Here's How Elon Musk Will Colonize Mars By 2024

Tesla Motors' Elon Musk has been trying to redefine transportation on earth as well as in space since a long time. In a step forward towards that direction, the South African-born Canadian American business magnate recently unveiled his plans of colonising Mars and how he aims to achieve the same. In addition to the Mars project, Musk enthusiastically also talked about how rockets can be used to transport people anywhere on Earth in under an hour.

Taking the podium at the International Astronomical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, Musk revealed that he has conceived a business plan for pumping money in his ambitious new spaceship called the “Big Fucking Rocket” or BFR.



Musk aims to achieve his mission by cannibalising every other SpaceX spacecraft—the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Dragon and then resembling all the resources extracted from the drive into a new spaceship.

“We can build a system that cannibalizes our own products, makes our own products redundant, then all the resources we use for Falcon Heavy and Dragon can be applied to one system,” Musk said.

For the uninitiated, founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, Space X designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company aims to revolutionise space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.

SpaceX has gained worldwide attention for a series of historic milestones. It is the only private company ever to return a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit, which it first accomplished in December 2010. The company made history again in May 2012 when its Dragon spacecraft delivered cargo to and from the International Space Station — a challenging feat previously accomplished only by governments. Since then Dragon has delivered cargo to and from the space station multiple times, providing regular cargo resupply missions for NASA.

In 2017, SpaceX successfully achieved the first reflight of an orbital class rocket – a historic milestone on the road to full and rapid rocket reusability.

Coming back to BFR, Musk revealed that 48-meter tall rocket will be used not only to send people to Mars, but also to establish a lunar colony on the Moon, send satellites to space, replace airplanes for long-distance Earth travel and service the International Space Station (ISS).



According to Musk, the rocket, which is still in its early stages of production, has potential of becoming a viable means for interplanetary travel some years down the line. A short video showed a cryo tank with 1,200 tons of liquid oxygen exploding in a stress test, but only after reaching a level what Musk believes will be sufficient for a trip to Mars.

BFR, according to Musk, will have the “highest thrust rate engine of any kind ever made,” with 31 Raptor engines, which is a decrease from the 42 engines Musk pitched for the Interplanatary Transit System last year.

With BFR, Musk’s final goal is to colonize Mars, but he does acknowledge that we’re still far away from realising that scenario. According to Musk, one would require thousands of rockets and tens of thousands of refill operations to establish a self-sustaining base on Earth’s neighbour, Mars. Currently, about 60 orbital launches occur on Earth every year.



Musk also revealed that measuring 9 meters in diameter, the rocket would have enough space to house 40 cabins, large common rooms, a galley, central storage area, and a solar storm shelter. According to Musk, the rocket is large enough to fit “a stack of Falcon 1 rockets” in its payload bay. Drawing an everyday analogy, Musk shared that BFR is greater than the double-decker Airbus A380.

The Tesla boss’ plans to store enough fuel to get the rocket to Mars is pretty simple. He wants to launch off the BFR straight from Earth with a 150-ton tank and meet a tanker in orbit for complete re-fueling purposes. Musk is optimistic that with this, the BFR will be successfully able to reach Mars without making any additional stops on the way.

The conference also saw Musk sharing his vision of how the BFR will be able to service the ISS and shoot satellites into space. He then also demonstrated a concept for establishing a lunar base.

Musk also shared his plans to build a society on Mars. According to the timeline revealed by him, there will be two cargo missions to Mars by 2022 and four (two cargo, two crewed) missions by 2024.

First opportunity to land BFR with cargo on Mars is 2022, followed by BFR crew and cargo missions to Mars in 2024—supporting the creation of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence on Mars.

A post shared by SpaceX (@spacex) on Sep 28, 2017 at 10:57pm PDT

Explaining his fascination with colonising Mars, Musk revealed that he’s doing this simply because it “beats the hell out of being a single-planet species.”

“The future is vastly more exciting and interesting if we’re a space-faring species and a multi-planetary species than if we’re not,,” said Musk. “You want to be inspired by things. You want to wake up in the morning and think, ‘The future’s going to be great’,” he added.

At the conference, Musk also showed a concept video about how BFR could take humans on most long-distance trips around the Earth in less than 30 minutes, and anywhere in under an hour.

This development was first reported in DailyDot.

Here's How Elon Musk Will Colonize Mars By 2024

Tesla Motors' Elon Musk has been trying to redefine transportation on earth as well as in space since a long time. In a step forward towards that direction, the South African-born Canadian American business magnate recently unveiled his plans of colonising Mars and how he aims to achieve the same. In addition to the Mars project, Musk enthusiastically also talked about how rockets can be used to transport people anywhere on Earth in under an hour.

Taking the podium at the International Astronomical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, Musk revealed that he has conceived a business plan for pumping money in his ambitious new spaceship called the “Big Fucking Rocket” or BFR.



Musk aims to achieve his mission by cannibalising every other SpaceX spacecraft—the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Dragon and then resembling all the resources extracted from the drive into a new spaceship.

“We can build a system that cannibalizes our own products, makes our own products redundant, then all the resources we use for Falcon Heavy and Dragon can be applied to one system,” Musk said.

For the uninitiated, founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, Space X designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company aims to revolutionise space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.

SpaceX has gained worldwide attention for a series of historic milestones. It is the only private company ever to return a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit, which it first accomplished in December 2010. The company made history again in May 2012 when its Dragon spacecraft delivered cargo to and from the International Space Station — a challenging feat previously accomplished only by governments. Since then Dragon has delivered cargo to and from the space station multiple times, providing regular cargo resupply missions for NASA.

In 2017, SpaceX successfully achieved the first reflight of an orbital class rocket – a historic milestone on the road to full and rapid rocket reusability.

Coming back to BFR, Musk revealed that 48-meter tall rocket will be used not only to send people to Mars, but also to establish a lunar colony on the Moon, send satellites to space, replace airplanes for long-distance Earth travel and service the International Space Station (ISS).



According to Musk, the rocket, which is still in its early stages of production, has potential of becoming a viable means for interplanetary travel some years down the line. A short video showed a cryo tank with 1,200 tons of liquid oxygen exploding in a stress test, but only after reaching a level what Musk believes will be sufficient for a trip to Mars.

BFR, according to Musk, will have the “highest thrust rate engine of any kind ever made,” with 31 Raptor engines, which is a decrease from the 42 engines Musk pitched for the Interplanatary Transit System last year.

With BFR, Musk’s final goal is to colonize Mars, but he does acknowledge that we’re still far away from realising that scenario. According to Musk, one would require thousands of rockets and tens of thousands of refill operations to establish a self-sustaining base on Earth’s neighbour, Mars. Currently, about 60 orbital launches occur on Earth every year.



Musk also revealed that measuring 9 meters in diameter, the rocket would have enough space to house 40 cabins, large common rooms, a galley, central storage area, and a solar storm shelter. According to Musk, the rocket is large enough to fit “a stack of Falcon 1 rockets” in its payload bay. Drawing an everyday analogy, Musk shared that BFR is greater than the double-decker Airbus A380.

The Tesla boss’ plans to store enough fuel to get the rocket to Mars is pretty simple. He wants to launch off the BFR straight from Earth with a 150-ton tank and meet a tanker in orbit for complete re-fueling purposes. Musk is optimistic that with this, the BFR will be successfully able to reach Mars without making any additional stops on the way.

The conference also saw Musk sharing his vision of how the BFR will be able to service the ISS and shoot satellites into space. He then also demonstrated a concept for establishing a lunar base.

Musk also shared his plans to build a society on Mars. According to the timeline revealed by him, there will be two cargo missions to Mars by 2022 and four (two cargo, two crewed) missions by 2024.

First opportunity to land BFR with cargo on Mars is 2022, followed by BFR crew and cargo missions to Mars in 2024—supporting the creation of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence on Mars.

A post shared by SpaceX (@spacex) on Sep 28, 2017 at 10:57pm PDT

Explaining his fascination with colonising Mars, Musk revealed that he’s doing this simply because it “beats the hell out of being a single-planet species.”

“The future is vastly more exciting and interesting if we’re a space-faring species and a multi-planetary species than if we’re not,,” said Musk. “You want to be inspired by things. You want to wake up in the morning and think, ‘The future’s going to be great’,” he added.

At the conference, Musk also showed a concept video about how BFR could take humans on most long-distance trips around the Earth in less than 30 minutes, and anywhere in under an hour.

This development was first reported in DailyDot.

Unable To Raise Funds, Foodtech Startup Yumist To Shut Down

Downturn in foodtech space continues as Gurgaon-based Yumist, which cooks its own meals and deliver it to customers through a cloud kitchen model, said on Friday it has decided to shut down after it was unsuccessful in raising fresh capital to survive in a competitive market.

