Uday Sistala https://startagist.com/author/uday/ Stop Thinking, Start Building Wed, 02 Sep 2020 14:56:29 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.0.9 https://startagist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/cropped-Startagist-Logo-2-96x96.png Uday Sistala https://startagist.com/author/uday/ 32 32 Indian Social Enterprises make headway at the Singapore International Foundation’s YSE programme https://startagist.com/indian-social-enterprises-make-headway-at-yse-programme/ https://startagist.com/indian-social-enterprises-make-headway-at-yse-programme/#respond Wed, 02 Sep 2020 14:56:25 +0000 https://startagist.com/?p=3313 The Singapore International Foundation’s (SIF) Young Social Entrepreneurs (YSE) programme kicked off its 2020 edition as a digital experience, undeterred by restrictions imposed by the pandemic to continue nurturing young global changemakers. 109 youths from 19 countries gathered virtually for the YSE Workshop from 3 July to 29 August. This year, the 11th cohort presented […]

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The Singapore International Foundation’s (SIF) Young Social Entrepreneurs (YSE) programme kicked off its 2020 edition as a digital experience, undeterred by restrictions imposed by the pandemic to continue nurturing young global changemakers. 109 youths from 19 countries gathered virtually for the YSE Workshop from 3 July to 29 August.

This year, the 11th cohort presented social business ideas ranging from leveraging new technologies for a more inclusive society and proposing alternative means to save the environment, to empowering vulnerable communities through education and job training.

The YSE Workshop comprised an intensive series of webinars and business clinics led by social entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and business strategists. Participants gained knowledge to become effective social entrepreneurs including sessions on finance, marketing, and impact measurement.

In the end, 54 teams presented their business plans to a panel of judges and 15 teams were shortlisted to proceed to the next phase of the YSE programme. Four teams representing India are part of the 15 teams moving on to the next phase of the programme –Built Empathy, Canfem, International Changemaker Olympiad, and Shoonya Environmental Solutions.

These India-based social enterprises are offering sustainable solutions in areas of urban design, healthcare, as well as education and training.

The shortlisted teams, comprising 29 young changemakers representing nine nationalities, were chosen for further grooming because their business ideas held the potential for significant social impact, promise for sustainability, and scalability of the business model.

They also got to interact with like-minded peers of different nationalities, gaining a deeper cross-cultural understanding to make new friends, and forge professional relationships.

Indian Social Enterprises make headway at the Singapore International Foundation’s YSE programme

Ambassador Ong Keng Yong, SIF Chairman, said, “At the SIF, we believe in bringing people of different cultures together to inspire ideas and action for good. While we are unable to have the YSE participants physically in Singapore this year, the digital platform offers new opportunities to nurture the energy, innovative spirit, and passion of young changemakers driven by a strong sense of social purpose. In current times of great economic, climate, and global health challenges, it is even more important that we accelerate the pace of social innovation.”

Bhavya Singh, founder of Built Empathy said “Through the YSE programme, we were exposed to the social enterprise landscape outside of India. We were introduced to market players from Singapore and around the world and gained valuable insights into managing a social enterprise. This has been an enriching journey for me, and I hope to achieve great things in the coming months as I work with my mentors.”

Shortlisted Indian teams:

Built Empathy: headed by Bhavya Singh, improves liveability in Indian cities by making the community and public spaces safer, sustainable, and more inclusive. With a practice rooted in human-centered design, they bring the design to the communities that need it most.

Canfem: headed by Akriti Gupta, enables breast cancer survivors to have a better quality of life by manufacturing and marketing unique and affordable product-service solutions. Their external breast prosthesis and mastectomy brassier help survivors get back into society with dignity and improve their physical and mental health. Their pilot, completed on over 3,200 patients, had shown a 93 percent satisfaction rate.

International Changemaker Olympiad: headed by Rahul Adhikari and P Sai Sindhu, provides a platform for children in schools to identify social and environmental problems around them, and launch initiatives to tackle them. Through their programme, students participate in teams to identify real-world problems, develop solutions, and implement them over a span of five months. They aim to develop children into empathetic, conscious citizens of the world with an action-oriented mindset.

