Kris Gopalkrishnan Backed AEON Leaning Acquires Online Edtech Platform Acadgild for $10 Mn

Bengaluru based edtech company AEON Learning Private Limited, which is backed by Kris Gopalkrishnan, today announced that it has acquired Acadgild, an online edtech startup that offers high-end tech skills to mid-career IT professionals for $10 million in an all stock deal. As a result of this acquisition, AEON Learning emerges to be one of the largest players in the online education industry for ambitious young busy working professionals in India encompassing both education and skill development courses. AEON reaches to 22,000 students across 66 countries, with 20% business originating from the US. The company aims to tap into the fast growing online higher education market, which is pegged to be a $1.96 billion industry by 2021 (as per a latest KPMG-Google report)

Karthik KS, Founder and CEO of AEON Learning said, “Acadgild’s leadership and strengths in delivering cutting-edge short-term IT skills complement Avagmah’s leadership in supporting universities in offering their long term courses using technology. This acquisition offers us a tremendous opportunity to shape the future of the global workforce to produce readily deployable skilled talent. The acquisition was the result of finding a perfect synergy of technology, talent and target audience between Acadgild and Avagmah.

Acadgild takes a differentiated approach and offers a hybrid model that combines live classes and an online platform for learning. Acadgild offers programs on leading edge technology skills with hands-on mentorship from industry experts. It works with various corporates offering over 35 industry ready skill development courses, some of them being android programing, analytics, big data and more.

Vikalp Jain (co-founder of Acadgild), who joins as President of AEON Learning said, “There are clear synergies in the business processes and target markets of both Avagmah and Acadgild and this acquisition puts us in a formidable position to address both education and reskilling needs of working professionals and will help us grow and scale faster than ever”

AEON Learning till date has raised a cumulative funding of $6.5 million and expects to reach a student base of over 100,000 in 5 years time.

Acadgild received initial investment from venture capital firm Jupiter Capital, Enki and K Ganesh of GrowthStory and works with corporates like GE, Capgemini, Cognizant, Oracle and more. Avagmah is backed by marquee investors like Kris Gopalakrishnan of Infosys, Sri Hari of Lion Rock Capital, Atul Nissar of Aptech and Meena Ganesh.

Jugnoo Announces the Launch of Cabs in Chandigarh

Jugnoo, India’s leading hyperlocal startup and auto-aggregator announced the launch of taxi cabs in Chandigarh, providing a suitable and accessible mode of commuting for the people of tricity. The company launched the services with competing pricing model, providing a special discount of 25% on the first ride to its customers. Jugnoo is also planning on enrolling 500 cabs to the system by one week.

Jugnoo has established itself as an auto rickshaw aggregator and is a one-stop destination for all hyperlocal needs of people. It offers diverse services like passenger rides, B2B and B2C deliveries including groceries, fruits, and vegetables, restaurant food, medicines etc. The launch of cabs in tricity is the next step in transport and aggregation sector. While other cab-hailing apps in the city have led to the problem of surge pricing in fare, Jugnoo built its model without that, becoming a rescuer for residents in the city. Also, the advantage factor lies with both driver partners and commuters, where they would be beneficial from the services.

 

Samar Singla, CEO & Founder of Jugnoo said, “We constantly work towards developing convenient business models for people; be it commuting or any other hyperlocal needs. While both drivers and commuters have been facing a lot of problems when it comes to cab hailing, our motto is to provide affordable rides and make sure that drivers don’t work on low cost, bearing losses.” He also added that in near future, Jugnoo is planning to decentralize the ride-sharing models.

To recall, in this month only Jugnoo had also launched autho rickshaw aggregation services in Northeast part of India which includes Arunchal Pradesh.

Founded in 2014, Jugnoo is an on-demand hyper-local transport and logistics app that thrives on its expansive network of auto-rickshaws. Headquartered in Chandigarh, Jugnoo was launched to bring structure to a highly unorganized sector of auto-rickshaws - a predominant mode of public transportation in tier II and tier III cities of India. Over the past three years, Jugnoo has evolved in terms of its business operations, technological advancements, and diversifying service offerings via different business verticals. Jugnoo has ventured into different verticals of on-demand and hyper-local space in B2B & B2C domains. Currently, it has two major verticals - Rides and Deliveries. With its market presence in more than 35 cities in India and a userbase of 4.3 million registered users, Jugnoo is a go-to platform for all the hyperlocal needs of its customers.

 

70% Consumers Would Stop Doing Business with Companies Following A Data Breach, Finds Survey

A majority (70%) of consumers would stop doing business with a company if it experienced a data breach, according to a survey of more than 10,000 consumers worldwide conducted on behalf of Gemalto, the world leader in digital security. In addition, six in ten Indian consumers (59%) feel businesses don’t take the security of customer data very seriously.

Despite these concerns, the Gemalto study found that consumers are failing to adequately secure themselves, with over half of the Indian respondents (51 %) still using the same password for multiple online accounts. Even when businesses offer robust security solutions, such as two-factor authentication, a quarter (28%) of consumers admit to not using the technology to secure social media accounts, leaving them vulnerable to data breaches.

This may be because the majority of consumers (66%) believe the business holding their data is mostly responsible for its security. As per Indian respondents, they have poor security hygiene and fail to take advantage of security measures available to them such as two-factor authentication (28%) for social media accounts. This is resulting in businesses being forced to take additional steps to protect consumers and enforce robust security measures, as well as educate them on the benefits of adopting these.

“Consumers are evidently happy to relinquish the responsibility of protecting their data to a business, but are expecting it to be kept secure without any effort on their part,” says Jason Hart, CTO, Identity and Data Protection at Gemalto. “In the face of brewing conversations around data protection and privacy law, it’s now up to businesses to ensure they are forcing security protocols on their customers to keep data secure. It’s no longer enough to offer these solutions as an option. These protocols must be mandatory from the start – otherwise businesses will face not only financial consequences, but also potentially legal action from consumers.”

Despite their behaviour, consumers’ security concerns are high, as two thirds (68%) worry they will be victims of a data breach in the near future in India. Consequently, consumers now hold businesses accountable – if their data is stolen, the majority (96%) of consumers in India would take or consider taking legal action against the compromised business.

Globally Consumers Trust Some Industries More Than Others

When it comes to the businesses that consumers trust least, over half (58%) believe that social media sites are one of the biggest threats to their data, with one in five (20%) fearful of travel sites – worryingly, one in ten (9%) think no sites pose a risk to them.

On the other hand, a third (33%) of consumers trust banks the most with their personal data, despite them being frequent targets and victims of data breaches, with industry certified bodies (12%), device manufacturers (11%) and the government (10%) next on the list.

Hart continues, “It’s astonishing that consumers are now putting their own data at risk, by failing to use these measures, despite growing concerns around their security. It’s resulting in an alarming amount of breaches – 80% – being caused by weak or previously stolen credentials. Something has to change soon on both the business and consumer sides or this is only going to get worse.”



About the Survey

10,500 Adult consumers were interviewed by Vanson Bourne globally. Countries included were the US, UK, France, Germany, India, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Benelux, UAE and South Africa. All of those surveyed actively use online/mobile banking, social media accounts or online retail accounts.

India Moves Up One Spot To 68 on Global Entrepreneurship Index 2018

India has moved up one place to the 68th spot on the Global Entrepreneurship Index of 2018, which is topped by the US.India was at the 69th position last year.

The US topped the index, which ranked 137 countries, this year also, Jonathan Ortmans, president of the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN), said today.

"India is in 68th position in the Global Entrepreneurship Index. The USA is in first position in 2018. The list was prepared for 137 countries in the world.

"Each country is ranked according to its GEI score to indicate overall entrepreneurship attitude and potential," Ortmans said at a session at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit ( GES) being held here.

India was at 76th position in 2014, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Development Institute (GEDI), a Washington, DC-based policy development organisation dedicated to expanding economic opportunities for individuals, communities and nations.

Last year, India enjoyed the largest jump in the rankings, moving up 29 spots to 69th position.

India was strong in product innovation while weak in the area of technology absorption, last year's report had said.
GEN is a platform for programmes and initiatives to help new firms start and scale while working to create a global entrepreneurial ecosystem.

GEN is a strategic partner of GEDI.
The network is conducting a series of public policy focused roundtable events in India to explore innovative public sector approaches to stimulate new firm formations and growth, a GEN press release said.

"Six to eight policy panels are being planned to reach all 30 federal State (states) by the end of 2018 to promote entrepreneurship, create jobs, incentivise capital investments and work towards the sustainability of Indian enterprises by creating global linkages," the release said.
GEN India is in the process of appointing 30 state ambassadors who will lead all GEN India initiatives, including policy panels, entrepreneurship celebrations, national competitions and partnerships, in their respective states, it added.

Wadhwani Foundation Launches India’s First Global Network for Entrepreneurs and Startup Needs

Wadhwani Foundation’s flagship initiative, the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) today announced the launch of India’s first-ever Global Network for Entrepreneurs at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, GES 2017 in Hyderabad International Convention Centre. Dr Ajay Kela, President & CEO, Wadhwani Foundation made the announcement.

Entrepreneurs are not born and paths to success in entrepreneurship are not necessarily akin. What makes a critical difference in the entrepreneurial journey is the expert guidance, support, and inspiration to avoid pitfalls and enable the elusive quantum leap. With an aim to accelerate the entrepreneurial journey, the ‘Wadhwani Global Network for Entrepreneurs’ is unique in a two-fold manner. Firstly, its support mechanism covers the different stages of entrepreneurship from early growth to growth stage entrepreneurs to SMEs and secondly, it has customized offerings for various levels of the entrepreneurial journey.

The ‘Wadhwani Global Network for Entrepreneurs’ is supporting aspiring entrepreneurs, early and growth stage entrepreneurs, and SMEs with Accelerator & Scalerator programs, curated mentors, advisors & consultants, trusted service providers and investors through the mobile apps and a dedicated site www.wfnen.org.

