Coursera says that it plans to use the funds to source new content and expand its global reach. Simar Singh reportsIn the first closing of its Series C funding, online open learning giant, Coursera, has raised $49.5 million and expects the figure to swell to $60 million by the second closing. The round was lead by venture capital firm, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), one of the company’s original investors. Joining in among other investors was Bennett and Coleman’s (BCCL) subsidiary, Times Internet, as a first time investor. Apart from the investment angle, Times Internet and Coursera announced a strategic partnership in which the former will provide marketing, advertising, and strategic support to create awareness about the platform in India. Satyan Gajwani, CEO of Times Internet, said, "Coursera is the gold standard for the emerging wave of education technology companies. We are excited to bring Times Internet's growth capabilities behind such a strong product, and bring high quality, affordable digital education to millions of Indians." Coursera says that it plans to use the funds to source new content and expand its global reach. The company currently has ambitious plans for international expansion, with a focus on emerging economic regions like India, China and Latin America, where there is a demand for accessible, high quality learning.
Read More
Pune-based AgroStar, a direct-to-farmer m-commerce firm launched in 2012, has raised close to $4 million from venture capital investors IDG Ventures India and existing investor Aavishkaar Venture Management. This is in its second round of funding for the startup that was founded by Sitanshu Sheth and Shardul Sheth in an attempt to transform the agri-business for farmers in rural India. It is understood that the firm has raised the current round of capital to enhance its technology and leadership teams and expand its operations across India. Headquartered in Pune, AgroStar currently operates in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. It is looking to foray into an additional 3-4 states over the next 12 months, as per a statement issued by Consultancy firm o3 Capital acted as the sole advisor to AgroStar on the transaction. AgroStar has developed a direct to farmer m-commerce platform where farmers can buy an entire range of agri inputs like seeds, crop nutrition, crop protection and hardware products by simply giving a missed call on the Company’s 1800 number. The Company is aiming to address the challenges of demand and supply mis-match, adulteration, poor quality products, unavailability of key products etc. Faced by Indian farmers while purchasing agri inputs. IDG Ventures India is a leading India-focused technology venture capital fund. The fund is part of IDG Ventures, a global network of technology venture funds which has more than $ 4 billion under management. Aavishkaar, on the other hand, is an early stage, India focused venture fund with over $155 million under management. It primarily invests in agriculture, dairy, education, energy, handicrafts, among others. The current investment signals a strong vote of confidence among investors in the new breed of India's entrepreneurs. In the first half of the current calendar year, as many as 363 venture capital deals were sealed, three times more than the number of private equity deals, which stood at 99, as per data available with Grant Thornton.
Read More
In 2010, while he was in second year at IIT, Kedar Kulkarni, CEO and co-founder, HyperVerge, co-founded his first company, Lema Labs, which has become a leading robotics education company in South India. In IIT-Madras, he represented India at the International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) in 2009 and 2010.In 2014, he teamed up with four other IITians (IIT-Madras) Vignesh Krishnakumar (CTO), Kishore Natarajan (User Growth), Saivenkatesh Ashokkumar (Engineering) and Praveen Kumar (Product) to develop artificial intelligence which deals with teaching computers to mimic the behaviour of the human brain. The Seed FundingHyperVerge, a deep-learning startup by IIT-Madras graduates, announced that it has raised $1 million in seed funding from several US venture capital firms, including NEA, Milliways Ventures and Naya Ventures.In 2014, HyperVerge went to US to do a Kickstarter campaign, where people made them realized the prominence of their product. "We didn't visit US for seed funding, our intention was to do a kickstarter campaign in the US. We were hoping to raise about $50,000 through crowd-funding. We thought it will be just enough to build a basic app. Through conversations with mentors from IIT Madras Alumni community, we realised that the technology developed by the team was a lot more valuable than we earlier thought. It also became very clear that HyperVerge will need backing of strong and supportive VCs for us to be a serious contender in the space of deep-learning". The AppSilver, the first smartphone application developed by the company helps users automatically organise their photos, eliminate poor quality photos and duplicates, and share their best photos. Optimized self-learning algorithms produce results that are real-time and highly accurate to ensure users find the photos(s) they are looking for within just a few seconds. Kittu Kolluri, General Partner at NEA, said, “They have strong ambitions and the potential to achieve them—the technology developed by the company can span out as useful applications for consumers, enterprises and developers. We are thrilled to partner with HyperVerge to bring innovative deep-learning solutions to users and prospective partners.” "Working with a budget of under six lakh, we were able to create classifiers for identification of people, scenes, events and unique patterns in images", said Kedar Kulkarni, CEO and co-founder of HyperVerge. "We believe that our image recognition technology can be the foundation for several breakthrough consumer applications in the near future".poonam@businessworld.in(Poonam Kumar)
Read More
