Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

Majority of the startups that will shape the tomorrow of business are B2B. Nearly 50% of the companies in the latest list of startups under <keyword id="3783907" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="nasscom-emerge">Nasscom Emerge</keyword> 50, which is a yearly exercise to identify and showcase 50 most innovative, emerging IT product startups, are in B2B business. 
 
These startups are already serving global clients, further approving the development of enterprise clients centered startups in the nation. 
 
Last year, less than one third of the shortlisted startups were in B2B space. This year, however, nearly half of the shortlisted startups were in the B2B business. In addition to it, some B2B players like EdGE Networks and SirionLabs made it to the top 10 'League of Ten' list. 
 "Not many Indian companies are out there in the global B2B space. We want to build our company and sell in the global markcompeting with the likes of <keyword id="10875" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="IBM">IBM</keyword>, Oracle, SAP, etc," <keyword id="139794" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ajay-Agrawal">Ajay Agrawal</keyword>, CEO of SirionLabs, a Gurgaon-based enterprise software maker told ET. 
 
Industry specialists have been proclaiming the development of the B2B space comparable to B2C for quite a while now. 
 "B2B startups focused on the global market are doing well. India is emerging as a hub for SaaS startups that cater to the mid-and-small customer segment in the US," <keyword id="207306" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sharad-Sharma">Sharad Sharma</keyword>, founder of software think tank iSPIRT told ET. 
 
This year, nearly the list was shortlisted from more than 450 nominations and an increment in startup activity in tier-II and three tier-III cities was also observed. 
 <keyword id="323024" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sangeeta-Gupta">Sangeeta Gupta</keyword>, senior vice president at <keyword id="6372077" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Nasscom">Nasscom</keyword> highlighted several other trends seen among the chosen startups. 
 
"We saw a much more nichefocused startups than startups that were doing similar things. Another differentiator this year was the focus on core technologies such as AI (artificial intelligence), cloud (cloud computing) and IoT (internet of things)," she told ET. 
(image: thinkstock)

Nasscom identifies top 50 innovative startups and majority of them are B2B

It’s aptly quoted, “We were born as explorers, not caretakers”. The “beyond planet” fascination is hard to explain but it is what it is. Technology and so much else has changed over the decades since those first footprints in the lunar dust that there’s now a good chance a <keyword id="6360409" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="NASA">NASA</keyword> astronaut won’t be the first to walk out onto the next new world. 
 
TeamIndus, an aerospace start-up based out of Bangalore is going to be the first privately funded company in the world to land a rover on moon and it’ll be done with the help of former ISRO scientists who have worked on projects like Aryabhatta and Chandrayaan-1. 
 
From an IT job to being a space-tech entrepreneur 
 “Rahul Narayan (Co-founder) was working at an IT firm and he then saw this wallpaper of Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) on a desktop. The first thing he did was find out what it was and then call the GLXP office to find out which Indian team was in the competition. Fortunately, there was no one and then at the moment he registered. Quit his job and started pursuing this,” said <keyword id="3453187" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="sheelika-ravishankar">Sheelika Ravishankar</keyword>, Marketing and Outreach. 
 For an engineer working at an IT firm leaving his job to pursue his dreams has always been a risky venture. Guess what? Risk takers get rewards. He then took this company to a point where <keyword id="44604" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Nandan-Nilekani">Nandan Nilekani</keyword>, and former Yahoo India R&amp;D chief <keyword id="207306" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sharad-Sharma">Sharad Sharma</keyword> were the first one to invest. Why wouldn’t they be? It’s a matter of national pride and not just equity. 
 
Google Lunar X Prize 
 
The Google Lunar XPRIZE was launched in September 2007. The competition offers a total of US$30 million in prizes to the first privately funded teams to land a robot on the Moon that successfully travels more than 500 meters and transmits back high-definition images and video. 
 
The Spacecraft 
 
The lightest UAV sent on moon was by China, which was nearly 150 kgs. The spacecraft we’re making will carry a 20-kg payload, of which 10 kg will be allotted for commercial use. Yes, they took it to another level (from 150 kgs to 20). “Additionally there are a lot of complications in making an aircraft, we have to take care of temperatures, we have to land on the right spot decided at that moment, right wheels to travel on the surface of moon etc. But we’ve been doing good under the guidance of ISRO experts and our young and enthusiastic colleagues.Of which some of them have left their previous jobs,” said Sheelika. 
 
AI enabled Rover 
 
The rover will be tapped with AI enabled software which will decide where to land at moment. “We looked at all the data from NASA and Russian mission and we found a spot called Mare Imbrium. When the system reaches the surface it has to make decision anonymously. Because it’s moving at a speed of 1.7 kms/sec we needed to have AI in the system. So we collaborated with Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics(LASP), University of Colorado, which is older than NASA.,” said Sheelika 
 
Investment 
 
When asked about how much they need to build a rover and successfully execute the requirements, Sheelika stated that the total sum required is US$70 million and currently they’re in a process to raise another round of US$10 million.