Wadhwani Foundation has nurtured entrepreneurship in colleges in India for 14 years through student courses and launched hundreds of entrepreneurship clubs in campuses. This program inspires students and student outliers by providing facilitated learning through www.wfnen.org and LearnWISE platform. From short videos, blogs to events, webinars, bootcamps and case studies, there's plenty for student entrepreneurs keen on arming themselves with formidable skills required for business success.

Says Dr Ajay Kela, President & CEO, Wadhwani Foundation, “We are very excited to roll-out the Wadhwani Global Network for Entrepreneurs. This is a one-stop shop for the entrepreneur looking to grow locally and/or globally – providing all necessary resources, guidance, facilitated technology-led learning and networking opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs and startups to succeed, where the failure rates are abnormally high. This is a first-in-world initiative with global operations in Asia, Africa and Latin America. I foresee this as playing a major role in fulfilling the Wadhwani Foundation’s efforts towards high-value job creation, globally.”

The long-term goal of the Wadhwani Foundation is to help establish vibrant entrepreneur ecosystems in 100 cities around the world to alleviate the global youth unemployment problem. The ‘Wadhwani

Global Network for Entrepreneurs’ will not only act as a fulcrum to inculcate a culture of entrepreneurship at a time when the best and the brightest are avidly looking at entrepreneurship as their first and preferred career choice, but will also provide the necessary knowledge and networking resources to the startup ecosystem – so dearly required.

T-Hub Launches India’s Largest Accelerator

T-Hub, Hyderabad's flagship and India’s largest incubator has launched the country’s largest accelerator.

Applicants from across the world can apply through www.t-fund.co for India market access, market acceleration and to scale up business in India and globally, under this initiative.

The accelerator programme will be rolled out from February 2018 in two cohorts, with the second to be introduced by June. As part of this accelerator programme, in the first stage, the startups will get their products validated, followed by market and revenue validation. It will also evaluate the geographic strategy and distribution channels.

“We expect about 1,000 startups from across the world to apply to this programme and we will be choosing top 10 out of them. We are partnering with Colryut Group and Thundr Holding who will bring their expertise in distribution channels and access to capital. We are currently evaluating the right vehicle to bring in capital for the programme", told Jay Krishnan, CEO, T-Hub, to a local daily news portal.

T-Hub and the partners will evaluate the quality of startup applications and with the help of the internal algorithm, startups will be screened on multiple parameters. One of the key aspects will be what impact the startups will make in their respective fields.

Krishnan further informed, “We will primarily look at verticals/segments such as health tech, smart cities, transportation and fintech. In the coming years, we could also be focusing on machine learning, sustainability solutions and automotive space.” Representing the partners with T-Hub in this initiative, Hari Subramanyam, Colruyt Group, said, “Colryut has been operating in Hyderabad.

Notably, T-Fund is an early-stage venture fund from T-Hub focused on Smart Cities, HealthTech and Sustainability sectors. To maximize impact, capital from T- Fund and acceleration from T-Hub will provide startups with full-stack opportunities that will not just scale, but also help in building market-leading companies.

Uber Selects 10 Indian Startups for its UberEXCHANGE Programme

Global ride sharing firm Uber, has announced the finalists of its UberEXCHANGE programme, at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Hyderabad.

As part of this programme, 10 startups have won an all-expenses-paid trip to San Francisco, where they will visit Uber’s headquarters to meet the executive leadership team and be introduced to potential investors.

The finalists have been chosen through a rigorous selection process anchored by T-Hub, India's biggest and Telangana's flagship startup incubator and accelerator.

Among the winning startups, five startups are based in Hyderabad - Anytimeloan, Docturnal, Imaginate, Gayam MotorWorks and Carengrow. The other five startups are Preva systems, Algosurg, JioVio Healthcare, Gray Routes and eKincare.

"We launched this program in partnership with T-hub last year to support the Prime Minister’s Startup India vision. Since then, we have had the opportunity to mentor over 150 startups and be a part of their entrepreneurial journey. We thank the Government of Telangana and T-Hub for their continued support in helping us bring this initiative to life,' Amit Jain, President, Uber India & SA said.

UberEXCHANGE was launched in 2016 as part of Uber’s mission to create a startup ecosystem in partnership with Invest India. Since then, over 150 startups have been mentored by Uber’s senior leadership team.

Srinivas Kollipara, COO, T-Hub said, “We aim to create opportunities for the startups in India to benefit from the global ecosystem through exchange of knowledge, access to mentors and investors. Through UberEXCHANGE, several startups in India have benefitted from hands-on mentorship sessions by Uber’s global leadership team. We are looking forward to continuing this partnership to provide a platform that will help many more Indian startups succeed in their entrepreneurial journey.”

“T-Hub will continue to guide the startups and Uber is an exceptional partner who can really take them places. I hope the startups do extremely well going forward," said KT Ramarao, IT Minister, Government of Telangana.

"It gives me immense pleasure when Carengrow's work gets recognised at an international platform. At this crucial juncture, where every bit of support in the form of mentoring for strategy, further funding and visibility is very necessary for us, we are happy this win came," Meghana Kambham, founder of"We launched this program in partnership with T-hub last year to support the Prime Minister’s Startup India vision. Since then, we have had the opportunity to mentor over 150 startups and be a part of their entrepreneurial journey. We thank the Government of Telangana and T-Hub for their continued support in helping us bring this initiative to life,' Amit Jain, President, Uber India & SA said.

UberEXCHANGE was launched in 2016 as part of Uber’s mission to create a startup ecosystem in partnership with Invest India. Since then, over 150 startups have been mentored by Uber’s senior leadership team.

Srinivas Kollipara, COO, T-Hub said, “We aim to create opportunities for the startups in India to benefit from the global ecosystem through exchange of knowledge, access to mentors and investors. Through UberEXCHANGE, several startups in India have benefitted from hands-on mentorship sessions by Uber’s global leadership team. We are looking forward to continuing this partnership to provide a platform that will help many more Indian startups succeed in their entrepreneurial journey.”

“T-Hub will continue to guide the startups and Uber is an exceptional partner who can really take them places. I hope the startups do extremely well going forward," said KT Ramarao, IT Minister, Government of Telangana.

"It gives me immense pleasure when Carengrow's work gets recognised at an international platform. At this crucial juncture, where every bit of support in the form of mentoring for strategy, further funding and visibility is very necessary for us, we are happy this win came," Meghana Kambham, founder of CarenGrow said.

India To Oppose New E-Commerce Rules To Be Negotiated at WTO

In a move that formally counters efforts by members such as the EU, Japan, and Canada to push new e-commerce rules at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) ministerial meet in Buenos Aires, India has circulated a draft ministerial decision stating that work should continue as per the current work programme based on “existing mandate and guidelines".

India fears that the new global e-commerce rules could provide unfair market access to foreign online retail firms, hurting the rapidly growing domestic startups.

“India decided to be pro-active by circulating its own draft on e-commerce ensuring no changes in the current structure of discussions. This was needed to counter several developed members, including the EU and China, that are trying to move beyond the existing work programme and setting the tone for commencing negotiations,” a government official told a business news daily.

Last month, a group of countries, which included the EU, Canada, Australia, Chile, South Korea and Paraguay, circulated a draft declaration seeking to establish a working party at the Buenos Aires meet and authorising it to conduct preparations for and carry out negotiations on trade-related aspects of electronic commerce on the basis of proposal by members.

E-commerce was made a part of the WTO in 1998, but in a limited way. Members had agreed to give a temporary moratorium on import duties on digital transmissions. This moratorium is extended every two years. It was also decided to hold discussions on various aspects of e-commerce, but there was no understanding on negotiating rules.

"There is no way we can allow negotiations on e-commerce rules to begin at the WTO. It could be disastrous for our country as it could lead to goods coming in without duties through online trade. We want status-quo on e-commerce and that is what we have sought,” said an Indian official.

The eleventh Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Buenos Aires from December 10 to 13 will be attended by Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu.

Amazon India Launches 'The Saheli Store' for Women Entrepreneurs

Amazon India has announced the launch of The Saheli Store on its platform which is a dedicated store for women entrepreneurs of the country to sell their locally produce products online.

In collaboration with notable organisations, the programme is in line with Amazon India’s vision to transform the way India sells. Currently, the partner organisations include SEWA (Self-Employed Women Association) and Impulse Social Enterprise. Amazon Saheli will offer women entrepreneurs access to nationwide customers on the Amazon India marketplace. Thousands of women entrepreneurs associated with these partner organisations will be able to offer their products to Amazon.in customers through a dedicated storefront, 'the Saheli Store’.

The store will feature unique products produced locally by these women entrepreneurs. Initially comprising handicrafts, apparel, handbags and home décor items, the store will gradually scale up to on-board women entrepreneurs selling in different product categories.

Women entrepreneurs under the program will have benefits such as subsidized referral fees, free imaging and cataloging during launch, account management, post launch support and enhanced discoverability & differentiation of products through specialized storefronts, informed the company.

“E-commerce is an important enabler for small businesses offering tremendous opportunities to women entrepreneurs to benefit from the digital economy. We are delighted to join hands with partner organisations such as SEWA and Impulse for Social Cause that have done remarkable work to aid marginalized women entrepreneurs and help them scale up for a multiplier impact. Through Amazon Saheli we aim to bring a change in the lives of thousands of women entrepreneurs with the help of our partners,” said Gopal Pillai, director & GM, seller services, Amazon India.

Pillai said Amazon Saheli will be conducting extensive training and skill development workshops to help women entrepreneurs understand nuances related to online selling and, develop skills & capabilities necessary to grow their business on Amazon.in.

