Netcore Reinforces Employee-Centricity with Blockbuster ESOP Buyback Plan

Netcore Solutions Private Limited, a pioneer in SaaS-based Multi-Channel Marketing Automation and Personalisation, today announced the completion of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) buyback for its past and existing employees.

Employees were given the opportunity to encash a major portion of their stock options. This buyback exercise has been a welcome wealth creation opportunity for Netcore employees, boosting personal liquidity and employee morale. The buyback saw a return of upto 250 times for employees, depending on the price at which they were given the options. In a parallel exercise, Netcore’s holding company also completed a buyback scheme of shares held by current and ex-employees.

This extremely rare buyback scheme, particularly in the SaaS space, has delivered one of the largest returns ever seen in the history of private companies in India. It also reinforces Netcore’s stance on employees being equal stakeholders in Netcore’s evolving growth story.

Kalpit Jain, Group CEO of Netcore Solutions, stated, “Netcore has built a unique growth model centred around 3 elements: profitable growth, long-term focus, and extreme employee-centricity. These three aspects have enabled us to create a high-growth, high-performance organisation which has consistently delivered exceptional value to all our stakeholders, including our employees."

Added Kalpit, “Being profitable for the past 10 years, Netcore is 25% owned by its employees. While every company has to be customer-centric to thrive, there are few that are employee-centric at this scale – both in terms of ownership in the company and delivering wealth creation. We aim to continue to grow our email and marketing automation business globally by 30-40% in the years to come, thus continuing to deliver high returns to our employees."

He concluded by saying “Netcore is driven by long-term objectives and exhibits an ‘infinite mindset’, a concept underscored by management guru, Simon Sinek."

About Netcore Solutions 

Netcore Solutions is a global Marketing Technology company that offers solutions to help brands and enterprises in customer acquisition, engagement, and retention. The first and leading Marketing Automation, Analytics and AI/ML solutions provider in India, Netcore was established in 1998 by Rajesh Jain, an Internet pioneer. Netcore’s product suite includes Smartech and Pepipost. Smartech is an AI-powered growth marketing platform. Pepipost is an API based Email delivery platform.

Netcore serves a strong base of 5000+ enterprises across industry verticals, like Thomas Cook, GoAir, Cleartrip, HDFC, Kotak, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, MakeMyTrip, Lenskart, Swiggy, Myntra, Dream11, Reliance, Vodafone, ITC, OLA, Pfizer along with International brands PizzaHut Malaysia, Malindo Air, Philippine Airlines, Seek Asia, Tokopedia, Standard Chartered, FCMB, GT Bank and many more. Netcore with its innovative marketing technology, delivers 8+ Billion emails & 3+ Billion SMS’s a month, creating 11+ Billion Customer Connects monthly and handles 50+ Billion Events a month. Netcore is headquartered in Mumbai, India with offices in SEA, USA, MEA and an employee base of 550+.

Netcore Solutions helps Flipkart Reimagine Customer Engagement through Big B Virtual Assistant on WhatsApp

The e-commerce major witnessed almost 20000 hours of customer engagement through the Netcore-built custom assistant during the Big Billion Days sale

Netcore Solutions, a pioneer in SaaS-based Multi-Channel Marketing Automation, AI/ML-powered Martech, and Contextual CPaaS, today announced the incredible success of its Big B virtual assistant on WhatsApp built for Flipkart’s recent Big Billion Days sale.

Netcore helped Flipkart leverage Facebook's Click-to-WhatsApp feature on Facebook Ads by allowing users the real-time experience to chat over WhatsApp with a virtual assistant modelled on the persona of none other than the Big B, Amitabh Bachchan, himself. 

With almost 1.3 lakh unique users engaging in over 9.8 lakh interactions with the Big B virtual assistant over a span of only 5 days, Netcore helped Flipkart scale customer engagement to incredible new highs. In fact, the total time spent by users on the WhatsApp virtual assistant was upwards of 20000 hours, with an average session lasting almost 7 minutes.

This also helped add another entertaining dimension to Flipkart’s flagship Big Billion Days sale, enthralling digital customers across the country.

This one-of-a-kind campaign helped Flipkart engage their target audience on a channel of their preference, writing a new chapter in the evolution of conversational commerce in India. 

