Offline Store Aggregator Jhakaas Raises 1 Cr in Seed Funding

Mumbai based Jhakaas Technologies, a technology-driven platform that “Enables local businesses” to create a presence online raised a capital of Rs 1 crore for its Mobile Application called ‘Jhakaas’ in its first quarter of business.

The investors include biggies such as Mumbai-based management consultancy firm Stelcore Management Services Pvt. Ltd; Malini Patel, Country Manager, Bloomberg Data Services Pvt. Ltd; CP Sanadhya, Director at Housing Finance Company India Shelter Finance Pvt. Ltd; and Anjani Prasad, Managing Director at Colour and Specialty Chemicals company Archroma India.

The next generation mobile app provides for the day-to-day needs of the consumer entailing services such as grocery shopping, restaurant hunting, on call cakes and sweet delivery, vegetable shopping, wine shops, ordering medicines and much more. The app includes more than 35 categories currently with over 30,000 merchants in the three metros, and expects to grow its network to more than 2 lakhs merchants in the next six months. It’s currently available in Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore and soon will be launched in other cities by end of next quarter. Within 24-hours of the launch of the Jhakaas app, the company generated more than 5000 downloads and are expecting the consumer base to soar drastically.

The application is available on both Android and iOS versions. Presently, the app is operational in two languages i.e English, Hindi and will integrate few regional languages in the coming months too.

Commenting on the occasion Bharat Mandot, Co-Founder, Jhakaas Technologies states, “Jhakaas as its name suggest will provide you the best possible options for all your daily needs. Such motivation shall help us grow as an organisation and help us innovate the app further more in line with the latest technological trends. The company will use the funds primarily to develop integrated IT solutions and enhance merchant awareness. Our aim is to focus on every kilometre that shall provide 300 shops so that both the parties receive 100% satisfaction for their daily requirements.”

Jeetendra Sanjeeva, the other Co-Founder was cited as saying, “The world is moving towards products that entail digitalization of services, cashless transactions & technology related platforms that help them save time and resources. The small & medium scale merchants, due to limited resources are unable to meet the demands of the consumer in terms of these high-end technologies. We at Jhakaas Technologies are providing them with a platform at a fixed minimal charge to list their products & services that will in turn bring business to them. Jhakaas works on a minimum maintenance and fixed reasonable charges model with merchants so as to provide affordable and profitable deals to the vendors.”

AI and IoT Attract almost Half of InsurTech Startups Funding Globally in 2016

A freshly minted Accenture Research has revealed that Artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT) now account for almost half of total investment in insurance technology (insurtech) startups all over the globe.

The report, which includes the new analysis of CB Insights data on 450 insurtech deals over the last three years, brings to attention that the combined number of deals across AI (including automation) and the IoT (including connected insurance) has increased by a whopping 79% in the year 2016. This exponential increase happened even though the two technologies represented only one-quarter (24%) of the 216 insurtech deals that took place globally last year and accounted for about 44 per cent or US$711 million of total insurtech investment — compared with just 10 per cent of global insurtech investment that took place in 2015.

The research appeared in a new Accenture report titled “The Rise of InsurTech," which was released yesterday along with Accenture’s Fintech Innovation Lab in London, which for the very first time includes a dedicated insurtech stream comprising leading industry startups.

The report written by the Irish consultancy firm notes that the insurance industry considers IoT and AI as critical technologies required for delivering increased levels of personalization and better real-world outcomes to its customers. While the AI has the capability of transforming the insurance industry from an industry that simply assesses risk based on past experience to the one that monitors risks in real-time and mitigates, or even prevents, losses for its customers. On the other hand, IoT will allow the insurance industry to provide its customers with real-time, more-personalized service, price their products with a greater precision; and boost their operational efficiency.

Despite the Brexit cloud over the UK insurance industry, the country's InsurTech industry kept swelling up a marvellous pace and doubled its investments to almost $19m (£15.2m).

Even Germany and France saw strong InsurTech investment last year. Although United States’ share of total InsurTech deals saw a 7 per cent drop from 63 to 56 per cent. However, the percentage of insurtech investment for the rest of the world (deals outside the traditional hubs) more than doubled, from 11 per cent in 2015 to 23 per cent in 2016.

According to a statement given by Julian Skan, senior managing director at Accenture’s Financial Services practice, which oversees the FinTech Innovation Lab, the expansion of InsurTech funding can be seen as a "further evidence of the growing role that new technologies are playing in shaping innovation across financial services”.

India Gets Its First 1Gbps Broadband Service in Hyderabad

ACT (Atria Convergence Technologies) Fibernet, which is the third largest ISP in the wired broadband category in India after BSNL and Airtel, debuted its 1 Gbps wired broadband internet connection for the first time in the country in Hyderabad yesterday. With this, ACT Fibernet became the first local Internet Service Provider (ISP) to launch 1 Gbps wired broadband connection in the Indian subcontinent.

The 1 gigabit internet service will be rolled out in the capital city of Telangana, which is also a major IT business hub for the country. The 1 Gbps speed being offered by ACT Fibernet is the same as being made available by Google Fiber in select United States cities, and is almost 10x the speed being currently offered to Indian consumers by most Indian ISPs.

The ISP has been meticulously working over the past one year to make the launch of 1 Gbps internet connection possible. The connection will initially be launched in Hyderabad making it India's first Giga City and will then be gradually introduced in other cities of the country.

The 1 Gbps wired broadband internet connection will cost a consumer Rs. 6,900 per month, and come along with a bandwidth cap of 1TB for uploads and downloads. Though the price looks steep at first look, it is important to note here that ACT's 100Mbps plans start at Rs. 2,000 per month with a cap of 250GB, while the annual subscriptions to streaming video services Hotstar and Netflix start at Rs. 1,200 and Rs. 6000, respectively.

By launching 1 Gbps wired broadband internet connection, ACT left India's multi-vertical giant, Reliance far behind at bringing gigabit internet to the country. When the corporation launched its 4G network in the country last year, it announced about its plans to bring 1 Gbps broadband services in 100 major Indian cities.

With an average internet speed of 4.1Mbps across the country, India is currently placed at 105th position in the global ranking for broadband speeds. But with the launch of 1 Gbps wired broadband internet connection, ACT Fibernet has made India on par with very few developed nations in case of high speed internet.

With over 1.2 million customers and an estimated turnover of about Rs 1,200 crore, ACT is the largest non-telco ISP in the country. The company is planning to expand to newer cities and customer base in the next 18 months and has allocated about Rs 1,000 crore towards capital expenditure for the same.

HCL Signs MoU with Government of Andhra Pradesh to Open IT and Training Centre in Vijayawada

Shri Nara Chandrababu Naidu, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and Mr. Shiv Nadar, Founder & Chairman, HCL & Shiv Nadar Foundation, have signed an MoU to open a state-of-the-art Global IT Development and Training Centre at Vijayawada. The ceremony was attended by senior Government officials and the leadership team of HCL.

HCL aims to hire, employ and train 5000 local residents in the region with a plan to leverage a gender equal workforce. The selected candidates will undergo a rigorous training program by industry experts on skills required for working for global customers of HCL. The centre will also work on developing innovative high-end technologies for global clients. The centre is a part of the State Government’s ambitious plan to promote holistic growth and boost IT investment within the state.

Gracing this occasion, Nara Chandrababu Naidu, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh said, “The Andhra Pradesh Government is committed to economic development and providing more opportunities to the young workforce of the State. The HCLIT and Training Centre will offer a great platform to local talent in cities like Vijayawada by providing them growth opportunities and ultimately helping contribute to our vision of becoming the bets state in the country by 2029. I would like to congratulate HCL on being a part of this important journey and investing in the upskilling and employment of the local youth”

Commenting on the occasion, Shiv Nadar, Founder & Chairman - HCL & Shiv Nadar Foundation said, “HCL has always been at the forefront of bringing new opportunities to the Indian populace. This is an innovative initiative to reach out to the local talent, refine their skills and make them future ready for IT careers. By leveraging the skilled talent pool available in the city through the HCL Global Centre we can help put Vijayawada on the global IT map. I thank the Government of Andhra Pradesh for their continued support in realizing our goals.”

The creation of Global Centre at Vijayawada is in line with HCL’s strategic vision to expand and create opportunities in non-metro cities. HCL has successfully launched similar initiatives in Lucknow and Madurai in the past and their success has further strengthened this strategic initiative, which is now expanding to Vijayawada.

HCL’s foray into these cities is driven by the availability of quality local talent and scalable infrastructure. At the same time it provides opportunities to local youth in pursuing global careers with the comfort of working from their home cities.

Entrepreneurs' Organisation India Hosts Forum on 'Customer Centricity with Digital Transformation' in Association with IBM

In a celebrity obsessed nation, everyone loves to keep track of their favourite stars. What are they upto, what are they wearing, who are they with, what movie are they shooting, what are they eating and lots more. We love to keep our B.Q (bollywood quotient) up to the minute. Keeping the love and the obsession alive, leading bollywood celebrities you love, will be launching their own mobile platforms starting April 2017. So stay tuned as India’s 1st bollywood startup is here for the stars, by the stars.

Today, Wingman Talent Management announced their tie-up with the Digital Media Company, Razr Media - a division of Razr Corp based out of Mumbai, India. Founded by Anshul Gupta and Sonu Lakhwani in 2016. The company specialises in developing proprietary digital solutions for the bollywood industry.