Launched in 2014 by Alok Jain, an ex-CMO at Zomato along with restaurateur Abhimanyu Maheshwari, Yumist had raised total of $3 million in two rounds from three investors including Unilazer Ventures and Orios Venture Partners. The last funding it racked was in December 2015 and since then it failed to raise any fresh funding.

In an official blog post on Friday evening, the company announced, "We are shutting shop today. We failed to raise the kind of capital that this business required while staying true to the customer problem. In hindsight, there's a bunch of internal and external factors that led us to this dead end. From launching in a second city prematurely, or committing to a high growth, high burn model just because prospective investors wanted to see that back in 2015, or taking a tad bit too long to find the right business model, we made our mistakes. We learnt from these mistakes and recovered fast, but maybe not too fast."

In May, Yummist had already halted its operations in Bengaluru, citing reason of not owning a kitchen facility as the hinderance for the startup in providing quality service and innovation in menu to its Bengaluru customers.

In the same month, an another Gurgaon-based food delivery startup Eatonomist had shut down and prior to that TinyOwl, Spoonjoy, Dazo and a bunch of other food startups shuttered their operation in the past year or so . Globally, too, the segment has seen a churn with San Francisco-based Sprig and SpoonRocket shutting shop after a bevy of such services got funded in the heady years of 2014-15.

The Yumist blog post on Friday said that the company was clocking Rs 65 in margins per order at an average order value of Rs 190 by March this year. "Our delivery outlets were breaking even at just 70 orders a day, we were acquiring new customers at Rs 180 and recovering back this money within 45 days. Owing to our product quality and customer experience, we enjoyed good word of mouth (with 50% of our new customers coming through referrals), 70% of our monthly orders were from repeat customers and from March until September we tripled our revenues and gross margins. With these trends, Yumist would have become a profitable company by June 2018," the blog post said.

Top 10 Startup Funding This Week [25 – 30 Sept]

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

Naspers Increases Stake in Foodpanda Parent Delivery Hero

Delivery Hero, the leading global online food ordering and delivery marketplace, has announced that Naspers increased its stake in Delivery Hero from 10.6 percent to 23.6 percent by acquiring 22,359,857 shares that were previously held by Rocket Internet for an amount of $775M.

Naspers is one of the largest internet investors in the world, holding minority stakes in digital players such as Tencent, Mail.Ru or Flipkart.

Amazon Picks Up 5% Stake in Shoppers Stop for Rs 179 Cr

US-based online retail giant Amazon is picking up a 5% stake in multi-brand fashion retailer Shoppers Stop for a 5% stake, making it the global e-tailer's first investment in an offline retail company in India, according to BSE filings.

This investment will be made through Amazon.com NV Investments Holdings LLC, its foreign portfolio investment arm.

FirstCry in Talks To Raise Rs 666 Cr

Pune, Maharashtra headquartered FirstCry.com, which claims to be Asia’s Largest Online Portal for Baby Products and Toys, is currently in the midst of raising equity financing of about Rs 665.27 crore ($100 million) from multiple investors including Temasek Holdings, a state-owned holding company that can be characterized as a national wealth fund owned by the Government of Singapore.

According to a report in the Economic Times, two sources close to the company have confirmed the publication that FirstCry’s parent company Brainbees Solutions is hoping to be valued at $400-500 million after this fundraise goes through. The company was earlier estimated at $300-350 million when it last raised funding in October last year.

Xiaomi May Invest $15 Mn In Bangalore-based Social Networking Startup ShareChat

China-based smartphone and consumer electronics manufacturer Xiaomi and its venture capital firm, Shunwei Capital, are reportedly considering investing a whopping $15 million in funds in a Bengaluru-based social networking and regional content platform called ShareChat.

Started in the year 2015 by three IIT Kanpur alumni ‑ Farid Ahsan, Bhanu Singh and Ankush Sachdeva, ShareChat in simple words is a social media platform in local Indian languages. With ShareChat, one can share videos, jokes, GIFs, audio songs and funny images from India in Indian languages like Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, and Malayalam.

Saas Startup Synup Raises $6M in Series A; Aims to Achieve 10x Growth in the Next 3 Years

Synup, a provider of SaaS-based solutions that enables local businesses to manage their online presence, today announced it has completed a $6 million (approx INR 40 crores) Series A round of financing. The fresh round of investment is led by Vertex Ventures along with Synup’s existing investor, Prime Venture Partners, who also participated in the round. The investment will help the company to rapidly expand its sales and marketing efforts as well as broaden and accelerate product development.

Civic Tech Company Transerve Technologies Raises $1.6M from IL&FS Investment Managers and Omidyar Network

Transerve Technologies, a company that offers geospatial technology-based SaaS solutions for sustainable growth and urban planning, has raised $1.6 million from IL&FS Investment Managers and Omidyar Network in a Series A round of funding. The investment was facilitated by Tribe Impact (previously known as Intellecap Impact Investment Network or I3N) which is India’s first and largest impact-focused angel network facilitating investments into early stage enterprises.

Car Service Startup Pitstop Raises $1M from Blume Ventures and Goldbell Group

Pitstop, an after-sales car service provider has secured $1M in pre-series A round of funding from Blume Ventures, Singapore-based Goldbell Group and angel investors such as Anurag Srivastava, Shailesh Rao, Amiya Pathak, Rajesh Yohanan and Rahul Garg.

With presence in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR, Pitstop was started in 2015 by Mihir Mohan and Nirant Ramakuru. Pitstop caters to 70% of customers who are looking for high quality car service once their dealership service warranty expires.

Lenskart Picks Up Minority Stake In US-based 3D Face Modelling Startup Ditto; Invests $1M

India’s leading online shopping portal for eyewear, Lenskart, has pumped in a whopping $1 million in US-based eyewear e-commerce startup, Ditto.com to pick up a minority stake in the firm.

Lenskart, which is doing good business and has grown more than 200 per cent year on year, already makes use of Ditto’s 3D try-on tech on its website and app. The tech allows customers to virtual try-on eyewear and make their choice based on what suits their face cut and requirement the best.

Keiretsu Forum Invests in Defence-tech Startup Aadyah

The Bangalore chapter of global angel network Keiretsu Forum has led a nearly $1 million (Rs 6.5 crore) seed round in aerospace and defence technology startup Aadyah Aerospace Pvt. Ltd. Founded in April 2016, Aadyah focuses on building electro-mechanical actuators, control actuation systems and electro optics systems for missiles and launch vehicles.

Capillary Leads Pre-Series A Funding in Online-to-Offline Fashion Store Discovery & Loyalty App, Fashalot

Capillary Technologies, homegrown omni-channel and customer engagement platform, has led a pre-Series A funding round in online-to-offline fashion store discovery & loyalty app, Fashalot. Fashalot’s focus on driving footfalls at retail stores ties into Capillary’s push for creating solutions that improve retail store engagement with their customers. The investment was also driven by the fact that Fashalot is a pioneer in this high-potential industry, with a highly experienced team and deep expertise in advanced location-based technology and rich data that powers a new generation of consumer analytics highly contextual consumer marketing.

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

GoChoppers Services Pvt. Ltd, a startup that provides luxury helicopter tourism services, has raised funding from Rivergate Capital.

West Indian opening batsman Chris Gayle has picked up minority stake in Bengaluru based augmented reality venture Flippar App.

Agri-tech firm CropIn Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding from Singapore-based early-stage fund BEENEXT.

Vogo Automotive Pvt. Ltd, which runs online scooter rental startup Vogo Rentals, has raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round.

Consumer lending platform CrediFiable has raised Seed funding from Kae Capital.

ArtiVatic.ai has raised third round of angel funding from Dubai & Singapore NRIs after raising earlier fund from Spark10 Accelerator UK in Jul 2017.

Zomato has invested in Hyderabad-based foodtech startup, TinMen.

Delhi-based startup which provides healthcare contents, myUpchar.com(Health and Wellness Tips) has raised Rs 2 crore in seed funding

Inclov, a matchmaking app for people with disability and health disorders, has raised Pre-Series A funding from angel investors Rajan Anandan, Jamil Khatri, Ravi Iyer, Debjani Ghosh (Ex-MD, Intel South Asia) and Quintillion Media’s founder Raghav Bahl (also the founder, Network 18).

Language learning startup Multibhashi has raised Seed funding

Engee Wellness, which runs a foot-only reflexology chain under the brand Thai Way Foot Spa & Reflexology, has raised an undisclosed amount in its pre-series A round from group of investors.