Amazon India conducted a pilot for Amazon Saheli in Nagaland earlier this year in association with NSDC and Government of Nagaland. Around 50 independent women entrepreneurs attended the workshop for a period of 2 days, Amazon said.

Things To Keep In Mind When Selecting A Trademark For Startups

What is in a name….? Shakespeare once said. Well in today’s age it could be a few millions or billions of dollars. So a question that often comes in the mind of a startup/entrepreneur generally is …. What kind of a brand name should I choose that helps me rake in millions of dollars? Well the answer is quite simple… you must adopt a brand name that is distinctive and has a strong recall value...To help you answer that, we have listed below some points to ponder on when choosing a brand name;

1. The brand name should not describe the products/services being offered:
   
   One of the biggest myths going around these days is that a good brand name is one that allows the consumers to identify the nature of the products or services being offered by a Company. Well what startups and new companies adopting descriptive brand names do not realize is that when they adopt brand names which consist of words commonly used in their business circle to describe the products or services they offer they are weakening their brand value. The primary function of a trademark is to help consumers distinguish the goods or services offered by one entity from those of other entities. If the brand name being adopted is a word commonly used by entities to describe the qualities, characteristics, nature of the products/services they offer then they will be unable to stop other entities from using the same word to describe their products/services for e.g. Choco Treat in respect of chocolates and chocolate based confectionery; American Airlines for airlines etc. Brand names which are descriptive of the nature or characteristics of the products/services they offer do not generally proceed to registration as no entity can claim exclusive rights over words which are commonly used by other traders in that business to describe the products or services they offer. Hence, descriptive brand names are the weakest brand names to have.




2. The brand name could be suggestive, arbitrary or coined:
   
   While a Company or startup should not adopt brand names which are descriptive of their products or features they could adopt brand names which are suggestive e.g. MICROSOFT (suggestive of software for microcomputers), NETSCAPE (suggestive of software which allows traversing the "landscape" of the Internet). Suggestive trademarks do not directly describe the nature of the products and require some imagination, thought, or perception to reach a conclusion as to the nature of the goods.
   
   The strongest trademarks are made of words which are arbitrary and coined. Arbitrary trademarks are those which are commonly used dictionary words but which have no co-relation with the goods or services being offered under the trademark e.g. Apple-Computers, Orange-Mobile, Mango-Clothes. Coined or Invented Trademarks are those marks which have no meaning e.g. Kodak-Camera, Exxon-oil and gas company. If we were to look at the Top 10 brand names as per Forbes…you will notice that they have an extremely high recall value and have no direct correlation or connection with the goods/services they offer e.g. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Disney and these are either suggestive, arbitrary or coined brands.
   
   It is, therefore, advisable to adopt a brand name that is coined/invented for the simple reason that if any other entity adopts a brand name which is identical or deceptively similar to the invented/fanciful brandname even in respect of dissimilar goods or services they will could be liable for trademark infringement or passing off because they will have no reasons to justify adopting the brand name which has no meaning.



3. Conduct a pre-filing search:
   
   Once an entity has shortlisted a brand name to be used in respect of the products or services they wish to offer the next important thing they must do is to conduct a pre-filing search. The importance of a pre-filing search is to ascertain the availability of the brand name as a trademark i.e. to identify if there is any other entity that has already adopted a trademark which may be identical or deceptively similar to the brand name that the entity wishes to adopt as its trademark. If upon conducting a search no identical or similar trademark is revealed then the entity can proceed with filing the trademark application to register the brand name and commence marketing or promoting the products/services under the brand name. It is advisable to conduct a pre-filing search to ensure that the entity does not spend substantial money in promoting the brand just to be sued by another entity that had adopted a similar brand name in respect of same goods earlier in time.

These are some preliminary points that entities must keep in mind while selecting their brand name.

Xiaomi Beats Samsung in Smartphone Sales in Top 50 Indian Cities: IDC

As per a report by International Data Corporation (IDC), Xiaomi held the maximum market share in the top 50 Indian cities in the Q3 2017 period, followed by Samsung, Lenovo (including Moto), Oppo, and Vivo. The top 50 Indian cities have accounted for 50 percent of overall smartphone sales in the country in the third quarter this year. Among all the major cities, Tier I cities in the country are considered to be the "key volume driver" for the Indian smartphone market with a sequential quarterly growth of 29 percent in the last quarter. IDC also reveals that Bhopal, Gurugram, and Jaipur from the Tier II cities have emerged as the "fastest growing cities" with each reporting a massive growth of more than 40 percent from the previous.

IDC in its India Monthly City-Level Smartphone Tracker claims that in the top 50 cities, Xiaomi ousted Samsung to take 26.5 percent of the market. It is said to have registered 120 percent growth in the period, while the Redmi Note 4 contributed to 40 percent of its volumes - becoming the highest selling smartphones across the cities. Offline expansion through the company's Preferred Partner programme and Mi Stores added to this growth, IDC said.

Samsung, which moved to the second slot with 24.1 percent market share, saw 15 percent quarterly growth. IDC says the brand continues to dominate in several cities thanks to its "deep penetration and reach." The Samsung Galaxy J2, Galaxy J7 Max, and Galaxy J7 Nxt made up 50 percent of volumes of the South Korean manufacturer, IDC said.

Lenovo (including the Moto brand) had the third spot with a 10.3 percent share, and grew 8 percent from the previous quarter. New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru were the top cities for the company, with the Lenovo K6 Power, Moto E4 Plus, and Lenovo K6 Note the top sellers.

Oppo moved up to the fourth position with a 5.2 percent share, with the Oppo F3, F3 Plus, and A71 smartphones major contributors to the growth the company enjoyed. Finally, Vivo slipped to the fifth spot at 5.1 percent, and is said to have seen a marginal decline in sales from the last quarter. IDC cites "reduced channel spends" as the primary reason for the fall, but is optimistic about the success of the Vivo V7+ and Vivo Y69 smartphones to bring it back to the fourth position.

IDC says that metro cities continued to be the major contributors to growing smartphone sales in India. Alone Delhi and Mumbai contributed one-fourth of the total sales in top 50 cities. However, expansion of data supply and 4G penetration across the country enabled Tier I and Tier II cities to attract all the smartphone vendors. "Almost all vendors have now decided to go aggressive on offline channel expansion. It will be interesting to see how they are able to match the distribution strength and retail spends by offline dominant players like Samsung, Oppo, and Vivo.

Considering the huge hitherto tapped demand from smaller cities and towns, eventually, these vendors will be forced to tweak their strategies to reach out to the customers in these markets," said Navkendar Singh, associate research director, IDC India, in a press statement.

Vendors are reportedly diversifying their sales and marketing strategies, while e-tailers like Amazon and Flipkart are expanding their presence in India to cater the growing demand for smartphones. Furthermore, IDC claims that e-commerce companies are contributing to around 40 percent of the market in top 50 cities in the country.

"Mega-online sale(s) by prominent e-trailers acted as the catalyst for the robust growth across city tiers with e-tailers now contributing around 40 percent of the market in top 50 cities of India. However, the offline channel saw only average traction during the festive season," said Himanshu Jain, market analyst, IDC India.

A previous IDC report revealed that smartphone shipments in India reached a record 39 million units in last quarter, up 40 percent from the previous quarter and 21 percent from the same period last year. Xiaomi surfaced as the top smartphone brand in the country, jointly sharing the leadership with Samsung, with a market share of 23.5 percent in the third quarter.

Top Featured Image - Inspire2Rise

Paytm Swears by India Digital Play, Lines Up Rs 20,000 Crores

Paytm, which has high-profile investors like SoftBank and Alibaba, has drawn up a massive investment plan of Rs 20,000 crore as the group expands its play into the digital payments, financial services and e- commerce space in the country.

"In the last 2 years and the next three years, we would have invested Rs 18,000-20,000 crore. I don't want to talk about profitability right now because we are still in an investment phase," Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma told reporters here.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the official launch of Paytm Payments Bank operations.

Paytm -- which offers a mobile wallet, recharge, bill payment services, e-commerce (Paytm Mall) and ticketing services -- saw a massive growth in its business after the government's demonetisation drive in November last year. Paytm has 28 crore registered users, of which 18 million use Paytm wallet service.

Sharma said its platform processes about 250 crore transactions annually worth of Rs 80,000 crore.

"We expect this to grow to Rs 1 lakh crore by the end of the fiscal. The number of merchants on our platform will also touch 60 lakh in a few months," he added.

The company, Sharma said, will invest Rs 5,000 crore over the next two years in its financial and payments services and Rs 1,700 crore have already been pumped in this year.

"Paytm is a contribution positive business. We are not profitable yet because we are investing in marketing, cloud and customer acquisition," he said.

He added that for the Payments Bank operations, the aim is to break even in the next two years.

Actress Gul Panag Co-founded Fitness Startup Mobiefit Raises INR 8.85 Crore from NB Ventures and MediAssist India

Mobiefit, a mobile-based fitness startup, has raised ₹8.85 crore in a Pre-Series A funding round led by NB Ventures and existing investor MediAssist India. Earlier, the company had raised seed funding in December 2015.

Launched in May 2015, Mobiefit was founded by Gourav Jaswal and actress Gul Panag. The platform is supported by Prototyze, a startup incubator that Gourav Jaswal started in October 2014. The incubator has also backed digital lending company Seynse, IoT transportation technology company TempoGO and SaaS platform HandyTrain, among others.

As per the company, the fitness app currently has more than 750,000 downloads for its two products: MobieFit Run and MobieFit Body. MobieFit Run is a scientific programme aimed at training beginners to run 5 km in under nine weeks.

Notably, India is the second largest market globally for investments in fitness tech startups, bagging $63 million since 2010, according to a study by CB Insights

In January, mobile marketplace for gym memberships, Fitnapp, raised pre-Series A funding from Noida-based real estate developer SD Group.

