IIT-Madras Incubated Dairy-Tech Startup Stellapps Raises $14 Mn from Gates Foundation, IndusAge Partners

Bangalore-based dairy technology startup Stellapps Technologies has raised $14 million in one of the largest equity funding rounds led by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and IndusAge Partners, among others.

IIT-Madras incubated Stellapps Technologies, which is also backed by Flipkart executive chairman Binny Bansal, is touted to be one of the largest dairy IoT platforms in India. The startup had raised seed funding of undisclosed amount from Omnivore Partners, in January 2013.

Founded in 2011 by a group of IITians -- Ranjith Mukundan, Mr. Ravishankar G. Shiroor, Praveen Nale, Mr. Ramakrishna Adukuri, and Venkatesh Seshasayee, Stellapps is an India's first of its kind end-to-end dairy technology solutions company. Their concept includes a Wi-Fi sensor module, a wiimote and IoT router that can be used for smart automatic milk collection unit and cold-chain monitoring, as part of Stellapps IoT platform.

The freshly raised capital will be used by the startup for monitoring the quantity and quality of milk, storage facilities, creating wearable devices for tracking cattle health and infrastructure for housing the cattle. The startup is aiming to focus is on reducing costs for the farmer by ensuring there are higher milk yields and consistent health of their cattle.

In 2017, the company raised an undisclosed amount in a round led by Blume Ventures, along with participation by Binny Bansal, Flipkart Group CEO. In the same year, Stellapps was also the part of Qualcomm Design in India Challenge-II.

Most recently, the startup was selected for IE20 programme's 20 startups selected across India to set up their businesses in London, United Kingdom.

Stellapps' clients include private dairies and dairy farms operating across India, Russia, France and Nepal, among other countries. Currently, Stellapps’ products include various applications for milk production, procurement, cold-chain management, a farmer wallet and cattle insurance application.

According to experts, the Indian government controls approximately 40% of the dairy market. The dairy market in India is largely controlled by the government but there are still a few players emerging in the Indian dairy IoT sector. "The provision of software cloud services speeds up the process, so we can see state governments partnering with startups in this space," said a VC investors tracking dairy technology space.

Speaking about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, it is a private foundation founded by Bill Gates and his wife in year 2000.

Last July, the foundation along with India's Department of Biotechnology had announced a $100,000 award for researchers who are able to come up with some never before seen or heard innovations in health including mental health. Prior to this, in 2016, the foundation had given a grant to Bangalore-based Bempu Health Private Limited for their brilliant concept of saving the lives of the newborn babies in developing countries.

The foundation has earlier funded a project called – “Nano Membrane Toilet” or Water-less Toilet which will be able to treat human waste on-site without external energy or water.

[Top Image - Stellapps co-founders Praveen Nale, Venkatesh Seshasayee, Ramakrishna Adukuri, Ravishankar Shiroor and Ranjith Mukundan | Via - RA Chandroo @Outlookbusiness.com]

IIT-Madras Incubated Dairy-Tech Startup Stellapps Raises $14 Mn from Gates Foundation, IndusAge Partners

Bangalore-based dairy technology startup Stellapps Technologies has raised $14 million in one of the largest equity funding rounds led by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and IndusAge Partners, among others.

IIT-Madras incubated Stellapps Technologies, which is also backed by Flipkart executive chairman Binny Bansal, is touted to be one of the largest dairy IoT platforms in India. The startup had raised seed funding of undisclosed amount from Omnivore Partners, in January 2013.

Founded in 2011 by a group of IITians -- Ranjith Mukundan, Mr. Ravishankar G. Shiroor, Praveen Nale, Mr. Ramakrishna Adukuri, and Venkatesh Seshasayee, Stellapps is an India's first of its kind end-to-end dairy technology solutions company. Their concept includes a Wi-Fi sensor module, a wiimote and IoT router that can be used for smart automatic milk collection unit and cold-chain monitoring, as part of Stellapps IoT platform.

The freshly raised capital will be used by the startup for monitoring the quantity and quality of milk, storage facilities, creating wearable devices for tracking cattle health and infrastructure for housing the cattle. The startup is aiming to focus is on reducing costs for the farmer by ensuring there are higher milk yields and consistent health of their cattle.

In 2017, the company raised an undisclosed amount in a round led by Blume Ventures, along with participation by Binny Bansal, Flipkart Group CEO. In the same year, Stellapps was also the part of Qualcomm Design in India Challenge-II.

Most recently, the startup was selected for IE20 programme's 20 startups selected across India to set up their businesses in London, United Kingdom.

Stellapps' clients include private dairies and dairy farms operating across India, Russia, France and Nepal, among other countries. Currently, Stellapps’ products include various applications for milk production, procurement, cold-chain management, a farmer wallet and cattle insurance application.

According to experts, the Indian government controls approximately 40% of the dairy market. The dairy market in India is largely controlled by the government but there are still a few players emerging in the Indian dairy IoT sector. "The provision of software cloud services speeds up the process, so we can see state governments partnering with startups in this space," said a VC investors tracking dairy technology space.

Speaking about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, it is a private foundation founded by Bill Gates and his wife in year 2000.

Last July, the foundation along with India's Department of Biotechnology had announced a $100,000 award for researchers who are able to come up with some never before seen or heard innovations in health including mental health. Prior to this, in 2016, the foundation had given a grant to Bangalore-based Bempu Health Private Limited for their brilliant concept of saving the lives of the newborn babies in developing countries.

The foundation has earlier funded a project called – “Nano Membrane Toilet” or Water-less Toilet which will be able to treat human waste on-site without external energy or water.

[Top Image - Stellapps co-founders Praveen Nale, Venkatesh Seshasayee, Ramakrishna Adukuri, Ravishankar Shiroor and Ranjith Mukundan | Via - RA Chandroo @Outlookbusiness.com]

Snapdeal Launches Travel Store

Snapdeal has set-up a travel store that helps buyers with travel necessities at affordable prices.

Snapdeal has set-up a travel store that helps buyers with travel necessities at affordable prices. With the holiday season ahead, the store is aimed at helping users with a one-stop destination to buy must-have products and also the good to have ones for a vacation in mountains, beaches and more. The newly launched store consists of products across categories like hiking, luggage, entertainment, travel accessories, road trip, toiletries and clothing for travel.

Following are the highlights of the latest online store:

• Luggage & Accessories: Pack the right items for your travel and make yourself feel comfortable. Grab travel pillows, eye masks, earplugs in different colours and patterns at Rs.229, Rs.159 and Rs.259 respectively. The classy yet simple luggage bags and travel duffels start from Rs. 999.



• Go Hiking: Hiking boots and activewear (both men & women) available at just upto 70% off. First-time hikers especially must not forget to purchase the hiking tents starting from Rs. 399. Its also wise to carry headlamps available at a starting price of Rs. 220, rucksacks which start from Rs. 899 and sleeping bags under Rs. 1999.



• Entertainment: You can spend those long hours of travel by documenting your travel, clicking pictures and listening to music. You can opt for DSLRs at a discount of up to 20% off. For music, you can undoubtedly go for Bluetooth speakers which are available at upto 50% off and if you want to avoid any hindrance in your entertainment, you can buy some rechargeable batteries under Rs. 999 and the bestselling power banks at upto 70% off.



• Road Trip: The online store has also got you sorted for the things that you would need for your road trip. You can get a tracking compass and GPS device starting from Rs. 239. To feel more relaxed during the road trip, you can buy car backrests and car inflatable beds starting from Rs.299 and Rs.2699 respectively.



• Dress up & look your best: Upgrade your travel wardrobe with upto 70% off on casual shirts & jackets, upto 80% off on sweaters, minimum 60% off on boots, flip-flops starting from Rs.189 and printed t-shirts under Rs.699 for men. The ladies can pick some trendy must-have tops and beachwear starting from Rs. 299. There is an upto 80% off on jackets, blazers and dresses.

Via - Business Wire India

PayPal, Temasek Invests $125 Mn in Noida-based Payment Startup Pine Labs

Noida-based point-of-sales (PoS) deploying company Pine Labs has raised $125 million from Temasek, a global investment company headquartered in Singapore and PayPal, the largest Us-based digital payments company. Both Paypal and Temasek have acquired minority stakes in Pine Labs.

Sequoia India, which first invested in Pine Labs in 2009, remains the company’s largest shareholder. This round is followed by the round that Pine Labs had announced in March of this year when it raised $82 million from private equity fund Actis and California-based investment company Altimeter Capital. Till date, the company has raised total of $208 milion in four different rounds including this one.

Founded in 1998 by Rajul Garg, Tarun Upaday, Pine Labs offers a cloud-based PoS payments solutions, allowing merchants to accept credit or debit card payments, as well as latest methods such as e-wallets, QR code payment solutions and unified payments interface (UPI)-based solutions.

Pine Labs plans to use the deep network of Temasek in multiple Asian geographies to help Pine Labs scale up operations in the south east Asian region and further with the technological capabilities of PayPal, Pine Labs is looking to strengthen its tech play as well.

Moreover, as Pine Labs is expanding its product suite by building new layers of services for merchants, banks and other communities in the payment ecosystem, PayPal’s global presence and strong product expertise will make the ally with Pine Labs invaluable.