Working closely with the teams at Flipkart and WhatsApp, the Netcore-built virtual assistant was able to offer audiences a unique conversational experience. The Big B virtual assistant offered customized category-specific offers on various products based on the audience’s performance in an engaging quiz format. Launched in both Hindi and English, the campaign took into account the large segments of the target audience from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. 

The super-simple interface went all the way down to the use of pre-selected emojis. By merely sending a single emoji, customers received real-time updates on products under that category, shortening the buyer journey significantly. 

Apart from this, audiences could purchase products, apply for shopping loans, or view video messages from various celebrities who were part of the Big Billion Days sale promotional campaign. These video messages were unlocked on progressing to different stages of an interactive game.  The overwhelming response to the campaign had customers and tech insiders raving about the industry-first concept across social media.

Vikas Gupta, Head of Marketing at Flipkart said, "We are a customer first company that takes pride in pioneering industry-first innovations. Given WhatsApp’s large footprint, we wanted to leverage it to connect deeply with our customers. And that’s why we created The Big B WhatsApp virtual assistant during this Big Billion Days, a unique tech-led engagement model in association with Facebook and our technology partners, Netcore. It made use of several loved features such as emojis, images, and audio - to create a truly engaging experience. We were able to drive almost 1 million interactions with an impressive 7 minutes of engagement per session to drive nearly 20,000 hours of engagement with this initiative."

Kalpit Jain, Group Chief Executive Officer at Netcore stated, “Today, we exist in a multi-channel environment. In this era of conversational commerce, brands need to engage with their customers in real-time across instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp to deliver differentiated customer experiences. That was the focus when we started building out the Big B virtual assistant for Flipkart. We didn’t want it to be just a gimmick, but wanted to actually power value-driven conversations at scale for Flipkart. We are thrilled to have partnered with a like-minded, innovative company such as Flipkart and look forward to empowering brands fuel personalised customer engagement through WhatsApp as an effective channel of conversion and communication.”   

About Netcore Solutions

Netcore, a global marketing technology company offers solutions to help brands and enterprises with customer acquisition, engagement, and retention. The first and leading Marketing Automation, Analytics and AI/ ML solutions provider in India, Netcore was established in 1997 by Mr Rajesh Jain, an Internet pioneer. Netcore’s product suite includes Smartech and Pepipost. Smartech is an AI-powered growth marketing platform. Pepipost is an API-based transactional email delivery platform. 

Netcore serves a strong base of 5000+ enterprises across industry verticals such as Thomas Cook, Go Air, Cleartrip, HDFC, Kotak, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, MakeMyTrip, Lenskart, Swiggy, Myntra, BabyChakra, Dream11, Reliance, Vodafone, ITC, OLA, Pfizer, and OLX. Additionally, it also serves international brands such as PizzaHut Malaysia, Malindo Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Seek Asia, Tokopedia, Blibli, Standard Chartered, FCMB, GT Bank, and many more. Netcore, with its’ innovative marketing technology, delivers 8+ Billion emails and 3+ Billion SMSs a month, creating 11+ Billion customer connects monthly, handling 30+ Billion events a month. Netcore is headquartered in Mumbai, India with offices in SEA, USA, MEA, and an employee base of 500+. 

AI Startup Boxx.ai gets Acquired by Netcore Solutions

Boxx.ai Team

• Netcore completes 100% share acquisition of Boxx.ai
• Deal structured as blend of cash and stock
• Boxx.ai founders and team to join Netcore
• Existing investors exit

Boxx.ai’s product to be integrated with Netcore’s Smartech to build an AI-first omni-channel marketing platform

Boxx.ai, a Bangalore-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) startup, which uses AI and ML to help e-commerce companies increase their conversion rates by displaying the most personalized products for each user, is being acquired by Netcore Solutions, a pioneer in SaaS-based Multi-Channel Marketing Automation. 

With this part-cash and part-stock deal, Netcore would be acquiring all of Boxx.ai's technology, IP, clients and team, and would provide an exit to the investors. As part of the deal, Boxx.ai’s founders – Ajay Kashyap, Prakhar Raj and Shitiz Bansal, along with the rest of the team will join Netcore to continue building their product. 