Vasonomics, a leading VAS services player in Africa, has announced that it has made a strategic Investment in CreatioSoft, iGaming solutions provider based in India catering to various geographies.

Image Source: ShutterStock

Top 10 Startup Funding This Week [25 – 30 Sept]

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

Naspers Increases Stake in Foodpanda Parent Delivery Hero

Delivery Hero, the leading global online food ordering and delivery marketplace, has announced that Naspers increased its stake in Delivery Hero from 10.6 percent to 23.6 percent by acquiring 22,359,857 shares that were previously held by Rocket Internet for an amount of $775M.

Naspers is one of the largest internet investors in the world, holding minority stakes in digital players such as Tencent, Mail.Ru or Flipkart.

Amazon Picks Up 5% Stake in Shoppers Stop for Rs 179 Cr

US-based online retail giant Amazon is picking up a 5% stake in multi-brand fashion retailer Shoppers Stop for a 5% stake, making it the global e-tailer's first investment in an offline retail company in India, according to BSE filings.

This investment will be made through Amazon.com NV Investments Holdings LLC, its foreign portfolio investment arm.

FirstCry in Talks To Raise Rs 666 Cr

Pune, Maharashtra headquartered FirstCry.com, which claims to be Asia’s Largest Online Portal for Baby Products and Toys, is currently in the midst of raising equity financing of about Rs 665.27 crore ($100 million) from multiple investors including Temasek Holdings, a state-owned holding company that can be characterized as a national wealth fund owned by the Government of Singapore.

According to a report in the Economic Times, two sources close to the company have confirmed the publication that FirstCry’s parent company Brainbees Solutions is hoping to be valued at $400-500 million after this fundraise goes through. The company was earlier estimated at $300-350 million when it last raised funding in October last year.

Xiaomi May Invest $15 Mn In Bangalore-based Social Networking Startup ShareChat

China-based smartphone and consumer electronics manufacturer Xiaomi and its venture capital firm, Shunwei Capital, are reportedly considering investing a whopping $15 million in funds in a Bengaluru-based social networking and regional content platform called ShareChat.

Started in the year 2015 by three IIT Kanpur alumni ‑ Farid Ahsan, Bhanu Singh and Ankush Sachdeva, ShareChat in simple words is a social media platform in local Indian languages. With ShareChat, one can share videos, jokes, GIFs, audio songs and funny images from India in Indian languages like Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, and Malayalam.

Saas Startup Synup Raises $6M in Series A; Aims to Achieve 10x Growth in the Next 3 Years

Synup, a provider of SaaS-based solutions that enables local businesses to manage their online presence, today announced it has completed a $6 million (approx INR 40 crores) Series A round of financing. The fresh round of investment is led by Vertex Ventures along with Synup’s existing investor, Prime Venture Partners, who also participated in the round. The investment will help the company to rapidly expand its sales and marketing efforts as well as broaden and accelerate product development.

Civic Tech Company Transerve Technologies Raises $1.6M from IL&FS Investment Managers and Omidyar Network

Transerve Technologies, a company that offers geospatial technology-based SaaS solutions for sustainable growth and urban planning, has raised $1.6 million from IL&FS Investment Managers and Omidyar Network in a Series A round of funding. The investment was facilitated by Tribe Impact (previously known as Intellecap Impact Investment Network or I3N) which is India’s first and largest impact-focused angel network facilitating investments into early stage enterprises.

Car Service Startup Pitstop Raises $1M from Blume Ventures and Goldbell Group

Pitstop, an after-sales car service provider has secured $1M in pre-series A round of funding from Blume Ventures, Singapore-based Goldbell Group and angel investors such as Anurag Srivastava, Shailesh Rao, Amiya Pathak, Rajesh Yohanan and Rahul Garg.

With presence in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR, Pitstop was started in 2015 by Mihir Mohan and Nirant Ramakuru. Pitstop caters to 70% of customers who are looking for high quality car service once their dealership service warranty expires.

Lenskart Picks Up Minority Stake In US-based 3D Face Modelling Startup Ditto; Invests $1M

India’s leading online shopping portal for eyewear, Lenskart, has pumped in a whopping $1 million in US-based eyewear e-commerce startup, Ditto.com to pick up a minority stake in the firm.

Lenskart, which is doing good business and has grown more than 200 per cent year on year, already makes use of Ditto’s 3D try-on tech on its website and app. The tech allows customers to virtual try-on eyewear and make their choice based on what suits their face cut and requirement the best.

Keiretsu Forum Invests in Defence-tech Startup Aadyah

The Bangalore chapter of global angel network Keiretsu Forum has led a nearly $1 million (Rs 6.5 crore) seed round in aerospace and defence technology startup Aadyah Aerospace Pvt. Ltd. Founded in April 2016, Aadyah focuses on building electro-mechanical actuators, control actuation systems and electro optics systems for missiles and launch vehicles.

Capillary Leads Pre-Series A Funding in Online-to-Offline Fashion Store Discovery & Loyalty App, Fashalot

Capillary Technologies, homegrown omni-channel and customer engagement platform, has led a pre-Series A funding round in online-to-offline fashion store discovery & loyalty app, Fashalot. Fashalot’s focus on driving footfalls at retail stores ties into Capillary’s push for creating solutions that improve retail store engagement with their customers. The investment was also driven by the fact that Fashalot is a pioneer in this high-potential industry, with a highly experienced team and deep expertise in advanced location-based technology and rich data that powers a new generation of consumer analytics highly contextual consumer marketing.

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

GoChoppers Services Pvt. Ltd, a startup that provides luxury helicopter tourism services, has raised funding from Rivergate Capital.

West Indian opening batsman Chris Gayle has picked up minority stake in Bengaluru based augmented reality venture Flippar App.

Agri-tech firm CropIn Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding from Singapore-based early-stage fund BEENEXT.

Vogo Automotive Pvt. Ltd, which runs online scooter rental startup Vogo Rentals, has raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round.

Consumer lending platform CrediFiable has raised Seed funding from Kae Capital.

ArtiVatic.ai has raised third round of angel funding from Dubai & Singapore NRIs after raising earlier fund from Spark10 Accelerator UK in Jul 2017.

Zomato has invested in Hyderabad-based foodtech startup, TinMen.

Delhi-based startup which provides healthcare contents, myUpchar.com(Health and Wellness Tips) has raised Rs 2 crore in seed funding

Inclov, a matchmaking app for people with disability and health disorders, has raised Pre-Series A funding from angel investors Rajan Anandan, Jamil Khatri, Ravi Iyer, Debjani Ghosh (Ex-MD, Intel South Asia) and Quintillion Media’s founder Raghav Bahl (also the founder, Network 18).

Language learning startup Multibhashi has raised Seed funding

Engee Wellness, which runs a foot-only reflexology chain under the brand Thai Way Foot Spa & Reflexology, has raised an undisclosed amount in its pre-series A round from group of investors.

Vasonomics, a leading VAS services player in Africa, has announced that it has made a strategic Investment in CreatioSoft, iGaming solutions provider based in India catering to various geographies.

Image Source: ShutterStock

Softbank Contributes Nearly 24% To India's PE Investments Till Date

With almost nine months down on the calendar of 2017, transaction research firm Venture Intelligence decided to evaluate the progress of private equity investments recorded in the country in the year so far and unearthed some interesting facts and figures.

The firm found out that, the first nine months of 2017 has seen private equity firms investing about a whopping USD 17.6 billion in Indian firms, a figure which is already past the previous record of USD 17.3 billion in the year 2015.

Divulging details about the sizes of the deals witnessed, the firm revealed that, in the nine months that have passed since the year starting, India has seen as many as 21 investments over USD 200 million in addition to 15 deals between USD 100 million and USD 200 million.

One of the most interesting facts highlighted by Venture Intelligence is that, Japanese multinational telecommunications and Internet corporation, SoftBank has alone contributed over USD 4 billion of the investment value or 24 per cent of the total amount in the year gone by so far.

The investments which helped the Japanese major achieve this feat include a USD 2.5 billion investment in Indian e-commerce giant, Flipkart; a USD 1.4 billion investment in Indian mobile wallet giant, Paytm; and a USD 250 million investment in Indian-origin hotel room aggregator website, Oyo.

Interestingly, at 402, the number of deals witnessed so far in the year are 23 per cent lower than what was recorded during the same period last year.

Coming to the latest quarter, July-September, about 106 private equity deals took place this time garnering about USD 5.7 billion. This means, the quarter was the second best quarter in the year gone by so far, only behind Jan–Mar 2017, which saw 163 deals going through that churned out a whopping USD 6.4 billion.

In what could be considered as an encouraging figure for the Indian startup scene, the latest quarter saw 13 investments above USD 100 million going through as compared to 10 in the same period last year.