Speaking on the fresh funding, Lokvir Kapoor, founder of Pine Labs, said, "We’re teaming up with Temasek and PayPal at a time when the Indian payments market is at an inflexion point. The investments will help us move a step closer to our vision for building a world-class merchant-centric payments ecosystem."

With $15 billion worth of transactions processed annually, Pine Labs is used by over 65,000 merchants across India’s retail, e-commerce, electronics, food and beverage, fashion, financial, pharmacy, telecom and airlines industries. The company aims to reach 1 million payment acceptance points in India in the next three to five years.

It may be recalled that just yesterday, an another payment startup Tonetag too raised $10 million from Amazon and Mastercard, along with others.

In February, ICICI bank bank had invested ₹99 Lakhs in Mumbai-based Biometric Payment Startup Tapits.

In January, Grab, a Singapore based on-demand firm, acquired Bangalore-based payments startup iKaaz. Ikaaz’ technology stack encompasses a range of innovations, such as NFC, QR-code, audio-based payments as well as bill payments, online payments and P2P.

Meanwhile, A recent study done by Fallible.co, a security firm working towards escalating the security of tech startups has made some shocking revelations. According to the study, many of the popular Indian startups whose services we avail online possess a potential credit card detail theft for the customers.

The above news was first reported in LiveMint.

TaxiForSure Co-founder's Vokal Acqui-Hires Quizzing App Startup StupidChat

Bengaluru-based knowledge sharing platform Vocal, which was co-founded by Aprameya Radhakrishna, one of TaxiForSure's co-founders, has acqui-hired quizzing app startup StupidChat Technologies in an all-stock deal.

StupidChat app, which calls itself Uber of anonymous social network, was founded in 2017 by Pramod K Maloo, Saheb Roy and Sourav Karmakar. The bootstrapped startup was earlier based out of Kolkata before moving its base to Bengaluru.

StupidChat is a location based anonymous social network where people get to see real people on a map but with a secret name, gender, age and a behavior. The app claimed to have 4.5 lakh registered users and a daily active user base of 2 lakh, mostly in the age brackets of 16-25 and 30-40.

With this acquisition, Vocal plans to use the six-member team of StupidChat to work on the existing products and also come up with daily engagement products for the platform. The StupidChat Technologies team has been assigned roles spread across product design and technology verticals.

It was not immediately clear whether StupidChat will continue to operate under Vokal or as an separate entity under Vocal's brand name.

“They had a healthy traction in the short span of time they ran the StupidChat app. However, there were a number of players that sprouted at the same time, making the funding circumstances unfavourable,” said Mayank Bidawatka, cofounder of Vokal.

Speaking about Vocal, it was founded in 2015 by Radhakrishna along with Mayank Bidawatka, who had earlier co-founded GoodBox, a hyperlocal app. Vocal, which is touted as India's largest Peer-to-Peer knowledge sharing platform in Indian languages, is backed by investors like Accel Partners, Blume Ventures and NuVentures.

The above news was first reported in Economic Times.

TaxiForSure Co-founder's Vokal Acqui-Hires Quizzing App Startup StupidChat

Bengaluru-based knowledge sharing platform Vocal, which was co-founded by Aprameya Radhakrishna, one of TaxiForSure's co-founders, has acqui-hired quizzing app startup StupidChat Technologies in an all-stock deal.

StupidChat app, which calls itself Uber of anonymous social network, was founded in 2017 by Pramod K Maloo, Saheb Roy and Sourav Karmakar. The bootstrapped startup was earlier based out of Kolkata before moving its base to Bengaluru.

StupidChat is a location based anonymous social network where people get to see real people on a map but with a secret name, gender, age and a behavior. The app claimed to have 4.5 lakh registered users and a daily active user base of 2 lakh, mostly in the age brackets of 16-25 and 30-40.

With this acquisition, Vocal plans to use the six-member team of StupidChat to work on the existing products and also come up with daily engagement products for the platform. The StupidChat Technologies team has been assigned roles spread across product design and technology verticals.

It was not immediately clear whether StupidChat will continue to operate under Vokal or as an separate entity under Vocal's brand name.

“They had a healthy traction in the short span of time they ran the StupidChat app. However, there were a number of players that sprouted at the same time, making the funding circumstances unfavourable,” said Mayank Bidawatka, cofounder of Vokal.

Speaking about Vocal, it was founded in 2015 by Radhakrishna along with Mayank Bidawatka, who had earlier co-founded GoodBox, a hyperlocal app. Vocal, which is touted as India's largest Peer-to-Peer knowledge sharing platform in Indian languages, is backed by investors like Accel Partners, Blume Ventures and NuVentures.

The above news was first reported in Economic Times.

IoT Startup Zenatix Gets Acquired By Hero Electronix, Exiting Blume, Pi Ventures

Hero Electronix, an emerging tech unit of Hero Group, has made its foray into the Internet-of-things (IoT) space with the acquisition of Gurgaon-based enterprise IoT startup Zenatix. The financials of the deal remain undisclosed however.

As part of its fourth acquisition since its inception in 2015, Hero Electronix bought out all investors allowing investors -- Blume Ventures and Pi Ventures, make a decent exit. The other investors of Zenatix include Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl, Rajan Anandan and Rohit Bansal.

The acquisition comes more than a year after Zenatix had raised $1.18 million of funding in a round led by Pi Ventures with participation of Blume Ventures, in February 2017.

In December 2015, the startup had raised undisclosed amount from Blume Ventures and Investopad. In total, Zenatix has raised $1.4 million in four rounds.

Founded in 2013 by Amarjeet Singh, Rahul Bhalla and Vishal Bansal, Zenatix is an energy data analytics company that provides energy management and analytics solutions.

In 2016, Zenatix launched its flagship IoT product called WattMan, which is a combination of IoT and AI helping large retail chains (e.g. supermarkets, QSR, apparel stores etc.) and Banks (for their branches and ATM) in improving their energy efficiency and automate other manual operations.

WattMan IoT involves installing sensor (such as energy meters, temperature sensors), controllers (ruggedised for India and emerging economies that experience power failure, voltage fluctuations and intermittent network connectivity) and actuators (that help complete the loop and control assets such as Air Conditioners, Kitchen Exhaust, ATM, Modem). Collected data (at high resolution) is also analysed to provide predictive and preventive maintenance alerts in real time for all business critical assets.

While we use IoT and big data analytics to introduce automation for retail and BFSI customers, through our partnership with Hero Electronix, we aim to expand these solutions to new areas and segments. The Indian IoT market is still at a nascent stage and with Hero Electronix as our partner, we aim to scale up to the next level,” said Rahul Bhalla, CEO, Zenatix.

With the acquisition of Zenatix, Hero Electronix is looking to invest Rs 300-400 crore in IoT including consumer products, which it plans to launch later this year. The company is targeting Rs. 1000 crore from the business.

Formed in 2015, Hero Electronix is the group's venture into the new technologies space. Sine its inception, the company has entered the semiconductor engineering sector with investment in Tessolve Semiconductor, and has acquired MyBox, a set-top box manufacturing company.

The above news was first reported in Economic Times.

[Top Image - Zenatix Co-founders | Via - TechInAsia.com]

IoT Startup Zenatix Gets Acquired By Hero Electronix, Exiting Blume, Pi Ventures

Hero Electronix, an emerging tech unit of Hero Group, has made its foray into the Internet-of-things (IoT) space with the acquisition of Gurgaon-based enterprise IoT startup Zenatix. The financials of the deal remain undisclosed however.

As part of its fourth acquisition since its inception in 2015, Hero Electronix bought out all investors allowing investors -- Blume Ventures and Pi Ventures, make a decent exit. The other investors of Zenatix include Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl, Rajan Anandan and Rohit Bansal.

The acquisition comes more than a year after Zenatix had raised $1.18 million of funding in a round led by Pi Ventures with participation of Blume Ventures, in February 2017.

In December 2015, the startup had raised undisclosed amount from Blume Ventures and Investopad. In total, Zenatix has raised $1.4 million in four rounds.

Founded in 2013 by Amarjeet Singh, Rahul Bhalla and Vishal Bansal, Zenatix is an energy data analytics company that provides energy management and analytics solutions.

In 2016, Zenatix launched its flagship IoT product called WattMan, which is a combination of IoT and AI helping large retail chains (e.g. supermarkets, QSR, apparel stores etc.) and Banks (for their branches and ATM) in improving their energy efficiency and automate other manual operations.

WattMan IoT involves installing sensor (such as energy meters, temperature sensors), controllers (ruggedised for India and emerging economies that experience power failure, voltage fluctuations and intermittent network connectivity) and actuators (that help complete the loop and control assets such as Air Conditioners, Kitchen Exhaust, ATM, Modem). Collected data (at high resolution) is also analysed to provide predictive and preventive maintenance alerts in real time for all business critical assets.

While we use IoT and big data analytics to introduce automation for retail and BFSI customers, through our partnership with Hero Electronix, we aim to expand these solutions to new areas and segments. The Indian IoT market is still at a nascent stage and with Hero Electronix as our partner, we aim to scale up to the next level,” said Rahul Bhalla, CEO, Zenatix.

With the acquisition of Zenatix, Hero Electronix is looking to invest Rs 300-400 crore in IoT including consumer products, which it plans to launch later this year. The company is targeting Rs. 1000 crore from the business.