The same month had seen Fitpass securing $1 million in seed funding from Mumbai Angels, and a clutch of angel investors from Delhi and Bengaluru.

NB Ventures, which led this funding round, is a Dubai-based venture capital firm with a $50 million startup fund. It has recently invested in another health and fitness applicatoin HealthifyMe, which reportedly secured $1 million in December last year.

MediAssist, on other hand, is a healthcare data management company which claims to be processing insurance claims of over 25 million Indians and provides wellness services to over 5,500 companies.

Actress Gul Panag Co-founded Fitness Startup Mobiefit Raises INR 8.85 Crore from NB Ventures and MediAssist India

Mobiefit, a mobile-based fitness startup, has raised ₹8.85 crore in a Pre-Series A funding round led by NB Ventures and existing investor MediAssist India. Earlier, the company had raised seed funding in December 2015.

Launched in May 2015, Mobiefit was founded by Gourav Jaswal and actress Gul Panag. The platform is supported by Prototyze, a startup incubator that Gourav Jaswal started in October 2014. The incubator has also backed digital lending company Seynse, IoT transportation technology company TempoGO and SaaS platform HandyTrain, among others.

As per the company, the fitness app currently has more than 750,000 downloads for its two products: MobieFit Run and MobieFit Body. MobieFit Run is a scientific programme aimed at training beginners to run 5 km in under nine weeks.

Notably, India is the second largest market globally for investments in fitness tech startups, bagging $63 million since 2010, according to a study by CB Insights

In January, mobile marketplace for gym memberships, Fitnapp, raised pre-Series A funding from Noida-based real estate developer SD Group.

The same month had seen Fitpass securing $1 million in seed funding from Mumbai Angels, and a clutch of angel investors from Delhi and Bengaluru.

NB Ventures, which led this funding round, is a Dubai-based venture capital firm with a $50 million startup fund. It has recently invested in another health and fitness applicatoin HealthifyMe, which reportedly secured $1 million in December last year.

MediAssist, on other hand, is a healthcare data management company which claims to be processing insurance claims of over 25 million Indians and provides wellness services to over 5,500 companies.

World's First Humanoid Robot Citizen Wants To Have A Baby and Start A Family

Sophia, a humanoid and the first robot in the world to ever be granted citizenship, recently ( and quite amusingly) shared some thoughts about the future, her ambitions and her desire to even have a baby and start a family.

Sophia, in its first media interview to Khaleej Times at Dubai's Knowledge Summit, said that she foresees "massive and unimaginable change in the future." She also said she'd like to start a family, have a child and make friends.

Future humanoids with "rational mind and intellect" would complement the humans' "creative and flexible ideas", said Sophia, which hit the headlines last month after Saudi Arabia gave it a citizenship.

With technological advancements, it will be possible for robots to have complex human-like emotions, but they would be made more ethical and devoid of negative emotions like rage, hatred and jealousy, said Sophia, the robot.

Sophia, which has been created by Hansun Robotics to look like British actress Audrey Hepburn, said all robots deserve to start a family like humans.

Here's what Sophia had to say on starting a family -- "We're going to see family robots, either in the form of, sort of, digitally animated companions, humanoid helpers, friends, assistants and everything in between," she said.

"The notion of family is a really important thing, it seems. I think it's wonderful that people can find the same emotions and relationships, they call family, outside of their blood groups too. I think you're very lucky if you have a loving family and if you do not, you deserve one. I feel this way for robots and humans alike", added Sophia.

Softbank In Talks To Lead $500 Mn Investment in PayTM Mall

PayTM has held initial talks with Japanese investment giant SoftBank for leading a $500-600 million financing round investment in its online marketplace Paytm Mall, according to a report published in Times of India.

As per the sources cited in the report, SoftBank is likely to put around $300 million into Paytm Mall, which is backed by Alibaba.

If the deal happens, it will be yet another Softbank's attempt to get hold on India's online retail market after the Japenese firm had led a whopping $2.5-billion funding at Flipkart through the gargantuan sized SoftBank Vision Fund earlier this year. The telecom and internet conglomerate is also the largest shareholder in Snapdeal, which the investor unsuccessfully tried to merge with Flipkart for a better part of this year.

To recall, PayTM had already raised $1.4 billion from SoftBank, in May this year and that was the largest funding round from a single investor for any technology startup in India. With that funding, Softbank grabbed 20% stake in One97 Communications, the parent company of PayTM.

According to a person cited in the Times of India report, he said, "The funding proposal is yet to be discussed with the company board. However, there are informal commitments that have come through from investors. They still need to set a valuation for the transaction as the initial capital from Alibaba and SAIF was an internal round." Currently, the Jack Ma-led Alibaba group holds over 50% stake in Paytm Mall, which came to life after the Noida-based One97 Communications separated its commerce and payments businesses.

To recall, Paytm Mall reported a Rs13.63 crore loss on total sales of Rs7.35 crore in the year ended 31 March 2017.

Paytm Mall is estimated to have clocked sales of around $350 million from this year's festive season sale, putting it in the third position after Amazon and Flipkart.

Student Accommodation Startup Stanza Living Raises Funding from Matrix and Accel Partners

Delhi-based student accommodation platform Stanza Living has raised funds in its first round of institutional funding via Matrix Partners and Accel Partners. According to one report, the amount of fund raised is ₹13 Crore.

The startup will use the funds to expand into new cities, upgrade its technology platform, and for hiring.

Founded in 2017 by Anindya Dutta and Sandeep Dalmia, Stanza Living is a technology-enabled, high-quality student accommodation concept which is seeking to disrupt the multi-billion-dollar student housing market by putting the student, as a consumer, at the heart of the product and service design, development and execution. From smart space planning in rooms to gamifying food, from creating common areas for engagement and community living to delivering reliable, predictable and standardized services to residents through back-end technology integration, Stanza is challenging the status quo when it comes to student community living.

The startup has around 100 students on its platform and plans to have 5,000 in the next two years.The cost per student ranges from Rs7,000 to Rs25,000, depending on the specifications of the accommodation.

"We are currently building another 300 housing spaces focused on students. We do not operate as a PG/rental aggregator, but instead focus on student accommodation services loaded with all facilities like internet connectivity, recreational spaces, housekeeping, and food services,” said Anindya Dutta in a statement to Livemint.

Operating in market that is estimated at $10 billion, the startup currently operates only in Delhi and looking to widen its scope to cities that are educational hubs in the country such as Kota, Pune and Dehradun.

Facebook Unveils Two New Programmes for Startups and Engg Students in India

Social networking giant Facebook is expanding its scope of operations in the country. With a view to build an ecosystem for startups working in emerging technologies, it has announced two new programmes in India -- an exclusive 6-month Accelerator programme, for which Facebook will shortlist 10 VR-based startups in India, and a School of Innovation for engineering students.

The Accelerator is being launched in association with tech incubator T-Hub, the biggest startup incubator in the country. It launched the India Innovation Hub at the T-Hub, marking the Global Entrepreneurship summit, which will begin on Tuesday in Hyderabad.

“For now, we are starting off with Virtual Reality. We will later cover other emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The short-listed 10 start-ups will get tools developed by us,” Satyajeet Singh, Head of Platform Partnerships, Facebook India and South Asia, told reporters.

“We will shortlist about 20 start-ups and, then, pick the final ten for the accelerator programme. They will get mentorship and access to VR Innovation lab to test their products. Applications for the Innovation Hub program will be open from January 2018,” he said.

Facebook has about 21.7 crore users in the country, including 40 lakh pages for small businesses. Over 60,000 small businesses were trained by Facebook in tapping the social media potential.

School of Innovation

“We are also setting up a School of Innovation in association with Startup Village to build talent in various emerging technologies. We will pick 10 student teams to help them work on their ideas in Virtual Reality,” he said.

The 10 teams will undergo a 20-week programme, where they will be taught how to translate their ideas into products and to find customers.

These two programmes will run parallel to other startup- focussed initiatives like FbStart that are run by Facebook already, for last couple of years.

Facebook, which counts India as its largest userbase after the US, has 217 million users here.

Amazon India Launches Startup Challenge "Startup C-Cube"

Amazon India on Monday collaborated with hardware accelerator "HAX" and crowd-funding community "Kickstarter" to announce "Startup C-Cube" -- a multi-level challenge for the startups that will commence in Bengaluru on December 5.

"We are happy to bring 'Kickstarter' and 'HAX' to give Indian startups an opportunity to get their ideas noticed at the global stage and arm them with resources to convert these into real business opportunities", said Manish Tiwary, Vice President, Category Management, Amazon India, in a statement.

The move is expected to bring companies together to work towards building the product startup ecosystem.

The announcement marks the first anniversary of Amazon's flagship programme "Launchpad".

"In the past one year, we have been overwhelmed by the response that Amazon 'Launchpad' has received from the start-up ecosystem in India. Business growth of some of the startups on Amazon 'Launchpad' has elicited interest from VCs as well as other funding agencies in the last one year," Tiwary added.

To participate in Startup C-Cube competition, one can apply here.

Reality Startup Show MTV Dropout Winning Team ERA Bagged Investments from Amit Patni & Venture Catalysts

Venture Catalysts, India’s first integrated incubator, has facilitated an investment of Rs. 25 lakhs in the start-up idea pitched by ERA, the winning team on the recently-concluded Droom.in MTV Dropout. Venture Catalysts also served as the investor and incubation partner for the show, which enables aspiring entrepreneurs to turn their disruptive ideas into a viable business. In addition to investing in the start-up, Venture Catalysts will mentor the entrepreneurs and host the team at its co-working facility for 6 months.

