Pune-based Digital Payment Aggregator PhiCommerce Sets Up Singapore Operations

Serve as a hub for operations in Asia and the Middle East.

PhiCommerce, India’s foremost payment aggregator and platform announced its expansion into international markets through its new Singapore office.

PhiCommerce CEO & Co-Founder — Jose Thattil 

PhiCommerce is a new-age financial technology company that addresses evolving needs of digital payments infrastructure. Its omni-channel and instrument-agnostic digital payments processing platform PayPhi, enables businesses to embrace the digital payments ecosystem with smart interventions to automate, integrate and streamline payment related processes.

“This expansion marks a significant milestone in our growth journey. PhiCommerce has been among the few home-grown companies spearheading this transformation in Indian payments industry. Our presence in Singapore will not only allow us to better serve our valued clients in these key regions but also strengthen our foothold as a leader when it comes to payment technology solutions. The region's dynamic payment business landscape and burgeoning tech ecosystem align perfectly with our vision of providing cutting-edge solutions that empower enterprises across Asia, Middle East, and beyond”,said Jose Thattil, CEO, PhiCommerce Private Ltd.

PhiCommerce provides end-to-end, unified, omni-channel digital payments platform to businesses, banks and networks to address their complex digital payment needs by delivering a simplified, secure, scalable, robust and frictionless payments experience to all stakeholders.

Established in 2015, Pune based PhiCommerce enables businesses to embrace digital payments ecosystem using integrated and agile innovations, enabling smooth and flexible payments across all consumer touchpoints - browser, mobile, in-store and remote. PhiCommerce offers a unified omni-channel payment platform catering to the comprehensive payment requirements of businesses, spanning both online and offline channels.

Why You Should Expand Your Business Internationally

Global business expansion is a significant decision to make, especially when you’re likely quite comfortable taking care of customers locally, regionally, and nationally. However, after reaching a ceiling in your home country, there can come a time when global expansion makes sense from a financial perspective. Expanding your presence into other countries may also be worthwhile for some of the following reasons:

It’s Easier to Do Than Before

Putting a business or company on the global stage used to be quite complex, especially if you were trying to enter the US market. If you wanted to open an LLC bank account as a non-US resident, you had to travel to the state you were forming an LLC and open it in person. You also needed proof of address in the United States and couldn’t use your Registered Agent address.

While that’s still common, you can now open a Mercury bank account for foreigners, a far more straightforward process than most expanding businesses have been used to in the past. Such an account is available for non-US residents, and you don’t have to travel to the US. You can also use the Registered Agent address as your LLC office address.

New Talent Pool

Whether you’re just starting your business or are already a well-established company, international growth can often be worthwhile for greater access to talent. While you might have plenty of brilliant people in your home country, global expansion means you can tap into an entirely new talent pool with qualified and skilled people to help your company reach new heights.

More Revenue Potential

Some businesses experience such great success in their home countries that they feel they’ve reached a ceiling. They’ve enjoyed excellent brand recognition, have a majority market share, and are trusted by loyal consumers who will continue to utilize their products and services for as long as they’re provided.

At this point, global expansion can allow well-established businesses to capitalize on their success and enter new markets. While it can take some time and effort to become known and trusted in a new country, it might not be long until you’re enjoying more revenue and profit.

Diversification Opportunities

If the market you’re currently in is saturated, diversification opportunities can be limited. However, that might not be the case in a country you’re expanding into. After a considerable amount of market research, you might find an abundance of diversification opportunities that have the potential to take your business to new heights. This can be desirable during market downturns. If one part of your business is struggling, the other part can prop it up, and vice versa.

Cost Savings

There’s no denying that global expansion can be an expensive activity, especially with many legal hoops to jump through regarding permits and taxes. You must also spend time and money ironing out the logistics and ensuring new supply chains and employees won’t impact the customer experience. However, you might enjoy cost savings in the long run. Expansion into a new country might introduce you to cheaper labor costs that boost your profit margin.

International expansion is a huge step to take, and it doesn’t happen overnight. However, by exploring your expansion options and putting in the effort, there’s every reason to believe you can enjoy some of these lucrative benefits above.

Delhi-based Thriwe Secures Investment from Suadi Arabia’s Al Multaq Group, Expands To Saudi Arabia

Dhruv Verma and Swati Sharma — Founders of Thriwe

Thriwe, India’s first and largest B2B "Benefits as a Platform" company, has announced its expansion into Saudi Arabia through a strategic partnership with Al Mutlaq, a prominent multi-billion-dollar conglomerate focusing on venture capital and the private equity sector.

As part of the partnership, Al Multaq has invested an undisclosed amount in Thriwe to support the latter’s regional launch and operations. The company aims to generate around $100 million of revenue from the Saudi market over the next 36 months.

The funds raised from Al Mutlaq's will be invested to enhance a loyalty and rewards ecosystem and the customer experience in Saudi Arabia, strategize the regional operations and strengthen Thriwe's technology solutions in line with domestic requirements.

Thriwe established in 2011 by Dhruv Verma, an XLRI alumni, is headquartered in India along with regional offices across the nation, UAE, Singapore, London, and Florida. Earlier, the company raised funds from the angel fund YourNest fund and Africa’s Ison Networks.

Thriwe's entry into Saudi Arabia marks a significant milestone for the company as it continues to expand its footprint in the Middle East. The collaboration with Al Mutlaq Group, which has a strong presence in the region, is expected to provide Thriwe with a wealth of local knowledge and expertise and access to a vast network of potential clients and partners.

Talking about the JV with Al Multaq, Dhruv Verma, Founder & CEO of Thriwe, said, "We have been doing reasonably well in Dubai and have been associated with various financial institutions like FAB, Mashreq, RakBank, ENBD, etc, running as managing loyalty programs for them as well. Our goal is to empower businesses in Saudi Arabia with a user-friendly and customizable platform that will enable them to build stronger relationships with their customers by driving loyalty and retention. We are excited to partner with Al Mutlaq Group, a leading conglomerate in the region, and we look forward to a long and successful partnership."

Thriwe's "Benefits as a Platform" solution is constructed to help businesses of all sizes by developing customized, white-labeled employee benefit programs that can be managed through a single, easy-to-use interface. The target sectors include travel, entertainment, and lifestyle.

CEO of Al Mutlaq Group said, "We are pleased to partner with Thriwe as they expand their operations into Saudi Arabia. At Al Mutlaq Group, we believe in investing in innovative and disruptive companies that have the potential to transform industries. We see Thriwe as a valuable partner in the loyalty and rewards space, and we are excited to support their growth in the region. In addition, Their platform offers a unique solution that can benefit businesses of all sizes (from SME to Large Scale Industry), and we look forward to working with Thriwe to bring this solution to our clients and partners in Saudi Arabia."

About Al Multaq

Al Mutlaq Group (AMG) has participated in the Saudi Arabian economy for over seven decades. Since its inception in the 1950s, the group has maintained a steady and consistent growth trajectory by establishing and nurturing several successful businesses and strategic relationships. Today, AMG has evolved into a well-diversified and institutional investment group with a presence in several industries, including real estate, hospitality, manufacturing, and financial services.

About Thriwe:

Thriwe is a benefit as platform company founded in 2011 by Dhruv Verma and Swati Sharma. The company operates in the loyalty and rewards domain and helps businesses acquire, engage, and retain customers. Thriwe's unique value proposition lies in its end-to-end benefits offering, which includes a technology platform, benefit curation and onboarding, customer experience, and service. Through its platform, Thriwe enables businesses to effectively manage their loyalty programs and rewards systems, providing customers with a seamless and earn & burn rewarding experience to retain their customers. With a focus on innovation and customer-centricity, Thriwe has established itself as a leading player in the loyalty and benefits space, helping businesses across industries drive growth and build brand loyalty.

