Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have opened up many new possibilities for human resource managers and recruitment businesses. Software can now recognise faces and identify mood, and decode video interviews to identify education level, lying, and cognitive ability.

The foremost technology-led disruption in recruitments space was headed by job platforms such as Monster and Naukri. These platforms connected employers with the potential candidates through a keyword-based algorithm, but that’s fast becoming archaic, because of resume spamming and keyword stuffing, which in turn increased the hiring time, process and effort for recruiters.

It’s a serious gap in a market such as India, which has yet to become as sophisticated as western markets in this space. The solution to this problem could be in using new technologies in a smart way. Scriptifi is charting its course with this in mind — the startup is combining machine intelligence with human oversight to offer a faster way for recruiters and employers to find the right talent. Scriptifi’s platform uses smart algorithms for matching each opening or vacancy to their expert human recruiters, who use the software tools to assess and identify candidates.

“Recruitment process is extremely fragmented and there is a huge scope of bringing in efficiencies across the entire chain of the recruitment process and redefine the speed, quality and cost of hiring, which is where the dynamics of an online recruitment marketplace model can work wonders,” Pranjal Mehrotra, cofounder of Scriptifi told Inc42.

Building A Shared Economy For Recruiters

The Gurugram-based startup was cofounded by human resource (HR) professionals Pranjal Mehrotra and Abhimanyu Sharma in 2017. The cofounders met while working together at consumer electronics company Micromax.

“We wanted to disrupt the recruitment consulting by building a global company which would make the recruitment process extremely transparent and eventually, create a shared economy for recruiters,” Mehrotra added.

The bootstrapped company operates on a pay per hire and subscription-based monetisation model. Employers pay a subscription fee to access the Scriptifi’s platform and recruiters are offered a premium partnership model under which they get added platform benefits for about INR 12K – INR 15K monthly.

Scriptifi charges employers around 8%-16% of the overall cost to company (CTC) of each hired candidate, a part of this is being paid to the Scriptifi’s recruiters. These recruiters, according to Mehrotra, can earn around INR 1 Lakh per month with every two closures. “Top recruiters may even earn INR 5 – INR 10 Lakh in a month,” he said.

Enabling A Turnaround Time of 15 Days

Talking about the company’s vision, Mehrotra said, “We believe recruiters are the conscience keepers of the organisations and are instrumental in hiring the rockstars who script the future of the organisations. A dream state for us would be seeing one of our recruiters next to a BMW as a result of them working with us for a year and reaping the 10X earnings for the same effort they put in their daily lives now.”

Scriptifi is big on efficiency, according to Mehrotra. The company claims to meet client requirements in an average turnaround time of 15 days. Besides promising better talent quality when hiring, the company also claims that the entire hire time is shrunk by 50%, and saves about 20-30% on the traditional recruitment cycle.

Over the past 20 months, the startup has been able to partner with more than 80 companies including Uber, Nivea, L’Oreal, SBI Societe Generale, Titan, Dunnhumby, Convergys, NIIT, Zomato, OLX, Cars24, Volvo Eicher, Aptiv Automotive, and others. Scriptifi puts a significant effort in onboarding the recruiters on its platform, with an acceptance rate as low as 10%. Currently, it has over 250 recruitment partners including freelancers, boutique consulting firms and HNIs registered on the platform.

Mehrotra said that one of the company’s biggest challenges was to attract quality recruiters,  “At that time, we envisioned ourselves as a marketplace which is accessible to everyone. But allowing access to everyone who applied, led us to failed closures”

“We could have gone to 1,000 recruiters but we do not want that. We believe quality is paramount. Currently, we devote 48 to 72 hours in onboarding a recruiter and their due diligence.” he added.

Along with a set of vetted recruiters, Scriptifi also offers a network of highly networked individuals who work on a need to need basis, to help the companies hire executive-level employees.

Market Overview

According to Scriptifi, recruitment market in India is valued at more than $1 Bn and some of their competitors who follow a somewhat similar model include Quikr Jobs & Quezx (recently acquired by ABC Consultants).

Commenting on Scriptifi’s differentiating factor, Mehrotra said, “What gives us an edge over others as pointed out by some of our customers is our intellectual capability to build a platform which is extremely intuitive, transparent and truly optimizes the entire recruitment process.”

Internationally, Scriptifi competes with companies like Scout Exchange. Founded by Ken Lazarus, the company had raised $100 Mn from TRI Ventures in 2018.

But Mehrotra is confident of scaling up and expanding outside India.

“Considering that it is a virtual model, the scalability is immense across the globe. In fact, our mission is to champion the Virtual Global Recruitment Outsourcing Model, similar to what Infosys did with Global Delivery Model for IT outsourcing,” he said.

He added, “We plan to fully integrate with some of the Application traction Systems (ATS) which will help our adoption rate more. Some of our registered employers have used us as an ATS as well considering our overall functionality, however, we don’t intend to be one.”

Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics and automation are rapidly becoming a central pivot in workplace management and processing. Deloitte’s 2018 analysis for the technologies had found that over $6 Bn has been invested in more than 1,000  AI startups in the last three years. The report further noted that as more and more companies move towards automation, technologists are also recognising that automation and AI are most effective when they complement human insight, not replace them. Scriptifi also realises this and has made humans a key part of its AI-driven process.

“Simply integrating machine intelligence would mean picking up everything that is there or to match the company’s job description with a CV. But our stack ranking algorithm is a combination of human and machine intelligence, hence it also considers certain inputs which can only be observed in a conversation.” Mehrotra added.

The post Scriptifi Optimises Hiring For Employers By Blending AI With Human Insights appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Digital lending is one of the fastest growing segments in the India’s fintech space. A BCG report has predicted the digital lending industry will touch $1 Tn mark in the next five years.

Across board, fintech startups have come up with various digital lending models such as the peer-to-peer lending model of CapitalFloat, NeoGrowth’s point of sales transactions based lending, bank and fintech partnerships model of Indifi, and the marketplace model of Paisabazaar.

While most of these lending models cater to the needs of students and young professionals , which has rightly been identified as a major gap in the market, there’s still a sizeable section of the Indian population that’s been neglected. We are talking about the entry-level skilled workers, blue collar workforce and those making a living in the app-supported gig economy. Startups such as PerkFinance are focused on bringing digital lending to this truly underserved segment of blue collar employees.

Blue collar workers have had a tougher time convincing the credit market about their creditworthiness. While students and young professionals are early adopters of technology, and enter the digital economy organically, the blue collar workforce which is more tech-averse gets ignored in this data-based credit revolution.

Here’s the scale of the problem: Twenty-four Mn households in India who fall in the elite and affluent income categories have access to up to 80% of all formal loans, amounting to $202 Bn in credit, whereas the 124 Mn households with an annual income between INR 1.4 Lakh to 4.5 Lakh, have only received credit worth $24 Bn, which is less than 10 percent of the total formal market. These figures were founded by Bala Srinivasa, a Venture Capitalist with Unitary Helion, who has collated BCG’s socioeconomic data with RBI’s aggregate credit data to compute the above figures.

Being left out from the formal credit market, blue-collar employees often have to take the erratic and risky informal approach, such as unorganised moneylenders, their employers, and other quasi-legal avenues.  

But PerkFinance’s data showed that employers are considered the most trusted lenders by employees. Which is why PerkFinance operates on a payroll-linked lending model, under which it partners with employers to access data points about employees to come up with a proprietary score for loan risk assessment. This salary-linked model means PerkFinance is able to imburse short-term loans starting from as low as INR 5K.

Bengaluru-based PerkFinance was started by Vikas Kothari, Vivek Kandhur and Yogesh Keswani in 2017. The company has raised a seed funding of $900K (INR 6.5 Cr) from Fosun RZ Capital, Eric Bunting, Krishna Vinjamuri and Karan Virwani in December 2018.

The fintech startup is also part of Envision Accelerator Programme by Indian School of Business (ISB) DLabs, the US Consulate and the government’s Department of Science and Technology (DST).

PerkFinance partners with organisations employing large number of blue collar employees such as hospitals where all para-nursing and para-medical staff are blue collared. PerkFinance’s CEO, Vikas Kothari estimated the share of blue collar employees in these organisations to be 80% of the total staff.

The fintech company has partnered with business process outsourcing (BPOs), information technology (IT) firms and knowledge process outsourcing (KPOs), where it’s targetting junior white collar employees. These entry level employees are generally those who have moved from smaller towns to large cities and earn less than INR 2 Lakh per year, and are also new to the credit market, Kothari explained.

Over 50 companies including LetsTransport, BikeNinja, Enamor, RBF edu, Affluent, and Embassy group are registered with the fintech company. This in turn has enabled about 2 Lakh blue collar employees to apply for loans on PerkFinance.

Building An Inclusive Product

Other than offering micro loans and lowering the eligible salary threshold to INR 12K per month, the fintech company has also launched a salary advance product. This product caters to both freelancers or gig economy workers (drivers, delivery boys) and salaried employees such as nurses, and teachers.

Kothari says the payroll-linked salary advance product enables employees to get an advance on their salaries (or earnings, in case of freelancers), and the loan amount is directly deducted from their salaries or earnings.

There is no interest charged on the advance. However, company does charge a processing fee (between INR 200-300), which is used for legal documentation and credit bureau reporting.

“Other salary advance products in the market are payday loans which are independent of employers. By partnering with employers, we are able to provide better interest rates and faster processing time, along with the convenience of salary-linked deductions.” he added.

The salary advance segment is more populated than other fintech verticals, with startups such as LoanTap, EarlySalary, FlexSalary, and KreditBee also offering salary advance with EMI (equated monthly installments) based repayments. The amount of activity in terms of new ventures and new products indicates just how great the demand is for such a product. Here’s how PerkFinance has done so far.

As for its other product, startups such as Matrix Partners-backed AvailFinance and Beenext’s portfolio Shubh Loans are PerkFinance’s competitors, and are also working towards enabling easy credit options for the blue-collar employees in India.  

However, according to Kothari, the differentiating factor is the lower risk. “Payroll linked loans allow us to attain a much lower risk rate than other players. This aids us in bringing the delinquency rate to less than 1%.” Another unique selling point of PerkFinance is the use of reducing balance method for loans repayment, he added.

In reducing balance method, the interest amount is computed on the principal balance and not on the original loan amount, hence the balance reduces with repayment of each loan instalment.

Another consideration that gives PerkFinance a slight edge is accessibility. The lending app is available in four Indian languages – Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada – besides, English. PerkFinance competitor Shubh Loans also offers regional language support in five Indian languages.  

This is a crucial aspect for PerkFinance as it serves the blue collar workforce which has very low English literacy. Interestingly, blue collar workers form a large part of the Indian language internet ecosystem, which is estimated to account for 75% of India’s total internet base. Around 80% of the drivers on Indian ride hailing company Ola’s platform are said to use the app in local languages.  So there’s a clear need to cater to these set of users.

Photo description: PerkFinance App Screenshots

Envisioning A Full-Stack Financial Product

Currently, the company is working on launching two new products for employees who are accustomed to PerkFinance services. First is access to e-learning courses with EMI payments. According to Kothari, a large section of BPO employees are constantly looking to add more skills to their profile. Hence, partnering with online learning platforms will help users to pay for these courses without any interest and accelerate their career.

Secondly, the company plans to launch a ‘Savings product’ for users who have become familiar with the credit model of PerkFinance. The application will offer them a choice to save up to INR 3K every month by investing their money in debt mutual fund, which can be used towards paying off any due loan amount.

“Once we have large enough (roughly 100K) application datasets, we also plan to integrate a machine learning model which can take into account sector-specific attrition rates, health insurance, number of dependents, etc.” Kothari added.

The fintech sector has immensely benefitted from the successful adoption of Aadhaar-based KYC, UPI and other eKYC. While this has made it easier for fintech startups to assess risk for potential customers, the need to access private user data such Aadhaar-linked bank transactions and phone records to decide creditworthiness, poses a lot of risks about data security, sharing, storage and extent of collection. . The consent layer of IndiaStack, which plans to allow free movement of user data within India, is still under debate and until a time when there’s a definite solution, alternative credit risk assessment methods such as PerkFinance’s technology can come in handy. Especially, when the customer does not have transaction or digital payment records as is the case with many blue collar workers.

PerkFinance does not exclude this tech-averse segment and leverages the institutional trust between an employer and employee to make credit easy for those who have been largely ignored by the formal market.

The post PerkFinance Is Building A Complete Financial Solution For Blue Collar Workforce appeared first on Inc42 Media.

While about 71% of the planet is filled with water, only 2.5% of it is freshwater, which can be used for consumption and utility purposes. Even in those small freshwater reserves, less than 0.01% is surface water, while only 0.5–0.75% is fresh groundwater or soil moisture.

With freshwater being so scarce and linked to rapidly-changing climate conditions, there’s an urgent need to cut down on water wastage, which is a huge problem in countries with large populations. Often, people have to resort to groundwater or hard water, when freshwater sources are not available in their proximity.

In India, one of the major problems is dealing with hard water, which is often not fit for consumption, without treatment.  For the uninitiated, water with high mineral content such as calcium and magnesium (120-180 parts per million or PPM) is considered hard water.

With a high concentration of minerals, it becomes impossible to use the water for consumption as it is, and could lead to several health issues such as kidney stones, itchy skin and rough hair. It also becomes difficult to use such water for utility purposes anywhere in the world as hard water causes whitening on drying, so you can’t really use it for washing or cleaning utensils.

With the high prevalence of hard water in many parts of the country, startups such as the Hyderabad-based D’Cal has been working to address these issues in a cost-efficient manner.  D’Cal has built a low-cost solution which turns hard water into soft water without the need for expensive treatment plants.

Speaking to Inc42, D’Cal founder Uday Nadiwade said that the existing solutions to turn hard water into soft water are extremely expensive, and the cost only increases over time due to the need for regular maintenance.

After having faced personal difficulties with hard water, Nadiwade and Rajesh Saraf set up D’Cal to build a cost-effective, accessible and user-friendly device to deal with the issue.

Building A Cost-Effective Solution For Hard Water

Launched in August 2018 after Nadiwade and Saraf D’Cal uses certain phosphates also known as food grade media to eliminate the stickiness of calcium ions from the water, thereby breaking down the minerals in the hard water.

 “In most of the parts in India, the utility water which is used for bathing, cleaning purposes etc, is actually drawn from the ground which is called bore water. This bore water has a high concentration of calcium and magnesium salts which cause whitening of tiles in bathrooms, utensils, along with hair loss problems,” Nadiwade told Inc42.

Nadiwade said that after existing solutions failed to give him the results he wanted due to high maintenance costs, Saraf and he began researching alternatives and approached the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) affiliated Indian Institute of Chemical Technology in Hyderabad.

The duo comes from engineering backgrounds and experimented with products in the market. After a year of researching, testing and development, the D’Cal Water Softener was ready to be launched.

The product simplifies decalcification and demineralisation of hard water. A user only needs to drop the softener machine into an overhead water tank. The machine works by removing the sticky properties of the calcium and magnesium ions which are responsible for making the water hard. After it’s treated, the water still has ions, but their negative properties are nullified.

Nadiwade explained that with the existing hard water treatment solutions, some of the water goes to waste; about 70% of the water turns soft and the ions shift to the rest of the water thereby wasting it. D’Cal’s solution, on the other hand, wastes no water thanks to how it works.

According to a 2017 assessment of groundwater by the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) which covered 6,607 assessment units (essentially blocks, mandals, talukas and districts), India has 1,071 over-exploited wells, 217 wells were in a critical state, while 697 are semi-critical. In this situation, when groundwater in being illegally exploited or over-used, there is an urgent need to find ways to treat water and also reduce wastage.

D’Cal is now planning to raise its first round of funding within the next four to five months. According to Nadiwade, the startup recorded a sale of more than INR 1 Cr in last quarter with the highest demand coming from Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Currently, D’Cal earns revenue through sales on ecommerce platforms such as Amazon and its own website. Priced at INR 2,700, the device is effective for almost a year.

Similar to D’Cal, Noida-based healthcare products company Kent also offers a similar product. It offers three different devices to turn hard water into soft water for household use, washroom water and for a washing machine, starting at INR 7K.

Another water treatment company RainSoft also offers a water softening solution, which is priced at INR 12,700. So D’Cal’s solution is many times more affordable and ideal for smaller houses, or low-income families.

“Our target customers are those who stay in an independent house and we get orders across all Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities,” said Nadiwade.

Tackling Wastage In Businesses

D’Cal has plans to go beyond the softener machine, but the first goal, according to Nadiwade, is to boost sales by 4-5 times this year.

The company is also developing two new products — filtered water bottle for consumers, and a synthetic powder for businesses and institutions.

“We are designing a water bottle using a kind nano-fibre technology which will filter the water.  Now you can fill the water from wherever you want, and the water will be clean and pure,” Nadiwade explained

While currently, a mineral water bottle will easily cost around INR 20, Nadiwade explained that the major part of that cost comes from logistics. So, the company decided to eliminate the logistic charges, and instead of selling water, they will be offering a filtration bottle. Each bottle is said to be effective for almost 10-12 months, thus bringing down the cost to INR 0.20 per use.

They are also developing a B2B product, which is a synthetic powder for water treatment in hotels and restaurants. D’Cal is looking to eliminate wastage by filtering used utility water and reusing it for washing and cleaning purposes. The powder can also be used to clean water bodies such as ponds and lakes. According to Nadiwade, the company is already in talks with the Hyatt chain in Hyderabad for a pilot test.

“Our synthetic powder water treatment solutions can reduce water wastage and cost by 90% for businesses like hotels, colleges, large complexes etc,” Nadiwade added.

Solving Water Wastage Is The Need Of The Hour

According to The Water Project, a non-profit organisation which brings reliable water to communities in sub-Saharan Africa, the water scarcity in India is expected to worsen as the overall population is expected to increase to 1.6 Bn by the year 2050.

In its official blog, the organisation has pointed out that India may lack the overall long-term availability of replenishable water resources. In such a situation, the optimal use of groundwater is a crucial need for India.

Last year it was reported that nearly 60 Mn litres of water go to waste every day in India due to overuse and treatment. This is a grim situation for the country as in the long run, as non-renewable freshwater sources dry up.

