startup news

Egynte brings the new startup playbook to avoid unicorn habits

Though lean startup is the best method to grow, a very small number of startups exist as lean startups. The culture of massive venture capital backing can be difficult to resist.

The playbook for startups in Silicon Valley was comprehensive for years. You could raise money, get more users, and never turn it down. And then, you could conclude the business model part.

Eventually, you could pick up that billion-plus valuation and you have made it. However, the sheen was already off the overvalued-company-with-a-scary-balance-sheet by the outset of 2020.

Vineet Jain, CEO of Egnyte, has long been boosting for a new breed of a startup – Stallions – firms that might not be charming as compared to its consumer users but proves creditable fiscal prudence.

Presently, the COVID-19 crisis is dominating the economic system and threatening the foreseeable future. But the need for stallions is that much more putative. Ultimately, this has completely flipped the knowledge of ours about building a tech startup. Though the situation is unpredictable, few investors are investing bravely. So, here are the reasons.

Possibly delay raising money

Though lean startup is the best method to grow, a very small number of startups exist as lean startups. The culture of massive venture capital backing can be difficult to resist.

Egnyte was flashing constantly consistent growth in 2013. This was the time when its investors have driven them to raise more money, but they denied it. Everyone found their decision bizarre. But the fact was they were not ready, they still had not fully looked upon their business model.

It is true that if you are working out on your own, the market will point out you. More money can help but it can make things messier.

Do not fix your business model on someone else’s cent

Yes. This is heterodox. Many cooing for risks and pivot and then pivot. But right now, startups need inceptive operations with a capital sound mindset, figuring out to get positive cash flow as soon as possible. So, this is the best method for your startup’s real need identification and the path to sustainability.

Stretch your market when you have maxed out

Many times we have seen unicorns launch into new areas – news products or market – before they have been adept in their core competencies. But this directs towards distractions and sluggish responses and errors.

Find out the best talent

Creating an environment of inclusion is a major boon. Companies with multiple talented workforces outperform their rivalries and signify an overwhelming data. Geographic diversity is one overlooked consideration. Selecting candidates from Silicon Valley or established tech hubs like Austin or New York may accidentally close you off to the best talent.

Egnyte did the best thing that it bought key remote hires and open offices in Poland, Raleigh, and Spokane. Elongating the land has helped them to bring in talents with a range of backgrounds and experiences and that has pitched into the success of Egnyte.

Moreover, a silver lining of quarantine has been showing how productive and active their remote teams really are. This is an encouraging sign that remote hiring is unlocking a whole new world for today’s startups.

Work upon acquisition

Acquisitions are challenging such as compatibility issues, looming culture problems, and more distractions. Even the strongest and the most financially sound mega corporations or conglomerates found the same. But there are many unicorns that buy companies because they can afford. This situation can trip you off and bring new burden if acquisition doesn’t add exponentially to your own business.

Putting IPO on the side

It is going to be a bit even for the definite of things in Startup land. Focus on building your company completely and the rest things will follow.

This is somewhat hard to hear, and even harder to grasp. Yet, we at some point realise unicorns aren’t real but stallions are. They are beasts with stronger muscles. They direct the blinder and make them run. Therefore, they can move faster further than other animals, with a purpose.

Flipkart and Amazon prepare for sales in May, Soon After Lockdown

Flipkart and Amazon have asked their partnered brands and sellers to stock up for the post lockdown sales. They are expecting that many people are waiting to buy non-essential goods post lockdown. The demand for these non-essential goods is immensely high at the moment.

To cope up with the economic loss during the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, Flipkart and Amazon have decided to put up mega online sales in May.

To avail the maximum benefit and recover from the loss of lockdown, they are planning to reduce the discounts.

Brands now know that, after the quarantine, customers will be looking for the availability of products rather than discounts. The new sales will not be based on cuts rather than they will be based on high demand.

Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, people are shifting to online platforms for buying groceries and other things. Therefore, a significant boost in E-commerce growth is expected.