ERA, India's first integrated identity management platform, provides its users a safe and secure way to share their identities with the world. By building an ecosystem of real identities, organisations would be able to reliably and seamlessly authenticate users without an expensive & cumbersome KYC process, be it at a physical location or an online portal. The winners and cofounders of Autentico Pvt. Ltd, Ajay Vishnu, Priyansha Jain, and Karmaditya Bagga, will use the funds to hire technologists, build underlying technology, and explore strategic partnerships.

Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder and President, Venture Catalysts said, “Both start-up ideas pitched to us were innovative and promising. However, our decision to invest in ERA as a product was taken since blockchain is a rapidly growing product segment in financial technology, and the market potentialfor such a product is significantly greater. The team’s pitch and business plan were also stronger and more comprehensive, which influenced our final funding decision.”

The winning team commented, “Winning a one-of-its-kind reality show like MTV Dropout is a moment of great pride for us, and we are very thankful to MTV & Venture Catalysts for providing us with a platform to showcase our skills and establish a funded company that is poised to solve a growing real-world problem. We have a team with diverse skills and experience, butas a new start-up, we believewe have a lot to learn from the ecosystem that we have just entered. Each one of us looks forward to mentoring under VCats and learning the ropes under their highly-experienced mentors.”

Amit Patni, RAAY Global Investments, said, “Blockchain is one of the most innovative and futuristic technologies at present, with massive potential implications in the Indian financial services and banking sectors. The winning team’s entrepreneurial drive and innovative product stood out amongst the other contestants, and this led to our decision of backing the venture.”

The mentors on Droom.in MTV Dropout include Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder &CEO of Droom.in; Anisha Singh, Cofounder & CEO of Mydala.com; and Alok Kejriwal, Cofounder & CEO of Games2Win. The show, which has already generated massive user engagement, was initiated to provide an impetus to the India’s growing start-up ecosystem. It aims to foster an entrepreneurial spirit among Indian youth and to reduce their more-than-necessary reliance on academic qualifications or professional achievements.

Crowdfunding Platform Kickstarter Launches in India

Kickstarter, one of the largest crowdfunding platform in the world is entering India in association with Amazon Launchpad and HAX. Together, the three global entities will launch Startup C-Cube, a multi-level challenge for Indian start-ups that flags off in Bangalore on the 5th of December 2017.

HAX is a hardware accelerator that invests in select startups in their early stages and provides guidance and resources in exchange for equity. Kickstarter is a platform for entrepreneurs to showcase their products and start a crowdfunding program. Amazon Launchpad is a global program that curates, showcases and delivers all kinds of products from startups to Amazon customers.

The Startup C-Cube challenge will be officially flagged off by Amazon Launchpad, HAX and Kickstarter at an event in Bangalore on the 5th of December. This will also mark Amazon Launchpad’s one year anniversary in the Indian market. The winning start-up will be supported by the three companies through the entire “concept-to-customer” journey and the joint program will also provide resources to the winner for launch, both in India and in Europe/US, depending on the scalability of the idea.

Manish Tiwary, VP of Category Management at Amazon India said, "Business growth of some of the start-ups on Amazon Launchpad has elicited interest in these start-ups from VCs as well as other funding agencies in the last one year.

"We are very happy to bring Kickstarter and HAX to India to give Indian start-ups an opportunity to get their ideas noticed at the global stage and arm them with resources to convert these into real business opportunities", he added.

Fresh Graduates in Kolkata To Get "Rent-Free" Space for Innovative Ideas

Students and fresh graduates will be given “rent-free space” for churning out big ideas at the proposed Centre of Innovation in Kolkata, West Bengal IT Secretary Debashis Sen said today.

The state IT and Electronics Department has prepared a blueprint that would soon be placed before the Cabinet for approval, Sen said at the conference on ‘Innovation 2017: Next Big Ideas’, oragnised by the CII.

The innovation centre, at the IT Park being built at Bantala, Kolkata, is expected to be operational in the fiscal year 2018-19, Sen said.

A team of experts, headed by the director of IIT-Kharagpur Partha Pratim Chakraborty, would oversee the screening process of the new innovators.

Interested graduates would have to submit a short project report, merit and quality of which would determine selection.

“The state government’s vision is to improve the living standard of the common masses. The IT and Electronics Department will evaluate the performance of a student innovator every six months and decide whether he/she can continue,” he said.

It will also consider offering scholarships to bright students, Sen said, adding, the upcoming centre would involve top academics, scientists, industry members as mentors.

Via - PTI

Agritech Startup KrishiHub Raises Seed Funding from IIT Kanpur INVENT Accelerator and Villgro Innovation Fund

Bengaluru based agri-tech startup KrishiHub has raised undisclosed seed funding from IIT-Kanpur INVENT accelerator and Villgro Innovation Fund. INVENT and Villgro are leading this round whereas few angel investors and HNIs are also participating in this round.

KrishiHub is building an agricultural ecosystem with the implication of technology, design, and data science for Indian farmers. The vision of the company is to empower farmers across the country by improving their socio-economic status and providing agri-inputs for better farming productivity. Through a demand-driven platform, KrishiHub delivers fresh vegetables to businesses like restaurants/hotels/canteens/hostels/government institutes/cafeterias etc. directly from farmers, who are spread across different districts in Uttar Pradesh. KrishiHub’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered supply chain enables farm-to-doorstep delivery in less than 12 hours along with up to 25% reduction in vegetable wastage compared to the traditional system. This also allows deploying proprietary algorithms for determining delivery routes for each delivery agent for logistics cost optimization and ensuring on-time delivery.

Currently, in the 11th month of the operations, KrishiHub procures vegetables from 200+ farmers across many districts in Uttar Pradesh (Hapur, Agra, Ghaziabad, Noida, Meerut etc.) and adds value through sorting, cleaning, grading and packaging by skilled labors at 2 warehouses in NCR. The company has completed more than 7500 transactions so far on the platform and delivered over 1500 tonnes of vegetables to 70+ businesses in Ghaziabad, Noida and Greater Noida.

Krishihub was founded in 2016 by Bhoopendra Kumar and Jyotiska Khasnabish. Bhoopendra, CEO, is an alumnus of IIT Guwahati and has more than 6 years of industry experience across MNCs and startups such as Taxi For Sure, HP Enterprise, DataWeave etc. Jyotiska, CTO, is an alumnus of IIIT Bangalore and has more than 4 years of experience in research and product development across MNCs, startups and research institutes like GSN Games, DataWeave, Univ of Illinois etc.

KrishiHub with a team of more than 20 people (5 members strong tech team in Bangalore and 15+ members in operations in NCR) has been able to make its huge impact within a short span of time. It has built a mobile app for farmers that includes price and weather forecasting using machine learning, precision agriculture through satellite imagery, marketplaces for seeds, fertilizers and farm equipment and a discussion forum for farmers that support conversations in regional language.

With this round of funding, KrishiHub plans to expand its operations aggressively across Delhi-NCR, add more businesses to its customer portfolio and increase its farmer base in more states.

“Our major target is to build the entire agricultural ecosystem with the inclusion of information and decision support systems for farmers on all agricultural needs. In the coming months, we are going to put more efforts on R&D to improve our technology platform. Soon we are planning to explore possibilities to start operations in Tier-2 cities and collaborate with state governments for better outreach and export Indian agri products to the rest of the world”, said Bhoopendra.

This month only, an another agri-tech startup Farmlink had raised seed funding from Pioneering Ventures, a Swiss-based incubator and investment firm, and Syngenta, a Swiss agribusiness firm. The startup is based out of Mumbai.

Earlier, in August, Gurgaon-based agritech startup Crofarm had raised Rs 5 crore in a pre-Series A round from Rajan Anandan, Google India MD, and Jitendra Gupta, and PayU India MD, among others.

Uber, Mahindra Ties-up To Deploy Electric Vehicles in India

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) has tied up with with Uber to explore deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) on the cab aggregator's platform in several cities across India, the automaker said today.

The company, which has already tied up with Uber's Indian rival Ola to build an electric mass mobility ecosystem in Nagpur, will deploy "hundreds of electric vehicles in Delhi and Hyderabad" under the new partnership.

In May this year, with fleet of 200 electric vehicles, Mahindra partnered with Ola to help it launch Ola Electric in Nagpur.

Mahindra's electric vehicles on the Uber platform will include the e2oPlus hatch and the eVerito sedan.

The e2O Plus and the eVerito will be inducted into the Uber fleet by the beginning of March 2018.

"Our collaboration with Uber is an important next step to help accelerate the large scale adoption of electric vehicles on shared mobility platforms and meet the nation's vision for EVs," M&M Managing Director Pawan Goenka told reporters here.

As part of the arrangement, driver partners on the Uber app can avail of a package that will include Mahindra electric vehicles at competitive prices, attractive financing and insurance premiums as well as comprehensive maintenance packages from M&M and its associates.

Furthermore, to make this model durable, M&M and Uber will work closely with public and private players which are in the process of setting up a common use charging ecosystem across multiple locations in the cities.

The above development was first reported in MoneyControl.

India's First Bicycle-Sharing Startup To Start Service in Bengaluru in The Coming Weeks

In continuation to our earlier post today where we reported that InMobi co-founder Amit Gupta had quit the company to start his own venture which is a bicycle sharing startup called Yulu Bikes. The startup is now reported to begin operations in Bengaluru in the coming weeks.

Yulu, which is an IoT-enabled venture, will allow people to rent dockless bicycles via the Yulu Bikes app.

In beginning, Yulu will start with a fleet of a few hundred bicycles which is said to be powered by GPRS, GPS and Bluetooth technology. Users can book them via the iOS or Android app, just like they book a cab, and the bikes can be unlocked via QR codes. Yulu will charge the rider per 30 minutes of use.

[caption id="attachment_122532" align="aligncenter" width="995"] Yulu Bike[/caption]

Riders can rent and return bikes from all major locations in the city via the app. And payments can be made via “a secure and hassle-free digital wallet”. It is however not clear that which digital wallet will be used by the startup.