Even when it comes to treating wastewater or hard water, India lacks adequate capacity. According to the 2015 report of the Central Pollution Control Board, India only has the capacity to treat approximately 37% of its wastewater, or nearly 23K Mn litres per day, against a daily generation of nearly 62K Mn litres per day from more than 900 sewage treatment plants.

With such a grim situation in India, it is very essential to come up with low-cost solutions to treat water at the basic level. Startups like D’Cal has taken a small step to deal with water problems in the country, however, more companies, more government initiatives are needed to deal with the water treatment issues in India.   

According to TechSci Research report, water softeners market in India is projected to exhibit a CAGR of more than 15% during 2017 – 2026. The report explained that growth in municipal sector water treatment, growing chemical industry and surging use of water softeners in the residential sector will reportedly drive the market during the forecast period.  Some of the other notable players in this space are Ion Exchange, Thermax, Bluebird, and Acquionics.

The post Hyderabad-Based D’Cal Is Tackling India’s Hard Water Problem With Pocket-Friendly Solutions appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The pain of finding rented accommodation should be very familiar to anyone who has ever had to move to another state in India for work or college. Every move comes with its own set of challenges – from learning the local work culture, to getting acquainted with the way each city’s specific quirks and challenges. This also extends to finding the right apartment to rent. In Ahmedabad, for example, house owners trusted their peer network more than the real estate agents. In Bengaluru, the pink-shirted real estate agent brigade seems to write its own rules.

And, it’s not just about finding the right apartment, but also finding one that’s close to the workplace, and fits under the budget. This adds to the complexity of accommodation search, leading the tenant to either compromise on the location or budget.

This situation has played out for so long, that startups are identifying this market gap and offering co-living solutions for the growing number of urban migrants in India. Co-living spaces not only provide furnished housing, but also take care of amenities and service needs such as utility bills, housekeeping, daily cook etc.

India’s Economic Survey of 2017 has estimated the total inter-state migration to have hiked 191% between 2001-2011, as compared to the last decade. Startups such as Nestaway, Zolo, and Coho along with prolific companies such as OYO and Lemon Tree have forayed into the co-living market.

Another startup tapping the $120 Mn co-living market is the Bengaluru-based SimplyGuest. Unlike other players in this space, which either target singles and young professionals, SimplyGuest wants to cater to both singles as well as families.

Just A Team Of Four

SimplyGuest was started in 2015 by brothers Ambareesh and Subbu Athinkunte. The duo later onboarded one of their early clients, Mayank Pokharna, as the third cofounder. Since then, it has been a three-person army and a part-time employee in the operations role at SimplyGuest.

“Our competitors like Zolo and Coho, control entire buildings and hence have similar houses and also attract customers of similar age-groups and frequencies, which are mostly singles in the age bracket of 20-28. Whereas, the variety of housing we provide is much wider as our target audience is not limited to just singles.,” Subbu Athikunte, cofounder of SimplyGuest told Inc42.  

Targeting single users and families, greatly expands the potential market size for SimplyGuest, but also presents its unique challenges such as variety in inventory. “Our objective is to become an end-to-end solution for the living needs of a large economic segment. We also aim to be a solution for house owners looking for someone to manage their houses while they are away,” Athikunte said.

Currently, SimplyGuest manages around 250 beds across its 70 property listings across Bengaluru including villas, shared flats, hostels and more. Further, the company claims to have a 92% occupancy rate across its properties, with an average ticket size of rent between INR 8K and INR 35K. In the next two months, the bootstrapped company plans to expand on a large scale in Bengaluru specifically in the HSR and Koramangala.

The startup claims to have recorded a revenue of INR 3 Cr revenue in the last year, through a mix of fixed and variable rent models. Under the fixed rent model, the house owners rent the property to SimplyGuest to handle the entire renting lifecycle, while, in the variable rent model, the house owner mediates in the renting process and is responsible for furnishing the house. In fixed rent model SimplyGuest earns around 20-22% of the monthly rent. While in variable rent model, the company’s margin is between 12-15%.

Photo Description: SimplyGuest Search Filters 

Improving The Guest’s Living Experience

Of course, living in an apartment is quite different to just renting a temporary accommodation. In addition to housing rentals, SimplyGuest has exclusive offerings for its customers such as the option to rent bicycles, car parking spaces, and expense management tool for individual tenants co-living in a house for which it takes a nominal fee. For instance, car parking costs about INR 1,500 per month.

“We are always thinking of how to make living in our flats better. Short distance transport is a challenge in cities. We have realised from our guest’s feedback that commuting 1-3 kilometers is an annoying problem for our guests,” Athikunte said.

The co-living startup also has flatmate expense sharing tool built into the tenant’s dashboard. The tool enables customers to track their monthly expenses from any point, paying the rent online.

Athinkunte said these features bring real value to its customers. “This is one of the reasons why we have the highest retention rate among shared living startups. We make their life so easy that they just don’t want to move out.”

Photo Description: SimplyGuest Tenant Dashboard

Smart Solutions To Operational Inefficiencies

Of course, delivering a great digital experience means the lightheartedness has to be balanced with hard-nosed technology.

To build its inventory of properties, SimplyGuest does software analysis on listing requests. The software is fed with information from the owners, such as the location, house orientation (in keeping with vaastu), doors, keys, number of washrooms, storage, and condition of the amenities etc. Based on these inputs, the software enables the company to estimate the revenue potential of the property, and assess the quality of rental experience for a customer.

“In this era of information and technology, it makes little sense to rely on primitive methods to solve housing problems and meet customer requirements. We rely on technology to remove operational inefficiencies and pass on the savings from this to our tenants, house-owners and service providers,” Athikunte added.

SimplyGuest is also reviving properties which have been neglected by owners though its model, which means more options for potential customers. Managed co-living spaces solve a lot of the headaches of the renting experience, and also provide a sense of community for the tenants, which is rare in the traditional model.

As Athikunte told us, “Our tenants move out of SimplyGuest homes only for two reasons: when they get married or if they move out of the city.”

The organised co-living sector in India has grown 100% over the last year with the entry of startups such as OYO, Nestaway, StayAbode, Grexter, Zolo, Coho and others.Yet, the sector is estimated to have an untapped demand of around 46.3 Mn beds in India.

This untapped market demand is reflected in the growing investments in the co-living startups. Recently last month, Bengaluru-based StayAbode raised Pre-Series A funding from Voyage Group, Akatsuki and Incubate Fund. Prior to this in January, Grexter had raised $1.5 Mn (INR 10.6 Cr) from Venture Catalysts. Grexter’s funding was closely followed by the Mumbai-based ZoloStays, who raised a $30 Mn Series C funding round led by IDFC Alternatives, Mirae Asset and Nexus Venture Partners.

Last year, OYO Rooms also announced the launch ‘OYO Living’. The hospitality startup aims to expand its co-living vertical in the top 10 Indian metros by the end of 2019 with 50K beds.

In today’s digital age, where workplaces are increasingly warming up to the idea of telecommuting and 24×7 office spaces, the pressure of keeping up with work is ever present. Simply put, not many young professionals or families have the bandwidth to manage homes, utility bills and other facilities such as parking. With co-living, young professionals and families don’t have to bargain with brokers or home-owners on the rent amount or mode of payment.

The rapid urbanisation means that co-living spaces offer an alternative to the traditional renting market, which is often unorganised and not digital, which explains why more and more people are going the co-living route.

The post Can SimplyGuest Fight Off OYO, StayAbode, NestAway And Cos In Tight Co-Living Market? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The journey of foreign direct investment (FDI) in India began when the country became a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995, and the decade after that, with the advent of technology platforms, saw foreign investments allowed in multi-brand retail outlets, and in the single brand retail segment.

Even while it was allowed with the earlier 51% cap (later increased to 100%), Indian shopkeepers had always wondered if their livelihood is at stake because of large retail stores deep-pocketed with foreign investments. There were always fears that small shops would not be able to compete against the big retailers coming to India, with product offerings that often dwarf those from a small corner store.

India’s ‘Mom And Pop’ stores or Kirana shops are deeply embedded in their community and their business is directly linked to building relationships with the lives of most who buy from them. In many cases, it turns out to be a life-long relationship between multiple generations of shopkeepers and shoppers.

However, the on-demand economy and multi-brand grocery retailers completely changed the way these small shops have flourished. Instead of personal relationships, these digital trends have resulted in a more passive shopping experience, driven by the likes of Big Basket, Grofers and Amazon Prime Now.

These services not just eliminate a typical consumer’s trip to their local corner store but according to a Sachin Chhabra, founder and CEO of Peel-Works, retail stores in India are not going to see any flight of customers away from their store but in fact, he believes that this is a great time for them to grow and become a larger force for their local communities. .

Aiming To Help A Million Corner Stores

Peel-Works, launched in 2010, is a Software-as-a-service (SaaS) and a big data platform, that provides end-to-end services to small to medium sized shopkeepers. The Bengaluru-based company provides an online marketplace for shopkeepers through which they can order their stock, provides access to credit and also ensures timely delivery of goods for restocking. The mission of the company is to solve the problem of millions of small stores in India that it believes have been left underserved by the digital wave.

Like any other ecommerce company, Peel-Works makes its money by charging a commission on the gross merchandise volume (GMV). The company also has a monthly subscription service to consumer companies wherein it provides analytics and data about consumer behaviour in relation to the products.

Peel-Works currently has more than 15K stores on-board and aims to reach 100K stores in the near future.

The company has some big names backing it and in late 2017, Unilever Ventures, the private equity arm of Unilever, led a Series B funding round, making it the first investment by the company in India. The round also saw the participation of existing investors Inventus Capital Partners and IDG Ventures India. With this investment, Unilever Ventures now has a seat on the startup’s board.

While Chhabra doesn’t tell us much about current financial metrics, he disclosed that close to 70% of Peel-Works’ partner stores use its services to order every month and the company is looking to hit close to $1 Bn GMV run rate by the end of the current financial year.

But this is an ultra-competitive space for Peel-Works; Chhabra says that anyone who supplies into a retail store is a competitor. “What we are competing against are 3K suppliers who are independently sending their folks to get orders collected from retailers. We are competing with the manufacturers, distributors and the cash and carry players,” he said.

Peel-Works does not own logistical or warehousing assets, rather it relies on the local city ecosystem to get the job done. It extensively uses machine learning to measure customer engagement, ordering habits, demand forecasting, figuring out inventory warehouses, etc.

“We are not trying to create or replicate capacities that already exist, whether it be warehousing, capital credit, logistics. We work with suppliers, banks, people who have warehouses. The full benefit to the customer comes when these services are aggregated and brought under one roof,’ says Chhabra.

Our core goal is helping a million corner stores lead better lives. GMV is just an outcome- Chhabra

Hopping On To The Mom & Pop Store Train

Chhabra may have a point when he says that the Kirana stores are not going anywhere anytime soon.

RedSeer Consulting, a research and advisory firm focused on the consumer internet market, says that out of India’s over $500 Bn grocery market, a mere 0.2% is online, of which $1.2 Bn is the overall online market and about $1 Bn is only hyper-local grocery. India is estimated to have over 12 Mn Kirana stores and this number is estimated to continue growing. 

Apart from the existing ones, Reliance Industries Ltd’s retail arm — Reliance Retail Ltd testing its food and grocery app among its employees before the commercial launch of its ecommerce venture.

Earlier this month, Amazon infused INR 240 Cr (about $35 Mn) into Amazon Retail India, in a move intent on increasing its focus on the grocery arm.

Meanwhile WalMart, which acquired Flipkart last year, is planning to set up 26 more Best Price wholesale stores by 2023, with each location costing between $8 Mn-$10 Mn.

Talking about the offline-to-online (O2O) space, Chhabra admitted that the segment is growing but there are significant advantages in servicing a B2B grocery segment as compared to the B2C segment.

“The order size is much larger than compared to B2C category and the margin size on this category are so slim in B2C. The delivery cost can sometimes be so high that most orders may not make sense to be delivered. We at Peel-Works have minimum order size and we make sure that the assortment is wide enough for the store to order that much so that when it comes to unit economics, we can break even,’ adds Chhabra.

Future Of Groceries

According to Chhabra, who worked at Unilever for 14 years, the only successful model for grocery to get digitised is when retailers are trained to go online themselves. According to him, the real impact in this segment, which is a very large employment generator, is going to be led by the small guys.

But what about the competition from the likes of Amazon Prime Now, Grofers and Big Basket, (which is currently closing a $150 Mn funding round at a unicorn valuation) ?

“This category is a $300 Bn per annum category in India. The names that you took (Big Basket, Amazon Prime Now) are not even a fraction of that in penetration. We are just getting started, and plus they are focussed on B2C largely.

For us to change the way groceries are sold in India, we need to see players sell at least $150 Bn worth of groceries in the country through a channel that is not a traditional small shop,” he says.

Peel-Works believes the opportunity exists for offline retailers to grow because of the experience itself, “Retail grocery is going to grow and become larger because as a consumer I want to check expiration, return the rice back, touch and feel pulses before I buy, there are so many constraints in grocery, you need to be close to service them,” says Chhabra.

If Peel-Works wants to achieve its ambition, contrary to what Chhabra says, it will at one point come into competition with the likes of Amazon, Flipkart or Big Basket or even Reliance, a year down the line, as established players will also gravitate towards this segment, at some point.

Peel-Works’s advantage is that it already has a head start and is looking to build on that. In the next few months, the company will invest more resources into expanding its network and store footprint. Chhabra does hint that the company will be taking steps to raise capital later this year.

Meanwhile, the battle is on to capture the hearts, minds and wallets of India’s grocery shoppers and maybe the humble shopkeeper near your house is at the forefront of it.

The post Unilever Ventures Backed ‘Peel-Works’ Wants To Bring A Million Kirana Stores Under The Digital Umbrella appeared first on Inc42 Media.

India’s logistics sector is estimated to reach $215 Bn (INR 15 lakh crore) by 2020. With digitisation and ecommerce being integral parts of businesses today, it is imperative that the solutions which enable their smooth operation are efficient and effective. Automation of different links across the supply chain in the last decade has ensured this to a great extent. In fact, the rise of the robotics and technologies such as machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing and warehousing have been the key factors fuelling the growth of this industry across the globe.

While many startups have mushroomed in the logistics space and are using technology to streamline some aspects of supply chain like last mile delivery, transportation, etc. There remains a huge gap in the intra-logistics and warehousing aspect. This gap, means a big  business opportunity and that is what led to the inception of Addverb — a startup focussed on providing end-to-end warehouse automation solutions.

The Inception Of Addverb

It was in the summer of 2016, when a group of friends and co-workers, decided to leave their job at Asian Paints to setup a robotics startup what would eventually be called Addverb. While at Asian Paints, they realised factories in India were using automation solutions from big corporations outside India. These solutions had little scope of customisation as per the requirement of factories and their operations in India, thus leading to a large ramp up and commissioning time, thereby limiting the application of automation solutions to few large and mature organisations.

Thus, to make Indian manufacturing and supply chain more competitive globally, it was imperative to make adoption of automation systems in the country and this was the opportunity which Addverb leveraged.

The startup is developing robotics and automation solutions in India and intends to disrupt the automation space by providing cutting-edge technology solutions best suited for operations in India thus democratising automation for small businesses.

Addverb uses deeptech applications to design and implement automation solutions, thus improving the efficiency and accuracy of intra-logistics operations. The startup has come up in the warehousing space with solutions in mobile robotics,advanced picking technologies, automated storage system, warehouse management software, and various Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions for asset tracking with advanced analytics.

As a startup, usually one has to address problems that have not been addressed so far by the existing enterprises. Most of the solutions that Addverb has implemented fall in the above category. They designed a Robotic Packing Solution for a leading snack company. In this solution, the robot would pick up empty flattened cartons and would give each of the individual cartons a proper shape. The Robot would also then pick the snack packets simultaneously and position it properly into the carton so that the carton is filled to the maximum.

The complexity of the solution was manifold as the Robot had to erect the case and also position the packet in the case simultaneously. With advanced control systems, an efficient gripper design and conveyor tracking, Addverb designed, developed and implemented this solution.. This solution increased the throughput of the entire production line and also made the operation more reliable and smooth.

“It often becomes difficult to explain the benefit to business if you follow one size fits all approach, our portfolio allows us to choose a product from an extensive range to design a solution that helps the business increase their returns by 10x and break the barrier of ROI on technology, this leads to adoption of technology across all sizes of businesses,” says Bir Singh, Cofounder, Addverb.

Addverb spent a significant amount of time in understanding the market and customer requirements. Their extensive and collective experience of designing some of the most automated factories in their past, helped them gain insights to design innovative solutions and products for diverse group of customers. For instance, Typically, a Grade A warehouse, which utilises the height of the building with vertical stacking and has all operations completely automated, picking and dispatch may require a sortation solution or mobile robots or carton shuttle robot to realise operational efficiencies, but for a Grade C warehouse, which are manual warehouses and use conventional racking to store goods, such an investment might not make economic sense at all. Here a Pick-To-Light or Pick-By-Voice solution, which enhances the productivity of pickers would make more economic sense

“Warehouses in India have been operated manually primarily because of a lack of viable automation solution. It is critical to understand that a retail warehouse of 30,000 sq.ft will require  different level of automation as compared to an ecommerce warehouse of 1,00,000 sq. ft. ,” says Sangeet Kumar, Cofounder, Addverb.

Understanding these differences in the operations of diverse businesses, Addverb crafted an extensive product portfolio to solve the problem of flexibility, efficiency, accuracy and scalability for the smallest to the largest warehouse.

Addverb’s Suite Of Solutions

• Khushi (Pick-By-Voice): A concept where a warehouse  operator can use voice instructions, in regional languages, to perform the picking and packing operations.
• AddLight (Pick-To-Light): Light directed picking solution that enhances productivity, accuracy and picking rate.
• Pallet Shuttle Robot: A material handling Robot, which is a critical component of the dense storage system for Pallet Load, that enhances the storage space utilisation by elimination of aisles and increasing the throughput of the operations.
• Mobile Robot: Based on natural navigation system, mobile robot fleet are best suited for high throughput operations along with providing great scalability and flexibility.
• Sorting Robot: Based on collision avoidance technology, sorting robots can be used for high sorting requirements like fashion industry, postal and parcel.
• Carton Shuttle Robot: Carton shuttle robot is a Good-To-Person-Picking technology, which utilises the height of the warehouse to increase storage and make picking operation highly flexible, accurate and productive.
• Asset Tracking System:  Addverb has pioneered the art of tracking assets within the four walls of a factory or warehouse through bluetooth technology that is customisable, and scalable.