While SoftBank’s USD 2.5 billion investment in Flipkart was the largest investment that took place in the quarter, the other investments that made headlines were made for by BFSI companies- General Atlantic’s USD 240 million buyout of investor services firm Karvy Computershare; Carlyle’s USD 300 million into SBI Cards and the USD 260 million raised by RBL Bank.

Last year saw the Indian startup industry going through a sluggish period when it came to the number of investment deals taking place. The Indian startup industry, which was once the apple of every investor's eye saw experienced investors tightening heir pursue strings and taking much longer than before concluding transactions. But, the latest figures made available by Venture Intelligence show that the industry is bouncing back and how.

This development was first reported in MoneyControl.

At 16%, Internet Penetration In Rural India Lags Behind Many Countries: Report

PM Modi’s Digital India might not be progressing as well as he had anticipated. According to the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) IMC-Deloitte report released at the recently held ‘India Mobile Congress 2017,’ the overall Internet penetration in the country stands at a disappointing 33 per cent. In fact, what’s more discouraging is the fact, the figure is just 16 percent in the rural areas of the country.

The report revealed that the Indian subcontinent currently occupies the 36th rank, globally, when it comes to internet inclusion based on factors such as availability, affordability, relevance and readiness.

With only 23 per cent, the South Asian country is several miles behind many countries in broadband penetration. As of August this year, India, which has a population of about 1.324 billion, has just around 310 million broadband subscribers.

For the uninitiated, a country’s broadband penetration can be considered a key element in achieving a country’s socio-economic objectives. In fact, a rise in broadband penetration to 60 per cent can result into a potential 5-6 percent increase in the country’s GDP.

Rajan S Mathews, Director General, COAI believes that the Indian telecom industry has been contributing significantly to the Indian economy. He affirms that the industry has in fact ensured that the Modi government’s Digital India programme is able to reach the farthest corners of the country. He further said, “With the lowest call rates in the world and affordable access to data, the industry truly is at the cusp of a revolution.”

Adding to what Mathews said, PN Sudarshan, Partner, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP said, “Telecom is redefining mobility, work, governance, etc. and will promote geographical, financial and social inclusion and enable the interplay of technologies and industries for exponential growth propelling India towards a $5 trillion economy.”

The COAI IMC-Deloitte report also highlighted the need and tracking the implementation status of smart cities, smart healthcare, smart money, smart energy and smart agriculture.

In fact, some of the recommendations mentioned in the report regarding building internet connectivity-infrastructure for areas with billions of people included ‘setting aspirational goals,’ ‘increasing planned budgetary allocation and effective usage of Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF)’ and ‘implementing policies and guidelines to standardise deployment of infrastructure.’

This development was first reported in Bgr.

[Image: MediaLabs]

Car Service Startup Pitstop Raises $1M from Blume Ventures and Goldbell Group

Pitstop, an after-sales car service provider has secured $1M in pre-series A round of funding from Blume Ventures, Singapore-based Goldbell Group and angel investors such as Anurag Srivastava, Shailesh Rao, Amiya Pathak, Rajesh Yohanan and Rahul Garg.

With presence in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR, Pitstop was started in 2015 by Mihir Mohan and Nirant Ramakuru. Pitstop caters to 70% of customers who are looking for high quality car service once their dealership service warranty expires.

The company seeks to redefine the car service industry in India by enabling a network of Pitstop-certified garages and expert mechanics. Pitstop is building a technology enabled platform to provide transparent, convenient and economical service at either a Pitstop-certified garage or at the customer’s premises.

“We are really happy to have Blume ventures and Goldbell group back us early on in our journey to change the automotive aftermarket landscape,” said Mihir Mohan, Founder and CEO of Pitstop. “This funding will be used to create, train, and empower thousands of mechanics and garages to provide an awesome customer experience. Other than trained manpower, we want to invest in right technology that can enable predictive, on demand, convenient maintenance for customers.”

Sajid Fazalbhoy, Principal, Blume Ventures said “Building an auto after sales service platform is a multi-billion dollar opportunity that we are very excited about. Most of the market and value chain is unorganized. Pitstop, via its full stack solution, would provide value to all stakeholders in the auto ecosystem be it OEMs, workshops, or customers. There would be tremendous value creation for a company that disintermediates this market. Pitstop's current market traction numbers are impressive and the company will use this capital to build partnerships with all stake holders and expand across multiple cities.”

Pitstop has also developed a proprietary SaaS based Fleet Information system that provides leading taxi fleets, leasing companies and self-drive car rentals a one-stop real time view of service repairs. It works in conjunction with an android app for garages/mechanics/drivers who use the app to manage orders in real time, provide a transparent access to fleets and end customers.

“Technologies are changing the landscape for many industries, including automotive. We saw a gap in consumers’ experience and felt that Pitstop’s technology could bring forth quality and convenient car services to consumers in India and potentially in South East Asia,” said Alex Chua, Chief Operating Officer of Goldbell Group.

India’s automotive sector is valued at approximately $15 billion in the top 8 cities of which the after sales market is close to $7 billion and growing at a healthy pace. With this funding, the company will further strengthen its supply base and will be well-poised to capitalize the unorganized auto service sector and standardize offerings across all car brands.

Earlier, the company had receivedseed funding from Rahul Garg – Founder, Moglix & Xoogler, Myntra co-founder Ashutosh Lawania; Livspace founders – Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma; Krishna Kumar, CEO – Simplilearn and other angels.

Car Service Startup Pitstop Raises $1M from Blume Ventures and Goldbell Group

Pitstop, an after-sales car service provider has secured $1M in pre-series A round of funding from Blume Ventures, Singapore-based Goldbell Group and angel investors such as Anurag Srivastava, Shailesh Rao, Amiya Pathak, Rajesh Yohanan and Rahul Garg.

With presence in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR, Pitstop was started in 2015 by Mihir Mohan and Nirant Ramakuru. Pitstop caters to 70% of customers who are looking for high quality car service once their dealership service warranty expires.

The company seeks to redefine the car service industry in India by enabling a network of Pitstop-certified garages and expert mechanics. Pitstop is building a technology enabled platform to provide transparent, convenient and economical service at either a Pitstop-certified garage or at the customer’s premises.

“We are really happy to have Blume ventures and Goldbell group back us early on in our journey to change the automotive aftermarket landscape,” said Mihir Mohan, Founder and CEO of Pitstop. “This funding will be used to create, train, and empower thousands of mechanics and garages to provide an awesome customer experience. Other than trained manpower, we want to invest in right technology that can enable predictive, on demand, convenient maintenance for customers.”

Sajid Fazalbhoy, Principal, Blume Ventures said “Building an auto after sales service platform is a multi-billion dollar opportunity that we are very excited about. Most of the market and value chain is unorganized. Pitstop, via its full stack solution, would provide value to all stakeholders in the auto ecosystem be it OEMs, workshops, or customers. There would be tremendous value creation for a company that disintermediates this market. Pitstop's current market traction numbers are impressive and the company will use this capital to build partnerships with all stake holders and expand across multiple cities.”

Pitstop has also developed a proprietary SaaS based Fleet Information system that provides leading taxi fleets, leasing companies and self-drive car rentals a one-stop real time view of service repairs. It works in conjunction with an android app for garages/mechanics/drivers who use the app to manage orders in real time, provide a transparent access to fleets and end customers.

“Technologies are changing the landscape for many industries, including automotive. We saw a gap in consumers’ experience and felt that Pitstop’s technology could bring forth quality and convenient car services to consumers in India and potentially in South East Asia,” said Alex Chua, Chief Operating Officer of Goldbell Group.

India’s automotive sector is valued at approximately $15 billion in the top 8 cities of which the after sales market is close to $7 billion and growing at a healthy pace. With this funding, the company will further strengthen its supply base and will be well-poised to capitalize the unorganized auto service sector and standardize offerings across all car brands.

Earlier, the company had receivedseed funding from Rahul Garg – Founder, Moglix & Xoogler, Myntra co-founder Ashutosh Lawania; Livspace founders – Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma; Krishna Kumar, CEO – Simplilearn and other angels.

Tagbox Solutions and Steradian Semiconductors Raise $75K Each in 'Qualcomm Design in India Challenge II'

Qualcomm Incorporated today announced the top two winners from Cycle I of its Qualcomm Design in India Challenge II (QDIC II) at India Mobile Congress being held at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. Since the beginning of 2017, eight shortlisted companies were incubated with initial prize money of USD 10,000 each and engineering support at Qualcomm India’s Innovation Labs in Bangalore and Hyderabad, wherein they could transform their ideas into prototypes. In the final round, the companies were judged by the jury members consisting of Industry, Government and Qualcomm executives. Two companies were awarded USD 75,000 each as the winners of the Challenge in Cycle I.

