Merak will invest in seed-stage B2B and emerging technologies companies creating sustainable business models and utilising new technologies to help solve real problems and create large-scale impact.

While the fund will remain sector-agnostic, some investment themes it will proactively chase include climate-tech (encompassing agritech, mobility, carbon, climate finance, and digital solutions), insurtech, and SaaS.

The VC firm plans to invest in 18-20 startups over the next three-four years.

Manu Rikhye, Partner of Merak Ventures, said: “There are passionate founders who want to solve real-world problems, and we want to empower them, not just with capital but as a mentor-partner. At Merak, we firmly believe businesses who solve authentic problems will always make for a sound investment.”

Merak’s Founders and Partners Rikhye and Sheetal Bahl are successful fund managers who have been investing in the Indian ecosystem for a decade now, of which the last six have been sharply focused on B2B and deep/ emerging tech. grow^x Ventures Fund I, which they continue to manage, has had a portfolio of 16 investments, including Cynlr, Pixxel, and Progcap.

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What is OTT?

OTT (Over the Top) services refer to any type of streaming video or media content that allows viewers to access movies or TV shows by sending the media content directly through the Internet. An OTT platform provides an application-based service that streams content directly to the user’s device through traditional content delivery channels via the Internet.

The Drawbacks of the TV systems

The traditional model of the TV system does not give flexibility to the consumer to view their favorite TV show or movies whereas OTT platforms provide this feature. An OTT platform consumer can choose their favorite TV show or cinema with the range of connected devices separately. OTT Platform support wide range modes of access regardless of platforms like mobile, smart TV, SET-top box, etc. So Internet plays a vital role in the OTT module as content of the OTT reaches viewers through it.  TV operators are facing a big challenge on how a customer will get the best viewing experience to their OTT platforms.

Why OTT platforms get more popularity?

Many factors have gone into making OTT extremely popular with the public.

• Consumer can choose different package as per their needs.
• Premium content come into different OTT platforms
•  Large variety modes of access:  Through Internet-connected consumers can access OTT content devices such as
• phones (including Android, iOS, and Windows-type mobile devices),
• smart TVs (such as Google TV),
• set-top boxes (such as Apple TV, Fire TV),
• gaming consoles (such as the PlayStation 4  and Xbox One),
•  Tablets and Desktop and Laptop computers.
• OTT provides content using data-driven approach by using they can observe how much engagement happening with respect to content.

List of some Top OTT platforms in India:

• Amazon Prime Video
• Netflix
• Disney+ Hotstar
• Voot
• ZEE5
• Sony LIV
• MX Player
• ALT Balaji

What Difficulty currently facing by the OTT?

The biggest challenge facing content delivery based on the OTT platform is distribution. For example, delivery through OTT platforms requires users to have TVs connected to the internet, which means replacing traditional TVs with newer TVs with internet.

Conclusion

However, the growing adoption of OTT viewing shows those users ultimately see it as a small price to pay for the convenience and affordability it offers in the long run, especially among younger people. As the Indian market has a bright future in the entertainment industry, the OTT platforms will be alternative for consumers if they provide good quality content.

Photo by freestocks.org from Pexels

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These companies thought out of the box and created products and solutions to keep their workers employed, paid and insured while helping customers to get what they need. Below we list four companies that made proactive efforts to offset the impact of the pandemic on their customers, clients and employees.

Swiggy

During the Covid lockdown, there was a huge dip in the number of orders the food delivery startup, Swiggy was receiving on a daily basis. The startup was forced to cut costs and innovate to survive the downturn. Swiggy then entered the daily delivery grocery sector to provide viable income to its delivery partners and hassle-free grocery delivery to its massive consumer base.  As demand for at-home grocery delivery surged, this new business line by Swiggy helped people to find alternatives to get essentials delivered.         

Advantage Club

Advantage Club is one of India’s largest employee engagement platforms that creates a mutually beneficial relationship between large and small scale companies with other businesses and vendors to offer exclusive rewards, services and products to employees in the partnered organisations. Once the pandemic began, the company had to conceptualise a new strategy to add additional value to their partnership with their clients. The company came up with a Fight Covid Programme to help companies get back to office. Under the programme, a multi-step plan was offered for making offices Covid proof and included sanitisation chambers, workplace disinfection, PPE kits, Covid screening, and informational posters. The service also included an offering of health insurance for employees through partner firms.

Advantage Club’s offering was in line with its employee-centred business model and was aimed to make the workplace safe and secure.