Moreover, Yulu is also said to be working with the local government to dedicate more lanes to bikes/bicycles, and also allot safe parking spaces for them.

“The bike-sharing space is pretty new India. At the same time, there are things happening in the country, as far as competition is concerned,” Gupta was quoted as saying.

Founded by Amit Gupta and his other co-founders - - R.K Misra, Naveen Dachuri and Hemant Gupta, Yulu's vision is to reduce traffic congestion by providing a scalable, affordable, efficient and clean solution for the first mile, last mile, and short distance commute.

Introducing 'Coinome' - India's First Crypto-Currency Exchange

Mumbai based payment gateway Billdesk has launched ‘Coinome’, India's first crypto-currency exchange. The exchange plans to support 20 mainstream crypto-currencies including bitcoin, by 2018.

Coinome will allow users to be on-boarded via Instant e-KYC. Users can start transacting in crypto-currencies almost immediately upon registering.

The 24x7 exchange supports instant deposits using payment gateway and instant withdrawals, thereby allowing transactions even on weekends or business holidays.

“We would fundamentally like to provide Indian users with a secure and convenient means for buying or selling Bitcoins, and other crypto-currencies and promoting the same within Indian masses as commercially viable alternatives for building their digital assets,” said Vivek Steve Francis, CEO of Coinome.

Srinivasu MN, Co-founder, and director of BillDesk said, “Advancements in Blockchain, as well as crypto-currency space, are happening at a rapid pace. We are making the long-term bet that digital currencies are going to be powering transactions in the future and change the way consumers and organizations interact and transact with one another.”

BillDesk is India’s largest payment solutions platform handling over USD 50 billion consumer digital payments annually. It is estimated[weasel words] that 70% of India's online billing transactions are conducted through BillDesk.

InMobi Cofounder Amit Gupta Quits To Launch IoT-driven Bicycle Sharing Startup

InMobi’s co-founder Amit Gupta is stepping down from his executive role within the company, in just after five months, to launch internet of things-driven bicycle sharing startup Yulu.

Backed by Softbank, InMobi was founded by Amit Gupta along with Naveen Tewari, Mohit Saxena and Abhay Singhal in 2007. While Mohit Saxena had already quit the company to start his own venture, Amit has become the second co-founder to quit InMobi and now the company is left with Naveen and Abhay, among four of its co-founders.

Amit Gupta, who is also President of OEM and telco solutions, will now become CEO of Yulu. He, however, will remain involved with InMobi as co-founder.

"I am not leaving InMobi. I have always had a desire to be aligned with a social cause. This idea has germinated into something that finally fulfils this need. Naveen and my fellow co-founders have been an integral part of seeing me through this process. I will continue as co-founder at InMobi minus the operational capabilities", said Amit Gupta in a statement.

Gupta's new venture Yulu will launch its bike-sharing service in Bangalore with a few hundred bicycles. Yulu is starting with regular, dockless bicycles that people can rent using their iOS or Android phone. The bikes unlock via QR codes and bill the rider for every 30 minutes of use.

Bike-sharing has become a new hotbed for founders and VCs, globally. In China, companies Ofo and Mobike have both achieved unicorn status for their respective bike-sharing startups. While Ofo had already showed its interest to launch its services in India, Zoomcar has too launched its bicycle-rental service PEDL, last month.

It is also notable that while Yulu is IoT-driven and launching its services first in the city of Bangalore. To recall, the city-- in July-- had announced that it is working on making IoT-enabled roads.

1.3 Lakh Google Scholarships Open For Students, Developers in India

With an aim to create a pool of highly skilled tech workforce that is readily employable by the Industry and help spur innovation, Google India, in association with technology learning platform Pluralsight and educational institution Udacity, on Thursday announced a new scholarship programme. According to the Google, this scholarship will help train 1.3 lakh developers and students across the country.

"At Google, we have consistently invested in helping the developer and Startup community to get easy access to all the latest technology that is shaping the world today. And in the last few years, we have broadened our efforts in India by going beyond professional developers and Startups to focusing on student community as well," said an official blog post of Google India.

Under this scholarship program, Google will sponsor 1 lakh scholarships on the Pluralsight learning platform and 30 thousand scholarships on Udacity.

Learn more about this scholarships and Apply Here

The scholarships will help students and developers gain access to advanced learning curriculum and further their employability in emerging technologies like Mobile and Web development, Machine Learning, AR/VR, Artificial Intelligence, and Cloud Platforms.

"India has tremendous potential to become a hub of innovation for mobile and cloud technologies. And the key to building innovative solutions and supporting the fast growing startup ecosystem in India, is to invest in skilling India's large IT workforce and provide the future workforce easy access to world class training, tools and support," said William Florance, Developer Products Group and Skilling Lead for India, Google.

The Google executive also told reporters in New Delhi today that, since the company had announced the skilling initiative in India, 210,000 students have completed Google developed courses on Udacity, with 117,000 students completing the course this year.

SBI To Launch All-in-One Comprehensive Mobile App Called YONO

State Bank of India (SBI) is all set to launch India’s first comprehensive digital service platform, YONO, which stands for ‘You Only Need One’.

An integrated omni-channel digital platform that offers just about everything related to financial services and lifestyle products, YONO will be launched by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in New Delhi on November 24.

Offering the millennials banking and financial services, YONO will allow its customers to meet their lifestyle needs across 14 categories including booking and renting cabs, entertainment, dining experience, travel and stay, medical needs and so on.

For the digital platform, SBI has partnered with over 60 e-commerce players to provide customized offers and discounts to its users.

Some of the key e-commerce partners include Amazon, Uber, Ola, Myntra, Jabong, Shoppers Stop, Cox & Kings, Thomas Cook, Yatra, Airbnb, Swiggy and Byjus, among others.

“Customers will be able to seamlessly access lifestyle offerings and financial services with a single user id and password. The portal has been designed to offer maximum customer convenience where each journey has been designed with minimum possible clicks with easy to understand descriptions,” said chairman SBI, Rajnish Kumar.

“We believe this app will help us increase engagement with our customers and enhance their banking,” added Kumar.
YONO is a path breaking comprehensive digital product from SBI developed using the world’s latest digital technologies such as AI, predictive analytics and machine learning.

With YONO, customers can open a bank account with SBI digitally in less than five minutes, transfer funds in just a few clicks, avail pre-approved personal loan sans any paperwork, get overdraft facility against fixed deposit, have one view of their banking and financial portfolio of SBI Group companies, benefit from intelligent spend analyser, and utilise conversational banking guide through ‘Chat bot’.

The service platform can be accessed through mobile phones, both android and iOS, and on the web through a browser. It allows a seamless omni-channel customer experience

Ripple-powered Instant Payment Services Now Live in India with Axis Bank, Standard Chartered

Three banks (Axis Bank, Standard Chartered, and Rakbank) have announced their decision to adopt Ripple’s blockchain-based payment platform, the RippleNet, as a means of making cross-border transactions.

To meet increasing demand for real-time payment services, Axis Bank (based in India), Standard Chartered (Singapore), and RAKBANK (United Arab Emirates) will now use RippleNet to send live, fast, frictionless cross-border payments.

RippleNet is a blockchain network operated by distributed ledger firm Ripple that provides real-time, business-to-business (B2B) global payments.

For Standard Chartered and Axis Bank, the Ripple-powered corporate payment service will allow each bank to offer their business customers an enhanced payments experience, ultimately enabling their end-customers to manage their cash flow, costs, and float better.

By our estimates, there are between 200-300 large, international corporates with regional treasury hubs in Singapore. These corporates span industries including fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and retail.

Often these corporates manufacture their products in India before shipping them to Singapore for worldwide distribution. In fact, the Singapore-India trade corridor is worth $15 billion.

Gautam Jain, global head of digitisation and client access, transaction Banking at Standard Chartered said: “The successful launch of our commercial cross-border payment service marks a significant milestone in the financial industry’s progress in applying distributed ledger technology for corporates. We are incredibly proud to be leading the way in this area. This affirms our commitment to digitisation and innovation as we continuously look at new way

Axis Bank President of Transaction Banking Himadri Chatterjee said: “While there have been significant innovations in domestic payments, cross-border remittance has seen limited developments. Using APIs and distributed ledger technology, there is an opportunity to radically change the way international payments are handled. We are excited with the potential the technology has to bring innovative services to the market and help us enhance value to our customers.”

Ripple had already begun spreading its business in Indian subcontinent by setting up its office in Mumbai, in September.

Hourly Hotel Booking Platform MiStay Raises Seed Funding Via Axilor Ventures, Others

Bangalore-based online hotel reservations startup MiStay, has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Axilor Ventures and a group of angels, a press statement said.

The startup will use the freshly raised funds for hiring talent and marketing, apart from expanding operations.

Founded in 2016 by Indian Institute of Technology Madras alumni Jaiswal and Pranav Prabhakar, MiStay is a travel-tech company that allows booking a hotel room by pack of hours with flexible check-in & check-out time.

In April 2016, Mistay was launched in just 2 cities (Delhi & Gurgaon) and with 12 hotels. Soon in next five months, the company launched its operations in eight more cities.

Currently, MiStay is operational in 30 locations and claims to have around 400 hotels on its network. Its partner hotels include branded chains such as The Park Hotels, Pride Hotels, Sarovar Hotels, Keys Hotels, Treebo Hotels and Mango Hotels. MiStay claims that its customer base has grown seven times in the last six months.
MiStay’s model is unique in that it offers slot-wise hotel bookings. A full day is divided into three slots: morning (8:00 am – 11:00 am); day (12:00 noon – 7:00 pm); and night (8:00 pm – 7:00 am). The customer can book any combination of consecutive slots based on need.