The winners of the Cycle I of QDIC II are:

• Tagbox Solutions Private Limited - Concept - An ultra-low power wireless platform targeted towards improving efficiency of Cold Storage and Logistics by monitoring and controlling key health parameters like temperature, relative humidity, gas, energy, door activity, etc.
• Steradian Semiconductors Private Limited - Concept - Build a High Resolution 4D Radar that will enable true all-weather vision for Autonomous Vehicles and Drones.

Speaking on the occasion, Alex Rogers, executive vice president and president of Qualcomm Technology Licensing, said, “Since its beginning, Qualcomm’s strength has been constant innovation. Qualcomm Design in India Challenge provides a platform for cutting-edge technology entrepreneurs to showcase their talent and creative ideas. Qualcomm takes immense pleasure in announcing the two winners, who have created innovative solutions that address the needs and challenges of today. We look forward to offering our continued support to these winners, and the Government’s “Design in India”objectivein helping innovative start-ups take their ideas from concept to market.”

Launched in 2016, in association with National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), QDIC encourages product companies to create innovative hardware product designs incorporating Qualcomm® technologies and platforms.In January 2017, Qualcomm announced an investment of USD 8.5 million for expansion of its design initiatives in India through the ‘Qualcomm Design in India Program’ (QDIP),which includes the QDIC as well as additional initiatives such as Qualcomm Innovation Labs at Hyderabad and Bangalore to enable Indian mobile and IoT vendors in advanced design activities requiringCamera, Audio, and RF tuning.

Upon successful completion of QDIC I in January 2017 involving incubation of ten finalists selected from over 400 aspirants, Qualcomm announced commencement of its QDIC II program. QDIC II has been implemented in two cycles, which involves incubation of a total of fourteen finalists (eight from Cycle I and six from Cycle II) selected from over 150 applications. In total, after the completion of QDIC II in early 2018, Qualcomm will have incubated 24 product companies over two years. The registrations for the second cycle of QDIC II opened in July. Qualcomm also announced the top six finalists for the second cycle of QDIC II.

• iClimb Systems India Pvt. Ltd.
• Intuvision Labs Private Limited
• Gaia Smart Cities Solutions Private Limited
• Lightmetrics Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
• Sensara Technologies India Private Limited
• Ayasta Technologies Private Limited

These six finalists will be incubated in Qualcomm Innovation Labs, and the final two winners will each receive a prize money of USD $75,000 at the end of the incubation period in January 2018.

Govt To Work With Startups On Tech Support For Agri Schemes

The Indian government seems to have finally understood that it’s not all about pulling out new schemes and projects from a hat every time and then forgetting them altogether, especially when it comes to the agriculture sector. If the sector, which still supports the livelihood of majority of the rural population, has to progress, the government will have to do a lot more than just dropping names of one scheme after another and actually work towards making the already launched schemes successful.

Taking a step in this direction, the government has now decided to work with agritech startups in the country that can help them in efficiently implementing some of its flagship programmes like soil health card, irrigation and crop insurance, among various others.

Taking charge of a meeting held with agri-startup firms in India this week, Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh highlighted the need of farmer-friendly technologies and how some specific technologies are required for each of the key schemes launched by the central government.

Some of the key agricultural focused schemes that the government is focusing its attention right now include Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, Soil Health Card, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana, Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana and Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana.

Speaking at the meeting, Singh gave an example of how agritech startups can work with key flagship government schemes. For instance, under the government’s soil health card scheme, there’s a need to analyse a large number of soil samples, a process which will prove to be highly tedious and time consuming. This is where technological solutions developed by agritech startups in the form of low-cost hand-held soil sensors or any non-destructible method of soil fertility assessment can easily help asses soil health.

Singh also added, that satellites and drones can be put to use to accurately and timely asses the crop loss to efficiently settle crop insurance claims. In fact, IT-based solutions can also be employed to increase the number of insured farmers in the country.

Singh also urged his ministry officials to get to work on the matter immediately by dividing themselves into small core-teams and start the discussions with agritech startup firms already functioning in the country.

It is great to see that the Indian government is helping the sector which for long has been the backbone of the country to move into the tech age. A perfect marriage of agriculture and tech can surely help in taking the sector to new heights and increase the livelihood of people living in rural India.

This development was first reported by PTI.

[Image: Robotics Business Review]

Naspers Increases Stake in Foodpanda Parent Delivery Hero

Delivery Hero, the leading global online food ordering and delivery marketplace, has announced that Naspers increased its stake in Delivery Hero from 10.6 percent to 23.6 percent by acquiring 22,359,857 shares that were previously held by Rocket Internet for an amount of $775M.

Naspers is one of the largest internet investors in the world, holding minority stakes in digital players such as Tencent, Mail.Ru or Flipkart.

Niklas Östberg, CEO of Delivery Hero, said, “We know the Naspers management team for a couple of years and built very close and trustful relationships. They came in as a long-term shareholder, committed to Delivery Hero, committed to the vision and values of our company and management team. We are excited about their willingness to increase their stake as they have seen our business develop.”

Bob van Dijk, CEO of Naspers, said, “Delivery Hero is already the leading online food ordering and delivery marketplace in most of the countries in which it operates and our increased investment demonstrates our confidence in the long-term prospects for the company. The food delivery sector is still underpenetrated and growing rapidly across the world. Many markets have experienced significant traction already, but we believe the potential is far greater in high-growth markets than that observed in the West.”

The transaction is subject to regulatory approval, will be funded from existing resources, and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018.

Delivery Hero is the leading global online food ordering and delivery marketplace with number one market positions in terms of restaurants, active users and orders in more countries than any of its competitors and online and mobile platforms across 40+ countries in Europe, the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. Delivery Hero also operates its own delivery service primarily in 60+ high-density urban areas around the world. The Company is headquartered in Berlin and has over 6,000 employees in addition to thousands of employed delivery drivers.

India's Youngest Self-Made Female Millionaire Is An Ex-CEO of A Unicorn Startup

Ambiga Subramanian is a name to reckon with in the Indian women entrepreneurial world. Not only is she the first woman to ever head an Indian unicorn (Mu Sigma), a recent list published by research firm Hurun enlists Subramanian as the youngest of India’s eight richest self-made women.

Starting her career in 1998, the 42-year-old womenpreneur has collected a net worth of over Rs 2,500 crore over the year. Appearing on the Hurun India rich list 2017 at fourth position, the former CEO of Mu Sigma finds company among her peers Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson of biotechnology company Biocon, Vembu Radha, director at software products maker Zoho, and Sheela Gautam, chairperson emeritus of mattress-maker Sheela Foam in the top 4.

The Hurun India rich list ranks Indians having more than Rs 1,000 crore in wealth.

This isn’t Subramanian’s first time appearing on such a popular list. Last year, she found herself a place in India’s most powerful businesswomen list by Forbes, which is considered as a great honour in the business community. Subramanian started her career with telecom firm Motorola, where she held her ground for eight straight years. She joined her former husband’s company Mu Sigma in 2007 as a director for innovation.

[caption id="attachment_121821" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Ambiga Subramanian[/caption]

In the nine years that she worked at Mu Sigma, Subramanian had quite a journey. Starting off just as director for innovation, she went on to become the firm’s head of talent management in mere three years. In 2012, Subramanian was offered the position of chief operating officer (COO), which she eventually traded up for CEO position in 2016.

Considered as the world's largest provider of analytics and decision solutions, Mu Sigma was started by Subramanian’s former husband Dhiraj Rajaram in 2004 by selling their home in Illinois and putting in $200,000 of his personal savings. The firm's name is derived from the statistical terms "Mu (μ)" and "Sigma (σ)" which symbolises the mean and the standard deviation respectively of a probability distribution. Prior to venturing out on his own with Mu Sigma, Rajaram worked with consultancies such as Booz Allen Hamilton and PwC etc.

Over the years, the Bengaluru headquartered company has went on to achieve quite a lot. Five years ago, in 2012, the firm became India’s first profitable unicorn after it successfully crossed the $100 million revenue mark. The firm, which currently employs over 4,000 workers and serves 140 of the Fortune 500 companies, has raised over $211 million so far in seven rounds of funding. It has the backing some of the biggest names in the business such as Sequoia, Mastercard and General Atlantic. It is currently estimated to have a valuation of $1.5 billion.

