Sports Consultancy Startup, Time of Sports Raises Angel Round of Funding

Time of Sports, a Sports company specialized in sports consultancy services has recently raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Mr. Sandeep Arya Chairman and Managing Director of a $32 million conglomerate of companies Amtrak Technologies Pvt Ltd, Presto Infosolutions Pvt Ltd, Sanvei Overseas Pvt Ltd. The geographical spread of his group is across Africa, CIS, UAE and Singapore. The focus of the group is on thinking “Out of the Box” to give unique and cost effective IT and Security solutions to its customers. Time of Sports is an evolving Sports Company marking its presence in online as well as on ground Sports destined to be our Nations sports and fitness destination with the vision of a FIT NATION and a mission to create an ecosystem of SPORTS FOR ALL.

The funds raised will be invested in expanding the existing Sports Consultancy Leg of the Company to create an ecosystem of sports for all and fabricate India’s Largest Grassroots Initiatives. The funds will also be used to develop a unique sports mobile app which will further converge online and on ground sports & Fitness activities. The app will help the brand reach out to around 100 million school kids and their parents which will also enhance the presence of the brand exponentially. Lastly a portion of the funds would be utilized to launch the World’s Largest STEM Based Technology Challenge – F1 in Schools™ in India.

Yashraj Singh, CEO and Founder of Time of Sports, said, “We are extremely pleased to have Mr. Arya investing in our dream and we look forward to steer the company towards transforming the overall sports consultancy scenario in the country. We envisage to develop the youngest minds and sports stars in the fastest growing economy. We are constantly carving befitting Sports solutions and building a work group obsessed with quality and innovation. We are geared to be trailblazer of disruptive sports marketing concepts in Corporate and Grassroots Sports Initiatives. INDIA is emerging in the Business of Sports & we are at the opportune moment of this ERA. Mr. Arya amplifies the Mission of the Company and makes the Team a perfect amalgamation of Experience & Energy, Innovation & Technology.  The Game Begins…”

Since inception, Time of Sports has provided high quality consultancy advice to the sports and fitness sector and delivered unique Proprietary Platforms like NCR Games, Corpwarriors, Indian Fitness Festival and many more. The company has introduced multiple programs and platforms to popularize sports as an important aspect among sports enthusiast in the country. Over the years, Time of sports has conceptualized, Consulted and Executed Sports Initiatives like sports days, leagues and marathons involving large corporate, RWA’s and schools as well. These services have also supported governmental agencies like DDA, National Dailies, national sports organizations, local sports clubs and institutions.

This year, Time of Sports brings F1 in Schools™ to India. As F1 in Schools™ comes to India Time of Sports aspires to offer students a life changing experience. F1 in Schools™ is an international STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) competition for school children (aged 9–19), wherein groups of 3–6 students design and manufacture a miniature "car" out of the official F1 Model Block using CAD/CAM design tools. F1 in Schools™ is an internationally acclaimed brand associated with the Grand Prix. Time of Sports is privileged to have the support of the Formula One™ community – in particular Mr. Ecclestone and the new CEO Mr. Chase Carey at FOM and, of course, the Formula One™ teams who make our students welcome in the F1™ paddock and in their factories.

Flipkart To Close Snapdeal Acquisition Deal By Next Week: Sources

The Flipkart-Snapdeal merger, which is being deemed as India's biggest consolidation in the e-commerce sector, might finally get closed by next week. According to a news report in Business Standard (BS), sources close to the deal have informed them that Flipkart has completed its due diligence and has found everything okay and clean, but the number one homegrown e-commerce market leader has still not come back with a final number for the Snapdeal acquisition.

In the last one month, Flipkart has invested time in combing through Snapdeal 's book in order to make sure that everything being told to them during the deal was legit.

With the time ticking, if the deal doesn't goes through in the next few days, the flailing Snapdeal's board would have no choice but to either extend the timeline on the acquisition or start from the scratch again by putting the ecommerce site on the For Sale window again.

According to BS's source, the exclusivity clause that the two parties had entered will end next week and if Flipkart fails to come back to Snapdeal with an acquisition number, then SoftBank and other Snapdeal investors will have to take a combined decision on whether to extend the timeline or it can be open season.

However, people close to the deal are certain that the situation would not come to this as the deal will be finalised in the next few days with an official announcement taking place in the next week.

The merged entity is expected to give a major push to the current cut throat competition going on between Jeff Bezos' Amazon and India's very own homegrown e-commerce leader, Flipkart. Reportedly, Bezos' has recently decided to spend a whopping amount of $5 billion in India to gain significant share as the e-commerce market surges in the Indian subcontinent.

According to Masayoshi Son, SoftBank founder, the deal will prove to be a win-win situation for both homegrown e-commerce players. Sources inform that the Son, whose company owns about a third of Snapdeal parent Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd. could contribute that equity to the merged entity and infuse another $500 million to $1 billion in Flipkart through a transaction with Flipkart backer Tiger Global Management. The amount will give Flipkart more fuel to battle it out with Amazon.

The Japan-based SoftBank board is trying to bring everyone on the same page regarding the Snapdeal sale. Investment bank Credit Suisse, the firm which is advising Snapdeal on the merger deal, is also trying to get all Snapdeal's small shareholders onboard for the deal.

To recall, a week back, PremjiInvest, the family investment arm of Wipro Ltd chairman Azim Premji, which is a small investor in Snapdeal, has sent a letter to the ecommerce site asking for clarity on how the rights of minority shareholders will be protected in the proposed deal (Read Here). It is important to be noted that PremjiInvest had demanded the clarification for the second time since the deal negotiations have been going through.

Not only is PremjiInvest seeking a clarification from Snapdeal on the rights of minority shareholders, but it is also reaching out to all the other minor investors in Snapdeal such as asset management company BlackRock and Singapore state investment firm Temasek to come together in unison and oppose any special payments being made to certain shareholders, including co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal and early backers Kalaari Capital and Nexus Venture once the deal concludes.

According to BS's sources, there are a lot of things in the tunnel being worked out around the big ecommerce merger. Reportedly, there are three separate sets of talks underway for the other firms under Snapdeal's parent Jasper Infotech brand. These firms are: Vulcan Express, FreeCharge and Unicommerce.

To recall, a month ago, we reported how after 3 months-long deliberations that included more than 15 board meetings and a giant payout of at least $210 million, the Japanese internet and telecom giant Softbank had finally made up its mind to merge its biggest Indian asset Snapdeal with India’s leading e-commerce giant Flipkart (Read Here).

Flipkart To Close Snapdeal Acquisition Deal By Next Week: Sources

The Flipkart-Snapdeal merger, which is being deemed as India's biggest consolidation in the e-commerce sector, might finally get closed by next week. According to a news report in Business Standard (BS), sources close to the deal have informed them that Flipkart has completed its due diligence and has found everything okay and clean, but the number one homegrown e-commerce market leader has still not come back with a final number for the Snapdeal acquisition.

In the last one month, Flipkart has invested time in combing through Snapdeal 's book in order to make sure that everything being told to them during the deal was legit.

With the time ticking, if the deal doesn't goes through in the next few days, the flailing Snapdeal's board would have no choice but to either extend the timeline on the acquisition or start from the scratch again by putting the ecommerce site on the For Sale window again.

According to BS's source, the exclusivity clause that the two parties had entered will end next week and if Flipkart fails to come back to Snapdeal with an acquisition number, then SoftBank and other Snapdeal investors will have to take a combined decision on whether to extend the timeline or it can be open season.

However, people close to the deal are certain that the situation would not come to this as the deal will be finalised in the next few days with an official announcement taking place in the next week.

The merged entity is expected to give a major push to the current cut throat competition going on between Jeff Bezos' Amazon and India's very own homegrown e-commerce leader, Flipkart. Reportedly, Bezos' has recently decided to spend a whopping amount of $5 billion in India to gain significant share as the e-commerce market surges in the Indian subcontinent.

According to Masayoshi Son, SoftBank founder, the deal will prove to be a win-win situation for both homegrown e-commerce players. Sources inform that the Son, whose company owns about a third of Snapdeal parent Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd. could contribute that equity to the merged entity and infuse another $500 million to $1 billion in Flipkart through a transaction with Flipkart backer Tiger Global Management. The amount will give Flipkart more fuel to battle it out with Amazon.

The Japan-based SoftBank board is trying to bring everyone on the same page regarding the Snapdeal sale. Investment bank Credit Suisse, the firm which is advising Snapdeal on the merger deal, is also trying to get all Snapdeal's small shareholders onboard for the deal.

To recall, a week back, PremjiInvest, the family investment arm of Wipro Ltd chairman Azim Premji, which is a small investor in Snapdeal, has sent a letter to the ecommerce site asking for clarity on how the rights of minority shareholders will be protected in the proposed deal (Read Here). It is important to be noted that PremjiInvest had demanded the clarification for the second time since the deal negotiations have been going through.

Not only is PremjiInvest seeking a clarification from Snapdeal on the rights of minority shareholders, but it is also reaching out to all the other minor investors in Snapdeal such as asset management company BlackRock and Singapore state investment firm Temasek to come together in unison and oppose any special payments being made to certain shareholders, including co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal and early backers Kalaari Capital and Nexus Venture once the deal concludes.

According to BS's sources, there are a lot of things in the tunnel being worked out around the big ecommerce merger. Reportedly, there are three separate sets of talks underway for the other firms under Snapdeal's parent Jasper Infotech brand. These firms are: Vulcan Express, FreeCharge and Unicommerce.