Shoonya Environmental Solutions Pvt Ltd: headed by Manik Dhingra, the company’s vision is to enable zero waste human settlements across the world. They are presently engaged with the scientific disposal of non-recyclable plastics across 20 states in India and aim to be an organization with the capability of designing an entire ecosystem which is ecologically wise, socially inclusive, and economically sustainable

Over the next six months, the shortlisted teams will be mentored by leading business consultants from McKinsey & Company and Temasek International and established entrepreneurs relevant to their sectors.

The teams will have the opportunity to hone their business acumen, broaden their cultural perspectives, and tap on a global YSE alumni network of over 1,200 members. In March 2021, all teams will reconvene at the YSE Pitching for Change event. They will present their refined business plans to a panel of judges for a chance to receive seed funding of up to S$20,000.

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Quintype raises Rs 25 cr in Series A funding from IIFL AMC https://startagist.com/quintype-raises-rs-25-cr-in-series-a-funding/ https://startagist.com/quintype-raises-rs-25-cr-in-series-a-funding/#respond Tue, 01 Sep 2020 10:09:47 +0000 https://startagist.com/?p=3301 Quintype provides digital media publishers with a secure and robust platform to create, curate, distribute, and monetize content. It also empowers digital publishers with state-of-the-art content management and subscription management systems. Quintype Technologies, a Bengaluru-based SaaS startup has raised Rs.25 crore in Series A from IIFL AMC which is part of IIFL Wealth Management Ltd, […]

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Quintype provides digital media publishers with a secure and robust platform to create, curate, distribute, and monetize content. It also empowers digital publishers with state-of-the-art content management and subscription management systems.

Quintype Technologies, a Bengaluru-based SaaS startup has raised Rs.25 crore in Series A from IIFL AMC which is part of IIFL Wealth Management Ltd, which got demerged from IIFL Group. This provides digital media publishers with a secure and robust platform to create, curate, distribute, and monetize content.

Quintype also empowers digital publishers with state-of-the-art content management and subscription management systems, that were previously available only to the largest media organizations with the resources to invest in technology.

Chirdeep Shetty, CEO of Quintype elaborated, “Media companies and content creators across the world are moving towards a digital-first strategy and the current pandemic situation has only accelerated that shift. The team at Quintype has been focussed on creating some of the best products for publishers and this will help us provide better support and expand our offerings to publishers globally. We do all the heavy lifting on the technology-end so that publishers can focus on creating the best content for their audience.”

He added that digital publishing has seen a fundamental shift in the last few years with most audiences seeking on-demand content with the proliferation of mobiles. “We are happy to lead this change by creating and expanding this digital ecosystem and this investment by IIFL AMC is a step in that direction,” Chirdeep said.

The company intends to use the funds to continue to expand its operations and reach. Leading publishers such as Bloomberg Quint, Prabhat Khabar, Bar and Bench, The Quint, Swarajya use Quintype to publish and distribute all their content.

Prashasta Seth, Senior Managing Partner of IIFL AMC said, “Quintype, with its suite of products, is set to accelerate the growth in digital content and publishing space. It enables more content creators to go digital easily and gives them the freedom to distribute, scale-up and monetize their content using an intuitive product with hundreds of built-in features.”

He added, “We are happy to partner with a professionally-managed Quintype team backed by pedigree promoters who together make the best combination of both worlds – technology and media – as they embark on a journey to transform the publishing space.”

Speaking about the investment, Raghav Bahl and Ritu Kapur said, “When we started our journey in digital journalism for mobile consumption in 2014, we met some of the pioneers in this field in America. They emphasized the importance of agility through tech in mobile journalism with the unique power of a state of the art digital publishing platform. This was reinforced in our various conversations at international publishing forums.”

“So we invested founding capital with a group of exceptional technology professionals who were passionate about breaking new ground in digital publishing tech. Quintype was born as a stand-alone, independent, arms’ length operation and its early successes are manifest in the 70 publishers from across the globe on it now. We are delighted that Quintype, with funding support from pedigree investors, is now ready to move on to big things in its next stage. We wish it the very best, and vow to continue our support until it achieves a truly global scale,” they added.

