Branding Tata Motors small car Nano as a cheapest car was a mistake and was one of the reasons for the model not taking off as expected, Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, said on Wednesday (15 July). He further clarified that people did not want to be associated with a cheap car. The former chairman of the Tata group said the small car was designed by people with an average age of 25-26 and was a success beyond expectations. The one-year delay because of the violent agitations against the company in West Bengal allowed competitors to spread wrong messages about the car, he added. Tata, who spent more than two decades at the helm of the iconic Tata group before hanging up his boots in 2012, has invested an undisclosed amount in Ampere, a Coimbatore-based electric vehicle start-up founded by a woman entrepreneur. Tata made the investment along with Ampere's existing investor, Forum Synergies. The start-up, founded by Hemalatha Annamalai, will use the funds to scale up operations and hire talent over two years. Ampere is the first automobile start-up investment for Tata, who conceived Nano, now one of the world's cheapest cars. Tata went on to add that e-commerce will change the face of merchandising and marketing in India. In the last one year, he has invested in a slew of consumer Internet companies such as Ola, Snapdeal, Paytm, and Xiaomi. Tata who is investing in start-ups said he was looking at those outfits that would help the common man. He also urged the entrepreneurs to be a long term player and build an institution than cashing out early. Some of the companies where Tata has invested in recent months include US-based high-altitude wind energy generator Altaeros Energies, e-commerce firm Snapdeal, online jewellery retailer BlueStone, online furniture retailer Urban Ladder, auto portal CarDekho.com and so on.
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Puneet Dalmia, MD, Dalmia Bharat seeds Rs 50 crore in an one month old Delhi based reality startup targeting Delhi’s Rs 13,000-crore, contractor-built one-off home market, reports BW Online BureauDalmia Bharat Group's MD Puneet Dalmia has invested Rs 50 crore in a realty start-up, Prithu, in his individual capacity. With this, Dalmia holds 74 percent in Prithu, which caters to the individual home segment. The balance will be held by Prithu's MD Nitin Bansal.Prithu, which supplies to the individual home segment is founded by a young team of IIM and IIT alumni, seeks to disrupt the fragmented contractor- driven individual home segment in Delhi. Over the next five years, Prithu is eyeing an annual turnover of over Rs 500 crore.“Delhi’s residential stand-alone real estate market is much like the rest of India where one-off homes built by small contractors are the preferred choice. Low degree of professionalism has led to a serious trust deficit in this sector, and home owners often have disappointing stories to narrate regarding on time delivery and quality of specs” mentioned Dalmia. Prithu-built homes would include built-in safety and security features, and will cost between Rs 2,300 to Rs 6,000 per sq ft, covering all design, construction and approvals costs. The homes would also be GRIHA (Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment) certified. “We’re looking to transform the small-contractor-dominated individual or one-off home segment with a systematic and transparent approach, to ensure a superior and satisfying customer experience,” said Nitin Bansal, Co-founder and Managing Director, Prithu.
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A video analytics start-up, Vidooly on Monday (13 July) announced the opening of its new office in Noida which embraces an open design to foster collaboration and innovation, will also support Vidooly’s aggressive hiring plans to double its workforce in the next six months. It is looking to hire data scientists and analysts and programmers to boost its team strength. Vidooly recently received funding from Silicon Valley based investor, Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP).Subrat Kar, CEO & Co-founder of Vidooly, said, “Vidooly’s talent pool is largely of young people. To keep energy levels high, our focus is on creating the right culture, which is an environment for creativity where there is collaboration, a free flow of ideas as well as fun, humor and spontaneity. Our physical office space is designed to reflect this culture we wish to create and an expression of who we are as a company.”Vidooly’s new office will allow it to scale up its workforce as it gears up to respond to the high demand for its product and services and support its expansion plans beyond India. Vidooly’s new office is an expression of its company identity through physical space. Done up in the colors of its corporate identity, red, white and black, the design is open with no private cubicles and the café within the office, features a large television screen.“With expansion plans afoot to focus on the Middle East and South-East Asia because of the growing content consumption in these regions, we are looking to hire aggressively and add 25 more people to our team in the near term. We are looking for data scientists and analysts and programmers who can support our core product development”, he added.Vidooly’s growth is a result of the global megatrend being witnessed in video consumption, which comprises an estimated more than 60 per cent of all data traffic on the Web. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, next only to Google. More than 300 hours of video is being uploaded on YouTube every minute, out of which 90 per cent of the videos generate less than 10,000 views in the first one-month. Currently, content creators are putting a lot of efforts to create good quality content, but the problem is that they find it difficult in targeting the right kind of audience to watch their content. This is where Vidooly steps in to help content creators, brands and multi channel networks (MCNs), to maximize their YouTube organic views, build an audience base and earn more revenues on YouTube.