To recall, a month ago, we reported how after 3 months-long deliberations that included more than 15 board meetings and a giant payout of at least $210 million, the Japanese internet and telecom giant Softbank had finally made up its mind to merge its biggest Indian asset Snapdeal with India’s leading e-commerce giant Flipkart (Read Here).

In-Video Discovery Platform Tagos Design Raises $5M in Series A Funding

Tagos Design Innovations Pvt. Ltd, an in-video discovery platform, has raised $5 million in a Series-A funding round from a venture capital firm and two global corporations. The company did not disclose the names of the investors.

Founded in 2014 by GBS Bindra, Sushant Panda, and Tripat Preet Singh, Tagos operates an in-video platform called Charmboard that makes videos interactive. For instance, a user can touch any object on a streaming video, be it a person, dress, a piece of furniture or an accessory, without interrupting the visual. That particular object is bookmarked and saved automatically and can be accessed by the consumer after watching the video to cull out more details about the object.

“Marketers increasingly want to put the customer at the centre of their thinking and allow them to define each moment that matters. With our product offering marketers can create smarter journeys that deliver the right content exactly when the customer needs it,” G.B.S Bindra, founder and chief executive at Tagos, said in a statement.

The fresh funding will be deployed to enhance the product, increase user base and hire more people.

In July last year, Tagos had raised an undisclosed amount from a clutch of investors including Andy Green, former chief executive at Logica, David King, former chief executive at the Time Out Group, Gautham Radhakrishnan, partner at Tata Opportunities Fund and Vikram Kaushik, former managing director and chief executive at Tata Sky.

Another startup working in this space is VideoTap, which raised $1 million angel funding in September 2016.

Image Source: LiveMint

Jugnoo Becomes First Profitable On-Demand Startup With EBITDA Based Revenue

Founded in November 2014 by a handful of IITians, Jugnoo, which initially began its journey as India’s first auto-rickshaw aggregator and then progressed on to become a one-stop solution for all local needs, has now successfully become the first company in India in on-demand space to become profitable on an Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) basis.

The hyperlocal startup, which offers a diverse range of services like Rides, Ready to Eat Meals, Restaurant Food Delivery, Grocery and Business to Business Delivery, has to be super joyous about its achievement since a majority of its competitors are still into investing huge bucks in the market without being able to drive out any sufficient returns.

Jugnoo began its new fiscal year on a celebratory note as a free cash flow positive business. The company's total revenue recorded for last quarter was Rs. 11.5 Crores which has grown by an impressive 15 per cent, and Jugnoo is all set to generate a whopping Rs. 13.5 Crores in the first quarter of this financial year itself.

With 10,00,000 transactions per month across 45+ cities, what began as a small company in 2014 is now spearheading the evolution of the local Indian marketplace into a Digital Reality. Their aim is to make everyday hassle-free. Be it Food, Rides, Fresh Fruits, Vegetables and Groceries, they get them all delivered to you right at your doorsteps.

Commenting on the recent development, Samar Singla, Founder and CEO at Jugnoo said “We have always believed in the significance of developing a scalable but sustainable business model. This achievement means a lot to us as it reaffirms our faith. We have witnessed 250% growth over the past one year and are on track to achieve net revenue of Rs. 70 Crores in current financial year.”

Jugnoo has been successful in raising $16 million in funding over the past two years. Crossing the cash flow positive milestone means that the startup would now be funded by its customers rather than its investor's money.

Meet 12 Beneficiary Startups Which Received Rs 3.18 Crore Grant by Karnataka Govt

On Wednesday, IndianWeb2 reported that 12 startups were awarded INR 3.18 Cr by Priyank Kharge at a ceremony held yesterday. Startups were from varied segment like Agritech, Biotech, Security, Robotics & Communications. Selection was based on technology, feasibility and innovation.

It will disburse the funds under its Idea to Proof of Concept (Idea2POC) Grant Scheme, which is part of the broader Karnataka Startup Policy 2015-20

Sirena Technologies and Geotraq Safety -- both based out of Bengaluru -- were highest grants paid startups who received Rs 48 Lakhs and Rs 45 Lakhs respectively.

All 12 startups will get additional funding in tranches as per the need through their business life cycle.

Below are the chosen 12 startups -

Dr Live Software

Received -- Rs 10 lakh

Founders- Chethan Channakeshava and Pratap Palthady

Founded in 2014, DrLive is a healthcare platform to implement tele-medicine programs on mobile devices. It plays an important role in the supplemental management of chronic conditions. The platform enables secure audio-video medical consults with a mission to emerge as a new frontier in tele-medicine -- one that offers safe, convenient, and cost-effective options for users via mobile and web applications. DrLive also enables mobile based practice management software which includes secure instant messaging, a robust appointment booking and queuing system to help doctors connect with their patients both virtually via video and physically at their practice.

Lightmetrics

Received -- Rs 30 lakh

Founder- Soumik Ukil and Ravi Shenoy

Founded in 2015, LightMetrics'​ smartphone based driver monitoring solution gives a 360-degree view of driving behavior by providing visual context to driving data. Enterprises on their platform are able to accurately monitor their fleets on safety and compliance, mitigating risk and associated losses, and protecting brand value. Data driven driver profiles help in better insurance pricing, and more constructive feedback for performance improvement.

PiOctave Solutions

Received -- Rs 30 lakh

Founder- Anand Sivaram, Kiran Nayak and Niteesh kumar

Founded in 2016, PiOctave Solution is a creative product design team that specializes in premium video enabled smart systems. They design and manufacture computer vision products to meet future smart home security needs.

GeekSynergy Technologies

Received -- Rs 30 lakh

Founder- Gowrav L, Sachin Anchan A B and Mallikarjuna N

Founded in 2015 and based out Hassan, GeekSynergy aims to provide cutting edge innovative products that are meaningful and strives to surpass the expectation of customers. They aim to educate their customers and deliver the products that helps them. The founders of GeekSynergy are innovators with experience in Research and Development, with good track records in research publishing and patenting. GeekSynergy was born as a result of long term relationship and commitment of founders who believe in using technology to serve mankind.

ispAgro Robotics

Received -- Rs 20 lakh

Founded in 2016, the company will bridge the field requirement in robotics, agriculture and forestry automation, UAVs/Drones and their application in civil and military.

Astrome

Received -- Rs 30 lakh

Founders- Neha Satak and Prasad H L Bhat

Founded in 2015, Astrome is an Indian space technology company aims to provide high speed broadband internet from space. To achieve this, they are developing next generation technologies that will have high impact on the lives of people. High-speed broadband which is currently limited to urban areas, will be made location independent by our Advanced High Throughput Satellites (HTS). They are incubated at the Indian Institute of Science, India’s premier research institute.

Esyasoft

Received -- Rs 20 lakh

Founded in 2014, EsyaSoft Technologies Pvt Ltd enables the modernization of power distribution networks, and help energy companies to reduce costs, improve network efficiency and increase revenues. Startup collaborate with leading energy utilities, government agencies, OEMs and system integrators to provide technology and analytics solutions, products and services.

Namma Nimma Cycle Foundation

Received -- Rs 10 lakh

Founder- Shankar

NAMMA CYCLE is a public bicycling initiative in Bangalore with the aim of increasing connectivity and creating environmentally friendly modes of public transportation. The name is inspired from ‘namma’, which means ‘ours’ in Kannada, and signifies the concept of shared ownership.

A pilot initiative at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore with 150 cycles sponsored by TI Cycles India, part of the Muruguppan Group based out of Chennai, and 4 bicycle station racks sponsored by BCIL, a biodiversity company based in Bangalore will soon be expanded to include more bicycles, stations and a wider area.

Sirena Technologies

Received -- Rs 48 lakh

Sirena Technologies was formed with a purpose to bring innovative world-class products to the market; designed and developed in India, leveraging global ecosystem. The company focuses on products for education, entertainment, and smart homes through disruptive technologies and aims at transforming education and consumer electronics markets – with strategic focus on price sensitive markets. Sirena’s completely home grown Robotic-Platform, brings unique value proposition for the technical institutions & schools providing them an opportunity to do research, learn & contribute.

GeoTraq Safety

Received -- Rs 45 lakh

Details not available

EasyKrishi

Received -- Rs 15 lakh
Details not available

Selfdot Technologies

Received -- Rs 30 lakh
Details not available

News Corp Acquires Bengaluru Based GyanMatrix

Media and information services company, News Corp has acquired GyanMatrix Services Private Limited. With this acquisition New Crop has announced the expansion of its global technology and information services along with rebranding the new company as News Technology Services (NTS). Rajan Parasuraman, founder of GMX, will stay on to lead the company as Managing Director.

Commenting on the development, Dominic Shine, Global CIO of News Corp said, “The acquisition of News Technology Services is key to our global technology strategy and the amazing team in India are a big part of our growth plans. We plan to double the size of the team in Bengaluru within 6 months so that the entire News Corp group can benefit from their energy, innovation and technical expertise.”

NTS will work directly with News Corp’s global brands to offer a range of technology services, including web development, application support, infrastructure management and cyber operations. The approach will allow NTS to augment each company’s individual technology teams, particularly in skillsets that are difficult to recruit in local markets.

NTS is a digital product development company, specialising in mobile, web and data engineering, and data science and analytics. Recently, the company expanded and diversified its services to provide enterprise application development, cyber operations and infrastructure operations services for a number of News Corp businesses, including News UK Ltd, News Corp Australia and Dow Jones.