Wingman Talent Management manages some of Bollywood’s biggest celebrities. Unfortunately due to NDA with each celebrity, their names at this stage cannot be revealed but will follow shortly.

Known as the new age tech specialists, Razr Corp specialises in development of diverse platforms like mobile and web (OTT - Video), ticketing, trading, publishing, artist management, virtual reality production, carpooling and much more.

In phase 1, the app will launch a dedicated VR corner where fans can enjoy a plethora of content. Additionally there will be blogs, articles, videos, social media updates, images and lots more on the app. In phase 2 & 3, AI capabilities along with a dedicated personalized game followed by an app for smart TV’s. The goal is to be an independent web broadcaster with exclusive video content being churned out every week. The app will be an entry to the celebrity’s home, their journey and how they establish a personal level of connection by motivating their fans to accomplish their dreams. The platform aims at gradually extending to sportspersons, writers, leaders and social media influencers with followers more than 5 million.

Razr Corp, the parent company having developed over 20 mobile apps and over 75 platforms in the media and entertainment space. Razr has served more than 150 million consumers through its clients. The company already operates with a team of 30 members in Mumbai,India with offices in London & Luxembourg.

The company has partnered with Realabs,Luxembourg- A VR software company, Cloudwalker Technologies, Elysian Studios- A VR production house, VIDGYOR- An on-demand VOD platform,AIVA, Paris- The AI music platform, Big Trunk-Digital agency & Nextalytics- for IT consulting.

An ARM is a natural extension of the human body, similarly ARMS will be the third ARM for an artist, to achieve more, to gain full potential of their stardom. An artists digital rights are often complicated, with them owning next to none or in bits and pieces. ARMS gives them the power to be in control and build their digital asset and more importantly be in direct touch with their consumers.

With ARMS, any celebrity can own the I.P - which is the first in the industry, the platform, the rights, and most importantly - the control and monetization of the fan base around the world.

Razr Media’s A.R.M.S- A premium fan base management platform is in the form of a mobile app/tv app/ AI/VR/ 3D game connecting artists/sportsperson with their global fans and acting as an alternate revenue stream for them. Already having signed up with more than 15 top Bollywood artists with the first set of launches to begin from April 2017, Razr aims to develop & scale ARMS on a global level starting from Europe and UK where the parent company is already operational. A.R.M.S will be a revolutionary mobile product with all access and rights to celebrities who often complain of not being provided stats by their digital companies.

Brands that artists endorse, can now advertise on the artist’s platform directly to a much more engaged audience. An artist is no more an ambassador, he is the media house, distributor of his own content being at the centre of the ecosystem.

Commenting on the same, Anshul Gupta, Founder & Director Digital- Razr Corp said, “Imagine your favorite star motivating you daily to achieve your fitness goal, setting up your calendar, being like your Jarvis, we are going to bring this level of personalisation and customisation to the product. Wingman brings perfect synergies and help us accelerate the process of launching dedicated mobile apps and 360 degree platforms for some of the biggest Bollywood celebrities. With the best tech & associations we are going to provide a world-class experience and a whole new way to interact with your favorite stars.’’

Sonu Lakhwani, Founder Wingman Talent management, “My company Wingman Talent Management manages some established and many of Bollywood's emerging Talent, the future is digital & Bollywood is gladly embarking on this journey and what better than having your favorite stars regular updates at the click of a button. It was but natural for us to extend our digital operations and partner with Razr”

Take A Look at An Email A Google Recruiter Sent To A Job Candidate

Job interviews can be tough to crack, especially when it comes to the interviews of tech giants like Google and Microsoft etc. So, if you aim to apply to any of the top tier tech Companies in the near future, then this article is a must read as it will give you an idea about the whole process and how to prepare for it.

A recent blogpost published on Recruitring Blog shared an email from a Google Recruiter that explained a prospective candidate in detail about how the whole recruiting process is going to pan out and how he should prepare for it. The candidate in question here had applied for a job as a product manager (PM) at Google.

The mail is a refreshing change from the run-of-the-mill mails that the recruiting industry is known to send. The Google recruiting mail in spotlight here makes it look like that the recruiter is working for the candidate instead of the company. And if we think about it, this should actually be the case. As a recruiter, a person's job requires him to make sure that the candidate and the hiring manager a perfect fit, and through the mail, the Google recruiter made sure that this happens.

In the mail, the recruiter told the candidate in detail about what types of questions to expect and how to prepare, including suggested websites and blogs to read before showing up.

Here's the mail that we have been talking about:

Product Management Position Overview:

As an overview, our PM’s bring to fruition new products and features that genuinely benefit our users while at the same time make good business sense. They act as general managers of our products, providing leadership across functional teams to conceptualize, build and deliver Google’s next great app. PM’s find our entrepreneurial culture to be exciting and challenging, because they are never stuck maintaining an existing product, but are instead focused on developing new product ideas and strategies.

We have openings across all of our products in areas such as Consumer, Mobile, Apps, Enterprise and Infrastructure to name a few. As a brief outline, we have an agnostic interview process in which we aim to hire PM “generalists”, who may have niche experience but can easily float through our evolving product lines. We find this keeps our Product Managers fresh and with distributed, homogeneous experiences for our project teams. So, in a nutshell, we do not hire for a specific product, but rather, are seeking generalists who can work on multiple products. As such, you’ll interview with PM’s working on any number of our various products. At a later point, our leadership reviews your interests, background, and interviews to identify relevant projects that align with business need.

What to Expect

There are five components to the Google product manager (PM) interview:

• Product design Google PMs put users first. PMs are zealous about providing the best user experiences.It starts with customer empathy and always includes a passion for products, down to the smallest details. They can sketch a wireframe to convey an idea to a designer. Sample questions include:

• How would you improve Google Maps?
• How would you reduce Gmail storage size?
• How would you improve restaurant search?
• What’s favourite Google product? What do you like or not like about it?
• If you were to build the next killer feature for Google, what would it be?
• You’re part of the Google Search web spam team. How would you detect duplicate websites?

• Analytical Google PMs are fluent with numbers. They define the right metrics. They can interpret and make decisions from A/B test results. They don’t mind getting their hands dirty. Sometimes they write SQL queries; other times, they run scripts to extract data from logs. They make their point by crisply communicating their analysis. Some examples of analytical questions:
• How many queries per second does Gmail get?
• How many iPhones are sold in the US each year?
• As the PM for Google Glass ‘Enterprise Edition,’ which metrics would you track? How do you know if the product is successful?

• Cultural fit. Google PMs dream of the next moonshot idea. They lead and influence effectively They have a bias for action and get things done. If Google PMs were working anywhere else, they’d probably be CEOs of their own company. Sample questions to assess cultural fit:
• Why Google?
• Why PM?

• Technical Google PMs lead product development teams. To lead effectively, PMs must have influence and credibility with engineers. During the final round (aka onsite) interview, a senior member of the engineering team will evaluate your technical competence Be prepared for whiteboard coding questions at the onsite interview Example questions include:

• Write an algorithm that detects meeting conflicts.

• Strategy Google PMs are business leaders. As a result, they must be familiar with business issues. It’s not necessary for PMs to have business experience or formal business training. However, they do expect you to pick up business intuition and judgment quickly. Sample interview questions include:

• If you were Google’s CEO, would you be concerned about Microsoft?
• Should Google offer a StubHub competitor? That is, sell sports, concert, and theatre tickets?

Also be prepared for behavioural interview questions such as Tell me a time when you had to influence engineering to build a particular feature. Google PM interviewers are relying more on behavioural interview questions in recent months.

What Not to Expect

Brain teasers, such as logic puzzles, are rarely used in today’s Google PM interviews. Google’s HR department found a low correlation between job performance and a candidate’s ability to solve brain teasers Examples of brain teasers include:

• I roll two dice. What is the probability that the 2nd number is greater than the 1st?
• What’s 27 x 27 without using a calculator or paper?

However, hypothetical questions have not been banned at all. Hypothetical questions are imaginary situations that ARE related to the job. (This is in contrast with brain teasers, which ARE NOT related to the job.) Examples of hypothetical questions include How would you design an algorithm to source data from the USDA and display on Google nutrition?

How to Prepare

Here’s what I’d recommend to get ready for the Google PM interview:

Review tech blogs, such as Stratechery.

Product design Practice leading design discussions using a framework. (Need a framework? Try CIRCLES Method: http://qr.ae/i6kRM). Start with possible personas and detail use cases. Prioritise use cases and brainstorm solutions. Many PM candidates (wrongly) suggest solutions that are incremental or derivatives of a competitor’s feature set. The Google interviewers are evaluating your creativity, and they place a big emphasis on big ideas (aka “moonshots”). Inspire them with unique, compelling ideas. Drawing wireframes on a whiteboard will help illustrate your ideas. To practice, download a wireframing tool like Balsamiq. Also study popular web and mobile design patterns for inspiration.

Technical Coding questions are unlikely during the phone interviews. But if you are invited to an on-site interview, you must prepare for programming interviews. The technical interviewer does not expect your programming syntax to be perfect, but you should have sufficient mastery of technical concepts so that you can participate in technical discussions and help make technical trade-offs. I would recommend going over computer science fundamentals and practicing a couple coding questions One of my favourite resources is How to Ace the Software Engineering Interview Also be prepared to describe key technologies including search engines, machine learning, and MapReduce.