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Housing.com is moving on from the Rahul Yadav controversy. The real estate portal has named chief operating officer Rishabh Gupta as interim chief executive, a week after co-founder and former CEO Rahul Yadav was fired for bad behaviour.His appointment is effective immediately, Jonathan Bullock, SoftBank's representative on Housing's board, said in an internal email titled 'Moving forward & Looking up'. SoftBank is the largest stakeholder in the company. Economictimes.com reported that Bullock said in a email sent to Housing employees said: "We believe and expect that his principled leadership, tenacity, and determination will position us well."Gupta, a former Flipkart employee, had been effectively running Housing during the past few months of turmoil in the company because of Yadav's run-ins with investors and others. Gupta, Housing's first angel investor Haresh Chawla, and chief technical officer Abhishek Anand will also join an operating committee.The Housing board had fired Yadav as CEO last week, bringing to an end a tumultuous relationship at one of India's most-watched startups. Housing.com was in news again on Monday (6 July) and again for wrong reasons. The site was down for sometime after being hacked and the twitter world was aflame with rumours about who had done it. Many had pointed a finger at Rahul Yadav who had denied the allegation.Housing was founded in 2012 by a dozen college-mates from IIT-Mumbai. Four of them including Yadav now have left the company.The company is currently controlled by SoftBank, which has a 32 per cent stake in Housing. The Japanese firm has formed an executive committee that controls Housing's finances and operations, and is led by Bullock, who recently replaced SoftBank's president Nikesh Arora on the Housing board. Investor Nexus venture owns about 19 per cent stake in Housing, and Helion Ventures and Falcon Edge about 10 per cent each.There are rumours going on that Quikr’s investors have agreed to buy Housing.com for $170 million, much less than the $235 million valuation that the company garnered in 2014.
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Startups begin with a brilliant idea by highly motivated people, who hire a couple of extremely motivated people to turn it into a reality, says Aditya RajgarhiaLeft, right, straight ahead or trackback 10 steps - if you’re somebody looking for a challenging yet promising career, you’re probably stumbling across opportunities at fast-growing startups hunting for the brightest talent.Startups have a magnetic aura around them and working for one is nothing short of the perfect north pole-south pole attraction. Be it for the culture - fun and casual, or the room for rapid growth - professionally and financially, startups are surely in the limelight today for offering the ‘best’ job opportunities to freshers and experienced professionals.Looking at the fancy websites to videos boasting of a culture that balances work, life and enjoyment, there isn’t anyone out there who doesn’t imagine themselves sitting on a bean bag with a mac in hand, working with like minded people while applying for these positions.There is no doubt about the fact that working for a startup can be exciting and at the same time, teach you a lot about the field you want to build a career in (or not). Because once you’re out there, all the rules you have learnt at your corporate job no longer apply.So how do you know the startup you’re planning to join is the right career move? A hit and trial is fine, but what if the grass isn’t as green as you thought it would be?6 things you need to keep in mind before signing up with a startup1. You’ll have to be ready for changeUnlike corporate biggies who have set offices across different cities, allocated spaces for various departments, defined work for a group of people and job titles to go along with the work, startups are forever changing. Be it the office location, job title, job role or for that matter, your seat!At some startups, even picking out your favourite chair and labelling it doesn’t work.The constantly changing environment definitely breaks your workflow once in a while; but life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better with change. After all, startups aim at hiring highly motivated and enthusiastic, change embracing people!2. You’re either all in or simply outIf you’re accustomed to working alone, startups aren’t for you. You’re expected to be a team player, who rolls up his sleeves and dives right in at the hour of need - whether or not your job profile qualifies you for it.There is no such thing as, “This isn’t what I was