For FY 2015-16, the company earned a profit of Rs 462.9 crore, which was a significant 22% increase from the year before. However, last year was particularly rocky for the company following Subramanian and Rajaram’s decision to get divorced. Anticipating a potential power struggle, several senior executives started to jump the ship in pursuit of a stable ground. This whole scenario resulted in a huge loss for the company as its revenues fell from $184 million in 2015 to $165 million in the year ending December 2016.

Eventually, the once power couple came up with a plan to save the company from going under when Rajaram decided to buyout Subramanian’s stake in the company. Following the divorce, Subramanian sold her 24% stake in Mu Sigma to her former husband Dhiraj Rajaram, who then went on to buy stock options held by his employees to finally emerge as the controlling shareholder of the firm he started 13 years ago.

Following the highly publicised divorce, Subramanian has mostly remained out of newspaper headlines and hasn’t announced any new ground-breaking ventures. On the other end, Mu Sigma is finally bouncing back after a bad year and is now on track to hit the $180 million revenue mark this year.

This development was first reported in Quartz.

India's Youngest Self-Made Female Millionaire Is An Ex-CEO of A Unicorn Startup

Ambiga Subramanian is a name to reckon with in the Indian women entrepreneurial world. Not only is she the first woman to ever head an Indian unicorn (Mu Sigma), a recent list published by research firm Hurun enlists Subramanian as the youngest of India’s eight richest self-made women.

Starting her career in 1998, the 42-year-old womenpreneur has collected a net worth of over Rs 2,500 crore over the year. Appearing on the Hurun India rich list 2017 at fourth position, the former CEO of Mu Sigma finds company among her peers Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson of biotechnology company Biocon, Vembu Radha, director at software products maker Zoho, and Sheela Gautam, chairperson emeritus of mattress-maker Sheela Foam in the top 4.

The Hurun India rich list ranks Indians having more than Rs 1,000 crore in wealth.

This isn’t Subramanian’s first time appearing on such a popular list. Last year, she found herself a place in India’s most powerful businesswomen list by Forbes, which is considered as a great honour in the business community. Subramanian started her career with telecom firm Motorola, where she held her ground for eight straight years. She joined her former husband’s company Mu Sigma in 2007 as a director for innovation.

[caption id="attachment_121821" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Ambiga Subramanian[/caption]

In the nine years that she worked at Mu Sigma, Subramanian had quite a journey. Starting off just as director for innovation, she went on to become the firm’s head of talent management in mere three years. In 2012, Subramanian was offered the position of chief operating officer (COO), which she eventually traded up for CEO position in 2016.

Considered as the world's largest provider of analytics and decision solutions, Mu Sigma was started by Subramanian’s former husband Dhiraj Rajaram in 2004 by selling their home in Illinois and putting in $200,000 of his personal savings. The firm's name is derived from the statistical terms "Mu (μ)" and "Sigma (σ)" which symbolises the mean and the standard deviation respectively of a probability distribution. Prior to venturing out on his own with Mu Sigma, Rajaram worked with consultancies such as Booz Allen Hamilton and PwC etc.

Over the years, the Bengaluru headquartered company has went on to achieve quite a lot. Five years ago, in 2012, the firm became India’s first profitable unicorn after it successfully crossed the $100 million revenue mark. The firm, which currently employs over 4,000 workers and serves 140 of the Fortune 500 companies, has raised over $211 million so far in seven rounds of funding. It has the backing some of the biggest names in the business such as Sequoia, Mastercard and General Atlantic. It is currently estimated to have a valuation of $1.5 billion.

For FY 2015-16, the company earned a profit of Rs 462.9 crore, which was a significant 22% increase from the year before. However, last year was particularly rocky for the company following Subramanian and Rajaram’s decision to get divorced. Anticipating a potential power struggle, several senior executives started to jump the ship in pursuit of a stable ground. This whole scenario resulted in a huge loss for the company as its revenues fell from $184 million in 2015 to $165 million in the year ending December 2016.

Eventually, the once power couple came up with a plan to save the company from going under when Rajaram decided to buyout Subramanian’s stake in the company. Following the divorce, Subramanian sold her 24% stake in Mu Sigma to her former husband Dhiraj Rajaram, who then went on to buy stock options held by his employees to finally emerge as the controlling shareholder of the firm he started 13 years ago.

Following the highly publicised divorce, Subramanian has mostly remained out of newspaper headlines and hasn’t announced any new ground-breaking ventures. On the other end, Mu Sigma is finally bouncing back after a bad year and is now on track to hit the $180 million revenue mark this year.

This development was first reported in Quartz.

Chennai Startup Launches India’s Biggest Gaming Café in Nungambakkam, Chennai

Chennai-based gaming startup Arknemesis Gaming, will be launching not just India's but South Asia's biggest gaming café in Nungambakkam, Chennai on Friday. Arknemesis Gaming will be a state-of-the-art Gaming Lounge and Café, which will offer high intensity and competitive PC and Console gaming coupled with a Café and a Billiards Lounge to attract a much wider audience.

The 6500-square feet gaming café will house 68 high-end gaming PCs, four PS4 Pros, three snooker tables and 21 4K TVs. The café can house up to 200 people.

Arknemesis Gaming will offer an all-round and unique Entertainment Experience with high-end PCs, Consoles and Virtual Reality peripherals along with free Wi-Fi for paying customers. Once opened, the café also has on offer, a wide range of fully licensed games across genres including RPGs, RTS, FPS, MMOs, MOBAs, etc.

Founded in May 2016 by entrepreneur Harish Suri and his parents, Suri G and Vidya Suri, Arkenemesis is a bootstrapped gaming startup that aims to open such gaming cafes to give gamers a unique gaming experience. The company says that the idea is to not only promote gaming in India but also cater to all types of gamers.

“There is immense potential for gaming cafes and gaming in general in India. But we felt that cafes usually focus too much on e-sports games and alienate the casual crowd and thus we decided to create a place that caters to gamers, non-gamers, cosplayers and anime lovers,” says Harish Suri, founder, Arknemesis Gaming

All the gaming PC’s at Arknemesis Café will be powered by top of the line components by the industry’s best component manufacturers. Brands like ASUS, Corsair and NVIDIA make up the PC Gaming systems. Sony for Playstation consoles.



“Arknemesis is the first game café to offer its users a true 4k experience and with its unique concept will attract all kinds of gamers. To ensure a continuous uninterrupted game play at all times, the café PCs run on the best ASUS hardware and gaming peripherals. The graphics cards used in all the systems are designed to run 30% cooler than normal because of our patented DirectCU II technology while the motherboards are equipped with the ROG SupremeFX Audio solution for a rich gaming experience. ASUS has been actively supporting game cafes over the last few years with its ‘ROG Certified Café’ program.” – Vinay Shetty, ASUS Regional Director – India and South Asia, Component Business.

Vamsi Krishna, Head - Consumer Marketing, South Asia, NVIDIA says that there are 12 to 15 million gamers in India and only about 300 decent gaming cafes across the country.

“This provides investors with a significant opportunity to address this community, and NVIDIA is working with café owners to enable them to understand the best practices in the business. Arknemesis, an NVIDIA Platinum-certified café with the latest tech in gaming like 4K and VR will become a solid benchmark for other café investors to follow,” he adds.

Other metros and major cities in India too will soon see more such cafes as Arknemesis expands itself beyond Chennai over the next few years.

Indian Internet Startups Raised Whopping $7.4 Billion in Just First 3 Quarters

India's internet companies attracted investments worth $7.4 billion in the first three quarters alone, show data from research platform Tracxn, making 2017 a record year in terms of deal flow with more funding due from strategic investors.

In 2015, investments in internet companies had reached a peak at $7.6 billion and it steeply dropped to $4.4 billion in 2016.

Though early-stage startup funding shrunk in 2017, about $6.9 billion of the inflows this year have gone into series-B and higher growth-stage deals, fixing the deplored stagnancy in growth-stage capital the previous two years. What this suggests is that investors are still queuing up for businesses with strong metrics. With investors having recovered from their wounds from previous years, deal-room dynamics have undergone a significant shift in terms of what they expect from businesses as also entrepreneurs.

According to the Forrester's India is ​the ​fastest ​growing ​online ​retail ​market in ​the ​world. So naturally, market opportunity and the potential market size of a business have become key filters for investors, said Karthik Reddy, Managing Partner at Blume Ventures. “The focus now is on what problem area you are tackling, which is then directly correlated to the market size and opportunity. Market opportunity has become top-of-the-stack for us because that drives whether even a sub-segment of something can make a big enough company,“ he said in a statement to Economics Times.

Among many key things for conversation between founders and investors is -- smarter margin construct. Questions regarding building the right margin constructs are being asked much earlier in the investment cycle, at the series-A fundraising stage, according to investors. Variables such as customer acquisition costs and predictability for customer acquisition are on top of investors' check list.