Sumit Sharma Venture capital sector in India is awash with capital yet there are issues that need to be sorted out first, Jayant Sinha, minister of state for finance said in Mumbai on Tuesday (18 August). "About 90-95 per cent of the capital comes from outside India,’’ said Sinha after finance minister Arun Jaitley inaugurated two new funds by SIDBI. ``All that money is welcome. At the same time we need a domestic VC industry in India that is funding our innovators and entrepreneurs.’’ India needs several successive waves of innovation and entrepreneurship that will lift productivity of the economy which will result in new products and services, and make India an exporting powerhouse. We have to put in place the infrastructure for entrepreneurship and innovation now if we have to provide sustainability and fuel for economic growth over the next five or ten or 15 years, he said. As in the case of China, India too needs to have a balanced domestic VC industry, said Sinha. If we have a VC industry based here in India then we will overcome the problem we are facing in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship. Today most of the money coming from outside is going to a few select areas like e-commerce. If we solve India’s problems related to solar technology, affordable irrigation, electric scooters, medical devices, healthcare delivery then those products and services will be exported out of India to the rest of the world whether it is Indonesia, Nigeria, Vietnam, Bolivia or other countries.
Read More
Over the last 20 years, K Ganesh has been a maverick entrepreneur along with his wife Meena Ganesh. They have created businesses that have delivered wealth for shareholders and employees alike. Their last exit, when their venture Tutor Vista was sold to Pearson’s PLC for $220 million, made them household names. It was their fourth venture and the companies were sold at a very decent valuation too. Perhaps they have perfected the art of creating successful startups and have created exits worth $300 million. His philosophy is to create and seed ideas that can become long-term businesses rather than setting up an investment fund. His angel investments through his incubating company-- Growth Story -- in HomeLane and BigBasket have endeavoured to solve consumer problems through a combination of engaging customers through technology and delivering the final service at home. His own startup, Portea, has solved the problem of post-surgery home healthcare for patients and is currently on an expansion mode. He spoke to BW | Businessworld's Vishal Krishna about the future of startups in this country and the ideas that can currently be scaled to become big businesses. Here are the excerpts: What does Growth Story want to look at over the next five years?We have a specific view of the world. The way I see it, in five years, India stands at a huge opportunity and startups are the cente of it all. Firstly let us look at software-as-service; it is not a scalable business anymore. The technology should now look at consumer services; technology should solve problems such as handyman availability, healthcare delivery, fresh food delivery and creating home interiors. There are several such ideas which can create the next valuable businesses. These are some macro level themes too because there is no brand being built. By brand I mean a service that can offer reliability and consistency. The consumer today wants things at an instant and is worried about the quality offered. In our grocery business, BigBasket, we have our own private label which we are building as a brand. Organising the unorganised is one of my favourite themes to. Can we organise carpenters and plumbers and bring them on a Uber like business model? This is what Indian startups can do. So the first two themes; one to create a brand and then to organise services. Can these services really be organised?In our startup, Portea, we have physiotherapists that are independent consultants. These people used to do 2 treatments a day, today by giving them location based requests the number of patients per physiotherapist has gone up to 6 per day. These consultants have to be on time, manage a smile and deliver consistent service; this is our promise as a brand for the consumer. This leads me to my third theme, which is creating on demand services and this is what all our investee companies are doing. This will be a large theme going forward and many services such as banking will get disrupted. The fourth theme is more around delivering micro services through the mobile to disrupt the food industry, the housing and healthcare industry. We like the vertical play and horizontal services, like organising physiotherapists, plumbers and carpenters. There is talk about full stack businesses, what are they?A full stack business means an entrepreneur's ability to understand the entire business that he wants to serve, with technology as the core, which includes design, manufacturing, supply chain and delivery. HomeLane is a perfect example of a full stack interior designing company; the founder Srikanth Iyer is solving a real world problem of reducing the timeline of delivering interiors to home owners. The business manufacturers and builds to order, its engagement model with the customer is unique. What about technology businesses that offer B2B services?Data services will be big if you have to understand consumers. But Growth Story has not yet looked at this space. In the long run as our businesses scale data crunching will become a crucial part of the service. Data allows companies to deliver on campaigns and win more customers. Data and location based services should make sure that the cost of delivery should not go up. This is what we call actionable insights. Similarly I think the internet-of-things will become an important business. Its early days and the technology is still being built to offer connected services. Let me be honest with you in the next ten years there will be technology being built for Indians who need access to good healthcare and financial services. This is 85 percent of India. You and I are living in a gated world. But the services are needed for people who will use the internet for the first time and they will be income groups that will spend a portion of their earnings if technology reaches them. These are people who will consume information for the first time through the smart phone. Local services will become big businesses. Amidst all this, execution is the key and entrepreneurs need to solve this piece first. Ideas are a plenty.