Formed in 2015, Hero Electronix is the group's venture into the new technologies space. Sine its inception, the company has entered the semiconductor engineering sector with investment in Tessolve Semiconductor, and has acquired MyBox, a set-top box manufacturing company.

The above news was first reported in Economic Times.

[Top Image - Zenatix Co-founders | Via - TechInAsia.com]

Gurgaon-based InsurTech Startup Toffee Raises $1.5 Mn in Seed Funding Via Kalaari, Others

Gurgaon-based digital-only insurance (Insur-tech) platform Toffee Insurance has raised $1.5 million ( ~ Rs.10 crore approx.) in a round of seed funding led by Kalaari Capital, Omidyar Network and Accion Venture Lab.

The startup will use the freshly raised capital on product development and expanding its team.

Founded in 2017 by Nishant Jain and Rohan Kumar, Toffee is a technology platform aimed at providing contextual and relevant insurance offerings to a growing youth demographic. The startup claims that buying insurance on its platform takes less than 90 seconds and simple claims are processed in under two hours via a completely digital interface.

According to Crunchbase data, Toffee had earlier raised seed capital of $1,00,000 from Vivek Gujral, who is founder of SaaS-based Insurance firm OneShield, in July 2017.

Vani Kola, Managing Director, Kalaari Capital, said the company is on to to create simple and small ticket size insurance products and distribute them in a very contextual way, which has huge potential to drive the mass adoption.

Toffee’s initial lineup of products spans across health, lifestyle and personal accidents with a core focus on simplicity and includes products such as StayFit Toffee, Anti-Dengue Toffee, Globetrotter Toffee, Renter Toffee, Commuter Toffee and Backpacker Toffee, among others.

Rohan Kumar, CEO & Co-Founder, Toffee Insurance, ​said: “Our goal is to unbundle products and repackage them in a youth-friendly way that focuses on the benefits of insurance to almost make it a commoditised way to sell insurance rather than as a financial product.”

The startup said in a statement to a business daily that it also intends to build a strong insur-tech team with capabilities across data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Notably, Toffee is one of the few Insur-tech startups in India. It may be recalled that, recently Acko Technologies, an another Insur-tech startup based out of Mumbai, has raised $12 million in a funding round led by Amazon Inc.

The above news was first reported in Moneycontrol.

[Top Image - EnterpriseInnovation.net]

Gurgaon-based InsurTech Startup Toffee Raises $1.5 Mn in Seed Funding Via Kalaari, Others

Gurgaon-based digital-only insurance (Insur-tech) platform Toffee Insurance has raised $1.5 million ( ~ Rs.10 crore approx.) in a round of seed funding led by Kalaari Capital, Omidyar Network and Accion Venture Lab.

The startup will use the freshly raised capital on product development and expanding its team.

Founded in 2017 by Nishant Jain and Rohan Kumar, Toffee is a technology platform aimed at providing contextual and relevant insurance offerings to a growing youth demographic. The startup claims that buying insurance on its platform takes less than 90 seconds and simple claims are processed in under two hours via a completely digital interface.

According to Crunchbase data, Toffee had earlier raised seed capital of $1,00,000 from Vivek Gujral, who is founder of SaaS-based Insurance firm OneShield, in July 2017.

Vani Kola, Managing Director, Kalaari Capital, said the company is on to to create simple and small ticket size insurance products and distribute them in a very contextual way, which has huge potential to drive the mass adoption.

Toffee’s initial lineup of products spans across health, lifestyle and personal accidents with a core focus on simplicity and includes products such as StayFit Toffee, Anti-Dengue Toffee, Globetrotter Toffee, Renter Toffee, Commuter Toffee and Backpacker Toffee, among others.

Rohan Kumar, CEO & Co-Founder, Toffee Insurance, ​said: “Our goal is to unbundle products and repackage them in a youth-friendly way that focuses on the benefits of insurance to almost make it a commoditised way to sell insurance rather than as a financial product.”

The startup said in a statement to a business daily that it also intends to build a strong insur-tech team with capabilities across data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Notably, Toffee is one of the few Insur-tech startups in India. It may be recalled that, recently Acko Technologies, an another Insur-tech startup based out of Mumbai, has raised $12 million in a funding round led by Amazon Inc.

The above news was first reported in Moneycontrol.

[Top Image - EnterpriseInnovation.net]

Sound Waves-based Payment Startup Tonetag Raises $10 Mn from Amazon, Mastercard

Bangalore-based Naffa Innovations Pvt. Ltd, which operates digital payments startup ToneTag, has raised $8-10 million from a clutch of marquee, strategic investors led by Amazon Inc. and Mastercard, reported LiveMint, citing three people directly aware of the development.

ToneTag’s existing investors include Manipal Global Education chairman Mohandas Pai, PremjiInvest’s chief investment officer T.K. Kurien and Facebook executive Anand Chandrasekaran. The start-up is also in talks with other strategic investors, said the people, requesting anonymity.

Founded in 2013 by Kumar Abhishek and Vivek Singh, ToneTag is a fintech and retail solutions company, which uses encrypted sound waves to make offline, proximity-based contact-less payments on any device. The company uses proprietary Software Development Kit that encodes data into sounds. These sounds are transmitted over air and can enable payments over the existing payments infrastructure.

The startup enables contact-less digital transactions on mobile phones, card swiping machines, automated teller machines and other payment-enabling devices.

The startup had earlier raised $1.3 million from Tropical Star Limited, in January this year. Prior to which, it had raised undisclosed amount from Arun Seth, a trustee of the NASSCOM foundation, Mohandas Pai, and Anand Chandrasekaran, a former Chief Product Officer of Snapdeal, among others, in November 2016.

In 2015, the startup raised $1 million from the venture capital arm of Reliance Capital Ltd., Reliance Venture Asset Management.

ToneTag has till date raised more than $2.3 Million from three rounds of investment.

The startup was part of iSpirt's InTech50 2016 batch,

ToneTag, which already has an existing partnership with Mastercard, is in the process of integrating its technology, which uses sound waves to transfer data, with the Amazon platform.

The company facilitates on-delivery payments and peer-to-peer transactions, and works with over 300,000 merchants, including Fabindia and Shell petrol pumps, among others.

It has also forged alliances with a number of leading banks and digital wallets, including HDFC Bank Ltd, ICICI Bank Ltd, YES Bank, Freecharge and Airtel. The companies have integrated their digital applications with ToneTag’s software.

Amazon’s and Mastercard’s bet on ToneTag comes at a time when Google is aggressively pumping money into start-ups and technologies that support Google Assist.

Globally, experts tracking the payments space are expecting sound waves to emerge as the next big thing. California, US-based audio and speech recognition company SoundHound, which uses similar technology, had recently raised $100 million from strategic investors led by China’s Tencent Holdings and Hyundai.

The transaction marks Amazon’s third major venture investment in India in the past six months. It had also bet on online insurance start-up Acko and digital lending start-up Capital Float.

Amazon’s investment in ToneTag also comes at a time when the US based e-commerce giant is doubling down on its digital payments business globally, especially in strategically important countries such as India, where it has already committed to spend at least $5 billion.

Just two days back, Amazon has led a $12 million funding round in Acko Technologies, which is a Insurtech startup headquartered in Mumbai. Prior to this, in last month, Amazon had invested $22 million in Capital Float, a Bengaluru headquartered digital lending startup.

According to recent regulatory filings with the ministry of corporate affairs, Amazon India is preparing to increase its investment in its payments arm by at least five times. It has also increased its authorised capital for Amazon Pay India Pvt. Ltd to Rs2,000 crore ($305 million) from Rs400 crore.

Sound Waves-based Payment Startup Tonetag Raises $10 Mn from Amazon, Mastercard

Bangalore-based Naffa Innovations Pvt. Ltd, which operates digital payments startup ToneTag, has raised $8-10 million from a clutch of marquee, strategic investors led by Amazon Inc. and Mastercard, reported LiveMint, citing three people directly aware of the development.

ToneTag’s existing investors include Manipal Global Education chairman Mohandas Pai, PremjiInvest’s chief investment officer T.K. Kurien and Facebook executive Anand Chandrasekaran. The start-up is also in talks with other strategic investors, said the people, requesting anonymity.

Founded in 2013 by Kumar Abhishek and Vivek Singh, ToneTag is a fintech and retail solutions company, which uses encrypted sound waves to make offline, proximity-based contact-less payments on any device. The company uses proprietary Software Development Kit that encodes data into sounds. These sounds are transmitted over air and can enable payments over the existing payments infrastructure.

The startup enables contact-less digital transactions on mobile phones, card swiping machines, automated teller machines and other payment-enabling devices.

The startup had earlier raised $1.3 million from Tropical Star Limited, in January this year. Prior to which, it had raised undisclosed amount from Arun Seth, a trustee of the NASSCOM foundation, Mohandas Pai, and Anand Chandrasekaran, a former Chief Product Officer of Snapdeal, among others, in November 2016.

In 2015, the startup raised $1 million from the venture capital arm of Reliance Capital Ltd., Reliance Venture Asset Management.

ToneTag has till date raised more than $2.3 Million from three rounds of investment.

