Tag: startup india news update

Shared Workspaces Hit the Indian Startup Scene

Every weekend, the partiers flood into a New Delhi restaurant and dance club called Social, a three-story destination on the edge of Hauz Khas Village, one of the city’s most popular nightlife neighbourhoods.

After nightfall, the bar is busy and the dance floor is full. The lines regularly stretch out into the street. The dancing goes on until 1am.

But just a few hours later, the watering hole will be clean, the tables will be cleared of silverware and plates and the nightclub will have been transformed into a cozy office where no one gets fired for drinking at work.

Everyone shares desks at Social: photographers, designers, journalists, software programmers. They bounce ideas off one another, hire one another and collaborate to expand their businesses. Everyone is either a freelancer or working for a small startup.

As India emerges as one of the biggest markets in the world for tech-based startups, workspaces are transforming from traditional and hierarchical to relaxed and bar-like.

“It’s the millennial personality,” says 29-year-old Dinsa Sachan, a freelance journalist who works out of Social. “People don’t want to bow down to random bosses in their offices. They are seeking more meaningful work. So, I think co-working spaces are like a melting pot for individuals like these.”

The first co-working offices began springing up in India about three years ago. Today, there are at least a dozen in New Delhi – though Social is the only one that also functions as a restaurant – with similar numbers in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, where most Indian startups are based.

With more than 4,200 new technology companies, mostly phone apps or websites, by the end of last year, India now has the third-largest startup industry in the world, behind the United States and United Kingdom, according to The National Association of Software and Services Companies, or Nasscom, an Indian industry research company.

Foreign-based investors are opening their coffers, and now comprise most of the money being pumped into Indian startups, Nasscom says. Funding for Indian startups is growing at more than 125 percent a year, with an additional $700 million (roughly Rs. 4,680 crores) estimated to be invested before February 2017, according to a 2016 report by InnoVen Capital, an Asian venture capital firm.

Riyaaz Amlani, the owner of Social and a powerful force in the changing Indian restaurant scene, said he noticed a demand for cheap office space in prime New Delhi locations and decided on a fluid concept for his restaurants. There are now 14 Social outlets across India, all of them also co-working spaces.

“Increasingly, offices started becoming more like cafes, right? Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter,” the 41-year-old says. “If you get into a traditional office environment, you know, it’s all very cut-and-dried. It’s all very hierarchical. Your importance is measured by the amount of square-foot” your office has.

The co-working spaces are also very young places.Most Indian startups are created by people under age 28 who often cannot afford skyrocketing rents in big-city office districts.

Membership fees at most Indian shared offices are usually less than $100 (roughly Rs. 6,700) per month. They also come with free access to networking events, investors’ conferences and even parties. At Social, members also get lockers, free internet and can redeem their monthly fees for food and drinks.

Rishi Jalan, a 25-year-old who started a sports management company for student athletes two years ago, said the free flow of ideas and inspiration is one of the top reasons people choose to work at a shared office space.

“I know so many of my friends who actually went to a co-working space and found their co-founders,” says the Cornell University graduate. “Everyone, I feel, in these kind of co-working spaces in Delhi, is a guy who’s motivated. Firstly, because you have to do that if you’re an entrepreneur. And secondly, they’re all ready to share their ideas.”

Like Jalan, many young Indians are moving away from traditional low-paying, entry-level jobs and want to do something of their own.

“In my day, we didn’t have this opportunity available to us,” says Amlani, the Social owner. “Our heroes were rebels and rock-and-rollers, and the millennials’ heroes are people like Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk, and people who want to change the world with an app,” he said. “They’re blazing their own trail. And that’s amazing. And we’re just happy to facilitate it in a very small way.”

Source:http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/features/shared-workspaces-hit-the-indian-startup-scene-1472785

The endgame for venture investing in India

The future of India’s nascent venture capital scene hinges on the outcomes of the battles between homegrown start-ups like Flipkart and Ola and American rivals Amazon and Uber

Venture capital firms and other investors have poured roughly $6.5 billion into Flipkart, Snapdeal and Ola (and their units), since 2010, betting that they will be able to keep their American rivals Amazon and Uber at bay.

The investors reckoned that the headstart that online retailers Flipkart and Snapdeal and cab aggregator Ola enjoyed, their superior local knowledge, nimbleness, and the passion and ability of their founders would keep them ahead of the American technology giants.