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Zendesk Debuts Sophisticated Real-Time Analytics Solution https://startagist.com/zendesk-debuts-sophisticated-real-time-analytics-solution/ https://startagist.com/zendesk-debuts-sophisticated-real-time-analytics-solution/#respond Wed, 26 Aug 2020 13:20:23 +0000 https://startagist.com/?p=3260 Zendesk Explore Enterprise is available starting on August 31, 2020. More information can be found on the Zendesk website. Zendesk, Inc. announced the launch of Explore Enterprise, the newest solution within its service-first CRM platform, which enables companies to analyze real-time data in order to understand changing needs. Leaders can use Explore Enterprise to share […]

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Zendesk Explore Enterprise is available starting on August 31, 2020. More information can be found on the Zendesk website.

Zendesk, Inc. announced the launch of Explore Enterprise, the newest solution within its service-first CRM platform, which enables companies to analyze real-time data in order to understand changing needs.

Leaders can use Explore Enterprise to share relevant insights instantly with other teams and departments as global ticket volume reaches record highs, helping them make faster decisions to improve their entire customer experience.

KT Prasad, MD and RVP Sales, India & SAARC at Zendesk said, “Over the past few months, companies in India have been striving to adapt to the changing needs and demands of their customers as the pandemic continues to unfold and new trends emerge. Our Benchmark Snapshot Report indicates that even though service requests may finally be stabilizing after months of volatility, higher volumes may continue to persist, at least for a foreseeable future. Therefore, having timely insights are even more crucial for businesses to spot gaps in their customer service and quickly implement modifications that people expect.”

He added, “With the ability to stay a step ahead of their customers and proactively improve their overall customer experience journey, Explore Enterprise will help many businesses in India not just survive but thrive in today’s landscape.”

“Customers are seeking more support from businesses than ever before, which is putting increased pressure on CX leaders and their teams,” said Shawna Wolverton, EVP of Product, Zendesk. She added “With Explore Enterprise, Zendesk gives companies the ability to analyze data in order to have a clear view of customer trends they are seeing across our Support and Sales Suites. These comprehensive insights allow businesses to quickly address emerging challenges and opportunities not just in customer service, but throughout their entire business.”

With real-time analytics and enhanced team collaboration features, Explore Enterprise enables leaders to manage and scale their business by:

  • Monitoring data across customer support channels with pre-built and customizable live charts
  • Acting on current trends by setting threshold alerts to see when teams are under a heavy load
  • Improving productivity and reducing context switching with embeddable dashboards
  • Boosting team collaboration with advanced report sharing and scheduling capabilities inside and outside the organization

Zendesk customers such as Mailchimp are already benefiting from using Explore’s reporting analytics to understand trends in over 30,000 tickets a month.

“It’s about understanding our data as a whole, and being able to look at the big picture, We’re able to take that cumulative voice of the customer and distill that down to figure out what needs to be prioritized and make meaningful fixes that happen,” said Spencer Caratti, Senior Director of Customer Support at Mailchimp.

Sheryl Kingstone of 451 Research said that “There is still a massive global shift towards digital transformation, and that has recently accelerated across every industry sector. Businesses must respond to this new pace of change and the organizations that are already digitally-driven will pivot faster.”

Explore Enterprise provides instant insight across Zendesk products including Support, Talk, Chat, Sell, and Guide to provide a comprehensive, unified view of the customer. This includes information on how customers are using social messaging for support and which channels they prefer for communication.

These learnings enable leaders to refine how they serve customers over channels such as Apple Business Chat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Twitter Direct Messages, WeChat, and LINE.

In addition, teams will be able to bring in data from external third-party systems through integrations with Zendesk’s open and flexible CRM platform, Sunshine, for a holistic picture of their business.

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‘Horses Stable’ India’s funding based show opens registration for Season 1 https://startagist.com/horses-stable-show-opens-registration-for-season-1/ https://startagist.com/horses-stable-show-opens-registration-for-season-1/#respond Tue, 25 Aug 2020 06:39:32 +0000 https://startagist.com/?p=3241 ah! Ventures will curate the registration process of Horses Stable Season 1. This will potentially be a common ground for entrepreneurs and investors to connect and work together to expand their business and profitability. Horses Stable, India’s first-ever business-based show opens registration for Season 1 application. The show is based to empower young entrepreneurs to […]

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ah! Ventures will curate the registration process of Horses Stable Season 1. This will potentially be a common ground for entrepreneurs and investors to connect and work together to expand their business and profitability.