Bhopal based EV Startup Enigma Expands International, Launches Its 1st Showroom in Nepal, Targets 15 in Next 2 Quarter

Located at Nagpokhri, Naxal, Kathmandu, the Enigma Electric experience centre promises to deliver an immersive and futuristic environment, providing customers with an unparalleled opportunity to explore Enigma’s cutting-edge electric vehicle offerings

Enigma, a young Make-in-India EV manufacturer from Madhya Pradesh, is excited to announce the launch of its first showroom in Nepal. This expansion marks a significant milestone for Enigma as it fortifies its foothold in the international market, underscoring the company’s unwavering dedication to expanding its global presence and capitalizing on emerging prospects.

Located at Nagpokhri, Naxal, Kathmandu, the Enigma Electric experience centre promises to deliver an immersive and futuristic environment, providing customers with an unparalleled opportunity to explore Enigma’s cutting-edge electric vehicle offerings. Enigma has partnered with M/s Rising Trading Company Limited, based in Kathmandu, for the distribution of its EVs in Nepal. The tie-up enables Enigma to become an exporter of electric vehicles, with M/s Rising Trading Co Ltd inaugurating their first Enigma Electric experience centre at the aforementioned location, entrusted with the responsibility of establishing Enigma’s presence in Nepal.

“Our partnership with Enigma opens up exciting opportunities for us to expand into the Nepalese market,” expressed Mr. Aziz Shrestha, a Partner at Rising Trading Company Limited. He further added, “Our ambitious aim is to establish a network of up to 15 dealership outlets throughout Nepal, ensuring that customers can directly experience the exceptional performance of Enigma’s high-speed product line.”

“At Enigma, we see this initiative as the inaugural stride towards our global expansion. We are not merely advancing electric mobility; we are instigating a revolutionary shift in transportation. Through our immersive showroom experience and the expertise of our partner, M/s Rising Trading Company Limited, we are paving the way for a network of dealerships that will bring Enigma’s high-speed electric bikes closer to customers across Nepal. With our combined efforts, Nepalese customers can look forward to an exciting future of sustainable transportation options and a brighter tomorrow” said Mr. Anmol Bohre, Managing Director, Enigma.

Enigma’s entire range of high-speed electric bikes will be available at the Nepal showroom. Customers can explore these cutting-edge models, which combine quality craftsmanship, advanced technology, and affordability. The showroom also features an immersive display and offers customers the opportunity to take immediate test rides, allowing them to experience the thrill and performance of Enigma electric bikes first-hand. As an exporter, Enigma will be shipping the vehicles as Completely Built Units (CBU) from India to Nepal, ensuring that customers receive the same level of quality and excellence that Enigma is known for.

About Enigma

Enigma Automobiles Private Limited, founded in the year 2015, is driving electric mobility more consistently and more enthusiastically than any other mobility group. By 2025, the company aims to capture 25% of the potential market share and sell up to 250000 electric bikes in India. With the tenets of the company grounded in quality and matchless technology, Enigma plans to bring attractive electric models onto the road at affordable prices, and help India make a breakthrough.

Cybersecurity Platform BluSapphire in Expansion Mode, Unveils New Office in Hyderabad

Full-stack cybersecurity platform BluSapphire Cyber Systems has kickstarted its pan-India expansion by moving into a new office space in Madhapur, Hyderabad. This comes a few months after BluSapphire raised $9.2 million as part of its Series A round. The company is also ramping up efforts to expand its team, in contrast to the current trend of mass layoffs at tech firms.

The Hyderabad office of BluSapphire is 8500 square feet in size and is situated in Cyber Gateway, Hi-Tech City in Madhapur, Hyderabad. It can accommodate 120 employees. The huge scope of growth available in Hyderabad prompted BluSapphire to choose the city. Hyderabad is rapidly scaling up and now boasts one of the best metro infrastructures in India. The cost of living in the city is approximately 40% lower than that of other metros in the country. Moreover, Hyderabad possesses a substantial talent pool and offers high quality of living. The Government of Telangana is actively promoting innovation and striving to transform Hyderabad into a global destination.

Commenting on the launch, Kiran Vangaveti, the CEO and founder of BluSapphire, said, “The launch of this office is a milestone for BluSapphire in its expansion journey. Hyderabad’s favourable environment will be a launching pad for BluSapphire’s growth. Our plan is to expand our research and development, in alignment with our robust product roadmap, and bolster our global security operations to serve our clients across the globe better.”

Currently, BluSapphire’s Hyderabad team size is 75+, and the company anticipates adding 50+ professionals in the next two quarters. As such, BluSapphire has embarked on an aggressive hiring spree.

BluSapphire is an industry-first, purpose-built, cloud-native, Hybrid XDR™ platform powered by AI and Big Data analytics. Along with technology, BluSapphire offers managed detection and response services enabling organisations to quickly transform their cybersecurity posture, resulting in faster time to value and allowing faster cyber breach detection and mitigation, thereby reducing the organisation’s overall business risk posture. It was founded in 2017 by Kiran Vangaveti, a veteran of the cybersecurity domain with almost 17 years of experience. Observing that cybersecurity programmes always stayed counterproductive with negative ROI due to siloed technologies and/or service implementation with no automation lever, Vangaveti launched BluSapphire Cyber Systems, a hyper-growth cybersecurity SaaS platform and a Gartner Cool Vendor. Besides India, BluSapphire has a presence in the US and has expanded into the Gulf as well.

In 2022, BluSapphire Cyber Systems raised $9.2 million as part of its Series A round. The round was led by Barings Private Equity India, with participation from cross-border VC firm Dallas Venture Capital, Binny Bansal-backed xto10x, RPG Ventures, and Merisis Venture Partners.

About BluSapphire

BluSapphire, a Gartner Cool Vendor, is a hyper-growth cybersecurity SaaS platform. Founded in 2017 by Kiran Vangaveti, the platform solves the industry gap in security operations and visibility space. The full-stack AI and predictive analytics coupled with MDR services enables clients to prevent sophisticated cyber attacks across cloud, on-prem and hybrid work environments.

India's 1st Listed PropTech Homesfy Forays into the International Market with A New Office in Dubai

Mr. Kiran Mhatre, Mr. Ashish Kukreja and Mr Mukesh Mishra

Mumbai-based Homesfy Realty Ltd., India’s first listed real estate tech-enabled brokerage firm, has expanded to Dubai. In the fourth quarter, Homesfy’s facilitated transaction value in India increased by 51%, which showcases the company’s remarkable growth.

As part of its strategic expansion plans, Homesfy seeks to broaden its horizons globally, with Dubai being its first port of call. Homesfy sees tremendous potential in the Dubai real estate market in the coming years. Its unparalleled network of tech-enabled agents will help achieve success in Dubai.

The impetus behind Homesfy’s expansion into Dubai stems from the highly auspicious growth curve of the Dubai real estate market. This growth is attributable primarily to the path-breaking policies adopted by the UAE government, which have been instrumental in driving a positive impact across the real estate industry.

In 2022, the Dubai real estate market experienced a massive upswing in sales to Indian buyers, raking in an impressive sum of ₹35,500 crores, almost twice the amount generated in the previous year. Of this total, Indian home buyers accounted for a notable 40%, positioning them as the leading buyer demographic in Dubai. These buyers mainly hail from major Indian cities such as Delhi-NCR, Ahmedabad, Surat, and Hyderabad and Punjab.

Mr. Ashish Kukreja, Founder & CEO, Homesfy. in, said, “Homesfy Realty Ltd. continues to ride the wave of success. We are thrilled to announce our latest endeavor of expanding our global footprint, with Dubai as the launchpad. Dubai’s progressive governance and trade policies and massive worldwide appeal has made it a popular destination among both real estate buyers and investors, and we aim to capitalize on this opportunity.”