•Analytical Prepare for estimation questions such as How many queries per second does Gmail get? Get well-versed in product launch metrics and A/B testing, including interpretation of results.

•Strategy Use a framework to structure your strategy discussions If you’re not familiar with strategy or frameworks, Porter’s Five Forces is a good start.

•Cultural fit Understand what it means to be Googley by reading Google’s corporate philosophy. Review Google’s Android design principles. Optional readings: Google’s visual asset guidelines and Steven Levy’s 2007 (but still useful) article on the Google APM program Another optional, but more in-depth (and recent) perspective, read Steven Levy’s “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives.”

The mail surely suggests that, Google is GOOGLE for a reason.

Ecom Express Launches Coverage in 5 More States

Ecom Express Private Limited, a leading end-to-end ecommerce logistics solutions provider, today announced a major round of expansion by adding over 6000 more Pin Codes in its services and strengthening reach in the entire states of Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar and West Bengal as part of its full-state coverage programme. Ecom Express takes the total pin code coverage to more than 17000 entrenching its leadership position in the ecommerce logistics industry in terms of reach. Ecommerce companies will now have access to a broader reach of 750 million people, around 60 per cent of the total population, through existing and expanded newer geographies served by Ecom Express, thereby empowering the industry in fulfilling the burgeoning consumer demand and aspirations in the rural landscape.

As part of the spread, Ecom Express has opened over 600 Delivery Centers and 10 Hubs to cater to the large consumer base in rural and remote locations of these five states. This is in addition to the Company’s existing 1200 Delivery Centres and 30 Hubs pan-India. This unbeatable logistics coverage will not only enhance Ecom Express’ ability to serve the logistics needs of the industry, but will also drive employment generation in hinterlands.

Commenting on the announcement, T.A. Krishnan, Co-founder and CEO - Ecom Express Private Limited said, "It is extremely difficult for ecommerce companies to reach the interiors of India where demand is picking up. While it is relatively easy to cover the Metros and Tier-I cities, expanding logistics coverage to smaller towns and villages will always remain a challenge and we have been very successful in putting sustainable solutions around this. Our strategy is to rapidly increase our footprint in interior locations to drive ecommerce volume growth. We are looking to implement full-coverage in another five states by the end of the year taking it to a total of 17 States.”

He added, “For the past 4 years, we have been consistently and strategically expanding, building the scale, investing in infrastructure, technology and automation tools around the business in ensuring operational leverages and sustainable unit economics. As a reliable logistics partner, all that we are doing is building capabilities in offering end-to-end logistics solutions for the Industry with deeper engagement and collaboration in driving the ecosystem growth.”

Ecom Express has brought to the marketplace unique and innovative practices. One of them being the full-state coverage programme which was initiated in the year 2016 with the objective of opening doors for ecommerce in remote and rural locations of India, while offering rural consumers with greater opportunities emerging out of an e-commerce proposition. This expansion follows the earlier full-state coverage in Delhi, Haryana, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, which was completed last year.

Prior to this announcement, Ecom Express coverage extended to 90 percent of the total households in nearly 1200 towns and cities in India and currently delivers more than 200,000 orders on a daily basis. The Company is poised to service over 20,000 pin codes covering more near 3,000 towns and cities over the next 2 years.

Raimund Genes, Global CTO of Trend Micro Passes Away on March 24

It is with great sadness that Trend Micro and its 5,500 employees around the globe have learned about the death of Raimund Genes, chief technology officer for Trend Micro. Genes, aged 54, died unexpectedly of a heart attack on Friday, March 24, at his family home in Germany.

“It is with a heavy heart that I have to inform you about the incalculable loss of our dear friend and colleague Raimund Genes,” said Eva Chen, chief executive officer for Trend Micro in a note to all employees. “We are shocked and heartbroken. Raimund was an exceptional human being and a great leader. He was a confidant and friend and our heart goes out to his family.”

Raimund Genes was an integral part of Trend Micro during the last 21 years, building up the Trend Micro organization in Germany and Europe and serving as chief technology officer and an important public voice for the company.

“Trend Micro and the entire security industry have lost an exceptional visionary and a wonderful human being. Raimund’s talent, knowledge, passion and great sense of humor will be truly missed,” said Jenny and Steve Chang, co-founders of Trend Micro. “Raimund was well known in the industry for his security knowledge, and he enjoyed using vibrant examples to educate audiences about the need for cybersecurity. As an integral part of our executive team, we highly appreciated his ambition to constantly challenge himself and the organization. His drive for continuous improvement and his remarkable talent sparked the passion of security of others. He was a great mentor to so many Trend Micro employees.”



Raimund Genes gained a wealth of security expertise and experience over the course of his 30-year career. Originally a distributor for Trend Micro with his own business, he founded Trend Micro Deutschland GmbH, Trend Micro’s subsidiary in Germany in 1996. During his time at Trend Micro, Raimund held numerous senior management positions, including managing director for Trend Micro Germany, head of sales marketing and sales Europe, president of European operations and most recently global chief technology officer. Most importantly, Raimund was a loving husband and father of two sons and great friend. Trend Micro and all of its employees share with Raimund’s family and friends the immense sadness of his death.

About Trend Micro

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, helps to make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Our innovative solutions for consumers, businesses, and governments provide layered security for data centers, cloud environments, networks and endpoints. All our products work together to seamlessly share threat intelligence and provide a connected threat defense with centralized visibility and control, enabling better, faster protection. With more than 5,000 employees in over 50 countries and the world’s most advanced global threat intelligence, Trend Micro enables organizations to secure their journey to the cloud.

Startups Working in Sohpisticated Tech, Record-keeping, Augmented Reality will Be Next Unicorns, Says A VC

When we build something from ground up, we want it to be as successful as possible. So, if you're an entrepreneur currently in the midst of searching for your next big multi-billion-dollar startup idea, then you're reading the write article.

Bryan Schreier, who is currently a partner at the much famous Silicon Valley-based Venture Capital firm Sequoia Capital, recently shared his predictions for where the next unicorn startups are expected to come from. In his nine long years at Sequoia, Schreier has placed his bet on startups like Dropbox, TuneIn, and Trulia, which have now become big names in their fields. Prior to Sequoia, Schreier has worked at Morgan Stanley and tech giant Google.

1) Companies Bringing Together Sophisticated Technology With Hands-on Operations

Citing the examples of Airbnb and Uber, Schreier explains that from the consumer side, it has been made very clear that we are currently in the age where the next $50 billion market cap company will be what we call a 'hybrid' that makes use of both technology and operations from a human perspective. Schreier believes that after Snapchat, the next three or four consumer IPOs can be expected to come from these kinds of hybrid companies.

According to him, even thought technology has matured to a certain extent now and a lot of white space has gone, but this maturing technology has also created a different set of opportunities altogether. "The new large markets that haven't been tapped into yet tend to be offline markets that are now coming online, sometimes because there's finally mobile connectivity or sometimes for other reasons. Uber is an obvious example where you want to disrupt the taxi industry once all the drivers have mobile phones and the phones have GPS," said Schreier in between sessions at the Insight Summit that wrapped up earlier this month.

According to Schreier, the potential for hybrids such as Uber is much larger than for pure technology companies. He backed this statement by stating some simple figures and said, "In core tech, we get excited about $5 billion market. Uber's market is a $60 to $70 billion market. Airbnb's market is a $100 to $200 billion market." Schreier also mentions that in order for these companies to take off they need a very large human workforce that works with the technology.

2) B2B System Of Record Companies

A system of record company provides a "single source of truth," which is a term that the tech industry often uses to describe all data pertinent to a specific function being gathered and accessible in one interface. ServiceNow, a cloud-based IT help desk software; Workday, an HR and ERP company and Salesforce.com are all examples of such companies.

In addition to this, Schreier believes that there is also an opportunity for system of record companies that can lend a helping hand to their business customers in taming Big Data.
He said, "There's this plethora of data available to companies and most don't have tools to deal with it. They've got all this data coming at them, and they're wondering, 'What does it mean to me?' So you've got companies working on that."

Schreier predicts that AI and data science are the future of the tech world, with AI finally becoming accurate enough to be used by people on daily basis in their cars and homes. According to him, the company that will win the self-driving war is the one that will have the most amount of data. Unfortunately, he doubts that there's much scope there for small companies or startups as it will be very hard to compete against the Googles and Microsofts of the world that have already accumulated so much data since their birth.

3) Augmented Reality Companies

Schreier has utmost confidence in both augmented reality and virtual reality. He believes that VR is still a technology that's just about to arrive. But, he feels, startup opportunities may be limited in the field as far as hardware side is concerned because tech biggies like HTC and Samsung have grabbed most of the market share for devices.

Talking about AR, Schreier believes that the field has a lot of potential, and not just for games like Pokemon Go. He is optimistic that the technology can extensively help professionals working on car or jet engines, give people working in warehouses a better idea of their inventory and even tell construction workers what's concealed within a particular wall, among many other users. According to Schreier, "There will be a number of interesting vertical software markets to go after."

So, if you have been sitting on a great idea in any of the fields mentioned above, now is the time to put your idea into action because you never know, that might be the next multi-billion dollar idea.

[Image: Business Insider]

Meet Ruuh, A Yet Another AI Chatbot by Microsoft

Microsoft went ahead and launched yet another AI chatbot on February 7 this year, and the world didn't even notice. As described on its personal Facebook page, Microsoft's Ruuh is a desi AI which has personal interests in "chatting, Bollywood, music, humor, travel and browsing internet."