A low profit margin generally leads to a higher product turnover. Low-margin products sell for close to the price it costs a company to acquire and maintain the product. In order to realize a profit on low-margin items, businesses need to keep prices competitive and sell a large volume of goods.

According to an another report by multinational professional services firm EY, private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) investments in the Indian subcontinent have reached a record USD 11.2 billion in the first half of this year.

Beyond healthy balance sheets, a company's ability to access varied pools of capital over and above equity is also testament to its survival potential, say investors.

iGaming Solutions Provider, Creatiosoft Raises Funding from Vasonomics

Vasonomics, a leading VAS services player in Africa, has announced that it has made a strategic Investment in Creatiosoft, iGaming solutions provider based in India catering to various geographies.

Creatiosoft, has domain expertise in developing iGaming solutions like Poker, Rummy, Fantasy Sports, RNG Slots and many more for Virtual & Real money.

Creatiosoft develops apps and games across multiple platforms including Android, iOS, iPad, Blackberry10 and Windows. It has launched several marquee games/applications and 300 entities across major smartphone platforms. The company is making a mark in the world of smartphone games and applications.

Vasonomics is entrenched in various emerging markets connecting some 200 million SIM cards on 9 networks in emerging markets, at a pretty healthy ARPU of $5-10 per customer with Direct Carrier Billing.

Vikas Dixit , CEO of Vasonomics, speaking on what interested him in game development company and what kind of strategic value he is looking from it, said, “We intend to leverage our Distribution strengths in Africa and Creatiosoft product’s fits in our scheme of things’.

Rishabh Agarwal, CEO of Creatiosoft stated on the occasion, “We could have easily raised money from Financial Investor, but we see huge Flip to our Sales effort, as this strategic investments helps Creatiosoft open sales and support offices in Key African markets; Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda, South Africa- where Vasonomics already has a foot print.”

Creatiosoft has also decided to strengthen its board with inclusion of Vikas Dixit as Board Member, while also appointing Raju Moza,CFO C-zentrix, as its Board Observer.

Xiaomi May Invest $15 Mn In Bangalore-based Social Networking Startup ShareChat

China-based smartphone and consumer electronics manufacturer Xiaomi and its venture capital firm, Shunwei Capital, are reportedly considering investing a whopping $15 million in funds in a Bengaluru-based social networking and regional content platform called ShareChat.

Started in the year 2015 by three IIT Kanpur alumni ‑ Farid Ahsan, Bhanu Singh and Ankush Sachdeva, ShareChat in simple words is a social media platform in local Indian languages. With ShareChat, one can share videos, jokes, GIFs, audio songs and funny images from India in Indian languages like Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, and Malayalam.

As of now, the platform only caters to 10 regional languages. The startup plans on raising funding somewhere between $65 to $70 million dollars so that they can add more regional languages and cater to more diverse people all across the country. It is interesting to note that ShareChat doesn’t have English as a language of choice on its platform.

So, are social media platforms in vernacular languages really a need in the country? Well, various research work suggest it is.

According to research firms, currently, there are 350 million smartphone users in the country, of which an odd 100-120 million users are fluent with English. The others would prefer their vernacular language over English as a preferred mode of communication. This is the gap that ShareChat is hoping to explore and fill.

Furthermore, research company Ernst and Young in a report highlighting the future of digital content consumption in India had shared that the 45 percent of online users in India consume regional language content. The report also claimed that with low data plans, low-cost smartphones and rural development on the roll, one can expect this number to increase exponentially in the near future. This explains the growing investor interest in ShareChat.

Sharing his vision about ShareChat, co-founder Farid Ahsan said, “This is a young and aspirational set of population which is coming on the internet now, on the back of cheap smartphones and easy availability of mobile data. They are very different from people in the big cities who have been using emails and social media for almost a decade. We want to cater to this fast-growing group of users.”

Reportedly, Xiaomi and ShareChat have already inked the big deal, but haven’t closed it yet officially. The app, which claims to have 1.3 million daily active users and 4.2 million monthly active users, can be easily downloaded from Google Play Store. It is said to have been downloaded 10 million times already.

This isn’t the first time that Xiaomi is considering pumping money in platforms catering to regional Indian content users in the country. Previously, the Chinese major had led a $25 million investment into digital media entertainment company Hungama that reportedly has over 8000 movies in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Punjabi and six other Indian vernacular languages on its platform.

This development was first reported in the Times of India.

[Image: udemy]

ONE Co.Work Eyes Rapid Expansion to 9 Locations by End of 2017, Aims to Cover 20 Locations by 2018

It is celebration time for ONE Co.Work, one of the leading end-to-end co-working solutions providers in India, as it turns two on 27th of September, 2017. Apart from the ongoing revelry, the highlight of the celebration is the expansion that the management team of ONE Co.Work is eyeing at a pan-India level. The platform has unveiled its blueprint for service rollouts across 9 locations by 2017, including Bangalore, Mumbai, and Noida beside others. Its larger objective is to reach out to 20 markets across India with its superior services.

At the announcement, Mr. Himanshu Bindal, Founder, ONE Co.Work said, “We connect daily with energetic entrepreneurs and corporates with dynamic visions and relentless energy. This vision and energy has always driven us, as we cater to their demands, while maintaining an evenly matched enthusiasm. These values have been fundamental to our sustained success so far. As we step into our second year of operations, we are happy to create more opportunities for corporates, entrepreneurs and freelancers who wish to have a hassle free quality work experience. ONE Co.Work will foray into new geographies with its innovative services while simultaneously consolidating our bases, in line with our blueprint for deeper and rapid expansion.”

Incepted as One Internet in October 2015, ONE Co.Work today caters to end-to-end requirements of over 100 corporates, freelancers, start-ups and entrepreneurs across 3 locations, i.e. Connaught Place, Netaji Subhash Place, and Gurgaon. The company rebranded itself in December last year while diversifying its product portfolio as ONE Co.Work for co-working spaces and ONE Co.Cafe for co-working cafes. It offers state-of-the-art open and private offices, hot desks, high speed internet, conference rooms, HR support, front desk services, admin support, legal services, and IT support to budding business leaders and artistes. ONE Co.Work also provides field-specific networking and mentoring sessions, while also extending a prestigious business address for web, print, and mails along with additional membership privileges.

The co-working space provider will celebrate with its stakeholders across its centres at Gurgaon, Connaught Place, and Netaji Subhash Place. It further aims to foray into Bangalore and other centres in Noida and Gurgaon by this year. The city being a major corporate hub, ONE Co.Work will have one of their best centres with innovative meetings room and facilities like sleeping pod etc.

Last week, 91springboard, India’s first and most established coworking space provider, has announced the completion of a funding round from Sandway Investment Ltd, Pearl Brook Holdings, AMA Holdings, Silo Holdings and Al Nour. This takes the total funding raised by the company to $20 million+.

ONE Co.Work Eyes Rapid Expansion to 9 Locations by End of 2017, Aims to Cover 20 Locations by 2018

It is celebration time for ONE Co.Work, one of the leading end-to-end co-working solutions providers in India, as it turns two on 27th of September, 2017. Apart from the ongoing revelry, the highlight of the celebration is the expansion that the management team of ONE Co.Work is eyeing at a pan-India level. The platform has unveiled its blueprint for service rollouts across 9 locations by 2017, including Bangalore, Mumbai, and Noida beside others. Its larger objective is to reach out to 20 markets across India with its superior services.

At the announcement, Mr. Himanshu Bindal, Founder, ONE Co.Work said, “We connect daily with energetic entrepreneurs and corporates with dynamic visions and relentless energy. This vision and energy has always driven us, as we cater to their demands, while maintaining an evenly matched enthusiasm. These values have been fundamental to our sustained success so far. As we step into our second year of operations, we are happy to create more opportunities for corporates, entrepreneurs and freelancers who wish to have a hassle free quality work experience. ONE Co.Work will foray into new geographies with its innovative services while simultaneously consolidating our bases, in line with our blueprint for deeper and rapid expansion.”

Incepted as One Internet in October 2015, ONE Co.Work today caters to end-to-end requirements of over 100 corporates, freelancers, start-ups and entrepreneurs across 3 locations, i.e. Connaught Place, Netaji Subhash Place, and Gurgaon. The company rebranded itself in December last year while diversifying its product portfolio as ONE Co.Work for co-working spaces and ONE Co.Cafe for co-working cafes. It offers state-of-the-art open and private offices, hot desks, high speed internet, conference rooms, HR support, front desk services, admin support, legal services, and IT support to budding business leaders and artistes. ONE Co.Work also provides field-specific networking and mentoring sessions, while also extending a prestigious business address for web, print, and mails along with additional membership privileges.