“This deal is an extension of our ongoing work supporting the digital innovation underway at News UK. We are looking forward to expanding our efforts globally to provide News Corp with best-in-class service and support,” said Rajan Parasuraman, Managing Director of NTS.

NTS will expand its operations and infrastructure, including the creation of over 120 new jobs in India, adding to an existing workforce of 170 employees. The new office space in Electronic City, Bengaluru, will be expanded to accommodate more staff in an upgraded suite of state-of-the art offices. The company plans to recruit for a range of roles, including infrastructure technology and operations, application development, data science and digital product development.

News Corp already has a significant presence in India through its Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal and HarperCollins Publishers businesses. In recent years, the company has also acquired VCCircle and a stake in Elara Technologies, which includes the digital real estate properties PropTiger, Housing.com and Makaan.

Hyderabad's ISB Launches Virtual Startup Incubation/ Acceleration Unit; To Incubate 50 Startups

"Ideas are cheap, execution is everything." This particular saying stands true for the Indian startup ecosystem today. According to a report by IT industry body NASSCOM and Zinnov Consulting, India witnesses the birth of three-four startups everyday. Currently the third largest Startup ecosystem, India has a flood of new ideas coming up everyday but unfortunately a very few of them are able to survive past an year. This is because a majority of them lack direction and don't know the best way possible way to get their ideas from paper into action. In order to provide Indian entrepreneurs with excellent ideas and undying passion find their way in the Indian startup ecosystem, the Indian School of Business ( ISB) announced the launch of the facilities for its virtual startup incubation and acceleration arm DLabs yesterday in Hyderabad. For this year, ISB has set an aim of incubating at least 50 companies.

The virtual incubation program took birth two years ago in 2015 and has a phenomenal record of mentoring 32 startups till now. Established in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, the virtual incubation program will now come under ISB’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), which aims to foster a vibrant ecosystem for the creation and growth of enterprises.

ISB is focused towards its mission for Indian Startup ecosystem and plans on adding multiple accelerators and incubators in the coming few months. According to ISB Dean Rajendra Srivastava, they are already in various different stages of talks with different people right now and will be making an official announcement about some new partnerships very soon.

ISB isn't new to such partnerships. In July 2016, the management institute partnered with software biggie SAP to foster five social startups. Then in November 2016, ISB joined hands with the US Consulate General to launch a startup accelerator program.

One of the key objectives of ISB is to support entrepreneurial creation and growth aspirations in key sectors including technology commercialization in collaboration with internal and external partners. In order to achieve this objective, ISB has set up the DLabs Incubation Association (DLabs). DLabs is a Technology Business Incubator set up as per the guidelines of the National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board. It connects startups with mentors and investors who can help the business
reach new heights.

According to Srivastava, the 2001 established business management institute is also going to announce the launch of an advanced management program meant for incubator managers very soon.

TechDelhi - A Beginning of Initiative to Unite Delhi's Startup Ecosystem

"The richest people in the world look for and build networks, everyone else looks for work."- Robert Kiyosaki

The notion of community building has been at the heart of the internet since it started. When it comes to business, it is imperative to build a strong community of brand advocates. Strong communities can help build customer loyalty which can then turn into strong economic returns. Up and coming Delhi-based TechDelhi is aiming to do the same for the Tech eco-system in India. It is vibrantly engaged technical community building initiative that will act as a way to educate, learn, grow and network within Delhi/NCR Startup Technology community.

Launching next month on 7th July, 2017, TechDelhi has decided to focus on Delhi/NCR tech space for now and then eventually work their way through the entire country. In order to mark its official launch, TechDelhi has a big
Meetup planned for 7th July in Delhi. Within just 3 weeks of being into operation, their meet-up group has become a family of 103 members, all of which came organically.

TechDelhi plans to expand its wings by getting onboard more speakers and inviting more tech disruptors and internationally recognized tech giants for sharing their part of stories with the tech community they build. They're planning to organise more such meetups every month from July onwards. In addition to this, they also plan on branching some meetups under their name, for example, HealthTechDelhi, FinTechDelhi among many others to cater the need of crowd and people looking for specific tech meetups.

The idea for TechDelhi came to Anuj Sharma, when he was working for a Canadian brain-tech startup from HAX, Shenzhen, China and realised the potential in the growing Tech eco-system in India. He then shared this realization with the other two co-founder’s Sakshi Gujral and Swati Misra, which led to the birth of TechDelhi.

If you wish to be a part of TechDelhi launch event, you can visit here -- https://www.meetup.com/TechDelhi/

About the Founders

Anuj Sharma- Recently operated from HAX(World’s largest hardware accelerator), Shenzhen, China as Electronics lead for a Canadian brain-tech startup. During his MSc- Electrical and Computer Engineering, he was a student leader for entire 2 years Co-Founding Indian Student Association and becoming it’s Co-Founder Secretary and later elected as the president.

Sakshi Gujral- Sakshi is Computer Science Engineer and Graduated from GGSIPU and currently defending Masters from Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women(IGDTUW). She contributed her education and time for Women Empowerment teaching under privileged girls, demonstrating her commitment to the community.

Swati Misra- Swati Misra comes with an experience of 5+ years with interest in Finance operation and business. Leader by ability, she graduated with Master’s in Business, doing her under graduation in Business Administration.

TechDelhi - A Beginning of Initiative to Unite Delhi's Startup Ecosystem

"The richest people in the world look for and build networks, everyone else looks for work."- Robert Kiyosaki

The notion of community building has been at the heart of the internet since it started. When it comes to business, it is imperative to build a strong community of brand advocates. Strong communities can help build customer loyalty which can then turn into strong economic returns. Up and coming Delhi-based TechDelhi is aiming to do the same for the Tech eco-system in India. It is vibrantly engaged technical community building initiative that will act as a way to educate, learn, grow and network within Delhi/NCR Startup Technology community.

Launching next month on 7th July, 2017, TechDelhi has decided to focus on Delhi/NCR tech space for now and then eventually work their way through the entire country. In order to mark its official launch, TechDelhi has a big
Meetup planned for 7th July in Delhi. Within just 3 weeks of being into operation, their meet-up group has become a family of 103 members, all of which came organically.

TechDelhi plans to expand its wings by getting onboard more speakers and inviting more tech disruptors and internationally recognized tech giants for sharing their part of stories with the tech community they build. They're planning to organise more such meetups every month from July onwards. In addition to this, they also plan on branching some meetups under their name, for example, HealthTechDelhi, FinTechDelhi among many others to cater the need of crowd and people looking for specific tech meetups.

The idea for TechDelhi came to Anuj Sharma, when he was working for a Canadian brain-tech startup from HAX, Shenzhen, China and realised the potential in the growing Tech eco-system in India. He then shared this realization with the other two co-founder’s Sakshi Gujral and Swati Misra, which led to the birth of TechDelhi.

If you wish to be a part of TechDelhi launch event, you can visit here -- https://www.meetup.com/TechDelhi/

About the Founders

Anuj Sharma- Recently operated from HAX(World’s largest hardware accelerator), Shenzhen, China as Electronics lead for a Canadian brain-tech startup. During his MSc- Electrical and Computer Engineering, he was a student leader for entire 2 years Co-Founding Indian Student Association and becoming it’s Co-Founder Secretary and later elected as the president.

Sakshi Gujral- Sakshi is Computer Science Engineer and Graduated from GGSIPU and currently defending Masters from Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women(IGDTUW). She contributed her education and time for Women Empowerment teaching under privileged girls, demonstrating her commitment to the community.

Swati Misra- Swati Misra comes with an experience of 5+ years with interest in Finance operation and business. Leader by ability, she graduated with Master’s in Business, doing her under graduation in Business Administration.

Renewable Energy Startup Carbon Masters Raises Funding from IAN and Sangam Ventures

Carbon Masters, a Bangalore based energy startup has raised an undisclosed amount from India’s first and World’s largest angel investor network; Indian Angel Network and Sangam Ventures a pure play clean tech venture fund. The round was led by IAN investors Nagaraja Prakasam, Mridula Ramesh and Karthik Chandrasekar from Sangam Ventures. Nagaraja Prakasam and Karthik Chandrasekar will join Carbon Masters as Board Members to strengthen the leadership team.

Established in 2012, Carbon Masters has pioneered the development of India’s first bottled bio- CNG brand Carbonlites. Launched in 2014, Carbonlites is bio-CNG produced from the biomethanisation of organic waste streams, diverts waste from landfills mitigating methane emissions, displaces LPG for commercial cooking, and other fossil fuels for transport and backup power generation.

Commenting on the announcement, Som Narayan Co-Founder, Carbon Masters said, “We are extremely thankful to Indian Angel Network and Sangam Ventures whose faith in our vision will take us a step closer to achieving our goals. Carbonlites can provide India with a lower cost, carbon neutral alternative to the use of fossil fuels. That it can also provide a more sustainable way of managing organic waste streams in Indian cities makes it a unique carbon mitigation solution. It will be invaluable in helping India achieve its climate change goals under the Paris Accord.”

The company is planning to utilize the funds in product developments, senior, marketing and engineering level hiring and project developments.