Ajay Kashyap, Founder, Boxx.ai, says, “E-commerce companies spend a lot of money to get visitors on their sites, but 98% of them leave without buying. Boxx.ai solves this – it converts visitors to buyers. Integrating this capability with Netcore’s multi-channel marketing platform makes a killer combination for brands – they would be able to deliver a customer experience that is just perfect: right choice of channel, right timing of communication, right content, right creative, right messaging and right offers.”

Boxx.ai was launched in 2016 by IIT alumni Ajay Kashyap, Prakhar Raj and Shitiz Bansal. It is able to predict, with high accuracy, what each visitor is likely to buy next using its proprietary algorithms. This helps consumer internet companies curate a line of products and extend a highly personalized experience to each of its customers. 

Kalpit Jain, Group CEO of Netcore Solutions stated, “We absolutely understand the value and importance of ML, AI, and Personalization to empower brands to deliver exceptional customer experiences. And hence these are the primary focus areas with all our offerings. Boxx.ai’s acquisition is yet another step towards that vision. This new piece in our product stack will definitely deliver great value to our customers and their end consumers. We are excited to see what the future in AI-first marketing will look like.”

Boxx.ai was initially funded and mentored by Suresh Shankar, Founder and CEO of CrayonData, and Venky Krishnakumar, ex-COO/CFO at Citibank APAC. Subsequently, it raised pre-series-A funding from Unicorn India Ventures and Vivek Bhargava, CEO of iProspect, Dentsu Aegis Network. 

Bhaskar Majumdar, Managing Partners, Unicorn India Ventures, says, “We invested in Boxx.ai three years ago as we believe that their offering is quite targeted and essential for e-commerce companies who are keen on converting non-buyers into buyers and retain their regulars by offering a highly personalized experience. Boxx.ai is in that sweet spot. An acquisition by a successful platform like Smartech would accelerate their growth multi-fold and that’s why we believe it is the right time for Boxx.ai to become a crucial member of Netcore so that they can cover more ground in less time.” 

About Boxx.ai

Boxx.ai was founded by IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi alumni: Ajay Kashyap, Prakhar Raj and Shitiz Bansal in 2016. Boxx.ai is leading the wave in democratizing the use of AI in e-commerce industry. Boxx.ai is making the latest, cutting-edge AI technologies available to both large and small e-commerce companies helping them to be competitive irrespective of their scale of operations.

Netcore Acquires Quinto.ai, an AI Chatbot Startup in an All IP and Talent Deal

Netcore Solutions, a Global Marketing technology company, has acquired Pune-based Quinto.ai, an AI chatbot start-up. With the IP and talent acquisition, Netcore gets access to Quinto's conversational AI-powered chatbot engine and its employees. Quinto’s co-founder Hrishikesh Rajpathak also joins Netcore as Chief Data Scientist and will lead its Machine Learning and Conversation Analytics initiatives. Hrishikesh comes with over 12 years of experience in Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies. He has worked with multiple international clients in life sciences and BFSI domain as an AI consultant. He co-founded Quinto 4 years back as a food recommendation platform which later pivoted to a conversational AI platform.

Quinto enables businesses to automate conversations with customers and improve customer experience. Businesses across verticals can use Quinto.ai’s always-on 24x7 chatbot for automated product discovery, recommendations, Inside sales and Live chat. Quinto can be integrated with Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Slack and other popular chat platforms.

With Quinto, Netcore’s Smartech gets capability of handling conversations in automation journeys riding on Quinto. This will be an industry first feature. With Hrishikesh onboard, Netcore will further strengthen its leadership through the AI/ML platform “Raman” and will foray into the Conversational Analytics space.

Kalpit Jain, Group CEO, Netcore Solutions said, “With the growth of Chat Platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, Voice Assistants like Siri and Alexa, as well as Smart Speakers, it’s no surprise that Gartner predicts that by 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human. We believe that Conversational AI will be a strategic asset for Marketers in their Martech stack and it will reshape how brands and customers interact with each other.”

Hrishikesh Rajpathak said, “What makes this a great deal is the synergy between Netcore’s focus on conversational marketing and Quinto’s AI chatbot platform. I am excited to be a part of Netcore and contribute towards its next-gen initiatives across domains of marketing and sales automation."

