Bangalore Based galleri5 Raises Funding From TaxiForSure and RedBus Founders

[caption id="attachment_105932" align="aligncenter" width="701"] galleri5's team[/caption]

Bangalore based startup galleri5 aims to let people ‘visually’ discover interesting stuff on topics they like. The venture has built a platform where users can follow their topics of interest, and discover interesting things through relevant photos from like-minded people. As per the company, people are using galleri5 to discover beautiful and offbeat places to travel to, unique culinary experiences to experiment, fashion and home decor ideas, etc. People can also share their own experiences on the app through photos they have clicked. The photos get tagged to relevant topics through galleri5’s in-house crowdsourcing and learning engine, so that you only see what you are interested in.

The startup raised an undisclosed amount of funds last year from well-known investors including Raghunandan G, founder of cab aggregator TaxiForSure and Phanindra Sama, founder of bus ticketing platform RedBus.

According to Rahul Regulapati, one of the founders of galleri5 and graduate of IIT Madras and IIM Ahmedabad, ‘We believe that no platform is truly harnessing the full potential of visual user-generated content (UGC) the way we are. With over 2 billion photos being uploaded every single day onto the world wide web, the power of combining multiple photos on a single topic across users creates a far more compelling and inspiring story than what any professional would be able to create. Crowdsourcing and UGC will be the central pillars of how discovery happens in the future and we are at the forefront of this change.’

Being a 10-member strong company, galleri5 is working at the cutting edge of machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) to help people find only the most relevant collection of photos on the platform. As per Movin Jain, the other founder of galleri5 and Computer Science graduate from IIT Delhi and MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, “While the problem of search has been solved to a great extent by companies like Google, discovery is a new phenomenon and has not yet seen enough innovation. It’s a hard problem to solve, because unlike search, there is very little input from the user. But it is definitely the future of how people use the web, and that motivates us to work towards building this disruptive platform. We know it will be a challenging journey, which is why we have put together a very strong and motivated tech team. With the backing of successful entrepreneurs who have created big consumer platforms in the past, we are confident of building a product that will be used by millions of people.’

The galleri5 platform is available as a mobile app on Android and iPhone, and also as a website for desktop users.

Very few startups in India are working in the visual discovery space. A few companies in the Silicon Valley including Pinterest have already demonstrated the power of crowdsourcing and discovery. It remains to be seen how visual discovery will change the way we use the web in the future, and whether platforms like galleri5 will be able to create a lasting impact in this space.

India Proposes Legal Guidelines For Ridesharing Apps Like Uber And Ola

Though ridesharing apps like Uber, Ola cabs etc. have come like a heaven in disguise for the Indian citizens, same is not the case with the Indian government. These companies are not only different from the traditional cab companies, but many tech based companies, too. This results in difficulty on the part of the government to regulate them under the existing laws.

Interestingly, this is not the case only with India. Governments all around the world are having a hard time with these ridesharing apps and are rolling out guidelines to address the unique business models of these companies. China had recently posted draft regulations that may force these companies to functions more like taxi fleets.

Following the footsteps of China, the Indian government has itself proposed its own set of legal guidelines. The guidelines published on the website of the Ministry of Roadways and Highways, proposes all the ridesharing apps to have an emergency button. This emergency button will be in addition to the in app feature that allows the user to call the police directly. Further, the guidelines also advises these companies to operate more like traditional taxi fleets, with 24/7 call centers, an in-depth background check of all drivers, branded vehicles, and a meter that will track the distance traveled and the passenger’s fee for the same.

After the infamous case of the rape of a female passenger by an Uber driver last year, ridesharing apps like Uber and Ola had religiously started the activity of checking the background of all its drivers. They had also introduced various privacy and in-app safety features in their apps as a result of the case. Despite their these efforts, the companies have been having a difficult time in the form of bans in the Indian capital, Delhi, and strenuous police investigations. A similar thing happened as recent as last month when the Delhi government rejected Uber's plea to operate in the Capital.