Avneet Singh, chief executive of SPPL, which makes Kodak and Thomson smart televisions, said that e-commerce marketplaces have witnessed new consumers in the age group of mid-thirties are ordering products online for the first time. Singh believes that these new consumers will help boost online sales after the restrictions are lifted.

So far, Odisha is the state to allow all e-commerce platforms, such as Flipkart, Amazon, BigBasket, Grofers, Swiggy and Zomato, along with their third-party logistics partners, to resume operations during the second phase of the lockdown. Learning from Odisha, other states and central authorities are expected to take similar actions.

Truecaller crosses 100 million daily active users in India and 5,00,000 Premium subscribers

Truecaller has crossed the 100 million active users in the Indian market, and more than 5,00,000 premium subscribers.

Truecaller revealed that it has just crossed the 100 million active users in the Indian market. The company also announced that it has more than 5,00,000 premium subscribers.

CEO and Co-founder of the Truecaller Alan Mamedi said: “We feel extremely privileged to know that there are 100 million people in India who trust our brand and use our services daily”. The company claims Truecaller to be the first international tech companies to proactively take the step of storing its Indian user’s data locally in India.
Truecaller has also doubled the search result speed for its core services like caller ID and spam detection within the application to ensure users are protected from unwanted calls and potential fraud. This also safeguards the user’s privacy. Truecaller now has 130 million daily active users globally.

“India is one of our focus markets and we will continue to expand in the Indian market and integrate more services to create a robust unified communication platform that simplifies the lives of our users,” said Alan Mamedi, CEO and Co-Founder, Truecaller.

With the boom of smartphones over recent times in the country, they have become the primary gateway to access the internet for millions of people. Truecaller with its integrated services like Caller ID, SMS, Instant Messaging, Flash Messages, Video Calling, and Truecaller Payments, goes synonymously with smartphones as more users are relying on the platform on a daily basis.

Additionally, Truecaller has evolved to become more than just an app on the user’s phone, it has helped in bridging the digital divide between the urban and growing semi-urban/rural markets in India. Further, enabled and empowered users and businesses by making communication more safe and efficient.

After $156 Mn fund launch CM Yogi Adityanath, Uttar Pradesh gears up for biggest incubator in the country

Just a month after Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath announced $156.2 Mn (1000 Cr) startup fund for helping startups, UP is reportedly gearing up to establish the biggest incubator centre in the country.

Commenting on the move, Sanjeev Saran additional chief secretary, IT and electronics said that the state will provide assistance and funding to new businesses and startups.

The proposed incubator will be constructed on a 40-acre space near the Lucknow airport. The incubator will look to support companies registered in Uttar Pradesh.

Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) will be providing the funding to the incubatees. The start is also working towards launching a new startup policy. Saran further added, “UP’s startup policy is better than other states. We give financial assistance of $38.5K (INR 25 lakhs) to startups. We are currently reviewing both the policy as well as funding. In one month, we are hopeful of coming up with a new startup policy.”

Talking about the financial support extended by the state government, Saran further added that with the incubator centre coming up at Lucknow, the allocation will go up to about $615 Mn (INR 4,000 Cr).

The Uttar Pradesh government is currently looking to promote entrepreneurship in the state in an extensive manner. In its efforts to promote entrepreneurship at educational institutes earlier in August 2017 CM Yogi Adityanath said that the state will give about $39K (INR 25 Lakhs) to universities and leading educational institutions, to encourage students to take up self-employment through startup projects.

The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister also added that soon the government will launch a dedicated mobile app for startups in the state. He said, “The government is also going to start a dedicated mobile application for startups.”

In line with the Startup India, Stand Up India initiative, various states are looking to promote startups through a startup policy. To this end, in March 2017, the Government of Bihar had enforced a new policy– the Bihar Startup Policy 2017 and set up a startup fund as a trust, with an initial corpus of $76 Mn (INR 500 Cr), to act as the nodal agency for implementation of this policy.

In July 2017, the Government of Assam joined hands with Invest India, the parent organisation of the Startup India initiative, to launch its first startup policy. Most recently, the Haryana government unveiled its startup policy to encourage entrepreneurship in the state beyond the boundaries of Gurugram.