Nagaraja Prakasam, IAN investor and lead commented, “Carbon Masters is the first in the country to produce a branded bottled bio-CNG product unleashing the potential of bio-gas. Our portfolio company Saahas (Zero Waste) which manages 30 tons/day of Bangalore waste is to supply wet waste to Carbon Masters that will get converted to bio-CNG. This will power Saahas vehicles and another portfolio company Freshworld’s (Farm on eWheels) vehicles.  Carbonlites enables conversion of Bangalore waste to renewable energy that can be used both for commercial cooking displacing LPG and to power vehicles. The by-product of the process also produces, organic fertilizer which will be sold to Freshworld farmers forming a CIRCULAR ECONOMY. Thus, through our association with the company, we aim to help the company unlock the vast market potential for its products, possibly on a global scale.” As an active angel investor of IAN Impact, Naga has lead Uniphore, GoCoOp, Freshworld, Saahas, SP Robotic, Neurosynaptic, Nativespecial and serves in their boards”

The company has also entered into a partnership agreement with the Mahindra & Mahindra organisation whereby they are investing in building large scale waste to energy plants. The first such plant will be operational from July in Malur, Karnataka.

Karthik Chandrasekar, Founder & CEO, Sangam Capital Advisors said, “India has barely used its biogas energy potential and the sector has suffered from poor corporate and investor interest while European markets have saturated their potential. The Carbon Masters' team is focused on developing marketing and distribution linkages under the CarbonLites brand between producers of biogas (and organic-fertilizer) - farmers, municipalities and agro-industries (lot of whom flare the gas) and consumers for gas and fertilizer in both rural and urban markets. We believe they have found the key to institutionalization of the biogas sector in India!"

Talking about the segment, Narayan further added, “The market for LPG in the commercial and Industrial sector is large and growing. India is the 4th largest market for LPG in the world. For instance, in Bangalore, there are 6000 restaurants and Hotels consuming on average 25kgs of LPG per day (54,750tons per annum). Our first plant in Malur will be producing around 1.5 tons per day ( 547 tons per annum )  giving us ample room to grow.”

Carbon Masters has recently won two Government of India tenders for their Carbonlites in a box product. Both tenders will involve waste to power as opposed to waste to gas for cooking.

Indore Based WittyFeed Revamps Its Brand Identity; Launches New User Interface

WittyFeed, content marketing company has rebranded itself and launched a new user interface. The brand also relaunched its logo, tagline, and its look and feel keeping the new vision and brand philosophy in mind. WittyFeed, as a platform has been creating content that is engaging, interactive and has helped various brands by its subtle integration, allowing them to reach its target audience in the best possible formats.

The new version of WittyFeed modeled on the philosophy of "beyond" truly depicts the same in its new avatar. New WittyFeed, apart from being a mere content platform, will showcase thoughts which are”beyond stories”. The upgraded version of WittyFeed will also get to see a new logo and an even more exciting website. 

The old version of WittyFeed website has been there since the inception of the company in 2014, but WittyFeed has been upgrading the interface and technology as per the market needs time to time. Now the brand has decided to revamp the complete UI (User Interface) by acquiring the latest yet futuristic modalities to empower the brands to communicate with its target audience in a more interactive manner.

Commenting on the development, Vinay Singhal, Co-founder and CEO, WittyFeed said, “We have been all ears to our users and advisors and have been receiving constant feedback on the fronted and backend admin, in this new update we have made sure to adapt newer modalities which will not only help users discover more content but also would be allowing brands to engage with the TG in best possible formats. The new Logo, UI and brand punchline is been designed keeping in mind the continued vision and goal to deliver everything beyond!We are very excited to revamp ourselves.”

It is headquartered in Indore (India) and was founded by Vinay Singhal (CEO) along with two co-founders, Parveen Singhal and Shashank Vaishnav, as Vatsana Technologies.

In terms of campaign virality, they have adopted newer technologies which would further help brands track their campaigns in a more efficient way. With their already existing platform and analytics gathered over past few years, Singhal and his team is sure to get more engagement and help in discovering the content that is trending on the internet and deliver a beyond experience.

Twitter Detects Riots and Violent Activities Faster Than Police

According to recent study released by Cardiff University, Social networking site Twitter can help police maintain peace and order better as it can detect riots faster than them. The study found out that the 140 characters social networking site is capable of identifying riots and other violent activities minutes or even in some cases almost an hour before the police are notified to reach the crime scene.

The Cardiff University study utilised algorithms to analyse 1.6 million tweets related to the infamous London riots that took place six years ago in 2011. The study found out that computer systems could have possibly detected the trouble brewing in Enfield, London an hour and 23 minutes before the police were alerted about the situation. The computer systems could have picked up the same information from Twitter.

According to Pete Burnap, co-author of the Cardiff study, the study reveals that online social media has nowadays become the go-to place to report observations of everyday occurrences -- including terrestrial criminal activity and social disorder like riots, corruption etc.

Burnap further added that even though the study points towards the emergence of social media in maintaining law and order but the new technologies is only capable of supporting the "more established policing methods," but it would never replace the traditional ones.

Taking the help of social media to fight crime isn't something new. Law enforcement agencies in some parts of the world have been making use of the online social media for quite some time now. For instance, Boston police took social media help to urge people to submit information about anything fishy that they might have seen in order to aid the investigation in the Boston Marathon bombing. In fact, a month ago, Thailand's Immigration Bureau received an anonymous tip from the Line messaging app, which led to the arrest of two Vietnamese citizens who were overstaying their visas in the country.

Zeta Picks Up Stake in Cloud Services Provider ZingHR

Zeta, a fintech pioneer in digitised employee benefits solutions, has made a equity investment in ZingHR, a cloud services provider, for an undisclosed amount. ZingHR will also now offer its clients Zeta’s digital employee benefits solutions such as meal vouchers, paperless claims for medical, LTA, fuel, mobile and so on.

This investment will bolster equity infusion along with existing investors Triton . With funding from Zeta, ZingHR will now further expand its business and build its technology.

Commenting on the ZingHR investment, Bhavin Turakhia, CEO & Co-founder, Zeta said,“ZingHR is going through an interesting phase in the cloud-based market. Their growth journey has been quite impressive. Since Zeta’s inception, our product portfolio has grown exponentially and we’ve added 1000 corporate clients. We are excited about this phase as we see a lot synergies with ZingHR to further expand the reach of digitised solutions across the globe.”

On this occasion, Mr. Prasad Rajappan, Founder & CEO, ZingHR said,“We are thrilled about this strategic partnership. We believe that, with Zeta, we can achieve significant business transformations with cloud-based HR processes effectively. We are confident that together, we will empower businesses across geographies and acquire more customers.”

ZingHR is a key player in the global enterprise cloud applications space, providing end-to-end employee lifecycle management services. The company works on various cutting-edge technologies including machine learning in recruitment, embedded Power BI based HR analytics, geo-fencing, geo-tagging, and Aadhar-based digital onboarding. Some of ZingHR’s key clients include Svatantra Finance, DHL, Shree Ram Housing Finance and Sterling Resorts.

Zeta is a popular name in the space of digitised employee benefits in India, which recently reached a milestone of 1 Million transactions in the Indian market. Zeta boasts of an increasing clientele, presently comprising 1000 corporate clients and over 3.5 lakh users. Known for its flagship solution Zeta Optima suite of tax benefits, Zeta also offers Zeta Express cashless cafeteria solutions as well as the Zeta Spotlight rewards and recognition programme. Zeta users have the freedom to spend their benefits across 11 lakh+ outlets via the Zeta app, the Zeta Super Card, a Mastercard/ RuPay powered card or the NFC-enabled Zeta Super Tag. The company’s key objective is to help salaried professionals save beyond Rs 80k in taxes.

CB Insights Reveals The Fintech 250 List

CB Insights  named CreditMantri to the  Fintech 250, a select group of emerging private companies working on groundbreaking financial technology. CB Insights CEO and co-founder, Anand Sanwal, revealed the Fintech 250 companies during The Future of Fintech, a gathering of the world's largest financial institutions, best fintech startups, and most active venture investors.

CB Insights aggregate and analyze massive amounts of data and use machine learning, algorithms and data visualization to help corporations replace the three Gs (Google searches, gut instinct and guys with MBAs*) so they can answer massive strategic questions using probability not punditry.

With backing from the National Science Foundation and venture capital investors, they mine terabytes of data and knowledge contained in patents, venture capital financing, M&A transactions, hiring, startup and investor websites, news sentiment, social media chatter, and more.

The CB Insights research team selected the Fintech 250 companies based on several factors including data submitted by the companies and the company’s Mosaic Score. The Mosaic Score, based on CB Insights’ National Science Foundation-funded algorithm, measures the overall health and growth potential of private companies. Through this evidence-based, statistically-driven approach, the Mosaic Score can help predict a company’s momentum, market health and financial viability.

Commenting on the development, CB Insights CEO Anand Sanwal, said, “The financial services industry will see more change in the next 10 years than it has in the last 100. And that transformation is being driven by a group of smart insurgent startup companies. The Fintech 250 are the most promising of these insurgents. They are bringing emerging technologies and business models to financial services that will permanently change the way we handle money and do business.”

Quick facts on the Fintech 250:

• These 250 emerging private companies have raised $14 Bn across 240 deals in 2016.


• Applications of their technology include breakthroughs in insurance, lending, payments, human resources, real estate, and much more.


• More than 2,000 companies were nominated or applied for the Fintech 250 (only 8% were selected).


• Ribbit Capital has backed 17 of the Fintech 250 companies, while Andreesen Horowitz and Goldman Sachs backed 9.


• Twenty-three Fintech 250 companies have reached a valuation of $1B or more.


• 23 countries are represented among the Fintech 250 companies.

CreditMantri is a Chennai-based fintech startup focused on enabling efficient credit decisions for borrowers and lenders. It was created by a team of 3 ex-bankers with the intent to change the way credit is delivered in India by leveraging the power of technology and the digital medium - Ranjit Punja, R Sudarshan and Gowri Mukherjee.