The startup was part of iSpirt's InTech50 2016 batch,

ToneTag, which already has an existing partnership with Mastercard, is in the process of integrating its technology, which uses sound waves to transfer data, with the Amazon platform.

The company facilitates on-delivery payments and peer-to-peer transactions, and works with over 300,000 merchants, including Fabindia and Shell petrol pumps, among others.

It has also forged alliances with a number of leading banks and digital wallets, including HDFC Bank Ltd, ICICI Bank Ltd, YES Bank, Freecharge and Airtel. The companies have integrated their digital applications with ToneTag’s software.

Amazon’s and Mastercard’s bet on ToneTag comes at a time when Google is aggressively pumping money into start-ups and technologies that support Google Assist.

Globally, experts tracking the payments space are expecting sound waves to emerge as the next big thing. California, US-based audio and speech recognition company SoundHound, which uses similar technology, had recently raised $100 million from strategic investors led by China’s Tencent Holdings and Hyundai.

The transaction marks Amazon’s third major venture investment in India in the past six months. It had also bet on online insurance start-up Acko and digital lending start-up Capital Float.

Amazon’s investment in ToneTag also comes at a time when the US based e-commerce giant is doubling down on its digital payments business globally, especially in strategically important countries such as India, where it has already committed to spend at least $5 billion.

Just two days back, Amazon has led a $12 million funding round in Acko Technologies, which is a Insurtech startup headquartered in Mumbai. Prior to this, in last month, Amazon had invested $22 million in Capital Float, a Bengaluru headquartered digital lending startup.

According to recent regulatory filings with the ministry of corporate affairs, Amazon India is preparing to increase its investment in its payments arm by at least five times. It has also increased its authorised capital for Amazon Pay India Pvt. Ltd to Rs2,000 crore ($305 million) from Rs400 crore.

5 Best Bus Ticket Booking Sartups in India

Are you planning a trip in coming days? The summer vacations are almost around the corner and your plans must be in full bloom. Make your travel comfortable and hassle-free by booking your bus tickets online using the best bus ticket booking apps. You can even save huge money using the offers today on bus tickets. There are numerous bus ticket booking apps through which you can book tickets within minutes. Check out the details in the article below.

1) Golofty - An Indore Based Travel Booking Startup

When you plan your travel the most hectic part of the plan is to stand in a long queue to get a bus ticket. And to tackle this problem a fresh new startup has entered the market aiming to reduce all your hassle and giving you the best experience of travel. Founded in December 2016 by Aman Khurana, Golofty has now spread wide across the country. GoLofty has spread its arms across 75,000 routes in India and 2500 bus operators are constantly available to help the customers and provide them with great deals. Their network has spread to around 3400 cities in India.
The company has both website and an app which is available on Google Play Store. You can avail great offers once you sign in to the app. As the travel industry is witnessing a growth rate of 25% per year the availability of online bus booking app is going to provide comfortable travel booking experience. Avail additional discounts through offer today on bus tickets.

2) MakeMyTrip - A Startup From Gurugram

Initially founded with keeping in mind the overseas Indian community the company was launched in 2000 in the US market. However, the company then entered into Indian market in 2005 offering online ticket bookings for the customers. The company was founded by Deep Kalra who is an IIM Ahmedabad alumni. The introduction of Makemytrip has resolved issues of online flight ticket booking, bus ticket booking, and also hotel booking. With just one app you can do everything that you need to for your next trip. You can use the app or website to book your tickets.

The company offers unique travel packages, holiday packages, and you can even book your entire trip via Makemytrip. The special packages come at special rates and you can avail additional discounts using promo codes. You can choose your choice of seats while travelling and ensure comfortable ride throughout your travel. Booking online tickets saves your time standing in long queues and waiting for your turn to purchase the tickets. Also, you can pay using various payment options like wallets or credit/debit cards or visa cards.

3) TravelYaari

Again, founded by an IIM A alumunus, Travelyaari is now one of the biggest travel startups in India. The idea was seeded in 2006 at the college campus and soon grew into the biggest travel booking platform. Founded by three friends the company grew slowly and acquired big successes in the years 2008 and 2010. Travelyaari has its headquarters in Bangalore on a 3,500 sq ft office space. Today the company has offices in 10 major cities, has tied up with 1200 travel operators, has employee staff of 200, and is drawing 15% of the market share. The company will soon launch its international services in coming years.

In India, Travelyaari has occupied a huge number of customer base through their best services and offers. They have made bus travel simpler and comfortable for common man. They have tackled the problem of seeking travel operators to book tickets and have made it possible for everyone to book their own tickets without paying extra commission. You can get your ticket on tap of your fingers while relaxing on couch. You can also save money using the bus ticket offers and promo codes. Travelyaari has really made travel an experience rather than hectic period.

4) RedBus

RedBus is the most famous online bus ticket booking platform in India. It has revolutionized the way travel industry works. It has maximum user base and, therefore, market share in the country. Founded in 2006 by Prakash Sangam the company has its headquarters situated in Bengaluru. The company started with just few seats from a single bus operator and now has reached to 700 bus operators and have listed 10,000 buses. RedBus sales approximately 5000 tickets per day and works in 15 states across the country. It allows you to browse among the cities you want to travel to and book your tickets.

Through RedBus you can book a Volvo, Sleeper, or normal bus tickets between your boarding place to destination place. The idea for RedBus was conceived when the founder Phanindra Sama could not book a bus ticket when he wished to visit his home for Diwali celebrations. The unavailability of tickets then urged him to think upon connecting the bus services to online portal where people can book tickets well in advance. Thus, it saves your time and energy and guarantees a confirm ticket. You can also save money by using offers today on bus tickets.

5) Cleartrip

Another impactful Indian online travel venture which is making travel a safer, comfortable journey for its customers. The company was founder in 2006 by Start Crighton and Hrush Bhatt and has its headquarters situated in Mumbai. Initially, the company aimed at aggregating hotels and air travel but now has expanded its services to book trains, buses, weeked gateaways, etc. The customers can book tickets using Cleartrip app or website. The app is available on Google Play Store and Apple store.

The company has got a huge customer base as their app has been downloaded eight million times. This suggests their growth and the services they provide to keep their customers happy. You can book your bus tickets by choosing your boarding city and destination city. Cleartrip provides tickets at an affordable rates and you can also save additional money using the offers.

Make your Travel Comfortable

The online bus ticket booking apps provide you everything on few taps of your finger tips. In today's world time has become an essential commodity. So you should use these apps to book your tickets and save your time. And also save money along with it during the offers today on bus tickets. What are you waiting for? Hurry up and book your tickets now!

5 Best Bus Ticket Booking Sartups in India

Are you planning a trip in coming days? The summer vacations are almost around the corner and your plans must be in full bloom. Make your travel comfortable and hassle-free by booking your bus tickets online using the best bus ticket booking apps. You can even save huge money using the offers today on bus tickets. There are numerous bus ticket booking apps through which you can book tickets within minutes. Check out the details in the article below.

1) Golofty - An Indore Based Travel Booking Startup

When you plan your travel the most hectic part of the plan is to stand in a long queue to get a bus ticket. And to tackle this problem a fresh new startup has entered the market aiming to reduce all your hassle and giving you the best experience of travel. Founded in December 2016 by Aman Khurana, Golofty has now spread wide across the country. GoLofty has spread its arms across 75,000 routes in India and 2500 bus operators are constantly available to help the customers and provide them with great deals. Their network has spread to around 3400 cities in India.
The company has both website and an app which is available on Google Play Store. You can avail great offers once you sign in to the app. As the travel industry is witnessing a growth rate of 25% per year the availability of online bus booking app is going to provide comfortable travel booking experience. Avail additional discounts through offer today on bus tickets.

2) MakeMyTrip - A Startup From Gurugram

Initially founded with keeping in mind the overseas Indian community the company was launched in 2000 in the US market. However, the company then entered into Indian market in 2005 offering online ticket bookings for the customers. The company was founded by Deep Kalra who is an IIM Ahmedabad alumni. The introduction of Makemytrip has resolved issues of online flight ticket booking, bus ticket booking, and also hotel booking. With just one app you can do everything that you need to for your next trip. You can use the app or website to book your tickets.

The company offers unique travel packages, holiday packages, and you can even book your entire trip via Makemytrip. The special packages come at special rates and you can avail additional discounts using promo codes. You can choose your choice of seats while travelling and ensure comfortable ride throughout your travel. Booking online tickets saves your time standing in long queues and waiting for your turn to purchase the tickets. Also, you can pay using various payment options like wallets or credit/debit cards or visa cards.

3) TravelYaari

Again, founded by an IIM A alumunus, Travelyaari is now one of the biggest travel startups in India. The idea was seeded in 2006 at the college campus and soon grew into the biggest travel booking platform. Founded by three friends the company grew slowly and acquired big successes in the years 2008 and 2010. Travelyaari has its headquarters in Bangalore on a 3,500 sq ft office space. Today the company has offices in 10 major cities, has tied up with 1200 travel operators, has employee staff of 200, and is drawing 15% of the market share. The company will soon launch its international services in coming years.