With the recent fund launch of $156 Mn by Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath coupled with the proposed incubation centre in Lucknow, the startup ecosystem in the state will definitely get a boost.

Ibibo Group founder and MakeMyTrip President Ashish Kashyap resigns

Ibibo group CEO and co-founder Ashish Kashyap has resigned from his position as President of MakeMyTrip Ltd. The Gurugram-based online travel company’s Group CEO Deep Kalra has accepted his resignation.

The resignation comes just a few months after the completion of the MakeMyTrip-Ibibo merger deal.

Ibibo Group has entered into a separation agreement with Ashish Kashyap. This agreement provides among other things, final settlement of dues and benefits. According to the official statement, Kashyap has agreed to a non-compete and non-solicitation obligation for a period of two years ending on September 30, 2019.

For the neophytes in legal issues, a Non-Solicitation clause restricts individuals and organisations from soliciting (a) employees, (b) customers, or (c) business opportunities from another company or organisation for a period of time.

There has been no announcement yet on Kashyap’s successor in MakeMyTrip as well as his plans ahead.

“Ashish Kashyap has made immense contribution in bringing the MakeMyTrip-Ibibo deal to fruition and setting a strong foundation for the future success of the combined group. At this juncture, I respect his passion for creating and nurturing new and innovative ideas and we wish him the best for the future,” said Deep Kalra in an official statement.

Ashish Kashyap: The Contribution In MakeMyTrip Post Acquisition Of Ibibo Group

Ashish had assumed the role of President and co-founder at MakeMyTrip in October 2016 post MakeMyTrip’s acquisition of Ibibo Group. Along with Deep Kalra, he played an instrumental role in bringing the two rivals together in one of the biggest consolidation deals in Indian online travel ecosystem. The $720 Mn deal which valued the combined entity at $1.8 to $2 Bn, made Naspers and Tencent as the largest shareholders with a 40% combined stake.

Earlier in January 2017, the deal also passed through necessary clearances from the Competition Commission of India. With this, all brands under the umbrella of Ibibo Group, such as Goibibo, redBus, Ryde and Rightstay, were added to MakeMyTrip brand.

Further, in the first quarter of 2017, the merged entity reported a 135% increase in net revenue to around $141.2 Mn. Overall revenue grew by around 55% to $192.1 Mn, compared to Q1 of 2016.

“It’s been a decade-long journey. Post the merger, the next step was to build something new, and integrating the brand, and that has been done. The structure is set, and the business is at a high point. Therefore, the timing is just perfect,” said Kashyap.

Ashish Kashyap: The Man On The Mission To Mobilise India’s 120K Hotels From Offline To Online

A quintessential tech entrepreneur, Ashish Kashyap has donned many hats in his enviable career. A DPS Mathura Road, alum, who also holds an economics degree from Delhi University’s Kirori Mal College and a Masters from McGill University, started his professional career in 2000 with Times Internet Limited, where he played a primary role in creating the ecommerce business structure for Indiatimes.

He resigned from Times Internet in 2005 and joined in as the Country Head of Google India and later started his entrepreneurial journey as the co-creator of PayU India (which acquired CitrusPay last year). He went on to found Ibibo. From a team of eight in 2007, Ashish grew Ibibo Group into a formidable establishment with properties including Goibibo.com, redBus.in, Ibibo Ryde, YourBus, and Travelboutique to its name.

Nearly 10 years since its inception, Ibibo Group now boasts of an international reach across countries like Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Peru and Colombia. The company’s flagship apps have reportedly been downloaded more than 25 Mn times, and have handled over 24 Mn transactions. Also, Ibibo’s air ticketing business hit profitability last year.

In a recent interaction with Inc42, Ashish Kashyap also shared his vision to mobilise India’s 120K hotels and accommodation facilities from offline to the online travel space. “There are about 9,000 towns, cities and semi-urban areas with hotels in this country. We have actually been able to aggregate them. But the biggest challenge is to move the offline to online and it is going to be expensive.”