Startup aims to empower consumers to know their Credit potential and benefit from this knowledge. On the CreditMantri site, customers can access their Credit Scores, learn how they can improve their Credit health, resolve past issues, reduce current borrowing costs and in the process discover products best matched to their credit profile. The website provides the borrowers better control over their credit health by educating and hand-holding them to create or improve their credit scores and eventually discover relevant lender products.

“At CreditMantri, we have always aspired to become India’s largest and most inclusive credit facilitator and this acknowledgment validates the fact that we are headed in the right direction. India stands at the precipice of immense data infusion given the current digital shift. Digitalization of banking & finance, along with the surge in first-time borrowers is a great enabler for efficient credit decision making for lenders and borrowers,” said Ranjit Punja, CEO and Co-founder, CreditMantri.

Companies such as Paytm, Capital Float, Lending Kart, Indifi and Perfios, from India joined CreditMantri in being recognized for their innovative technology in front of an audience of 1000 senior executives from around the world.

Drive.ai Raises $50M in Series B Round to Accelerate the Self-Driving Reality

Drive.ai has announced a $50 million series B funding round, led by New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) with participation from GGV Capital and existing investors, including Northern Light Venture Capital, who led Drive.ai’s series A. This funding will bolster the company’s technology development, global reach, and scalability.

Drive.ai is advancing the self-driving reality through technology and advocacy. Drive.ai’s technology is grounded in deep learning, powering its self-driving system to learn driving routes and scenarios with unrivaled pace, scalability, efficiency and cost. Drive.ai’s business strategy is aimed at powering fleets of vehicles with retrofit kits, transforming traditional vehicles into self-driving models. The kits will soon be deployed on existing business fleets, with pilots starting later this year.

“Drive.ai has an ambitious vision. Our company is out to transform the relationship between people, cars, and the world around them,” said Sameep Tandon, CEO and co-founder of Drive.ai. “The self-driving race is a complex mix of technology, business models and policy. This funding from NEA and GGV Capital is massive validation of our vision, and gives us essential fuel for tackling all three components.”

Drive.ai also added Carmen Chang and Andrew Ng to its Board of Directors. Chang is chairman and head of Asia at NEA. As a former attorney and current investor, Chang is known for her involvement in formative technology transactions and companies in China. Ng is a renowned deep learning expert who led artificial intelligence projects at Baidu and Google. Ng co-founded Coursera, where he currently serves as co-chairman. In addition, Jenny Lee, managing partner of GGV Capital, is joining as a board observer. Lee is one of the most respected venture capitalists in the world, ranking as the #1 woman and #10 overall on Forbes Global 100 VC Midas List of top venture capitalists in 2015. All three prominent players in the international technology scene, Chang, Ng and Lee will help Drive.ai expand in the U.S. and abroad.

“Self-driving transportation is one of the most exciting and important innovations of our time,” said Chang. “To make self-driving a reality requires an understanding of  technology, public policy, business and global society as a whole. Drive.ai deeply understands these requirements  and has created a clear leadership position in the race to make self-driving a reality for the world. NEA is thrilled to partner with the talented Drive.ai team as they pioneer the self-driving future.”

“The cutting-edge of autonomous driving has shifted squarely to deep learning,” said Ng. “Even traditional autonomous driving teams have ‘sprinkled on’ some deep learning, but Drive.ai is at the forefront of leveraging deep learning to build a truly modern autonomous driving software stack.”

Sony Open Sources Its Deep Learning, AI Tools

Japanese electronics major Sony somewhere dropped the ball when it came to Artificial Intelligence (AI). Sony, which is always on the forefront with latest technologies is far behind in the AI line when compared to its global competitors like Apple, Amazon and Google. However, it seems Sony's strategy of giving step sisterly treatment to AI might not have been a smart one. In the 2017 Economist Intelligence Unit report, Artificial Intelligence in the Real World, 75% of more than 200 business executives surveyed said AI will be actively implemented in their companies within the next three years. But as they say, better later than never. Realising the great potential that the technology holds, Sony has now decided to pull up its socks and catch on the AI train with its competitors before its too late.

In a recent statement, Sony has revealed that the tech giant is finally set to share its AI technology with engineers and developers so as to encourage them to incorporate them into their products and services. The Japanese electronics major has decided to open-source its Neural Network Libraries, a framework meant for developing artificial intelligence (AI) solutions with deep learning capabilities.

With the move of making its AI open source, Sony has joined the ranks of its competitors Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and many others who have also made their AI open source long ago. Sony is hoping that the open source AI won't only help developers in building smarts into their products, but it will also help them in further building on core libraries' programs. Sony believes this way AI will turn out to be more useful to everyone.

While Sony might have started out as an AI pioneer, but it lost track somewhere in the middle. Its latest products like the Xperia Ear, which makes use of Apple's Siri-like Xperia Agent, are nowhere near its competitors's Google Assistant or the Amazon Echo. In fact, the Sony assistant turned into a big embarrassment for the electronics major as first of all it doesn't have a natural speaking voice and secondly, it isn't as smart as its competitors.

However, despite the AI misses in the past, one has to give credit for Sony for the uniqueness of its AI offerings when compared to those of its rivals. Sony doesn't just offer a typical voice recognition, machine vision and other functions available from others in the market, it offers augmented reality AI, the Lifelog activity tracker app with action recognition tech and a real estate "price estimation engine." All these AI offerings does help Sony in standing out from the ones being offered by its rivals. Experts believes that if Sony stays focused and increases its pace a little, these type of specialized AI might just help it in speeding past its rivals in the AI game.

With the latest announcement, one thing is clear one cannot write off Sony from the AI game, at least not yet.

Abhinav Bindra's Shooting Star Pumps In $1 Mn In FITPASS

The all-access pass to gyms and fitness studios, FITPASS has raised $1 million led by professional shooter, Abhinav Bindra and his business partner, Gaurav Marya, Chairman, Franchise India. The fresh funds invested through Bindra’s venture fund – Shooting Star and Franchise India Brands Ltd. will be used to expand the full-suite of FITPASS’ service offerings across 10 cities in the next 6 months.

Abhinav Bindra, is a fitness conscious athlete who is committed to making India fitter. To him fitness has a more holistic meaning and that’s what he says attracted him to FITPASS. Aligned to FITPASS’ mission to make fitness affordable and accessible, Bindra said, “FITPASS is possibly the most promising venture in the Indian fitness domain. Arushi and Akshay’s passion, the company’s continued growth and their holistic approach to fitness have been influencing factors in my decision to invest in them.”

Available on iOS & Android, Delhi-based Fitpass connects consumers with the gyms and studios around them and gives unlimited access to lakhs of fitness workouts. With the membership of fitpass, anyone can try different workouts in their suitable locations every day. FITPASS subscribers can work out at any gym/fitness studio, anytime and can freely choose from a variety of available workout options - Gym Workouts, Yoga, Zumba, Pilates, Spinning, Kickboxing, Crossfit, MMA and many more. In addition, users can also consult their dedicated personal nutritionist and follow highly curated A.I. led coaching plans on the FITPASS app to achieve faster results.

“Our tech-first approach has helped us achieve astounding growth rates without burning our funds. The focus has been on data-driven operations and using tech-led solutions to limit human intervention. The latest infusion of capital will allow us to significantly enhance the user experience and digitize the fitness economy. It’s going to be game-changing,” said Akshay Verma, Co-founder, FITPASS.

Earlier,, in December 2016, FITPASS had raised $1 million, from Mumbai Angels and a consortium of Delhi and Bengaluru-based angel investors to grow horizontally and add service verticals, data-driven highly personalised fitness management tools for its users as well as to rollout bespoke enterprise products to its partner gyms/fitness studios.

Sector Overview

The Indian fitness services market is estimated at $16.6 billion per annum by PwC and is the fastest growing services market (25% per annum). With 2/3rds of India being under the age of 35 years, the demand for fitness services is growing at an exponential rate driven by a multitude of factors: medical, personal, fashion, self-confidence, image, etc. While disposable income among Indians has grown by 200% over the last 5 years, India is now counted amongst the most unfit countries in the world. In fact, one in three Indians is classified as medically unfit or suffering from a preventable lifestyle disease – 430 million Indian suffer from hypertension and blood pressure, more than 182 million suffer from diabetes and over 65 million Indians suffer from obesity. WHO attributes physical inactivity and unhealthy diet as the primary reason for rising lifestyle diseases in India.

 

Moglix To Empower $300 Bn Manufacturing Unit In India; Launches Green GST

Manufacturing sector is the least digitized compared to other sectors in India. Today, only 20% of manufacturing units are using digital in their supply chain management. With GST on the anvil, this number is expected to go up, as it will be mandatory for businesses of all sizes to file their indirect taxes online as per the new tax regime.

In making manufacturing units GST complaint, Green GST is also tackling the challenge of making vendors – mostly small manufacturers and traders – ready for the new regime.

Recently, B2B e-commerce marketplace, Moglix has launched ‘Green GST’ - a SAAS-based GST application solution for manufacturing units across India. Aimed at improving transparency and digitization in the manufacturing space, the tool will provide organisations with end-to-end Goods and Services Tax (GST) compliance support. The Green GST solution will be offered free of cost for a 30 day trial period to a user or companies with turnover below $4 million. Post the trial, if the user is willing to continue, they will have to bear a subsidized costs related to GST Suvidha Provider (GSP) transaction. The cost will be valid for up to 2400 invoices a year for a single user. The solution has been developed to make supply chains of manufacturing units GST complaint ahead of the law implementation on July 1st, 2017.