“It becomes critical to understand this difference if you want technology adoption to take place even at the lowest level of the value chain. These nuances of automation business have helped us create a disruption in the entire warehousing space in India,” says Satish Shukla, Cofounder, Addverb.

Understanding Warehouse Automation

Warehouses are a very critical component in any supply chain operations. In India, companies have typically been operating warehouses from the point of view of storage of goods.

Ever rising customer expectations, proliferation of Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) and the changing consumption patterns have forced the warehouses to be a value profit centre through increased utilisation, cost optimisation, flexibility and scalability rather than being a mere storage space.

Added to that is the constant demand for warehouses to be close to cities, which bring in the most orders, which also means higher real estate costs. In such circumstances, it is critical to utilise the available storage space more efficiently, reduce the inventory holding period and increase the throughput, and this is only possible through automation.

But, automation itself has had its own set of challenges.

Warehouse automation solutions that have been successful in other countries, do not always suit Indian operations owing to differences in topography, climate, nature of operations, quality of power-supply, etc and the solutions available in India are limited, sometimes prompting a one-size-fits-all approach. This leaves very little scope for customisation of the solution as per the business challenges.

Indigenous automation solutions are able to pass on the benefits of customisation, provide superior customer service, eliminate higher price for an imported technology. These factors are encouraging even small size businesses to go for technology adoption.

While Addverb has been leveraging this and scaling in revenues year-on-year, there are other companies such as GreyOrange with their robotics automation products, iFuture Robotics with robotics for logistics, Fanuc India which builds factory automation technology, Asimov Robotics and traditional players such as Godrej, Honeywell, SSI Schaefer and more that are fighting for their share of the pie in this space.

With a view to dominate the Indian market, the team of over 150 members at Addverb is offering a wide array of solutions. Today the startup has more than 50 installations of various products in India and has been able to establish a credible customer base in the country.

It caters to companies in diverse sectors such as retail, ecommerce, FMCG, food & beverage, pharmaceutical, tyre, food processing, chemical and textiles. Among its clientele are the likes of Reliance, MRF, Patanjali, Havells, Megha Fruits, Coca-Cola, Marico, Asian Paints, ITC, J&J, and more.

The first couple of years for Addverb were spent on building a capable team and completing development of products. Currently, the startup has been able to scale its operations across India, and has also deployed its solutions in Europe.

With an aim to become one of the most innovative robotic companies in the world, Addverb is looking to expand in other markets outside such as the Middle East, South East Asia, and Africa.

The post How Addverb Spun The Intra-Logistics Wheel To Acquire MNCs Like ITC, Coca-Cola, & More appeared first on Inc42 Media.

While electric vehicles are the need of the hour, high-performance superbikes are also an emerging automotive trend in India. How amazing would it be if these seemingly-disparate paths merge to form an electric superbike?

The idea that you can ride a bike at top speed without any guzzling litres of petrol is certainly appealing in this day and age. That’s exactly what the founders of Emflux Motors have done in Bengaluru by building its electric superbike.

The two-wheeler industry is experiencing a massive boom in India with a high demand for premium bikes. According to a 2018 report by TechSci Research, the Indian premium motorcycles market is projected to reach $161 Mn by 2023. The growth is largely due to factors such as the rising youth population, increasing disposable income, and availability of a wide array of premium motorcycles and easy financing options.

While Indians continue to have a strong interest in owning motorcycles and superbikes, they are also growing sensitive towards the environmental needs and understand the harmful effects of vehicular emissions on the ecology

Just like the two-wheeler market, the electric vehicle industry is also recording a major growth. According to FAME India report, 2.6 Lakh electric vehicles were sold in India as of December 2018. Out of these, a majority 59% of sales came from two-wheelers.

But while the traditional bike market has plenty of options and types of bikes, the electric two-wheeler segment is largely restricted to scooters or low-powered bikes. In 2015, it was estimated that sales in the India superbike segment will reach over 20K units by 2020, recording a 100% increase in demand. This explains to a large extent why Emflux is focussing on electric superbikes.

Bengaluru-based Emflux Motors is hoping to disrupt this segment with its electric superbike Emflux One. Launched in 2016 by former Jugnoo executives Varun Mittal, Ankit Khatry, and former designer at TVS Motors Vinay Raj Somashekar, Emflux Motors is the first Indian company to launch an electric superbike.

Mittal had always dreamed of building superbikes and supercars since his time in college days, but lacked the resources to make it happen. While at Jugnoo, Mittal was forced to take time off from work while recovering from an accident, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

“This accident gave him enough courage and time to plan to follow his dreams of building future tech of mobility – electric vehicles,” Khatry said.  Right after his recovery from the accident, Mittal along with the other two went on to launch Emflux.

Emflux Motor Looking To Blend Cool Looks And Sustainability In Its EV

Emflux Motors is aiming to make the Indian emobility industry more robust by offering a high-performance product, which seeks to eliminate the notion that electric vehicles are slow and not capable of matching up to conventional fuel bikes.

Besides developing its own bikes, Emflux also offers emobility solutions to automobile makers or original equipment manufacturers (OEM). These solutions have been built by Emflux inhouse ranging from hardware such as a battery pack, charger and motor to software tools such as a battery management system (BMS), electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE), motor controller and master controller or a smart dashboard which can be controlled through a mobile app.

The Emflux superbike is scheduled to be launched in 2020 and has a rated top speed of 200 Kmph (kilometres per hour) which can accelerate from 0-100 Kmph in just three seconds. The bike is powered by Emflux’s proprietary liquid-cooled modular lithium-ion battery pack. The nominal capacity of this battery pack is 9.7 KWh and it can be charged up to 80% in just 36 minutes using fast charging technology, and in three hours with a regular EV charging station.

Besides adding a slew of high-performance features to the bike, Emflux has also tried to make sure the superbike offers a safe ride just like other conventional superbikes. “One of the most critical parts on the bike is the battery pack, which is made out of an aerospace-grade aluminium casing and is encased in a steel tubular frame. It also has carbon fibre panels for protection in case of accidents. Moreover, special safety features are implemented to prevent thermal runaway of the battery pack,” Khatry told Inc42

Emflux is mainly targeting the consumers in the premium bike segment, i.e. bikes with engine capacity in excess of 250 CC.

Scaling Up Product Line And Expanding

Apart from the first superbike which is expected to hit the roads next year, Emflux is planning to launch three more models in the next three years, and expand its presence to foreign markets.

When asked about Emflux’s plans to build e-scooters, or electric city bikes, or cars, Khatry said “With the tech that goes in Emflux One, we can easily scale up the powertrain to equip it into a three or four wheeler, or even downscale it to be used in a scooter or low-end motorcycle. We also envision to utilise our strength, the in-house R&D, to develop powertrain solutions for mass transit options”.

But it’s crucial to have these options available in places other than Bengaluru, where the company is building its initial base. It is looking to expand its distribution starting to other major Indian cities, and set up experience centres and charging stations there.

There are also plans to expand to Southeast Asia and Europe, where customers are already inquiring about the Emflux One.

Made in India, But Featuring World-Class Technology

Emflux’s initiatives come at a time when the Indian government is bullish on electric mobility prospects in India. Earlier in March, the second phase of FAME was approved by the Indian government with an outlay of INR 10,000 Cr ($1.4 Bn) to be invested over a period of three years. According to the central government scheme for electric vehicles, FAME II, automobile companies have to ensure 50% localisation of production parts in their assembly line.

As a part of this scheme, the government has proposed to support 10 lakh two-wheelers, 5 lakh three-wheelers, 55K four-wheelers, and 7K buses, powered by lithium-ion batteries or other electrical batteries. As with any EV company in India, Emflux is also looking to avail the Indian government’s incentives for companies in this field.

When asked about procuring local parts for its superbike, Mital said Emflux imports some parts from abroad, while building its own tech platform for mechanics and electrical components. It imports components from Italian parts manufacturer Brembo, suspension units from Sweden-based Ohlins, tyres from Pirelli, battery cells from South Korea’s  LG and Samsung. Further, Electronic components like microcontrollers and MOSFETs are also imported, while mechanical and electronic components in the Emflux One have been completely designed and manufactured by Emflux in India.

As far as distribution is concerned, Emflux says it will go the online sales route, but is also planning to setup experience centres where potential customers can get a more traditional buying experience. “This [experience centre] is necessary to give customers an experience of electric superbikes as very few have ridden and felt the performance of EVs in the Indian market,” Khatry said.

Can Electric Superbikes Make An Impact in India?

The two-wheeler market is still a major growth area for automobile companies in India, despite slowdown in the domestic market. While companies are banking on exports for their revenue targets, electric vehicles are expected to grow at a faster pace thanks to infrastructural development as well as increasing penetration.  

According to a report by FAME, currently, there are 29 OEMs selling electric vehicles in India and currently, almost every two-wheeler company is working towards developing its line of electric vehicles, if they don’t, they will be left behind in the Indian automotive market. Plus, there’s competition from established EV companies in China, including from big brands such as Xiaomi.

Emflux Motors faces stiff competition across the globe. For instance, one of the most notable players in this segment is California-based Lightning Motors. The company’s electric superbike LS-218 outpaces the Emflux One with a rated top speed of 218 miles per hour or 350.8 Kmph.

Italy-based Energica Motor Company’s electric superbike Energica EGO accelerates from 0 to 100 Kmph in three seconds, and has a top speed at 150 mph (214 Kmph), just like the Emflux One.

While Emflux has the advantage of being a first of its kind in India, it will be facing tough competition from international brands as it looks to expand its services beyond India. These companies are already established and have the infrastructure in their markets to flourish.  In order to be able to compete with these vehicles, Emflux will have to first win the confidence of the India users.

Though Indian users are getting more and more familiar with electric vehicles, the issues related to charging infrastructure and range anxiety remain an obstacle, which is why Emflux is making a risky bet with its electric superbike vision.

The post Emflux Motors Blends Looks, Speed And Sustainability Into One Package With EV Superbike appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The period between 2012-2013 was a turning point for Indian online gaming industry in many ways.

It was in 2012 when gaming startups such as Nazara Technologies, Octro, Dream 11 and 99 Games were getting ready to raise their Series A and above funding. Being the first movers, these players already had a vision for the future of gaming in India. But the prevalent macro factors at the time, such as lower internet speeds and relatively slower smartphone adoption compared to now, were still a challenge. Naturally, investors were sceptical about a bet on gaming.

At the same time, the skill gaming vs gambling debate was also being played out between online gaming companies and the Indian legal system.

These entry barriers should have typically scared off new players too. But not Ankush Gera, who jumped into the deep end with his startup Junglee Games in January 2012.

“When you are in business for 6-8 years, you get time to mature your processes, hire a good team, and lay the groundwork for future scale. So we were up against companies who had this kind of leverage while we were just getting started. In fact, building a gaming studio was an alpha product for us,” Gera told Inc42.

Fast forward to 2019, with more than 20 Mn users in 7 countries, Junglee Games has doubled its revenue and headcount every year since its launch. It claims a Y-O-Y growth of 80% to 100%. In FY19-20, the company will see $600 Mn in entry fees on its platform. Junglee is targetting 40-50 Mn active users by the end of this financial year.

“Despite being a late entrant, we are the fastest ones to have a sizable market share on a shoestring budget. This speaks for how sustainable our business model is,” Gera added.

From Advertising To Gaming

Junglee Games had its origin in San Francisco, where Gera has been living for almost 25 years. Prior to founding Junglee Games, Gera ran a digital advertising agency — Monsoon — for almost 10 years which got acquired by Capital One in July 2015. The company boasted clients such as Yammer, Zazzle, TOMS, HP, among other Fortune 100 companies and primarily helped these brands launch their mobile experiences.

“It was at this point I realised that I can make one of my own products,” he added.

While the logical extension might have been an ecommerce, travel or SaaS business, but, Gera found himself to be just a common consumer there. Thus, he decided to follow his passion for gaming and started working on a side project, Junglee Games.

“I was first drawn to games like poker, rummy, sports tournament in the offline world during my college days, not as a fun activity but a way to challenge my mind. Online gaming came in around the 2000s and after selling Monsoon, I couldn’t stop myself from following my love to challenge myself,” Gera said.

Once a proof of concept was ready and piloted in San Francisco, Gera launched Junglee Games in India in August 2012.

In September 2012, the Supreme Court cleared the guidelines for online gaming and legalised skill-based real money gaming in India.

Gera noted that the ruling gave his company more clarity to go ahead and achieve goals. Gera talked with pride about his team and partners which includes former executives from Monsoon, among a total of about 200 employees. He believes that the most challenging part of starting up is to align the leadership team and that it can take a startup its whole life setting this foundation, but once it’s done, the magic happens.

“It’s almost like a marriage. We lost our last company twice and were on the back foot every time. Situations like these can either split your partner or make you stronger. We got the latter, in our case with Junglee Games,” he added.

Games of Skill Rake In The Moolah

Junglee has so far launched four games in categories such as fantasy sports (Howzat), social (Eatme.io, Junglee Teenpatti) and skill (JungleeRummy). Gera admitted that while they are able to monetise from all avenues, 90% of the revenue comes from skill-based games. This is revenue from daily tournaments hosted on the Junglee platform, where users play for small service fees and earn cash prizes as rewards for winning.

A “game of skill” is one where the element of chance cannot be entirely ruled out, but it is the element of skill on the part of the participants that play a dominant role in determining the outcome of the game.

While casino and sports gambling is banned in many parts of India, Section 12 of the Public Gambling Act exempts games of skill from the penal provisions against gambling. Apart from the top-notch players, others active in this segment are Funearn, Ace2Three, RummyCircle, Zynga, Innopark India (Classic Rummy), Loco by PocketAces, MPL, Skill4fun and BrainBaazi among others.

When asked what works best in the Indian market among models such as freemium, ad-based or micro-transactions, Gera said that it all depends on the nature of the game and whether it falls in the social gaming or games of skill genre.

Freemium is yet to catch up in India. But I’ll be really surprised if it doesn’t catch up soon.

The three key segments of online gaming are – real money games (RMG), mobile-centric/casual games and e-sports. Within the RMG genre, you will find classification such as rummy, poker, daily fantasy sports and quizzing. While single player, downloadable and casual games such as Ludo or Subway Surfer are pretty much ad-based, social games such as Farmville or PUBG will be more inclined towards micro-transactions.

A recent study by KPMG also suggested that mobile gaming is dominating the online gaming segment. Among different genres, puzzle games, which are considered games of skill, are attracting the most attention among both casual and heavy gamers. But the micro-transaction or freemium model is still only a fraction of all the revenue in online gaming in India.

“From all of Google Play, take every single game, add up revenue of every single game [in India], but still, it will be a lot less than what one successful game makes in the US. The entire ecosystem is about $100 Mn a year; Candy Crush makes more than that in a month,” — Ankush Gera, Junglee Games

Being challenged by companies having more than $100 Mn capital, double or triple the team size and significant investor backup, Junglee has been up against some big competition.

“No matter how much we grew, we didn’t relax. The last 8-9 months were the hardest as compared to the last 6-7 years, and we have grown the most in this period. But most challenging was being a late entrant and being seen as the new kid on the block,” he added.

Deep Idea Funnel, Open Culture, And More

One crucial factor in the success of Junglee Games is retaining existing users and increasing the sales funnel by converting interested users into onboarded or paying users. An important role here is played by the company’s vision, its process of funnelling ideas as well as the work culture.

The company works on the simple principle that competition forces people to make a better product.

Unlike its competitors which are sitting on a pile of $100 Mn – $200 Mn investment, Junglee is still a seed funded company. “We were already a late entrant, so instead of focusing our energies on raising money, we decided to focus on building our brand organically.”

Instead of running expensive large campaigns, the company started signing partnership agreements and forming tie-ups with companies for growth hacking. In April 2019, Junglee partnered with creative agency INFLUX for its rebranding and adding a logo for its game of skill genre.

Talking about the culture, Gera said that they believe in an open work culture where anyone can share ideas without getting under the hierarchy burden. Any idea which can be backed up some data is put to test, thereby encouraging the new team members to work towards innovation from day one.

Also, an extensive process is followed to funnel these ideas before making it into the final product. “At a given point, 1-4 goals are decided for each executive and team members’ personal goals, as well as available resources, are aligned to these goals–each team member then picks 1-2 KPI’s for each goal to fulfil,” he explained.

For instance, the goal is to improve new user onboarding on a running game. First, both the existing and new employees start playing the game and join the existing virtual teams on the gaming platform. The hypothesis followed here is that for every 100 players, you will first get 10 returning players and then this number will gradually increase.

The results are then discussed with the people from business intelligence and marketing teams. It is then shared with the data science team, which not only assess the technical aspects of the game but also takes the help of a neuroscientist for doing the sentimental analysis of the game, Gera explained.

The neuroscientist guides the development and design team on various elements such as button colours, fonts and styles which are more likely to attract interest from users. “Even messages like ‘Sorry, you lost the game’ are carefully framed by the data science team. I don’t know any competitor that’s doing that,” he added.

Increasing Investor Interest In Online Gaming In India

With the industry performing well and the success of companies such as Junglee, Dream11 and Nazara, investors are not reluctant to bet. Have a look at these numbers:

• In FY19, the industry generated revenue between $500 Mn – $1 Bn, for a total of $200 Mn funds raised
• The total entry fees across esports and skill gaming are closer to $10 Bn
• From a handful of players in the 2000’s, India has more than 300 online gaming companies at present
• From 20 Mn gamers in 2010, India reached 250 Mn gamers in 2018
• More than 80 gaming companies have their headquarters in Delhi/ NCR and Bengaluru each. (analysed from CrunchBase data)
• Only 10% of companies are at a late stage, while approx 18.5% of companies are at the seed stage. This shows that there lies a large scope of growth in the Indian online gaming industry. (analysed from CrunchBase data)

The investor interest in the Indian skill gaming industry is largely due to the fact that it’s growing at a 100% YoY, at a fairly large scale. In the last 5-6 years, the skill gaming industry has grown from an industry worth $20 Mn to an industry worth $500 Mn. And most of that revenue is driven largely by two games of skill genres — rummy and fantasy games — run by a handful of operators.