This Indian Startup will be the first privately funded
company to land a rover on Moon

Mumbai, Feb 12 () Regulator Sebi and its educational initiatives venture NISM will bring together public interest directors of all market infrastructure institutions under one roof for a two-day conference, beginning Thursday, to discuss various regulations and operational issues concerning the capital market. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the National Institute of Securities Markets (NISM) are organising this conference on February 13-14 at the NISM campus in Patalganga. The market infrastructure institutions (MIIs), such as stock exchanges, clearing corporations and depositories, are known as gateways to capital market services and also serve as first-level regulators and help in delivery of regulatory goals. The MIIs assume a critical role in the efficient and orderly conduct of capital markets as they facilitate all market processes and make available all the capital market-related products and services. Considering the pivotal role MIIs play, there is an increasing need for constant interaction between Sebi and the governing board of MIIs and especially the public interest directors of all MIIs, the NISM said in a statement. The conference will discuss issues such as Sebi regulations for stock exchanges and clearing corporations, corporate governance issues, recent developments like interoperability, delivery of securities for settlement of derivative trades, algorithmic trading, use of AI and machine learning by MIIs in different functions, technology deployed by financial services industry, emerging risks for capital markets, and cybersecurity issues. The discussions will be led by several experts, including former Sebi chairman M Damodaran, Professor J R Verma (Professor IIM-Ahmedabad and Chairman, Sebi's Secondary Market Advisory Committee), Sharad Sharma of iSPIRT and also MD &amp; CEOs of stock exchanges and clearing corporations. Senior officials of Sebi such as whole-time members, executive directors and chief general managers will also be associated with this conference. The NISM said the conference will help public interest directors connect with Sebi as well as with one another and understand diverse viewpoints first hand which will help them taking informed decisions during subsequent Board deliberations. BJ HRS

Sebi, NISM to hold special conference for public interest directors of MIIs

Startup entrepreneurs want the Indian government to design policies that favour homegrown companies, playing the nationalism card. 
 Speaking at the Carnegie India Global Technology Summit in Bengaluru, <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword>'s <keyword id="225032" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sachin-Bansal">Sachin Bansal</keyword>, <keyword id="1543567" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bhavish-Aggarwal">Bhavish Aggarwal</keyword> of <keyword id="6354720" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ola">Ola</keyword>, etc said more push was required to promote Indian enterprises. 
 
"What we need to do is what China did (15 years ago) and tell the world we need your capital, but we don't need your companies,” said Bansal. 
"What's happening in both our industries (is that) there is a narrative of innovation that non-Indian companies espouse but the real fight is on capital, not innovation. The markets are being distorted by capital,” said Aggarwal. 
 
The entrepreneurs say capital inflow is quite important now and the foreign companies are burning cash in a price war. 
 
As per both of them, more American companies in India will impact job creation in India. 
 Flipkart and Ola are important in determining investor sentiment for <keyword id="982553" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-startups">Indian startups</keyword> as the two companies have raised a combined $4.4 billion, and their valuation will likely take a further hit if they lose their top standings. 
 
Sharad Sharma, cofounder of software products think-tank iSpirt, said, “India's implicit policy is that it is a level playing field, but the actual practice is not that and is tilted towards the MNCs. Government needs to put mechanisms in place to create a true level playing field.” 
 
"The crux of what makes a company Indian is the entrepreneur and the management team, and where they are based,” said Aggarwal, adding “There is a glass ceiling for the Indian startups. If I want to meet the PM it won't be as easy as a foreign guy coming to India. I understand that dynamic and we need to make sure government sees us as major contributors to society, which is not fully there.” 
 
(Image: Thinkstock)

Sachin Bansal, Bhavish Aggarwal say India needs more capital, not foreign companies; play nationalism card

Software product think tank iSPIRT has designed a programme where <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Stanford">Stanford</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Duke+University">Duke University</a> researchers would help founders of 200 hyper growth companies to plan ahead and implement the learnings in their organizations. The aim of the exercise is to inspire <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Indian+startups">Indian startups</a> to be global category leaders. 
 
"We want them to become category leaders by making them think about future problems today," said Sharad Sharma, cofounder of iSpirt. "Because for a category leader, conversion rates are much higher than the number 2 or 3 players." 
 
The three-day retreat and conference would start this January where the 200 founders would begin their day with yoga and end it late night with brainstorming on strategies to supercharge their companies. The researchers are funding this programme through grants amounting to $57,000 (Rs 37 lakhs) endowed by their universities. 
 
"Anyone who sees the technology sector sees that the best pool of technical talent comes from India. But they are all working for American companies," said Sharique Hasan, associate professor of organisational behaviour at <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Stanford">Stanford University</a>. 
 
