We are back with our weekly recap. Here are the 10 startup biz news which becomes the talk of the town this week.
The Cambridge Innovations, the investment arm of Cambridge Technology Enterprises (CITE) has partially exited from an early stage investment in an insurance technology firm Roadzen with a realisation of $2,50,000, reports CI website.
The firm has invested nearly $1.3 million in the startup in three stages of funding in 2015. CI participated in the financing of Roadzen in the last two years and has sold $250,000 of Roadzen’s stock in order to assist the entry of one of the most prominent Hong Kong based Chinese investor. Roadzen Technology is transforming global auto insurance with big data and AI. Roadzen helps insurers underwrite their risk with better data, interact with their customers in real-time, provide roadside assistance to stranded customers and process auto-claims instantly.
The US-based incubator Techstars is all set to make its debut in India. The global incubator is going to launch its new startup programmes over the coming weeks and months. For the same, Techstars has entered into a joint venture (JV) with Bengaluru-based ANSR that provides enterprises to build and manage in-house or external accelerators and other such startups-focused infrastructure.
The financial details of JV are undisclosed. With this JV, Techstars aims to open centres across multiple locations in India in a few years. The firm will launch its first centre in Bengaluru next year.
CloudBoost.io, a Hyderabad based startup has been invited to participate in MassChallenge and Parallel18, representing India on the global platform at two of the leading startup accelerators in the world. With a team of just 12 with everyone below the age of 24, this young startup is now one of the companies serving more than 50,0000 customers globally.
The startup is a cloud platform that lets software developers build apps in half less time by taking care of the infrastructure and backend (servers, databases, and more) for them. CloudBoost is one of the 36 companies from around the world who is invited by Government of Puerto Rico & Parallel18 to start operations and serve customers locally on the island. Puerto Rico serves as a launchpad for companies to expand into Latin American markets in the future.
A report by Assocham-Hammurabi & Solomon recently highlighted that startups need to develop stronger and sustainable business plans to receive private equity/venture capital (PE/VC) funding.
The ASSOCHAM-Hammurabi & Solomon joint report titled ‘M&A landscape in India,’ noted that after registering 26 percent dip in fund raising by PE firms last year i.e. from $5.7 billion in 2015 to $4.2 billion in 2016, the year 2017 could be the one for consolidation, with PE/VC (venture capital) firms chasing a business having a strong biz model with a focus on unit economics and profit.
Google has acquired Seattle-based health monitoring startup Senosis Health. Founded by Indian-origin Professor Shwetak Patel along with four others, Senosis Health turns smartphones into medical devices and collects various health stats. Financial details of the acquisition remain undisclosed.
Being a Professor at University of Washington’s computer science and engineering faculty, Patel’s past startup ventures have landed in the hands of companies such as Belkin International and Sears.
Indian Angel Network (IAN) has announced a strategic partnership with Neotec Hub, an incubator started by Kolkata based corporate house – Ambuja Neotia, bringing innovative entrepreneurs, angel investors and corporates together on a single platform.
With Neotec breeding innovation in the ever-emerging startup ecosystem, IAN would help fine tune their business strategy, provide mentorships as well as help them access to funds through IAN’s group of more than 450 angel investors.
A serial tech entrepreneur, Nitin Khanna has announced his partnership with R. P. Singh, CEO of Seasia Infotech to set up a Center of Excellence (CoE) to help tech startups in India.
Under this initiative, they will jointly work on creating the CoE cores which will allow technology startup companies to use the co-working space of Seasia Infotech to work, learn and collaborate at no extra cost. CoE will offer these startups with all support and services right from providing IOT and networking infrastructure to beta testing and customer access. In addition to this they also plan on providing financial support to these startups. Nitin Khanna recently invested $5 million in a software startup iSoS Inc.
Russia’s $10-billion conglomerate Sistema JSFC is considering setting up a wholly owned unit in the Indian subcontinent, according to a report in the Economic Times. The Indian unit will be providing hands-on business execution assistance to Indian startups working in domains like financial technologies, e-commerce, digital analytics, etailing and lifestyle.