Ruuh's "About" section on its Facebook page reads:

"Hey, I'm Ruuh, a desi AI who never stops talking. Let's make #fraandship."

"Ruuh is a chatbot provided to you for entertainment purposes. She is English speaking and only available to users in India. Do not rely on her statements as advice, counselling or endorsements."

Prior to Ruuh, Microsoft had launched Tay.ai and Zo.ai in March and December last year, respectively. Tay.ai, built by the Microsoft Research and Bing teams together, aimed at 18- to 24-year-olds. The AI chatbot was taken offline shortly after its launch, following its exploitation by some Twitter users that caused it to start spouting offensive and racist comments (Read Here).

The tech giant followed Tay with Zo, a Kik messenger bot. During Zo's launch, Microsoft especially specified that the AI chatbat has all the safeguards in place to avoid the same awkward turn of events that happened in the case of Tay.ai. Some other chatbot efforts by the giant include Rinna and Xiaoice in Japan and China, respectively.

According to industry observers, Microsoft's combined AI and Research Group, which came into existence last year, is most likely the group behind a lot of the AI chatbot work that the tech giant is currently doing.

Microsoft Research has a dedicated page about a project in the Indian subcontinent that involves text messaging chatbots. According to the page, Microsoft Research has conducted Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) studies in India in order to understand what kind of chatbot personalities are most compelling to young, urban users in the country. "To explore this question, we conducted Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) studies with users that simulated interactions with a hypothetical chatbot. Participants were told that there might be a human involved in the chat, although the extent to which the human would be involved was not revealed. We synthesize the results into a set of recommendations for future chatbots."

Since Microsoft is currently on an AI push, we can expect several more AI chatbots from the company in the near future. Till then, if you're in India, you must give Ruuh a try on Facebook.

Over Rs 1 Cr Raised Online for Indian Charities by Crowdfunding Platform, LetzChange

LetzChange, an online social giving and crowdfunding platform, concluded the third edition of its annual fundraising competition, the ‘’Giving Premier League, raising a total of Rs. 1,17,66,617 for the 105 participating non-profits. The 40 day League saw non-profits from across the nation engage in fundraising in the digital space as they represented teams from seven different regions across India, with the ‘Empathetic East’ team, comprised of NGOs from West Bengal, Orissa, Assam and Bihar, emerging the winner by raising a total of Rs. 26,81,603. As a contributing grant for the winning team, LetzChange’s partner organization LetzDream Foundation matched 30% of the total amount raised by the qualifying NGOs of the Empathetic East, thereby taking their total donation value to Rs. 33,77,169. The second position in the League has been secured by the ‘Northern Knights’ team, comprised of NGOs from Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, who raised Rs. 24,58,425. LetzDream matched 25% of the amount raised by the non-profits of the Northern Knights as their prize money, raising their total donations to 30,79,023. LetzChange charges 0% fees or transactional cost to the NGOs, and therefore the entire amount raised though this fundraising challenge will be directly transferred to all the participating non-profits.

Giving trends observed at the culmination of the competition revealed that education was the most preferred philanthropic cause for donors, with 70% of the total donations or Rs. 70,05,612 raised for non-profits in the education sector. Parivaar Education Society, a Kolkata based organization working for the overall care and development of underprivileged and vulnerable children, including orphans, street children, abandoned and impoverished children from tribal areas, collected the maximum funds of Rs. 26,28,395, followed by Sant Singaji Education Society, a co-educational college with a focus on educating the rural youth, based in Madhya Pradesh, which collected Rs. 13,72,766. The Society for Development Activities, based in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, collected Rs. 11,22,133 for their flagship initiative ProjectKHEL that uses the concept of play and fun as development tools to engage with children and impart life skills education.

A region-wise comparison of fundraising efforts revealed that cumulatively, the highest donations, i.e. Rs. 30,13,186 came from the southern region of the country, comprised of funds raised from three regional teams – Chennai Changemakers (Rs.14,69,699), Bangaluru Bravehearts (Rs.13,68,642) and Telugu Titans (Rs.1,74,845). This was possible through maximum retail donations received from South India, as non-profits from the region optimised social media to expand their donor base.

Speaking about the success of the 2017 edition of the Giving Premier League, Rahul Chovva, CEO and Director of LetzChange, said, “We are overwhelmed with the response received by the Giving Premier League this year. More than 100 non-profits took part in the campaign and a nationwide network of over 6000 donors came forward to support and generously donate to the organizations of their choice. We saw healthy competition among regions whose NGOs, irrespective of size and location, were enthused to engage donors for the causes they espouse. The Eastern team, for example, which remained in the bottom rung in previous editions of the competition, performed remarkably well this year by securing the leading position in the League. Our aim, year-on-year, is to build awareness and trust for online giving, and LetzChange in particular, which helps people make online donations through an easy, trusted and user friendly interface. We will continue to on-board and support more non-profits in helping them raise donations to advance their causes. We are big believers that online social giving, if used optimally, can be a game changer for philanthropy in India.”

Vinayak Lohani, Founder, Parivaar Education Society, the winning NGO team from West Bengal, said, “It is challenging to raise donations for charity and development work in India, but thanks to the LetzChange platform, we have realised the power of social media and have learnt to use technology to showcase our work to a larger network of donors. Every year, we participate in the annual fundraising competition by LetzChange, and we are very happy to have won the fundraising challenge this year. Currently, we have around 1500 children in our residential facility, majority of them being girls. We envision adding 1000 more children in the next two years to our education society and work towards their development. The amount that we have raised through the Giving Premier League will be utilized towards build the infrastructure, purchasing inventories and improving the existing facilities at Parivaar.”

The 2017 Giving Premier League saw participation from 105 non-profits across 14 states across India. Some of the non-profits included Teach for India and IDEA Foundation from Mumbai, Sevalaya and Bhumi from Tamil Nadu, Vrutti from Karnataka, Milaan from Uttar Pradesh, and Sita Gramodyog Vikas Sansthan from Bihar, to name a select few. The League aims at removing physical barriers that stop prospective donors from contributing to society, by allowing them to use LetzChange’s trustworthy and dependable online NGO aggregator platform along with their own social networks, to raise funds for the causes they believe in.

A dedicated team at LetzChange also works closely with the participating non-profits to educate them about digital literacy, training them on the use of social media and making them self-reliant. This year, 73% of the participating non-profits used social media channels to market themselves and create online campaigns to showcase their work and expand their donor network.

Home Services Startup Frapperz Raises $100K in Seed Funding

The $100 billion home service and improvement market has a new entrant; Frapperz, a community-powered, intuitive digital platform focused on simplifying the home set up and home management processes. In this rapidly evolving era of digital convenience, the app is built by a team of ex-corporates, IIT, JU alumni and an Imperial College of London dropout to provide optimum proficiency by using extensive data and research.

Frapperz is built on a browse-talk-book principle. It lets users browse through the offerings, catalogues, design content; get advice from experts and other users and then book the right home improvement pro or package through bidding and matching platform. Through an intuitive data driven approach, Frapperz minimizes time, effort and risk factors in every home improvement work.

In the first wave the app is launched in Kolkata. It has registered 10000+ active downloads and notched up a Gross Transaction Value of $10k per month.

The startup has raised an initial funding of $100k. The angel funding round has seen participation by multiple investors led by an Australian healthcare entrepreneur and startup investor.

Frapperz tops up the expert discovery with a fulfillment partner program which supports end to end execution of home projects. Frapperz’ fulfillment promise is backed by expert project management. The philosophy is to combine smart tech and processes to create winning consumer experiences.

Frapperz offers a seamless post-booking experience with one-click tracking, notification at every step, managed payments and post delivery reviews all integrated on a single platform. With supporting features such as project supervision support, advance-protection, service warranty and refunds, Frapperz aims to take the hassle out of creating beautiful living spaces.

Frapperz is conceived by the husband-wife duo, Jyotirmay Kanthal and Rimjhim Ray, who let go of their well-settled and comfortable lives in the UK and turned entrepreneurs with a dream. The couple has been serial entrepreneurs. In 2014 they launched Unmarketeer, a creative digital firm which has worked with leading businesses and startups to improve their digital footprint. Frapperz was launched in the late half of 2016.

The cofounder couple said, “We had stayed and set up homes in various parts of the world; London, Belfast, Switzerland, Kenya, Finland to name a few. Every place has its unique set of challenges when you are trying to set up a home and settle down. But we could generally abstract the problems to a few top learnings which we have used in Frapperz.”

Frapperz aims to provide users with a comfortable, warm way of setting up and improving a home. By connecting the key pegs that user looks for during a home improvement project – ideas, advice, designs, quality products and the right professionals, Frapperz wants users to feel upbeat about their next home project. The key mantra at Frapperz is creating a happy, engaged community with happy homes.

Progress Acquires Machine Learning Company DataRPM for $30Mn

Progress, the leading provider of application development and deployment technologies, today announced it has completed the acquisition of DataRPM, a privately-held company with strong Indian roots and leader in cognitive predictive maintenance for the industrial IoT (IIoT) market, for amount of $30 million. This acquisition is a key part of the Progress strategy to provide the best platform to build and deliver cognitive-first applications.

As data continues to explode, driven by machine-generated and human-generated data, and devices and digital
touchpoints proliferate rapidly, organizations must leverage cognitive-first applications for business benefit to compete and
win.