Horses Stable, India’s first-ever business-based show opens registration for Season 1 application. The show is based to empower young entrepreneurs to raise funding for their business is associated with a Mumbai-based VC firm ah! Ventures.

The show format allows participating entrepreneurs to pitch their business ideas to a panel of renowned investors or Horses and persuade them to invest in their startups.

Horses Stable aims to be a global funding platform to motivate and give wings to the dreams of ambitious entrepreneurs. To accelerate the vision, Horses Stable has collaborated with ah! Ventures to magnify its capabilities of accommodating participants on a larger scale.

The VC firm will help the show unveil unprecedented opportunities with its network of over 62,000 entrepreneurs and 3,000 plus global investors.

As a part of the partnership, ah! Ventures will curate the registration process of Horses Stable Season 1 to spread the word and invite enormous participation while welcoming a new set of Investors and Deal Masters. Registrations will be open from September 1st to 25th 2020 on both the portals.

Commenting on the partnership, Horses Stable co-founder, Prashant Agarwal stated, “I believe collaborative culture is a powerful tool to create a competitive edge. The credibility of the new platform is multiplied to manifolds when produced together by two expert and experienced entities. Hopefully, Horses Stable Season 1 powered by ah! Ventures is going to be an example of one such platform.”

Amit Kumar, Partner, ah! Ventures added, “We are very excited to join hands with HS and believe that the show will provide a big boost to entrepreneurs and add the X-factor to the world’s 3rd largest startup ecosystem. The passion of the HS team fueled by our experience will surely make Season 1 a big hit.”

Season 1 will potentially be a common ground for entrepreneurs and investors to connect and work together to expand their business and profitability. Along with generating funding, entrepreneurs will get an enriching experience to meet prominent names of the industry.

To further add to the excitement, Horses Stable will be announcing the launch of their pitch season on one of the prominent OTT platforms in India. However, the team is yet to reveal the details.

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Text Mercato raises Rs 4.85 crores in a funding round led by 1Crowd https://startagist.com/text-mercato-raises-rs-4-85-crores-led-by-1cr/ https://startagist.com/text-mercato-raises-rs-4-85-crores-led-by-1cr/#respond Sat, 22 Aug 2020 10:20:10 +0000 https://startagist.com/?p=3224 Text Mercato is primarily serving the digital cataloging and associated content needs of e-commerce platforms and online retail. Text Mercato, a Bangalore-based technology company has raised Rs 4.85 crores ($ 646,000) in a round lead by 1Crowd. Hong Kong-based startup accelerator Betatron, and angel investors Andrew Dell, former CEO of HSBC Africa, and Raaj Shah, […]

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Text Mercato is primarily serving the digital cataloging and associated content needs of e-commerce platforms and online retail.

Text Mercato, a Bangalore-based technology company has raised Rs 4.85 crores ($ 646,000) in a round lead by 1Crowd. Hong Kong-based startup accelerator Betatron, and angel investors Andrew Dell, former CEO of HSBC Africa, and Raaj Shah, the CFO of Sequent Software, also participated in the round.

The company was founded by Kiran Ramakrishna and Subhajit Mukherjee in 2015, is primarily serving the digital cataloging and associated content needs of e-commerce platforms and online retail. Impressively the Company had filed profits for the three initial years.

1Crowd is an early-stage venture investment fund and a platform set up in 2015 to provide an institutionalized approach to investing in startups. Over the last 5 years, it has created a unique ecosystem of investors, startups, and mentors.

The venture capital firm has invested over Rs. 100 crores in 31 startups across sectors ranging from enterprise tech and deep tech to B2C startups. It marked the first close of its fund at Rs 23 crores in 2018. The targeted AUM of the current fund is Rs 75 crores.