 The goal of this programmed is to nail concepts of management into developing countries. 
 
Image credit: Indiatimes

iSPIRT to groom 200 Indian
startups at Infosys Mysuru

Looks like <keyword id="44373" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Aditya-Birla-Group">Aditya Birla group</keyword> is all set to tap the entrepreneurial ideas of its employees, which is why it has planned to roll out an intrapreneurship programme soon, which is called Innolabs. Under the programme, the company will allow its staff to take time off from work to pursue their entrepreneurial ambitions. 
 
In August last year, the group had also started Aditya Birla Bizlabs, which was its programme to collaborate with start-ups in the retail, financial services and telecom businesses. The group has a dominant presence in these sectors. Out of the 1,200 start-ups that applied for the programme, 20 were selected to "scale up". 
 "When we were doing all of this (Bizlabs) for startups outside, our employees joining us from IITs and IIMs started asking: what is there in it for us? So, we have started working on something for our employees called <keyword id="3249352" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="aditya-birla-innolabs">Aditya Birla Innolabs</keyword>," Umesh Adhikary, president, corporate strategy and business development, Aditya Birla Group told ET. 
 
"If your idea is great and we see conviction and passion in you, we are going to help you create a company of your own. At the same time, we are going to give you a six-month or one-year sabbatical where you are going to go, develop the product, create your own team... and in case you fail, you can come and join back," added Adhikary. 
 
"We are forging partnerships with Nasscom 10,000 startups, Microsoft Ventures, Techstars, 500 startups," said Adhikary, who added that the group would prefer to work with slightly older startups which are looking at geographic expansion. 
 
Similarly, RIL has set up GenNext Innovation Hub, which is a start-up accelerator programme running in partnership with Microsoft Ventures. 
 
"It's a healthy development," says Sharad Sharma, cofounder of iSPIRT, commenting on Birla's move. "It's a playbook that Indian conglomerates have companies from tech companies globally and it's a proven one," he adds. 
 
<a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/photo/48558671.cms">Image source</a>

Aditya Birla Group would soon allow employees to take time off for pursuing their entrepreneurial ideas

This could be the first time that new age online companies in India realise the potential that patents carry with them. 
 The digital payments firm <keyword id="6377963" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Freecharge">FreeCharge</keyword>, which is owned by <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword>, has internally developed an alternative to the <keyword id="510437" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="OTP">OTP</keyword> authentication process, and has already filed for patenting the technology. 
 
The authentication solution is called as 'On The Go Pin', and is aimed at making both online as well as offline transactions faster. This technology replaces the OTP received through text message with a pin that is within the phone and keeps changing every few seconds. From the backend, the servers of the bank and the merchants would be verifying the pin so that the transaction can be processed. 
 <keyword id="259717" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Govind-Rajan">Govind Rajan</keyword>, COO of FreeCharge, told ET that this technology would eliminate the wait time, caused by connectivity issues, for both the retailers as well as customers. 
 
"This system fulfils the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) mandate for two factor authentication and does not require even a single paisa of additional investment by retailers or customers," said Rajan, who also heads the strategy office of Snapdeal. 
 
A deal with Shopper's Stop has already been stuck, and it would soon begin transactions using the new technology. 
 Filing of this patent can be the welcome sign of the modern-day Indian online industry, which has big players like <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword>, Snapdeal and <keyword id="6357120" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="PayTM">Paytm</keyword>. All these companies are investing huge bucks in R&amp;D to develop various breakthrough technologies, but this is the first time that someone has patented a technology. 
 
Rahul Dev, patent and trademark attorney at Tech Corp Legal, told ET that this trend of patenting new technology is slowly catching up, not only to protect it against theft, but also because a patented technology, even with pending registration, becomes a highly valuable intangible asset for the company during fund raising. 
 
It means that these patents serve as a business tool rather than a legal tool, especially for firms that are global in nature because patents command a high premium in international markets like the US and UK. 
 
As per Sharad Sharma, former CEO of Yahoo's India R&amp;D arm and former chairman of Nasscom's product council, 97% of patents filed in India are done by multinationals, which makes these efforts by new age companies a good sign. 
 
<a href="http://www.windowscentral.com/sites/wpcentral.com/files/styles/larger_wm_brw/public/field/image/2014/08/freecharge_lede.jpg?itok=KQKCPIaB">Image source</a>

Attention please PayTM! FreeCharge files patent for OTP alternative

Prime Minister <keyword id="6354477" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Narendra-Modi">Narendra Modi</keyword> is expected to announce long-awaited policy fixes aimed at making it easier to build, invest in, and shut down startups in India, people aware of the government's thinking told ET. 

	According to an official involved in the planning for the visit, the Prime Minister's Office has sought a list of issues and possible solutions from some key representatives in the startup sector.
 