According to a 2018 report by Deloitte, the calculated CAGR for the last 3 years for card-based games on the basis of change in revenue is 67.58%, generating a total revenue of about INR 730 Cr in 2016-17. Fantasy games of skill have grown by 199.69% generating a total revenue of about INR 67 Cr in 2016-17.

New Era Of Online Gaming In India

If the period from 2013 to 2018 was all about strengthening the roots, creating a positioning, and reaching users, the next few years will see the online gaming market entering a new era.

Now, there is no dearth of mobile data or cheap smartphones, and digital payments adoption has also grown. Over the last two years, the number of internet subscribers has grown from 368 Mn in September 2016 to 560 Mn in September 2018. Overall, the Indian gaming industry is projected to become a $1 Bn market by 2020 with 700 Mn mobile users.

India’s large youth population, its rising GDP and per capita income overall, and the increasing disposable income among the core target audience for gaming companies (18-34), mean there’s a big market for gaming startups. When you consider that most of these games are built for mobile, then India is well placed to capitalise on the growth thanks to rising number of smartphone subscribers.

The Indian online gaming market is far from saturation. There’s a lot of room for large players looking to capitalise on this opportunity. Players like BookMyShow, Paytm have already shown their inclination here. Gamification is already an area of innovation among education and edtech startups, so there’s familiarity with the concept of games improving skills or teaching something. .

And there are signs that the market will change dramatically in the future. With uncertainty about the future of freemium or pay-to-play model for non-skill based games, those who have invested heavily in that model, are likely to be part of an M&A wave in the gaming market. So far, IndiaGames is the only company which received a $80 Mn-$100 Mn exit in 2011 with its acquisition by Disney. Nazara is planning for an IPO, but still, the road is long.

Overall, the online gaming industry that was pegged at INR 2,000 Cr in FY14 grew 2x to reach INR 4,400 Cr in FY18. The revenue expected to clip at 22% CAGR from FY18-FY23 to touch INR 11,900 Cr, a KPMG report said.

Despite all that growth, among all the genres, skill-gaming is by far the most successful in terms of monetisation. “I think if you look at the top two or three operators —  us and some of the ones that actually do have had success in social games — they’re all trying to make a jump to games of skill because of the flat growth,” Gera said, about the lack of revenue in other games.

Gera believes that only a handful of companies have been able to hit the global level, because of the flat growth in non-ad revenue. However, there are now more than 300 operators in the gaming startup space. “Thus, in the long run, the consolidation is inevitable. It’s more like an iceberg and we are at the tip of it.”

The post With $600 Mn GTV And 20 Mn Users, Junglee Games Gears Up For The Unicorn Status appeared first on Inc42 Media.

While everyone calls out to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for any and every current issue, Bengaluru-based online sleep solutions startup —Wakefit, founded by Ankit Garg and Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, took it upon themselves to offer him some much needed comfort.  Taking PM Modi’s extensive travel and busy schedule into account, the startup launched an online campaign — OneIndiaOneWakefit in 2017, which invited ideas from across the country on how to enhance oneness amongst Indians.

The campaign aimed to show solidarity to the ‘unity in diversity’ concept and was met with an overwhelming response of over 80K reach across the website and social platforms and catalysed more than 500 ideas. The best fifty were sent to the PM with Wakefit’s signature memory foam mattress to help him sleep better. “The campaign was a subliminal attempt at conveying how one mattress can suit every Indian.’’

While the campaign garnered nation-wide interest, it is just one among a panoply of conversations the startup is sparking to help people realise the importance of sleep. Wakefit, both in its ideology and functioning, helps Indians improve their quality of sleep. The startup conducts extensive research on the science of sleep and manufactures a range of products to enhance people’s sleep and posture related needs, such as mattresses, pillows, bed sheets, neck-pillows, comforters, back cushions, etc.

The Changing Sleep Patterns Of Today

Expecting people to change their lifestyles and adhere to the age-old saying ‘early to bed, and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise’ might be expecting too much in the modern era where sleep patterns are changing drastically.

One look at ‘The Great Indian Sleep Scorecard (GISS) 2018’ by Wakefit, makes one wake up to the realities of shifting sleep patterns in India today.

While the recommended number of hours for a good night’s sleep is 8 hours, GISS 2018 suggests that 31% of the people surveyed get less than 7 hours of sleep per day. The survey also shows that 80% respondents feel sleepy at work 1-3 times a week, and 48% feel they have back problems. This, can be attributed to people going to war against sleep with their army of mobile phones, emails, chat windows and social feeds.

The pace at which our lives function today is only likely to accelerate and in this context, it is important to make the best use of the hours of sleep available to people. To address this need gap, Wakefit was started with the purpose of providing people quality sleep products at affordable prices.

The company’s understanding of the sleep solutions industry has allowed it to create limited SKUs that includes two mattress types and one composition for all other bedding essentials in its portfolio, while addressing the needs of the customer. This is undertaken by setting up a state-of-the-art production unit in Bengaluru and using the research insights to produce high quality products. The first-mover advantage as an online direct-to-consumer sleep solutions startup is making Wakefit’s dream of evangelising sleep, turn into reality for a billion Indians.

Bringing NASA’s Tech To All & Sundry

In an effort to make the best of technology from across the globe available to the average Indian customer, Wakefit has introduced memory foam — the same material NASA introduced to provide cushioning for both its passengers and pilots — at an economical cost. The durability and comfort of memory foam is enhanced by using temperature measurement and pressure mapping technology. The memory foam mattress also uses a layer of open cell foam, named CoolFit technology, that enables breathability so the body can remain cool even during summers.

“This memory foam technology has helped us in creating our flagship mattress, which is suitable for all body types and is built keeping in mind the optimal distribution of pressure and weight.” says Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, co-founder of Wakefit. “We believe that everyone in India, right from someone who owns an Audi to someone who owns a bicycle should be able to afford a Wakefit mattress,” he added. And the company is surely heading towards achieving that, having clocked in sales of 3.5 lakh products in just three years.

The company is targeting households starting with a monthly income of INR 30K ($422), and is offering high-end memory foam mattresses that were once available between a range of INR 40K to 2L at an affordable range between INR 5.5K to INR 25K.

10 Prototypes, 100 Homes: Wakefit’s Initial Days Focused on Understanding the Customer

Mattress and other sleep products have traditionally been a touch-and-feel category, given the high costs of items and the personal nature of the product usage. Convincing customers that Wakefit is a trusted brand and that they could safely spend their money and be assured of receiving a cutting-edge product was the biggest challenge in the initial days of Wakefit’s journey. “Customers were worried, and rightly so, that the product may be spurious or adulterated or it may not last for long,” says Chaitanya.

Hence, the early days at Wakefit went into trying out six-to-ten different prototypes, visiting over ‘100 customer homes’ and understanding their needs as well as concerns. The startup believes that good things start at home and to abide by this sentiment, they give out mattresses and other products to their own employees for trial and feedback. Ultimately this extensive focus on individuals is what has paid off by allowing the company to generate a daily traffic of over 11,000 on their website, thus facilitating sales.

The website offers a 100-day trial and return policy and a 20 year warranty on its mattresses for customers, along with a no-cost EMI option for all the products in its portfolio.

“A lot of our effort went into educating customers on the science of sleep and how the product has been innovated from the ground up. We have even bundled up mattresses in our cars and gone personally for a delivery. This has resulted in an invaluable learning that gave us a head-start for our R&D,” says Ankit.

How Is This Industry Getting Disrupted?

The sleep products market in India is very large – in fact, the mattress market alone is expected to touch INR 14,000 crore by 2021 according to reports. The entry of online startups such as Mattress Box, Sunday Rest, Wink & Nod  in the segment, and the rise in aspirations and awareness around sleep has fuelled the demand of the industry making the segment opportune.

With a market that is ripe and with access to products being just a click away, the snooze shop looks crowded. Will Wakefit be able to continue its REM (Rapid Eye Movement) on identifying newer ways to offer unique products to a billion Indians and thus stay ahead on the innovation curve?

“We believe in the strong dictum of listening to customers, and understanding their stated and latent needs equally. This obsession of keeping customers happy has enabled the company to be loved by a large base of over 2 lakh satisfied customers,” says Ankit.

With an increase in digitisation leading to people spending more time on smart devices, the Indian sleep patterns will continue to change. But with change, comes the need to pause and analyse nuances around the science of sleep.

Come March 15, people will be celebrating ‘World Sleep Day.’ While sleeping early and getting the right amount of sleep is a lifestyle compromise that we might not always be willing to make, the quality of sleep is definitely something we can improve. And making the right choice of sleep products is a sure shot way of getting a good snooze!

The post How Sequoia Backed Wakefit Is Using Data & Technology To Democratise Sleep For Indians appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The period between 2012-2013 was a turning point for Indian online gaming industry in many ways.

It was in 2012 when gaming startups such as Nazara Technologies, Octro, Dream 11 and 99 Games were getting ready to raise their Series A and above funding. Being the first movers, these players already had a vision for the future of gaming in India. But the prevalent macro factors at the time, such as lower internet speeds and relatively slower smartphone adoption compared to now, were still a challenge. Naturally, investors were sceptical about a bet on gaming.

At the same time, the skill gaming vs gambling debate was also being played out between online gaming companies and the Indian legal system.

These entry barriers should have typically scared off new players too. But not Ankush Gera, who jumped into the deep end with his startup Junglee Games in January 2012.

“When you are in business for 6-8 years, you get time to mature your processes, hire a good team, and lay the groundwork for future scale. So we were up against companies who had this kind of leverage while we were just getting started. In fact, building a gaming studio was an alpha product for us,” Gera told Inc42.

Fast forward to 2019, with more than 20 Mn users in 7 countries, Junglee Games has doubled its revenue and headcount every year since its launch. It claims a Y-O-Y growth of 80% to 100%. In FY19-20, the company will see $600 Mn in entry fees on its platform. Junglee is targetting 40-50 Mn active users by the end of this financial year.

“Despite being a late entrant, we are the fastest ones to have a sizable market share on a shoestring budget. This speaks for how sustainable our business model is,” Gera added.

From Advertising To Gaming

Junglee Games had its origin in San Francisco, where Gera has been living for almost 25 years. Prior to founding Junglee Games, Gera ran a digital advertising agency — Monsoon — for almost 10 years which got acquired by Capital One in July 2015. The company boasted clients such as Yammer, Zazzle, TOMS, HP, among other Fortune 100 companies and primarily helped these brands launch their mobile experiences.

“It was at this point I realised that I can make one of my own products,” he added.

While the logical extension might have been an ecommerce, travel or SaaS business, but, Gera found himself to be just a common consumer there. Thus, he decided to follow his passion for gaming and started working on a side project, Junglee Games.

“I was first drawn to games like poker, rummy, sports tournament in the offline world during my college days, not as a fun activity but a way to challenge my mind. Online gaming came in around the 2000s and after selling Monsoon, I couldn’t stop myself from following my love to challenge myself,” Gera said.

Once a proof of concept was ready and piloted in San Francisco, Gera launched Junglee Games in India in August 2012.

In 2015, the Supreme Court cleared the guidelines for gaming and legalised skill-based real money gaming in India.

Gera noted that the ruling gave his company more clarity to go ahead and achieve goals. Gera talked with pride about his team and partners which includes former executives from Monsoon, among a total of about 200 employees. He believes that the most challenging part of starting up is to align the leadership team and that it can take a startup its whole life setting this foundation, but once it’s done, the magic happens.

“It’s almost like a marriage. We lost our last company twice and were on the back foot every time. Situations like these can either split your partner or make you stronger. We got the latter, in our case with Junglee Games,” he added.

Games of Skill Rake In The Moolah

Junglee has so far launched four games in categories such as fantasy sports (Howzat), social (Eatme.io, Junglee Teenpatti) and skill (JungleeRummy). Gera admitted that while they are able to monetise from all avenues, 90% of the revenue comes from skill-based games. This is revenue from daily tournaments hosted on the Junglee platform, where users play for small service fees and earn cash prizes as rewards for winning.

A “game of skill” is one where the element of chance cannot be entirely ruled out, but it is the element of skill on the part of the participants that play a dominant role in determining the outcome of the game.

While casino and sports gambling is banned in many parts of India, Section 12 of the Public Gambling Act exempts games of skill from the penal provisions against gambling. Apart from the top-notch players, others active in this segment are Funearn, Ace2Three, RummyCircle, Zynga, Innopark India (Classic Rummy), Loco by PocketAces, MPL, Skill4fun and BrainBaazi among others.

When asked what works best in the Indian market among models such as freemium, ad-based or micro-transactions, Gera said that it all depends on the nature of the game and whether it falls in the social gaming or games of skill genre.

Freemium is yet to catch up in India. But I’ll be really surprised if it doesn’t catch up soon.

The three key segments of online gaming are – real money games (RMG), mobile-centric/casual games and e-sports. Within the RMG genre, you will find classification such as rummy, poker, daily fantasy sports and quizzing. While single player, downloadable and casual games such as Ludo or Subway Surfer are pretty much ad-based, social games such as Farmville or PUBG will be more inclined towards micro-transactions.

A recent study by KPMG also suggested that mobile gaming is dominating the online gaming segment. Among different genres, puzzle games, which are considered games of skill, are attracting the most attention among both casual and heavy gamers. But the micro-transaction or freemium model is still only a fraction of all the revenue in online gaming in India.

“From all of Google Play, take every single game, add up revenue of every single game [in India], but still, it will be a lot less than what one successful game makes in the US. The entire ecosystem is about $100 Mn a year; Candy Crush makes more than that in a month,” — Ankush Gera, Junglee Games

Being challenged by companies having more than $100 Mn capital, double or triple the team size and significant investor backup, Junglee has been up against some big competition.

“No matter how much we grew, we didn’t relax. The last 8-9 months were the hardest as compared to the last 6-7 years, and we have grown the most in this period. But most challenging was being a late entrant and being seen as the new kid on the block,” he added.

Deep Idea Funnel, Open Culture, And More

One crucial factor in the success of Junglee Games is retaining existing users and increasing the sales funnel by converting interested users into onboarded or paying users. An important role here is played by the company’s vision, its process of funnelling ideas as well as the work culture.

The company works on the simple principle that competition forces people to make a better product.

Unlike its competitors which are sitting on a pile of $100 Mn – $200 Mn investment, Junglee is still a seed funded company. “We were already a late entrant, so instead of focusing our energies on raising money, we decided to focus on building our brand organically.”

Instead of running expensive large campaigns, the company started signing partnership agreements and forming tie-ups with companies for growth hacking. In April 2019, Junglee partnered with creative agency INFLUX for its rebranding and adding a logo for its game of skill genre.

Talking about the culture, Gera said that they believe in an open work culture where anyone can share ideas without getting under the hierarchy burden. Any idea which can be backed up some data is put to test, thereby encouraging the new team members to work towards innovation from day one.

Also, an extensive process is followed to funnel these ideas before making it into the final product. “At a given point, 1-4 goals are decided for each executive and team members’ personal goals, as well as available resources, are aligned to these goals–each team member then picks 1-2 KPI’s for each goal to fulfil,” he explained.

For instance, the goal is to improve new user onboarding on a running game. First, both the existing and new employees start playing the game and join the existing virtual teams on the gaming platform. The hypothesis followed here is that for every 100 players, you will first get 10 returning players and then this number will gradually increase.

The results are then discussed with the people from business intelligence and marketing teams. It is then shared with the data science team, which not only assess the technical aspects of the game but also takes the help of a neuroscientist for doing the sentimental analysis of the game, Gera explained.

The neuroscientist guides the development and design team on various elements such as button colours, fonts and styles which are more likely to attract interest from users. “Even messages like ‘Sorry, you lost the game’ are carefully framed by the data science team. I don’t know any competitor that’s doing that,” he added.

Increasing Investor Interest In Online Gaming In India

With the industry performing well and the success of companies such as Junglee, Dream11 and Nazara, investors are not reluctant to bet. Have a look at these numbers:

• In FY19, the industry generated revenue between $500 Mn – $1 Bn, for a total of $200 Mn funds raised
• The total entry fees across esports and skill gaming are closer to $10 Bn
• From a handful of players in the 2000’s, India has more than 300 online gaming companies at present
• From 20 Mn gamers in 2010, India reached 250 Mn gamers in 2018
• More than 80 gaming companies have their headquarters in Delhi/ NCR and Bengaluru each. (analysed from CrunchBase data)
• Only 10% of companies are at a late stage, while approx 18.5% of companies are at the seed stage. This shows that there lies a large scope of growth in the Indian online gaming industry. (analysed from CrunchBase data)

The investor interest in the Indian skill gaming industry is largely due to the fact that it’s growing at a 100% YoY, at a fairly large scale. In the last 5-6 years, the skill gaming industry has grown from an industry worth $20 Mn to an industry worth $500 Mn. And most of that revenue is driven largely by two games of skill genres — rummy and fantasy games — run by a handful of operators.

According to a 2018 report by Deloitte, the calculated CAGR for the last 3 years for card-based games on the basis of change in revenue is 67.58%, generating a total revenue of about INR 730 Cr in 2016-17. Fantasy games of skill have grown by 199.69% generating a total revenue of about INR 67 Cr in 2016-17.

New Era Of Online Gaming In India

If the period from 2013 to 2018 was all about strengthening the roots, creating a positioning, and reaching users, the next few years will see the online gaming market entering a new era.

Now, there is no dearth of mobile data or cheap smartphones, and digital payments adoption has also grown. Over the last two years, the number of internet subscribers has grown from 368 Mn in September 2016 to 560 Mn in September 2018. Overall, the Indian gaming industry is projected to become a $1 Bn market by 2020 with 700 Mn mobile users.

India’s large youth population, its rising GDP and per capita income overall, and the increasing disposable income among the core target audience for gaming companies (18-34), mean there’s a big market for gaming startups. When you consider that most of these games are built for mobile, then India is well placed to capitalise on the growth thanks to rising number of smartphone subscribers.

The Indian online gaming market is far from saturation. There’s a lot of room for large players looking to capitalise on this opportunity. Players like BookMyShow, Paytm have already shown their inclination here. Gamification is already an area of innovation among education and edtech startups, so there’s familiarity with the concept of games improving skills or teaching something. .