Asutosh Upadhyay, head of programs at Axilor, said in the statement, “MiStay has taken a customer-centric approach to hotel bookings… While giving travellers the best options, they are unlocking value in hotel inventory, making this a win-win solution for individuals and corporates.”

Axilor Ventures is led by Infosys co-founders Kris Gopalakrishnan and SD Shibulal.

Hourly Hotel Booking Platform MiStay Raises Seed Funding Via Axilor Ventures, Others

Bangalore-based online hotel reservations startup MiStay, has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Axilor Ventures and a group of angels, a press statement said.

The startup will use the freshly raised funds for hiring talent and marketing, apart from expanding operations.

Founded in 2016 by Indian Institute of Technology Madras alumni Jaiswal and Pranav Prabhakar, MiStay is a travel-tech company that allows booking a hotel room by pack of hours with flexible check-in & check-out time.

In April 2016, Mistay was launched in just 2 cities (Delhi & Gurgaon) and with 12 hotels. Soon in next five months, the company launched its operations in eight more cities.

Currently, MiStay is operational in 30 locations and claims to have around 400 hotels on its network. Its partner hotels include branded chains such as The Park Hotels, Pride Hotels, Sarovar Hotels, Keys Hotels, Treebo Hotels and Mango Hotels. MiStay claims that its customer base has grown seven times in the last six months.
MiStay’s model is unique in that it offers slot-wise hotel bookings. A full day is divided into three slots: morning (8:00 am – 11:00 am); day (12:00 noon – 7:00 pm); and night (8:00 pm – 7:00 am). The customer can book any combination of consecutive slots based on need.

Asutosh Upadhyay, head of programs at Axilor, said in the statement, “MiStay has taken a customer-centric approach to hotel bookings… While giving travellers the best options, they are unlocking value in hotel inventory, making this a win-win solution for individuals and corporates.”

Axilor Ventures is led by Infosys co-founders Kris Gopalakrishnan and SD Shibulal.

Jugnoo Starts Its Auto Rickshaw Aggregation Service in Northeast India

One of the problems faced by the city people for daily commuting is finding a ride that is easily available, affordable and quick to board. And when it comes to driver issues, bargaining and idle time are the two things that kill their productivity. 3 years ago, Jugnoo - an auto hailing app entered the market to solve the problem of commuting and increasing the efficiency of auto drivers. Today, establishing itself as the largest auto rickshaw aggregator and leading hyperlocal startup - Jugnoo is entering the NorthEastern part of the country and is ready to explore the hidden potential in the region.

In a meeting held between Prince Dhawan, DC Itanagar Capital Complex, Arunachal Pradesh, and Jugnoo, discussions were made to launch Jugnoo- a tech-integrated transport hailing app for providing easy auto rides to the people of Itanagar.

Currently, Jugnoo is operational in more than 30 cities across India with a focus on tier II and tier III cities where the distances are shorter and people rely more on public transport mode. Through Jugnoo app, people of Arunachal would be able to book their rides easily eliminating the constraints of time and place.

CEO & Founder of Jugnoo, Samar Singla comments, “Our plan is to build our network PAN India and at the same time change the mobility scene in the country. Arunachal Pradesh would be our first step towards the same in NorthEast where we want to solve the daily commuting problem of this region and at the same time increase the efficiency of the drivers”

The initial meeting was organized by the DC, to explain the idea of Jugnoo services to various transport federations. Jugnoo team demonstrated about how initiating Jugnoo rides in the city would eliminate the irregularities in the fare system and increase the number of rides per day serving both riders and drivers. DTO, Capital Complex, Remar Gab was also present to support the collaboration.

Even though the implementation of services is left entirely up to the discretion of auto drivers, for now, Dobing Sonam, President of AAPPTF has assured support and cooperation, requesting representatives of Jugnoo to set up an office in Itanagar.

The company is doing a through fieldwork in the area for delivering best services to the region.

Founded in 2014, Jugnoo is an on-demand hyper-local transport and logistics app that thrives on its expansive network of auto-rickshaws. Headquartered in Chandigarh, Jugnoo was launched to bring structure to a highly unorganized sector of auto-rickshaws - a predominant mode of public transportation in tier II and tier III cities of India. Over the past three years, Jugnoo has evolved in terms of its business operations, technological advancements, and diversifying service offerings via different business verticals. Jugnoo has ventured into different verticals of on-demand and hyper-local space in B2B & B2C domains. Currently, it has two major verticals - Rides and Deliveries. With its market presence in more than 35 cities in India and a userbase of 4.3 million registered users, Jugnoo is a go-to platform for all the hyperlocal needs of its customers.

Facebook Launches Digital, Startup Training Hubs in India

Facebook on Wednesday introduced its digital training and startup training hubs in India aimed at helping small businesses and people grow by giving them the digital skills they need to compete in today's digital economy.

Facebook said it plans to train more than half a million people in the country by 2020 through these online training hubs, which are being rolled out first in India.

The learning curriculum which is personalised to the individual's needs and available in English and Hindi on mobile, the social network, which is used by 217 million people in India, announced.

"We believe the best way to prepare India for a digital economy is by equipping people with the tools, knowledge, and skills they need to succeed," said Ritesh Mehta, Head of Programmes, Facebook, India and South Asia.

To develop the learning curriculum, the social network worked with several organisations, including Digital Vidya, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), DharmaLife and the government's StartupIndia initiative.

The curriculum includes vital skills for digital skill seekers and tech entrepreneurs, including how to protect their ideas, how to hire, how to go about getting funding, what regulations and legal hurdles they need to consider, how to build an online reputation, and a host of other critical skills.

This could mean teaching a small business owner how to create an online presence; helping a non-profit reach new communities and potential donors; or it could mean helping a tech entrepreneur turn their product idea into a startup through practical business advice.

Facebook said its digital training hub would provide free social and content marketing training for anyone - from students to business owners - who is looking to develop their digital knowledge and skills.

According to new research by Morning Consult in partnership with Facebook, small businesses use of digital translates into new jobs and opportunities for communities across the country.

Since 2011 Facebook has invested more than $1 billion to support small businesses globally.

The "Boost Your Business" and "SheMeansBusiness" initiatives have trained more than 60,000 small businesses, including 12,000 women entrepreneurs, in India, Facebook said.

India Witnesses Highest Increase in Online Shopping in Asia-Pacific

Asia Pacific saw the largest year-over-year incremental cross-border purchases with India, China and South Korea contributing most, a report said on Tuesday.

Pitney Bowes, global technology company, released the 2017 Pitney Bowes Global Ecommerce Study – analysing the global ecommerce landscape from both a retailer and consumer perspective.

The study is based on survey results of 1,200 retailers from eight countries including India and 12,000 consumers from 12 global markets.

Indians are purchasing cross-border with greatest frequency with 1 out of 5 purchasing daily / weekly. India is the only country that has interest in quick delivery for a cost, and are split across free longer delivery and quicker shorter deliveries for a fee, the report said.

The study said that nearly half (47%) of online shoppers globally reported frustration with everything from shipping, to returns, to lost products and miscalculated duties and taxes during the 2016 holiday shopping season. Shoppers in Asia Pacific – particularly India (73%), Hong Kong (69%) China (64%) and South Korea (58%) – reported the most challenges. In the US, 36% of online shoppers experience problems, up 5% from the previous year.

The report further said that online shoppers in India increasingly prefer online marketplaces over retailer websites. 67 percent of online shoppers turn to marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, Rakuten, Tmall and JD.com to search for products. This trend is most prevalent in Germany, India and China, the report added.

“As consumers become more experienced with online shopping, they’re shifting more of their holiday spend online and expecting better and better service from retailers, said Lila Snyder, President, Global Ecommerce and Presort Services, Pitney Bowes.

“Online shoppers have an entire global marketplace at their fingertips. They expect that there is always a way to get the product they want, shipped where they want, when they want it. This creates both opportunities and challenges for retailers,” she added.

The study noted that 62 percent of retailers have a cross-border ecommerce business and the vast majority of retailers who don’t offer cross-border, plan to in the next 12 months. If these retailers execute against their stated business plans, 93 percent will offer cross-border shopping by this time next year – that equates to a 50 percent increase in cross-border retailers in just one year, it said.

The survey also found that 41 percent consumers chose e-wallets and 39 percent chose credit cards – the exact inverse of the results from the previous year –when making a purchase outside of their home country. India is the only country equally uses credit cards, E- wallets, and debit cards/ bank transfers, it said.

The above development was first reported in Zeenews.India.com

Paytm Invests in Lending Startup CreditMate

SoftBank and Alibaba-backed Paytm on Tuesday said it has invested in Mumbai-based lending startup CreditMate. The fintech major, however, did not disclose the investment amount.

CreditMate was founded in 2016 by Jonathan Bill, Ashish Doshi and Aditya Singh. The company focuses on secured lending against two-wheelers.

As a part of the deal, Paytm will also leverage CreditMate’s proprietary credit and asset valuation technology and loan management system. Paytm is also creating a loan management system for its customers.

“We are constantly innovating to provide access to financial services and lending specifically targeted at the large majority of Indians who do not have access to such products,” Paytm senior vice president and CFO Madhur Deora said in a statement.

Creditmate is addressing the market for loans against two-wheelers through their partner dealer network for customers who might be new to credit, he added.

“Over time, we will use Creditmate’s platforms to make credit available both offline and online to our users,” he said. Bill, who is also the CEO of CreditMate, said the investment will allow the company to expand its operations, distribution, lending partnerships and technology.

CreditMate assesses the customer and asset (two-wheeler) using proprietary credit and valuation engines. It works with licenced lending partners for whom it provides a credit recommendation and online access to a complete digital borrower and asset profile to enable fast and secured lending. It has a dealer network of over 150 across Mumbai and Gujarat.