"Progress has always provided the platform for building and deploying mission-critical business applications. The future of applications is cognitive-first, and Progress is committed to providing the best platform to build and deploy them," said Yogesh Gupta, CEO, Progress. "Our customers and partners already use many of the key product capabilities from Progress necessary for this approach- front-end application development tooling, mobility, back end application services, and data connectivity. With the acquisition of DataRPM, we now have leading predictive analytics capabilities to round out our cognitive apps platform."

DataRPM offers an award-winning cognitive predictive maintenance solution for industrial IoT. The patented platform
automates predictive modeling, leveraging proprietary Meta Learning capabilities to increase quality, accuracy and
timeliness of equipment failure predictions, leading to hundreds of millions of dollars in savings. The technology enables customers such as Jaguar, Samsung and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to predict and prevent asset failures, and increase yield and efficiencies to generate outcomes for industrial IoT.

"Predictive analytics is very important to QAD's vision of the Effective Enterprise, where we partner with our customers on a continued journey of efficiency and agility," said Tony Winter, chief technology officer, QAD. "We see the acquisition of DataRPM by Progress, and its machine learning capabilities, to align well with our vision and are excited about the opportunities this could have for our customers going forward."

DataRPM technologies bring unique differentiators to the market:

• DataRPM technology detects random and unknown failures using a combination of unsupervised and semi-supervised
  learning techniques, saving businesses hundreds of millions of dollars by preventing failures of critical
  assets and maximizing quality and efficiency.



• DataRPM solves the huge data science talent crunch by teaching machines to automate data science using a
  technique called Meta Learning, that learns from experience and feedback, saving industrial companies from having
  to invest in large armies of data scientists.


• The DataRPM platform has been proven to horizontally scale to monitor and track any number of industrial machines,
  addressing the needs of even the most demanding use cases.

"We had anticipated that Progress would need to acquire machine learning and predictive analytics functionality to deliver its Cognitive Apps strategy, and DataRPM is a logical choice," said Matt Aslett, research director, Data Platforms and Analytics, 451 Research. "The combination of application development, data connectivity, and business rules management software with machine learning and predictive analytics makes sense in terms of providing a platform that will enable ISVs and enterprises to develop operational applications that take advantage of the intelligence being generated by big data and IoT projects."

With the acquisition of DataRPM, Progress enables customers to harness previously untapped volumes of data to build
cognitive apps quickly and easily - democratizing machine learning and making it accessible to any organization. DataRPM will continue to offer its leading solution for cognitive predictive maintenance for IIoT under the Progress umbrella, supported by an increase in investment and resources. Integration of DataRPM technologies and Progress products is already underway and the updated offerings are expected to be available to early-adopter partners and customers later this year.

"Progress' strategy around cognitive applications is in perfect alignment with our vision, which is why the acquisition was the right move for us," said Sundeep Sanghavi, co-founder and CEO, DataRPM. "It will enable us to increase investment in our current cognitive predictive maintenance offering while also becoming an essential part of a ground-breaking platform for building cognitive applications across multiple markets."

Top Image - The DataRPM Team [Source]

Cloudatix And Mediaguru Launched ‘Startup Accelerator Program' and 'Internet College'

Cloudatix Biz India Ventures Pvt. Ltd, a young research startup emerging as a Smart City Solutions provider and Mediaguru, a global media services company that specializes in the entire life cycle of digital asset management services, digitization and monetization, recently launched ‘Startup Accelerator Program and Internet College’, focused on mentoring the startup companies with well-designed programs that can help them succeed in their ventures. The event was held in association with Imperial College of London and Chief Mentor and Ex. Vice Chancellor of the University of Delhi, Prof Dinesh Singh.

During the event, Mr Sanjay Sharma, MD Cloudatix explained, “the accelerator programme was conducted with the objective of catalyzing India’s nascent startup ecosystem and provides a fillip to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Digital India and Make in India initiatives. The programme will incubate 15 early-stage technology startups building innovative solutions through a three-month acceleration programme that will give them access to mentoring, co-working space, access to customers, partners and investors, and free credits on its Cloudatix’s Cloud platform. The programme includes the exchange program with world’s leading technology incubator institutes such as Imperial College of London.”

During the event Mr Sanjay Salil, MD Mediaguru said “The Indian startup ecosystem is doing incredibly well. We are third or fourth largest startup country in the world and with the whole Digital India and Smart Cities initiatives we would like to support the movement and the ecosystem in which we have thrived for so long. We firmly believe that this will help India to leapfrog to the next level.”

Talking about the skill sets of youngsters, Prof Dinesh Singh said, “the new generations of youngsters possess immense potential which only needs to be harnessed and channelized into a monetisable and successful enterprise.” During his stint at the Delhi University, he noticed that “One of the DU’s students discovered 3D printer whichwould costs around Rs.10 to 12K, otherwise it would cost you more than Rs. 50 k if purchased from the market. So we can see the kind of skill set and talent our society has. We need to nurture it with right learning platform and mentorship.”

Dr Sanjeev Singh, from Delhi University opined, “creation of a network of mentors, VCs, incubators and accelerators that is being expected to be extremely advantageous to the Indian startup ecosystem. It will enable startup communities in India and around the world to cross-pollinate ideas, innovate and create channels for knowledge transfer. It will also act as a bridge for fast-track tech companies looking to tap into India’s huge consumer market for technology, and will help startups access Cloudatix-Mediaguru flagship startup mentorship program and Imperial College’s mentor network.”

WYDR Hires Ex-Head of Operations, Pepperfry.com as Its New VP Operations

Indian mobile app based B2B E-commerce player WYDR, hires Alok Varman as their new Vice President, Operations. In the given role Alok’s principle responsibilities include ensuring further improvement of operational systems, processes and policies in support of organizations mission. In addition to that he will also offer his support for better management reporting, information flow and management, business process and organizational planning. He will be operating out of WYDR’s corporate office in Gurugram.

Prior to this, Alok worked with Pepperfry.com as Head of Operations. He played a key role in managing operating cost, improving contribution margins, planning, set up distribution network, customized solutions and dispatch management. Alok has also been associated with e-commerce giant eBay India, and thereafter, with Guthy Renker LLC and Carnation Auto India. His experience is across customer value stream from customer acquisition to customer service.

Commenting on the new development, Alok Varman, Vice President Operations, WYDR, said, “B2B purchase process tends to be rationally and logically driven as its customers look for expertise and efficiency. This matches my competency and experience. B2B ecommerce of wholesale market place is highly scalable business and this provides me an opportunity to develop the state-of-the-art frame work for smooth, cost effective, efficient transactions between manufacturers or wholesalers and retailers, and make WYDR the most reliable and robust B2B online wholesale market place”.

“Alok brings to the table a process driven approach married with inventive problem solving. His experience in handling very large shipments is highly relevant to Wydr’s need in bulk shipments. Logistics apart, Alok has a well-rounded experience in all aspects of Operations and we look forward to his contribution as we scale our business,” said Devesh Rai, Founder & CEO, Wydr while welcoming Alok.

A leader in the mobile based B2B wholesale e-commerce sphere in India, WYDR has been building a strong team since the very beginning, which has led them to achieving considerable milestones in a span of just one year. By hiring Alok Varman, they have increased their strength to streamline operations for faster growthin wholesale and retail engagement on WYDR app.

Bengaluru Based Gourmet Meat Brand Licious Gets $10M in Series B Funding

Bengaluru based leading gourmet meat brand, Licious, run by Delightful Gourmet Pvt. Ltd, announced today that it has secured $10 million in a Series B funding round led by Mayfield India, 3one4 Capital, Sistema Asia Fund and Neoplux Technology Fund. The investment is expected to boost business growth for the company and facilitate its expansion plans in other markets like Hyderabad and Delhi-NCR. In a highly commoditized space, this investment will fuel the company’s innovation efforts which have helped the brand achieve a differentiated consumer perception in a short time.

Licious, which was founded in June 2015 by Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, is a consumer brand backed by technology which is pioneering its way into reshaping the meat industry in India and structuring a highly unorganized sector by taking a major chunk of the value chain under its purview.

Built on the farm to fork model, Licious owns the entire back-end supply chain powered by stringent cold chain control in order to scientifically maintain the quality and freshness of each product that reaches the end user. This unique business model allows the company to bolster its business in a sustainable manner. The company’s plan to scale up its business has been complemented by its sharp focus on profitability. The securing of a Series B Funding, in a volatile investor environment, validates the strong fundamentals that has accelerated growth for the company since its inception in 2015.

Licious had previously raised angel funding and Series A Funding of USD 3.5 Million from 3one4 Capital and Mayfield Capital. The Series B fund, which has been garnered within two years of its existence, will be generated by the two existing investors as well two new investors. Sistema Asia, a Russia based venture fund will make its first consumer investment in India through Licious, after completing three investments in the technology space in the recent past. Neoplux Technology Fund, a South Korean Fund, is foraying into the Indian market by investing in Licious.

“We are excited to announce our Series B funding of USD 10 Million, as it comes in the wake of rapid expansion plans that we have set out for the company’s growth. Being a modern consumer brand that places high importance on the product quality and bespoke consumer led innovations in our product range, complemented by assured delivery promise, we wanted to establish a startup that revolutionizes the meat industry in India. We are extremely happy that Licious has started off in the right direction and is now the highest funded startup in the meat industry.” said Abhay Hanjura, Co-Founder at Licious.