hired for.”Your everyday activity could fluctuate from being exactly what your job description states to something that you had never even imagined yourself doing; including picking up donuts for your colleagues occasionally. The good part of it all? You learn how to do just about everything - tech, non-tech and so many other things!3. The flat hierarchy doesn’t stayStartups begin with a brilliant idea by highly motivated people, who hire a couple of extremely motivated people to turn it into a reality. Even though initially the pitch of a flat hierarchy sounds exactly what you are looking for, things are bound to change once the company tastes success.Don’t like someone standing on your head? Sad.The motivated early employees are often put under experienced managers who decide what needs to be done when - of course, in the best way possible. Even though a manager is a manager who might bug you on a daily basis, he or she is the one person you can learn from. After all, they know how to keep a storm in control.4. It's hard work, rewarding workWhen you join a startup, you're not just performing your individual role - you're building a company. Long hours and pressure to work on multiple things are the norm in the early years of a startup. It can be mentally draining, but a great experience at the same time. Not to mention the enormous satisfaction of building something great from scratch.Be ready to deal with pressure!Although the work is hard, fast-growing startups who have raised large amounts of capital are usually able to compensate their employees very well, even better than most large companies. It's definitely a "work hard, play hard" environment.5. You work at your own riskEverything is hunky dory while investors are coming in, deadlines are being met and there isn’t already a similar concept so big that it is hard to compete with. But when you make the choice of working at a startup, the risk you take in your career path is entirely on your shoulders.Enter at your own risk!A lot of startups don’t survive beyond a year or two of crazy working. Even when they make all the news for getting acquired, the real story may not be quite as rosy. Often, startups get acquired for a price at which even the founders don’t make anything out of the sale.But the best part of it all?6. You’ll get to innovate and start your own One of the most rewarding things about working for startups is the environment you get to bring forward fresh ideas and innovate with the best of people in the field. Since each one in the team is a motivated individual, they are always open to new ideas.Age no bar, your ideas are always credited!Working in an entrepreneurial environment is a great way to learn how to innovate. A startup experience pays you back in opportunities and knowledge to help you get started with your own venture.Whether you’re applying for an internship or a full time position, remember one thing: there is no such thing as a constant in the startup world. For as long as you’re working in a setup, make sure you make the most out of it and learn as much as you can. Having a startup experience on your profile can work wonders.The author, Aditya Rajgarhia, is CEO and Founder of Instahyre.com
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A june afternoon in New Delhi can’t be anything but sizzling hot. Yet, Sashwati has a fleece jacket handy in her office drawer. Reason: It gets so chilly indoors that she gets goose bumps. At around six in the evening, when it’s time to go home, Sashwati quickly puts her desktop in sleep mode and leaves, as do the 125 employees in her office.This scenario is replicated in millions of offices every day, resulting in a massive wastage of electricity from air conditioners and computers. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), commercial buildings waste up to 30 per cent of the energy they consume.Now, there is help available for such companies from Zenatix, a Gurgaon-based startup that helps commercial buildings save on the their energy bills, by understanding their power consumption patterns and providing insights.