According to a report, a source aware of the matter has disclosed to them that the new Sistema India subsidiary will be handholding Indian startups under its new Scalerator platform through a host of services, including go-to-market strategies, solutions to scale up business growth and even the support of a back-up operations team, if required. The Scalerator platform, which combines the words sale and accelerator, will be helping local startups in growing their businesses rapidly but in a cost-efficient way.
Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has recently instructed the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE) to make sure that all states in the country have a system in place that will allow startups self-certification for at least six labour laws for a period of five years. With this, the PMO is hoping to boost its startup drive in the Indian subcontinent. While the PMO has pitched a five year window, the MoLE advisory had, in fact, suggested the same last year, but instead of five years it wanted to restrict the period to three years.
The Kerala government has instructed its departments to utilise the services of startups registered in the state or cleared by its Kerala Start Up Mission (KSUM) for coming up with some easy to navigate but fun mobile apps for all their official projects.
The order issued by the Kerala state government dictates that the government has officially sanctioned direct purchase of mobile applications from startups who have found a mention in the list cleared by KSUM up to a cost of Rs 5 Lakhs. A purchasing officer is not allowed to buy more than two mobile applications in a given financial year from one KSUM registered/cleared startup.
Apart from these, there were some other happening which grabbed the attention. During a recent visit to the Indian subcontinent, Simon Galpin, Managing Director, Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) revealed that kingdom’s plan to set up a fntech Centre in India by next year.
Another development comes from PayTM Mall. The firm is all set to invest $5 million to address needs of its partner retailers and to do so they have introduced Shopkeeper Inclusion Programme for them.
One of NASSCOM Center of Excellence, IoT’s first incubated startups IoT Pot, an arm of IoK Labs Inc. has unveiled their first innovation on Indiegogo – Klove Knob; a product that promises to make cooking smart and safe. Klove Knob can be made to replace any conventional existing stove knob and needs no additional hardware to jump into action.
Cambridge Innovations Makes Partial Exit from Roadzen
The Cambridge Innovations, the investment arm of Cambridge Technology Enterprises (CITE) has partially exited from an early stage investment in an insurance technology firm Roadzen with a realisation of $2,50,000, reports CI website.
The firm has invested nearly $1.3 million in the startup in three stages of funding in 2015. CI participated in the financing of Roadzen in the last two years and has sold $250,000 of Roadzen’s stock in order to assist the entry of one of the most prominent Hong Kong based Chinese investor. Roadzen Technology is transforming global auto insurance with big data and AI. Roadzen helps insurers underwrite their risk with better data, interact with their customers in real-time, provide roadside assistance to stranded customers and process auto-claims instantly.
Global Incubator Techstars Enters Into JV With ANSR
The US-based incubator Techstars is all set to make its debut in India. The global incubator is going to launch its new startup programmes over the coming weeks and months. For the same, Techstars has entered into a joint venture (JV) with Bengaluru-based ANSR that provides enterprises to build and manage in-house or external accelerators and other such startups-focused infrastructure.
The financial details of JV are undisclosed. With this JV, Techstars aims to open centres across multiple locations in India in a few years. The firm will launch its first centre in Bengaluru next year.
CloudBoost To Represent India at MassChallenge and Parallel18
CloudBoost.io, a Hyderabad based startup has been invited to participate in MassChallenge and Parallel18, representing India on the global platform at two of the leading startup accelerators in the world. With a team of just 12 with everyone below the age of 24, this young startup is now one of the companies serving more than 50,0000 customers globally.
The startup is a cloud platform that lets software developers build apps in half less time by taking care of the infrastructure and backend (servers, databases, and more) for them. CloudBoost is one of the 36 companies from around the world who is invited by Government of Puerto Rico & Parallel18 to start operations and serve customers locally on the island. Puerto Rico serves as a launchpad for companies to expand into Latin American markets in the future.
Startups Need To Develop Stronger Biz Plans To Receive Funding: Study
A report by Assocham-Hammurabi & Solomon recently highlighted that startups need to develop stronger and sustainable business plans to receive private equity/venture capital (PE/VC) funding.
The ASSOCHAM-Hammurabi & Solomon joint report titled ‘M&A landscape in India,’ noted that after registering 26 percent dip in fund raising by PE firms last year i.e. from $5.7 billion in 2015 to $4.2 billion in 2016, the year 2017 could be the one for consolidation, with PE/VC (venture capital) firms chasing a business having a strong biz model with a focus on unit economics and profit.
