainly in the US-India corridor. Exfinity’s investments are predominantly focused on emerging areas in technology including Cloud, Analytics, Mobility, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Cyber Security, etc.

Speaking at the final close, V. Balakrishnan, Chairman Exfinity Venture Partners LLP said, “Our fund thesis of investing in deep tech product/IP companies in the enterprise technology space resonated well with our investors. We received strong commitments from high quality marquee investors; resulting in the increase of our fund size to Rs. 300 crores from the initial planned size of Rs. 250 crores. Our deal flow is proprietary and we have strong conviction about the approach we are taking that is manifested in our fund thesis.”

Shailesh Ghorpade, Managing Partner and CIO of Exfinity Ventures opined that Exfinity has a practitioner driven approach towards its portfolio. “Exfinity works closely with the portfolio companies in bringing to bear its network and perspectives on strategy, organization design, Go-To-Market decisions, Capital raising, etc., which entrepreneurs appreciate” added Shailesh Ghorpade.

“Enterprise technology startups, by virtue of their business, require deep understanding of their domain and seasoned entrepreneurs. Over the years the US-Indo Tech corridor has been accumulating this talent pool, through various R&D hubs in India, which have emerged as ideal transition spots for B2B start-ups,” emphasized Partner & Chief Technology Officer, Mr. Chinnu Senthil Kumar.

In May 2016, Logistics management platform, Locus had raised $2.75 million in Series A funding led by Exfinity Venture Partners with participation from Blume Ventures, BeeNext and Rajesh Ranavat (MD, Fung Capital). And in September this year, Chennai-CA based artificial intelligence startup Mad Street Den Systems Pvt. Ltd secured an undisclosed amount in a Series A funding round from Sequoia Capital India and its existing investors Exfinity Venture Partners LLP and GrowX Venture Management Pvt. Ltd.