The resignation of Ashish Kashyap from MakeMyTrip is sudden, but not unexpected. There might be varied reasons behind Kashyap’s resignation, but it seems like a trend now. Have a look at the history of acquisitions in the Indian Internet ecosystem, and you will find that post the completion of the deal, majority founders split from the combined entity and advance to a new path at some point of time. Some of the notable names in this regard are Mukesh Bansal, who left Flipkart to launch CureFit after the acquisition of Myntra; Unicommerce founders who quit Snapdeal after almost two years of acquisition and more.

As Ashish Kashyap has already said, post the acquisition of Ibibo group by MakeMyTrip, he has done his part to make the combined entity scale and establish in the market.

However, it will definitely be difficult for MakeMyTrip to find his successor with the same acumen towards the Indian online travel industry in order to fight the current challenges. According to the latest SEC filings, the NASDAQ-listed company posted net losses of over $52.1 Mn in the first-quarter ending on June 30, 2017. This marked a near-72% jump from $30.3 Mn in the same quarter last year. In the first quarter of this year, marketing and sales promotion-related spendings of MakeMyTrip also surged from $52.7 Mn to over $133 Mn.

This article was originally published in Inc42

Reasons why money isn’t chaining back entrepreneurs anymore

Here are a few reasons why entrepreneurs don’t consider money as a barrier anymore.

Today, there are more start-ups cropping up than ever. Entrepreneurs are innovating all kinds of stuff required to simplify existence because starting up a venture is not as difficult as it used to be. With modern developments on the technology and venture capitalism front, entrepreneurs receive a solid boost to own their idea and develop on it.

Flexibility in terms of money is another reason why entrepreneurs able to succeed. Here are a few reasons why entrepreneurs don’t consider money as a barrier anymore:

1. Smart investments

Sometimes getting a degree might be roadblock on the path to becoming an entrepreneur as one has to pay off debts and in order to do that, one needs to take up a job.

Another reason people don’t become entrepreneurs is because of lack of liquidity which is absence of capital. But today, it is relatively easier for a young budding entrepreneur to decide to liquidate his finances. One can structure his finances by investing it in the best way possible and reaping benefits when required. This way, while starting out, they don’t have to worry about finding a VC early on and can continue developing on their idea.

2. Affordable legal and marketing

Earlier the legal processes deterred entrepreneurs from starting up their own business because hiring a lawyer was expensive. However, a budding entrepreneur can currently manage all legalities by himself because of relaxed laws which has proved to be a game changer.

Also, marketing in older days was a pain because it had to be done in an interactive manner. But with the growth of social media and digital marketing, entrepreneurs can now market their ventures using completely organic methods. They can also shell out few bucks and employ inorganic methods to reach their target audience better.

3. Development of technology

Finding an area to start their business in with skyrocketing rents is not an issue anymore either. Entrepreneurs are embracing the smart phone and using the various applications to coordinate and run their business well. Physical presence for a business is almost unnecessary with Skype allowing you interact with clients, investors via video call in real time. Also, an entrepreneur can use various apps like MobileDay to schedule and conduct meetings without actually being present in a conference room.

Other than convenience, this has reduced start-up costs by a huge margin and the money can be used in marketing or developing the business further.

Image credit: billbaren.com

How ShopClues set up its standard in Indian e-commerce industry

The idea of ShopClues was born at California in March 2011 when Radhika and Sandeep Aggarwal met with Sethi.

The idea of ShopClues was born at California in March 2011 when Radhika and Sandeep Aggarwal met with Sanjay Sethi. How they met in California is also an interesting factor to know. Aggarwal’s son and Sethi’s daughter went to the same school in Fremont. Sethi was working with eBay, while Radhika Aggarwal worked for Nordstrom, an American fashion retailer. Both saw a huge opportunity in the Indian marketplace for masses, as “Back then everybody in India was doing an inventory model business”.

There was a single marketplace eBay but no one was taking it seriously. So these two people decided to implement themselves in Indian e-commerce market. The day when Sethi first landed in Delhi, was very much surprised when he saw the airport full of Snapdeal postures and Television were advertising only Jabong and Myntra.