Homesfy has consistently been a methodical real estate brokerage platform composed of highly imaginative sales, engineering, business, and marketing experts. Each of their products effectively bridges the trust deficit between home buyers and sellers through a refined and sharp approach.

The sales division in Dubai will be spearheaded by Mr. Mukesh Mishra (Head of Sales at Homesfy.in), a seasoned professional with insights into both domestic and international sales.

Mr. Mukesh Mishra, Head of Sales at Homesfy.in, said, “Despite volatile conditions and shifting consumer behavior, Dubai’s property market experienced record-breaking sales, volume, and value in 2022. Dubai has seen record-level demand in residential spaces in February 2023, and with an expected growth of 20% in the coming years, it has the potential to break all records. With a decade of experience in the Indian real estate market, we are ready to pitch in Dubai.”

Mr. Kiran Mhatre, Head of Sales - Dubai, who has over 20 years of experience, will also play a key role in the new territory alongside Mr. Mukesh Mishra.

Homesfy’s expansion to Dubai will undoubtedly provide Indian and international investors with a gateway to the booming Dubai real estate market, which has emerged as a beacon of growth and opportunity in recent years. The city will continue to attract HNIs and expatriates, asserting its position as a major real estate market.

About Homesfy

Homesfy.in, India’s first listed real estate firm, is one of the fastest-growing companies in the full-fledged, organized real estate industry. With over 400+ motivated team members spread across Mumbai, Pune, Delhi NCR, and Bengaluru, the firm partners with reputed builders in the country to facilitate their real estate sales. Founded a decade ago, Homesfy has been the preferred channel partner for builders and developers such as Lodha, Godrej, Prestige, Dosti, Runwal, Hiranandani, Piramal, Raymond, and Mahindra, to name a few. In the last financial year, Homesfy collaborated with more than 106 developers.

DXC Luxoft Expands its Presence in India with Inauguration of New Pune Office

The new office will enhance DXC Luxoft’s ability to develop, and seamlessly deliver tailor-made, end-to-end software solutions to clients in Pune and across the region

Luxoft, a DXC Technology Company (NYSE: DXC), has formally inaugurated a new office in Pune, India, to enhance its servicing offerings and capabilities for its global clients. The new office in Pune has a headcount of over 120 top professionals, with plans to expand in the coming years, which is in line with DXC Luxoft’s strategic growth vision in the region.

DXC Luxoft’s expansion in Pune is at a time when the region is experiencing tremendous growth in the automotive and fintech industry, driven by a vast talent pool, an accelerated pace of digital adoption, and its position as an engineering and software services hub in India. This new office will not only act as flexible office space for employees in the Western part of India, but will also serve as one of DXC Luxoft’s Global Delivery Centers (GDC), extending the reach of DXC Luxoft’s global offerings and seamlessly delivering customized, end-to-end software solutions to clients, many of whom are in the automotive, banking, and several other industries who are embarking in their digital transformation journey.

“Pune has been one of our key strategic locations for expansion in India. We are confident that the new office opening here will give us right skills in several domains that we work for our clients and hire the scale to meet our customer demand–” said Madhusudan Deshpande, Managing Director for India & APAC, DXC Luxoft. “The synergies in our new location in Pune are similar to our first location in Bangalore. In the last four years, we have scaled Bangalore to almost 2,000 employees – and the aim is to replicate our results with Pune,” said Deshpande.

Situated in the prominent business hub of Hinjewadi, DXC Luxoft’s Pune office is situated within ​​the Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park, positioning it favorably among a host of tech companies and business parks and offering employees easy access to transportation and a variety of amenities.

Apart from Pune, DXC Luxoft has a presence in two other locations within India – Bengaluru, which was established in 2017, and Chennai, which was recently established last year. In addition to expansion efforts in India, DXC Luxoft has also amplified its presence across the Asia Pacific region in recent years. DXC Luxoft’s global footprint now stretches across five continents and 23 countries, with more than 17,000 employees.

About DXC Luxoft

DXC Luxoft, a DXC Technology Company (NYSE: DXC), is a digital strategy and software engineering firm providing bespoke technology solutions that drive business change for customers the world over. DXC Luxoft uses technology to enable business transformation, enhance customer experiences, and boost operational efficiency through its strategy, consulting, and engineering services. DXC Luxoft combines a unique blend of engineering excellence and deep industry expertise, specializing in automotive, financial services, travel and hospitality, healthcare, life sciences, media and telecommunications. For more information, please visit www.luxoft.com

Lal10 Sets Up 7 Satellite Offices to Digitise Textile factories (MSMEs) PAN India

In the first phase, centres have opened in Jaipur, Hyderabad and Varanasi

With a vision to digitise the MSMEs in India for global trade, Lal10, a cross-border B2B tech-enabled full-stack platform, has announced that it will launch seven satellite offices across seven states by the end of June 2023. With 2292 MSMEs in its fold, Lal10 has become the largest pan-India aggregator of textile factories.

The MSME sector of India is one of the biggest contributors to the nation's GDP and the export markets, with a 30 percent and 50 per cent share respectively. Digitising these factories, Lal10 claims to be the largest cloud-export house from India to the world. This expansion is in line with the start-up's strategy to leverage technology and transparent supply chains to unleash the latent potential of these MSMEs for global trade.

It is opening offices in Varanasi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Indore, Jaipur, and Noida, all of which are close to the country's major centres for textile production. These centres are at the mouth of manufacturing, where the company will digitise these textile factories. The supporting regional offices will be empowered with a Production Manager who will head operations, a Quality Control Manager who will be responsible for uniform product quality as per global standards and the Catalogue Manager who will look after up-skilling the manufacturers and teaching them how to 'come online' and reap the benefits of economies of scale in raw material and finance sourcing, efficient inventory management while being updated on global design trends.

This expansion is in keeping with the scale planned by Lal10 to service its midsize to large-scale global buyers in the US, UK, Japan and the Middle East. With its current base of MSMEs already on-boarded with an unutilised capacity of $600M, Lal10 is already among the top export houses in the country. It aims to add another 12,500 Indian MSME partners with an output of $1 billion in the next 3-4 years. 

Commenting on this expansion, Maneet Gohil, CEO and Co-Founder, Lal10 said, "With such huge global demand for textiles, Indian MSMEs have enormous potential to grab a larger share of the export market. There is an immediate need to enable more textile hubs from India to plug this demand and provide a large assortment of products. The traditional Indian textile hubs are only contributing to domestic markets. We are leveraging technology to map these factories on production, streamline processes for quality and design and make the systemic changes which were due for Indian manufacturing to go global. Tech built to support our regional operational expertise at the satellite offices is helping us build for scale. We will be the largest export house from India in a span of the next 18 months.”

Currently, there is a huge discrepancy between the few big exporter belts of the country and the rest of the MSMEs which have tremendous production capacity but lose out due to systemic inefficiencies which are easily addressed through transparent technology solutions. Lal10 consolidates the raw material demand of our MSMEs helping them to get the best quality inputs at the lowest costs, eliminating the long line of middlemen. It also connects them to banks and NBFCs providing them affordable credit which is at least 10-15 per cent cheaper than what they currently get from the exploitative informal financing sector. To keep pace with global trends we also upskill our MSMEs with 300-400 designs per month.

Lal10's revenues increased by 1200% in the previous year with the current MoM growth clocking at 70-80 per cent. The company strives to provide the broadest selection of goods to its customers from all parts of the nation through an exhaustively mapped out, transparent supply chain and now services 200+ mid-size to large buyers and 12+ marquee brands in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan and the Middle East. Satellite offices in Jaipur, Hyderabad, Noida and Varanasi are already live with 3 more centres set to go live shortly.