	The wish list has about 10 items, and right on top are recommendations to make it easier for investors to back Indian startups by either abolishing capital gains tax on profits from startup investing or keeping the rate low. "The PMO has indicated that the prime minister would announce decisions on a few items while he is here. We don't know yet what it would be. The push is on capital gains tax," said the official.
 <keyword id="6357097" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="venture-capital">Venture capital</keyword> investors based in <keyword id="6357722" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="silicon-valley">Silicon Valley</keyword>, are among the top backers of Indian startups. Since 2013, venture capital funds have invested $6.3 billion (Rs 40,000 crore) in Indian startups, helping establish India as one of the world's prominent hubs for entrepreneurship. Outside the United Nations headquarters in <keyword id="6355838" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="New-York">New York</keyword> on Thursday, Vikas Swarup, the external affairs ministry spokesman, made clear what was on top of Modi's mind during his trip. "Startups, innovation and manufacturing are the thrust areas of this visit," he told reporters. The policy announcements are likely to be made during the 'Start-up Konnect' event cohosted by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and software industry grouping <keyword id="6372077" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Nasscom">Nasscom</keyword>. This session — one of the three major engagements for Modi in Silicon Valley — will be attended by founders of startups such as <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword>, Zomato, Paytm and InMobi as well as leading venture capitalists and angel investors of Indian origin based in the Bay area, including Kanwal Rekhi, Raju Reddy and Vinod Khosla. Those lobbying for policy reform argue that in the event of a successful exit from a startup, there is no certainty about how much tax should be paid and how long the assessment will take. The wish list includes a reduction in the compliance burden, elimination of discrimination in public procurement and making share swaps non-taxable. 

	Another long-standing demand of the industry which remains unfulfilled despite being announced in the Budget is the ease of setting up and shutting down a company.
 

	"We are hoping that there will be some policy announcements; they are just very long overdue," said Sharad Sharma, cofounder of software products think tank iSPIRT.
 

	Nasscom has also been sending representations to the government to address some of these issues. "We have again suggested that there needs to be a mechanism which makes it easier for companies to set up, operate and shut shop," said Sangeeta Gupta, senior vicepresident of Nasscom.

	 
	 
	(Image credits: Indiatimes)

PM Modi's Silicon Valley visit likely to make life easier for startups

Fearing that backlash in India will hurt prospects of his <keyword id="1826931" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Internet-org">Internet.org</keyword> in other countries, <keyword id="6354576" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Facebook">Facebook</keyword>’s <keyword id="6354630" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Mark-Zuckerberg">Mark Zuckerberg</keyword> is leaving no stone unturned to swing India’s opinion in favour of Internet.org, which allows certain services to be provided free of data charge to users. 
 
The billionaire is also exploring alternatives to subsidise access to certain Internet services including Facebook. 
 
Zuckerberg recently held dialogues with people in India's start-up and technology world to convince them about Internet.org, a partnership stitched by the social networking giant. 
 
Earlier in May, Sharad Sharma, former Yahoo India research head, angel investor and software product activist, received a call from Zuckerberg in this regard. 
 
A person briefed on the discussion told Economic Times, "Facebook is worried that the backlash in India could affect Internet.org in other markets like Brazil and Indonesia." 
 Internet.org invited severe criticism in India as activists claimed that it violated the principle of <keyword id="6391709" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Net-neutrality">Net Neutrality</keyword>. As the debate hogged global attention, the social networking giant publicly defended the initiative. 
 
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg also initiated talks with the Union Government on a proposal to subsidise data access for Indian consumers. It is willing to foot as much as one- third of the cost, the person cited above said. 
 
Facebook did not respond to an email sent by ET. 
 
"Now that there is global criticism of Internet.org, they need India to allow it to go through. India is ground zero for zero rating," Nikhil Pahwa, one of the people leading the Savetheinternet campaign in the country, told the financial daily. 
 
Zero rating, or the practice of allowing certain services to be accessed free of charge, is the focal point of the Net Neutrality debate in India. Proponents of Net Neutrality argue that allowing companies to zero rate their applications or services will lead to an uneven Internet ecosystem where smaller competitors will be edged out by companies with more money. 
 
Economic Times reported that through Internet.org, a partnership between Facebook and several telecom operators including Reliance Communications in India, users can access certain websites and services free of data charges. The social networking site doesn't pay the telecom operators but these firms see this as a way to get more people to consume data services as they experience the Internet and move out of free or subsidised plans. 
 
Founder and Chief Executive of mobile-commerce, Paytm, Shekhar Sharma, said he was glad that Mark Zuckerberg was reaching out and sorting the issue out. 
 
"Internet.org should be more transparent about the partners they choose because arbitrarily selecting them doesn't make it neutral," he said. 
 