Healthians

Healthians is one of India’s largest at-home health test service providers, and it has come at the forefront of the war against the pandemic through its various initiatives that were launched to help its customers and the Indian populace. Even during the pandemic, the company continued its usual operations and launched services like HPlus CorpShield for Covid screening among corporates, Covid Helpline and ChatBot, Drive-thru Covid sample collection, At-home Covid screening, etc.

The pandemic saw a dramatic fall in blood donations due to restrictions and lockdowns. In light of the situation, the company launched a blood donation service to save lives, and the service is free of charge for all. This service is integrated into the Healthians app and almost instantaneously connects consenting donors with the people in need.

Urban Company

Urban Company, formerly known as Urban Clap, is back at 90% of its pre-Covid business levels within five months since the lockdown began. This is a considerable achievement for the company as their business model relies on service professionals visiting the homes of their customers. This boost in the company’s business comes at the back of Mission Shakti — an initiative that was launched to protect the health, safety and well-being of its customers, service partners & employees.

Under the initiative, the company also set up Rs 1.5 Cr for its service workers and an Rs 11 crore in interest-free loans for businesses operating in partnership with the company.

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During Covid pandemic, gynaecological concerns of women have remained unmet. It is to bridge the communication and awareness gap that MediBuddy-DocsApp launched the campaign.

This campaign would open suitable communication channels for women to solve their concerns and additionally bring the best intimate hygiene solutions to their disposal for optimum care and wellness.

The campaign also has a reward of Sirona’s intimate care & hygiene kit for MediBuddy- DocsApp users, who consult for gynaecological issues and further subscribe to the annual membership, i.e. MediBuddy-DocsApp Gold.

Commenting on the collaboration, Deep Bajaj, Founder and CEO of Sirona said: “In a time when women’s intimate health and hygiene concerns are slipping through the cracks deepened by the pandemic situation, Sirona aims to solve them proactively. We believe MediBuddy-DocsApp’s top-notch medical consultation services paired with Sirona’s thoughtful solutions can comprehensively solve women’s health concerns. These are critical to the wellbeing of women and in turn the society and economy of the country.”

Satish Kannan, Co-founder & CEO, MediBuddy-DocsApp said: “As a brand dedicated to healthcare, we strongly believe that the first step to solving any issue is by talking about it. By collaborating with Sirona, we will be encouraging women to bring intimate hygiene out of the closet and address their health issues instead of suffering in silence.” 

The intimate hygiene kit by Sirona includes everything required to meet the unique needs of women, particularly young mothers—PeeBuddy Female Urination Device (using which women can Stand & Pee), intimate wipes, 100% herbal pain relief patch, maternity breast pads, sanitary pads, oxo-degradable diaper disposal bags, herbal mosquito repellent solutions etc.

From its side, MediBuddy-DocsApp Gold service will allow the user unlimited consultations to a specialist doctor across 18 departments anytime and anywhere. 

MediBuddy-DocsApp recorded a spike of about 34% in the number of gynaecological consultations during Covid times. By maintaining proper intimate hygiene & timely doctor consultations, women can avoid vaginal problems like – abnormal vaginal discharge, vaginal irritation, vaginal dryness, unnatural odour, vaginal infections and long-term fatal diseases, including cervical or ovarian cancer.

Sirona (www.thesirona.com) is an award-winning product innovation brand, committed to solving those Intimate and Menstrual Hygiene issues for women, which are not adequately addressed in the country.

Sirona incorporated in 2015 by Delhi-based entrepreneur Deep Bajaj (Founder) & Mohit Bajaj (Co-Founder)

Formally incorporated in 2015 by Delhi-based entrepreneur Deep Bajaj (Founder) & Mohit Bajaj (Co-Founder), Sirona is an outcome of the numerous bad experiences women around them faced in terms of basic and intimate hygiene issues. The company is widely popular for being the maker of India’s first portable, disposable and highest-selling (2 million units sold) female urination device, PeeBuddy and Sirona Period Pain Relief Patches (India’s First Herbal Feminine Pain Relief Patches).

MediBuddy is one of India’s leading digital healthcare platform and is a partner to several leading enterprise customers in the country and helps millions of users access a wide range of sponsored healthcare services. Recently, MediBuddy merged with DocsApp, to create an entity that sits at the pinnacle of the overall healthcare industry.

Established by ex IITians, Satish Kannan and EnbasekarDinadayalane, DocsApp leverages technology to provide quality healthcare to millions of Indians without any geographical constraints and is headquartered in Bengaluru.