Going in past and talking about the initial days of their journey, it was 2nd August 2011 when Sanjay Sethi was at the Elephant Bar in San Jose, California, in the middle of his farewell speech to colleagues at eBay Inc. when he received a call from his friend Radhika Aggarwal who had promised them $5 million for their new venture.

Now, Sethi, Aggarwal and their respective families were to move out from California to India to start ShopClues, a marketplace for the masses.

All stuffs were packed and ready to be shipped. Sethi, Radhika Aggarwal and her husband Sandeep Aggarwal, and Mrinal Chatterjee decided to have a few beers that evening. “The next morning they woke up and called everyone whom they knew in the community and within just three days, they had $1.8 million in their bank account from 12 angel investors.

More than three years later, on the night of 19 January 2015, Tiger Global Management led a $100 million funding round for ShopClues.com. Let’s tell you that Tiger Global Management had also invested in India’s largest online firm Flipkart.com and China’s Alibaba Group.

Shopclues started focusing on the unstructured categories. With the latest round of funding of $100 million from Tiger Global and two other investors, Shopclues current valuation has reached to $500 million. Earlier, in March 2013, ShopClues raised $10 million in third round of funding led by Helion Venture Partners and Nexus Venture Partners. Nexus Venture Partners had previously led the Series A round of funding in the company in Feb 2012.

On the first side, ShopClues had to face controversy while dealing for the investment. Investors feel nervous while making an investment for ShopClues. The reasons for the nervousness of the investors were competitors like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon that had already built the market a tough war to survive.

And on the second side, company was surviving with the shock of its CEO Sandeep Aggarwal being arrested for insider trading in the US in mid-2013.

Year 2014 had been very punitive for the company. The company had hopeful orders and a larger seller base than earlier, but they had hardly any money in their bank account. The future of the company was unclear. But the remaining 4 co-founders didn’t lose hope. Sethi and Radhika Aggarwal refused to give up. They hunted investors, set in whatever money they had, and finally raised an undisclosed amount from existing shareholders in the middle of 2014.

Related Post: Fundamentals of running a successful and profitable startup

What differentiates ShopClues from Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon?

The fact that made Tiger Global to invest in ShopClues was the fact that the business model of ShopClues was different from that of Flipkart and Snapdeal and that the company was largely focused on taking unstructured categories online.

Companies such as Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon get a wider piece of their business from selling the items that can be itemized under the structured retail channel. For illustration, companies like Flipkart get 30-35% of their business from selling branded mobile phones. For ShopClues, it is small brands and categories such as home and kitchen ware, fashion, and mobile and electronics accessories which work quite well. According to the company, out of the 7500 brands that ShopClues sells, 6500 are regional.

Marketing Strategies

With an ever-increasing customer base, its community of over 150k merchants is its biggest strength, which enables Shopclues to offer over 19 million products across 5000+ categories at attractive prices.

The Sunday Flea Market and Jaw Dropping Deal are its best performing deal so far. Shopclues has successfully built this deal property through innovative marketing promotions and by offering something new and exciting to customers in every edition

• Email marketing: Even though email marketing was considered dead, the brand’s Senior Marketing Director, Mr. Nitin Agarwal stood strong with the email marketing. Nitin started off by introducing his brand and the statistics related to it from email marketing perspective. He stated that ShopClues.com has 50 million visits every month, which is more than other travel e-commerce portals. Besides this, they have more than 50k brands on their catalogue. Looking at these whooping numbers, that is where bulk email marketing came into account and he stated that Gmail is one of the major areas amongst them. The results were tremendously far better than before. People started to engage more through emails and make the transactions. Also, mobile experience was made much better then yielding better results.

• Affiliate Marketing: ShopClues used affiliate marketing to add advantage to their business with many affiliate networks in India. This ensured ShopClues getting around 50 thousand members only with affiliate marketing.

• Blog Posting: FNY also regularly posted interesting articles on their blogs to increase the awareness and engagement.

• SEO Marketing: For any brand, search engine marketing plays an imperative role and ShopClues promoted itself well on Google using SEO, Adwords and PPC advertising.