In India, Travelyaari has occupied a huge number of customer base through their best services and offers. They have made bus travel simpler and comfortable for common man. They have tackled the problem of seeking travel operators to book tickets and have made it possible for everyone to book their own tickets without paying extra commission. You can get your ticket on tap of your fingers while relaxing on couch. You can also save money using the bus ticket offers and promo codes. Travelyaari has really made travel an experience rather than hectic period.

4) RedBus

RedBus is the most famous online bus ticket booking platform in India. It has revolutionized the way travel industry works. It has maximum user base and, therefore, market share in the country. Founded in 2006 by Prakash Sangam the company has its headquarters situated in Bengaluru. The company started with just few seats from a single bus operator and now has reached to 700 bus operators and have listed 10,000 buses. RedBus sales approximately 5000 tickets per day and works in 15 states across the country. It allows you to browse among the cities you want to travel to and book your tickets.

Through RedBus you can book a Volvo, Sleeper, or normal bus tickets between your boarding place to destination place. The idea for RedBus was conceived when the founder Phanindra Sama could not book a bus ticket when he wished to visit his home for Diwali celebrations. The unavailability of tickets then urged him to think upon connecting the bus services to online portal where people can book tickets well in advance. Thus, it saves your time and energy and guarantees a confirm ticket. You can also save money by using offers today on bus tickets.

5) Cleartrip

Another impactful Indian online travel venture which is making travel a safer, comfortable journey for its customers. The company was founder in 2006 by Start Crighton and Hrush Bhatt and has its headquarters situated in Mumbai. Initially, the company aimed at aggregating hotels and air travel but now has expanded its services to book trains, buses, weeked gateaways, etc. The customers can book tickets using Cleartrip app or website. The app is available on Google Play Store and Apple store.

The company has got a huge customer base as their app has been downloaded eight million times. This suggests their growth and the services they provide to keep their customers happy. You can book your bus tickets by choosing your boarding city and destination city. Cleartrip provides tickets at an affordable rates and you can also save additional money using the offers.

Make your Travel Comfortable

The online bus ticket booking apps provide you everything on few taps of your finger tips. In today's world time has become an essential commodity. So you should use these apps to book your tickets and save your time. And also save money along with it during the offers today on bus tickets. What are you waiting for? Hurry up and book your tickets now!

Paytm's Parent One97's Revenue Grows To ₹829 Cr; Cuts Employee Benefits To Half

Indian e-wallet firm Paytm's parent, One97 Communication saw its revenue grew to Rs 829 crore for the financial year 2017, up from Rs 598 crore in the year before, even as its losses narrowed for the same period.

Last year, Paytm's parent split into two separate entities -- Paytm Payments Bank and Paytm E-commerce -- to comply with RBI’s regulatory requirements and transferred its primary wallet business to its bank. Paytm E-commerce had paid Rs 620 crore to One97 as part of the transfer of assets which has helped the parent reduce losses.

As Paytm benefited from the restructuring, the parent firm trimmed its losses to Rs 900 crore from Rs 1,497 crore, in the financial year 2015-16, as per filings made with Ministry of Corporate Affiars, said the TOI report citing filings sourced from Paper.vc.

Moreover, Paytm also managed to reduce its expenses by 14% from the previous financial year to Rs 1,775 crore as it cut its marketing costs by 30% for the same period. Its parent firm One97 also halved its employee benefits to Rs 143 crore from Rs 334 crore.

For financial year 2016-17, Paytm Payment Bank reported a loss of Rs 30 crore even as its e-commerce entity saw its losses trim to Rs 229 crore from Rs 318 crore the previous year. The company said because of its transfer of physical goods, online marketplace to Paytm e-commerce through business transfer agreement with effect from March 28, 2017, the loss of Rs 229 crore has been shown separately as loss from discontinued business in its filing.

Paytm's founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma's annual salary remains relatively unchanged. Filings for 2016-17, show he was drawing about Rs 3 crore, at par with his salary in 2015-16. The year before, he was drawing Rs 2.3 crore annually.

Paytm, one of the biggest spenders on marketing and advertising in the online payments space, has been on a customer acquisition drive with its new payments bank and hopes to cash in on the government's push for a digital India. With the company set to invest as much as Rs 5,000 crore in its payment bank in the next three years to enhance payment facilities for customers, Paytm has said it stands to gain from the surge in UPI and IMPS transactions. According to an earlier filing, the company plans to become operationally profitable by financial year 2019, as per a valuation paper commissioned by Paytm and prepared by Deloitte Haskins and Sells.

In July 2015, One97 Communications, the firm that owns the brand Paytm, acquired the title sponsorship rights for India's domestic and international cricket matches at home for a period of four years starting in August 2015.

In August 2015, Paytm received a license from Reserve Bank of India to launch a payments bank. The Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma hold 51% share in Paytm Payments Bank while One97 Communications holds 39% and 10% held by a subsidiary of One97 and Sharma.

​Meet 'RADA' - India's First AI Robot To Assist Flyers, Scan Boarding Pass and Entertain

Tata Sons-Singapore Airlines joint venture airline Vistara has come up with a first-in-India robot using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology that can assist customers, address their queries and entertain them.

Named ‘RADA’, the robot is aimed at helping the airline offer an enhanced on-ground service to its customers. During its initial stage, RADA will be placed at Vistara’s Signature Lounge at Delhi Airport’s Terminal 3 from July 5, 2018, to assist customers using the lounge before they board their flights.

At present, 'RADA' can scan boarding passes and further provide information on the terminal, departure gates, weather conditions of destination city, real-time flight status as well as information about Vistara’s products and services. It greets customers and interacts with them using basic hand movements, and is capable of moving around in the lounge on predefined pathways. Additionally, it can engage with kids and adults alike by playing games and other multimedia content such as songs and videos.

‘RADA’ will be further developed over a period of time in terms of functionality and features for future use cases, after gauging customer feedback.

[caption id="attachment_124536" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Vistara's new AI-powered robot RADA[/caption]

‘RADA’ has been envisioned and incubated under Vistara’s Innovation initiative. It is conceived, designed and engineered by its team of technology experts and apprentices from Tata Innovation Lab with support from students of reputed institutions. Vistara claims that it is one of India’s most economical robots which is completely made of indigenous components, thus making a compelling ‘Make in India’ story.

‘RADA’ is built on a chassis of four wheels, enabling it to rotate 360 degrees, and it has three in-built cameras for cognitive interaction.

Explaining what sparked the idea behind ‘RADA’, Vistara’s Chief Information and Innovation Officer, Ravinder Pal Singh said, “It was a realisation that the talented, young employees engaged in ground services, gain immense customer service experience on the job, but the limited scope of their routine work could challenge their true potential. Some of them spend decades within the walls of an airport, assisting customers. Therefore, we thought of inventing a robot that can help us enhance customer experience by gradually taking over the routine, mundane tasks."

He further adds "The basic premise of the thought was to develop a simple and extremely cost-effective practical robot that can engage in basic human interaction to begin with, and can further be developed to perform more complex tasks, as consumer habits continue to evolve in the technological age where humans and machines will complement and create an evolved harmonious evolution.”

Various Robots Launched in India

In December, H-Bots Robotics, a Hyderabad-based robotics startup, has unveiled world’s first smart policing robot. The robot is developed by the startup is fully 'Made in India', using all the components sourced from within the country.

Last September, Bengaluru-based robotics start-up Invento Robotics has launched an intelligent robot called Mitra, which the startup made in collaboration with manufacturing hubs in China.

In April 2017, a Chennai based startup had launched a a food serving robot and soon after a Mall robot was also launched by an another Indian startup.

Meanwhile, in last month a Mumbai-based robot making startup Emotix has raised $2 million in a funding round led by venture capital firms IDG Ventures India and YourNest. The startup has created India’s first personal companion robot, Miko, which has the capability of engaging, educating, and entertaining a child the Indian way.

​Meet 'RADA' - India's First AI Robot To Assist Flyers, Scan Boarding Pass and Entertain

Tata Sons-Singapore Airlines joint venture airline Vistara has come up with a first-in-India robot using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology that can assist customers, address their queries and entertain them.

Named ‘RADA’, the robot is aimed at helping the airline offer an enhanced on-ground service to its customers. During its initial stage, RADA will be placed at Vistara’s Signature Lounge at Delhi Airport’s Terminal 3 from July 5, 2018, to assist customers using the lounge before they board their flights.

At present, 'RADA' can scan boarding passes and further provide information on the terminal, departure gates, weather conditions of destination city, real-time flight status as well as information about Vistara’s products and services. It greets customers and interacts with them using basic hand movements, and is capable of moving around in the lounge on predefined pathways. Additionally, it can engage with kids and adults alike by playing games and other multimedia content such as songs and videos.

‘RADA’ will be further developed over a period of time in terms of functionality and features for future use cases, after gauging customer feedback.

[caption id="attachment_124536" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Vistara's new AI-powered robot RADA[/caption]

‘RADA’ has been envisioned and incubated under Vistara’s Innovation initiative. It is conceived, designed and engineered by its team of technology experts and apprentices from Tata Innovation Lab with support from students of reputed institutions. Vistara claims that it is one of India’s most economical robots which is completely made of indigenous components, thus making a compelling ‘Make in India’ story.

‘RADA’ is built on a chassis of four wheels, enabling it to rotate 360 degrees, and it has three in-built cameras for cognitive interaction.