While famous ridesharing apps like Ola, Uber and TaxiForSure (acquires by Ola in March this year ) have each had their respective applications for radio taxi licenses rejected by the government over the past year, they’ve all been able to work it out by functioning as digital aggregators similar to an online marketplace like Flipkart, Amazon etc.

As these guidelines are not laws, it's not necessary for these apps to follow them but considering the safety of their users, many of these ridesharing app companies have accepted these guidelines with open arms.

According to a statement given by Uber India president Amit Jain, "The guidelines are a significant step in the right direction. They rightfully distinguish between taxi operators and technology platforms, and lay down sector specific regulations for our industry. We applaud the MoRT&H for holding a stakeholder consultation to develop these guidelines and are pleased to have participated in this process."

Resonating the same views, a statement from an Ola representative said, "We welcome the advisory from the Ministry of Road Transport and we believe this is a major step towards positively impacting the ecosystem and its stakeholders, that technology platforms like ours have created. We will continue to work with the government, under the aegis of this progressive directive, offering our complete support and commitment towards building mobility for a billion people."

Ola Buys Rival TaxiForSure For $200 Million

Mobile app based online cab booking service Ola has bought rival TaxiForSure for $200 million in a cash-and-equity deal. Notably, TaxiForSure is India's second largest cab aggregator and this is first merger and acquisition (M&A) in the taxi service aggregator space.

This acquisition deal by Ola is among the biggest in India's startup industry after Flipkart's purchase of Myntra for about $300 million in May last year.

Ola and TaxiForSure will continue to operate as separate entities, said a statement. The leadership and all of the 1700 employees shall continue to work with TaxiForSure, with Arvind Singhal (currently COO) being appointed the CEO. Aprameya Radhakrishna and Raghunandan G, the founders of TaxiForSure, will contribute in an advisory role for a certain period.

TaxiForSure currently operates in 47 cities with over 15,000 vehicles registered on its platform. With the acquisition, investors in TaxiForSure will roll over their stock into Ola, the company said.

According to Raghunandan G, Co-founder and CEO, TaxiForSure the brands coming together will provide more opportunity than ever to do what they do best. "Post this acquisition; the combined entity will be strong enough and better capitalized to offer the best value to all our stakeholders, including our customers. This development ensures that industry attractiveness is preserved and the combined entity can race ahead and continue to create unprecedented value for all stakeholders."

Ola has been funded by Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, Steadview Capital and most recently, Japan's Softbank over its four rounds of fund-raising. Investors in TaxiForSure are Accel Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners.

Taxiforsure.com gets $10 million in funding

Online taxi booking service TaxiForSure.com got $10 million in a Series B round of funding, led by Bessemer Venture Partners along with existing partners Accel Partners, Helion Venture Partners and Blume Ventures. Bessemer Venture Partners has already invested in many Indian online services companies such as SnapDeal.com and Matrimony.com

TaxiForSure is an aggregator of cab and taxi services currently catering in cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi. The company claims to served 1,000,000+ taxi rides till date. The total investment raised by the firm has reached $14 million along with this round.

The latest acquired funds will used by the startup in expanding its operations to 10 new cities, including Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Mumbai, Indore, Bhopal, Baroda, Surat, Jaipur and Chandigarh. The company intends to expand to 15 locations by 2015.

Previously in June 2013 Taxiforsure has raised $4 million (about Rs 23 crore) in first round of institutional funding from its seed investors, Accel Partners, Helion Venture Partners and Blume Ventures.

TaxiForSure also has mobile apps for iPhone and Android.

The startup was founded in 2011 by its founders - Aprameya Radhakrishna and Raghunandan G both are passed outs of IIM Ahmedabad and hold engineering degrees from NITK Surathkal.

Online Cab service TaxiForSure is competing with Olacabs, Uber - a Google Venture-backed mobile-based on-demand car hire service and ZoomCar, a membership-based self-drive car rental service.

TaxiforSure have 1000s of cabs in each city and one can book airport taxis, city cabs, local hire/rental cabs as well as outstation cabs through its website, mobile apps (iPhone and Android) or by giving call to 60601010. One can even book premium cabs like BMW, Mercedes and Jaguar.