by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Entrepreneurship, Large Enterprise, SMEs, Startup Basics
By Bhavana Akella,
Bengaluru : India witnessed a dramatic rise of eight unicorns in 2018 from among the start-ups across verticals as against a mere nine in six years from 2011 till 2017, according to IT industry apex body Nasscom.
The start-ups joining the select club for their valuation over $1 billion (Rs 7,000 crore or more) are Oyo Rooms (hospitality), Zomato and Swiggy (food delivery), Udaan (retailer marketplace), Byju’s, (edu-tech), Paytm Mall (e-tail), Freshworks (software programmer) and Policybazaar (digital insurance).
“As the start-ups that became unicorns this year are based on subscription and Software as a Service (SaaS) models, they took a few years to mature,” Nasscom Vice President (Industry Initiatives) K.S. Viswanathan told IANS.
The focus of these start-ups to acquire customers globally made them unicorns from India, he asserted.
According to the National Association of Software and Services Companies’ (Nasscom) October report on “Indian Start-up Ecosystem: Approaching Escape Velocity”, about 1,200 start-ups were added till September.
“The Indian ecosystem is adding about 1,300 start-ups every year but also seeing the demise of at least 300 of them from previous years,” Viswanathan admitted, assessing their survival rate at three to five years.
With the addition of the start-ups, about 40,000 jobs were created during the year, taking their total in the ecosystem of 7,200-7,500 firms to 1.6-1.7 lakh.
The world’s largest retail giant, Walmart, in May bought 77 per cent equity stake in the country’s earliest e-tailer unicorn, Flipkart, for a whopping $16 billion in one of the largest e-commerce deals globally.
“The Flipkart acquisition by Walmart was a shot in the arm for the country’s start-up sector,” Viswanathan said.
The investment in the native start-ups rose by a phenomenal 108 per cent annually to $4.2 billion in nine months (January-September) from $2 billion in the same period of 2017, the Nasscom report said.
By year-end, Swiggy and Byju’s raised hefty venture funds of $1 billion and $540 million (Rs 3,866-crore), respectively, indicating that global institutional and angel investors are betting on Indian unicorns.
According to the New York-based market intelligence platform CB Insights, about 60 per cent of the funds raised by Indian start-ups were invested in unicorns.
Adoption of disruptive technologies across verticals spanning education, food, health, hospitality and transportation has been driving growth of Indian start-ups.
For instance, the four-year-old Swiggy, which has raised $1.26 billion so far, has been investing in its digital platform and delivery fleet.
“One of the reasons for our success is our industry-changing innovations and focus on delivering the best consumer experience. Our delivery-only kitchens have also enabled our entry into 42 cities across the country in last six months,” a Swiggy spokesperson told IANS.
During the year, Oyo and Ola also began expanding aggressively in the international markets.
Gurugram-based Oyo said it invested on its technological prowess, sustaining demand generation across online and offline channels and identification and upgradation of properties within a short time to spur growth.
The company raised $1 billion from SoftBank and other investors to become a unicorn.
“We saw many firsts and celebrated key milestones this year. We entered three international markets — the UAE, Britain and Indonesia,” Oyo founder and chief executive Ritesh Agarwal told IANS.
Competing against the American ride-hailing firm Uber, city-based Ola forayed into international markets starting in Australia and entered Britain and New Zealand.
Food delivery and restaurant search platform Zomato, which raised over $600 million since its founding in 2008 in Gurugram in Haryana, entered the unicorn club this year, according to Nasscom data.
Zomato has been expanding overseas since 2012 and operates in 24 countries, including Australia, Britain, Canada and the US.
The start-up ecosystem and its enablers, including stakeholders and policy regulations, play a key role in the growth of any firm, said Zomato’s global head of classifieds business Oytun Calapover.
“Zomato is a great example of a homegrown start-up, which has been able to build equity not just in the home country, but overseas as well. This has been made possible by factors like government regulations and stakeholders,” Calapover told IANS.
The central government’s policies like Start-up India, Digital India and 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in e-commerce have helped the country become a “land of unicorns”, Calapover added.
Though the start-ups had a satisfactory year, the number of women leading some of them remained low. Of the total start-up founders, 11 per cent were women in 2017-18, up a mere three percentage points from eight per cent in 2016-17, according to Nasscom.
There is a need to advocate more women in start-ups for the government support, particularly at the seed-funding stage (early investments until they can generate revenue) and improving the ease of doing business to propel their growth, the industry body added in its report.
(Bhavana Akella can be contacted at bhavana.a@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Corporate, Corporate Governance, Entrepreneurship, Medium Enterprise, Startup Basics, Startup Financing
Thiruvananthapuram : Kerala’s start-up ecosystem got a major fillip as the state government on Saturday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Airbus BizLab, a global aerospace accelerator which is part of the Airbus group.