Amazon.com Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc. were perceived to be slower in taking decisions and hesitant in giving too much power to the management of their local units. Unlike “pure-tech” businesses like Google Inc. and Facebook Inc., which are dominant in India, any operations-heavy tech business such as e-commerce and cab hailing would favour Indian start-ups over US firms, the investors believed.

But the speed at which Amazon and Uber have expanded over the past 18 months or so has shocked venture capitalists (VCs), putting their investment thesis at grave risk.

The transformation has been so sudden that Snapdeal, whose CEO Kunal Bahl predicted in August 2015 that it would become the largest online marketplace in the country, is now already considered an also-ran in the market share battle.

Consequently, the future of the country’s nascent venture capital scene, in its current form, hinges on the outcomes of the market share battles between Flipkart and Amazon and Ola and Uber, according to VCs and entrepreneurs.

Flipkart and Ola didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.

If Flipkart and Ola list their shares or sell out at attractive prices, it will usher in a golden period for VCs; if, however, either one or both of them fail to generate investment returns, some VCs may have to shut shop and investor sentiment towards Indian start-ups will take a serious hit.

Big names, Big money

The numbers are staggering: Together, Flipkart (valued at $15 billion) and Ola (valued at $5 billion) along with online marketplace Snapdeal (valued at $6.5 billion) accounted for a mammoth 55% of the cash raised by all Indian start-ups in the go-go years of 2014 and 2015. Their combined valuations constitute 65-70% of the valuations of all Indian Internet start-ups, according to Mint research.

These three firms are backed by practically all the best-known venture capital firms operating in India: Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital, Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners and Nexus Venture Partners.

Apart from traditional VCs, three of the most influential bulge-bracket start-up investors in India, Tiger Global Management, SoftBank Group and DST Global, have poured huge amounts of money into Flipkart, Snapdeal and Ola.

Flipkart, Snapdeal and Ola are at the top of the list of the handful of Indian start-ups that have gone through all the stages of the venture capital investing model: angel investors fund a potentially great but nascent idea, VCs provide early capital to convert the idea into a mid-size start-up, then growth-stage investors pump in large amounts of capital to try and turn the start-up into an established company.

“There’s a lot riding on Flipkart and Ola,” said Sharad Sharma, an angel investor and co-founder of iSPIRT, a software products think tank. “If these two companies can deliver returns above the watermark, then we will have a soft landing for B2C (business to consumer) sector. If, however, in the worst-case scenario, they don’t deliver basic returns, the investor sentiment towards Indian consumer start-ups will turn bad.”

Until the 2015 surge of Amazon and Uber, investors believed all the three firms were on track to listing their shares in the near future and deliver the hard-earned blockbuster returns they craved for.

SoftBank, Kalaari, Nexus and Tiger Global declined to comment. Accel and Sequoia didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.

Lure of big exits

VCs have been investing in India for a decade or so, but they have struggled to deliver good returns to their backers, called limited partners (LPs). Typically, a venture fund is said to have performed well if it returns four or five times the capital invested. For this to happen, the fund needs to make one or two investments that will deliver an exit of 10-50 times the capital invested.

For VCs in India, Flipkart, Snapdeal and Ola are those bets, along with a handful of others such as payments and e-commerce firm Paytm, online marketplace ShopClues and enterprise software provider Freshdesk.

Many VCs including Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital and Nexus Venture Partners have raised new funds over the past 18 months, partly on the back of selling some of their shares in Flipkart and Snapdeal at attractive prices.

In general, most VCs even in the US fail to return the funds invested to their LPs, studies have shown. Since 1997, venture capital firms in the US have returned less cash to LPs than the invested amount, according to a 2012 report by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a think tank.  What keeps LPs coming back, however, is the lure of big exits such as those of Facebook, LinkedIn Corp. and Twitter Inc. in recent years and those of Intel Corp., Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and hundreds of others in the early years of Silicon Valley.

Indian VCs haven’t seen any such blockbuster exits, which is why Flipkart, Snapdeal and Ola are so important.

And it’s not just that Flipkart, Snapdeal and Ola have raised disproportionately large amounts of cash. Their founder duos—Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (Flipkart), Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal (Snapdeal) and Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati (Ola)—are considered to be the best entrepreneurs in the country and role models for start-up founders.

“The likely scenario is that Flipkart will exit through a big IPO (initial public offering); then, the funding market will go through the roof,” said Abhishek Goyal, co-founder of Tracxn, a start-up tracker. “In the worst-case scenario, if Flipkart’s valuation dips to $5 billion or below, opportunist investors will flee India for the short term and a few venture capital firms may close down. But there’s so much interest in the India growth story that it will continue to be one of the most attractive start-up markets.”