“The main reason for this wastage is that people are not able to measure their energy consumption,” says Rahul Bhalla, co-founder and CEO of Zenatix. “Unlike the mobile bill that lists the cost incurred from calls, messages, and use of other services, the electricity bill just mentions the units of electricity consumed. It doesn’t brief how much energy is consumed by ACs, or UPS. If one knows how much energy is being consumed by which appliance in real time, one can take corrective measures,” he adds.Zenatix installs energy monitoring equipments, smart meters and controllers on different appliances such as ACs, lighting, UPS, etc. to monitor the energy consumed by them through their cloud-based software. Then it analyses the data and sends information on energy-saving measures to customers via SMS or email.ZENATIXYEAR OF FOUNDING: December 2013 WHAT IT DOES: Enable commercial buildings become energy-efficient USP: Provides actionable insights driven by energy analyticsFUNDING: $1,61,000COMPETITION: Boston-based EnerNOCREVENUE (BOOKED): Over Rs 1 crore NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 12PATENTS: NoneThis energy-efficiency model was a part of the research done by Amarjeet Singh, co-founder and CTO, who was a faculty member at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in New Delhi. During his research (2010 to 2013), he deployed energy sensors on campus to collect over five million data points every day. Insights developed from the data collected over the years helped in reducing energy consumption by 15-20 per cent at the institute.In December 2013, he took entrepreneurial leave from IIIT Delhi to start Zenatix with his IIT Delhi batchmates Rahul Bhalla and Vishal Bansal. He launched this model commercially for large consumers of energy like office spaces, hospitals, schools, manufacturing units.As they were doing their market research, the partners came to know of several companies that were engaged in gathering data and informing building managers about their energy usage using graphs and trend charts. But then, the building managers did not have the know-how to interpret this data and take corrective action. “So, instead of providing the information on energy consumption, we decided to interpret the data and give recommendations to customers by email alerts and messages to trigger action in real time”, says Singh.This, according to Singh, is Zenatix’s biggest differentiating factor. “We have not seen any company in India that analyses the data and delivers solutions to customers to reduce their energy consumption and link all this to cost savings.”Globally, Boston-based EnerNOC is helping commercial buildings automate energy operations.The partners launched their first product in May 2014. But they are still working on building different algorithms and use case studies, so that this system can be deployed across a variety of customers with varying infrastructural support systems in various circumstances, such as factories, for instance, where the Internet connection might not be stable.The biggest challenge for them initially, says Singh, was sales. The customers wanted to know how much they would save in costs. This meant installing their system and getting the data. But clients were unwilling to pay a huge amount upfront for this product. It was a chicken and egg situation, says Singh. So, they refined the business model and transformed it into a SaaS model, where companies pay a monthly subscription fee proportional to the area over which the sensors are installed. And, there is also a guarantee: if the client doesn’t make cost savings, Zenatix would remove the software without any charge. This proved to be a game changer for them. Within one year, they had 32 clients with sensor installations at over 100 sites. Some of their large clients include Google, Mother Diary, NIIT, United Health Group, and IIT Delhi. In fact, they recently raised $1,61,000 from Google’s India chief Rajan Anandan, Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal and Trifecta Capital’s Rahul Khanna, along with a bunch of other individuals.Gaurav Bhatnagar, National Head of Infrastructure & Facilities at NIIT says, “We commissioned the project in April 2015 and in just two months we have been able to make energy savings of 5 per cent with just the low hanging fruits. For instance, Zenatix suggested starting the chiller at 7 am instead of 6 am, so the building reaches the optimal temperature just before people arrive. The best thing is they don’t suggest any retrofits but give deep insights about performance of electrical equipments and how the building reacts to them.”The company is now focusing on getting more customers and also making its technology seamless and plug-and-play. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 27-07-2015)