Explaining what sparked the idea behind ‘RADA’, Vistara’s Chief Information and Innovation Officer, Ravinder Pal Singh said, “It was a realisation that the talented, young employees engaged in ground services, gain immense customer service experience on the job, but the limited scope of their routine work could challenge their true potential. Some of them spend decades within the walls of an airport, assisting customers. Therefore, we thought of inventing a robot that can help us enhance customer experience by gradually taking over the routine, mundane tasks."

He further adds "The basic premise of the thought was to develop a simple and extremely cost-effective practical robot that can engage in basic human interaction to begin with, and can further be developed to perform more complex tasks, as consumer habits continue to evolve in the technological age where humans and machines will complement and create an evolved harmonious evolution.”

Various Robots Launched in India

In December, H-Bots Robotics, a Hyderabad-based robotics startup, has unveiled world’s first smart policing robot. The robot is developed by the startup is fully 'Made in India', using all the components sourced from within the country.

Last September, Bengaluru-based robotics start-up Invento Robotics has launched an intelligent robot called Mitra, which the startup made in collaboration with manufacturing hubs in China.

In April 2017, a Chennai based startup had launched a a food serving robot and soon after a Mall robot was also launched by an another Indian startup.

Meanwhile, in last month a Mumbai-based robot making startup Emotix has raised $2 million in a funding round led by venture capital firms IDG Ventures India and YourNest. The startup has created India’s first personal companion robot, Miko, which has the capability of engaging, educating, and entertaining a child the Indian way.

Fintech Startup Orowealth Raises $1.6 Mn in Series A Funding Led by Powerhouse Ventures

Mumbai-based Oro Wealth, a leading fin-tech company and India’s first zero commission Direct Mutual Fund Platform, today announced that it has raised $1.6 mn in Series A funding.

Orowealth has raised $1.6 mn in Series A funding round led by Powerhouse Ventures with participation by Money Forward Inc., one of the largest publicly listed fin-tech companies in Japan; a prominent US VC Social Capital, under their Capital as a Service program; B Dash Ventures, one of the largest VCs in Japan; and other prominent angel investors including Anand Chandrsekaran, ex CPO Airtel and Dinesh Agarwal, Founder Indiamart. Existing investors M&S Partners and GSF also participated in this round. Post the fund raise, Sri Peddu from Powerhouse Ventures will join the Board and Money Forward will take a Board observer role at Orowealth. This is the second round of funding for the company, post the seed round raised from GSF, Powerhouse Ventures and M&S Partners in 2016.

Founded in 2015 by Nitin Agrawal, Swati Aggarwal, Vijay Kuppa and Yogesh Powar, ORO Wealth enables retail investors and offline intermediaries to access high quality advice and investment services through its web and mobile-based wealth management platform.

Speaking on the announcement, Mr. Nitin Agrawal, Co-Founder & CEO, said, “We are very excited about this fund raise. We would like to thank our new and existing investors for their belief and confidence in our business model and in the team at Orowealth. We would also like to thank our customers for placing their trust in brand Orowealth and this fund raise gives us an opportunity to serve them even better". Nitin has worked at Deutsche Bank in Equity Structuring in their London and Singapore offices.

Mr. Vijay Kuppa, Co-Founder & COO added, “We will invest the funds towards product innovation and in strengthening our research capabilities as we look to add new products in the coming months. We also plan to focus on forging alliances with partners who wish to offer tech-enabled wealth products to their customer base.”

Mr. Yogesh Powar, Co-Founder & CTO, said, “We are also looking to scale up our technology and data sciences capability to provide highly personalized investing tools and a high quality customer experience.”

Speaking on the investment, Mr. Sri Peddu said, "In India, the financial services industry is going through a tectonic shift driven by technology and innovation. Through automated investment planning, Orowealth is democratizing access to financial products for the retail investor and reducing time-to-market for major banks, large wealth management firms and brokerage houses.”​ Mr. Yosuke Tsuji, Founder & CEO of Money Forward said, “Retail wealth market in India is gigantic. It offers ample scope for innovation and we are excited to partner with Orowealth to better understand the local market.” Mr. Hiro Mashita, M&S Partners said, “Wealth is the new frontier for fin-techs in India. Orowealth is at the forefront of personal wealth management offering low-cost, high-quality robo-advise.”​ Mr. Rajesh Sawhney, GSF added, “As Indians become wealthy, they will seek to manage and grow their wealth using new-generation AI platforms like Orowealth. Orowealth’s founding team is its biggest asset.​”

Meanwhile, India has urged the Asian Development Bank to invest in fintech and health startups in the country, to help improve the quality of life in Asia while sharpening focus on infrastructure lending by ensuring loan disbursals within a year of request.

Via - BusinessWire India | Top Image - YourStory.com

Recent Funding in FinTech Space

Last month, global tech giant Amazon has invested $22 million in Capital Float, a Bengaluru headquartered digital lending startup.

In the same month, New Delhi-based Namaste Credit, an another fintech category startup has raised USD 3.8 million in series A round of funding from Nexus Venture Partners. Prior to that, Bangalore-based fintech startup SmartCoin had raised $2 million in pre-Series A funding from a top Shanghai headquartered VC fund and Accion Venture Lab. Prior to this, Cash Suvidha, a Delhi-based fintech startup, raised $1 million pre-Series A funding from Initia Holdings Ltd.

In February, a Mumbai based fintech startup Fincash.com raised $150,000 in funding from angel investors including like Mohammed Khan (Founder of Rediffusion), Sameer Narayan (ex- Fund Manager BNP Paribas), among others. Prior to that, a Bengaluru-based fintech startup NiYO Solutions raised $13.2 million in its Series A funding from investors including Social Capital, JS Capital LLC (the family office of Jonathan Soros), and Horizons Ventures and existing investor Prime Venture Partners.

Last November, an Artificial intelligence-powered fintech startup Active.Ai raised $8.25 million in Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures, Creditease Holdings and Dream Incubator.

Fintech space continue to be the most invested segment among startups in India. According to a NASSCOM report published in November 2017 Fintech, along with healthcare, are most funded segments of startups in India, in past one year. The total number of startups in the fintech space has gone up to 360 from 275 in 2016, thus registering 31% growth in the number of startups.

Fintech Startup Orowealth Raises $1.6 Mn in Series A Funding Led by Powerhouse Ventures

Mumbai-based Oro Wealth, a leading fin-tech company and India’s first zero commission Direct Mutual Fund Platform, today announced that it has raised $1.6 mn in Series A funding.

Orowealth has raised $1.6 mn in Series A funding round led by Powerhouse Ventures with participation by Money Forward Inc., one of the largest publicly listed fin-tech companies in Japan; a prominent US VC Social Capital, under their Capital as a Service program; B Dash Ventures, one of the largest VCs in Japan; and other prominent angel investors including Anand Chandrsekaran, ex CPO Airtel and Dinesh Agarwal, Founder Indiamart. Existing investors M&S Partners and GSF also participated in this round. Post the fund raise, Sri Peddu from Powerhouse Ventures will join the Board and Money Forward will take a Board observer role at Orowealth. This is the second round of funding for the company, post the seed round raised from GSF, Powerhouse Ventures and M&S Partners in 2016.

Founded in 2015 by Nitin Agrawal, Swati Aggarwal, Vijay Kuppa and Yogesh Powar, ORO Wealth enables retail investors and offline intermediaries to access high quality advice and investment services through its web and mobile-based wealth management platform.

Speaking on the announcement, Mr. Nitin Agrawal, Co-Founder & CEO, said, “We are very excited about this fund raise. We would like to thank our new and existing investors for their belief and confidence in our business model and in the team at Orowealth. We would also like to thank our customers for placing their trust in brand Orowealth and this fund raise gives us an opportunity to serve them even better". Nitin has worked at Deutsche Bank in Equity Structuring in their London and Singapore offices.

Mr. Vijay Kuppa, Co-Founder & COO added, “We will invest the funds towards product innovation and in strengthening our research capabilities as we look to add new products in the coming months. We also plan to focus on forging alliances with partners who wish to offer tech-enabled wealth products to their customer base.”

Mr. Yogesh Powar, Co-Founder & CTO, said, “We are also looking to scale up our technology and data sciences capability to provide highly personalized investing tools and a high quality customer experience.”

Speaking on the investment, Mr. Sri Peddu said, "In India, the financial services industry is going through a tectonic shift driven by technology and innovation. Through automated investment planning, Orowealth is democratizing access to financial products for the retail investor and reducing time-to-market for major banks, large wealth management firms and brokerage houses.”​ Mr. Yosuke Tsuji, Founder & CEO of Money Forward said, “Retail wealth market in India is gigantic. It offers ample scope for innovation and we are excited to partner with Orowealth to better understand the local market.” Mr. Hiro Mashita, M&S Partners said, “Wealth is the new frontier for fin-techs in India. Orowealth is at the forefront of personal wealth management offering low-cost, high-quality robo-advise.”​ Mr. Rajesh Sawhney, GSF added, “As Indians become wealthy, they will seek to manage and grow their wealth using new-generation AI platforms like Orowealth. Orowealth’s founding team is its biggest asset.​”

Meanwhile, India has urged the Asian Development Bank to invest in fintech and health startups in the country, to help improve the quality of life in Asia while sharpening focus on infrastructure lending by ensuring loan disbursals within a year of request.