IPO or sale?

The endgame for Flipkart, Ola and Snapdeal is far from clear. Though analysts say Amazon and Uber currently are favourites to emerge winners because of easy access to large amounts of capital, Flipkart and Ola have formidable strengths while Snapdeal has changed its strategy to focus on cutting costs and growing net revenue rather than boosting gross sales through deep discounts and extensive advertising.

“We have a clear strategy to build a long-term oriented, profitable e-commerce business and have been making tremendous progress in that direction over the last year. The decision to go for an IPO rests with the board of the company and they will take it up when appropriate,” a Snapdeal spokesperson said in an email response. “We have witnessed a clear shift in investors focusing on revenue market share and growth vs GMV (gross merchandise value) market share over the last few quarters. Hence, we are witnessing significant inbound interest from investors who believe this is the right strategy for Indian e-commerce going forward. That said, we are currently well-capitalized and have no immediate needs to raise a round.”

Flipkart is still India’s largest e-commerce firm, has a near-monopoly in online fashion (a key category) and a large- enough cash war chest to keep up with Amazon’s spending power, at least over the near term.

Ola is a clear market leader and it has shown it can hold its own against Uber.

Even if Amazon and Uber were to overtake Flipkart and Ola at some point, as long as the Indian firms remain within touching distance of their US rivals, the chances of successful exits are high.

“I am certain that Ola and Flipkart will certainly be among the largest Indian Internet companies a number of years down the road,” said Avnish Bajaj, managing director at Matrix Partners India, one of Ola’s largest investors. “The likes of Bhavish (Aggarwal) and Sachin (Bansal) have the ability, the staying power, personal will and the financial backing to carry their companies to an eventual IPO, and not be forced to sell. They will inspire future Indian entrepreneurs.”

And if there are IPOs, India’s start-ups would’ve achieved their holy grail, he said.

“The biggest challenge will be for the first one to get to an IPO. Once that happens, the floodgates will open for others. But I expect an Indian start-up to do an IPO within two-three years,” added Bajaj.

Others believe some sort of consolidation among Indian e-commerce start-ups is inevitable. China’s Alibaba Group, which is already an investor in Snapdeal and Paytm, is believed to be one of the only suitors which can drive consolidation. In case of such consolidation, it’s difficult to predict what will be the financial outcome for investors.

Copycat investing

This year, investors have already started diversifying away from consumer Internet investments. Apart from taking more time to strike deals, investors have also turned more demanding.

Last year start-ups in hyperlocal groceries, food delivery and hyperlocal services attracted large amounts of capital partly on the basis that they were replicating similar business models from the US or China. That has changed to a large extent so far this year.

In the first half of the year, start-ups in enterprise software, financial and automobile technology, and online pharmacy were popular with investors, according to data from Tracxn.

To be sure, investors and entrepreneurs will always keep an eye on the US and China for start-up ideas. Some of the investments in fintech, for instance, are inspired by start-ups that have come up in the US and China.

But what may change is that start-ups and investors will have to be smarter in adopting these ideas in India and even come up with ones designed specifically for the Indian market.

“Investors will focus more on the uniqueness in operating models and not just on how these models have worked in other markets across the globe,” said Deepak Gaur, managing director at SAIF Partners, a venture capital firm. “We too have started to look for business ideas that are not easily replicable and are trying to solve problems unique only to India. Even entrepreneurs will witness this change and you would see less of business ideas that are me-too of US or Chinese companies.”

In consumer Internet, investors are looking for sustainable business models beyond pure-play marketplaces and niche verticals, said Sanjay Nath, managing director at early-stage fund Blume Ventures. “Redbus and Freecharge have shown India-specific models can create differentiated value vs simply replicating Chinese and Valley unicorn models. The best founders are building a strong technology and operations moat rather than just a capital moat. Another interesting area is enterprise-for-global markets or SaaS (software as a service). Here, start-ups can yield higher margins and gain global customers while leveraging India’s cost advantages,” he said.

Source:http://www.livemint.com/Companies/MqqB7b1EriBwg2K19kZ8KJ/The-endgame-for-venture-investing-in-India.html

Indian start up culture and its problems

I am not a business expert . The views I am presenting in this article are based on my perceptions . Please correct me if I am wrong. Also, this is not a rant. Rather its a call for the talented entrepreneurs of this country to be more fearless.