Read More
Sanjeev Bikhchandani and Indian Angel Network fund Kolkata-based Momo chain, writes Sonal Khetarpal WOW! Momo, a Kolkata-based branded momo chain, has raised over Rs 10 crore in its first round of funding from Naukri.com’s founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani and Indian Angel Network (IAN). Investors like Saurabh Srivastava, Ashvin Chadha, Ajai Chowdhry, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Raman Roy, Anand Ladsariya, amongst others also participated in the funding round. The company was valued at $10 million. Commerce graduates Sagar Daryani and Binod Kumar Homagai founded WOW! Momo in 2008 with an initial investment of Rs 30,000. They have grown the QSR chain to 50 outlets across six in India such as Kolkata, Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, and Kochi. The company will use the funds to expand its presence with 60 more stores across major cities in India out of which 30 will be based out of Delhi. They will be in high street locations, outlets in malls in areas such as Lajpat Nagar, Satya Niketan, Prashant Vihar, Kirti Nagar, Dwarka and Noida,” says Daryani. Last week, the company opened its new outlet in the tony Hauz Khas area of New Delhi. Some of their product innovations include Chocolate Momo, MoBurg, Sizzler Momo’s, Baked Momo Augratin etc. because of which their business model is being studied as a case study at various Multi National Organizations and B-Schools. “We closed FY2014-15 at a turnover of Rs 20 crores and have a monthly run rate of 2.7 crores,” informs Daryani, CEO of WOW! Momo. Sanjeev Bhikchandani IAN investor commented on the company’s growth strategy saying, “While you have access to multiple momo stalls across your locality, Wow! Momo as a brand promises great and consistent quality, while exciting taste buds with innovative Momo’s that have never been created tried before.”
Read More
Silicon Valley venture capitalist to focus on financial services, energy and farm sectors, reports K Chandra Mohan Silicon Valley venture capitalist and former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya is all set to invest $1 billion in Indian start-ups over the next 10 years. Recently, he invested $20 million into Indian mobile payments start-up Ezetap through his venture capital fund, The Social+Capital Partnership, the four-year-old VC firm that has backed companies like Box, Palantir and Slack. Later, Palihapitiya became chairman of the Ezetap board, the first for him in a portfolio company outside the US."We don't do board meetings Ezetap, because it can be done through mails. As a chairman, I prefer to review products, and build the right product and strategise the product road map, most importantly give them the benefit of my learning at Facebook," he said. Palihapitiya is looking to invest in businesses with products and solutions that target a billion plus people in the field of financial services, energy, power and agriculture. To understand the degree of the Indian market which is totally new to him, has partnered with Bengaluru based, seed-stage VC fund Prime Venture Partners (previously known as Angel Prime). Outside of Silicon Valley startups, Palihapitiya is more interested in investing in India. In India, the Social+Capital is introduced through Prime Venture Capital to Ezetap. The California based, The Social+Capital partnership has raised $ 1.2 billion in three rounds to date, and has already invested in 50 companies. Palihapitiya was instrumental in bringing Facebook's user base from 18 million to 1 billion. The Social+Capital VC hatch and spends in disruptive start-ups in the areas of healthcare, education, finance, mobile and enterprise software.