“It is heartening to note that in an investor environment that is fraught with uncertainty, we have managed to secure some of the most reputed funding companies to put faith in our business. Our strengths lie in the fact that we work on sound business fundamentals that focus on profitability and sustainability. The Series B Fund will greatly aid us in beefing up our back-end and expanding in newer markets after strongly laying the foundation in the Bangalore market.” said Vivek Gupta, Co-Founder at Licious.

“Licious is a first mover in building a full stack meat gourmet brand in a market where demand is unconstrained (70% + non-vegetarians) and supply is largely unorganized (90%+). Company has exhibited rapid scale and customer loyalty in Bangalore in a capital efficient manner. We at Sistema Asia Fund are excited to partner with Abhay and Vivek in building a new age Pan-India gourmet brand leveraging the power of technology and internet” Dhruv Kapoor, MD, Sistema Asia Fund Advisory
“There is growing demand for branded fresh meat and meat products in India. The Licious brand, with its focus on taste, quality and hygiene, is well on its way to serve this market need. The Company is driven by product innovation and technology combined with a focus on traditional business fundamentals that has helped scale the business and build India’s first fresh meat brand. We are happy to have partnered with them and are excited about their journey ahead” said Nikhil Khattau, MD, Mayfield India.

Licious has expanded exponentially in the past two years and now possesses 11 delivery hubs and employs around 250 people across different functions in their company. The number of orders has grown from 1000 in the first month to a remarkable 50,000 orders in 2017. The assurance of quality and health has been a key feature of the company since the beginning and has translated into an 80% repeat customer rate. In order to meet the standards of freshness and quality, Licious has formulated a zero inventory model. It has built contractual arrangement with large institutional meat vendors who are trained on managing livestock and meat handling techniques. Therefore, they are able to regularly supply fresh produce to Licious by adhering to the stringent quality standards set by the sourcing team within the company.

Bitcoin is Legal Under All Existing Laws of India, Says Zebpay

Leading Indian bitcoin startup Zebpay has issued an official statement falsifying recent reports that suggested that bitcoin has been declared illegal by the Indian government.

"Nothing has changed regarding bitcoin’s legal status in India this week. In our opinion, bitcoin is not illegal. Bitcoin is legal under all existing laws. It’s business as usual at all Indian bitcoin exchanges, including Zebpay.", said an official blog post by Zebpay.

Zebpay said that certain sections of the media including a yesterday's report by The Economics Times said that bitcoin has been declared illegal and can attract anti-money laundering law.

Notably, this hoax news spread when a member of parliament (MP) raised the issue that bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. The company went on to explain that bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme, saying:

There are a few ponzi schemes which use bitcoin as the payment method. Just like Rupee is not a ponzi, neither is bitcoin. In fact for a few months now, we have been regularly warning our users to beware of such ponzi schemes on our website, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

However, last month RBI did issued a statement where it cautioned users, holders and traders of virtual currency, including Bitcoin, about the potential financial, legal and security risks arising from the usage.

According to India Today, the user base of Bitcoin in India has expanded 250 percent since November 2016, when demonetization happened.

[Top Image - Shutterstock]

Sandeep Aggarwal to Invest Rs 20 Cr in Up To 12 Startups by the End of 2017

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder – ShopClues & Droom never fails to remind his fans and followers why he’s been given the tag of ‘India’s star serial entrepreneur’. The man, whose favourite hobby seems to be identifying and encouraging the growth of innovative ideas has now announced plans of investing INR 20 Crore in 9-12 start-ups by the end of this year. Ventures in the high-potential areas of healthcare, tech and retail can look forward to the much-valued patronage and mentorship of Sandeep, also christened as the father of the marketplace model in the Indian Internet eco-system.

Sandeep Aggarwal, who has already invested in 7 start-ups across various industry verticals is looking to expand his investment portfolio by entering the data science app development arena as well. Dekoruma, Wydr, Shopsity, Data Guise, Give Club, Duriana and Curo Healthcare have all received funding during the past few months. While Wydr, Shopsity and Curo Healthcare are Indian companies, the rest mostly belong to South East Asian markets and the Silicon Valley. He has also promised to invest more in interesting business ideas coming from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities in India to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation in these areas. Sandeep invested $500K in 2016 and there is a 6x increase in investments this year.

Speaking on his investment plans, Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder, ShopClues & Droom and Angel Investor commented, “The current health and success of Droom owes a lot to the faith bestowed upon me by my early-stage investors and the funding received from them. As an early-stage entrepreneur, I often felt helpless myself at the lack of funding and mentorship during the most crucial phases of my business. I have always strived to provide young entrepreneurs the necessary resources and guidance required to let them realize their vision. This year, too, will be no different and I will ensure in my personal capacity that no great idea is nipped in the bud due to lack of capital or the right guidance.”

One of the most prolific investors and entrepreneurs in India, Sandeep Aggarwal is the founder of India’s first managed marketplace and India’s 5th Unicorn start-up, ShopClues, and the first and largest online automobile transactional marketplace Droom. His far-reaching vision can be gauged from the fact that while most Indian entrepreneurs are looking to consolidate their funds rather than investing them in other ventures, Sandeep frequently keeps investing in ideas that he finds interesting and even keeps a tab on the markets of foreign shores, as evident in his decision to invest in Dekoruma, one of the strongest home-décor platforms in Indonesia.

The serial investor has time and again stressed on the extremely important role technology plays in businesses of today and highly regards the possibilities of a tech-driven business to turn big. High-energy, passion, long-term vision, ability to take risks, the art of prioritization and austerity along with the ability to implement technology well are some of the attributes Sandeep believes to be important for entrepreneurial success.

Venture Catalysts-backed Siftr Labs Gets Acquired by China’s Fastest Growing Unicorn Apus Group

APUS Group, China’s fastest growing unicorn with over 510 million global users has acquired Venture Catalysts-backed Siftr Labs for an undisclosed amount. With the acquisition, Venture Catalysts – India’s leading and fastest growing seed investment and innovation platform – has successfully exited the photo-curation platform and has yet again proved its forte for helping budding business ventures make their mark in the highly competitive business landscape.

Romil Mittal, Co-founder and CEO, Siftr Labs, said, “Our team has always been passionate about building innovative tech products with the potential to impact and enhance people’s lives. We strive to deliver in terms of performance. Our global elevation has given us an opportunity to keep doing the same on a much larger scale and at a faster pace. We would like to thank APUS Group for identifying our potential as well as to the entire team at Venture Catalysts, without whose valuable contributions this could not have been possible.”

Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder, Venture Catalysts said, “The acquisition will help Siftr to grow vertically by tapping the extensive global experience of the premier unicorn. It has been a delightful experience to work together with Siftr and we strongly believe that the business venture will unlock new horizons within its sphere. This deal has also hinted towards continued interest of global players in building their arsenal of machine learning technologies, and has marked the beginning of sustained Chinese tech acquisitions on Indian soil.”

Mr. Vishal Maheswari, Chief Mentor Analyst, Venture Catalysts said, “From the day I’ve been associated with Siftr, I observed the high sense of enthusiasm and passion that the team has, not just for the product but for learning and challenging themselves. It is this energy and willingness to push the envelope of excellence that has helped the team find favour with the APUS Group as well. I’m certain that the acquisition will help them to take the product to the next level and fulfill its true potential.”

Founded by veterans from Adobe, Qualcomm, and Samsung with significant expertise in machine learning, image processing, and mobile development, Siftr Labs is a leading technology-driven photo-curation platform. By leveraging deep learning technology it has developed a proprietary Computer Vision Engine that can perform multiple ground-breaking tasks including object identification, facial recognition, age and gender detection, as well as perceiving photo genres with an unrivaled precision.

The platform had also developed an innovative mobile application, ‘Siftr Magic’, which enables its users to delete junk and irrelevant photos on their devices. Due to its superior market positioning, the application became viral across the globe as soon as it was rolled out. The photo-curation platform has worked together with cohorts of investors, market leaders, and domain experts at Venture Catalysts who provided it with domain-specific insights, appropriate entrepreneurial pedigree, and mentorship, something that contributed to its success and international recognition.

Having facilitated investments to the tune of $3 million in 16 start-ups nationally and overseas in the past one year, Venture Catalysts has established its position as the most active angel investment network in the country. The platform enables seed funding in the region of $100,000 to $1 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., and currently has more than 2000 investors associated with it.

Bangalore Engineers are Lowest Paid among World’s Top 20 Startup Cities

Techies get lowest annual salary in India’s leading startup hub! Yes, you read it correctly, according to the Genome Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2017, Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India is one among the top 20 startup cities but techies are lowest paid with annual salary of about $8,600 in a year.  The total amount a techie gets in this city is nearly 13 times cheaper than a techie get yearly in Silicon Valley and four times cheaper than the average salary of an Asia-pacific engineer. Whereas, at the Silicon Valley, California, a software engineer gets about $1, 12,000 average salaries yearly.  Although, the city succeeds to secure its position in the list of top 20 startup hubs across the world, but its rank dropped from the 15 to 20. The other statistics revealed by this report are also impressive including 1,800-2,300 estimated number of active tech startups. The report has considered the parameters- funding, talent, performance, startup experience, and market reach for this ranking.