And there are signs that the market will change dramatically in the future. With uncertainty about the future of freemium or pay-to-play model for non-skill based games, those who have invested heavily in that model, are likely to be part of an M&A wave in the gaming market. So far, IndiaGames is the only company which received a $80 Mn-$100 Mn exit in 2011 with its acquisition by Disney. Nazara is planning for an IPO, but still, the road is long.

Overall, the online gaming industry that was pegged at INR 2,000 Cr in FY14 grew 2x to reach INR 4,400 Cr in FY18. The revenue expected to clip at 22% CAGR from FY18-FY23 to touch INR 11,900 Cr, a KPMG report said.

Despite all that growth, among all the genres, skill-gaming is by far the most successful in terms of monetisation. “I think if you look at the top two or three operators —  us and some of the ones that actually do have had success in social games — they’re all trying to make a jump to games of skill because of the flat growth,” Gera said, about the lack of revenue in other games.

Gera believes that only a handful of companies have been able to hit the global level, because of the flat growth in non-ad revenue. However, there are now more than 300 operators in the gaming startup space. “Thus, in the long run, the consolidation is inevitable. It’s more like an iceberg and we are at the tip of it.”

The post With $600 Mn GTV And 20 Mn Users, Junglee Games Gears Up For The Unicorn Status appeared first on Inc42 Media.

“It took us almost two years and three pivots to finally launch our product” – Jignesh Talasila, cofounder, Loop Reality

Having a vision is one thing but having the conviction to change it to match the ground reality is the real test of an entrepreneur. Talasila started with the vision of creating a world-class 24×7 global education lab using VR applications and devices but had to pivot to the fitness industry and then finally into the $750 Mn worth Indian talent assessment services market. Globally, this market is even bigger with a size of $4 Bn, growing at a rate of 10%-15% Y-o-Y.

Talasila with his three cofounders — Sai Suraj Vanka, Ravi Theja Muthu and Karthik KV, had to be alert all through this time and make several tough decisions over the three years for their VR startup Loop Reality. Startups are usually stuck in the dilemma of whether to adopt a B2C or B2B or B2B2C model, and Loop Reality also went through this phase.

Talasila knew that the aim was to use VR technology to fill the existing gaps in the education sector. “That’s [Education] where we come from and this became the foundation stone for Loop Reality and our flagship product PerspectAI, ending up with B2B talent assessment model for enterprises,” begins Talasila.

While Talasila and Vanka had earlier cofounded edtech startup Dirt9 Education, the two other cofounders had worked in education brands like XSeed Education, Xamcheck, Helios Training & Consulting and more. “As high-end VR devices like Oculus Rift and HTC Vive were launched for consumer use, for the first time globally, all we knew the timing could not be more perfect for us,” Talasila said.

It’s been nearly a year since the Hyderabad-based company pivoted to a talent assessment service, and it is up against established HRTech players such as Mettl-Mercer, Wheebox, among others. Loop Reality offers an AI-based tool to assess and quantify human potential at modern workplaces, all by using games and simulations on VR and mobile platforms.

Part of T-Hub, Telangana’s state-back incubator, and Facebook’s India Innovation Hub Accelerator Program, Loop Reality, claims a monthly growth rate of 10-15% and counts Maruti Suzuki, Virtusa, Angel Broking, Saint Gobain, KCP Cements among its clients. The company also counts Mettl’s (acquired by Mercer in October 2018) early backer and Chief of Psychology Dr Puranjaya Singh as a strategic investor and Head of Strategy.

Three Great Ideas But No Success

Loop Reality was initially started as a VR-based K-12 education lab. However, the founders realised that they need original educational content and content creation at this scale is a costly affair. At this time, VR device would hit stores with MRPs in the range of INR 80K – INR 90K, which drove up Loop Reality’s VR-education kit price to INR 2 Lakh – INR 3 Lakh.

“We tried getting external funding but were not successful, so the idea was dropped,” recalled Talasila.

That’s when Loop Reality moved towards creating VR content for the automation industry. While they saw initial success and also were able to convince a company to help them create a proof of concept, however, they were not able to commercialise it.

“We waited out the first two months, but then we knew that we are on our own again. At the same time, the cost of VR devices started coming down, so we again shifted our focus to consumers,” he added.

To survive the rough weather, Loop Reality’s team started taking side projects building VR PoCs for enterprises, especially for L&D needs to keep the company running. During one such side project, they realised that gyms have a problem engaging customers. “People Pay for the gyms but rarely uses because of lack of personal attention and engagement. We thus decided to look at VR for Fitness,” he added.

Now, Loop Reality was incorporating their VR hardware into an exercising bicycle and a wearable prototype, named LoopFit. The idea was to turn cycling into a gaming zone where users could cycle with their friends in a VR environment and could compete at different levels and different environments.

The response received was phenomenal. Not only did they get global media coverage but also took their product on a showcase tour around India, in Silicon Valley and Europe.

However, they realised they would need external funding of roughly INR 2 Cr – INR 3 Cr to bring the first 100 pieces to market. And thus, they had to hit the pause button here as well.

“In 6 months, we talked to 55 investors, but VR’s low popularity in India and absence of success stories in the fitness segment made it a risky bet for them. Though a few international investors were interested, we would have had to move our base to their country. With already limited resources and without a proper commitment, it was not a wise decision for us,” reminisced Talasila.

The Ray Of Hope

These failures took a heavy toll on the Loop Reality team, admitted Talasila. “That’s when we met one of our mentors, Abhay Deshpandey who asked us the fundamental question — What problem did you want to solve initially? And as we pondered on it, everything started coming into place.”

That was August 2017 when VR was hitting mainstream and prices had fallen to around INR 25K-INR 30K per unit. But B2C VR education was still not an option as a model like BYJU’S required a lot of capital to start and scale. Talasila focused on three keywords — Enterprise, VR and Education.

As per a World Economic Forum report, by 2020 the most in-demand skills will include complex problem-solving, people management, emotional intelligence and cognitive flexibility, among others. However, Loop Reality found that most of these skills could not be easily measured in a paper-pen test. The problem is especially apparent when administering these tests to tech-savvy candidates who showed better engagement when using technology.

“VR and education is a good model to help companies get successful recruitments and groom the successive leaders in their organisation. This time, we didn’t have the option to fail,” said Talasila.

The VR Opportunity In The Indian Talent Assessment Market

The two fundamental areas of HR industry are diagnostics and development. While diagnostics deal with understanding whether a candidate is a right fit for an organisation, the development aspect is about upskilling internal leaders and top performers with learning programs and ancillary training.

One of the common issues in hiring is candidates not understanding the role they are applying for. Often, this is the case with early-stage workers or entry-level positions. Standardised video interviews fall short in understanding the abilities of the candidate, and thereby can create false positives, or are even prone to bias for a particular type of candidate, rather than the most suitable fit.

At this point, India already had edtech players such as Udemy, upGrad, Unacademy to upskill professionals, but players in talent assessment space were only just scratching the surface. “We decided to keep ourselves focused on diagnostics for a start with standard content, which is applicable to most industries and multiple job roles, and create a differentiation here with VR and games,” he said.

“When we started with VR in candidate assessment in India, this was entirely a new segment. With the help of our mentor, we got a one-year runway with INR 1.2 Cr angel funding in November 2017 at a valuation of $1 Mn. We finally got our much-awaited start,” said Talasila.

When you look outside India, VR-based talent assessment is not a new concept. Globally companies such as KFC, Google, Walmart, and even the US Navy are using virtual reality to help assess their candidates, explain the role and to design training modules for existing employees. Additionally, HRtech companies such as Capp, Actiview, Immersive, STRIVR are increasing the penetration of VR assessment tools in these markets.

In India, however, it is yet to take off. India-based HRtech companies such as Monjin, Wheebox, Centum Learning, Interview Mocha, HackerRank, are largely using social media monitoring, video interviews, skill tests and remote 15-20 minutes online Q&A-based tests to assess candidates.

Other HRtech companies in India are utilising the cloud for gamified assessments. For instance, Talview offers virtual machine-based simulations, while HireVue uses gaming-based cognitive assessments integrated into a video interview panel shared with both the company and the candidate during the assessment process.

Then there is Pymetrics which offers neuroscience and AI-based games for assessment at an early stage of the recruitment, while another company Vervoe provides a library of structured assessments from experts for different industries.

The Long Road To PerspectAI

The Loop Reality team launched the official website of PerspectAI in April 2019. Even though the PoC was ready in February 2018, the team of 11 took more than a year to work with more than 20 companies in different industries and build the solution around specific enterprise needs.

Taking a cue from its global counterparts, Loop Reality started their search for psychology experts and professors who could create and administer content capable of assessing the cognitive abilities of a candidate. In the next three months, they onboarded PHD holders and postgraduates from universities such as Oxford and Cambridge.

Finally, in July 2018, Loop Reality launched its product officially and started reaching out to enterprises. After months of struggling to land big clients, Loop Reality signed up global IT company Virtusa.

“This was a turning point for us. We soon signed Maruti Suzuki and Angel Broking and got in talks with firms like Accenture,” he said.

At this point, the company was working on a pay per candidate per assessment basis, charging between INR 799 and INR 1499. It also started receiving orders for enterprise bulk assessment for 20K – 30K candidates. The company also got a query for campus recruitments.

Campus recruitments are usually a one-day affair and involve 100-200 candidates at least. This prompted Loop Reality to add a mobile app solution similar to global peers using games and simulations along with an AI-based video interview session

How PerspectAI Delivers Value To Organisations?

Loop Reality’s PerspectAI works on predictive analysis methodology. During the interview, the candidate is exposed to immersive VR-based assessment tests, which last for up to 20 minutes. The test gauges the candidate’s cognitive skills, personality fit and culture fit through contextual simulations, and non-contextual games.

Each move the candidate makes (based on what they see, point out or say) is captured and put through deep learning analysis and advanced behaviour monitoring techniques using their proprietary methodology called ” Reactive Index”

The assessment generates behavioral heat maps based on VR simulations, where the density of values is represented as various colors. When this heatmap is overlaid on a 3D model, it provides Loop Reality with spatial information about which behavioural traits have a higher density in a candidate.

Heatmaps are also a lot more visual than standard analytics reports, which make them easier to analyse at a glance. These heat maps allow PerspectAI to understand how a candidate has performed in a given simulation on multiple data points.

When it comes to the scoring, the PerspectAI team collects the job description (JD), key performance areas (KPAs) and key result areas (KRAs) parameters from the company for any given role. For every 100 candidates tested, the team selects the top 30 performers and 30 non-performers. “The game scores collected here is termed as Potential Score whereas the KPAs & KRAs help us create a Performace score and this forms the basis of our data for future reference,” he explained.

In remote assessments, a link is shared with the candidates to download the app. It has video interview along with games, where the relevant questions appear on the screen to which the candidate responds looking into the front camera of their mobile phones. Candidates are assessed on the basis of the words used, expressions, voice modulation by AI algorithms to understand their Personality Traits, Subject Knowledge and Soft Skills. With this, a Speech & Facial response profile is built.

While hiring, the scores of candidates are compared against scores of top performing employees. This is used to produce the final score for each candidate. At the same time, PerspectAI creates a success profile for each role in the company for long-term use.

Targeting Better Revenues, Better Growth Rate In FY20

Talasila believes that PerspectAI has gained an edge by bringing together game science, data science and people science. Onboarding psychologists who are traditional in their approach, making them believe in games and creating VR content was a huge challenge for Loop Reality, which it has overcome.

Loop Reality team had an added advantage of knowing the local context which global companies do not. This is the biggest reason why US-based Mercer acquired Indian startup Mettl. The challenge in developing for India also creates a strong entry barrier for global companies, thus putting the likes of Loop Reality at an advantageous position.

With the official launch of PerspectAI, LoopReality is looking to expand its client portfolio and generate larger revenue. It attained operationally breakeven status in January 2019 and is looking to grow at a rate of 15% -20% on a quarterly basis. It is also looking to create a module repository for different domains such as sales, IT&ITeS and industries such as airlines and oil and gas in the near future.

Further, Loop Reality is hoping to take its India experience and use it to expand to Southeast Asia as well as the US markets.

“That’s the beauty of Indian market. This market is so diverse and poses so many challenges in terms of data collection, validation, along with privacy and protection policies. Capturing this market automatically opens a door to the other side,” said Talasila.

The post Loop Reality Fuses VR And Psychology To Solve The Challenge Of Talent Assessment For Recruiters appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Indians have always focussed on the use of natural products for personal care and that is visible from the wide use of Ayurveda, Naturopathy, etc. In fact, the country is credited with being the inventor of shampoos back in the 16th century when people started using natural products like reetha (soap berries), amla (Indian gooseberry), and shikakai (Acacia) to shampoo their hair.

With time and rapid growth of the beauty industry, over the shelf products became the norm. The growing demand has led to the use of quick formulas to produce these products which mostly rely on chemicals such as parabens and phthalates. This has led to a scepticism among people on the ill-effects on the body and environment at large and has turned their eye towards organic products. According to reports, the herbal cosmetic industry in India is expected to grow at 12% annually.

Understanding this trend of the rising demand for organic products, right from personal wellness to eatables, many startups are now catering to this need by developing natural products. One of them is Delhi-based Arata, founded by Dhruv Madhok and Dhruv Bhasin, a startup that produces natural, vegan and chemical-free personal care products for both men and women. Arata was founded in 2018 and has sold over 30,000 products so far.

Arata: Humble Beginnings With A Mother’s Recipe

The idea behind Arata came about during a discussion between the two cofounders at a dinner at Madhok’s home on a cold January evening.

The conversation happened to steer in the direction of the harmful effects of toxic and unsafe hair styling products. Adding to the conversation, Bhasin spoke to Madhok about how his mother had been making a natural hair gel at home by boiling flax seeds, that worked just as well as the other famous brands of the world, without any side-effects and promised to send Madhok a small bottle to try. A few days later, Madhok tried it and loved the product. He instantly called Bhasin and asked to meet for a coffee and 24 months later, the first product was sold on the website of Arata.

Arata means ‘fresh and new’ in Japanese. “We import our key ingredients from Japan and were inspired by the Japanese concept of minimalism, which manifests itself in the ingredients we use — as few as possible, keeping the fillers out. It also manifests in our packaging and branding where we keep clean lines and plenty of negative space,’’ says Bhasin.

In the first year of operations itself, Arata delivered over 25K orders and onboarded investors like DSG Consumer Partners, Utsav Somani (AngelList) and Dr. Rajan Raghavachari (former R&D Director, Unilever U.K.) to scale the business further.

“We had the realisation that every personal care product, barring a few oils, had chemicals in them. Some of these were even known to be carcinogens and were banned in North America and Europe, but were still being widely used in India. From there the vision of an honest personal care company that would offer trustworthy and credible products, made from the highest quality of safe and clean ingredients became a dream for Arata,’’ says Madhok.

The Making Of The Products At Arata

Arata has a full range of personal care products including face washes, lip balms, body washes, shampoos, and conditioners with plans to add more products to the pipeline this year. The startup claims to use 100% nature-derived, plant-based, vegan and chemical-free ingredients to produce these products.

The startup sources its ingredients from countries such as Japan and USA as well as from the organic farms across India. Flax seeds, which is the key ingredient in Arata’s products are sourced from organic farms in Andhra Pradesh and are certified as organic.

The startup works with four cosmetologists and Ayurveda experts to develop new products that can add value to the personal care and wellness routines of its customers.

These experts also help the company in its quest to substitute synthetic products with natural products. The startup has also found the floral-based fragrance and essential oils that swap out synthetic fragrances. In the case of surfactants, it uses coconut-based cleansers and soapnut instead of synthetic ones.

“We do spend a significant amount on not only the actual ingredients and importing them, but also on the research and development and testing involved to ensure that the products work just as well, if not better than, traditional personal care products, all while ensuring that not a single synthetic ingredient finds its way into our products,’’ says Bhasin.

The product samples are first tried by the Arata team and their friends and family. After the feedback, the products are finalised and sent for dermatologist safety testing, stability testing, efficacy testing and more.

“Once all the tests have been cleared, the products are sent for production and if the first batch receives the approval from our quality control team, they are launched in the market,’’ emphasises Madhok.

The Competitive Landscape For Arata

Since Arata uses natural products, the prices are higher than usual products available in stores and online marketplaces which contain some amount of chemicals.

“We continue to keep our products affordable and don’t retail at luxury prices to ensure we can cater to as large a customer base as possible without having them break the bank for high quality, safe and non-toxic wellness products. We believe everyone deserves access to safe and honest personal care,’’ says Madhok.

While there is rising concern around the ingredients used in personal-care products and ethical concerns around their testing, the demand versus supply gap is still huge. The number of buyers compared to suppliers are limited owing to:

• The higher cost of production, a high sale price thus reducing the number of purchases.
• The high cost and difficulty in procuring high quality and clean ingredients in India
• High import duties on imported ingredients
• Time consuming and costly R&D requirements
• Lack of enforcement of safe and clean ingredients in the industry

All these reasons have limited the presence of more players in this segment, giving advantage to Arata. Currently, India has a handful of companies such as Karma Ayurveda, The Moms Co, Omved Therapies, Rustic Art, and Biotique, which are focussed on developing personal care products from natural resources like Arata.

The 12 member team is now working towards launching eight new product lines and may also look at entering the offline market in 2020. While many brands are playing catch up in this sector, Arata’s attention to detail when it comes to ingredients and packaging, their commitment to avoid chemicals is hard to match.

Arata was the gifting partner for Inc42’s Mixer.

The post When A Dinner Conversation Led To The Founding Of A Natural, Vegan-Friendly Startup appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Ideas can strike you at any point. Like at a kid’s birthday party for Smartivity Labs’ Tushar Amin and Apoorv Gupta. The two noticed how even the most expensive toys could not manage to grab the attention of children for more than a few minutes. This got them talking about the need for toys that could offer a more wholesome experience and immersive engagement for children.

Gupta went on to discuss this idea with his IIT-Delhi batchmates Ashwini Kumar and Rajat Jain. Kumar, who also happened to be Gupta’s roommate, liked the idea and so did Jain. Coming from a family that’s involved in the importing and wholesale distribution of toys from China, Jain was well aware of the lacunae in this sector.