Anup Kuruvilla, 1Crowd co-founder said, “E-commerce adoption as a secular trend across market segments globally got a further boost in the last few months due to the pandemic situation. Text Mercato’s content and catalog automation solutions enable brands, online vendors, and marketplaces with effective product listings at scale, while also being faster and economical. We are delighted to partner with Text Mercato in their quest to establish themselves as the leading cataloging automation solutions provider.”

While working on clients’ content needs, Subhajit and Kiran identified the area of digital catalog-creation as a formidable problem to solve. The segment had little technology play beyond the use of CRMs. The team identified the need for a full-stack cataloging solution that could enable sellers to take their products online accurately, swiftly, and at scale.

Subhajit said, ”The absolute base on which any digital selling happens is the catalog of a product, and this also plays an important role in discoverability and customer experience. We started challenging ourselves to take products online with better quality, and at a scale, the market hadn’t seen. Soon, we were the go-to catalogers for some leading Indian marketplaces. Today, we are asking ourselves, why can’t a catalog be virtually ready even before the product is up for selling? At Text Mercato, we are trying to solve it using technology which is at the core of our business and operating models.”

The AI-based Cataloging Product was conceptualized towards the end of 2018, and today the team has put together Cataloging.Ai, a suite of machine-learning-based products that are instrumental in the creation of structured digital catalogs. These include image and text recognition, text generation, online data processing and AI-based character recognition.

In addition, Text Mercato has an extensive network of freelancers who form the services layer to enhance the process of catalog and content creation.

Kiran Ramakrishna said, “Our aim is to disrupt the multi-department and multi-role problem of listing and marketing a product into one single seamless process. The company will focus on the end-to-end stack, single sign-on, central management, and scale across languages.”

Text Mercato currently serves over 100 clients which include several leading online retail and e-commerce players like Myntra in India, The Luxury Closet in Dubai. The clients span industry segments like fashion, electronics, FMCG, hospitality, etc. Indian customers account for 75% of its revenue, while 25% comes from international clients.

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Sistema Asia Fund marks the second exit with stake sale in Netmeds https://startagist.com/sistema-asia-fund-stake-sales-in-netmeds/ https://startagist.com/sistema-asia-fund-stake-sales-in-netmeds/#respond Fri, 21 Aug 2020 10:34:26 +0000 https://startagist.com/?p=3218 Sistema Asia Fund first invested in Netmeds in 2017 and this exit will gather attractive returns for the venture capital fund as the online pharmaceutical startup grew four times its size over the past three years. Sistema Asia Fund announced that it has sold its stake in Netmeds, one of India’s leading online pharmaceutical marketplace. […]

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Sistema Asia Fund first invested in Netmeds in 2017 and this exit will gather attractive returns for the venture capital fund as the online pharmaceutical startup grew four times its size over the past three years.

Sistema Asia Fund announced that it has sold its stake in Netmeds, one of India’s leading online pharmaceutical marketplace. The deal is part of the transaction in which Reliance Retail Ventures Limited has acquired the e-pharmacy startup.

Sistema Asia Fund is a venture capital fund sponsored by Sistema PJSFC, a publicly-traded diversified Russian holding company. The fund focuses on investing in technology-enabled, consumer and business-oriented startups in India and Southeast Asia – namely those with exceptional teams, global scaling potential, and solid revenue streams.

The deal also marks it’s second exit and monetization, after selling its stake in Qwikcilver in March 2019. Sistema Asia Fund is in the process of doing a final close of its first fund this year at $120 million.

Andrey Terebenin, Managing Partner, Sistema Asia Capital said, “Since investing in Netmeds in 2017, Sistema Asia Fund has strengthened the startup’s leadership position in the burgeoning online pharmacy market by supporting the enhancement of supply chain and distribution network, as well as exploring the viability of its international expansion. Also, Netmeds’ rapid growth over the last few years underlines our strategy of investing in companies with strong scaling potential and solid revenue streams, and the key to that is the constructive cooperation from Pradeep and the Netmeds team.”

Andrey added “Reliance’s backing of Netmeds is a strong endorsement of our investment philosophy, which is to optimize our investors’ money into promising projects in India’s fast-growing technology market. We are confident that Reliance’s entry will accelerate Netmeds’ growth and help the startup establish itself as the leader in the online pharmacy sector. We want to wish Netmeds continued successful growth and realize its fullest potential with Reliance.”