Pune-based Drone Services Provider DroneAcharya Aerial Innovations Expands Operations in SE Asia

DroneAcharya Aerial Innovations Limited, an Indian drone service provider and DGCA - certified drone pilot training organization, today announced that it is commencing operations in Thailand, in association with the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT). The partnership will pave the way for the company into the Southeast Asian market. The primary goal of the collaboration with AIT is to co-develop projects involving Drones and GIS in Thailand and the surrounding countries.

 

DroneAcharya Aerial Innovations signed an MOU with Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, attended by Prateek Srivastava - Founder & MD and Marcia Chen - Sr. Manager - BD & Sales from DroneAcharya, and Prof. Dieter Trau - Dean of School of Engineering and Technology & Director of AIT Entrepreneurship Center and Ranadheer Mandadi - Program Officer from Special Degree Program Office from AIT.

While DroneAcharya's initial focus is on the Indian market, the company will also be expanding into other countries, including the Middle East, the United States, Central Asia as well as Southeast Asia. As part of its strategy to expand across Europe and capture the market there, DroneAcharya is introducing a series of training courses centered on drones. Moreover, DroneAcharya is India’s First Drone Start - up to be listed on the BSE SME platform.

Drones are becoming increasingly integral to the optimization of operations across a wide range of businesses. Together with AI, the data they collect and analyze from a bird's-eye view are transforming the ways in which businesses examine, survey, and map the ground, buildings, and crops below. The worldwide Drone market was worth $11.45 billion in 2016, and it is projected to reach $51.85 billion by 2025. It's clear from these figures that the Southeast area, along with other countries in the world, has enormous growth potential. In nations like Thailand, there is a huge potential for expansion in terms of GIS, Development, AI / ML, Drones etc. The projects carried out in partnership will generate employment for Drone pilots, GIS experts, Engineers, and GIS Developers.

"Drones and geographic information systems (GIS) are two examples of cutting-edge technologies finding widespread use across a number of sectors. By providing limitless new opportunities from previously unfeasible viewpoints, they are revolutionizing the old methods. DroneAcharya and AIT are teaming together to break into the Thai and Southeast Asian markets with drone and GIS-related co-development projects. We are planning to launch shortly and have some initiatives in the works." says Prateek Srivastava, Managing Director at DroneAcharya Aerial Innovations Limited.

AI and IoT Powered Elderly Care Platform Anvayaa Accelerates Growth in Services and Geographies

Doubles office space in Hyderabad to support the business expansion &

Launches ‘Anvayaa Nischint’ -a corporate wellness program

Anvayaa, India’s first and only IoT and AI tech-based 3600 personalized elderly care platform in the country, doubles office space in Hyderabad city to accommodate rapid growth and enhance the services with tech-enabled solutions. The Hyderabad office expansion has been carried out in the same building with the workspace increased to 8000 sqft to accommodate more staff and support the expanding footprints across the country.

The enhanced office space was inaugurated by Mr. Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary of the I&C and IT Departments of the Telangana Government, Mr. Sundeep Kishan, Telugu Actor along with Mr. Shakti Sagar, Anvayaa Advisory Board Member, and Ex. MD, ADP India in the presence of Anvayaa’s leadership team and employees.

Anvayaa has increased its footprints from 6 cities in 20-21 to 25+ locations covering all metros and major cities serving 10,000+ families in the country. It aims to become a major player in the elder care market across India in the next 3 years. The new ergonomically designed cabins and workspaces in the new office will ensure a conducive and comfortable workspace for the employees and add more work zones for expanded 24x7 Care Coordinator support and Care Companionship Managers along with the technology and innovation center to support elders across geographies.

To expand the service offerings, Anvayaa, announced the launch of ‘Nischint’ - a corporate benefit plan. This helps companies to subscribe to Anvayaa’s elder care services for their employees' families. The Nischint program provides employees with home services, visits to doctors, and other services that help them take care of their parents, while Anvayaa’s Care Manager can act as their proxy while they take care of their professional responsibilities. ‘Anvayaa Nischint’ relieves the employees of their concern for their parent’s physical and emotional well-being and allows them to focus on work as the tech-enabled Anvayaa platform keeps them updated about their parent’s well-being which is monitored by experts.

Speaking about the developments Mr. Prashanth Reddy, Founder & Managing Director, Anvayaa Kin Care Pvt Ltd said, “We are at a very critical inflexion point in our journey as the only IoT and AI tech-based personalized elder care platforms. We have received an overwhelming response to our services from elders and their family members for the range of services from health and emergency care services to emotional and companionship care to travel, leisure, legal, financial and domestic support offered by Anvayaa. We have grown from 6 cities in 2020-21 to 25+ locations adding 10,000+ families to the platform. We have ambitious plans for expansion in the next 3 years and aim to become the country's largest Tech Enabled personalized elder care platform. We aim to serve over 1, 00,000 (1 Lakh) families by 2025. To achieve this objective we will require expanding our manpower from 200 Full-time employees (FTF) to 1000 and growing the partner network to ensure service delivery in our unique model. This office expansion will help with the next growth phase. We are also happy to launch ‘Anvayaa Nischint – a corporate benefit plan’, giving an option for corporates to subscribe to it for their employees and relieve them from the concern of the wellbeing of their parents.”

Anvayaa means ‘Family’ and the company believes that elders crave companionship besides support for day-to-day requirements. To build an ecosystem, for companionship and care for the elders Anvayaa has a team of trained Care Managers and 24X7 Care Coordinators to look after the requirements of the elders equipped with a network of partners to support different requirements.

Anvayaa provides complete support including healthcare, emergency care, travel & leisure, legal and other domestic services support, financial support, companionship, and emotional support to the elders. Anvayaa uses its unique technology platform for providing predictive health care and companionship to elders. Anvayaa’s excellent emergency response system enables an average response time of 3 minutes and has helped save 97% of lives in the 350+ emergency calls attended.

Ratan Tata-backed Bluestone Set to Tap the Diverse Taste for Jewellery in the Capital; Launches Four New Stores in Delhi-NCR

Located in Delhi, NCR-Noida & Gurugram, the stores collectively boast of over 3320 sq ft of shop floor for a unique jewellery shopping experience

BlueStone, India’s leading omni-channel fine jewellery destination, announces the launch of four resplendent retail outlets in Delhi - NCR, taking the total count of their stores in this region to 18. The newly opened outlets are located at some of the most prominent locations & malls of the city, which are, East of Kailash, Kamla Nagar, Gaur City Mall and Ambience Mall.

The store at East of Kailash is located in the city’s heartland, with a mix of prominent residential areas and buzzing shopping avenues, for fashion and jewellery. The Kamla Nagar store in North Delhi is placed amidst popular eateries and restaurants, alongside several fashion and jewellery showrooms, while The Gaur City Mall and Ambience Mall are few of the many popular ones located in Noida & Gurugram region respectively. Both the malls have famous clothing, jewellery & accessory brands for women, men & children, making them convenient and popular shopping destinations for our shoppers. The stores at Gaur City and Kamla Nagar, are spread across an area of about 500 sq ft, while the Ambience Mall and East of Kailash boutiques boast a lavish 1000 sq ft shop floor.

 

The company has seen an interesting cross-channel behavior where a typical user browses their website for at least 2-3 weeks before visiting a store. 60-70% of the customers tend to shortlist a product first on the website before visiting an exclusive brand store which completes the shopping experience by enabling try-ons and checkout. For every one customer who was buying online on BlueStone, surveys revealed that there were 20 others who loved the designs but would require the comfort of a store to make a purchase. Therefore, by having these experiential stores, BlueStone expects to provide its customers a truly omni-channel experience.