I personally feel that entrepreneurship is the driving shaft for the wheels of development. During my graduate studies, I took courses in design thinking and basic courses in entrepreneurship. I think entrepreneurs and great companies are a byproduct of providing a solution to a problem. The problems could be huge or could be the smallest ones. The solution , either a product or service should add value and people would be happy to pay for it.

In the recent years India has seen a marked increase in the number of start ups. The country has more than 19,000 technology-enabled startups, led by consumer Internet and financial services startups, the report said. “Indian startups raised $3.5 billion in funding in the first half of 2015, and the number of active investors in India increased from 220 in 2014 to 490 in 2015. As of December 2015, eight Indian startups belonged to the ‘Unicorn’ club (ventures that are valued at $1 billion and upwards).”

A brief look at the companies listed by yourstory [2] reveals that there are more startups in food tech than in the energy industry. Is finding good delicious gourmet food right hour one of the biggest problems of our generation ? A country deprived of the basic necessities is creating entrepreneurs who want to disrupt the way people eat food from restaurants and fine dines. Here is a list of the most innovative companies in India [3]. Compare this to the most innovative companies of the world [4]. Majority of the start ups in India aggregate information and are filled with UI/UX designers who keep improving the user interface till it starts to glitter. I am of the opinion that, all that glitters is not gold.

I was talking to a friend who works for one of the leading PSU’s in India.From technical to managerial, problems are in plenty. The value attached to solving these problems are huge, both economically and socially. But nobody wants to solve these problems. Young engineers, who are recruited in these PSU’s , from the premier engineering colleges of India want to be comfortable with their Government jobs until they crack the famed civil services/CAT or start an e-commerce start up with their buddies.

I will generalize a little and go on to say that majority of the start-up founders are trying to solve problems which interest the venture capitalists. I was talking to a friend who has recently started a company and in his opinion Indian investors are risk averse. The fact that venture capitalists themselves are not ready to take risks is scary to say the least.Creating value or solving problems is seldom on the agenda. There is no denying that they still are trying really hard but unless the youth starts approaching problems, we would never have companies like TESLA originating in our country.

India is plagued by plenty of problems. It has region specific problems as well as problems which are overarching. Water scarcity, lack of uninterrupted water supply, traffic management, better education resources, farm to food supply chain are a few of the notable of them. The sheer size of these problems are huge. All these sectors have a huge amount of inertia involved , but the potential for improvement is huge. It will be difficult to implement but if the entrepreneurs wanted it easy they could have settled with their 9 to 5 jobs. Do we necessarily need to follow the western start ups, replicate and tweak them according to Indian conditions and call ourselves entrepreneurs ?

There are a few startups which are doing a commendable job at solving problems. Companies like husk power systems , farm and farmers, chakra, Infocold , tessol, promethean are a few of them . Please provide links about similar companies in the comment section , which are solving actual problems. I would love to read more about them .But we need many more. I implore rather beg anyone reading this post and dreaming of becoming an entrepreneur to find a problem first. While taking a course in systematic product development, out professor Dr Bruno Gries emphasized that in order to develop a good solution the problem has to be very well defined.

I think all entrepreneurs should follow his advice. There are a plenty of problems , apply your mind, create value ,and you would get the success you want. Money should never be the only objective for forming a company, solving a problem should be.

Source:https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/indian-start-up-culture-its-problems-abhinav-bhaskar?trk=pulse-det-nav_art

The shoddy state of start-up incubators in India

On January 16, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi concluded the Start-up India conference in New Delhi, with an action plan for how to promote entrepreneurship and young enterprises in the country.

Now, more than the start-ups, it is the ecosystem that badly needs our attention today. If we want the ecosystem to sustain, there must be an appropriate economic incentive for every member for the ‘right’ reasons.

A key stakeholder we would like to bring to attention is the incubator. For those who studied medical sciences, it is an apparatus where infants are provided with a controlled, protective environment so that they can grow and develop their immunity. Taking this metaphor over to our case, the government (read, parent of the house) is paying the incubator (read, doctors) to provide an environment for the start-up (read, baby) where it can develop a robust business model (read, immunity against the external environment).

Let us now bring some sophistication in our argument. First, the prelude or why you need incubators.In a study conducted by Joseph Eshun in 2004, incubators and the roles they played for the development of the economy were highlighted. First, they facilitate access to talent, technology and capital.