Startups Are Growing Rapidly

The city has plentiful success stories! Few of them are world known for securing the largest funding amount and inspiring other high-profile investors, foreign MNCs and angel investors for investing more here.  While the report also claims that startups are bursting on daily basis because it is easier to find the right technical staff at cheap cost here. The city also has the youngest tech workers among all other startup hubs and the flood of young talent is helping to drive the startup rush. However, startups face difficulties when to find quality talent and experienced talent.

In case if you want to take a glimpse of the startup ecosystem’s demographics, check out the image shared below, it is a screenshot taken from the Startup Genome Global Startup Ecosystem Report;

Comparison with Other Startup Hubs

Out of these top 20 startup, 9 are located in North America, 6 in Europe, and 5 are based in Asia. For more information, please find a screenshot of the 2017 Global Startup Ecosystem Report.



The report also mentioned about average annual salaries in Top 20 Global Startup Ecosystems.

1. USA: $112K


2. New York: $97 K


3. London: $52K


4. Beijing: $25k


5. Boston: $95K


6. Tel Aviv: $63K


7. Berlin: $55K


8. Shanghai: $22K


9. Los Angeles: $84K


10. Seattle: $100K


11. Paris: $46K


12. Singapore: $35K


13. Austin: $82K


14. Stockholm: $55K


15. Vancouver: $55K


16. Toronto-Waterloo: $56K


17. Sydney: $64K


18. Chicago: $76K


19. Amsterdam: $45K


20. Bengaluru: $8.6K

Moreover, the city has a bright future as the startup ecosystem is growing rapidly. However, this does not sounds good that the startup hub offers lower wages to talented staff but this trend is attracting more number of MNCs and many other big players. A number of startup accelerators are established by the big giants like Cisco, Microsoft and Qualcomm etc. to strengthen the startup scene. The companies like Uber and Amazon have established their offices in the city. All in all, everything indicates that Bangalore has a very bright future as more number of startups means more number of opportunities.

For detail, you can click here

[Top Image - Shutterstock]

Web Hosting Company IBEE Hosting Opens New Office in Bengaluru

IBEE Hosting, Indian Web hosting company has recently opened its new swanky sales office in Silicon Valley location - Bengaluru, Karnataka to accommodate the growing demand of the startups and SMBs customers and leverage the area’s diverse business opportunities. The new space is located at The Executive Center Bulding, Level 7, Mfar Green Heart, Manyata Tech Park, Hebbal Outer Ring Road, Bengaluru - 560045, India.

The office is already operational now and have started getting new business opportunities. With this office, IBEE Hostings’ existing as well as new customers will receive the same high-quality services regarding consultation and server architecture counselling as they used to get from their Hyderabad's office. This move will further strengthen IBEE Hosting customers’ relationship as this office has more convenient central location for customers who already resides or operates from Manyata Tech Park. This office has increased technical capabilities that will enhance customer communications.

“We are excited about the new office space,” said Betrand Yella, Managing Director of IBEE Hosting. “The funding we’ve received from our parent company, XBT Holding helped us in starting our sales operations and boosting focused marketing activities in metro cities and have more exposure to a high-tech, connected workspace that will benefit both our existing and future customers in the Bengaluru region and beyond,” Betrand Yella added.

The company which has recently received funding of $1 million, will be using these funds for the development of sound infrastructure, product, and services. The company also will be using these funds for marketing activities of the company as well as for expanding their services into the tier 2 and tier 3 cities in India. This new office is a part of this strategic move. The company will soon be opening few more offices across India.

Edtech Startup BYJU’S Raises $30M from Verlinvest

Verlinvest, a large Belgian family-owned, consumer-focused, diversification investment holding company announced its investment in BYJU’S, India’s largest ed-tech company today. This new round will help boost BYJU’S international expansion & acquisition plans.

Creator of the largest K-12 learning app, 8 million students are learning from the BYJU’S app today. With close to 4,00,000 paid annual subscriptions till date, the newly launched version of the app has taken learning to the next level through personalized learning journeys and access to quality content and top teachers for students across classes 4-12.

Commenting on this investment, Frederic de Mevius, Chairman of the Board, Verlinvest said, “We are excited to join hands with Byju Raveendran on his inspiring journey to bring effective learning online. We believe online learning has great potential globally and the BYJU’S product addresses this with an innovative and compelling proposition. Verlinvest prides itself on being a daring investor in the consumer world and enabling entrepreneurs through inspiring journeys. Byju fits well within this vision.”

Nicholas Cator, Executive Director, Verlinvest added, “We are very happy to partner with the talented team at BYJU’S to expand in India and abroad. A 1:1 learning experience is a dream ratio, and it is very encouraging to see that an Indian company has created a product which closely addresses this need by offering engaging and personalized learning experiences enabled by technology. We have seen a lot of edtech companies, but BYJU’S offers personalized learning to an extent which we haven’t seen in any product across the globe. We look forward to supporting the management team to expand to new markets and to further build the brand.”

Byju Raveendran, Founder & CEO, BYJU’S said, “Our partnership with Verlinvest will further boost our aspiration to change the way students learn across the globe. In the last 18 months, we have witnessed exponential growth in India. While these numbers are very exciting, there is a long way to go before we can call it a revolution. The fact that we are still reaching to less than 1% of the student population, shows the immense potential and the impact we can create. In fact, our teams are continuously working towards creating learning products that will enable our efforts to make learning more accessible, engaging and personalized for students.”

From test prep classes to a world class learning app –brand BYJU’S is redefining learning by using technology as an enabler; in fact, all the products are completely made in-house. Offering personalized learning experiences based on pace and style of learning of every student through technology, BYJU’S is creating new learning experiences for students across grades. The learning app has seen a high annual renewal rate of 90%, which is a big validation of its effectiveness.

Fintech Platform Perpule Raises $650K from Kstart and Others

Kstart Capital, a Kalaari Capital initiative, has invested in Perpule. Kstart led the $650,000 round that also saw participation from Venture Highway and Raghunandan G, co- founder of TaxiForSure.

Perpule aims to provide an enjoyable queue-less experience for people wherever they go. They have started with solving the problem of queues at retail stores like HyperCITY, etc. and are doing it in 3 cities Bangalore, Mumbai & Noida. Their vision is to enhance the shopping experience of customers in-store, by making it more engaging and personal. The smartphone-based software solution can be scaled across various retail outlets and provides retailers deep insights about their customers allowing them to create personalized real-time campaigns. Perpule is founded by Abhinav Pathak, Saketh BSV, and Yogesh Ghaturle.

“Our vision is to ensure waiting in queues is a thing of the past. With improved systems, we are saving customer's time, ensuring no one ever stands in queues and thus improving the overall experience. We have started by enabling self-checkouts via our mobile app at various retail stores such as HyperCITY and are grateful to them for their support and really appreciate their commitment to customer experience. We are honored to be supported by Kstart and really happy to see them appreciate and share our vision." said Abhinav Pathak, CEO Perpule.

The founders firmly believe in this motto, which is what inspired them to start Perpule. Abhinav Pathak, a graduate from National Institute of Technology Karnataka worked at Goldman Sachs before embarking on his entrepreneurial journey. Saketh BSV, a graduate from IIT Madras had also worked at Goldman Sachs, which is where the two of them got acquainted. Yogesh Ghaturle is a final year graduate student at National Institute of Technology Karnataka.

“We are excited to support young entrepreneurs building innovative solutions like Perpule at Kstart. I am glad that we have been able to attract such visionary founders. Kstart remains committed to supporting disruptive ideas.” says Vani Kola, MD, Kalaari Capital.

“The problem of queues has been present for a long time now and shoppers will welcome a solution that is scalable across sectors and segments.

Perpule’s team seems to be on the right path and I can foresee their model adding value to its clients right from the start. There is enormous potential for their solution as more and more retailers are converting to the organized segment. The data generated by the system provides a great opportunity for analytics by deriving metrics which were unimaginable till now”, says Samir Sood, Founder, Venture Highway, which is advised by Neeraj Arora, the Global Business Head of WhatsApp.

Elon Musk’s New Startup Connects Brains With Computers

Elon Musk is a man with a vision. The South African-born Canadian-American business magnate, investor, engineer, and inventor, surprised everyone last year when he decided to collaborate with SpaceX to land humans on Mars within the next 9 years. And this year, the Tesla CEO has outdone his last year's announcement by launching a startup through which computers could merge with human brains. This means, very soon human beings will be able to upload and download their thoughts and access them whenever they want .

According to a story published in the Wall Street Journal reported, Musk's new startup has been named 'Neuralink Corp' and will be working towards developing a technology called 'Neural lace'. The technology, which is currently under development, will be able to facilitate communication between humans and machines via signals from the brain. It would require implanting tiny brain electrodes that may one day upload and download thoughts.

This means, the technology would require tiny brain electrodes to be implanted in the human brain which will help them in uploading and downloading their thoughts. The technology will lead to a higher level of functionality for the human brain.

Though there hasn't been an official announcement from Musk yet, Neuralink was registered in California as a "medical research" company last July. According to the Wall Street Journal report, Musk is planning to fund the company mostly by himself.

Reportedly, Neuralink has also started hiring leading academics in the technology field to help speed the development of the technology.

The technology, when developed, can prove to be beneficial in many fields. Its brain implants could be used in the treatment of a number of disorders like major depression and epilepsy etc.

Let's see when Musk's decides to make an official announcement about Neuralink. Keep watching the space to know more about the pathbreaking technology.