Founded by Pradeep Dadha in 2010, Netmeds is one of India’s leading e-pharmacy brand driven to revolutionize India’s healthcare sector. Currently, the startup serves over 4 million customers nationwide, enabling them to purchase medicine online, sign up for monthly pharmaceutical subscriptions, book lab tests, organize health checkups, and consult verified doctors online.

The company’s services saw an especially high demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as their delivery service which supplied medicine to patients in over 14,000 regions across India.

Licious (a direct-to-consumer meat and seafood brand), Rebel Foods (a multi-brand full-stack online food-on-demand app), Uniphore (a conversational AI technology company), Lendingkart Technologies (an online financing company assisting SMEs with financing working capital for SMEs), HealthifyMe (a health and fitness mobile app), Seclore (an enterprise data security company) and Kissht (a consumer lending FinTech platform) are currently the eight companies that Sistema Asia Fund is an investor following its exit from Netmeds.

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Reliance in talks to acquire startups Urban Ladder, Milkbasket: Report https://startagist.com/reliance-in-talks-to-acquire-startups-urban-ladder-milkbasket-report/ https://startagist.com/reliance-in-talks-to-acquire-startups-urban-ladder-milkbasket-report/#respond Mon, 17 Aug 2020 17:14:11 +0000 https://startagist.com/?p=3168 According to sources, Reliance Industries talks with Urban Ladder are at an advanced stage and may pay around $30 million to buy it including further infusion in the business and earn-out for the management team. Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd is in talks to buy online furniture retail startup Urban Ladder and milk delivery startup […]

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According to sources, Reliance Industries talks with Urban Ladder are at an advanced stage and may pay around $30 million to buy it including further infusion in the business and earn-out for the management team.

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd is in talks to buy online furniture retail startup Urban Ladder and milk delivery startup Milkbasket to strengthen its e-commerce business, the Times of India reported on Monday.

The report said that Reliance Industries talks with Urban Ladder are at an advanced stage, citing four unnamed sources briefed on the matter. Reliance may pay around $30 million to buy Urban Ladder, including further infusion in the business and earn-out for the management team. “They have got interested from other players as well and, while the discussions are advanced, a deal has not been finalized yet,” according to the sources.

On the other hand, Milkbasket’s earlier talks with firms like Bigbasket and Amazon India did not come to any conclusion due to valuation mismatch. The publication quoted an unnamed source as saying “They (Milkbasket) are negotiating for a better valuation than previous suitors and are thus in discussions with RIL. The recent capital infusion of $5 million has bought them extra time.”

The on-going outbreak due to coronavirus pandemic has increased the demand and need for online shopping and yet few players like the Milkbasket are not able to make full use of it and see a growth in their income.

Reliance, led by Mukesh Ambani, launched an online grocery service JioMart in May, a move rivaling Amazon.com Inc and Walmart Inc’s Flipkart in India, a key growth market for e-commerce. Ambani has raised more than $20 billion in the past few months, including from Facebook and Alphabet’s Google, for Reliance’s digital arm, Jio Platforms.

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Pharmeasy and Qure.ai among CB Insights 150 most promising health tech startups https://startagist.com/pharmeasy-and-qure-ai-among-cb-insights-150-most-promising-health-tech-startups/ https://startagist.com/pharmeasy-and-qure-ai-among-cb-insights-150-most-promising-health-tech-startups/#respond Mon, 17 Aug 2020 14:43:17 +0000 https://startagist.com/?p=3163 CB Insights analyzed over 8,000 startups from across the globe and two Indian health-tech startups Pharmeasy and Qure.ai have made the list. Pharmeasy and Qure.ai have made the list of 150 most promising digital health startups in the world by CB Insights, the US-based business analytics platform. CB Insights analyzed over 8,000 startups from across […]

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CB Insights analyzed over 8,000 startups from across the globe and two Indian health-tech startups Pharmeasy and Qure.ai have made the list.