Commenting on the development, Rahul Garg, Founder and CEO, Moglix said, “Moglix’s Green GST is aligned with the government’s One Country, One Tax vision. Our solution will help India’s manufacturing units become fully GST compliant within their supply chain, in an effective and efficient manner. Through this solution, Moglix hopes to make its contribution to making India future-ready, and also help promote a clean, green and transparent business environment."

Green GST leverages Moglix’s expertise in digitizing supply chains, especially those of manufacturing units. It is a feature-rich solution for filing of GST, reconciliation of invoices, maintaining dashboards for multiple plants and warehouses, and managing taxes for various locations and cross-border trading.  Moglix will extend its existing commerce eco-system to consolidate small vendors, and create a compliant atmosphere for manufacturing units to operate in. This comes on the back of Moglix’s GST filing solution introduced in December 2016 to allow mid-to-large-sized manufacturing companies file and reconcile their GST payments with the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN).

“In these interesting times, Moglix stands at a unique confluence of expertise in technology and the manufacturing supply chain. We are excited about the tremendous opportunity for our customers to enhance their business footprint using our technology and analytics capabilities,” said Garg.

Founded in August 2015 by Rahul Garg who was previously the Head of Advertising Exchange at Google Asia,  Moglix is an B2B e-commerce marketplace that specializes in B2B procurement of industrial products such as MRO, fasteners, electrical, hardware, pneumatics, safety items and more. Startup has raised Series A and Seed funding of Rs38 Cr from venture capital firms like Accel Partners, Jungle Ventures, SeedPlus and Venture Highway. The company is backed by Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons as an investor. Recently, SAP Labs identified Moglix as its startup tech partner for shaping B2B commerce in India.

China's Guizhou Open Doors For Indian Entrepreneurs To Run Their Startups

Entering the Chinese market is on the to-do list of many businesses, but unfortunately the market isn't very accepting of foreign companies and goods. There have been many cases in the past wherein foreign companies have been driven out of the country by homegrown competitors. One such classic example is China’s ride-hailing startup Didi chasing out ride-hailing superpower Uber from its country last year. But, here's the good news for Indian entrepreneurs and startups wanting to get a taste of the Chinese market. The Indian government and Nasscom have recently entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China's Guizhou, a mountainous province located in southwest of the country to encourage Indian entrepreneurs to come set up their businesses there.

Harbouring the largest population on Earth, China’s economy has continued to grow by double-digit rates over the last couple of years. With this impressive growth, the country is expected to overtake the US as the second largest global economy by 2020 and destined to remain an engine of global growth for the next ten years. These lucrative growth figures attracts a lot of businesses to the country but the country's market isn't particularly easy to enter because of a lot of norms and regulations. But, fortunately the MoU with Guizhou will prove to be a sweet entry ticket for Indian entrepreneurs and startups into the country.

China's Guizhou has been gaining ground as an emerging point of the country's Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives, with 12 data centres already under construction. The province, which has the presence of some of the biggest technology giants in the world like Apple, Amazon, Alibaba, Baidu and enterprises such as IBM, HP, Infosys and Dell, aims to leverage the developments being witnessed there and built itself into a smart city.

The province of Guizhou was recently in the news for hosting the Big Data Industry Expo, which saw the presence of a whopping 87,000 attendees from all across the globe. For the unversed, the Expo showcases IT possibilities and opportunities, and is a discussion ground for various current topics affecting the industry like artificial intelligence, digital economy etc.

Commenting on the MoU signed between Guizhou and the Indian government and Nasscom, Sun Zhigang, Guizhou's governor, drew parallels between Guizhou and Bengaluru and said that Indian businesses coming here could take advantage of the favourable policy environment, availability of resources and convenient transportation facilities in order to spur the growth of their startups/businesses.

Karnataka Grants Rs. 3.18 Crore To 12 Startups In The State

Karnataka has announced grants of Rs. 3.18 crore to 12 startup companies in the state. The startups, identified by the Karnataka Department of Information Technology and Biotechnology, specialise in a wide range of specialities, skills, and industries, such as agriculture, biotech, security, communications, and robotics and have been selected on the grounds of the application of the technology, practicality, feasibility and innovation.

The beneficiary startups have been a part of the Idea2PoC, a scheme being implemented by the Karnataka Startup Cell, Department of IT, with each company receiving an initial funding up to Rs.50 lakh each.

Idea2PoC is a part of the first multi-sector Startup Policy launched by the Karnataka government in 2015, and is being implemented by KBITS. The main aim is to discover and encourage brilliant innovators in the state who need early stage funding to help in commercializing their innovation, assistance, researches, etc.

Priyank Kharge, Minister for IT & BT, said, "The state is filled with young, talented and brilliant people, and it is our responsibility to ensure that these talents are recognized. These 12 startups were chosen because they have the potential to make a difference."

Gaurav Gupta, Principal Secretary Department of IT, BT and Science and Technology said, "Start-ups in the fields of agriculture, biotech, security, communications, robotics, and gaming are springing up rapidly. Our vision is to promote and mentor these start-ups, and provide them with all the assistance they require to become self-sufficient.”

Salma K Fahim, Managing Director, KBITS, said, "The government is targeting start-up companies in new and emerging technologies such as animation, artificial intelligence, big data, virtual reality, etc as these companies can solve long standing problems, will provide numerous job opportunities and aid in the Make In India programme."

To recall, in March of this year Karnataka Government has funded eight tourism startups under the same Idea2POC Scheme and got grants ranging from Rs. 5 lakh to Rs. 50 lakh to develop ideas and products.

Incubators, Co-Working Space For Startups In Every Parliamentary Constituency

The Commerce and Industry Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman has written a letter to all Members of Parliament (MPs) to consider setting up co-working spaces/incubators for Startups in their constituency under the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme Fund (MPLADS), informed ministry in a press release on Wednesday.

The minister said, "This step will promote the Startup ecosystem in the country and help Startups in their constituency make rapid strides towards establishing themselves and also create jobs."

In the letter Sitharaman said the 'Start-up India' initiative of the Government of India envisions building a strong eco-system for nurturing innovation in the country and empowering Startups to grow through innovation and design. She said the Government has been making all-out efforts towards realizing the vision of the Startup India Mission.

She further added that one of the crucial aspects that needs to be addressed in raising Government support for startups in the country is infrastructure. She said Startups may not be able to own/hire working space due to financial constraints, thereby, it was suggested that if Government could support in creating co-working spaces, it could help translate their ideas into successful businesses.

Notably there are total 790 MPs and their constituencies including some rural and semi-urban areas which are far away from startup revolution the country saw in last decade. The urge of Sitharanan to MPs, if fall in place rightly, Indi could see an another startup boom.

To recall, Sitharaman has also used her MPLAD fund to create a co-working space for startups in Mangaluru.

Moreover, India is also planning to organise a meet of startups of the South Asian region -- SAARC nation, precisely -- for exchange of new ideas and promoting interaction among them.

Uber Launches UberEATS in Delhi, NCR; Commences Service in Gurugram

Connecting people to the food they love, Uber, the technology company that is transforming mobility across the world, today launched the UberEATS service to Delhi, NCR starting with Gurugram. Partnering with over 300 restaurants, consumers can now order their favorite food at the tap of a button. To successfully scale the business across the region, Faiz Abdulla has been appointed as the General Manager for UberEATS in Delhi.

Commenting on the launch, Bhavik Rathod, Head of UberEATS India, said “UberEATS has received an overwhelming response from Mumbaikars and we recently expanded operations to serve entire city. As a step further in our global expansion strategy, we aim to open up the diverse range of culinary experiences and cuisines to Delhiites at the push of a button. Our goal is to offer people what they want to eat, when they want to eat, in the quickest time possible. The ease and reliability of Uber’s technology is making this a reality.”

UberEATS will give local restaurants in Delhi, NCR a reliable delivery option, effectively expanding their capacity and reach to be able to service a whole new network of potential customers. In addition to that, hundreds of delivery partners in the region will now also have access to more flexible earning opportunities.

“Delhi, well known for its love for North Indian and international cuisines, has a vibrant food culture, and UberEATS will offer Delhiites an effortless way to order food. We are excited about going live in Gurugram today and aim to expand the service area to New Delhi and other parts of the National Capital Region soon,” said Faiz Abdulla, General Manager for UberEATS Delhi.

Faiz joined Uber in April 2017 as the General Manager for UberEATS. In this role, he will be focussing on driving value for restaurant and courier partners and providing an exceptional experience to the customers. An entrepreneur at heart, Faiz comes with immense experience in the F&B space. He co-founded Silicon Galli, a Mumbai-based organization which is dedicated to building innovative, profitable & sustainable global businesses and The Funky Kitchen Company. He has also launched two food brands in Mumbai - a QSR chain and a luxury ice-cream brand.

UberEATS was started in 2014 as a small delivery pilot in Los Angeles and launched as a separate application in Toronto in December 2015. In the past 18 months, it has grown incredibly fast, and is now a stand-alone app available in 27 countries and in 97 cities around the globe, including India.

The UberEATS app is separate to the Uber app people use to request a ride and has been built specifically to make food delivery as seamless as possible. Starting today, consumers can download the new app for iOS and Android from the iTunes/Google play store or go online at ubereats.com.

Getting started with UberEATS is easy.