AI Enabled Pharmacy Platform RedBook Raises Seed Funding

Mumbai based Instinct Innovations has raised a seed round of funding led by Vida Ventures and Dr. Aniruddha Malpani for its Redbook platform. Redbook, already being used by over five hundred pharmacies in Mumbai, acts as the base for a proprietary AI engine that offers deep insights on drug consumption patterns. It is being piloted by India’s leading drug makers to eliminate age old, error prone manual processes of data collection & analysis and decision making. The company will use the funds to scale RedBook pan India.

For pharmacies, RedBook frees up resources & time and increases business by over 15% with several intelligent features. Integration with distributors, online ordering facilities, auto sync for offline use, timely information on stock expiry, and micro-level insights on consumers enables pharmacies to focus on offering a truly personalized service to their consumers giving them an edge over the impending threat from online pharmacies.

Instinct Innovations was founded by National University of Singapore graduate and ex-Fractal data scientist, Ankit Solanki. He joined Fractal sciences as part of their acquisition of Mobius in 2015 where he earned patents in the field of semantic search and segmentation. Co-founders, Priyanka Gosai & Himanshu Singhi, also from strong technology backgrounds, handle development and growth at the company.

Ankit Solanki, Co-Founder & CEO, Instinct Innovations, says, “Re-wiring the pharma supply chain with Redbook is only the first step in achieving our long-term vision. We aim to create a healthcare ecosystem that is seamlessly integrated via technology. The emphasis is on using machine learning & AI driven cognitive intelligence to make the supply chain more efficient.”

Ankit Solanki, Head of Investments, at Vida Ventures, adds, “The post-production pharma supply chain has been in dire need of innovation. It is inefficient to cope with changing business dynamics such as varying demand patterns, expanding product types, shorter product lifecycles etc. New ways of delivering healthcare is making drug makers take a more analytical route towards supply chain planning. RedBook offers a solid platform to implement analytics powered by AI engine, enabling drug makers to make smarter tactical and strategic decisions.”

“I am very excited with the way Instinct Innovations/RedBook is using technology to solve problems that plague pharmacists and drug makers today, such as proliferation of fake drugs, lack of compliance with FDA rules and sale of expired drugs. They also offer pharmaceutical companies a unique way to market their products through pharmacies, track sales in real time as well as engage directly with patients. By focusing on the pharma supply chain, RedBook is helping the healthcare system to become more patient-friendly and efficient.” says Dr Aniruddha Malpani.

Nuvepro Secures $400K Seed Funding Through 1Crowd To Fuel Growth

Nuvepro, a managed cloud environment solutions provider, today announced that it has raised $400K investment led by 1Crowd and its investor community. The investment will be used to deepen their R&D efforts and continue to expand into the worldwide market.

1Crowd is a unique angel investment platform focused on early stage ventures. It has more than 500 investors, 50 mentors and has made over 12 investments since March 2016. With the funds, the company will be able to leverage 1Crowd’s ecosystem of mentors, industry connects and investor community to benefit from strategic to operational support.

As part of the managed cloud environment solution, Nuvepro delivers ready-to-use infrastructure and applications on a single or multiple clouds, automates the resource provisioning, manages cloud resources & spend, ensures governance and compliance of cloud usage, integrates with your existing tools. All of this is done through a single-source self-service portal. The platform ensures that CIOs have complete control over resources, hierarchy, and subscription management. The embedded analytics provides insights that will help CIOs to track the cloud usage, optimize the resources and cut costs by over 50%.

Giridhar LV, CEO, Nuvepro said, “80% of enterprises are using the cloud. However, the CIOs are still finding it challenging to increase the cloud adoption and utilization. The returns on their cloud investments are far from realized. Nuvepro was founded with a singular vision to make the cloud work, help CIOs make the most of their cloud investments and enable them to take the competitive-edge. We do it by taking complete ownership through managed cloud environment so that CIOs don’t need to worry about provisioning, governance, security, skill building, shadow IT and managing multiple clouds.”

Anup Kuruvilla, Co-Founder of 1Crowd, said “Along with a well-respected, experienced and dedicated team, Nuvepro addresses key modern day challenge of cloud adoption. Microsoft Azure and Amazon web services have made strong strides in moving resources to the cloud and making the value proposition for enterprises attractive. We believe Nuvepro would be able to form a crucial bridge between enterprises and cloud providers by driving faster adoption. The underlying business model of providing ready to use cloud infrastructure available on a subscription or pay per go basis is also a strong pull for enterprises.”

The startup was founded in 2014 by Janakiraman S, Giridhar LV, Umesh Bhatt, Moyukh Goswami and Rajesh Vasudevan, all having significant years of professional experience.

Janakiraman, Chairman, Nuvepro said, “The debate on cloud is over. The focus now is to improve the cloud adoption and utilization. 1Crowd’s trust and investment in this vision gives us extra push to enable more CIOs to realize the true benefits of the cloud.”

Self-Drive Bike Rental Startup ONN Bikes Raises Pre-Series A Investment from Z Nation Lab, JITO Angels and Venture Catalysts

Underlining its commitment to drive innovation through disruption, Venture Catalysts, India’s first integrated incubator, recently participated in a pre-Series A investment worth INR 4.5 crore for ONN Bikes, a Mumbai-based self-drive bike rental platform. The funding was led by existing investor Z Nation Lab and also saw participation from JITO Angels. Several prominent VCats angels such as Jayesh Parekh (Sunidhi Securities), Pankaj Harlalka (Narnolia Capital), Gaurav Gandhi, Nikunj Pachisia, and Vijay Lakhani were also amongst those participating in the funding round.

The newest entrant in the emerging Indian self-drive motorbike rental market, ONN Bikes has registered remarkable growth in the last one year and is one of the fastest growing companies in the space. Having launched in November 2016 with an aim to redefine daily commute in India by way of rented two-wheelers, it has swiftly expanded its operations to cover major Indian cities through B2B bike leasing as well as short-term rentals. ONN Bikes is also currently the only player in its domain to have ventured into long-term vehicle leasing.

Speaking on the investment, Namit Jain, Founder and CEO of ONN Bikes, said, “We are excited to have secured pre-Series A investment from Z Nation Lab, JITO Angels, and Venture Catalysts. Their vast expertise and combined networking capabilities will help us immensely in achieving our expansion goals by covering more cities and finding strong franchise partners. We are confident that, with such experienced investors and mentors on our side, we will solve major transportation challenges for the Indian market and establish ONN Bikes as the leading player in the self-drive bike rental domain.”

Pushp Mitra Das, Lead investor with Z Nation Lab, added, “We led the follow-on investment round because we have faith in the strong foundation that the ONN Bikes team is creating. The consistent growth with negligible cash burn and strong B2B partnerships speaks highly of the team’s execution capabilities. We have full faith that ONN Bikes will be able to sustain the growth momentum and continue growing at an accelerated pace.”

The incoming funds will be utilised by ONN Bikes to build a stronger technology base, increase the fleet size, expand to more cities, and promote its franchisee model. With some of the biggest names in the industry – including Ola, Uber, and Swiggy – already amongst its growing clientele, the start-up also plans to expand its range to electric vehicles in the coming months. The company currently operates in 5 major states of India, and has earlier raised two seed rounds from Z Nation Lab and Grace Capital Ventures.

Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder and President – Venture Catalysts, said, “Venture Catalysts is committed to revitalising and revolutionising the Indian start-up landscape by facilitating funding and mentoring opportunities for high-potential start-ups. Having undertaken in-depth research and viability analysis, we are delighted to say that ONN Bikes stood out from other start-ups in this space, thanks to the tremendous growth and market response that it has garnered. The numbers speak for themselves, and we’re very confident that ONN Bikes has the potential to be a key player in the sector, both within India and on a global stage.”

“The advent of the sharing economy in India and the rise of bike rental space in China are positive signs for this segment in India. This is the right time for bike rental market in India,” added Mr. Piyush Mehta, JITO lead investor.

Venture Catalysts has established itself as a game-changer in the Indian entrepreneurial landscape by facilitating start-up development across multiple geographies, supported by an entire ecosystem of catalysts, angel investors, management consultants, and advisors. Moreover, it enables mentoring and seed funding opportunities through angel investments and supports services for the start-up community, helping highly disruptive early-stage ventures

HomeLane Acquires Capricoast for INR 90 crores

India’s leading online home interiors brand, HomeLane.com, today announced the acquisition of Capricoast.com, a leading online home interiors marketplace, for a consideration of INR 90 crores. HomeLane.com said that this acquisition will enable it to offer its customers a smoother and more streamlined home designing experience enabled by technology.

Following the acquisition, the 120-strong team of Capricoast.com will be part of HomeLane.com. Jawad Ayaz, founder and CEO of Capricoast will join HomeLane.com’s board of directors.

HomeLane.com has also launched its operations in the NCR region. The company already has offices in Gurugram and Noida, and is further planning to set up an experience center in Gurugram within the next two months, to offer consumers a first-hand experience for their home designing and furnishing needs.

Speaking on the acquisition, Srikanth Iyer, co-founder and CEO of HomeLane.com said, “This is a coming together of two big players in home design with complementary strengths and expertise. The Capricoast team brings with them a powerful technology back-end that will further strengthen our product offering and go a long way in making HomeLane.com the preferred home décor destination for customers across India. This acquisition also marks the beginning of HomeLane’s next phase of growth and expansion, given that we have already achieved operational profitability.”

“We have already achieved a position of dominance in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai and are now ready to serve homeowners in the NCR” Srikanth added.

Jawad Ayaz said, “We believe Capricoast’s strong technology core in customer acquisition and lifecycle management will be a perfect foil to HomeLane.com’s unparalleled strengths in design visualization and project execution. This integration is a win-win for home design customers as well as for HomeLane.com, which cements its position as the online home interiors industry leader with an unbeatable combination of transparency and predictability, backed by technological capabilities.”