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Hopping Chef provides fine dining service to those who are looking for good food at their convenience and in the comfort of their homesMove over restaurants delivering food to homes. Mirah Hospitality has acquired 30 per cent stake in Hopping Chef, a brand by Gritty Foods LLP, that supplies chefs to people's homes. Hopping Chef was launched in December 2014 as a platform to provide fine dining service to those who are looking for good food at their convenience and in the comfort of their homes.Mirah Hospitality has existing investments in Impresario Handmade restaurants (Smoke House Deli, Tasting Room, Socials), Himesh Foods Pvt. Ltd. (Mad Over Donuts) and Massive Restaurants (Masala Library, Made in Punjab, Farzi Cafe and Mithai).Gaurav Goenka, Managing Director, Mirah Hospitality, said that, “This association marks a new beginning. It will enhance the strength of Mirah as a brand, which is looking for growth both organically and inorganically. Until now Mirah has always been in the brick and mortar space. However keeping in mind the latest trend and flourishing prospects in the online space, Mirah decided to diversify its portfolio to the online food space as well. Hopping chef will help Mirah to enhance its current portfolio. I am happy to share that, in the past few years, we have grown without compromising on quality. With this new alliance, I am hoping to provide quality chefs for those who are looking for a global food experience.”Hopping Chef, founded by Shaival Chandra, Dhaval Udeshi and Sid Ugrankar, is currently valued at Rs.10 crore. With the investment from Mirah Group, the Brand will be expanding its network to Bangalore within 2 months followed by 4 other metros in the next 6 months. Currently, the brand has 15 chefs on board, which will be increased to around 75 to 100 to keep up with the geographical diversifications planned. Over the last few months of existence, Hopping Chef has proven to be an ideal place for chefs to showcase their talent and innovation as there is no set recipe or costing which they need to follow.“An investment from a well established hospitality group like Mirah will boost Hopping Chef and will open newer avenues. Mirah Hospitality is known for their unconventional approach to business and I am hopeful that Hopping Chef with this arrangement with Mirah Hospitality will establish footprints in new geographies," said Shaival Chandra, Founder & CEO, Hopping Chef.The hospitality industry in India is poised to register higher growth rate over the next 5 years. By the year 2020, the Indian food market is expected to touch the 40 trillion mark.
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Realty portal Housing.Com's board has sacked its CEO and co-founder Rahul Yadav with immediate effect, saying that his behaviour towards investors and media was not "befitting" of a CEO. Yadav will not be an employee or part of the SoftBank backed portal in any manner, the company said. "Housing.Com has released its CEO Rahul Yadav, with immediate effect, after a regular board meeting, held earlier today," it said in a statement. "Yadav who is also the co-founder of the company, will no longer be an employee of Housing and be associated with the company in any manner, going forward," it added. The board, unanimously agreed to bring Yadav's tenure to a close, with reference to "his behaviour towards investors, ecosystem and the media". "The Board believed that his behaviour is not befitting of a CEO and is detrimental to the company, known for its innovative approach to product development, market expansion and brand building," the statement said. Yadav has been in the thick of a controversy after he put in his papers questioning the intellectual capability of his company's board. Later, he apologised to the members. Last month, he hogged the limelight again when he gave away all his holding, worth about Rs 200 crore, in the company to the employees. In December, Housing.Com had raised USD 90 million through private equity infusion from SoftBank Group along with Falcon Edge and other existing investors. While the search for an interim CEO is underway, Housing.Com said, a transition plan has been put in place. "The current senior executives of Housing will continue to run the operations on a daily basis, and ensure its continued smooth functioning. The Board and the Operating Committee will remain closely involved with all key decisions," it said. The board, investors, management team and employees are keen to see Housing maximise its huge potential in India and beyond, as well as run in professional and world class manner, the company said. The Board thanked Yadav for his contributions and wished him well, for his future endeavours. Within two years of its founding, the company expanded from its original rent and resale proposition to include PGs and hostels, serviced apartments, land, plot projects, and new projects. Housing.Com has more than 2,551 employees in over 100 cities across India. (PTI)
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