All the four new stores house an exclusive collection of 450+ designs individually, handpicked by the merchandise teams across categories such as, necklaces, pendants, rings, earrings, bangles, solitaires, as well as jewellery for men and kids. The jewellery comes with the highest level of certification- hallmarked with HUID from BIS approved labs, IGI, GIA & GSL certifications as well- for gold & diamonds to create their exquisite designs with the top-notch in-house craftsmanship. A key highlight of the store is the extravagant 'Solitaire Lounge', which provides a one-of-a-kind experience for solitaire lovers with assistance from experts and a tech-driven platform to help shoppers pick the perfect designs.

Speaking on the launch, Sudeep Nagar, Chief Operating Officer BlueStone, said, “Jewellery has been an integral part of Indian culture for millennia. The vast geographical landscape of Delhi-NCR has distinct groups of people endorsing distinct styles of jewellery, for fashion as well as cultural significance. Our existing stores in Delhi-NCR are extremely loved, which gave us the confidence to launch 4 more stores in a short span. With these launches, we now have a total of 84 stores spread across the country, giving a strong impetus to our omni-channel retail model which is revolutionizing jewellery buying."

About BlueStone

Established in 2011, BlueStone has revolutionized the precious jewellery segment in India. BlueStone ships to over 19,000 pin codes across the country, and has over 80 exclusive brand stores across 25+ cities, networked with cutting edge custom technology for a seamless omni-channel consumer experience. The award-winning team adds almost 30 new collections every year and its customers have the flexibility to choose from a whopping catalogue of 8400+ designs spread across 100+ Collections, which they may “Try-At-Home” and then buy.

Rapipay Fintech Opens Regional Office in Mumbai, Plans Massive Hiring

Will open 15 regional offices in India in next one year as part of expansion into Neo Banking.

Targets 50% growth in the current Financial Year through all its expansion

RapiPay Fintech Private Ltd, one of the leading fintech companies in India, today announced the opening of its regional office in Mumbai, Maharashtra. This will be the company’s first regional office in Western India, making RapiPay the only player in the assisted payment service category to have offices in all Metros.

Other than Mumbai, the Fintech leader will further expand its footprint with more offices in the west region such as Jaipur, Pune, Nagpur & Ahmedabad soon.

 

The high potential Western zone in the assisted payment services like AEPS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment Systems), Micro ATM and domestic remittance, is expected to increase RapiPay’s market share in the region by another 10 per cent going ahead. Witnessing the growth and the market’s potential, the company plans to increase its employee count by hiring 500 additional employees in the region.

The company is doing 1 million daily transactions and has served more than 120 million customers, witnessing a robust growth of 25% MOM in basic banking services like Cash withdrawal and deposit, AEPS, Micro ATMs, POS, Utility payments, Loans and Insurance.

On the occasion of the office opening in Mumbai, Nipun Jain, CEO, RapiPay Fintech Pvt Ltd, said, “The Western region is an important market for us as it contributes to about 25 percent of our total business. We look at further expanding our footprint in this region and with all our expansions we are expecting an overall growth of 50 per cent in Assisted payments services. Our growth story in the B2B segment is unmatched. With the launch of our neo banking super App NYE, we will be the only player in our category to enter the B2C space. These are exciting times for RapiPay and we are confident of our success.”

RapiPay has witnessed 250% growth in AePS and Micro ATM transactions from Apr 2021 to Mar 2022 and 90% growth for the same period for DMT transactions. The lockdown provided an impetus to the growth of AePS & Micro ATMs as mobility was restricted and RapiPay DBOs fulfilled cash withdrawal requirements of the people. Further, AePS and Micro ATMs facilitated millions of customers for cash withdrawals of the benefits they availed under Jan Dhan Yojana, PM-Kissan Samman Nidhi etc. during the pandemic.

Israel-based Coralogix Raised $142 Mn Series D Funding to Expand Presence in India

Announces additional investment in India and Snowbit, its cybersecurity venture being built out of India and Israel

• Proceeds to assist Coralogix expand presence in India and Asia-Pacific regions
• Funds to be also used for the development of Snowbit, its recently launched cybersecurity firm in India
• Tripled customer base in India in over last 12 months with marquee customers across domains
• Total funds raised till date $238 million

Coralogix, a company using streaming analytics to rebuild the path to observability, today announced it has raised a $142 million Series D funding round, bringing the company’s total amount raised to $238 million. A significant portion of the proceeds from the round will be used for the company’s expansion plans, especially its India and APAC go-to-market teams.

A significant portion of the funds will be invested in expanding Coralogix's operations in India in addition to its recently launched Indian cybersecurity venture Snowbit (currently headed by Navdeep Manaktala ex-Amazon Web Services).

Coralogix has invested around $10 million as initial investment for the Indian market and it also plans to invest $30m in India over the next five years. the funds will also be used to accelerate the build-out and go-to-market of Snowbit, which is being constructed out of India and Israel.

New investors Advent International (“Advent”) and Brighton Park Capital co-led the round with participation from Revaia and existing investors Greenfield Partners, Red Dot Capital Partners, Eyal Ofer’s O.G. Tech, StageOne Ventures, Joule Capital Partners, and Maor Investments. In connection with the funding round, Alek Ferro of Advent and Mike Gregoire, Partner at Brighton Park Capital and former CEO at CA Technologies, have joined the Coralogix board of directors.

This announcement reflects the evolution of Coralogix from a log analytics platform to a full-stack observability platform—with robust capabilities for metrics, tracing, and security data, in addition to logs. The company’s flagship Streama© technology produces real-time insights and trend analysis for all observability data with no reliance on storage, solving the challenges of building, running, and securing modern infrastructures and applications. Powerful remote query capabilities enable clients to search Terabytes of their own data in seconds all without the costs and latency of indexing.

With data growing exponentially, cost-efficiently ingesting this data and having all related insights in a centralized platform is critical for DevOps, Engineering, and Security teams. Coralogix is a next-generation, full-stack observability platform that provides infinite insights for logs, metrics, tracing, and security data when and where users need them. The platform changes the unit economics of observability, with current spending as high as 10% of overall cloud infrastructure budgets, to give customers a 40-70 percent reduction in costs while simultaneously improving their performance and data insights. Furthermore, Coralogix offers a one-of-a-kind 24/7 in-app chat support committed to response times under 1 minute.

“Coralogix is an established leader in the modern observability market and is differentiated by its product, mission, and vision,” said Alek Ferro, Director at Advent. “We are confident that Coralogix’s unique data streaming architecture and analytics pipeline will continue to transform the category through its ability to provide superior monitoring coverage, insights, and results while yielding significant cost savings. We’re thrilled to partner with the Coralogix management team as they continue to build on this momentum.”

"Monitoring the applications that now orchestrate much of our economy is a critical piece of the modern software world, and Coralogix's technology enables its customers to do this at a massive scale without incurring excessive costs or compromising performance or functionality," said Mike Gregoire, Partner at Brighton Park Capital. "Coralogix’s offering is incredibly powerful, and we see several opportunities to grow their functionality while preserving the highly responsive support their customers are accustomed to. We look forward to partnering with the talented team at Coralogix as they scale into the leading platform in the observability market.”

Today’s announcement comes on the heels of unprecedented growth for Coralogix. In the past year, the company has signed some of the most successful hypergrowth and enterprise customers in the US, Israel, India, and EMEA. In India specifically, Coralogix has tripled its customer base over the last 12 months with marquee customers across a broad range of domains including eCommerce, financial services, messaging, media & entertainment, logistics, and educational services. 

The company also expanded into the security market with the launch of Snowbit, a cybersecurity venture focused on helping cloud-native companies comprehensively manage the security of their environments. Snowbit has operations across Tel Aviv and New Delhi/Gurgaon and is unique in being the first cybersecurity initiative to leverage the best of Israeli cybersecurity talent and India's unique growing position as a global cybersecurity hub.