Second, they are key institutions in lobbying with policy-makers for entrepreneurship. Third, incubators perform brokering activity, mediating between start-ups and resource providers. Finally, incubators act as a one-stop shop for start-ups, where they can get administrative assistance, time, discounted real estate, mentoring and practice their operations over and over again.

The second phase is to understand their status in India. According to the “Fuelling Entrepreneurship” report published by the Department of Science and Technology, there were 68 technology business incubators, 18 Science and Technology Entrepreneurs Parks (STEPs) and 38 business accelerators/incubators in the country as of 2014. In addition, according to the recently released Start-up India Action Plan, 35 new incubators are planned to be set up on a PPP basis and 50 new bio-incubators are planned to be established though the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC).

But first compare these numbers to the nearly 98,000 businesses registered in the country in 2014, according to the World Bank, or the fact that there are over 3,000 business incubators in the US. Add to this, many of the existing ones are having an air of destitution around them and are struggling to stay afloat. The picture isn’t really as pretty any more!
What could be the reasons? We had discussions with multiple incubators and incubatees, and we observed four prominent reasons across the board.

1. Working capital: (Where is the cash?)

Incubators face significant working capital concerns as they have limited sources of funds besides government corpus and, in some cases, philanthropic donations.

The director of one Bangalore-based incubator mentioned that “we have working capital problems of our own. To manage self-financed incubators, we must constantly be on the lookout for donations or investments from our members. Typically, these are our member investors themselves. But such investments are few and occasional, and budgeting the cash flows based on these demands is taxing.”

On the other end of the spectrum lie incubators that are housed within academic institutions. The dean who overlooks the technology business incubator at one of north India’s most famous engineering colleges said that “our biggest concern is the inherent bureaucracy and, in most cases, their lack of understanding of our business. We have often been asked to show results and maintain a healthy financial statement. To do that on a large-scale is almost impossible. We acquire funds and grants in the name of start-ups, not ourselves. We typically survive on small fees and other budget allocations. In our case, the university has looked at the technology business incubator positively, but quite a few of my colleagues from across India face a completely different scenario. They are effectively competing against their campus placements—a challenge every such manager feels tied down when competing against. In fact, rarely do parents send students for starting a business, it is typically jobs they are after.”

2. Muted industry response: (Why should I support the new kids?)

The one-line response from the industry often is “why should you help your competitors?” The answer is simple—start-ups work in a different way than traditional businesses. If one works, learn from it, absorb it—don’t fight it.“It is also imperative for them (industry) to ensure that they critique the problems they had to face and make the next generation of start-ups deal with newer problems,” said Sandeep, a graduated incubatee from NIT Calicut’s technology business incubator. He added that, 25 years ago, Kerala-based start-ups had to go to business houses, who would lend money to some founders philanthropically. “But, can the philanthropic model continue?”

3. Lack of non-monetary resources (No mentors, no training. Do what you wish)

Even if we keep aside the financial and mentoring aspects of the incubators, a lot still has to be provided by them. For instance, servers, electricity backup, high-speed internet connection (at least up to 10Mbps) and legal advisory. Without such services, the start-ups could typically end up allocating a lot of useful capital to activities that are not core to their business, constantly leaving them with little to remain afloat. Many incubators, especially academic institution based, do not have a full-time professional incubator manager. Many a times, it is a professor or a PhD student who doubles up into the role of
managing the incubator. Thus, the administration of incubator suffers, and there is a lack of vision and a long-term strategy.

4. Bad location (Why should start-ups settle in the suburbs?)

Many of the university-based incubators located in non-metro cities face difficulty in getting mentors and industry connects for their start-ups due to the locational disadvantage. “An incubator has to be in a happening place, for both start-ups and mentors to access it, and for conducting quality networking events. “Consider the case of Microsoft Ventures in Bangalore, it is on MG Road, which is the heart of the city, you can’t have a better location than that”, said Arjun Pillai, co-founder of Profoundis, which has been part of multiple incubators and accelerators like Start-up Village Kochi, Microsoft venture accelerator and Start-up Chile. Can university-based incubators possibly think of renting a space in a more happening location rather than merely allocating a building within their premises?

Worse comes into the picture when government officials have tried to ‘help’ by providing land in remote areas for technology start-ups. It is nearly impossible for such a start-up to even avail basic IT infrastructure—let alone build the next Facebook. There is a huge reason why we hear start-ups from Mumbai, Gurgaon and Bangalore—not Manjlegaon, Gohana and Byasanagar.