The MoU was inked between Siddharth Balachandran, Airbus Bizlab India and Saji Gopinath, CEO, Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), in the presence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Under the MoU, an Innovation Centre will be set up here which will be the nodal body for planning and executing all the activities to help start-ups.
“We are confident that this partnership with Airbus Bizlab will help the industrial ecosystem of Kerala. It will up-skill the local youth and enhance employability,” said Vijayan.
Airbus BizLab will also provide support and mentoring for start-ups in Kerala and conduct regular workshops and discussions with experts from the aerospace and defence sectors.
Further, the France-headquartered company, which has set up facilities in Bengaluru, Toulouse (France), Hamburg (Germany) and Madrid (Spain) to create a global network of business accelerators, is to run training programmes to acquaint participants with aerospace technologies.
“The initiative aims to foster local talent in the aerospace domain and help promising start-ups to contribute towards shaping the future of flying not only in India but the world,” said Anand E. Stanley, president and managing director, Airbus India and South Asia.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Entrepreneurship, Markets, Social Media, Startup Basics, Technology
Hyderabad : Nine shortlisted augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) start-ups under the India Innovation Hub Accelerator Programme of T-Hub and Facebook on Wednesday showcased their technologies.
The three-month accelerator programme concluded with the Demo Day. The programme provided them an opportunity to work and scale up under the aegis of Facebook, with direct access to FbStart, a global program from Facebook for start-ups.
These start-ups received hands-on training, mentoring sessions and practical lessons on product, technology and strategy from Facebook experts, skilled in the field of AR/VR. In addition, each start-up will become a part of an alumni network of graduates from programme across the globe, enabling them to learn, collaborate and build together, said a statement by T-Hub and Facebook.
The programme also provided them with access to T-Hub’s network of mentors, industry experts, investors, service providers and the community.
T-Hub and Facebook selected a cohort of nine start-ups from 20 shortlisted applications for the three-month programme, after a rigorous evaluation process. These start-ups offered solutions with the potential to solve real-world problems in industries such as health tech, industrial manufacturing, human resources, education and corporate learning, among others.
“Today, technology has the potential to unlock newer opportunities, empowering people and businesses to dream big and build products to empower their communities. The success of our accelerator programme reinforces our focus to enable the next generation of start-up success in India,” said Satyajeet Singh, Head of Platform Partnerships, Facebook India and South Asia.
“For this programme, T-Hub specifically focused on AR, VR and MR, but in general, start-ups offer a tremendous value proposition for corporate giants with solutions based on many emerging technologies like AI, IoT, Blockchain, etc. T-Hub is elated to continue being one of the best scaling catalysts in India for both corporates and start-ups,” said Srinivas Kollipara, COO and interim CEO, T-Hub.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Entrepreneurship, Markets, SMEs, Startup Basics, Technology
By Nishant Arora,
New Delhi : As small and medium businesses (SMBs) and start-ups in India begin to embrace Cloud for their digital transformation, global tech major Oracle is witnessing growth at an unprecedented pace among them in the country, says a senior company executive.
“For the third time in a row, India has won the best performing region award in all of JAPAC (Japan and Asia-Pacific). We are signing on hundreds of new Cloud customers every year and witnessing strong growth in our Cloud revenue,” Shailender Kumar, Managing Director, Oracle India, told IANS.
Some of the big Cloud clients for the Redwood Shores, California-based Oracle in the country are the State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Persistent Systems, among other.
“Now even start-ups and mid-size firms have started to adopt Oracle Cloud,” Kumar noted.
According to him, Blockchain — touted as one of the most promising transformative technologies — is witnessing a rapid adoption worldwide and Indian firms too are embracing the technology across industry sectors.
The Blockchain technology — based on distributed storage of data — has the potential to fundamentally change how every industry does business by making interactions more secure, transparent, efficient and cost-effective.
“Customers here in India have shown encouraging responses. Some are running pilot projects too. Moreover, Blockchain projects are quickly moving from pilot to production as enterprises and governments begin to see the inherent value of distributed ledgers and smart contracts,” Kumar noted.
A Blockchain is a continuously growing list of records — called blocks — which are linked and secured using cryptography.
According to IT industry’s apex body Nasscom, by increasing productivity and reducing cost, Blockchain technology has the potential to create value of up to $5 billion in India in the next five years.
Worldwide spending on Blockchain solutions is forecast to reach $11.7 billion in 2022, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). In 2018, global blockchain spending is expected to hit $1.5 billion — double the amount spent in 2017.
According to the IDC, Blockchain spending will be led by the financial sector ($552 million in 2018), driven largely by rapid adoption in the banking industry.
Kumar, however, has seen Blockchain adoption beyond the Banking, Financial services and Insurance (BFSI) sector in India.