“Our approach at Coralogix is to solve the fundamental challenges of ever-growing data volumes and system complexity. Our technology breaks the unit economics of observability to provide our customers with a cost-effective way to centralize and scale across the R&D organization. With this round of funding, we will be expanding our offering into further markets as we continue our journey to provide harmonious observability,” said Ariel Assaraf, CEO of Coralogix.

“Our rapid growth in the Indian market is a testament to the proposition and evolution of Coralogix as a full-stack observability platform. We are working to expand our go-to-market team in India and enter the ANZ and ASEAN geographies in the next few months. We will also significantly increase our investment in the buildout of Snowbit, our cybersecurity venture, given the strong interest we have seen in its ability to proactively monitor the entire cloud environment's security and compliance,” said Navdeep Manaktala, Co-Founder, Snowbit and President, APAC at Coralogix.

Coralogix is the leading in-stream observability platform, using proprietary Streama© technology to provide modern engineering teams with real-time insights and trend analysis for their data with no reliance on storage or indexing. For more information, please visit https://coralogix.com/

Snowbit is a cybersecurity technology innovator with a vision to empower organizations across the globe to quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively secure themselves against omnipresent and growing cyber risks. To enable this, Snowbit is looking to offer the broadest cloud-native managed detection and response offering available.

Founded in 1984, Advent International is one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors. The firm has invested in over 390 private equity investments across 41 countries, and as of December 31, 2021, had $88 billion in assets under management. With 15 offices in 12 countries, Advent has established a globally integrated team of over 265 private equity investment professionals across North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. The firm focuses on investments in five core sectors, including business and financial services; health care; industrial; retail, consumer and leisure; and technology. For over 35 years, Advent has been dedicated to international investing and remains committed to partnering with management teams to deliver sustained revenue and earnings growth for its portfolio companies. For more information, visit: www.adventinternational.com

Brighton Park is a Greenwich, CT-based investment firm that specializes in software, healthcare, and technology-enabled services. The firm invests in companies that provide highly innovative solutions in partnership with great management teams. Brighton Park brings purpose-built value-add capabilities that match the unique requirements of each of its companies. For more information about Brighton Park, please visit www.bpc.com

B2B Apparel Manufacturing Firm Fashinza accelerates international expansion in the Middle East

B2B Apparel Manufacturing Firm Fashinza accelerates international expansion in the Middle East

After establishing their office in New York earlier this year, Fashinza is now ready to expand their footprint in the UAE, with the goal of making cloud sourcing easy and seamless for fashion brands.

India's one and only digital B2B fashion manufacturing company, Fashinza, recently announced their global expansion program for the Middle-East, with the goal to enhance competitive positioning in the gulf countries, in partnership with a few apparel retailers and fashion commercial brands. Fashinza plans to invade the GCC markets with a focus on UAE, to solve some of the toughest apparel supply chain challenges in existence. 

The manufacturing platform will enable fashion brands to work directly with manufacturers in a transparent manner, with the help of their unique digitized supply chain. Notably, the expansion announcement closely followed the company's recent Series-A VC funding of $20million.

To accelerate their ambitious international expansion plans, Fashinza's team has identified several potentially high-growth markets and they're planning to add leadership teams of 15-20 members in the Gulf countries. Earlier this year, the company had established an office in New York City, with the goal of reinventing the $800bn global fashion manufacturing business for the e-commerce era. Fashinza's roster presently includes over 400 ethical production factories across India, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam and Sri Lanka and the company works with fashion brands from 10+ countries including Forever21, Ajio, Noon.com, Amaro, Clovia, Apparel Group, and Bewakoof.com.

Fashinza Co-founder and CEO Pawan Gupta shared that they want to open up sourcing access for brands of all sizes in the Middle East countries. He claimed, "This is the first time a cloud-based supply chain and product development platform is being offered in the market. We want to help fashion designers and brands breathe a little easier, which means a world where apparel manufacturing is smarter, easier, and sustainable. We plan to make sustainable products available to brands at low costs and low MoQs. We also want to offer other core benefits including reduced sample approval time, 8 weeks average production cycle, and 4 times faster supplier matching and pricing."

Fashinza Co-founder and COO Abhishek Sharma, added, "Our platform makes apparel sourcing as easy as placing an order on Amazon. Fashinza is a powerful and versatile platform carefully built to address and mitigate the pain points in the apparel industry. The said industry is largely fragmented, non-transparent, and rigid, and this causes delays across production schedules and delivery. Fashinza addresses these issues using a single dashboard interface - cutting down inefficiency, cost overruns, and redundancies."

Fashinza Co-founder and CBO Jamil Ahmad further said, "We are planning to set up a 15-20 member team in the UAE and we will be operative in apparel as well as home textiles market. Fashinza will also assign dedicated account managers to every brand as a standard practice, ensuring all their requirements are fulfilled with minimal hustle."

Fashinza helps clothing brands with everything from designing and production to quality check and delivery, assuming end-to-end ownership for the process. The platform allows companies to track the daily progress of their orders on an AI-regulated dashboard, with live updates from the factory floor, eliminating the need to make a hundred calls and emails for follow-ups. It also helps brands to reduce wastage, inventory forecasting errors, and enables quick replenishment of bestsellers with a fast turnaround time.

About Fashinza: 

Founded in 2020 by Abhishek Sharma and Pawan Gupta and joined by Jamil Ahmad as one of the co-founders, Fashinza is a global B2B manufacturing marketplace with a mission to create sustainable and futuristic supply chains for fashion brands while improving the lives of millions of workers. The start-up provides absolute transparency in production through regular updates for brands on their AI-regulated platform. They handle everything from design to delivery for their partner brands while providing lowest MOQs in the industry and fast turnarounds. Recently, Fashinza raised $20 million in a mix of equity and debt as part of Series A funding. The round was co-led by marquee existing investors Accel Partners and Elevation Capital along with Abu Dhabi's DisruptAD, Stride Ventures, Alteria Capital, and Tradecred. The round also saw participation from Anand S Ahuja (MD, Shahi Exports & Founder, Bhaane) and actress Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, both of whom are vocal supporters of sustainable fashion. For more information, please click on www.fashinza.com

Signzy Enters the UAE in Strategic Partnership with the Seed Group

Bangalore, 30 August 2021: Seed Group, a company of the Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, has entered into a strategic partnership with Signzy, a Bangalore-based banking workflow automation company, for financial services, to give further push to digital transformation of businesses across the UAE. With the support of Seed Group, Signzy aims to triple its growth in the region by the end of fiscal 2022.

The partnership comes at a time when the UAE is expediting tech transformation across government services and industries, as per the goals of the UAE Digital Government Strategy 2025.

Under the partnership, Seed Group will help Signzy expand its operations in the Emirates and the wider Middle East, reach the right audience, access top decision-makers in government as well as private sectors, and market their products effectively in the region. The AI startup, on the other hand, will bring the best products and technologies to the region and help companies automate their back office operations, create security and data protection infrastructure and speed up digitisation of their processes.

Hisham Al Gurg, CEO of Seed Group and The Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, said, “The UAE is taking giant strides to meet the objectives of the UAE Digital Government Strategy 2025 and double the size of the digital economy in the next 10 years. Businesses are going through a phenomenal digital transformation and are on a lookout to adopt affordable smart technologies.”

“Having Signzy as our strategic partner will give the country’s digitisation agenda the much-needed push. Signzy has been successfully providing to various institutions cutting-edge digital solutions. We see a huge potential for their services in the UAE and the Middle East,” he added.