Via - BusinessWire India | Top Image - YourStory.com

Recent Funding in FinTech Space

Last month, global tech giant Amazon has invested $22 million in Capital Float, a Bengaluru headquartered digital lending startup.

In the same month, New Delhi-based Namaste Credit, an another fintech category startup has raised USD 3.8 million in series A round of funding from Nexus Venture Partners. Prior to that, Bangalore-based fintech startup SmartCoin had raised $2 million in pre-Series A funding from a top Shanghai headquartered VC fund and Accion Venture Lab. Prior to this, Cash Suvidha, a Delhi-based fintech startup, raised $1 million pre-Series A funding from Initia Holdings Ltd.

In February, a Mumbai based fintech startup Fincash.com raised $150,000 in funding from angel investors including like Mohammed Khan (Founder of Rediffusion), Sameer Narayan (ex- Fund Manager BNP Paribas), among others. Prior to that, a Bengaluru-based fintech startup NiYO Solutions raised $13.2 million in its Series A funding from investors including Social Capital, JS Capital LLC (the family office of Jonathan Soros), and Horizons Ventures and existing investor Prime Venture Partners.

Last November, an Artificial intelligence-powered fintech startup Active.Ai raised $8.25 million in Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures, Creditease Holdings and Dream Incubator.

Fintech space continue to be the most invested segment among startups in India. According to a NASSCOM report published in November 2017 Fintech, along with healthcare, are most funded segments of startups in India, in past one year. The total number of startups in the fintech space has gone up to 360 from 275 in 2016, thus registering 31% growth in the number of startups.

Zone Startups India Concludes PitchRight S01 with a Grand Finale Demo Day

PitchRight, the reality web series created and produced by Zone Startups India, concluded its first season on 29th May 2018 with the release of Grand Finale episode that announced the winner of the season.

Unique in its format, PitchRight features 13 entrepreneurs, pitching their startup to an investor in an actual ascending elevator. The concept is designed to help the selected entrepreneurs improve their pitch through a practical experience of a 40 seconds elevator pitch followed with a feedback session from the investor.

The 13 entrepreneurs were shortlisted from a pool of 120 applications received from across India. The episodes were shot in the month of January 2018 at the Bombay Stock Exchange building, that houses the office of Zone Startups India. The series went live in mid-February 2018 with one episode releasing each week. Average length of each episode is 4-5 minutes to keep it digital friendly.

The series has gained 200K+ views across different digital platforms such as, Youtube, FB, LinkedIn and Twitter. The episodes are well received by young entrepreneurs looking to understand the nuances of pitching as well as by people looking to discover new-age startups.

Sanjay Mehta, the judge for the first season is one of the most sought after angel investors in India and till date has invested in over 66 startup companies.

Sanjay Mehta candidly talks about being a part of the series, “PitchRight was a thrilling experience to engage with 13 entrepreneurs - 40 seconds pitch in BSE elevator with no rehearsal. One take shooting was done where I was also put on spotlight as much as the entrepreneur to give feedback on their story. In one word if I would have to describe then I would say ‘Thrilling’.”.

PitchRight is a genuine attempt by Zone Startups India to generate informative as well as entertaining video content for the entrepreneurial ecosystem. With audience already appreciating the series, they plan to announce Season 02 soon and make it bigger and better.

Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director India, Zone Startups said, “"We are thoroughly pleased with the outcome of 1st season of PitchRight. Our first and foremost objective with this web-series has been to create content that benefits the entrepreneurial ecosystem; and with minimal promotions, getting to over 200,000 views in a couple of months, confirmed the viewability of the content. We needed a marquee, real investor to make this successful, and Sanjay Mehta is a known brand name in the investor circles. The format has the right mix of adrenaline and a challenge to pitch to a real investor, in a gamified format. Being attempted in India for the first time, as a format, we had limited applications but, we are confident of getting more quality applications from Season-2 and onwards."

The top 9 finalists, chosen from 13 participants, were invited for the Grand Finale Demo Day on 18th May 2018, post the release of 13 episodes. The finalists were founders/co-founders from Gaia Smart Cities, SweatFree, Eyedentify Systems, Eduisfun Technologies, Dimension NXG, CupShup, BECKFriends, Agrahyah Technologies and AskArvi.

The Demo Day saw the 9 finalists live pitching in front of the jury and audience who were scoring them on the spot. The audience consisted of a curated group of of investors, corporates, mentors and other key stakeholders from the startup ecosystem.

Post 2 rounds of exciting pitches and battling it out, Shikha Pandey, co-founder of BECKFriends.com was declared as the winner of PitchRight - S01 based on the cumulative score by the jury and audience. Shikha was presented with cash prize of INR 1 Lac, as the winning amount.

Shikha said, “'PitchRight has been 'Just Right' for us. BECKFriends.com is a disruptive startup and we needed an equally disruptive format like PitchRight to get our adrenaline flowing and to give our very best. From the 40 seconds pitch in an elevator to the finale product demo in front of ten judges was all done with great professionalism and without any retakes. We, at BECKFriends.com, will now always Pitch Right and all anyone needs is 40 secs to know what we do.”

Season 01 of PitchRight is supported by HDFC Bank, AWS Activate, Vidooly, NewCrop, Digital Ocean and YourStory.

All the episodes of PitchRight along with the Grand Finale episode that released today, is streaming on Zone Startups India’s Youtube channel http://bit.ly/PitchRightPlaylist.

Zone Startups India Concludes PitchRight S01 with a Grand Finale Demo Day

PitchRight, the reality web series created and produced by Zone Startups India, concluded its first season on 29th May 2018 with the release of Grand Finale episode that announced the winner of the season.

Unique in its format, PitchRight features 13 entrepreneurs, pitching their startup to an investor in an actual ascending elevator. The concept is designed to help the selected entrepreneurs improve their pitch through a practical experience of a 40 seconds elevator pitch followed with a feedback session from the investor.

The 13 entrepreneurs were shortlisted from a pool of 120 applications received from across India. The episodes were shot in the month of January 2018 at the Bombay Stock Exchange building, that houses the office of Zone Startups India. The series went live in mid-February 2018 with one episode releasing each week. Average length of each episode is 4-5 minutes to keep it digital friendly.

The series has gained 200K+ views across different digital platforms such as, Youtube, FB, LinkedIn and Twitter. The episodes are well received by young entrepreneurs looking to understand the nuances of pitching as well as by people looking to discover new-age startups.

Sanjay Mehta, the judge for the first season is one of the most sought after angel investors in India and till date has invested in over 66 startup companies.

Sanjay Mehta candidly talks about being a part of the series, “PitchRight was a thrilling experience to engage with 13 entrepreneurs - 40 seconds pitch in BSE elevator with no rehearsal. One take shooting was done where I was also put on spotlight as much as the entrepreneur to give feedback on their story. In one word if I would have to describe then I would say ‘Thrilling’.”.

PitchRight is a genuine attempt by Zone Startups India to generate informative as well as entertaining video content for the entrepreneurial ecosystem. With audience already appreciating the series, they plan to announce Season 02 soon and make it bigger and better.

Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director India, Zone Startups said, “"We are thoroughly pleased with the outcome of 1st season of PitchRight. Our first and foremost objective with this web-series has been to create content that benefits the entrepreneurial ecosystem; and with minimal promotions, getting to over 200,000 views in a couple of months, confirmed the viewability of the content. We needed a marquee, real investor to make this successful, and Sanjay Mehta is a known brand name in the investor circles. The format has the right mix of adrenaline and a challenge to pitch to a real investor, in a gamified format. Being attempted in India for the first time, as a format, we had limited applications but, we are confident of getting more quality applications from Season-2 and onwards."

The top 9 finalists, chosen from 13 participants, were invited for the Grand Finale Demo Day on 18th May 2018, post the release of 13 episodes. The finalists were founders/co-founders from Gaia Smart Cities, SweatFree, Eyedentify Systems, Eduisfun Technologies, Dimension NXG, CupShup, BECKFriends, Agrahyah Technologies and AskArvi.

The Demo Day saw the 9 finalists live pitching in front of the jury and audience who were scoring them on the spot. The audience consisted of a curated group of of investors, corporates, mentors and other key stakeholders from the startup ecosystem.

Post 2 rounds of exciting pitches and battling it out, Shikha Pandey, co-founder of BECKFriends.com was declared as the winner of PitchRight - S01 based on the cumulative score by the jury and audience. Shikha was presented with cash prize of INR 1 Lac, as the winning amount.

Shikha said, “'PitchRight has been 'Just Right' for us. BECKFriends.com is a disruptive startup and we needed an equally disruptive format like PitchRight to get our adrenaline flowing and to give our very best. From the 40 seconds pitch in an elevator to the finale product demo in front of ten judges was all done with great professionalism and without any retakes. We, at BECKFriends.com, will now always Pitch Right and all anyone needs is 40 secs to know what we do.”

Season 01 of PitchRight is supported by HDFC Bank, AWS Activate, Vidooly, NewCrop, Digital Ocean and YourStory.

All the episodes of PitchRight along with the Grand Finale episode that released today, is streaming on Zone Startups India’s Youtube channel http://bit.ly/PitchRightPlaylist.