Nearly 40 service providers signed up on Internet.org when it was launched in India in partnership with Reliance Communications in October. However, many services pulled out of the programme as the Net Neutrality debate heated up and companies were forced to take a stand. 
 
(Image: Reuters)

Mark Zuckerberg wants Indians to love Internet.org. Here’s why

Thanks to India’s top technologists who have helped the government to take up ambitious projects such as digitisation of records, payment systems that work across platforms, a goods &amp; <keyword id="645517" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="services-tax">services tax</keyword> (<keyword id="6354679" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="GST">GST</keyword>) network and digital lockers for citizens. The technologists want to build “country-scale” systems and working in close association with the government to endorse free and open source systems. This information was revealed in an Economic Times report. 
 It all started a year ago at the Le Meridien hotel in <keyword id="6354321" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Bengaluru">Bengaluru</keyword>, Sharad Sharma, co-founder of software products think tank iSPIRT, and some volunteers gave a presentation before BJP leader <keyword id="6354886" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Ravi-Shankar-Prasad">Ravi Shankar Prasad</keyword>, who had just taken charge as minister for information technology, as per the ET report. 
	 

	Later that day, at an interaction with them, Prasad uttered the words "Open APIs" for the first time. API refers to Application Programming Interfaces, or tools that assist developers in writing code that interfaces with other software. 
	 

	Prasad, a lawyer-turned-politician, did not have any idea about such systems, but he promised to do "whatever it takes" to get government systems to work better. RS Sharma, the bureaucrat who was appointed as the secretary for Information Technology, nodded knowingly by the minister's side. 
	 

	The hard work paid off earlier this month when the government released its Open API policy, which will make technology systems built by the government a lot better. 
	 

	The policy and other measures that the government has recently taken to endorse free and open source systems is the effect of close coordination between the government and top technologists. 
	 

	"There is a huge amount of voluntary spirit out there and there is no harm in using that," said Sharma. "These people are highly successful in the technology field. They are brilliant architects and bring fresh, different thinking to us," he added. 
	 

	Now let’s read who all helped the government in this initiative to make the technology systems work better. <keyword id="234235" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Lalitesh-Katragadda">Lalitesh Katragadda</keyword>, who was country manager (Products) for <keyword id="6355629" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Google">Google</keyword> in India, has worked on the open API policy. He is also helping the <keyword id="68188" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Andhra-Pradesh-government">Andhra Pradesh government</keyword>'s billion dollar fibre optic rollout, which will give millions of users access to high-speed Internet. Amit Ranjan, who co-founded and sold <keyword id="1037643" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="SlideShare">SlideShare</keyword> to <keyword id="28120" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Linkedin">LinkedIn</keyword> for $119 million, now works for the government's <keyword id="6623307" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Department-of-Information-Technology">Department of Information Technology</keyword> for a token salary. His job is to find smart ways of digitising millions of records and give Indian users digital lockers. 
	 

	Katragadda and Ranjan are not alone. More such technologists, experienced in building and scaling systems used by millions of users, have begun working closely with the government, influencing policy decisions on technology and helping the government build systems like a Google or Facebook would. Pramod Varma, chief architect of the <keyword id="111459" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Unique-Identification-Authority">Unique Identification Authority</keyword> (UID) of India, is one of the key people working on multiple projects with the government. Varma, an ardent supporter of open and scalable systems, is playing a critical role in helping the goods &amp; service tax network prepare its complex technology backbone. He is also working with the National Payments Corporation of India, an umbrella body supported by the country's largest banks, to build a next-generation payment platform. Anand Deshpande, founder &amp; CEO of Persistent Systems; Gian <keyword id="221777" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Franco">Franco</keyword>, formerly of SAP; <keyword id="2346527" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Jay-Pullur">Jay Pullur</keyword>, founder &amp; CEO of Pramati Systems; former Googler Sanjay Jain, and <keyword id="2878005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Vijay-Vujjini">Vijay Vujjini</keyword>, chief technical architect at HCL Infotech for the <keyword id="6355252" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="UIDAI">UIDAI</keyword> programme, are among the others who are volunteers at iSPIRT -- the Indian Software Product Industry Round Table. "This approach is critical for building next-generation digital infrastructure," said technocrat <keyword id="44604" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Nandan-Nilekani">Nandan Nilekani</keyword>, who used a similar strategy of bringing in people from outside the government to work on Aadhaar, the project which aspires to give over a billion Indians a unique identification number. 
	 

	Most of these volunteers are being brought together by iSPIRT. "Now with iSPIRT there is an institutional way to take this (volunteering) forward," said Nilekani. 
	 

	The idea is to have volunteers who put the country first and have no conflicting interests, said Sharma. "You need large-scale tech guys to do country-scale technology problems," he concluded. 
	 
	(Image: Indiatimes)

Technologists and government working together to build ‘country-scale’ systems

​The growing proficiency of Indian technology companies in building innovative products is drawing a great deal of attention from global corporations eager to acquire fresh ideas and skilled workers. 
 