Now, there are some options that incubators and policy-makers could consider, going forward.To overcome financial constraints, larger corporations could be encouraged ‘adopt’ specific incubators;

Strategically setting up incubators at such locations which offer greater industry interactions; Setting up visits to the office places of mentors and idols for the incubatees;
Promoting peer-working between start-ups through frequent networking sessions or in-groups;

Incubators for product-based start-ups could look at the ‘hackcelerator’ model, where in specific ‘warehouses’ are maintained for use of 3D printing, tooling and manufacturing expertise;

Offering default enrolment into a start-up professionals’ club/associations which gives peer recognition.

In the end, policies are great. Momentum is better. However, the right people needed to drive the momentum is of utmost importance. Incubators are not just middlemen, they are the reasons start-ups exist in the first place.

Source:http://www.financialexpress.com/industry/jobs/the-shoddy-state-of-start-up-incubators-in-india/390995/

Chinese investors bullish about Indian startups; jointly provide $50 mn of funding

A dozen Chinese investors offered at a technology summit here on Sunday to jointly provide funding of about $50 million (Rs 334 crore) for Indian start-ups.

The investors include a Cyber Carrier, a Hong Kong-based Chinese internet enterprise that has set up a $30 million initiative fund in January to invest in six Indian start-ups.

About 150 seed funded start-ups pitched for Series A funding at the two-day summit by presenting their ideas to a 17-member delegation of Chinese investors.

“Each start-up is seeking $4-10 million funding from the Chinese investors, including Carrier, which helps enterprises in FinTech, B2B, e-commerce, healthcare, EdTech and AdTech areas,” the summit organisers said in a statement.

Carrier partner Jessica Wong said that a few of the investing delegates were keen on first understanding the Indian market, while other were keen on investing in the start-ups here.

“The delegation varies from people who have invested in over 30 companies globally to a few who are here to understand the Indian eco system,” she said.

Participating in the summit, Aarin Capital Partners and former Infosys director TV Mohandas Pai said the opportunities for investment in India were immense, as 2,000 start-ups registered across the country in 2015, 1,250 of them got funded.

“The start-up revolution shows the potential and scope of the Indian market, with India, China and the US as growth engines in the near future,” he said.

The IT industry employs about 4.5 million techies across the country.

“We have decided to make this (summit) a quarterly event to pilot and facilitate the integration and complementation of technology iteration, market exploration, business model upgrade and capital operation between China and India,” said Onionfans chief executive Hutu.

TryKaro.com Chief Executive Brij said the networking opportunity for start-ups like his was encouraging and motivating, as the Chinese investors were keen to hear out and understand Indian products and ideas.

“Their feedback is helpful and first-time entrepreneurs benefit from events like these. We have received initial interest from the Chinese delegation and are keen to hear back from them,” he added.

TryKaro.com is an experiential marketplace that helps consumers to try out products they are keen on buying instead of seeing pictures online.

The summit was organised by Onionfans, Cyber Carrier, Technology Issue magazine and Xpressn labs.

Source:http://tech.firstpost.com/startup/chinese-investors-bullish-about-indian-startups-jointly-provide-50-mn-of-funding-337183.html

Mahindra Agri Solutions invests in startup MeraKisan

Mahindra Univeg today announced investment in Mera Kisan, an e-commerce startup.
He said Mahindra Univeg is a 60:40 joint venture between Mahindra Groups Mahindra Agri Solutions and Belgium-based Univeg (Greenyard Foods).

MeraKisan is an online shopping platform, which sources fresh vegetables and fruits directly from farmers and sell it to the customers.

“Our investment (minority shareholding) in MeraKisan will enable the farmers and the consumers to connect digitally and create a win-win situation for both farmers and customers,” said Ashok Sharma, MD & CEO, Mahindra Agri Solutions Ltd.

It focuses on developing fresh fruit supply chain in India and imports fruits to make high quality produce available to domestic consumers.

He added that Mahindra Agri Solutions interacts with farmers to improve their produce, quality and productivity by providing latest advances in farm technologies and agricultural know how.

“It also helps farmers by linking them to the market to provide better returns for their quality produce and thereby improving their lives,” said Sharma.
Prashanth Patil, CEO-Designate of Mera Kisan, said that leveraging the digital platform, Mera Kisan will ensure delivery of high quality fruits and vegetables at the door step of the consumers.

With this platform, farmers will be benefiting as payments are done to the farmers upfront through online payment gateways, Patil added. PTI SPK NRB ABI

Source:http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/mahindra-agri-solutions-invests-in-startup-merakisan/1/775532.html