• Facebook Marketing: Gaining on its popularity, FNY utilized Facebook marketing opportunity very well. Prior to the launch of the web portal, ShopClues kept on selling its products through Facebook and at the time of their website launching, ShopClues crossed over 1 lacs fan on their fan page.

Currently on a net basis, the company is losing money. Basically, on an operating basis, the company is able to recover all the fixed costs and some more and will become cash flow positive soon.

This online startup provides calorie counted delicious gourmet meals at your doorstep

This Gurgaon based startup provides calorie counted delicious gourmet meals at your doorstep.

This saying holds true in context of everyone who is in a continuous pursuit for good food. However, in the pursuit of a good meal, many people go astray and fall in the trap of unhealthy eating habits. Well! one startup that took this seriously and decided to work towards this is Eatonomist.

Eatonomist.com, a gourmet meal planner and one of the pioneers in the field of online restaurants, stands for delicious, health and honesty. Eatonomist is an online food start up providing delicious and calorie counted gourmet meals at your doorstep. It has an extremely easy to use website, where one can order a calorie counted tasty & healthy meal from a wide range of national and international menu.

Based out of Gurgaon Eatonomist was founded in the year 2014 by Anisha Dhar and Nupur Khanna. Anisha is the co-founder of Eatonomist.com and is responsible for New Business development, Marketing and Sourcing. With Eatonomist, her passion for food and innovation has led to a new and challenging opportunity which will change the way people think of health as a way of life. With over 7 years of work experience, she realized that it is ‘food’ that she is really passionate about.

In November 2014, Anisha and her friend Nupur Khanna started their own venture Eatonomist. She has extensive management consulting experience in strategy formulation, market entry and client management. Later went on to work with Ernst & Young Pvt. Ltd. as a senior associate and thereafter PwC Consulting and KPMG as an Assistant Manager in both the organisations.

Nupur Khanna is the co-founder of Eatonomist and is responsible for financing, budgeting, human resource development etc. Having worked as management consultant, she is a business major with diverse background. She went to convent school in Delhi, graduated from IILM and mastered in MBA from Rochester University USA. Post MBA she started working with EY (Ernst & Young) as a Management Consultant with Financial Advisory Team. She has also gained profound knowledge on food safety, quality, storage, preservation, packaging, processing and distribution.

Meals from Eatonomist do not include any preservatives; it works on ‘kitchen-in-cloud’ business model which does not have a physical store. The menu is limited and orders are taken online and delivered from a centralised or distributed kitchen network. Freshly made sauces help in walking the fine line between healthy and tasty. The gourmet meals and subs from Eatonomist come in easy to use, food grade; served in excellent eat-in packaging, which is also microwavable. Eatonomist wants to ensure that all the people leading super hectic lives should leave their one biggest worry, food, to them. Operational 7 days a week, it offers a static and daily changing menu.You can back and relax, your order will reach you in 45-60 minutes depending on the location of your presence.

Eatonomist is currently looking for market space to open kiosks in high footfall areas. These kiosks will serve as small boutique stores where customers can come and pick up their meals for the day. The kiosks will have heating devices and the food will be prepared in a centralized kitchen. With this model they plan to expand to Delhi and Noida and then later to other cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Calcutta etc.

Eatonomist has plans of extending its product offerings to educational institutions, airlines, gyms etc. catering to the health need of customers span industries. They are looking into launching breakfast, snacks and dinner services, ensuring that whenever a customer thinks food, he/she thinks Eatonomist. Eatonomist hopes to close the loop with the customer taking care of both primary and secondary needs. In the years to come, Eatonomist will offer complete health and dietary solutions to the customer.

3 Rising startups in India

Ring in the weekend by reading about these startups! A cloud storage firm with security as its selling point, another of India’s on-demand chauffeur apps, and an e-publisher all make our list.

ParaBlu

Photo credit: lifehacker.com

ParaBlu, a startup that deals in secure cloud storage for corporates, has raised US$500,000 in seed funding from Kstart, Kalaari Capital’s seed program.

Kstart, announced in February, offers a combination of capital and mentoring to help startups it has identified as next generation companies that have disruptive potential in their respective industries.