1. Download the app

2. Pick delivery location - Input your address where you’d like your meal delivered

3. Find the perfect meal - Browse local restaurants or search by cuisine type, and sort according to price, dietary needs, and speed to find exactly what your taste buds are asking for

4. Place your order - Pick the items you want right now or schedule your order to the arrive whenever is most convenient for you

5. Pay through PayTM - OPayTM will make it easy for you to pay for your meals

6. Track the progress of the delivery - Get updates as your order is prepared and watch in realtime as the meals is delivered to your destination

Election Commission of India Partners Facebook To Launch First Nationwide Voter Registration Reminder

With over 180 million people in India on Facebook, the 'Register Now' button is designed to encourage Indian citizens to register themselves with the Election Commission of India. Starting from 1st July till 4th July, the voter registration reminder will be sent to people on Facebook in India who are eligible to vote. The reminder will be in 13 Indian languages - English, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu, Assamese, Marathi and Oriya.

Dr.Nasim Zaidi, Chief Election Commissioner, Election Commission of India, said “I am pleased to announce that the Election Commission of India is going to launch a ‘Special Drive to enrol left out electors, with a particular focus on first time electors. This is a step towards fulfilment of the motto of ECI that ‘NO VOTER TO BE LEFT BEHIND’.

As part of this campaign, on 1st July, 2017, Facebook will run a voter registration reminder in multiple Indian languages to all the Facebook users in India. I urge all eligible citizens to enrol and VOTE i.e. Recognize your Right and Perform your Duty. I am sure this initiative will strengthen Election Commission of India’s enrolment campaign and encourage future voters to participate in the Electoral Process and become responsible Citizens of India."

This is the first time Facebook's voter registration reminder has been rolled out across India. Earlier, similar reminders have been rolled out in partnership with Chief Electoral Officers during the State elections of 2016 and 2017.

Ms. Ankhi Das, Public Policy Director for India, South & Central Asia, said "People use Facebook to learn, talk and get involved with issues that matter to them. We want to build products that support this type of civic engagement - on Election Day and every day. We believe that democracies are stronger when more people are engaged - that's why we are encouraging everyone who is eligible to register to vote and connecting them with resources."

By clicking on the “Register Now" button, people will be directed to the National Voters’ Services Portal which will guide them through the registration process.

Please find below the link to view the video message from Dr. Nasim Zaidi, Chief Election Commissioner, Election Commission of Indiaon ECI's partnership with Facebook for the first nationwide voter registration campaign: https://www.facebook.com/FacebookIndia/videos/vb.103274306376166/1928468260771945/?type=2&theater

ftcash Gets Selected by Mastercard Start Path Program to Participate in Its Six-Month Virtual Mentorship Program

Further accentuating its position as one of India’s fastest growing financial technology start-ups, ftcash has been selected by Mastercard Start Path to participate in its annual six-month virtual mentorship program. A global effort to support later-stage fintech and tech start-ups who are shaping the future of commerce, Mastercard Start Path has played a pivotal role in shaping the successes of fintech organizations all over the world. ftcash is one of six start-ups from around the world who were selected to participate in the program’s latest wave.

Start Path was launched in early 2014 to provide operational support, commercial access, and strategic investment for start-ups across the globe building innovative solutions in financial services and commerce. The Start Path team works with start-ups using a tailored plan to deliver tangible value and help participating companies grow their businesses. The program enables startups to tap into to its global ecosystem of experts and help expand into new markets through relationships with Mastercard and its customers. Start-ups that are qualified for the program are rethinking banking, payments and commerce and have raised a significant seed or Series A round of investment. Since its launch, the team has engaged more than 130 start-ups from all over the world.

Speaking on the announcement, Sanjeev Chandak- co-founder and CEO, ftcash, said, “ftcash was established with the singular aim of facilitating swift and seamless financial transactions for Indian merchants over a digital medium, and to allow them convenient access to other financial products such as loans. Participating in the Mastercard Start Path program is a huge win for us. We look forward to receiving the knowledge and operational tools we need to further achieve our organizational goals, bolster our global client networks through the program and contribute considerably towards building a less-cash, digital-first India.”

“ftcash is transforming the way merchants and entrepreneurs can take out loans and get paid for their goods and services,” said Amy Neale, vice president, Mastercard Start Path. “By participating in Mastercard Start Path, ftcash will receive a unique mix of benefits designed to help it scale at an accelerated pace.”

Through its open architecture-based platform, ftcash aggregates all payment methods, including credit/debit cards, net banking, and mobile wallets, UPI, and PayPal for merchants to initiate digital payments in less than five minutes. Users do not need to own a smartphone or download any apps and can conveniently receive payments through a basic feature phone, which can then be transferred directly to their bank account. The company primarily serves micro-merchants, MSMEs, home-based entrepreneurs, mom-and-pop stores, and large corporate businesses with a merchant base. ftcash facilitates both payments and loans for merchants and allows them to repay loans directly through the platform. It also creates unique and proprietary transactional data, which can further be leveraged to provide institutional finance to these merchants.

Fintech Startup Rubique Secures $3 Mn In A Bridge Round Of Funding

In yet another game-changing round of finance, Rubique, the fintech company empowering individuals and SMEs by providing easy and smooth access to finance and financial products has raised a bridge round of funding of $3 million. The money has been invested by existing investor Kalaari Capital and Udayan Goyal, managing partner at Apis Partners, a financial services-oriented private equity firm focused on Africa and South Asia.

The recent bridge round of funding came after the company's announcement mid last year that it intends to raise $10-15 million in a Series-B round. The company had raised $3 million in Series A from Kalaari Capital, YourNest Angel Fund, Globevestor and Dexter Angel Circle in April last year.

Commenting on making the fund raising a discreet affair, Manavjeet Singh, CEO, Rubique said, “We delayed our Series B round since the company was already generating revenue worth Rs 2 crore a month for the last six months without spending any money on marketing. In fact we didn't need money for survival. However, we decided to go with the new round of funds as there was immense inbound interest. We’ll be leveraging these funds to make even greater inroads across India, strengthen technology product with rich data science methodologies like AI-MLP and explore new product territories in Insurance & Mutual Funds”

Based out of India's financial capital Mumbai, Rubique was incorporated by Manavjeet Singh along with his partner Sandeep Nambiar on October 2014, to bring every borrower and lender on a common platform. The duo introduced a tech-led lending solution which is unique in terms of its matchmaking algorithm and direct integration with financial institutions’ lending underwriting systems. Rubique’s marketplace platform has been integrated with financial institutions’ systems for real time processing and for providing online approvals to the customer. The advance technology solution not only reduces the processing time significantly but the data analytics done on hundreds of data points helps to bring predictability & assess creditworthiness offering best deal to their customer.

With this technology solution, the model is focused on disbursement rather than mere lead generation allowing the customer to get the best deal in the quickest possible time while lowering the cost for customer acquisition for the financial institutions. With a unique technology-driven model, it aims to tap all customer segments be it the digital savvy or the traditional Indian customer.

Rubique has been truly metamorphosing the traditional lending process through technological interventions in an unprecedented fashion. It has just localised its Rubique Associate app. The interactive app now live in Hindi, Marathi and Bengali language will now enable more number of potential business associates to register with Rubique and earn a commission for every reference search for Loans or Credit Cards. The interface for all the three language apps is an exact replica of the English version, making all the user-friendly features available to speakers of Hindi, Marathi and Bengali.

Its recently launched Rubique Advantage feature, new lending solution TAB and the freshly added insurance products to its portfolio has enabled the platform to disburse more than Rs 1,500 crore worth of loans across 27 cities till date. Of this, Rs 250 crore was disbursed in the last two months alone. Rubique is now looking to expand its team of data scientists as well.

AI Startup Niki.ai Raises $2 Mn In Series A Funding From SAP.iO, Unilazer Ventures, Others

AI startup, Niki.ai  has secured $2 million in Series A round of funding from San Francisco based fund SAP.iO and existing investor Ronnie Screwvala's Unilazer Ventures. The funding also saw participation from other Indian investors including Haresh Chawla (Partner at True North) and Arihant Patni, along with some US and German investors.

The company plans to use freshly infused funds to strengthen their machine learning capabilities, building voice and multilingual functionalities and expanding their distribution network.

Commenting on the development, Ronnie Screwvala, Managing Partner, Unilazer Ventures said, "We are just at the basic level of AI where focus is to Cut Time, Complexity and Costs in every sector and from here we will see exponential innovation, more than we have seen in any sector till date. Niki is uniquely positioned and in less than 2 years we have made progress in multiple spheres and struck diversified relationships with a majority of corporate India. Our Tech and our solutions are ready for a global market too. In the last year I did three follow up rounds with Niki given its track record and the right entrepreneur founders at the helm. We are just getting started.”

Adding further, Ram Jambunathan, Managing Director, SAP.iO said "We believe that Niki.ai has an innovative technical approach and is building a scalable product that can change the commerce industry. We are very impressed with how Niki.ai is leveraging AI to help businesses fulfill the needs of consumers. There is a huge opportunity globally, yet to be captured, and the investment will fuel the next level of growth for Niki.ai."

Started in 2015, and funded by Ratan Tata and Unilazer Ventures, Niki.ai envisions to provide one shop for everything commerce. Niki is an AI bot who converses to help you shop for products and services and makes the whole journey from discovery to transaction fast, convenient and extremely simple.

The company provides a simple and easy to use chat interface to shop for products and services. To the businesses, it provides a plug and play technology that can be easily integrated everywhere including operating systems, on messaging platforms messenger, and on the brand’s applications (app and web).