After a few months of brainstorming, they decided to take the plunge. In 2015, they came up with Smartivity Labs — a startup that designs STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) educational DIY toys, augmented reality-enabled activities, as well as internet-connected toys.

The Smart Pivot

Before Smartivity Labs, the team had come up with a digital subscription-based startup — Yoohoobox that designed arts and crafts activity kits for 3 to 6-year-olds.

“We consider Yoohoobox as our training school. It taught us the fundamentals of the startup world, the toy industry, and retail industry, and the expectations kids and parents have from a product,” said Amin.

However, due to budget constraints, Yoohoobox could only focus on design, or marketing and customer acquisition. They chose to go with designing and therefore had to abandon the digital subscription business model, for retail or in-store sales.

This time, the team faced the major challenge of convincing toy stores to stock its products. The few retailers who signed up did so under the condition that the team sold the toys themselves. Yoohoobox employees spent a few months standing outside toy stores as sales executives, explaining and trying to sell the products to their key target audience — parents.

While painstaking and cost-intensive, this effort proved to be a blessing in disguise as interacting with parents offered the company valuable customer insights and expectations. Additionally, the experience of working with shop owners and external sales staff taught key brand management techniques to the team.

This helped Yoohoobox pivot to Smartivity Labs.

The post With 3000X Revenue Growth In Three Years, This STEM Toys Startup Could Be India’s Answer To Lego appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Amtrak, the marketing name given to the passenger railroad service run by the National Railroad Passenger Corporation in the US, is one of the most widely-used and busiest transit systems in the country. In 2016, Amtrak was dealing with major issues in relation to the punctuality of its trains. One in five of its trains was running late and Amtrak turned to German tech major Siemens, which installed sensors on locomotives and recorded data about their movements. The sensors helped detect potential issues before they occurred, and reduced train delays by 33% in 2016, compared to the previous year.

While sensors feel like an obvious solution after implementation, companies still need a push when it comes to adopting such new technology. Thanks to Siemens, Amtrak had joined the Industrial Internet Of Things (IIoT) juggernaut. Simply put, IIoT includes connected sensors, devices and gadgets that are ushering in radical changes for businesses, manufacturing units and corporations.

According to a joint report by IAMAI and Deloitte, in India, Industrial IoT will have the lion’s share of the revenue from the overall IoT by 2020. The overall IoT market is projected to grow to $12 Bn by 2020, according to the report, and within the IIoT segment, the energy and utility sector and the industrial manufacturing sector will together account for roughly 43% of this market.

Three friends recognised the massive potential and opportunity in this space in India and decided to build a company around helping the industrial world adopt IoT. Having been in the enterprise technology space and worked for marquee companies such as Persistent Systems, Amazon, BMC Software, and Bladelogic, the trio –  Ranjit Nair, Vinay Nathan, and Yogesh Kulkarni – believed that they had the expertise to build an entrepreneurial venture in the IIoT space. They were not wrong; in 2013, they launched Altizon, an IIoT tech platform.

Building IIoT For India

Based in Pune, Altizon helps enterprises use machine data to help drive manufacturing decisions and improve operational efficiency. The company is also a digital transformation enabler for legacy enterprises and works towards accelerating smart manufacturing initiatives, modernising asset performance management, and adopting new business models for service delivery.

The company does so with the help of its flagship products — Datonis IIoT platform and Datonis Manufacturing Intelligence Suite (MInt). The former facilitates secure connectivity (support for the most common IIoT protocols) and process IoT data at scale with its stream-analytics engine. It provides the ability to analyse and visualise this data in real-time with its Analytics Notebook service. The platform also provides a set of connectors and an API to integrate IoT data into enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and business intelligence systems (BIS) of its partner enterprises.

Datonis Manufacturing Intelligence Suite, relevant for both discrete and process manufacturers is used for measuring productivity, improving quality, enabling product genealogy and part traceability of the company’s manufacturing assets. It provides a set of business value apps, enterprise integrations, and data services for Operational Intelligence.

With the company dealing with such a massive amount of sensitive client data, it has to ensure that its data security infrastructure and protocols are top notch. On being asked as to how Altizon deals with data security, Nathan claims that the product development process follows universally-accepted protocols and security standards. It has established multi-layered security and uses only validated and certified libraries.

“Moreover, our products and solutions are frequently audited by third-party auditors,” he added.

Altizon has partnered with over 35 companies in their specific domain/vertical and has outsourced its support functions such as legal and finance. With a team of about 50 employees operating out of its India (Pune) and North America office, the IIoT startup primarily caters to the automotive, tyre, chemical, FMCG, metal, and energy & utility industries.

Last year, the IIoT company received its fair share of recognition in India, as well as globally. Inc42’s 42Next list recognised Altizon Systems as one of the 42 most innovative Indian startups of 2018.

In 2018, the global research firm Gartner recognised Altizon in its Magic Quadrant for Industrial IoT (IIoT) report. It was one of the 11 companies worldwide to be included in this report.

The Dawn Of Industry 4.0

Digitalisation has entered every aspect of our lives, and the same is true for businesses, especially in manufacturing. This industry is witnessing a significant transformation in the way products are being manufactured, or rather the processes that enable manufacturing. Such is the impact of this digital transformation that it is being called Industry 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution.

We have come a long way from steam and hydropower (first industrial revolution), through the era of assembly-line mass production powered by electricity (second revolution) and then the age of computers, robotics, and automation (third revolution). Now data and machine learning are being used along with computing power to create smart, flexible and efficient manufacturing units, supply chains and distribution models or Industry 4.0.

Primarily, there are nine technological components that form the building blocks of Industry 4.0 — autonomous robots, big data, and analytics, augmented reality (AR), additive manufacturing, cloud computing, cybersecurity, IIoT, horizontal and vertical system integration, and simulation.

IIoT is at the forefront of this new phase in manufacturing. According to IOT Analytics, the number of active IoT devices is expected to grow to 10 Bn by 2020 and 22 Bn by 2025. The global Industrial IoT market is predicted to reach $122 Bn in 2021, registering a CAGR of 7.3% through this period.

A separate report from Assocham-EY says IoT has the potential to reach 2 Bn connections in India, thereby unlocking revenues of $11.1 billion by 2022. It also predicted a trillion-dollar digital economy in India by 2022, which would be key to Industry 4.0.

In the race to digitalise manufacturing, Altizon faces competition from a few domestic players such as EroNkan Technologies and Oizom Instruments. Both these startups raised funding this year. According to Nathan, the company also faces frequent completion from PTC’s ThingWorx (the global tech company’s IIoT platform). But Nathan says Altizon’s comprehensive IIoT product portfolio, global rapid deployment capability, and cloud-agnostic stance (no lock-in with any cloud vendor or infrastructure provider) are the three key differentiators and the company’s competitive edge.

The Indian government is also doing its part to accelerate the adoption of IoT and other Industry 4.0 components and create awareness around best practices. In order to do so, it has partnered with various industry bodies to create a thriving environment and take Indian manufacturing to the next level.

One such national initiative is Smart Automated Manufacturing and Rapid Transformation Hub or SAMARTH Udyog. This Department of Heavy Industries initiative introduces a necessary framework for digitalisation in the manufacturing sector by focusing on awareness of technologies, education and training, and proliferation of Industry 4.0 standards. Under this initiative, four centres have been set up at IIT Delhi, IISc Bangalore, CMTI Bangalore, and C4i4 Lab Pune, which work with manufacturing companies in their region to facilitate early adoption of Industry 4.0 standards. Altizon is a founding member of C4i4.

“We are positive that the adoption rate for Industry 4.0 in India will increase rapidly in coming years and Indian manufacturing will reach to next level,” Vinay Nathan.

Altizon Revenue Roadmap

Altizon works on a SaaS model, offering flexible license-based pricing for entire software usage, for both partners and end users. The company also offers premium consultancy for IoT-readiness assessment or data science expertise.

In fiscal 2018-19, Altizon’s revenue funnel has grown 3x has been registering 2x revenue growth for the past several years, claimed Nathan. It also has secured multi-year contracts with over a dozen global industrial majors.

The company recently raised Series A funding of $7 Mn from the Singapore-based subsidiary of automobile manufacturer TVS Motors to fuel its international expansion and IP development. It also counts The Hive, Wipro Ventures, and Lumis Partners as its investors.

According to Nathan, the reason for choosing Pune as its operating base in India was because the city offers a great platform to interact with manufacturers, test and validate the technology, and build customer traction.

Since its inception, Altizon has worked on over 270 IIoT projects and is currently facilitating the digital transformation journey of over 130 enterprises. In the past two years, it has established its presence in North America and European regions and registered continued growth in APAC regions. It plans to expand its footprint in North America and Europe, this year.

The post How Altizon Is Bringing Data-Driven Smart Manufacturing To India With Its IIoT Platform appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Long before electric vehicles were a thing, India was exploring ways to use compressed natural gas or CNG to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels such as petrol and diesel for vehicular transport.

In 1998, the Supreme Court had directed the government to prioritise use natural fuel to run vehicles which led to the mass conversion of conventional vehicles into CNG-powered vehicles. It issued a directive seeking the conversion of all buses, taxis and three-wheelers to CNG. This gave rise to an altogether new category in India in the form of the CNG retrofitting market.

Two decades later, something similar is happening in India but this time the vehicles are being transformed to run on electrical batteries, eliminating the need for any fuel and reducing vehicular emissions drastically.

This is a big opportunity in India as electric vehicle production is still not scaled up enough to make a deep impact on the market. Besides, electric vehicle parts especially batteries being imported from other countries such as China, draw heavy duty and taxes, which raises the prices of electric vehicles.

Hyderabad-based E-Trio is taking a leaf out of the CNG playbook with a cost-effective retrofitting solution for emobility. The startup provides electric kits to transform conventional cars into EVs.

This solves one of the major pain-points in the EV market i.e. the high cost of ownership of electric vehicles. Recently, a study by Ola’s policy research and social innovation think-tank Ola Mobility Institute said that central government emobility targets for 2030 can only be achieved when the incentive provision goes beyond the purchase cost of electric vehicles. The Total Cost of Ownership or TCO includes the direct and indirect costs of purchasing, running and maintaining the electric vehicle. With these overheads, the cost of ownership is significantly higher for electric vehicles at this point in time, especially as charging infrastructure is not robust.  

E-Trio’s Aim To Make Cars Economical, Eco-Friendly, Efficient

E-Trio was founded in 2016 by Sathya Yalamanchili who launched the company with a vision to accelerate electric mobility growth in India. Instead of manufacturing expensive electric vehicle models, Yalamanchili chose to focus on transforming existing models into electric vehicles, which not only tackles the price problem, but also increases the electric adoption rate among existing vehicle owners.

While on a visit to China, Yalamanchili noticed the growing number of electric vehicles in the country. This inspired him to foray into the emobility segment and solve the problem for India in a smarter way.

E-Trio’s solution is a  battery-powered electric kit called EV-180, which was first developed in collaboration with engineers in China. The electric kit was designed and engineered for sedans primarily.

Yalamanchili claimed that any car can be converted into electric one in approximately 48 hours using the EV-180.

“Trying to build an electric car company is not that easy. It requires a lot of time and money. This is a smarter way to enter the industry. At a time when India is slowly moving towards emobility, retrofitting existing cars is a smarter route,” said Yalamanchili.

In 2018, E-Trio also became the first company to be certified by Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI). In November last year, ARAI approved the startup’s plans to install EV kits in Maruti Suzuki Alto and Wagon R hatchbacks.

While speaking with Inc42, Yalamanchili explained that the electric kit has been further developed, localised after the initial development in China and that the company is now seeking more certifications.

Currently, 60% of the components used in its electric kit are imported, while the rest is manufactured in India. The kit’s core component of battery cells is sourced from China while the motor controller is imported from Korea.

Besides retrofitting vehicles with its electric kit, E-Trio also provides logistics services to fleet operators who are looking to move to emobility. The company procures vehicles from automakers, converts them into electric cars and leases them out to fleet operators. As of now, the company is only permitted to transform small passenger cars into electric vehicles.

The company is also looking to enter the ebikes market, which is going through a minor slump currently, to boost EV adoption for short-distance journeys. Yalamanchili said that the electric bike is currently under testing, but didn’t reveal a launch date for it.  

Can E-Trio’s Retrofitting Strategy Drive Emobility?

Currently, electric four-wheelers in the affordable segment are priced between INR 8 Lakh and 10 Lakh, while the cost of premium electric vehicles can go from INR 80 Lakh all the way up to INR 3 Cr.

Given the relatively high cost of ownership, people with existing vehicles either have to sell their old cars or buy new EVs. That’s where retrofitting existing vehicles becomes a smart and cost-effective solution.In contrast to the high prices of vehicles, an E-Trio electric kit is priced between INR 3.5 and 5 Lakh with the batteries accounting for the majority of the production cost. Yalamanchili explained that the price will differ for consumers based on their per-day range requirement in kilometres.   

He added that the company is primarily focussing on the B2B segment for sales, as the kit is currently most feasible for fleet operators who operate vehicles that exceed the 150-kilometre range per day. Currently, E-Trio is working with six fleet operators and employee transportation startups.

E-Trio’s Plans To Scale Up As An OEM

According to Yalamanchili, E-Trio is planning to scale up to become an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) within the electric vehicle space. To achieve this, the bootstrapped startup is now scouting for strategic investors and plans to raise its first round of funding within the next six months in order to scale up.

Geographically, the startup is looking to launch services in Delhi as it believes the market is five times bigger than Hyderabad. “Delhi’s car population is very high and thus retrofitting is not only the right solution but also the need of the hour,” said Yalamanchili.

The founder claimed that E-Trio has converted close to 100 vehicles into electric cars in the last financial year. Now it is aiming to convert around 150 units into EVs in the next two months.

Government Support For Retrofitting

As the Indian government looks to address the gaps in electric mobility through various policies, EV retrofitting could very well become an important point of focus for companies. For instance, the EV retrofitting market is not yet recognised by the government under the Faster Adoption and Manufacture of (Hybrid and) Electric Vehicles (FAME II) policy.

Yalamanchili claimed that E-Trio has also reached out to NITI Aayog over concerns regarding the FAME exclusion, which just goes to show how lacking the existing policy is to help EV penetration.

The matter will come up for discussion with the body after the results of the General Elections are announced and a new government is formed. Till that time, E-Trio is partnering with companies in the EV domain and is enabling two startups in Hyderabad to enter this space and get certified under ARAI’s rules for EV retrofitting. Despite the lack of a clear roadmap for emobility in India, E-Trio’s progress shows that when it comes to innovation, the Indian EV market is alive and well.

With developing electric vehicles in India and the government’s push to help them make affordable by providing incentives, players are coming up and manufacturing their own electric vehicle, retrofitting the existing vehicles may also be an important step to meet the emobility goals. This step will also reduce the number of existing conventional vehicles in India and thereby reducing vehicular emissions.

The post Hyderabad Startup E-Trio Takes The Retrofitting Route To Meet India’s EV Ambitions appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence (AI) as the technology that will revolutionise every aspect of human life. Often AI is used as a catch-all phrase to describe future technology, but its implementation and applications are much more diverse than that.  

The use cases are expanding from customer service support, to online advertising, to smart home applications, self-driving cars, drones and a lot more. Arguably though, some of the most exciting work is being done in healthcare and medicine.

AI is not only helping scientists and researchers find cures through protein-folding to beat cancer or enabling gene editing through CRISPR models, but it’s also supporting the need for early disease detection, which is very crucial in preventive treatment.

In the healthcare market, the commercial use of AI is expected to reach $36.1 Bn by 2025, at a CAGR of 50.2% between 2018 to 2025.

AI is already being used to detect early stage cancer symptoms, more accurately than conventional methods such as human doctors peering over MRI scans and X-Rays, looking for anomalies. Machine-learning models and neural networks can help AI detect such anomalies in a fraction of the time taken by doctors. This is especially crucial in the Indian market, given the breadth of its population and the lack of intensive diagnostics in many remote areas.

With well over a billion people in the country, India has less than 10K radiologists. The skewed radiologists to patient ratio of 1:100K means early and timely disease detection is definitely a major challenge in the Indian healthcare market. Detecting diseases early is not just crucial for cancer and heart diseases, but also for infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, or hidden injuries like brain trauma and other disorders that need medical imaging. .

“The patient outcomes are highly dependent on the time taken to initiate treatment. Patients treated within 90 minutes from stroke caused by traumatic brain injury (TBI) onset have an increased odds of improvement at 24 hours and favorable  three month outcome compared to patients treated later than 90 minutes,” according to Prashant Warier, CEO of Qure.ai, which is working with Indian medical institutions and healthcare professions to enable AI-based disease detection for brain injuries.

Not only can it significantly impact the speed and efficiency of disease detection, it also frees up doctors to perform other interventions, instead of spending weeks studying reports and vitals.  

“In the status quo, the productivity of radiologists is hampered since there’s no way of automated prioritisation which directly affects patient outcomes and mortality,” Warier added.

Mumbai-based Qure.ai aims to fill this gap by applying AI and deep learning technology to studying radiology images for quick and accurate diagnosis of diseases. The startup claims its algorithms can detect clinically-relevant abnormal trauma findings from X-rays, CT Scans and MRIs in a fraction of the time that doctors typically take.

The company claims to have used more than 7 Mn data sets to trained its AI algorithms, and has validated test  results and accuracy of its diagnosis at global institutions such as Stanford University, the Mayo Clinic, and the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Humans Behind The Machine

Incubated and backed with $30 Mn funding from analytics startup Fractal Analytics, Qure.ai was cofounded by AI scientist Pooja Rao and IIT alumni Warier in 2016. Warier, who also works as the Chief Data Scientist at Fractal, had earlier founded AI-powered personalised digital marketing firm Imagna Analytics, which was acquired by Fractal Analytics in 2015.

Warier has a PhD and an MS in Operations Research from Georgia Institute of Technology, while Rao, who heads R&D at Qure.ai, has a PhD from the International Max Planck Research School for Neuroscience focussed on neuroscience and machine learning.

Talking about the story behind the company name, Warier told Inc42, “Qure is a play on the word ‘cure’ and ‘ai’ stands for artificial intelligence. Our goal is to help bring better diagnostics and faster cures to millions of people worldwide through the power of AI and we wanted our name to convey that.”