Signzy Co-founder and CEO Ankit Ratan said, “Seed Group brings a wealth of experience and regional access to the MENA region which will power us to rapidly grow market share. Businesses, especially banks, financial institutions, and fintechs across UAE and Middle East are doubling efforts to digitize and automate services to build a robust digital financial infrastructure that improves access, transparency, and speed of delivery. We are pleased to partner with Seed Group to fulfil UAE’s vision of digital transformation.”

Signzy, a company that works with over 100 financial institutions, including the four largest banks in India and the top three banks in the US, and various other businesses, seeks to help financial institutions automate their back-office operations, create security and data protection infrastructure, and speed up digitization for faster customer onboarding and real-time verification and fraud detection. With over 240 fintech API pre-integrated on the platform, Signzy assists banks become digital ready from day one and expedite customers’ digital journey.

Seed Group is a notable force in the technology, healthcare, hospitality, and telecommunications landscape in the Middle East. Over the past 16 years, it has formed successful strategic alliances with leading global companies representing diverse regions to accelerate their sustainable market entry and presence within the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

About Seed Group

Over the past 16 years, Seed Group has formed strategic alliances with leading global companies representing diverse regions and industries. These companies have propelled their business interests and goals in the Middle East and North Africa region through the support and strong base of regional connections of the Seed Group. The Group’s goal is to create mutually beneficial partnerships with multinational organisations and to accelerate their sustainable market entry and presence within the MENA region. Seed Group has been a key point in the success of all its partners in the region, helping them reach their target customers and accelerate their businesses. The Private Office was established by Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum to directly invest in or assist potential business opportunities in the region, which meet The Private Office’s criteria. For more information, visit www.seedgroup.com.

About Signzy

Signzy is a leading provider of AI-based digitalization and automation solutions to the BFSI industry and counts globally leading banks and NBFCs as its clients. As one of the leading bank workflow automation players, we are helping more than 200 institutions make their digital regulatory processes simple, secure and compliant. For more information, visit https://signzy.com/.

Lenskart forays into Middle East market, commits USD$50 million towards expansion in the UAE

Leading eyewear portal from India aims to build a USD $250 million business in the next 3-4 years across the region

MUMBAI, India, Jan. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Lenskart, the largest eyewear retailer of India, has announced its foray into the Middle East market and plans to open its first retail store in Dubai soon.

The company has committed $50 million (around AED185 million) towards the expansion in the UAE market. The eyewear specialist has launched its operations in the UAE through online offerings at its website ae.lenskart.com with free delivery across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.

The UAE is a very active market for premium fashion eyewear and colour contact lenses, and Lenskart will be launching its brands - John Jacobs and Aqualens - along with lenskart, which has already disrupted the markets in India and Singapore.

Within the year, the company plans to provide eyewear through its online and offline stores across the Middle East, similar to its current practice in Singapore and India. The move to venture into the Middle East, follows its success and popularity in Singapore where Lenskart is looking to do $30 million revenue in 2021 and achieving the No: 1 position. In the Middle East, Lenskart aims to do the same by building a $250 million business over the next 3-4 years.

Peyush Bansal, Co-Founder, LensKart, said, "At Lenskart, we understand the UAE millennial buyers and believe that we have the most stylish and high-quality products that are supported by innovative technology and a strong supply chain to deliver a surprising customer experience. We envision to grow exponentially in the coming 3-4 years and build a robust consumer base for our brand in the Middle East. Our prime objective remains enthusiastic customer satisfaction."

The Company keeps customer experience and technology at the forefront of its servicing. It provides a unique offering of AR (Augmented Reality) technology for virtual try-on. The indigenously-developed technology enables customers to try eyewear virtually and makes intelligent recommendations as per their facial analysis.

Lenskart's new production facility is under development in Delhi-NCR region of India with an investment of over $100 million and it is going to be the largest eyewear facility in the world with supply capacity of over 150,000 glasses per day.

Lenskart has 5,000 employees and an in house data and technology team of over 300 engineers. Amit Chaudhary and Ramneek Khurana who are the other co-founders dedicatedly oversee to all technology initiatives across the company. Lenskart shipped 7 million pairs of eyewear last year which is largest among all eyewear startups founded globally in the last decade.

About Lenskart:

Omni-channel eyewear company Lenskart is India's largest eyewear retailer reaching out to more than 400,000 customers on a monthly basis. Incepted in 2010, Lenskart.com operates across 700 stores online, home-service and accounts for a market share of 30% in India's organised eyewear market.

Lenskart is funded by Softbank, Kedaara Capital, TPG, IFC, Premji Invest and other marquee investors. In Dec 2019, the company raised approximately 275 Million Dollars from Softbank and Kedaara Capital. 

HomeLane Posts Revenue of Rs. 230.4 Cr in FY20, Reduces Losses by more than 30%

HomeLane, India's preferred home interiors company, today announced its unaudited financial results for FY20, posting a 130% jump in its operating revenues, from Rs. 99.95 crore last fiscal to Rs. 230.4 crore during FY20.

 

In FY 2020, HomeLane received orders from about 6,800 customers, growing 131% from about 2,900 customers in FY19. While the company's revenue continued to see larger volumes from its core category of modular furniture, other products and services, such as false ceiling, painting, soft furnishings, wallpaper, wooden flooring, etc. posted an emerging trend. Contribution of other products and services grew from 10% in FY19 to 20% in FY20.

HomeLane also reduced its EBITDA loss to 35% (Rs. 81 crore on a revenue of Rs. 230 crore) in FY20, from 53% (Rs. 53.4 crore on a revenue of Rs. 99.95 crore) in FY19; a drop of 34% year-on-year. With revenues more than doubling and losses reducing by over 30%, FY20 ended strongly.

[caption id="attachment_145831" align="alignleft" width="267"] Srikanth Iyer, Founder & CEO - HomeLane[/caption]

During the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, when the company's experience centers remained non-operative, HomeLane managed to get more than 350 new orders, using its proprietary 3D design technology platform, SpaceCraft. The Experience centers, manufacturing and installation services have resumed in limited areas across select cities in the past few days when relaxations were announced by the state authorities.

Srikanth Iyer, Founder & CEO said, "FY20 has been a defining year for us both from a revenue growth and profitability perspective. We are strongly positioned, despite COVID-19, to get to EBITDA profitability in FY21 which is a significant landmark we are aiming for."

[caption id="attachment_145832" align="alignright" width="242"] Tanuj Choudhry, Chief Business Officer - HomeLane[/caption]

Tanuj Choudhry, Chief Business Officer said, "In FY20, we entered Kolkata and Pune, adding to our 5 existing markets. We were clocking a ~Rs. 600 Cr Order Book ARR in February, and despite going fully virtual during the lockdown, booked ~30% of normal monthly sales during the period. Our current focus is on ensuring we deliver safe interiors and at a speed only we can. This is a difficult time for everyone - homeowners should have one less thing to worry about - their interiors!"

HomeLane had raised $30 million in December last year in its Series D round which included investors like Pidilite and Evolvence India Fund, apart from existing investors including Sequoia and Accel.

About HomeLane.com

Founded in 2014, HomeLane.com is Indias preferred home interiors brand. With a presence in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, NCR, Kolkata and Pune, HomeLane.com has established itself as a key enabler for homeowners in furnishing their dream home. HomeLane.com already delivered 9000+ projects since its inception with support of 900+ design experts and 18 experience centers.

For more information, please visit www.HomeLane.com.

Stanza Living to Invest Rs 400 Cr in 2 Yrs on Expansion of Co-Living Business

Co-living operator Stanza Living will invest Rs 400 crore over the next two years on expansion as it sees opportunities in the rental accommodation business despite the coronavirus-triggered slowdown.

Founded in 2017, Stanza Living has so far raised USD 70 million from investors like Falcon Edge Capital, Sequoia Capital, Accel, Matrix Partners and Alteria Capital. 

It currently has 200 centres across 14 cities with a total capacity of 55,000 beds, which are being provided in the price range of Rs 4,000-25,000 per bed. 