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The report says 70% of gamers feel that the time they spend gaming online has increased and changed as compared to the pre-lockdown period. Likewise, 68% observe that this surge has been particularly initiated under the influence of an increase in more disposal time at hand.

Though the rise in online gaming has impacted the crucial day-to-day routine for many people, it has also proven beneficial in several ways, the report. Considering the isolated conditions that the lockdown has forced upon all, more than half of the gamers reiterate that gaming provides relief and helps them feel positive and at other times, less depressed, said the paper released by WATConsult, the globally awarded hybrid digital agency from the house of Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) India.

Titled ‘Online Gaming During COVID-19 Pandemic’, the report speaks about the impact that the pandemic has had on the online gaming scenario in India.

According to Heeru Dingra, CEO, WATConsult, “Content consumption patterns are in a constant state of evolution, moving in tandem with rapidly changing scenarios. Thus, to identify and understand the same, WATPapers was brought to life. To be released every month, these reports will decode current and on-going trends, providing some comprehensive insights. Just like our periodically published reports under Recogn, these too will be an invaluable resource for marketers, helping them demystify the ever-permutating consumer behaviour.” 

She further added, “Undoubtedly, the pandemic has made almost all industries witness changes and the same stands true when it comes to Online Gaming. People have suddenly found themselves in a unique position of having extra time on their hands, which has led to an increase in online gaming. But there are several other nuanced factors that come into play. The report aims to decipher these very factors in order to provide useful insights.”

WATPapers are monthly published short reports based on the primary research conducted by Recogn, the agency’s research division that provides consumer and business insights to the audience. It will be delving into the different aspects of the digital industry, consumer behaviour and more. Additionally, it also covers some relevant topics like Adoption of ‘Work from Home’ by Indians and Future of Education in India: Online Learning & Home Schooling.

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While four states were adjudged as the top performers last year, only Kerala and Karnataka have been selected this year.

The ranking was declared in New Delhi in the presence of Railways and Commerce minister, Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Civil Aviation, Housing and Urban Affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri and Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Som Parkash.

According to the Centre, Kerala has taken several exemplary initiatives in establishing institutional support for women-led startups, including pre-incubation support, special subsidies and seed funding.

It is the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), the nodal agency for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state, that has taken initiatives like robust venture funding mechanism for start-ups. The schemes are being implemented through KSUM.

Kerala and Karnataka have displayed visionary leadership and taken strategic initiatives to strengthen innovative entrepreneurship of the ecosystem, the Centre said.

These states have exhibited unwavering commitment to the growth of start-up ecosystems by taking dedicated and focussed initiatives across all pillars of start-ups ranking exercise, according to a press release.

It also recognised Dr Saji Gopinath, CEO Kerala Startup Mission and Ashok Kurian Panjikaran, Head, Business Development of KSUM, as “Startup Champions of the State.”

The States’ Startup Ranking Framework 2019, prepared by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, recognised Electronics and Information Technology Department of the state government as an institutional leader, regulatory change champion, procurement leader, incubation hub, seeding innovation leader, and scaling innovations leader.

The States’ Startup Ranking Framework 2019 was done across seven specific dimensions: Institutional Support, Easing Compliances, Relaxation in Public Procurement norms, Incubation Support, Seed Funding Support, Venture Funding Support, and Awareness and Outreach.

The key objective of the exercise is capacity building, and to further the spirit of entrepreneurship in the Indian Startup Ecosystem. The ‘State/UT Startup Ranking Framework’ 2019 is spread across seven areas of intervention with a total of 30 action points, as compared to the 38 action points in the Previous Year State Ranking Framework.

The framework provides the guidelines to support the implementation of action points along with good practices against each action point.

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From relationship issues to workplace issues, the conversation will be assessed by a team of experts and will cost just Rs 49.

One will be able to connect with the experts over a five-minute call where they will have the freedom to express or vent themselves anonymously.

The platform is available in select local languages and 15 minutes of free counselling is offered before the affordable packages are made available. The company plans to make the newly launched Talk Therapy available in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities very soon.

According to Sumit Mittal, the Founder and CEO of VentAllOut, “Through this feature, we want to reach out to as many users as we can because venting acts as a therapy. And once a person vents out their bottled-up emotions, the purpose of therapy gradually evades. From real-time user mood analysis to qualified and specialized therapists to meet end to end solutions is what VAO aims.”

A nationwide National Mental Health survey 2015-16 by Bengaluru-based NIMHANS has revealed that around 150 million Indians are in need of active mental health care interventions, while fewer than 30 million are seeking support. Owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, stress and mental health have been surfacing as a result of a sedentary lifestyle.