Founded by Anand Prahlad and Ananda Rao Ladi in 2012, ParaBlu offers a number of cloud management features that can help enterprises store large amounts of data and keep information confidential.

ParaBlu is the fourth company in Kstart’s portfolio. Other companies, announced in May, include Active.ai, AffordPlan, and Indee.

Drivify

Photo credit: Autocar India

India’s chauffeur space has been doing some serious shaping up. Over the past three months, we’ve seen Driverskart make an acquisition on the heels of a pre-series A round. Zuver gotfunded around the same time, while DriveU made its own acquisition.

Mumbai-based Drivify joined that club today, raising US$50,000 in seed funding from Citrus Pay founder Jitendra Gupta and Pankaj Tripathi, a high net worth individual.

Drivify was founded in May last year by Prasad Shriyan and Jatin Kamdar. The app scans for drivers in a 10 km radius of the ride booker. It has 700 registered drivers with 70 active drivers. The startup pays drivers a fixed amount for logging in and remaining active for a certain number of hours.

Pratilipi

Photo Credit: thenextweb.com

Bangalore-based Pratilipi, an online self-publishing platform, has raised around US$925,000 in seed funding from Nexus Venture Partners, as well as other investors.

Contrarian Opportunities Fund I, Times Internet Equity Crest founders Deepak Gupta and Amit Wadhwa, and Voler Car director Amit Banka also contributed to the investment.

Founded in March last year by Ranjeet Pratap Singh, Sankaranarayanan Devarajan, Rahul Ranjan, Prashant Gupta, and Sahradayi Modi, Pratilipi is run by Nasadiya Technologies. It allows writers to publish their work on its platform, where readers can check it out for free. It covers eight Indian languages – Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Oriya, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, and Kannada – and claims to have 3,700 writers with 1.5 million readers.

Earlier this month, Ahmedabad-based e-book publisher Matrubharti raised seed funding.

Image Credit: winwinusa.com

This article was originally published in techniasia.com

Missed out startup essentials of the week? Here is a roundup

Last week was the roller coaster for startup and eCommerce industry. At one end we saw massive funds following in, whereas on the other hand government policy grab the eye balls of the readers.

Last week was the roller coaster for startup and eCommerce industry. At one end we saw massive funds following in, whereas on the other hand government policy grab the eye balls of the readers. Our Start Up Your Day recaps is here to keep you posted every week.

Government Policy

The Indian government has allowed 100% Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in online retail consumer businesses that operate as marketplaces, The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion said in a notice on March 29. Marketplace model means the companies act as a facilitator between buyers and sellers by providing a technology platform, and not really owning them entirely.

Funds Rolling In:

Picsdream, a marketplace for photography lovers has raised angel funding led by Raman Roy, CMD, Quatrro and Co-founder of Indian Angel Network. Other prominent investors include Ankit Nagori, Ex-CBO Flipkart and Harish Natarajan, Former CEO Bausch & Lomb India. Ankit and Harish have also joined the company’s Board of Directors.

A matchmaking app for South Asian expatriates, Dil Mil has raised $2.7 million (around Rs 18 crore) in pre-Series A funding from Nelstone Ventures, Transmedia Capital, Maiden Lane Ventures, CSC Upshot and a bunch of angel investors.

Gurgaon-based Process Nine Technologies Private Limited has raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A round of funding. Startup offers online translation and transliteration from English to Indian languages via a cloud-based application programming interface (API).

They’re Acquiring

Flipkart, eCommerce giant has acquired Bangalore-based mobile payments company PhonePe. It is its third acquisition in the payments solution space.

It’s time:

Former vice president and head of the seller business at Flipkart, Manish Maheshwari has joined Mukesh Ambani-owned Network18 Media and Investments Ltd. Maheshwari has been appointed as the CEO of Web18, the mobile and Internet arm of Network18 group.

It’s Not a Joke

Indians no more wait for Tesla Motors’ compact four-door sedan Model 3 as Tesla said the car is open for pre-ordering from India too in a glitzy ceremony in California on Thursday.

This article was originally published in Entrepreneur.com

Image credit: http://knowstartup.com/