"We are seeing a limited impact on our business. Our revenue has been hit marginally by around 2 per cent. Most of the students have gone back to their home but they are occupying our beds and paying rents," Stanza Living Co-founder and MD Anindya Dutta said.

The company has given some relief to its student members by providing discounts on rentals, he added. 

Dutta expressed confidence about the growth potential of the co-living business post COVID-19.

However, at present there is no clarity about when the new session will start in colleges and universities because of the lockdown, he added.

"Education is important. As and when situations normalise, students will come back to study," he said. 

Earlier this year, Stanza Living decided to diversify its business and provide rental accommodations for working professionals as well.  

Asked about expansion plans, Dutta said: "We are not deferring our expansion plans. We are targeting to add 50,000 beds in 12-18 months." 

Around half of the capacity addition would be for student housing and the remaining for working professionals.

On planned investment for expansion, Dutta said the company will be investing around Rs 400 crore over the next two years. 

"We have enough capital for our growth plan. We do not need to raise fresh funds," he added. 

In a recent study, News Corp and Softbank-backed realty portal PropTiger termed the co-living space as "real estate goldmine" and said the segment has the potential to become a USD 93 billion market annually on rising demand from students and professionals.

Online Train Ticket Discovery and Booking Engine - Confirmtkt Registers Multifold Growth in Revenue for FY 2018-2019

Confirmtkt, the Bangalore-based online train ticket discovery and booking engine, has seen a big jump in its revenue for the financial year ended on March 31, 2019. The company has reported net revenue of Rs. 4.7 crore in FY 2018-2019 as against Rs. 89.84 lakhs in FY 2017-2018. Confirmtkt, which launched the train ticket booking feature in March 2018, currently has an annual turnover of Rs. 93 crores.

In October 2019, Confirmtkt crossed 25 lakh train bookings, which is worth 250 crore bookings a year. With 10 million+ app downloads to date, the platform has successfully gained user trust and cemented its position in the industry. Besides English, the Confirmtkt app has support for seven regional languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam and Bengali.

Sharing his insights, Dinesh Kumar Kotha Co-founder & CEO of Confirmtkt, said, “FYs an important turning point for us in terms of reaching new milestones. We registered robust growth after our successful pivot from information only plat 2018-2019 waform to transactional platform following the launch of train ticket booking feature. This year we are anticipating a 4x growth in terms of revenues and we are on track for this.”

“The train ticketing market is gaining momentum with privatization of trains and the entry of bigger players into the market. India’s train market can soon be compared to the European train market where the trains are run by multiple private players. Privatization will present new growth opportunities for startups like us and help us provide better customer experience. We plan to complete 5x of current monthly booking traction of 5,30,000 tickets in the next 18 months,” he added.

In the next 18 months, the company aims to expand horizontally by offering multiple services to railway commuters which will make their travel hassle free. He also said, to fuel this expansion we are already in talks to raise USD 10 Mn series - a funding round.

Confirmtkt is also looking to launch a multilingual voice-based train booking feature that will target the new internet users from non-metros. The beta version is already live and it will soon be rolled out to everyone.

About Confirmtkt

Confirmtkt, Bangalore based online train ticket discovery and booking engine delivers a seamless search and booking experience to travellers. Catering primarily to budget travellers using smartphones, the platform has a one-of-its-kind feature of predicting the status on waitlisted tickets and suggesting alternate travel options to them in case of unavailability of direct connecting trains. Confirmtkt is the brainchild of Sripad Vaidya and Dinesh Kumar Kotha and was commenced in March 2015 with an intention to assure a confirmed train ticket to its customers to travel anywhere in India. Confirmtkt has received awards like Mbillionth award and the NASSCOM award for its innovative products.

EarlySalary Reaches the Milestone of 1 Million Loans

EarlySalary, India’s largest consumer lending app for salaried individuals, recently achieved a key milestone of successfully disbursing 1 million loans amounting to Rs 1,850+ crores.

The app primarily provides young working professionals an easy line of credit, instant cash loans, interest-free EMIs and other long term loans in sectors such as education, travel, shopping, etc. Apart from working professionals, the company also acts as a financial wellness provider for blue-collar or entry-level workers and has over 400 corporates who have signed up for their Financial Wellness Offering & Salary Advances in their customer base.

To celebrate this milestone, EarlySalary is launching a campaign where customers can do a virtual handshake with the app and get exciting rewards in return.

Taking a closer look at the demographics of the recipients of the 1 million salary advance disbursals, it was observed that:

• The majority of customers (67%) were millennials in the age group 26-35 years old.


• They were mainly job beginners with a work experience of 0 - 2 years.


• The average salary of borrowers was Rs 40,000 per month.


• Monthly Loan Disbursal - Rs 130 Cr.


• The highest demand was from the city of Bengaluru (27%), followed by Delhi & NCR region (21%), and Hyderabad (13%).


• While EarlySalary does not ask its customers for their reasons to seek funds, it was observed that these spike during festivals and long weekends, which thereby imply that people want to shop for the latest gadgets, to travel, etc.

Adoption and implementation of the latest technologies in the digital lending sector have greatly assisted EarlySalary in crossing this significant milestone of 1 million disbursals. The app operates with a fully digitalized and instant decision-making system, which allows users to borrow in mere minutes rather than days. The company is focused on building a Deep Tech Machine Learning platform with data integration across multiple data sources, to help understand customer profiles better and faster to facilitate these loans. Apart from this, seamless customer onboarding, loan origination and management systems that can handle up to 250,000 monthly transactions have been built in-house.

“Completing 1 million salary advances is a major milestone for EarlySalary, as we continue to be the first line of credit for young Indians. These customers often experience a month-end cash crunch and due to lack of credit-score knowledge, they are unable to borrow money from the traditional credit facilities available. It is this gap that EarlySalary has been able to successfully mitigate for its consumers. This is further backed by hyper repeat and good retention rates of customers, and delinquency rates of less than 1%. This speaks volumes about the Machine Learning Scorecards and risk engines built by us while giving loans in seconds, and this is why the future looks bright for EarlySalary,” said Akshay Mehrotra, Co-Founder, and CEO of EarlySalary.

Ashish Goyal, Co-Founder and CFO added, “At EarlySalary, upgrading lives through technology and customer experience has been at the core of every initiative we have undertaken. We are happy to have been of help to our customers a million times, who needed funds quickly and with ease, to either tide over an emergency or to fulfil their desire to upgrade their lifestyle. We thank our customers who have trusted us and believed in our product making a difference to their lives. We also take this opportunity to thank our partners and lenders for their support in this journey. We are on the path to fulfil our aspiration to become the first choice of credit for young aspiring India.”

EarlySalary.com was founded by Akshay Mehrotra and Ashish Goyal in 2015 and is India’s largest consumer lending application, crossing the INR 1850 Crores disbursal mark. The mobile-first lending application has provided financial assistance to over 250,000 unique customers through 1 million cumulative loans across 17 cities, which has made EarlySalary the first line of credit for young working Indians.

About EarlySalary.com

Founded by Akshay Mehrotra and Ashish Goyal, EarlySalary is a mobile app that allows salaried individuals to avail of financial assistance. The company offers a bouquet of products tailored to the need of young India including salary advances, instant loans, interest-free EMI options and a line of credit to shop. The company conducts a prudent risk assessment by leveraging machine learning to go beyond financial underwriting.

EarlySalary earlier raised INR 100 crores in January 2018 led by Eight Roads Ventures (Fidelity). With more than 10 Million Downloads and loans worth Rs. 1850 crores already being disbursed, EarlySalary is helping customers borrow within minutes. EarlySalary has fast become the 1st line of credit for young working professionals in India.

~ Business Wire India