In India, 50% mental health conditions begin at the age of 14, followed by 75% mental health conditions developing by age 24. Hence, it is crucial to focus on mental health, and VAO provides the platform to unload the burden of stress from the individual’s life.

VentAllOut is India’s First AI-driven Vernacular platform promoting mental wellness by allowing users to share their stress, opinions, and comments anonymously. Its core objective is helping users in shedding and venting out feelings in all aspects of life, work, or anything in general on this platform and leaving with positive emotions when you are with loved ones or at the workplace.

The platform is available in eight different languages: English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada and can be accessed through the website or from Android or iOS apps. The platform has additional features like: Voice to Text for seamless venting experience; AI-based built-in technology for mood analysis; Expert Panel consisting of psychologists, therapists, etc. for last-mile connectivity and Gamification through instant cashback to encourage sharing and expression

“Talk Therapy” facility is available at: https://www.ventallout.com/checkout

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An IT company in Bengaluru has developed an application capable of capturing an individual’s vital health statistics through mobile phone. According to the ministry of science and technology, it will determine an individual’s proneness to Covid-19 infection and can potentially play a vital role in early detection of the disease and risk assessment of the infected population.

This application creates an individual’s Covid risk assessment profile called Lyfas Covid score. Lyfas is different from AarogyaSetu which works by contract tracing and requires an individual to feed symptoms. But this is a proper medical screening test which purely depends upon test results.

Lyfas has been developed by a startup, Acculi Labs in association with the Union government’s CAWACH (Centre for Augmenting WAR with Covid-19 Health Crisis) initiative.

This new medical screening technology has the potential to detect possible infection in an asymptomatic individual which in turn helps to prioritise the conventional testing queue as well as in risk assessment of those individuals to establish if they can become symptomatic apart from assistance in risk assessment for recovery.

Generation of Lyfas Covid score has been achieved through repurposing Lyfas; a clinical-grade, non-invasive, digital functional biomarker smartphone tool for screening, early detection, root cause analysis, acute event risk assessment, prognosis, and home monitoring of chronic diseases.

A statement from the Science and Technology department, Government of India says “Lyfas is an Android application in which, when one keeps the index finger on the rear camera of a mobile phone for 5 minutes, captures the capillary pulse and blood volume change and derives 95 biomarkers with proprietary algorithms and signal processing techniques. It uses the power of smartphone processors and smartphone sensors to capture a bunch of body signals.”

The captured signals are then processed on the principle of Photoplethysmography(PPG), Photo Chromatography(PCG), Arterial Photoplethysmography(APPG), mobile spirometry, and Pulse Rate Variability(PRV).

The statement added “Lyfas then provides cardio-respiratory, cardio-vascular, haematology, hemorheology, neurology based parameters that are capable of tracking minute pathophysiological changes in the body. These changes are further profiled into organ system-wide response.”

The accuracy of this technology has been proved to 92%, specificity of 90% and sensitivity of 92% according to a study conducted with Medanta Medicity Hospital.

The government statement also says “Witnessing the success of the study, the Medanta ethics committee has approved it for a larger population study. This study is currently registered in Clinical Trials Registry- India (CTRI) and is acknowledged by the World Health Organisation (WHO).”

CAWACH is supporting market-ready innovations for control of Covid-19 and startup ideas to address associated challenges. Acculi Labs was selected after several rounds of screening for a solution towards mass screening.

Lyfas has received a grant of Rs 30 Lakh from DST and is now virtually supported by IIT Madras, Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre (HTIC), MedTech Incubator.

The clinical trials and regulatory proceedings for Lyfas Covid Score are expected to be completed by the end of September, after which the testing facility will be made public.

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While Covid-19 has sent economies world over on a slippery slope and companies are either shutting down or deep–pruning their wings, one sector seems to be on a boom; and US lawmakers are worried that like the gun lobby and the power of tobacco companies, tech companies may dominate life and everything around it.

It is in this backdrop that top tech executives appeared together for the first time at an antitrust hearing in the US.

Chief executives of Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon testified before the members of the US Congressional panel on whether their dominance has harmed the economy, stymied rivals and left consumers hapless in a choiceless world.

Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google spoke by videoconference as members of Congress met in person on Capitol Hill.

Obviously, all of them denied those claims.

The hearing marked the end of a year-long investigation into the companies by a committee of lawmakers. Many federal and state antitrust officials are also investigating the tech giants.