Quinto was earlier backed by Rebel Foods Pvt Ltd (formerly known as Faasos Food Services Pvt Ltd), who now exits with this deal.

The deal was managed by Investment Bank Equirus Capital through Propeluss, a smart deal-making platform.
About Netcore

Netcore, a global Marketing Technology company that offers solutions to help brands and enterprises in customer acquisition, engagement, and retention. The first and leading Marketing Automation, Analytics and AI/ ML solutions provider in India, Netcore was established in 1997 by Mr. Rajesh Jain, an Internet pioneer. Netcore’s product suite includes Smartech and Pepipost. Smartech is an AI powered growth marketing platform. Pepipost is an API based Email sending product.

Netcore serves a strong base of 3000+ enterprises across industry verticals, like Jet Airways, Thomas Cook, Go Air, Clear Trip, HDFC, Kotak, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, UTI, Facebook, Reliance, Vodafone, Godrej , ITC, OLA, Pfizer, OLX along with International brands Seek Asia, Tokopedia, Blibli, Standard Chartered, FCMB, GT Bank and many more. Netcore, with its’ innovative marketing technology, delivers 7+ Billion emails & 3+ Billion SMSs a month, creating 11+ Billion Customer Connects monthly and handles 30+ Billion Events a month. Netcore is headquartered in Mumbai, India with offices in SEA, USA, MEA and an employee base of 500+.

[Published via feed from BusinessWire India]

Gaia Smart Cities Acquires IoT Division of netCORE Solutions

In a joint statement, Gaia Smart Cities, an Indian start-up in the field of City Scale IOT technology solutions and netCORE Solutions, a leader in marketing technology & enterprise communication, announced that Gaia has acquired the IOT division of netCORE Solutions while netCORE will invest in Gaia and continue to support the company through its rapid growth period.

This acquisition will create a leading technology and innovation enterprise, differentiated by its ability to deliver ground-breaking products rapidly. With the Government of India’s ‘Make-in-India’ and ‘Digital India’ programmes supporting Indian companies to build intellectual property and design cutting edge electronics, software and telecommunications, Gaia is one of the few companies actively pursuing R&D in these domains.

With this acquisition, Gaia is poised to become one of the fastest growing end-to-end IOT companies with solutions for both Industrial automation and Smart Cities. The acquisition will generate multiple pro-consumer and pro-competitive benefits to existing marquee customers like India’s largest Dairy companies like Amul, Paras, Parag Dairies; India’s largest Cement company ACC Cement; Beverages company like Penrod Ricard and many cold chains, warehouses, retail stores across the country. With solutions running in 24 paying customers and pilots across another 10, coupled with Gaia’s product customers in Smart Metering, Smart Cities and analytics.

“We were drawn towards the strong technical team, a robust technical platform and extremely focused approach of the netCORE IOT team. We found great synergies with our own Smart Cities platforms and solutions like Smart Metering and Smart Tracking”, said Dr. Sumit D. Chowdhury, the Founder & CEO of Gaia Smart Cities (Former President of Reliance Jio). Dr. Chowdhury is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and Carnegie Mellon.

The rebranded and upgraded cloud-based platform INSIGHT developed by netCORE Solutions, will further enhance the capability of the enterprises to rapidly deploy Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and gadgets to increase their visibility of plant and machinery performance, warehouse and logistics performance, retail store performance condition monitoring. Combined with the right Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning solutions that Gaia is building, it is inclined to bring in significant insight and business benefit to the customers.  These solutions can be easily adapted to support cities in their journey to become more measurable and transparent and thus ‘smart’.

“We continue to believe in the potential of IoT and Smart Cities and have found that the leadership and ideas of Gaia are better and can be aligned to grow this business and support the customers that we already have. We will continue to stay invested with Gaia as the country moves ahead with its various Smart Cities and demand for the solutions developed across the world”, according to  Mr. Rajesh Jain, Founder and Managing Director of netCORE Solutions.

Nine Rivers Capital Advisors acted as the sole financial advisor to the transaction. Mr. Nimesh Shah, Managing Director & Co-Founder, Nine Rivers Capital said, “As part of our Technology and Digital practice, we are very upbeat about rapid adoption of IOT solutions within the country. We see a big synergy in Gaia Smart Cities scaling up what Netcore started as a pioneering effort 2 years back.”

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