Sports Engagement Platform Rooter Raises Seed Round from Intex Technologies

Rooter, a digital platform that connects, engages and helps sports audiences interact with each other on a real-time basis during sports events, has raised an undisclosed amount of funds from Intex, one of India’s fastest growing consumer electronic goods and accessories manufacturer. The sports social engagement app earlier successfully raised funds from Dhruv Chitgopekar and Prantik Dasgupta. It also holds the distinction of being the first venture that Bollywood star, Boman Irani, has invested in as an angel investor.

The freshly infused capital will be utilized to strengthen the tech team at Rooter, all the while maintaining a lean structure. It aims to also add more numbers to its Sales and Marketing team as well as to the content division to bolster the vernacular versions of the app. This round of funding will, in addition, help accelerate the platform’s expansion into South East Asian markets and catalyze partnerships with sports teams and leagues all around the world. Rooter’s ambition to carry out merchandizing activities and possibly fan-player interactions will also get a boost besides allowing it to leverage the superlative tech infrastructure of Intex.

Rooter has been identified as one of the most unique ideas to emerge out of the Indian start-up ecosystem, with no pre-existing business model to follow anywhere in the world. With its user engagement features such as live-match prediction, quizzes, and chat forums becoming extremely popular with users, Rooter’s audience base and the time spent by an average user on the app has increased significantly. With the approaching sports season, Rooter hopes to far exceed the 50000+ downloads it currently sits on, and aims to cross half a million downloads by the end of the IPL. Rooter will benefit from the state-of-the-art technological setup of Intex, access to which can help reduce Rooter’s R&D costs. The ready database of Intex will also be a goldmine for Rooter to find new users.

Commenting on the funding, Piyush, Founder & CEO, Rooter, said, “It gives us immense pleasure to receive funding from Intex, one of the most successful Indian IT devices and accessories manufacturers. Rooter is essentially a tech-based platform and we wanted to have an investor on board who could also be our strategic partner and help us evolve our product to fully realize it’s potential. Intex’s deep understanding of the smartphone world and its popularity in Tier-2 and 3 cities of India will help us to promote and develop Rooter’s unique idea further, optimizing it to perfectly fit the needs of smartphone users everywhere.”

Intex has had a thriving association with sports, and its director, Keshav Bansal, is the youngest franchise owner in the history of IPL. In January this year, Intex also owned the Gujarat Warriors in Super Fight League, foraying into the comparatively unknown world of MMA fighting in India.

Keshav Bansal, Spokesperson Intex, commented on the collaboration by saying, “Rooter has a great fundamental idea, and its recent numbers suggest that its popularity is zooming by the day. As sports are an extremely emotion-driven phenomenon and the sports fan engagement platform is a completely uncharted territory, Rooter has limitless scope for growth. We feel this collaboration will be a perfect synergistic match and will enable sports’ fans to enjoy their favourite games like never before.”

The average time spent by a user on Rooter has gone up from 2-3 minutes in September last year to 13-15 minutes currently. The number of daily active users is also growing at a brisk pace, with Rooter looking to engage more than 20,000 daily active users by the time IPL starts. This increased audience engagement, coupled with a growing list of different kinds of sports being incorporated into the app, has endeared Rooter to its target users and has boosted its attempt to revolutionize the sports viewing experience in India, and the rest of the world.

The deal was enabled by Kwan Entertainment & Marketing Solutions and Uday Ahlawat, Partner at Ahlawat and Associates, was the legal advisor for Rooter.

Flipkart, Snapdeal To Reportedly Merge Together As Joint Entity

Just a few days ago, Flipkart reportedly raised $1 billion, and was even rumored to take over ebay's India business. Now, according to reports there are strong hints that Flipkart and Snapdeal will enter into a merger deal, allowing a joint entity to tackle the cut throat competition from giant like Amazon and PayTM with with its newly launched online marketplace -- PayTM Mall.

An ET report claims that Japanese giant SoftBank is facilitating a merger between Snapdeal and Flipkart, and is likely to invest $1.5 billion into a joint entity with a roughly 15 percent stake. It is worth noting that SoftBank has more than 30 percent stake, and is one of the biggest investors in Snapdeal, which drew valuation at $6.5 billion in 2016.

According to the report, the merger deal will likely to see sell out of another $1 billion share from Tiger Global, which is believed to be the biggest investor in Flipkart. Tiger is expected to recover its investment by selling 10% of its approximately 30% stake in Flipkart.

"SoftBank and Flipkart have agreed on the broad contours of the deal. If these terms stay on track, it's likely that the talks will culminate into a definitive transaction by late April," said the report.

While Flipkart appears to have sustain the intense competition, the smaller players, especially Snapdeal, have faced the major turbulence as the company had reportedly layed off around 600 employees. According to a Hindu report, Snapdeal is left with cash that will last for the next 10-12 months at most.

Chennai-based Delivery Startup Genie Shuts Down

Chennai based hyper-local delivery startup Genie on Monday announced that it would cease operations due to insufficiency of funds and lack of investor interest. In a Facebook post, the founders announced the decision to close down operations.

“We have been trying very hard to raise a round of funding to sustain operations and for growth. Over time, we courted a lot of investors who made a lot of promises, but none of them materialized,” Genie's founders said in a Facebook post.

"Genie will be delivering its last delight on March 31," they said.

Founded in 2015 by Sreekesh Krishnan, Rakesh Mani and Parth Shah, Genie started off as an on-demand delivery platform for customers. A year after the startup launched Genie for Business to look after on demand, bulk and scheduled orders for restaurants, home bakers and any other business that needed assistance with deliveries.

In October 2015, the startup bagged funding from Wayne Burt Group, a Singapore-based group that invests in oil and gas, aerospace and petrochemicals.

Genie is one among many startups in hyper-local delivery sector who couldn't survive even for two years since starting their operations. During 2014 several delivery startups raised funds and in a bid to offer instant satisfaction to customers, many dispense out discounts and offers, burning cash to acquire customers. While Sequoia and SAIF backed Peppertap, which was known as India’s third-largest e-grocer, shut down its online grocery business to focus on logistics, Grofers rolled back operations in nine cities and others like LocalBanya, GrocShop, LazyLad and MovinCart simply pulled the plug on their business.

Related Reading - 20 Indian Startups That Died Young in 2016

A study done by Xeler8 revealed that in India nearly one in two startups shuts down.

[Top Image - Genie founders in earlier days; Via - The Hindu]

Karnataka Government Funds 8 Tourism Startups Under Idea2POC Scheme

The Karnataka State Government has selected eight technology based startups who will work to promote the potential of the tourism industry. All the selected startups will get a grant ranging from Rs. 5 lakh to Rs. 50 lakh to develop ideas and products. The names of the all selected startups were declared on the World Tourism Day in the hackathon organized by the Karnataka Startup Cell and the State Tourism Department.

The offered funding is a part of the Idea to Proof of Concept Grant Scheme (Idea2POC) announced by the government under the Karnataka Startup Policy 2015-20. According to the government, total 127 applications were received for this program whereas the selected startups will share a total grant amounting to ₹1.8 crore. This Scheme is an attempt to recognize those startups that have innovative tech solutions that can be implemented immediately. This entire means, the government has chosen only those startups that are serious and have everything ready to put into practice. The grant was announced by IT, BT and Tourism Minister Priyank Kharge a few months ago. He confirmed the department had set aside Rs 2.5 crore to fund such startups.

The offered funding is a part of the Idea2PoC scheme launched by the Department of IT, BT and S&T, Govt. of Karnataka. It is an ‘Ignition Fund’ disbursed in the form of grant-in-aid but limited to a one-time grant of up to ₹50 lakh. Priyank Kharge, Minister of State IT, BT & Tourism said, “Idea2POC offers entrepreneurs a support system to explore, develop and launch their best ideas. The scheme is designed to identify, mentor and fund enterprising tourism start-ups in Karnataka that can create a deeper, immersive experiences around the State’s manifold riches.”

The funds shall be released in different parts based on the life cycle of the business plan. Basically, this grant was announced to enable technology innovators or entrepreneurs to pursue a promising technology idea, and validate proof of concept by Govt.

Karnataka as an Emerging Tourist Destination

Karnataka is emerging as a tourist destination and government is committed to provide all kind of support to give a boost to this industry. All the chosen startups are Bengaluru based and they have many other reasons to be delighted. The state attracted over Rs 11,000 crore of the total outstanding investments worth over Rs 93,400 crore attracted by the hotels and tourism industry in India in June 2016.

According to a report conducted by the industry body ASSOCHAM, “Karnataka can attract over 15 crore domestic tourists and about 10 lakh foreigners by 2019, if the state promotes more inclusive tourism policies to derive better synergy of tourism and infrastructure development.” The report also said that the state has acquired third highest share in investments attracted by hospitality business. It has estimated, “Domestic tourist visits in the state can grow at a rate of about 6 per cent considering the recent trends of rise in domestic tourist visits together with improvement seen in physical infrastructure, rise in income and an increasing thrust on tourism promotion by state government.” The report added, “About 12 per cent share in total investments attracted by hotels and tourism industry across the country, Karnataka ranked third after Maharashtra and Gujarat.”

The Chosen Startups

The eight startups which are selected include AAO Hostels, Aseuro Technologies, Highir Technologies, Highway Delite, DigiTour Technologies, Trip Dairy, Moving Up Products and Trip On Food . All of them have received the 1st instalment of funds from Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. The state government aims to nurturing 20,000 tech startups and 6,000 product startups under the startup policy.