Read More
Ezetap Mobile Solutions, the Bangalore-based pioneer in mobile payments for emerging markets, announced on that is has raised Rs 150 crore in fresh funding. Ezetap’s current investors; Social+Capital, Helion Advisors, and Berggruen Holdings are joined by Horizons Ventures, the private investment arm for Li Ka-Shing, and the Capricorn Investment Group in this round. Social+Capital founder Chamath Palihapitiya will become Chairman of Board - the first time the former Facebook executive has taken on this role with a portfolio company outside the United States. Started in 2011 and launched in 2013, Ezetap has grown much faster than the rest of the industry, deploying over 60,000 new points of sale across India in under 30 months. Ezetap processes transactions worth over $1 million per day and has a customer base ranging from the most well known enterprises to tens of thousands of small retail businesses. While many enterprises, including some of the leading eCommerce, Insurance and mobile companies, have standardized on Ezetap and deployed its integrated solution, the company also sees huge potential in the smaller and medium business sector. Ezetap is already activating over 500 new small retail merchants a week and will use some of its funds to increase that by 5X in the next few months.Ezetap has partnerships with leading banks including Citibank, HDFC Bank, and American Express, who is also an investor in the company. Most recently, State Bank of India chose Ezetap to be its mPOS partner in order to help scale electronic payments and banking services to every corner of the country.
Read More
Funds to help Practo accelerate its march towards becoming a leading global digital healthcare platform Asia’s leading healthcare platform, Practo, on Thursday (6 August) announced that it has closed $90 million in Series C funding. This round was led by Tencent, with participation from marquee institutional investors including Sofina, Sequoia India, Google Capital, Altimeter Capital, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital Global Equities and Yuri Milner. This comes a few months after closing a $30 million Series B round from Sequoia India and Matrix Partners, bringing Practo’s total funds raised to $125 million - one of the largest in the world of Digital Health. Over the past six months, Practo has grown over 6 times to become one of the fastest growing healthcare platforms in the world with nearly 200,000 healthcare practitioners on it and over 10 million monthly searches by consumers looking to make the right healthcare choices. Over the next three to six months Practo will expand product lines and continue to look for potential acquisition of companies to encompass key healthcare segments and provide a seamless experience across medicine, wellness and fitness, globally. Practo will continue to add top notch talent to its world class team of 1,500 Practeons to continue to build the best products that will transform healthcare for consumers around the world. The footprint will expand from the current 35 Indian cities and three countries to over 100 Indian cities and 10 countries across South east Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Eastern Europe. “We are hard at work building a single health app that helps people live healthier by making better healthcare decisions for themselves and their loved ones. We are excited to partner with some of the best investors on the planet. Our global partners will give us the edge to continue building global healthcare products that our users love. Millions of users trust our platform every month and with our international expansion we aim to take Practo to billions of people globally” – Shashank ND, Founder & CEO, Practo. “We are very excited to partner with Practo as one of our first few investments in India. We look for ambitious, visionary Internet companies that are improving people’s lives at a global scale. Practo is a digital healthcare leader and one of the fastest growing healthcare companies in India. We look forward to working with the Practo team as the company transforms healthcare in India and international markets,” said Hongwei Chen, Senior Director of Investment and M&A at Tencent. "Sofina is proud to join Practo on its journey to transform the way stakeholders interact in the healthcare space, consistent with our strategy to be a long-term partner of world-class entrepreneurs and investors in growth markets." - Maxence Tombeur, Head of Asia at Sofina.
Read More
HomeLane.com had earlier raised $4.5 million as part of its Series A from Sequoia Capital and Aarin Capital. Vishal Krishna reportsThe online custom interior designing company HomeLane.com is scouting for $10 million, as part of its Series-B round, to expand operations across seven more cities in India. Currently it operates out of Chennai, Bangalore, Kochi, Hyderabad and Hyderabad. The money will be used in tying up with furniture factories across the country and creating a market for local interior designers. It's current run rate, in terms of revenues, for the financial year 2015-16 is expected to hit Rs 72 crore. It has already tied up with over 350 interior designers. There are 100,000 interior designers in India. "We are using technology such as virtual reality that creates immersive experiences through our product Kaleido lens to help interior designers win customers," says Srikanth Iyer, founder of HomeLane. He adds that the "real world" solution was to control the delivery ecosystem, which was the carpenters and electricians. "Designing is easy, we finish the projects within 45 days and it is our guarantee. The unorganised segment takes 3 months or more to deliver the interiors," says Srikanth. The furniture market is Rs 50,000 crore in size and only 2 per cent is organised. HomeLane.com had earlier raised $4.5 million as part of its Series A from Sequoia Capital and Aarin Capital. It was seed funded by K Ganesh, the serial entrepreneur who has also seed funded companies Bluestone.com and bigbasket.com.
Read More