Pharmeasy and Qure.ai have made the list of 150 most promising digital health startups in the world by CB Insights, the US-based business analytics platform. CB Insights analyzed over 8,000 startups from across the globe.

India’s health-tech industry is expected to grow to $372 billion by 2022 and is expected to create 40 million jobs by 2030, according to a report by Invest in India. The most recent one to join the list has been Amazon, with Amazon Pharmacy’s pilot offering of medicines in Bengaluru.

The selected startups were marked based on patent activity, business relations, investor profile, news sentiment analysis, proprietary Mosaic scores, market potential, competitive landscape, team strength, and tech novelty.

The Mumbai-based Pharmeasy offers medicine delivery and home diagnostic tests across 700 cities in India. The startup was most recently in talks to acquire its rival company Medlife for $200 million, and its revenue for FY19 stood at ₹400 crores.

The five-year-old startup, co-founded by Dr. Dhaval Shah and Dharmil Sheth, is one of the most funded Indian health-tech startups with total funding of $294.72 million. Pharmeasy was last valued at $700 million after it raised $200 million from Temasek.

Qure.ai, founded by Dr. Pooja Rao and Prashant Warrier in 2016, has raised just about $16 million from Sequoia India and MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia. The health-tech platform uses artificial intelligence to fast track medical tests and diagnostics.

The startup most recently made headlines for its COVID-19 solution and came up with an AI-led solution which can detect high-risk patients of COVID-19, through chest X-rays and CTs.

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Unacademy plans to raise $150 million, led by SoftBank https://startagist.com/unacademy-plans-to-raise-150-million-led-by-softbank/ https://startagist.com/unacademy-plans-to-raise-150-million-led-by-softbank/#respond Mon, 17 Aug 2020 07:39:41 +0000 https://startagist.com/?p=3159 The funding is set to make it India’s second most valuable ed-tech and value the firm at $1.3 billion. Ed-tech startup Unacademy is finalizing a deal to raise around $150 million led by SoftBank boosting it’s pre-money valuation to $1.3 billion and become India’s most valuable ed-tech firm after Byju’s, which recently raised capital from […]

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The funding is set to make it India’s second most valuable ed-tech and value the firm at $1.3 billion.

Ed-tech startup Unacademy is finalizing a deal to raise around $150 million led by SoftBank boosting it’s pre-money valuation to $1.3 billion and become India’s most valuable ed-tech firm after Byju’s, which recently raised capital from Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital at a valuation of $10.5 billion, the Economic Times reported.

Unacademy last picked up $110 million from Facebook and PE firm General Atlantic in February, at a valuation of $510 million. Existing investors will also participate in the latest equity funding round, according to the sources.

Even though there are no comments from either Unacademy or SoftBank, if everything goes well the fundraising will mark the first investment in an Indian firm by SoftBank since December, when it had backed eyewear retailer Lenskart.

The famed technology investor has over the past year slowed down new bets globally, cutting fewer cheques following the IPO debacle at portfolio firm WeWork. Budget hotels chain Oyo and digital payments platform Paytm, SoftBank Vision Fund’s other big Indian portfolio companies, have also been under the scanner due to mounting losses.

SoftBank Vision Fund CEO Rajeev Misra, in April, said that the company was looking to make 15-20 investments in India over the next three months and that it was looking for the right valuations.

As schools and offline tuition centers remained shut due to coronavirus pandemic and nationwide lockdown, Unacademy saw a spike in the number of online learners in the days following the Coronavirus outbreak. According to the startup, it now has 200,000 subscribers compared to 90,000 in February which resulted in 80% revenue growth in April.

The ed-tech startup will also pip rival Vedantu, whose valuation rose to $600 million after it raised $100 million led by Coatue Management in July. Ed-tech is among the handful of internet sectors that have benefitted from the pandemic, with all major players like Byju’s, Vedantu, Unacademy, and WhiteHat Jr, reporting gains as more learners switched to online classes. The investments in leading Indian ed-tech firms also come at a time of consolidation in the sector.

Unacademy recently acquired Chandigarh-based PrepLadder in a $50-million cash-and-stock deal. Byju’s last week announced it would acquire WhiteHat Jr for $300 million to get a foothold in the US ed-tech market, while Vedantu recently invested $2 million in online instant doubt-solving app InstaSolv.