Applications that help ease online payments, offer security for data stored on multiple devices as well as those that help drive greater advertising revenue on mobile devices are some of the technologies on the shopping list of multinationals scouting for the right startup. In the next five years, experts say at least 40 technology ventures in India could be bought over by large corporations. 
 “Couple of them (startups) will be valued at over $1 billion (Rs 6,200 crore),” said Ravi Gururaj, an angel investor who heads the software product council at industry lobby <keyword id="6372077" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasscom">Nasscom</keyword>. He expects about half a dozen technology ventures to be valued at around $500 million (Rs 3,100 crore) while <keyword id="818790" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="40" keywordseo="the-rest">the rest</keyword> will likely fetch a price of between $15 million (Rs 93 crore) and $50 million (Rs 311 crore). 
 A handful of such acquisitions has already set the ball rolling. Last November, Japanese engineering and electronics maker <keyword id="69870" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Hitachi">Hitachi</keyword> acquired Prizm Payment Services, in a deal estimated at $250 million (Rs 1,547 crore). In mid 2013, South African media conglomerate Naspers bought online bus ticketing firm red-Bus for about $100 million (Rs 618 crore), giving it access to not only the large <keyword id="47445" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="40" keywordseo="Indian-market">Indian market</keyword> but disruptive technology as well. 
 “Multinational companies primarily look for talent and <keyword id="388837" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="40" keywordseo="intellectual-property">intellectual property</keyword> that can compete at global level,” said Prashant Gupta, group manager at Microsoft India (R&amp;D). “There are early signs in India that such companies are emerging that can meet these demands, especially in cloud-driven application lifecycle and big data,” he said. 
 
The global software maker runs an accelerator programme in India for technology startups that has graduated 22 ventures so far and is poised to make its first venture investment this year. 
 Interest from <keyword id="6355311" type="COUNTRY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Japan">Japan</keyword>ese corporations too is growing. Apart from the Hitachi deal, others such as NTT too have been active buyers. In 2012 Japan’s <keyword id="913532" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="NTT-Communications">NTT Communications</keyword> bought a majority stake in technology firm <keyword id="423557" type="COMPANY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Netmagic">Netmagic</keyword> for about Rs 900 crore. “India is becoming the laboratory for products and services for the world,” said Krishnan Ganesh, <keyword id="36740" type="POSITION" weightage="40" keywordseo="founder">founder</keyword> of online tutoring company TutorVista that was bought by the UK’s <keyword id="152222" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Pearson">Pearson</keyword> group at an enterprise value of about Rs 1,000 crore. 
 
After the acquisition, the number of students using the services of TutorVista has tripled to four million across both the local and the US market. Pearson now aims to replicate the TutorVista model in emerging markets such as Brazil, China and South Africa. 
 
In 2013, there were 100 merger and acquisition deals across the India’s information technology industry. Of this, 31 whose value was announced were worth $1,906 million (Rs 11,807 crore), according to research firm Venture Intelligence. 
 The trigger for this growing M&amp;A activity is the range of disruptive technology startups emerging out of India. Companies such as advertising network InMobi, data analytics company Mu Sigma and online retailer <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> have achieved a scale where they are valued at over $1 billion. “This is driven by leading-edge globally competitive technologies,” said Naren Gupta cofounder and managing director of Nexus Venture Partners, an early investor in Netmagic and online retailer <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="40" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword>. 
 For instance, Pune-based <keyword id="741520" type="COMPANY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Druva">Druva</keyword> provides data security and retrieval software to customers such as US space agency <keyword id="6360409" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="NASA">Nasa</keyword>, drug maker <keyword id="44612" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Pfizer">Pfizer</keyword> and fashion brand <keyword id="5940" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Louis-Vuitton">Louis Vuitton</keyword>. 
<div style="page-break-after: always;">
	&#xa0;</div> In Chennai, Perfint Healthcare has developed robots that treat cancer by precisely inserting a needle in the affected area to burn or freeze a patient’s tumour, leaving the good tissue alone. The founders, all former employees of <keyword id="166456" type="COMPANY" weightage="40" keywordseo="GE-Healthcare">GE Healthcare</keyword>, quit to launch the firm when they realised the demand for such a product. For global corporations acquiring such game-changing technologies can help them enter new markets and raise barriers against competition. 
 Two years ago, when global software maker <keyword id="183292" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Red-Hat">Red Hat</keyword> bought Bangalore-based <keyword id="6373689" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="Cloud-computing">cloud computing</keyword> startup <keyword id="724826" type="COMPANY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Gluster">Gluster</keyword> for around Rs 667 crore, it acquired a storage platform technology which it offered to its customers for the first time. The cost of technology infrastructure to set up such ventures and scale them up for acquisitions has also come down drastically. 
 “A bunch of guys can now launch an application from a garage, keep the tablet or a mobile phone as the front end and the product becomes viral in few weeks,” said Anand Babu Periasamy, cofounder of Gluster. A computer <keyword id="6369183" type="POSITION" weightage="40" keywordseo="Engineer">engineer</keyword> graduate from <keyword id="119675" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="annamalai-university">Annamalai University</keyword>, Periasamy who now works at Red Hat is aiming to build Gluster into a billion dollar business unit. 
 