Telecom Startups Demand Level Playing Field and Rules for 'Ease of Doing Business'

Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) just had a round table on ease of doing business in telecom sector in the country. The association raised concerns over high levies and low return for telcos, reports ET Telecom.

In the discussion, telecom startups in the country also voiced their opinion and raised their issue before government representative demanding that they should be given opportunity to participate in public projects.

Telecom startups said that government needs to provide them a level playing field in public projects and lower levies for 'ease of doing business'.

They also sought permits in a time-bound manner, COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews told reporters after the round table.

"They said that tender conditions ask for high turnover and experience which they are unable to meet," he added.

The COAI Director General said that startups also demanded that low cost finance be made available to them and the government help to ease financial compliance rules.

Besides, established players like Vodafone also raised concerns over high levies and low return for telcos.

Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan and Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Ramesh Abhishek represented the government at the meeting that was co-hosted by Invest India and India Mobile Congress.

Related Reading - 68-Yr-Old Indian Telecom Firm Now Wants Rebirth With Help of Startups and IoT

The COIA director general, Mathews, further said, "The draft of National Digital Communications Policy 2018 proposes to address most of the telecom operators issue to achieve US $100 billion investment but operators want to know by when will it be implemented."

Telecom secretary Sundararajan assured the telecom association that the issues of telecom sector will be addressed in time bound manner by 2022 as mentioned in the draft.

While, DIPP secretary said that the government is now strictly looking to push Indian companies under 'Make in India', 'Start-up India' and taking action on tenders that are leaving them unnoticed.

Both the secretaries said that all the issues that have been raised by companies will be looked at.

Constituted in 1995, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), is an industry association of mobile service providers, telecom equipment, internet and broadband services providers in India. Internet giant Facebook became an associate member of COAI, in August 2014.

Notably, draft policy branded as National Digital Communications Policy 2018 was unveiled by the government on 1st May. The draft policy, which is likely to launched next month, aims to attract $100 billion or about Rs 6.5 lakh crore investments in the digital communications sector by 2022 with the help of reforms.

Besides telecommunication, the new yet-to-be-launched telecom policy has tried to cover areas such as Internet of Things, M2M, Cloud Computing, 5G and electronics manufacturing. Not only that, the National Telecom Policy 2018 also includes guidelines for IPR, artificial intelligence, foreign investments, job creation and cyber and digital security.

Last September, the then Union Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha revealed that the National Telecom Policy 2018 is expected to provide affordable internet access to 1.3 billion Indians, which is precisely India’s total population.

Telecom Startups Demand Level Playing Field and Rules for 'Ease of Doing Business'

Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) just had a round table on ease of doing business in telecom sector in the country. The association raised concerns over high levies and low return for telcos, reports ET Telecom.

In the discussion, telecom startups in the country also voiced their opinion and raised their issue before government representative demanding that they should be given opportunity to participate in public projects.

Telecom startups said that government needs to provide them a level playing field in public projects and lower levies for 'ease of doing business'.

They also sought permits in a time-bound manner, COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews told reporters after the round table.

"They said that tender conditions ask for high turnover and experience which they are unable to meet," he added.

The COAI Director General said that startups also demanded that low cost finance be made available to them and the government help to ease financial compliance rules.

Besides, established players like Vodafone also raised concerns over high levies and low return for telcos.

Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan and Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Ramesh Abhishek represented the government at the meeting that was co-hosted by Invest India and India Mobile Congress.

Related Reading - 68-Yr-Old Indian Telecom Firm Now Wants Rebirth With Help of Startups and IoT

The COIA director general, Mathews, further said, "The draft of National Digital Communications Policy 2018 proposes to address most of the telecom operators issue to achieve US $100 billion investment but operators want to know by when will it be implemented."

Telecom secretary Sundararajan assured the telecom association that the issues of telecom sector will be addressed in time bound manner by 2022 as mentioned in the draft.

While, DIPP secretary said that the government is now strictly looking to push Indian companies under 'Make in India', 'Start-up India' and taking action on tenders that are leaving them unnoticed.

Both the secretaries said that all the issues that have been raised by companies will be looked at.

Constituted in 1995, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), is an industry association of mobile service providers, telecom equipment, internet and broadband services providers in India. Internet giant Facebook became an associate member of COAI, in August 2014.

Notably, draft policy branded as National Digital Communications Policy 2018 was unveiled by the government on 1st May. The draft policy, which is likely to launched next month, aims to attract $100 billion or about Rs 6.5 lakh crore investments in the digital communications sector by 2022 with the help of reforms.

Besides telecommunication, the new yet-to-be-launched telecom policy has tried to cover areas such as Internet of Things, M2M, Cloud Computing, 5G and electronics manufacturing. Not only that, the National Telecom Policy 2018 also includes guidelines for IPR, artificial intelligence, foreign investments, job creation and cyber and digital security.

Last September, the then Union Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha revealed that the National Telecom Policy 2018 is expected to provide affordable internet access to 1.3 billion Indians, which is precisely India’s total population.

IIT-Madras Incubated A Startup To Help Other Startups in Early-Stage

The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-Madras) has incubated a startup whose objective was to help other startups. Named as YNOS Venture Engine CC (Catalyse & Create) Pvt Ltd, the startup is nurtured at the incubation cell at IIT-M’s Research Park and works to enhance the success of early stage startups using Machine Learning and Data Sciences tools and techniques.

Founded by Prof Thillai Rajan, Department of Management Studies, IIT-M, who has been researching Indian Venture Industry for close to a decade now, has tremendous insights into funding issues at start-ups and he thus decided to start a venture himself and launch YNOS Venture Engine.

According to Thillai, only 6-7 percent of startups are able to raise the first round of external funding, which is low. The number improves in subsequent rounds, he says, going to 15 percent in the second round and 20 percent in the next.

It is the first round of external funding that is critical for any start-up, says Thillai. Startup founders have two options before them -- either they can bootstrap the venture and fund it internally. But then, because of nature of business model of most of them,they want to focus on growth, for which external funding becomes necessary. Tillai thus, through YNOS, seeks to improve funding chances of entrepreneurs of such startups in early stage.

YNOS has raised seed funding by IIT-M's incubation cell & Venture Intelligence, a Chennai-based market research & analysis firm.

Speaking about this venture, Prof Thillai Rajan said, “Information and decision making analytics are not easily accessible for early stage entrepreneurs. Sell-side intermediation is virtually nil for early stage start-ups. YNOS uses research insights and technology to provide information and intermediation services for early stage entrepreneurs. Using advanced marker analytics tools, our platform provides estimates of valuation and also identify appropriate investors for the start-up.”

[caption id="attachment_124521" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Prof Thillai Rajan (FIRST LEFT, SEATED), Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras, and Founder, YNOS Venture Engine CC Private Limited, with the Team Members[/caption]

The time has never been better for venturing and creating startups. However, startup mortality rates have not fallen. While the funding landscape has expanded, it has also become more complex. The proportion of startups getting funded is still low. The challenges continue to confound the early stage entrepreneurs.

The objective of YNOS is to help the start-up founders to navigate the terrain in the early stages of their venture lifecycle. The technology platform and hybrid offerings have been designed to cater to specific needs of early stage entrepreneurs. The gamut of offerings cover a wide range such as providing the competitive landscape for start-ups, valuation estimates, identifying appropriate investors, and hands on understanding of start-up fundraising.

Speaking on the importance of such an initiative, Dr. Tamaswati Ghosh, Chief Executive Officer, IIT Madras Incubation Cell, said that, "As one of India’s leading incubators with over 140 of deep-tech startups we are keenly aware of the challenges faced by early stage technology entrepreneurs, especially in raising investment and finding matched mentors. Services offered by YNOS are addressing some of these critical issues and I am confident that they will create a strong impact on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in this country."

Commenting on the relevance of the offerings, Arun Natarajan, Founder, Venture Intelligence and an investor in YNOS, said, “Start-ups that approach professional investors for the first time tend to be under prepared on various fronts. This tends to cause a lot of delay in fundraising - if not completely derail it. By aiming to provide actionable information on this front, YNOS is poised to play an important role in making Early Stage funding process in the country more efficient. ”

Dr. Rajan Srikanth, Managing Director, Smart Kapital and President, Keiretsu Forum, Chennai Chapter said, "There have been several efforts to help investors find startups, but very little done to help the entrepreneur find the right investor. This is a very tough problem because information is largely unavailable and even when it is, they are anecdotal and unreliable. As a result, identifying investors today is largely left to chance for the entrepreneur. The offerings of YNOS would not only lead to better matches of entrepreneurs and investors but also help the entrepreneur to understand the start-up landscape that can lead to better decisions. This will benefit the whole eco-system greatly."

R. Ramaraj, an active angel investor and Advisor, Elevar Equity, said that “Despite being most vibrant, navigating the entrepreneurial ecosystem continues to be a challenge for the early stage entrepreneurs in India. Starting with the competitive landscape and investor matching, the services and offerings of YNOS can significantly help young entrepreneurs in building their ventures. The offerings leverage insights from several years of research on Indian venture industry and use of data sciences tools and techniques."

Via - UNIIndia | Top Image - ForbesIndia.com