In a series, we bring you excerpts of what transpired before the House Antitrust Subcommittee on Wednesday:

Apple’s no commission claim has a few cracks that’s showing

Putting up a strong defence in his sworn testimony, Tim Cook backed the company’s App Store commission structure claiming that the majority of the apps pay no commission at all; however, with others it is either 15 or 30 percent, based on the specifics of their particular situation. He said developers were all treated equally and that Apple wouldn’t raise commissions, because it had to compete for developer interest in its platform as well.

But the House Subcommittee had its own version. The documents shared by the subcommittee as part of their investigation clearly shows that exceptions to Apple’s rules have been made — notably, with Amazon’s Prime Video app. In addition, the subcommittee said Apple may have never raised commissions, but discussions were not ruled out. It had once even considered raising commissions to 40% in particular situations.

The lawmakers were deeply armed with a huge bunch of internal Apple emails and interviews from App Store developers who said that Apple doesn’t uniformly enforce its rules and has its own darlings.

But their quizzing of Cook over App Store fees seemed to initially reveal little in terms of new information about Apple’s practices.

Cook deep-emphasised that 84% of App Store apps pay nothing to Apple in commissions. It’s the remaining 16% that pay.

Lawmakers wanted to know if Apple was the sole decider on what gets published on the App Store and Cook agreed that it was. Since the App Store was a “feature of the iPhone, much like the Camera and the chip is.” He further clarified that Apple’s control over apps only extended to native software applications, not web apps, but denied Apple treated developers unfairly.

“We treat every developer the same. We have open and transparent rules,” Cook said, in his testimony. “It’s a rigorous process, because we care so deeply about privacy and security and quality. We do look at every app before it goes on,” he added.

But that may not be the solemn truth. Emails in 2016 between Apple SVP Eddy Cue and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos show that Apple negotiated a special deal with Amazon over its Amazon Prime Video app for iOS and Apple TV.  In an email dated Nov. 2016 — before the 2017 launch of the Prime Video tvOS app —  Apple agreed to take only a 15% revenue share for customers that signed up in the app using Apple’s payment mechanism. 

The details were shared on the House Judiciary Committee’s website. 

In April this year, Apple confirmed it had a special package for Prime Video and a small handful of other apps, which were subscription video entertainment providers.

The lawmakers wanted to know whether there was anything that could stop Apple from raising commissions. Cook responded saying Apple had never increased commissions since day one. Moreover, he argued that competition for developer interest would stop it from raising its cut.

“There is a competition for developers, just like there’s a competition for customers. And so the competition for developers — they write their apps for Android or Windows or Xbox or Playstation,” said Cook. “We have fierce competition on the developer side and the customer side which is essential — it’s so competitive, I would describe it as a street fight for market share in the smartphone business,” he added.

But in internal emails from 2011, Apple did discuss raising commissions — all the way to 40% for the first year of recurring subscriptions. 

Tech CEOs Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg visited Capitol Hill to discuss their companies’ dominance in the tech market. (Video: Jhaan Elker/Photo: Graeme Jennings/Pool via AP/The Washington Post)

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The first tranche was in February and the second came recently.

In terms of dollars, the Kochi-based company has raised a total of $3.1 million in the recent funding round while it was $1.4 million in February.

The funding was made by investment firm Good Capital.

Entri was founded in 2017 by Mohammed Hisamuddin of Kasargod in Kerala and Rahul Ramesh of Thrissur and is part of the Boston-based ed-tech accelerator LearnLaunch.

The company functions as an educational platform for job aspirants by providing content such as mock and adaptive tests, video lessons and flash cards in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. These lessons help candidates seeking both public and private sector jobs.

Hisamuddin said users understand a topic better when the content is in their mother tongue rather than in English. “This is the problem Entri is solving,” he added.

The startup will use the fresh funding to produce more content and ramp up marketing operations aiming to attract one crore users.

Other participants in Entri’s funding round include angel investors from India and the US, including HyperTrack founder Kashyap Deorah and BigBasket human resources head Hari TN.

Good Capital partner Arjun Malhotra was quoted as saying that the firm was confident of its investment in Entri because of rapid growth and the large potential of the local language learning segment.

Entri claims to have clocked 100% increase in new users and a 150% growth in revenue since the imposition of a nationwide Covid-19 lockdown in late March.

Other companies in Good Capital’s portfolio include social commerce startups Meesho and Simsim, financial services platform Wealthy and location services company HyperTrack

Hisamuddin had a penchant for start-up during college days and started SMS Gyan which was a hit then.

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