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Women Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing The B2B Landscape https://startagist.com/women-entrepreneurs-who-are-changing-the-b2b-landscape/ https://startagist.com/women-entrepreneurs-who-are-changing-the-b2b-landscape/#respond Sun, 16 Aug 2020 06:47:56 +0000 https://startagist.com/?p=3140 Women entrepreneurs are becoming the face of almost all sectors of the economy and the traditionally male-dominated B2B space is one such sector where women’s participation has been increasing. The increasing presence of women as entrepreneurs has led to the change in the demographic characteristics of the business and economic growth of the country. Women-owned […]

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Women entrepreneurs are becoming the face of almost all sectors of the economy and the traditionally male-dominated B2B space is one such sector where women’s participation has been increasing.

The increasing presence of women as entrepreneurs has led to the change in the demographic characteristics of the business and economic growth of the country. Women-owned businesses enterprises are playing a prominent role in society inspiring others and generating more employment opportunities in the country.

There is a need for sustainable growth of women entrepreneurs, to promote balanced growth in the country. By 2022 more than 1 billion women are set to join the economy as leaders, producers, employers, employees, and entrepreneurs. 

The contribution of women to the economy is at the highest point and keeps growing as we speak. Various researches have shown that women-led businesses are outperforming their peers. Businesses, in the past few decades, have been realizing the importance of women in the top leadership to drive sustainable financial returns.

Women entrepreneurs are becoming the face of almost all sectors of the economy and the traditionally male-dominated B2B space is one such sector where women’s participation has been increasing.

Four of such women entrepreneurs who are changing the B2B landscape in the country. 

 1. Smiti Bhatt Deorah, Co-Founder and COO, Advantage Club.

Smiti Bhatt Deorah is a young and enthusiastic entrepreneur who co-founded the Advantage club with Sourabh Deorah. She has worked with Microsoft in the past and has done her master’s in Computer Science from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).

With substantial experience in B2B relationship building and account management, Smiti launched Advantage Club with Sourabh in 2016. The company is an employee-centric organization and offers companies curated deals, rewards, and offers from more than 200 brands.

For Smiti, it all began while working at Microsoft when she felt valued and rewarded by the employee perks and benefits she received. Smiti and Sourabh together recognized the potential employee rewards platforms had and came back to start India’s first employee reward and recognition platform. 

Today the company is profitable and has over 6000 companies as clients, including Café Coffee Day, Samsung, Lifestyle, PNB Home Loans, Max Healthcare, and several others. Personalized rewards offered under Advantage Club are a measure that helps companies to improve employee satisfaction and engagement.

2. Upasana Taku, Co-Founder, and COO, Mobikwik.

Upasana, a Standford University alumni, co-founded digital payments and financial services startup Mobikwik with Bipin Preet Singh back in 2009 to simplify payments in India. The company started as an e-wallet service and today has expanded in three business lines – consumer payments, payment gateway, and financial services. 

Before starting a venture of her own Upasana headed many high impact projects for companies like HSBC and PayPal and gained immense experience in payment systems. She is one of the most recognized faces in the fintech space in the country.

3. Rashi Aggarwal, Co-Founder, and COO, Zypp.

Rashi Aggarwal co-founded Zypp India’s 1st electric bike and e- Scooter sharing app and platform in 2017 with Akash Gupta. This dockless eco-friendly bike-sharing platform started as a B2C business, and recently it has shifted focus towards the B2B sector with clients ranging from food delivery business to e-commerce establishments. Previously a fashion entrepreneur, this is the second entrepreneurial venture undertaken by Rashi who dreams of a cleaner and carbon-neutral world.

4. Ankiti Bose, Co-Founder, Zilingo.

Mumbai based, Ankiti Bose, is the first Indian female co-founder and CEO of a unicorn status startup. She has been featured in Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 list in 2018 and Fortune’s 40 Under 40 along with Bloomberg 50 in 2019. Her achievements come at the back of Zilingo, a technology and commerce platform in the fashion industry that offers services for players across the fashion supply chain.

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