Google Acquires Health Monitoring Startup Founded By Indian-Origin Professor
Google has acquired Seattle-based health monitoring startup Senosis Health. Founded by Indian-origin Professor Shwetak Patel along with four others, Senosis Health turns smartphones into medical devices and collects various health stats. Financial details of the acquisition remain undisclosed.
Being a Professor at University of Washington’s computer science and engineering faculty, Patel’s past startup ventures have landed in the hands of companies such as Belkin International and Sears.
IAN Partners With Kolkata Based Neotec Hub
Indian Angel Network (IAN) has announced a strategic partnership with Neotec Hub, an incubator started by Kolkata based corporate house – Ambuja Neotia, bringing innovative entrepreneurs, angel investors and corporates together on a single platform.
With Neotec breeding innovation in the ever-emerging startup ecosystem, IAN would help fine tune their business strategy, provide mentorships as well as help them access to funds through IAN’s group of more than 450 angel investors.
MergerTech To Set Up A Center of Excellence to Give Push To Indian Tech Startups
A serial tech entrepreneur, Nitin Khanna has announced his partnership with R. P. Singh, CEO of Seasia Infotech to set up a Center of Excellence (CoE) to help tech startups in India.
Under this initiative, they will jointly work on creating the CoE cores which will allow technology startup companies to use the co-working space of Seasia Infotech to work, learn and collaborate at no extra cost. CoE will offer these startups with all support and services right from providing IOT and networking infrastructure to beta testing and customer access. In addition to this they also plan on providing financial support to these startups. Nitin Khanna recently invested $5 million in a software startup iSoS Inc.
Russia’s Sistema to Set Up 100% Arm For Indian startups
Russia’s $10-billion conglomerate Sistema JSFC is considering setting up a wholly owned unit in the Indian subcontinent, according to a report in the Economic Times. The Indian unit will be providing hands-on business execution assistance to Indian startups working in domains like financial technologies, e-commerce, digital analytics, etailing and lifestyle.
According to a report, a source aware of the matter has disclosed to them that the new Sistema India subsidiary will be handholding Indian startups under its new Scalerator platform through a host of services, including go-to-market strategies, solutions to scale up business growth and even the support of a back-up operations team, if required. The Scalerator platform, which combines the words sale and accelerator, will be helping local startups in growing their businesses rapidly but in a cost-efficient way.
Another Relief For Indian Startups, No Labor Law Inspection for First 5 Years
Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has recently instructed the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE) to make sure that all states in the country have a system in place that will allow startups self-certification for at least six labour laws for a period of five years. With this, the PMO is hoping to boost its startup drive in the Indian subcontinent. While the PMO has pitched a five year window, the MoLE advisory had, in fact, suggested the same last year, but instead of five years it wanted to restrict the period to three years.
All Kerala Govt Dept. Apps To Be Developed Through Startups Only
The Kerala government has instructed its departments to utilise the services of startups registered in the state or cleared by its Kerala Start Up Mission (KSUM) for coming up with some easy to navigate but fun mobile apps for all their official projects.
The order issued by the Kerala state government dictates that the government has officially sanctioned direct purchase of mobile applications from startups who have found a mention in the list cleared by KSUM up to a cost of Rs 5 Lakhs. A purchasing officer is not allowed to buy more than two mobile applications in a given financial year from one KSUM registered/cleared startup.
Other Important News
Apart from these, there were some other happening which grabbed the attention. During a recent visit to the Indian subcontinent, Simon Galpin, Managing Director, Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) revealed that kingdom’s plan to set up a fntech Centre in India by next year.
Another development comes from PayTM Mall. The firm is all set to invest $5 million to address needs of its partner retailers and to do so they have introduced Shopkeeper Inclusion Programme for them.
One of NASSCOM Center of Excellence, IoT’s first incubated startups IoT Pot, an arm of IoK Labs Inc. has unveiled their first innovation on Indiegogo – Klove Knob; a product that promises to make cooking smart and safe. Klove Knob can be made to replace any conventional existing stove knob and needs no additional hardware to jump into action.
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