With a 35% month-on-month revenue growth, the company has 50+ partners on board, with many more in the pipeline. On the customer front, the company boost to have more than 400,000 customers using Niki.

“Niki.ai has been focused on building the product for the past 2 years. We believe we have the capability to disrupt the AI and bot space. Owing to our robust technology, innovative solutions and successful business model, we have managed to win significant investor confidence globally, with our existing investors continuing to back us strongly,” said Sachin Jaiswal, CEO, Niki.ai.

Niki supports over 20 categories including entertainment, travel, daily utilities, with partners such as BookMyShow, Redbus, OYO, Ola, Uber, JustRechargeIt to name a few. Recently, Niki.ai has partnered with BookMyShow to provide smart booking experience to its users.

For the businesses, Niki.ai has released its Chatbot SDK, which provides brands with an opportunity to enable conversational commerce on their platform through a simple integration, and make use of the advanced technology of language processing and machine learning built by Niki.ai. The SDK acts as a plug and play technology that can be easily integrated in less than an hour of development effort. It is already live across multiple banks, OEMs and wallets, such as HDFC Bank, Intex, Oxigen wallet, Zopo Mobiles (as a widget in its latest series), to name a few. Additionally, 40+ SDK partnerships are going to be live soon.

“We want to provide consumers with multiple touch points to access Niki. With our SDK being deployed across platforms (Android, iOS, Web, Messaging apps) by banks, OEMs, wallets & startups; we move a step closer to our vision of being ubiquitous. The current fund raise will be utilised to further strengthen our distribution,” said Jaiswal.

With data of over 75 million interactions over the past 2 years, the Bengaluru-based company is soon going to add the feature of voice communication, which is already being beta tested. Furthermore, to tap deeper into the Indian market, Niki.ai aims to train its NLP engine to interpret Indian languages, starting with Hindi and then eventually being multilingual. It also plans on being on a lot more platforms like iOS and messaging platforms like Slack.

AI holds immense potential for the global market, and this is the reason why the year 2017 is being predicted to be that of Artificial Intelligence.

How This Heath-Tech Startup Reached 9 Million Users Without Spending A Dime

Social networking giant Facebook is the number one choice for emerging brands in the United States to get the word out for their brands and reach out to customers. However, in India, Facebook is proving to be a costly option for startups and they are now turning to a service that is much more personal and costs almost nothing—WhatsApp.

A living example of the success of the WhatsApp promotion trend in India is digital health start-up 1mg. Within just two years of its launch, the startup has garnered more than 9 million downloads for its app, which helps users in researching prescription drugs and finding the lowest price possible. The best part of 1mg's success is that its founders have not spent a penny promoting his business and all these applaud worthy numbers are courtesy WhatsApp promotion.

According to Mary Meeker's annual Internet Trends report for the year 2017, WhatsApp is the most popular Android app in India, followed by Facebook Messenger at number two and the core Facebook service at number five.

1mg's success story began when one of its users drafted a long WhatsApp message about the app's benefits and the message instantly went viral with hundreds of people sharing it. According to its co-founder Prashant Tandon, a Stanford Business School graduate, his company has spent no money whatsoever in marketing in reaching where they're today.

Tandon returned to his home country India in 2009 with an aim of building digital tools for the country's health care system, which was flailing back then. This vigour to do something for Indian healthcare system gave birth to Tandon's first entrepreneurial venture, HealthKart, which is into selling health and wellness products online in the country. During his time at HealthKart, he realised the big price differential between the various generic medicines in the country and decided to do something about the situation, and this is how 1mg came into existence.

Tandon had a foresight that 1mg would be a success in the country as unlike many other countries in the world where insurance covers the medicine expense, people in India still buy their medicines from their own pocket. However, he didn't expect 1mg to become this big a success this soon.

The startup, which has Silicon Valley's technology investors like Maverick Capital, Sequoia Capital and Omidyar Network in its kitty, allows consumers to buy prescription drugs, order diagnostic tests and consult with a physician online. A consumer can even upload a prescription to the app via a smartphone photo, and the medicine will be delivered straight to the user's doorstep. The model has proven to be a major success in the rural pockets of the country with little access to doctors and pharmacies.

The power of WhatsApp has made 1mg one of the largest digital health companies in the country with 65 million page views per month.

It seems, Mark Zuckerberg's gamble of buying WhatsApp for a whopping $19 billion in 2014 is paying out well. While back then people were a little skeptical about why the social networking pioneer would shell out such an amount for a popular messaging service that generated almost no revenue, but it seems Zuckerberg had it under control all this time. According to Pacific Crest Securities, in the near future, each active WhatsApp user could produce at least $2 of revenue per month.

Bangalore Based Livspace Announces Rs 25 Cr Investments in Online to Offline Initiatives

Livspace, India’s largest home interior design and execution platform has opened four flagship Design Centers across top metro cities to bring an omnichannel design experience to homeowners. By integrating thousands of online Livspace looks, visualization through virtual reality and an offline, tactile experience, the company expects the Design Centers to solidify its leadership position in the home design space in India.

These flagships serve as an addition to the existing network of a total of 11 Design Center and Experience Apartments, spread across Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, and Mumbai. With more such facilities in the pipeline — including flagships, small-format Design Centers, and Experience Apartments — this number is expected to grow to 25, over the next 12-18 months. A sum of INR 25 crore has been earmarked for this expansion through 2018. These Design Centers are expected to double revenue by mid-2018, owing to an increase in conversion rate, with each center contributing INR 4-6 crore by end of 2017.

True omnichannel experience has always been integral to Livspace since the opening of the pilot Design Center in Bangalore in 2015. Over the last year and a half, the company registered a 35% higher average conversion rate in Bangalore when compared to other cities, solely because of the Design Center. Livspace also gathered feedback from customers, who unanimously said they wanted more looks, a true feeling of being in a home, more technology integration to visualize the space, and extensive material libraries to select from, in order to reduce time-to-purchase.

In every Design Center the showcase of rooms — bedrooms, living rooms, modular kitchens, floorings, false ceiling, wall solutions, and, everything in between — is tailored to current design trends and preferences, and average budget range. Customers can touch, feel and select materials for everything from wallpapers, kitchen and wardrobe shutters, flooring, etc., in the appropriate selection zones. Once a design has been finalized, an automated order will be placed for all items and services like an eCommerce order. Within weeks of a customer walking into a Livspace Design Center, the company’s installation and services team make the customer’s home look like the selected design.

Inspired by high customer demand, given the buoyant new home purchases in metros, and by deep consumer research in the online-offline experience required in the interiors industry, Livspace Design Centers are modelled on a ‘home-in-store’ retail philosophy — simply walk in for a real-life experience of interiors that resemble your home, including kitchens, flooring, false ceiling, etc. This home-like environment is deeply integrated with the Livspace design platform, virtual reality, personalized design services, as well as the eCommerce experience with the company’s vast catalog of modular products, home services, furniture and decor marketplace.

Commenting on the launch, Anuj Srivastava, CEO and Co-founder, Livspace said, “The Design Centers are inspired by our eighteen-months-long studies in Bangalore and research in the omnichannel buying behaviour exhibited by over 5000 homeowners buying interior design solutions, which range anywhere from 6 lacs to over 15 lacs.  Our Design Centers — first of their kind in India — allow consumers to select one of the pre-designed looks on our website, customize them from our library of over 10,000 finishes, see the various looks in our Design Centers, get a virtual reality experience, and, do all this seamlessly between our website and physical locations. This omnichannel experience reduces the time customers take to finalize their order from 6-8 weeks in the traditional model to 2-3 with Livspace, by easing several key steps in the customer journey - selection, visualization, personalization, automated order placement and final installation from certified professionals. Additionally, the Design Centers inspire trust and also help in increasing the order size by over 30% in the purchase cycle.”

Commenting on the launch, Vishal Gupta, Managing Director, Bessemer Venture Partners, said, “The new home market is buoyant across metros and the broader interior and modular industry are flourishing. For companies which operate in a high-disruption potential and high-involvement environment like home design, only an innovative and well integrated online to offline format can ensure sustained growth and market leadership. The need of the hour is to integrate experiences across channels through an omni-channel approach. We are positive that Livspace, with its product and business thinking that’s creating the industry, is poised to acquire a larger market share away from the unorganized competition. Their experiment with VR in their Design Centers will further strengthen their true omnichannel approach.”

Speaking of the virtual reality experience, Ramakant Sharma, CTO and Co-founder, Livspace said “Virtual reality offers a very immersive visualization experience that’s revolutionary for the larger interior industry. At the Livspace Design Centers, with their dedicated VR zones, you can experience homes in VR, from an ever-expanding library. The deterrent with creating VR-supported designs has always been time and cost. But in the time to come, we have plans to integrate virtual reality into the Livspace Design Platform such that every designer can create virtual reality instances quickly and easily, and each customer will be able to view their home design — in real time on VR devices, or as 360 degree videos remotely. The integration will bring VR experience to all homeowners.”

Founded in 2014, Livspace.com is India’s first and largest end-to-end home design and execution platform offering complete interiors and modular solutions for new home and remodelling customers. Bringing together the best designers, contractors and vendors in one technology and omni channel platform, Livspace makes the process of home design more convenient, efficient and easier. Right from planning the layout of your apartment to installing your modular kitchen, Livspace is your one stop for complete home interiors.

Led by Helion Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and Jungle Ventures, Livspace has raised over $27 million in investments.