Qure.ai’s model involves selling its diagnostic tools  directly to hospitals, collaborate with health-centric non-profits, and medical devices companies among others. It claims to have implemented its solutions in more than 12 countries including India, Philippines, US, France, Canada and some parts of Africa.

In India, the company collaborated with NITI Aayog, Piramal Foundation’s Piramal Swasthya initiative, and PATH NGO. Qure.ai’s chest X-rays solution has been deployed in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan where it claims to have reached more than 10K patients.

The chest X-ray tools have also been deployed at select primary health care (PHC) centres in Indian villages to speed up screenings of diseases such as tuberculosis screenings. India has the highest (28 Lakh cases in 2016) number of tuberculosis (TB) cases in the world, accounting for a quarter of the global TB cases.  

“We have seen an increased adoption of our chest x-rays solution in countries with a high incidence of infectious diseases like TB (such as India). While the head CT solution is sought after in the emergency care units of developed countries,” Warier added.  

The company claims that its solution takes less than three minutes to detect an abnormality with a 95% accuracy rate as compared to the traditional timing of at least 20 minutes.

Pay-Per-Use Model Makes It Affordable

With such advanced technology at play, there’s always a worry that AI-based solutions for disease detection and diagnosis would be out of reach for middle and low-income families.

According to Warier, Qure.ai’s  solutions are offered through cloud services with limited local computing requirements and also priced in a manner that “anyone, anywhere in the world can switch on access to quality radiology service via the solution portfolio.”

Qure.ai has chosen a pay-per-use model to monetise its solution, which allows low volume clinics and radiology centers in suburban and rural areas to utilise its solutions in an affordable manner. The company charges between $1- $5 per scan depending on the imaging modality.  

To tackle pain points such as required computing power to run the AI algorithms, Qure.ai has managed to make its solution work on minimal hardware such as a $50 Raspberry Pi hardware kit. The solutions are also integrated with the 10 most-used radiology imaging platforms to ensure easy on-boarding of a radiologist, and wider penetration.

Despite these steps to increase adoption, Warier says the challenges for Qure.ai’s innovation are market resistance and gaining customer or patient trust. “For artificial intelligence to be widely accepted, it is essential that radiologists see the value and has confidence in the algorithm’s diagnosis. Thus, our solutions are far from being a black box, we enable interpretability by letting the user see why and where the AI algorithm has detected an abnormality,”he added.

Future of Healthcare in India

While Qure.ai is an Indian company, globally AI in healthcare is dominated by large conglomerates such as IBM and Google AI.

IBM’s Watson for Health has been using AI to swiftly review and store vast amounts of data such as medical journals, symptoms, case studies, from around the world — further it is not just about storing data, the intelligent product is also able to derive meaning out of this data. Further, Google’s DeepMind Health is also helping health professionals and patients by combining machine learning and systems neuroscience.

Despite the relatively lower prevalence of innovative AI solutions for the Indian market, the healthcare and medtech sector is expected to grow to a $372 Bn industry by 2022. Obviously, this means there’s a largely untapped opportunity for the healthtech startups globally, but as we have seen in other sectors such as ecommerce or ride-hailing or even logistics and delivery, having India-specific solutions or localised offerings will be the key to success.

Internationally, startups such as US-based Face2gene are working to revamp the healthcare sector. Face2gene has created a genetic search and reference application for physicians, which can scan through the images of a patient’s face and detect genetic disorders such as Down’s Syndrome. Another similar product is Belgium-based Diploid’s Moon, which enables early diagnosis of rare diseases.  

According to Inc42 DataLabs estimate, more than 4,800 active healthtech startups are targeting this Indian market. In 2018, there was an overall increase of 45.06% in the total healthcare investments, with overall funding amounting to $504 Mn. But the focus of their efforts has been to improve access to doctors and hospitals and bring cheaper medicines to patients.

Healthtech companies that are using AI for diagnosis and disease detection are a rarity in India. Recently last month, Gurugram-based MyHealthcare had raised $3 Mn as part of its ongoing Series A funding round led by Sixth Sense Ventures. This was closely followed by another healthtech startup mfine which had raised $17.2 Mn in a Series B funding round from SBI Investment, SBI Ven Capital and BEENEXT among others. Another, New Delhi-based startup BeatO had also raised $1.6 Mn Pre-Series A funding round led by Orios Venture Partners this March.

Managing Partner at Orios Venture Partners, Anup Jain told Inc42 that AI in healthcare is helping startups to build a layer of convenience for healthcare management. He predicted that in future multiple use-cases such as pattern-based lifestyle changes, and insurance underwriting, can be built on top of big data which is being collected by existing healthtech services.

Warier also predicted a data-first future. He said ramped-up  adoption of medical devices and tools that continuously monitor and store data from the human body will provide more ways for healthtech companies to solve problems. Using big data, companies could teach AI systems to improve accuracy and the scope of predictions, and expand the use-cases from just disease detection to eventually preempt diseases, and even intervene in lifestyle choices that could eventually lead to harm in the long run.

For Warier and others working to infuse AI with healthcare, there’s no doubt that this technology has made it much easier to get to the root of diseases, without humans doing any of the heavy lifting. “This technology is rapidly breaking down barriers between tasks that require human expertise, and those that can be automated. They have the ability to learn from real-world feedback, and continuously evolve and improve over time,” Warier added.

The post Healthtech Startup Qure.ai Is Using AI To Speed Up Radiology Diagnosis appeared first on Inc42 Media.

“I am the kind of guy who likes to keep his wallet heavy,
It’s like the ATMs and I, are expecting a baby,
Every day I whip, stick it, swipe it, punch it till she’s done,
I know that coz she screamed, “Insufficient funds”
It’s the end of the month!”

These lyrics from Indian stand-up comedian Abish Mathew’s song called ‘End Of The Month’ typify the plight of most young salaried professionals in the country. They can relate to this song, having, at some point in their lives, faced the trepidation of coming across the two dreaded words — insufficient funds — on ATM screens.

The end-of-the-month frugality that ensues can be brutal. A major unexpected expense during this period can prove to be really harrowing. The mere thought of the hassles involved in getting a loan means they cannot even consider it as an option. It’s particularly tough for young professionals fresh out of college, as they don’t have any credit history, which is a key criterion for securing loans.

Tech entrepreneur, and private equity investor Raman Kumar was perceptive enough to recognise this quandary and his venture CASHe is an attempt to solve this problem for the young professionals and working students in India.

Lending Moves To The Hashtag Era

Launched in April 2016, CASHe is an alternative lending platform delivered through an app. It provides unsecured short-term personal loans to young employed professionals based on their social profile, merit, and earning potential. The startup assesses applicants through a proprietary AI-based credit-scoring platform called the Social Loan Quotient (SLQ) which determines creditworthiness by using multiple unique data points based on social and mobile data footprints. On the basis of these parameters, each applicant gets a credit profile.

Kumar began his entrepreneurial journey with CBay Systems (also known as MModal) in 1998. The voice-recognition and healthtech company was sold to One Equity Partners for $1.1 Bn in 2012. Kumar then founded Aeries Technology Group, which offers artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and ERP solutions to enterprise clients.

While not a non-banking finance company (NBFC) itself, the CASHe app is powered by RBI-registered NBFC Bhanix Finance and Investment Limited, Kumar told Inc42.

Traditionally, for loan approvals, banks screen applicants using a credit information report (CIR) and use CIBIL scores to determine creditworthiness. Ranging between 300-900, the CIBIL score is a three-digit numeric summary of one’s credit history found in the CIBIL Report. The CIR, generated by a credit bureau, is a month-on-month record of all EMI and/or credit card payments from various accounts.

However, it does not contain details pertaining to savings, investments, or fixed deposits. TransUnion CIBIL Limited, Equifax, Experian, and Highmark are the four credit bureaus operating in India, with TransUnion CIBIL being the most popular one.

Scores above 700 are generally considered good, thereby indicating that the applicant has a healthy credit history. However, many lending startups don’t rely on CIBIL scores as they are targetting a market which may not have a good credit history if any at all. CASHe too follows the same model and relies on the SLQ rating to approve loans. The major differentiation for CASHe is that it uses social media data, which other lending startups may not always look at.

The Mad Dash For Digital Cash

It’s no surprise that NBFCs and credit companies are lining up to bring lending products to India. According to a recent Boston Consulting Group report, the four key factors that are driving the exponential growth in digital lending in India include — increasingly digital-savvy consumers, big data, a more enabling regulatory environment, and innovation in terms of models adopted by fintech players.

Over the next five years, digital lending in India is set to become a $1 Tn market. The total funding in digital lending startups between 2014-2018 has been $1.58 Bn across 138 deals, according to Inc42 DataLabs. This growth is spurred on by the increasing penetration of lending services to rural users in India.

CASHe is not the only unconventional lending startup in the market. Many others have achieved similar or more impressive growth especially as India’s lending landscape has been totally transformed by digital lending. Startups which have an early lead in the race include Pune-based EarlySalary, LendingKart, Mumbai startup PaySense, and Bengaluru-based LoanTap and MoneyTap. MobiKwik has also entered the arena and is gathering momentum.

Today, lending startups need to differentiate themselves from the crowd. According to Kumar, the key distinction for CASHe is its automated credit rating mechanism, SLQ which helps the startup bring down the turnaround time for loan disbursal while keeping delinquencies low.

Technology and payment standards have been the key factors in bringing startups such as CASHe into the lending market, Kumar added. “Digital lending companies have now set up open architecture layers such as Aadhaar, UPI and Bharat Bill Payment Systems; which will go a long way in boosting digital and data-enabled lending.”

Talking about the funding history for CASHe, Kumar said, “I personally invested $5 Mn through my group companies and then raised $3.8 Mn in Series A from an investor group led by Mathew Cyriac, senior MD at Blackstone India. Besides this, we have raised debt from Kotak Bank and are actively engaged with other lender groups.”

In October 2017, CASHe raised about $3.07 Mn (INR 20 Cr) in debt funding from IFMR Capital in its NBFC company, Bhanix Finance and Investment.

The CASHe Process

CASHe’s core audience is the young professionals set within the age group of 22-35 years, and it offers loans ranging from INR 10K to INR 300K with 15, 30, 90, 180 and 365-day repayment terms.

Quite unlike a bank loan, the CASHe process begins when the user gives the company access to their social media accounts. They also have to fill in basic details about themselves, and upload documentation such as ID proofs, their salary slips, bank statement, and a selfie, using the app.

Once registered, the user’s maximum eligible loan amount and an SLQ score are generated. According to the company, once a loan is approved, the amount is credited within minutes. However, CASHe has set a limit of INR 19,500 for the loan transfers to Paytm account.

In order to be eligible for a loan from CASHe, the applicant has to earn at least INR 15K per month. The maximum loan sanctionable for a tenure of 15 days is set at 30% of the applicant’s net monthly salary; not exceeding INR 50K.

The minimum salary criterion leaves out a chunk of the young professionals market, who may also be using social media but do not earn up to Rs 15K per month or have a fluctuating income stream such as for those working in the gig economy, or for freelance workers.

A flat interest rate of 1.75 and 3.25% is charged for 15 and 30-day loans, respectively. CASHe allows prepayment of the loan, however, the company deducts the interest payments at the time of disbursement, and the same does not get reduced/reimbursed during prepayments.

Customers who default on their payments are sent reminders following which, the company involves its loan recovery team to initiate calls and follow up emails.

CASHe’s Approach Shows Traction

CASHe currently has a 138-member team spread across two operating centres in Mumbai and Hyderabad, ensure the company operates smoothly and efficiently.

“As this is a technology-led company with most of the underwriting done by our AI platform, we are not looking to spike our headcount drastically. However, we are looking to hire more resources to strengthen our technology team by recruiting resources for AI, data analytics and blockchain,” said Kumar. He added the company is looking to integrate distributed ledger and blockchain infrastructure into the lending platform to make it more transparent.

Since its inception, CASHe has disbursed a total of about 3 Lakh loans cumulatively to over 180K customers, amounting to about INR 875 Cr with an average daily disbursal of INR 2 Cr. For this fiscal year, it is aiming to cross the INR 1,000 Cr mark and 5 Mn app downloads from the current 2.2 Mn.

In the last financial year, CASHe disbursed about 85K loans worth INR 510 Cr, which is nearly 10X the INR 55 Cr it disbursed in 2016-17. On average, it receives over 1,000 loan requests in a given day, Kumar, adding that the ticket size ranging from INR 35K to INR 40K. While Kumar declined to share its revenue projections for FY 2019-20, he did say that CASHe is on track to turn “highly profitable” in this financial year.

It earns revenue via the interest rate on loans. To expand its portfolio, the company tied up with payments platform mSwipe to launch EMI cards that let customers repay for purchases via three monthly instalments. Besides, it also offers general insurance, life insurance, and credit improvement products.

Moreover, the segment is expected to witness huge growth in the coming years, especially with the greater digital and financial inclusion across India’s rural and urban audiences, which should make new startups feel confident about attracting new customers. There’s no telling which of these lending models will survive to weather the storm of tough competition in the years to come.

The post Can CASHe’s Social Media-Based Loans Make A Dent In India’s Tight Lending Market? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In a country where Sachin Tendulkar is revered as a god, cricket world cups become a national event, and India-Pakistan match is a reason enough to take sick leave — the idea of fantasy cricket is an absolute winner. But it may also lead to questions like does India has a room or even need another fantasy cricket app?

Fantasy cricket allows anyone to make virtual team filled with actual cricket players and score points in correspondence to how those players perform in live matches. The model for winnings and earnings differs from platform to platform but by and large users can get a payout by winning fantasy leagues involving other players, and re-invest their winnings into the game, or take it out to their bank accounts.

But the entry fee charged by these platforms — however small — can still be an obstacle for some users, especially those new to fantasy games. Times Internet-owned CricPlay is looking to clear that hurdle for new or tentative users. Instead of deposits, CricPlay is betting that India’s love for the sport will bring in the engagement from cricket fans.

Founder and CEO Gaurav Sarin told Inc42, “We felt that user engagement and passion for cricket was missing from the fantasy cricket platforms. So, we wanted to do something from a fresh set of eyes. That’s why we tried checking the level of engagement that we can get if we removed the entry fee.”

CricPlay is also experimenting with the traditional fantasy sports format, where you are teamed up against your friends or other players in a league. The winner of the league nets the biggest cash prize from the pool. Instead of just adding regular users to the mix, the app has turned to experts and former cricketers to play with users.

Image Description: Screenshots of CricPlay android application 

Real Time Play Against Professional Cricketers

The Gurugram-based company was launched with Sarin at the helm in April 2018. Thanks to its unique format of real-time matches against professional crickets, CricPlay managed to draw in 200K active users in a year. Further, the company claims to have 60% daily to weekly active users in terms of retention, while the daily active to monthly active retention stood at up to 40% for the year.

One of the differentiating factors of the app is its ‘Star Contest’ feature, which lets players compete against professional cricketers such as the brand’s ambassador and former Indian cricketer, Gautam Gambhir. Each individual user plays against Gambhir in this format and the anyone who manages to outscore his fantasy team wins a cash prize.

The company, however, does not take in user deposits for its model. Sarin said the company would explore monetisation models once it has broken through the traditional notions of prize-based fantasy gaming from being about deposits to just about enjoying the game.

Besides the celebrity format, CricPlay features formats such as the conventional Fantasy Leagues, Super Leagues, Challenger Leagues, Daily Predictions and Star Contest. While the first of these mirrors Dream 11’s format, the ‘Super League’ brings in power-ups such as ‘Substitution’, ‘Captain Changer’ or ‘Vice Captain Changer’ for a more interactive experience. Challenger Leagues allow users to compete with each other on limited leaderboards and win prizes.

For its next growth phase, CricPlay is targeting a market size of 300 Mn users. “Existing players charge 10-20% of the entry fee. You have a large base that comes to play but how many of them can transact? Very few in India have done online transactions and even the ones who have done it are just the outline of the user base that we want to capture,” the CEO added.

India’s Fantasy Gaming Market Boom

The genre of fantasy sports has exploded in India; it grew 25 times to reach 50 Mn users in 2018 from a mere 2 Mn users in June 2016. Like in most other segments, the major drivers for fantasy gaming growth include the increasing smartphone affordability and penetration, expanding internet user base and declining data prices. Along with this, thanks to digital payments, users are able to deposit and withdraw money from these fantasy gaming platforms with greater ease and less friction.

Thanks to these reasons, the number of fantasy operators has increased to 70 from a mere 10 in 2016. Major operators in the fantasy sports segment are Dream11, MyTeam11, 11Wickets, StarPick and Fantain. Among these, Dream11 was reported to have the largest user base of 50 Mn, as of February 19, 2019.

The allure of making money for simply using their knowledge about games and intuition about player form is too great for Indian fantasy game players. According to a KPMG’s dipstick survey of 336 consumers who have played fantasy games in the past one year, a third of the respondents named ‘opportunity to win money’ as one of the motivations for playing.

KPMG has also noted that nearly 85% of the respondents from the major cities play fantasy sports one to three times a week as compared to nearly 70% of respondents from smaller cities who play more than four times a week.

Democratising Fantasy Games In India

The online gaming market in India which stood at $290 Mn in 2017, is expected to grow to $1 Bn by 2021. The online gaming sector has undergone a tremendous revolution in the last few years. Girish Menon, partner and head – Media and Entertainment, KPMG India said the number of users on fantasy sports platforms is expected to cross 100 Mn by 2020

But there is still some ambiguity when it comes to the legality of such apps, especially among tentative or slow-adopting users. In 2018, the High Court of Punjab and Haryana dismissed a petition linking Dream11’s to sports betting in India. The High Court had ruled that playing fantasy sports online does not amount to gambling and involves a substantial degree of skill.

This clarity on the legality of fantasy sports has contributed to the market growth in terms of a larger number of platforms entering the market with similar formats and also leading to wider user adoption. “The most critical challenge was to break out of the transactional format of the ecosystem and innovate on gameplays which our users would love engaging with. We are glad our effort towards democratizing fantasy cricket to masses have been well rewarded,” Sarin added.

Sarin said 90% of CricPlay’s users were really not from the metro and the sole motivation for these users was their love for cricket and their vast knowledge of the game, not the ease of access and the media exposure that typically attracts urban audiences. The fact that they don’t have to pay anything but can win cash prizes is a real attraction.