Experts hope small-size technology ventures in India will also attract the attention of larger firms. “Smaller exits are the life blood for healthy startup ecosystems like in <keyword id="6355882" type="COUNTRY" weightage="40" keywordseo="israel">Israel</keyword> and US,” said Sharad Sharma co founder of software product think-tank iSpirt. Sharma is running an active M&amp;A Connect Program at iSpirt that is curating a list of several dozen companies. 
 Some of those on the radar are retail services software maker Capillary Technologies, healthcare applications provider <keyword id="1165142" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="40" keywordseo="Practo">Practo</keyword> and security software maker <keyword id="171228" type="COMPANY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Quick-Heal">Quick Heal</keyword>. According to Sharma, many of them have shown healthy growth traction and are attractive for strategic partnerships. 
 Sharma of iSpirt is of the view that a larger proportion of bootstrapped companies is stymieing merger activity in India. “It is harder for large corporations when there is no validation from <keyword id="6357097" type="COMPANY" weightage="40" keywordseo="venture-capital">venture capital</keyword> firms,” he said. 
 The other major problem say experts is that large Indian firms such as Infosys, <keyword id="10862" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Wipro">Wipro</keyword> and <keyword id="6357150" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="TCS">TCS</keyword> have shied away from making any such purchases, despite having huge cash reserves. Infosys has $4 billion (Rs 24,000 crore) cash reserves. 
 
“When Wipro can be in soaps and vegetable oil, why can’t they be in the Flipkarts of the world,” said Ganesh of TutorVista. “They are sitting on a huge cash reserve and not a fraction has been spent on startups. That mentality is not there.” 
 
“Over the next five years, I expect that quantity will dramatically improve and we can be optimistic about merger and acquisition activity out of India,” said Nasscom’s Gururaj.

Indian startups' global competitiveness and innovation make them acquisition targets

Rohan Shravan was 24 years old when he founded Notion Ink, a <keyword id="138263" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="startup">startup</keyword> that designed India’s first tablet computer Adam. The device was launched five months before Apple placed the first version of the iPad on store shelves. 
 
At its international debut in the Consumer Electronics Show at Las Vegas in January 2010, one of the first to place an order for Adam was an employee at Apple headquarters in Cupertino. However, in the ensuing months as the iPad gained iconic status, Adam dropped by the wayside, felled by the lack of risk capital to grow the business. 
 “When I told venture capitalists that our product will be a challenger to <keyword id="10591" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Samsung">Samsung</keyword> and Apple, they laughed at me,” said Shravan, a mechanical engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur who initially bootstrapped the firm with personal savings of around Rs 6 lakh. 
 
Shravan’s experience is hardly unique. In the midst of an unprecedented entrepreneurial boom, several of those starting up say there are more hurdles than advantages in the Indian startup sector. Apart from the red tape and the lack of policy support there is also a shortage of true risk capital that can back edgy new ideas. 
 
Customers are unwilling to pay for untested products and many entrepreneurs choose the middle path fearing failure. “I was very aggressive, arrogant and fought like a warrior, the so-called experts advised me to tone down and be nice, which led to our downfall,” said Shravan who trained engineering students to work on Adam as a way to minimise staff costs. “Around 80 per cent of the employees were final year students; they were later snatched by Samsung and Motorola.” 
 
In recent years, several ventures including short messaging service GupShup, personalised news service Frrole and language keypad maker Luna Ergonomics have altered business models when faced with regulatory hurdles or the fear of rejection from investors and customers. 
 This at a time when many global technology companies including WhatsApp, <keyword id="6354576" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Facebook">Facebook</keyword>, caller identification service Truecaller, home rental marketplace Airbnb, and question and answer site Quora count India as one of their fastest growing markets. 
 
Nearly 40 million of WhatsApp’s global user base of 450 million is in India. “India is our largest market with about 30 million users and continues to demonstrate great opportunities for us,” said Nami Zarringhalam, cofounder of Sweden’s Truecaller. When Amarpreet Kalkat started his company Frrole in 2011, he wanted to build a product that was tailored to a user’s area of interest. 
 
“I believed it could rival Google News,” said the 35-year-old entrepreneur. Eight months later, Kalkat started looking for funds and he had to answer the dreaded question, over and over again: “How do you make money?” Two years of running the company without external funding almost made him bankrupt. Kalkat was forced to start a new by changing his model to an enterprise product. 
 