“There is a lot of interest from the Indian organisations across sectors, beyond BFSI, where we have witnessed initial uptake. We see opportunity in pharma, oil and gas, retail and telecom, among other sectors,” Kumar informed.
Forward thinking companies in the healthcare space are experimenting with Blockchain for supply chain management, combating spurious drugs in the system as well as for clinical trials.
“Oil companies are keen on using Blockchain technology for checking the authenticity of the bids and security,” Kumar told IANS.
To help businesses build Blockchain networks to drive efficient transactions, Oracle in July made its “Blockchain Cloud Service” available in India.
Indian Oil, Arab Jordan Investment Bank, CargoSmart, Certified Origins, Intelipost, MTO, Neurosoft, Nigeria Customs, Sofbang, Solar Site Design and TradeFin are among the organisations which are early adaptors of Oracle’s Blockchain platform.
“Businesses around the world have been deploying an early adopter version of Oracle ‘Blockchain Cloud Service’, which allows organisations to easily build blockchain networks to drive more secure and efficient transactions and to track goods through supply chains on a global scale,” Kumar explained.
Another latest addition in Oracle offerings is “Oracle Soar” — world’s first automated enterprise Cloud application upgrade product that enables businesses to reduce the time and cost of Cloud migration by up to 30 per cent.
“We have provided a complete set of automated tools and proven cloud transition methodologies for the Soar solution that enables customers with applications running on premises to upgrade to Oracle Cloud Applications in as little as 20 weeks for a reasonably complex implementation,” said the company executive.
Autonomous Cloud is the next generation of Cloud services which free up the most valuable and expensive resources — humans — to create more value for the business.
Moving forward, said Kumar, the company’s strategic priorities in India will focus on growing its Cloud business, growing the volume business through its new digital sales business unit and transforming the company’s sales culture.
“We want to make doing business with us easy and quick. We will continue selling Oracle Cloud technologies and services to small and medium businesses, including start-ups, in the country,” Kumar emphasised.
The global tech major last year announced plans for a dedicated data centre in the country.
“Our India data centre is a work in progress and is expected to launch soon,” said Kumar.
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business Ideas, Entrepreneurship, Startup Basics, Your Business Plan
By Anurag Avula,
It takes more than just a good website to run a successful online store.
Being an entrepreneur is exciting as it allows you to take control of your future. Start-ups are expected to have an online presence, and many operate online stores. The challenge of running a commercial operation on the internet is fundamentally different from those of a brick-and-mortar store. Some guidance on what works and doesn’t in this domain can increase your store’s chances of success.
Here’s a 10-step checklist to help you along:
* Offer a product you’re sure of and test its quality and appeal with a test audience first. It will be helpful if you ensure that your test audience is objective and reliable enough to give you honest and critical feedback, and not just admirers.
* Find a trustworthy, convenient and scalable way to source your product. Either a local source you can have more direct oversight over or an overseas supplier known to be reliable both with quality and deadlines. Make it a point to pay them a visit or speak to them, either face-to-face or through digital channels like Skype or FaceTime.
* Be useful to customers and add some level of uniqueness or customisation to your offering. If you ask people what their problem is and how your product can resolve it in a unique way, you are setting the stage for a great marketing plan and ultimately great product sales.
* Deliver on time, because it builds confidence in your brand, enhances your reputation in the market, helps give you a reason to streamline your own operations, and is the basis of a mutually beneficial long-term relationship with customers.
* Follow up on your initial sales personally and then incorporate a post-sale communication plan as you grow bigger so as to keep the connection with your customers. You could also use this opportunity to check if the product is achieving the desired result, and get feedback that you can use to improve your product. A store that listens to customers is always special and enjoyed.
* Use social media to engage with your customers as well as with potential customers. To make it easier on yourself, pick a platform or application with which you are familiar and would find convenient to update; you can create an automatic link to update other platforms.
* Encourage people to add reviews and testimonials, as prospective buyers are very likely to go through reviews before buying products, even with all the skepticism about paid reviews. Don’t we check out ratings and reviews as customers ourselves?
* Build authority in the product space and build a supportive community. This has less to do with the volume of your updates or the language of your post and much more to do with presenting your expertise in a professional manner. Providing solutions to problems through your products, letting your customers know about the latest industry development or even little tidbits of relevant information of value to the community will set you apart. For the best results, adopt an inclusive and supportive tone for all your online interactions.
* Don’t be afraid to get some help. Whether it is hired staff, virtual assistants, or vendors. This isn’t as expensive as you imagine. These assistants get paid by the hour, saving your valuable time and money relative to hiring full-time staff.
* Practice a certain level of detachment. While it is necessary to be passionate about your product, failures and setbacks shouldn’t drain you of your enthusiasm. Conversely, enjoy your success but don’t let it go to your head.
(Anurag Avula is Co-founder and CEO of Shopmatic. The views expressed are personal)
—IANS