In the next few months, CricPlay looking to boost this engagement metric in the future through in-game points which users can earn by watching videos or ads, and which can be redeemed for power-ups within the fantasy game.

It’s all part of making it easier for anyone to compete, and not just those who can afford to buy in. As Sarin says, “Our product is built for India and it is inclusive, it doesn’t matter what you do for a living. Come in, if you love the game.”

The post Times Internet’s CricPlay Wants A Slice Of The Fantasy Sports Pie, But Without User Deposits appeared first on Inc42 Media.

One of the major debates about the state of the internet these days is about ultra-powerful tech companies acting as gatekeepers of content and thereby creating their own version of the internet. Google has been accused of doing this on YouTube and on Google News by content creators and publishers. Similarly, major aggregators such as Airbnb, Spotify and Netflix have also been criticised for their insular approach towards showcasing content creators, user listings and service providers.

Then there is Facebook, which has a service or offering in most major internet categories, and controls a major portion of communication pipeline of modern internet users thanks to Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. When you take a look at the major internet services and the companies behind them, you are likely to realise how limited your choices are.

The contentious issue here is not about monopoly through revenue, but monopoly of thought and information. And that’s exactly why blockchain is being hailed as the saviour of the internet.

The biggest question posed by the use of blockchain has been if this transparent, decentralised, and immutable technology can disrupt the mega-platforms such as Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon and Spotify. These aggregators give the appearance of a decentralised model thanks to personalisations, customised UIs (user interface) and the emphasis on interactivity in the UX (user experience), which makes the user feel like they are directly communicating with the content creator/service provider. In reality, the platforms hold a huge amount of control over what these creators are saying and therefore what their content is.

It’s not too much of a stretch to believe that these information aggregators are the new-age gatekeepers of digital content distribution, and just like the music labels and film production houses they seek to disrupt. To break the growing hegemony of such aggregator platforms, blockchain platforms such as Dlive, SingularDTV, Creativechain, Musiccoin have attempted to offer an alternative to the streaming majors.

Blockchain at its core allows storage and processing of data in a distributed manner across its network members, otherwise known as nodes. The key idea is that no central body has singular control over the data or content, and thereby it cannot be deleted or erased from records. While most blockchain services focus on the Western market, Singapore-based MinersINC brought its flagship blockchain platform myNK to India in 2017. The blockchain powered video-on-demand (VoD) platform delivers directly to consumers from content creators.

For creators, the major benefit is that myNK removes the middlemen or intermediary services, while customers can take advantage of the pay-per-view model, which is quite different from a subscription model and more in line with the traditional spending on movies.

With this model, MinersINC is looking to solve problems such as revenue dilution for content creators as they have to account for middlemen, piracy, revenue leakage, copyright issues and breach of contract from the artists they work with. Additionally, creators also have to deal with lost monetisation opportunities due to distribution inefficiency, non-transparent earnings, and unjustified right attributions.

Speaking to Inc42, myNK founder Nitin Narkhede explained that due to the extraneous costs for creators to reach consumers, the content becomes less affordable and therefore creators have to bend to the will of major platforms. “The realisation that right-holders’ constraints stop users from watching films at home on the release date, is what led us to build a direct to consumer platform,” Narkhede said.

Singapore-based myNK was founded by Narkhede and Deepak Jayaram in 2017.  The name myNK is actually short for ‘My Network’, which is aligned with Narkhede’s vision of a community-driven entertainment platform for Indian cinephiles.

MinersINC had raised angel funding from a Singapore-based businessman V.C. Bothra in July 2018. While the app is currently in beta mode, it’s set for an official launch in India in June this year.

The company said it has garnered around 5K registrations in three weeks of the beta launch. It is targeting to hit 100K registrations and 1 Mn transactions over the next year.

Debuting International Movies In India

myNK has a library of over 200 feature films sourced from 34 countries and in 23 languages, including critically acclaimed award-winning titles which won recognition at iconic film festivals such as Tribeca, Cannes, Sundance and Berlin. The company claims that none of the movies in its collection have been released in India before.

To source movies and short films, MinersINC is collaborating with private and state-run international content right holders such as all3media, Kew Films, Wide Management, Off The Fence, First Hand Films, Dutch Features, ELO, Imagination Worldwide, NFB Canada, and The Film Collaborative, among others.

Wendy Bernfeld, myNK’s mentor-curator and founder/managing director of Rights Stuff in Amsterdam, said European content stakeholders have always been interested in the Indian market, but had apprehensions about what Indians would want to watch and about the complex distribution model. “myNK introduces a pioneering model that fuses the efficiency of cutting-edge technology with a rich content bank,” she added.

MinersINC has also partnered with Indian filmmaker Anurag Kashyap who serves as a mentor and has helped myNK find adoption and buy-in from the Indian film industry which is so tightly controlled.

The State Of Streaming In India

According to a BCG report, India’s OTT streaming market is expected to reach $5 Bn by 2023, growing from its $0.5 Bn market size last year. The video streaming market in India is dominated by Hotstar, which has over 300 Mn users and is setting world records in live sports streaming. Other international players such as YouTube, Amazon Prime and Netflix, along with homegrown players such as Voot, Zee5, Arre, SonyLIV, ALT Balaji, EROS Now are building up their original content library to cater to India.

On the music streaming side, Spotify and Youtube Music recently joined the likes of Gaana, Google Play Music, JioSaavn, Hungama, Airtel Wynk, Apple Music, SoundCloud and Amazon Prime Music.

But despite the plethora of options, there’s plenty of criticism about how streaming services are enabling the very studio model that they sought to disrupt. Youtube’s second largest channel Pewdiepie, run by Felix Kjellberg, announced that it will produce videos for the blockchain-based live streaming platform Dlive.

Pewdiepie has been openly critical of YouTube’s algorithms in the past, and he’s not the only creator to do so. Several creators have reported that their videos were being demonetised for no obvious reason, depriving them of revenue. Other creators such as Lilly ‘Superwoman’ Singh have complained of burnouts due to the revenue pressure created by YouTube on creators. If creators want to take a break from the daily churn, they stand to lose out on plenty of money.

How Does Blockchain Help in Streaming?

The business model of myNK is built on three aspects — the trust and transparency enforced by blockchain, the community empowerment and involvement and lastly, the spot incentives and rewards.

The creators’ community and fans not only contribute and expand the company’s portfolio, but also get incentives as rewards for their contribution to the ecosystem. It can also open up other channels for creators such as micro-distribution to a specific sub-section of users. This means creators can also redistribute content to new pools of users.

Photo Description: Screenshots of myNK Android Application

In its current avatar, users can buy a one-time ticket just like in a movie hall, or purchase the movie reel for unlimited viewing in a given time period. All transactions on myNK are done through the in-app currency MINC coins. Users also have a chance to earn MINC coins by generating tickets for other users in the network once they have purchased a movie reel.

On myNK, creators can upload content for free and decide the initial price for their content. The myNK network dynamically adjusts this initial price based on demand, reviews and ratings. The platform also offers transparent dashboards to help creators track their earnings at a granular level.

The peer-to-peer community aspect enables micro distribution supported by incentives. MINC coins generated within the system keep the distribution chain alive for a longer period of time. In addition to being affordable, the uploaded content is hashed and encrypted which means it would be significantly harder to pirate.

The myNK app allows content streaming on both Android and iOS mobile devices.

Developing A Backbone For Entertainment Industry

In terms of future plans and the business roadmap, Narkhede envisions myNK to become a value chain across the entertainment industry and has different verticals connected to it.

“The myNK ecosystem can foray across the entire entertainment ecosystem right from securing investments, production, distribution, marketing, consumption and managing operational aspects like legalities, copyright protection, automated payments and automated execution of contracts,” Narkhede said.

The company has invited creators to distribute their movies on myNK and plans to add a music marketplace soon. In addition to the B2C offerings, the platform is also actively exploring B2B collaborations.

Narkhede also pointed out the scope for myNK to be an entertainment solution delivery platform and a content supplier for existing OTT platforms by enabling PPV (pay-per-view) models once their subscription revenues start tapering.

The post Blockchain OTT Platform myNK Looks To Make Streaming More Democratic appeared first on Inc42 Media.

There’s long been a notion that there are two versions of India; one where cycle-rickshaws or buggies (hand-pulled rickshaws) exist alongside app-based taxis and even helicopter taxis in cities like Bengaluru. With such disparate options for mobility, Indians are spoilt for choice at times, but on the flipside, from a business point of view, mobility is something that needs solving.

Though Indian Railways has been at the heart of India’s mobility space along with the various state-level public transport options, there has been little to no effort to create an infrastructure for to meet micromobility or mid-distance transport requirements. The advent of ride-sharing apps such as Ola in 2010 and Uber in 2013, targetted these gaps in the market, but the Indian market is steadily sliding towards unbundled mobility.

With rising air pollution, increasing congestion in cities, lack of parking for larger cars, the bundling of mobility for short to medium distances, provided by the likes of Uber and Ola is perhaps not the right solution.

But India is an entrepreneurial market and many businesses have looked at this problem and attacked it with various models. For Yulu cofounder and CEO Amit Gupta the issue was very simple. “What was a seven-minute journey five years ago is now half an hour affair,” Gupta told Inc42, about why India needs micromobility solutions such as the one Yulu has brought to market.

A serial entrepreneur who had earlier cofounded India’s first unicorn InMobi with Naveen Tiwari and others in 2007, Gupta was tired of Bengaluru’s congested roads which stretched journey time to unreasonable limits.

“This situation is more or less the same everywhere. I saw this as an opportunity to address air pollution as well as the growing mobility issues. Mobility, today, contributes to 30% of the air pollution,” Gupta said.

Micromobility solutions such as electric bikes, scooters and bicycles not only address air pollution problems at a low-level, but also free up cars and larger vehicles for multi-person mobility, and reduces congestion on the roads.

This unbundling of mobility options – split among cabs, public transport, electric scooters and bikes – for the Indian market is part of a larger push to make India’s transport system less reliant on larger vehicles, especially when travelling short distances. It’s a major force of change in the US market, for instance.

Micromobility usually refers to 0-10 Km long trips which involve bicycles, scooters and bikes. These modes of transport are used by over 65% of households in all of India, according to the 2011 census. That’s a massive market in a country with over 1.3 Bn people. With just over 350 Mn people in the US, the micromobility market in that country has an addressable market of more than $1.4 Tn annually and is more valuable than the addressable car-based longer distance transport market , which is estimated at$1.1 Tn. As micromobility options make up the majority of all transport options in India, the market is set for rocket growth in the country.

The reason why I didn’t pursue healthcare or education because I have access to the best of them. But, in this case, I have to go through the same mess, irrespective of my financial status. I deal with that problem every day. That’s how the idea got stuck to me. – Amit Gupta

With an aim to address the rising air pollution and traffic congestion, Yulu was launched in 2017 by Gupta, RK Mishra, Hemant Gupta, and Naveen Dachuri. Initially started as a bicycle sharing platform, Yulu is aimed at providing an efficient and green solution for the first mile, last mile, and short distance commute and also reduce traffic congestion. Yulu had raised $7 Mn in funding till March 2019, and is backed by investors including Blume Ventures, 3One4, Wavemaker Partners, Incubate Fund India, Grey Cell Ventures and more.

Operating 8,500 bicycles and 500 escooters at present, while Yulu has already made its presence in three cities — Bengaluru, Navi Mumnbai and Pune — the startup recently made news headlines for its partnership with Uber. While the Yulu application will not be integrated into Uber, the Uber app will redirect users to the registration page of Yulu.

Starting From The Scratch Again

After a successful ride in his previous entrepreneurial stint with InMobi, the mobile advertising unicorn, Gupta had to start from scratch with Yulu. He said he had started pursuing the idea that would become Yulu at 39.

“Starting Yulu was something very new which I have never done in my past. So, dealing with automobile folks to government, police, goons and what not,” Gupta said about the challenge of the new venture.

“After you have achieved so much, you can’t go down. You have to look for something bigger. The best thing about being a second-time entrepreneur is that you have a different approach towards successes and failures. You know both are momentary.”  – Amit Gupta

What Is The Yulu Model?

By the time Yulu launched, India already had more than half a dozen micromobility companies including the likes of Rapido, VOGO, Bounce (Previously, Metro Bikes), Mobycy, and many others. In 2016, Ola and Uber too launched operations in the form of Ola Bike Taxis and Uber Moto in various locations around the country.

Rapido, Ola Bike Taxis and Uber Moto which operate two-wheeler ride-hailing platforms for bike taxis have been banned in many states including Karnataka and Maharashtra. This is why the self-driving model which Yulu, VOGO, Bounce and others espouse has become a viable business model for micromobility companies.

However, unlike Ola-backed VOGO, Yulu’s approach has been to focus on other businesses and the government for sales. “Our model is currently more like B2G2C and B2B2C. We haven’t acquired customers on our own. For instance, we are talking here at RMZ Ecoworld. It was RMZ which gave us the parking space and sent emails to their employees about Yulu Zones at their premises.”

This approach has given Yulu close to a million customers. Gupta said Yulu has established a relationship with city authorities such as BBMP, DULT (Directorate of Urban Land Transport), Bengaluru Metro.

”We convinced them that we should create a policy otherwise the city is gonna collapse.” – Amit Gupta

Yulu initially operated on a model similar to rivals Ofo and Mobikes where customers pick up the bicycles and drop them off anywhere.

However, this brought in a number of issues. “After using the bicycle, users were dumping the bicycles anywhere and everywhere. GPS more often don’t pinpoint the location but it shows a range of 50-100 metres. Our Tata Ace vehicles had to go on a treasure hunt to locate these bicycles.”

Another problem was residents in a number of localities complained to the company about unruly bike parking, which was sullying Bengaluru’s neighbourhoods.

So in 2018, Yulu changed its model and restricted the pick-up and drops to Yulu Zones only. “For the first 10 months, we ran the operations in only two pincodes of Bengaluru and two pincodes of Pune. In each area, we created hundreds of Yulu Zones so that everyone living in the area would have access to one,” Gupta added.

Going Electric  

Today, with 16 clusters in Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai and Bhubaneshwar, Yulu operates 8,500 bicycles. Out of which it has 4,500 bicycles in Bengaluru, 750 in Navi Mumbai, 500 in Bhubaneshwar and rest in Pune. In early 2019, it had brought 3K Miracle electric scooters with a speed limit of 25 Kmph for its operations. These IP65 waterproof electric scooters don’t need any road registration or driving license to be operated.

The company imports parts for the Miracle from Tianjin, China and assembles the scooter here to avoid the significantly high custom duty. The company currently has 500 such electric scooters in Indiranagar and Koramangala area. Gupta said, “We are still learning from Miracle and incorporating the changes.”

After Koramangala, the Miracle scooters will soon go live at Yulu Zones in Bengaluru’s HSR Layout. The company is also planning to launch ebicycles next month.

“Our e-cycle is ready and we will bring them to the market sometime in June and July. The reason, we delayed is because we were not operationally ready to introduce two new products in the market simultaneously,” added Gupta.

Gupta added that Yulu’s ebicycles are a premium offering and the cost of building one is close to $450 plus custom duty, about the same as a scooter.

The bikes are built out of is aluminium alloy-made and are claimed to be of a higher quality than competing offerings in terms of durability and riding experience. “We have worked with the manufacturers asked them to incorporate certain changes at the design level,” Gupta said.

Challenges And Challengers

Yulu’s rise has not come without its numerous issues be it theft, minimising maintenance cost and other challenges. And many of these issues have been dealt with in conjunction with the community. The challenges meant that Yulu had to scale back its plans of launching operations in 10 cities by this year, and now is going for launch in 5-6 cities. Mumbai, Delhi NCR and Hyderabad are some of the cities Yulu is targetting, while also planning to deepen its presence in Bengaluru, Pune and Navi Mumbai.

Talking about a particular episode of missing cycles in 2018, Gupta said that when the company set up a Yulu zone in a new location in Bengaluru, people registered and used its bicycles, but the very next day, all the cycles were gone. The Yulu Zone was empty. Thanks to the on-board IoT device, the company was able to track the missing cycles, but locals refused to return them citing the INR 100 security charge paid to Yulu. Then on the intervention of local community leaders who were approached by Yulu, the cycles were returned promptly.

From finding parking spaces to maintaining 24×7 availability of the bicycles at every Yulu Zone is not an easy job. The company purchased a slew of Tata Ace trucks to meet the service and availability requirements.

However, the challenge is not just about meeting the demand but also rising to the challengers. Yulu is not the only one in Bengaluru, challenged by VOGO, Bounce, Mobycy and others.

Catering to the same space, VOGO which has partnered with Ola, has a completely different model. VOGO operates scooters and escooters which need driving licenses and registrations. The company charges INR 5 per Km and INR 0.5 per minute for every ride.

In contrast, Yulu offers bicycles and escooters which do not need any driving license and vehicle registrations for riding. The company charges INR 10 per 30 minutes bicycles and INR 10 for every 10 minutes for escooters. This makes things easier for Yulu and lowers the maintenance cost as well.

On the rising competition in the micromobility space, Gupta said, “This is not the market where the winner takes all. Our country is big enough and in the case of micromobility, there won’t be a case where one player is dominant across the regions. Maybe, Yulu will dominant in few cities other players will be dominant in some other cities. There is enough space to co-exist and grow.”

The Big Plan

Arriving later than many of its competitors, with the Uber partnership Yulu is looking for the momentum it needs in the micromobility space. At the same time, it is also expanding cautiously in terms of fleet size and presence. fine-tuned their expansion plans. Yulu has planned to increase its operational fleet by 5x this year.

The startup has already turned profitable in 4 of 16 clusters and plans to go EBITDA positive in the next 12 months. The company currently owns all of its assets. However, it plans to introduce a fleet package investment plan for High Networth Individuals. “HNIs can put vehicles they own on lease and earn money through it. So, instead of putting money into mutual fund etc, Yulu fleet package could be another option where they can earn over 12-15% returns,” said Gupta.

Gupta said that the company has also planned to launch monthly rental plans for riders. The service will include on-the-go battery swapping and maintenance.

In the end, he says “It was never about earning money which I was doing anyway, it is about impacting lives making things easier for them.

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