The co-working space provider will celebrate with its stakeholders across its centres at Gurgaon, Connaught Place, and Netaji Subhash Place. It further aims to foray into Bangalore and other centres in Noida and Gurgaon by this year. The city being a major corporate hub, ONE Co.Work will have one of their best centres with innovative meetings room and facilities like sleeping pod etc.

Last week, 91springboard, India’s first and most established coworking space provider, has announced the completion of a funding round from Sandway Investment Ltd, Pearl Brook Holdings, AMA Holdings, Silo Holdings and Al Nour. This takes the total funding raised by the company to $20 million+.

IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S.

In an interesting piece of news coming in, Armonk, New York-based global technology and innovation giant, IBM now employs 130,000 people in India, a figure that is about one-third of its total work force, and more than in any other country, including its home country.

IBM as a name needs no introduction. But, let’s have a quick recap of all that the company has managed to achieve since starting up. In its early years, the company eclipsed the era of computing with inventions like the mainframe and the floppy disk. Having offices all over New York and Silicon Valley, the company acquired the reputation of being known as a hub of American innovation long before words like Google and Microsoft became a part of our Tech dictionary.

However, ten years ago, the bosses at IBM decided to make a strategic change in the operations of the company and shifted its center of gravity all the way to the Indian subcontinent, which can be considered as a prime example of the globalisation trends that has been on the agenda of Trump administration for a couple of years now.

People working in IBM’s Indian division are providing their services for the entire gamut of IBM’s businesses, right from researching on emerging technologies like computer vision for self-driving cars, artificial intelligence etc. to managing the computing needs of global giants like Shell and AT&T. Currently, there’s also a team that is working together with Sesame Street producers to teach vocabulary in a fun way to kindergarteners in Atlanta.

Taking about the importance of IBM India to New York Times, Vanitha Narayanan, chairman of the company’s Indian operations said, “IBM India, in the truest sense, is a microcosm of the IBM company.” Narayanan works out of IBM’s main campus in Bangalore.

Opening its first Indian offices in Mumbai and Delhi in 1951, IBM has now spread across the whole country and has offices in Bangalore, Pune, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Chennai.

So, the question that arises here is, why India? The reason is, the cost factor. Setting up a strong grounding in a developing economy full with knowledgeable, educated engineers/researchers helps the giant in keeping down its cost, which has lately been an extremely crucial challenge for IBM as it has produced 21 consecutive quarters of revenue declines. The decline in revenue can be largely attributed to IBM’s dismal performance in rebranding and keeping alive its main business of supplying tech services to governments and corporations.

Not only is the land, water, air cheaper in India than the US, according to data posted by the research firm Glassdoor, the salaries paid to Indian workers are one-half to one-fifth those paid to Americans. This is what makes India a lucrative bet for IBM.

American tech companies shifting jobs abroad isn’t something new. It’s has now been happening for a couple of decades now. In addition to IBM, some other tech biggies whose majority of workers are employed outside of the US include Dell and Oracle. But, what makes IBM standout from them too is the fact that the company employs more people in a single foreign country than it does at its own home. According to statistics available, IBM’s employment in India has almost doubled in the last decade and at the same time, its workforce in the US has thinned considerably through frequent rounds of buyouts and layoffs.

While expanding its base in India, IBM also wants to make sure that they don’t earn the ire of anyone in its home country, especially its President Donald Trump who’s openly against American companies shifting their jobs abroad. Almost immediately after Trump acquired charge of the White House, IBM’s chief executive, Ginni Rometty, who has played a crucial part in carrying IBM’s India expansion strategy when she was head of IBM’s global services division, pledged to create 25,000 new American jobs. She also discussed plans with the US government on ways to modernise the technology they’re employing right now and how they can together work towards expanding the tech training for people without college degrees. In fact, Rometty also became a part of the President’s highly controversial, now-defunct business advisory councils.

Interestingly, IBM’s journey in India hasn’t always been so smooth. Following a dispute with the central government about foreign ownership rules, the company had left the country completely in the year 1978. But, the company soon came back to India by forming a joint venture with Tata in the year 1993. While on its return, the plan was just to assemble and sell personal computers and make money, IBM soon realised that vast potential that India as a country had to offer, both as a market and a base to serve global customers. The company soon took full control of its joint-venture with Tata and formed an Indian branch of its research labs.

This development was first reported in The New York Times.

Facebook To Launch New Tool For Blood Donors In India

On October 1, which is National Blood Donors day, Facebook will launch new tool to connect blood donors and blood banks with those seeking them, announced facebook in a press release.

There is a shortage of safe blood in India, and Facebook says sometimes patients and families needing blood will reach out on social media networks to locate donors. In an effort to address this, Facebook is introducing new features to help donors, patients, and hospitals connect more easily. These will include the option for nearby donors to be notified of blood requests.

Starting October 1, Facebook users in India will be able to start signing up to be blood donors. To help encourage participation, Facebook will show a message in News Feed or people can edit their Profiles to sign up. All information will remain private and set to "only me" by default, but people can choose to share their donor status on their timelines. This will first be available on Android and mobile web, as these are the most widely-used platforms in India.



When individuals or organisations are in need of blood, they will be able to create a special interactive post requesting the same. Generating this post will notify donors in the area who can then contact the requester over Facebook, Messenger or on WhatsApp. As of December 2016, Facebook had 166 million monthly active users in India.

Moreover, over the time Facebook will roll out more tools in stages. If someone or a clinic needs blood, they can create a special post that includes information about where the blood is needed, contact information, and an option to identify the blood group required and an anecdote about the patient. When that request is posted, those nearby who have indicated they’re willing to donate blood will be sent a Facebook notification and given the option to respond through Messenger, WhatsApp, or a call. Donors’ details are kept private unless they choose to disclose it to the person in need of blood.



According to Zuckerberg, Indian product developer Hema Budaraju's own experience led to the development of this feature. "This issue is personal to Hema, whose father was diagnosed with cancer five years ago and lost so much blood during chemotherapy that he had to have a transfusion every day for a week," Zuckerberg said in his status update.

In designing the new features, Facebook says it worked with non-profit organizations, health industry experts, potential donors, and those who have used Facebook to find blood donors.

People in India can go to facebook.com/donateblood to learn more and sign-up to be a blood donor.

FirstCry in Talks To Raise Rs 666 Crore

Pune, Maharashtra headquartered FirstCry.com, which claims to be Asia’s Largest Online Portal for Baby Products and Toys, is currently in the midst of raising equity financing of about Rs 665.27 crore ($100 million) from multiple investors including Temasek Holdings, a state-owned holding company that can be characterized as a national wealth fund owned by the Government of Singapore.

According to a report in the Economic Times, two sources close to the company have confirmed the publication that FirstCry’s parent company Brainbees Solutions is hoping to be valued at $400-500 million after this fundraise goes through. The company was earlier estimated at $300-350 million when it last raised funding in October last year.

The sources further revealed that the investment is most likely to include secondary transactions to purchase stockholdings in the 2010 founded firm from its existing investors.

Neither FirstCry and Temasek have confirmed the news yet. Temasek is an investment company headquartered in Singapore with a multinational staff of 630 people and a portfolio of $275 billion globally, which is mainly in Asia and Singapore and covers a broad spectrum of industries. In the past, the company has backed online marketplace Snapdeal, automobile classified portal CarTrade, and online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar, among other companies.

An online shopping store offering a range of baby care products and toys, FirstCry has over 20000+ items from 250+ top International and Indian brands like Mattel, Ben10, Pigeon, Funskool, Hotwheels, Nuby, Farlin, Medela, Pampers, Disney, Barbie, Gerber, Zapak, Mee Mee and so on.

FirstCry has risen as a market leader in the Indian online baby products retail segment, especially after the company acquired Mahindra Retail for a whopping Rs. 362 crore last year in a deal that garnered a lot of publicity and is still considered a landmark deal in Indian retail.

For the uninitiated, Mahindra Retail, which was a subsidiary of software-to-automobile conglomerate Mahindra Group was the owner of Babyoye brand, which was at that time FirstCry's closest competition in the market.

According to a Euromonitor report published in May, India's baby and child-specific product market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8 per cent, and reach Rs 2,940 crore by 2021.

When the Mahindra Retail deal was being executed last year, the Pune-based company had risen Rs. 226 crore in fresh funding from Switzerland's Adveq and Mahindra Group. The funding round also saw the participation of its existing investors including IDG Ventures India, SAIF Partners, New Enterprise Asso ciates and Vertex Ventures, the venture capital arm of Temasek. Overall, the company has raised about Rs. 820 crore ($125 million) in funding so far.