At about the same time when Frrole was launched in Silicon Valley, a text and photo sharing app called Snapchat was born. It received $60 million (Rs 361 crore) in initial funding and was handling 150 million photos every day. 
 
Last year, the company rejected a $3 billion (Rs 18,000 crore) buyout deal from Facebook. “There is a very high chance that Frrole would still have been a social newspaper, if we were based in Silicon Valley,” said Kalkat whose company now has a dozen of enterprise customers. 
 
Parag Dhol, managing director at Inventus Capital Partners, said he has some sympathy with the entrepreneurs’ point of view. “But let me throw the question back at them—let us find at least one product from India where there are at least 100 million users,” said the investor who has backed firms such as Savaari Car Rentals, online bus ticketing site redBus and technology company TELibrahma. 
 
<div style="page-break-after: always;">
	&#xa0;</div>
Angel investor Sharad Sharma, who pushed Kalkat to alter his business model, is of the view that in Silicon Valley entrepreneurs can afford to not have a paying business. “Because they have the confidence that they will get bought over, here there is no such scene. It’s all about viability of the business,” said Sharma who participated in a $245,000 angel (Rs 1.4 crore) funding round in Frrole this April. 
India has a far worse ratio of venture capital exits as compared to Israel and the US, according to data compiled by think tank iSpirt and investment bank Signal Hill. Few large companies are interested in buying out startups or using their products, impeding growth of local companies. 
 
“We had all the ingredients to become a large global company,” says Abhijit Bhattacharjee, 43-year-old founder of Luna Ergonomics, the maker of the Indian language keypad Panini. 
 
Named after an ancient Sanskrit grammarian, the technology makes it possible to type quickly and easily in all Indian languages on the mobile phone. The company which has received patents for its Korean language interface did not find takers amongst Indian telecom companies. 
 
“Supporting Indian scripts on digital devices does not suit the strengths and roadmaps of these companies,” said Bhattacharjee, whose company last released an Urdu keypad for iOS, Android, and PC in 2013. “Which large enterprise buys cutting edge technology from startups? When there are not early customers, how can you expect to have $1 billion companies?” asked Ashish Gupta, a senior managing director at Helion Venture Partners that backed group text messaging service GupShup. 
 
The Mumbai-based firm was launched just six months after microblogging site Twitter was launched in the US in July 2006. Within a year of inception the service had racked up 15 million users. 
 GupShup was a free, social, short messaging service that allowed users to communicate and connect with family, <keyword id="343" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="40" keywordseo="Friends">friends</keyword> and followers using ordinary mobile handsets. But the telecom ecosystem and policies were a problem. 
 
“The regulations did not allow advertising. The operators kept the short messaging service rates high,” said Beerud Sheth, cofounder of Webaroo maker of GupShup product. The company had to shift focus from retail consumers and instead offer the messaging platform for enterprises. 
 
“They (government) should invest money in big ideas. They need to stop protecting big industries and start encouraging disruption and risk taking,” said Rahul Sood, partner at Microsoft Ventures and a technology entrepreneur, who sold the luxury computer business VodooPC to Hewlett Packard in 2006. 
 
Compare this to China, where the startup ecosystem is accelerating faster than anywhere in the world. There are around 1300 incubators and accelerators across the country compared with about 35 active accelerators in India. Shravan of Notion Ink has not lost hope yet. 
 
The entrepreneur is placing another bet. This time a personal computing robot called EVE, which he thinks will disrupt the market and will be in the market by 2017. “I will be jealous of my kids, they will be enjoying the rewards our hard work and same is true for the next generation of entrepreneurs,” he said.

You Searched For "Sharad Sharma" and got 12 results

Nasscom identifies top 50 innovative startups and majority of them are B2B

BI India Bureau

This Indian Startup will be the first privately funded company to land a rover on Moon

Gaurav Sangwani

Sebi, NISM to hold special conference for public interest directors of MIIs

PTI

Sachin Bansal, Bhavish Aggarwal say India needs more capital, not foreign companies; play nationalism card

BI India Bureau

iSPIRT to groom 200 Indian startups at Infosys Mysuru

BI India Bureau

Aditya Birla Group would soon allow employees to take time off for pursuing their entrepreneurial ideas

BI India Bureau

Attention please PayTM! FreeCharge files patent for OTP alternative

BI India Bureau

PM Modi's Silicon Valley visit likely to make life easier for startups

BI India Bureau

Mark Zuckerberg wants Indians to love Internet.org. Here’s why

BI India Bureau

Technologists and government working together to build ‘country-scale’ systems

BI India Bureau

Indian startups' global competitiveness and innovation make them acquisition targets

Economic Times

Indian Startup Sector: Why New Businesses Face More Hurdles Than Advantages

Economic Times

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides