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<ul><li>Platinum and <keyword id="6363355" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="PALLADIUM" source="Orion">palladium</keyword> for use in manufacture of precious metal chemicals, compounds. </li><li>As per reports some bullion importers are importing refined gold disguised as <keyword id="15093121" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="PLATINUM-ALLOY" source="Orion">platinum alloy</keyword>.</li><li>Gold attracts 15 % import duty, as opposed to platinum alloy that invites a duty of 10.75 %. </li></ul> Import duty on platinum has been increased to a total of 15.4 % with effect from Monday through a notification by the Finance Ministry. Platinum and palladium for use in manufacture of precious metal chemicals, compounds (noble metal compounds and solutions) and catalytic converters will continue at basic customs duty of 7.5 % subject to IGCR. <keyword id="922074" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="RHODIUM" source="Orion">Rhodium</keyword> will also continue with BCD of 2.5 %. It is being presumed that the increase in duty on platinum is to plug a loophole which is helping bullion importers to make record profits. As per reports some bullion importers are importing refined gold disguised as platinum alloy. Gold attracts 15 % import duty, as opposed to platinum alloy that invites a duty of 10.75 % which observers say is a case of misdeclaration and duty violation. There were reports that the customs had cleared consignments since the loophole in the notification have not clearly defined alloys of precious metals. The consignments of platinum alloy contained 96 % gold and some importers are importing refined gold under the guise of platinum alloy and making bullion bars. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/entertainment/news/this-pioneering-regional-ott-has-turned-profitable-in-5-years-heres-how/articleshow/94629578.cms">This pioneering regional OTT has turned profitable in 5 years – here’s how</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/banks/news/next-repo-rate-hike-expected-to-be-35-basis-points-to-6-25-kotak-report/articleshow/94633139.cms">Next repo rate hike expected to be 35 basis points to 6.25%: Kotak report</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/neobanking-platform-vance-raises-5-8-million-in-seed-round-led-by-hummingbird-ventures/articleshow/94623266.cms">Neobanking platform Vance raises $5.8 million in seed round led by Hummingbird Ventures</a>

Centre hikes import duty on platinum to 15.4%

New Delhi, May 20 () Khatabook, which provides solutions to help micro, small and medium-sized businesses track business transactions, on Wednesday said it has raised USD 60 million (over 454 crore) in funding led by B Capital Group. The series-B round also saw participation from new and existing investors, including Sequoia India, Partners of DST Global, Tencent, GGV, RTP Global, Hummingbird Ventures, Falcon Edge Capital, Rocketship.vc and Unilever Ventures, a statement said. Angel investors Kevin Weil, Alexander Will, Kunal Shah, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal (Snapdeal founders) also participated, it added. The latest funding will allow Khatabook to ramp up their products and services offerings for India's merchants, as the company builds technology solutions around financial services and a large merchant-focused distribution platform, the statement said. Traditionally, Indian MSMEs keep track of credit flow with their consumers and suppliers offline, maintaining handwritten accounts. Merchants spend hours tracking dues and lose significant revenue due to misplaced ledgers or missed collections. Khatabook said it is helping merchants manage their credit, creating transparency in cash flow, and increasing trust with end-consumers. "Khatabook is the biggest player in the micro, small and medium business segment in the country, with over 8 million active merchants on the app. Khatabook is playing an important role in the digitisation of MSMEs -- a sector that forms the backbone of our economy -- helping to increase their incomes and making them more efficient and competitive," Khatabook co-founder and CEO Ravish Naresh said. The company is looking to work closely with the government and financial institutions to strengthen Indian MSMEs, he added. The company said more than one million merchants are uploading data and engaging with the Khatabook app daily while adding USD 200 million worth of transactions every day. More than 25 per cent of its total active merchants are joining the platform through word-of-mouth and referrals, it added. SR HRS

Khatabook raises USD 60 mn funding led by B Capital Group

Imphal, Apr 12 () Driven by young entrepreneurs, start-ups in Manipur are rising to the occasion to home deliver essential items and groceries, overcoming myriad challenges during the lockdown in the absence of major players likes BigBasket, Grofers, Amazon in the state. Malemm, FoodWifi, Hummingbird are among the app-based start-ups which have been granted permission by the state government to carry out home deliveries during the lockdown to prevent spread of COVID-19, which has also accelerated their business expansion plans. Langam Lukram, founder of Malemm, had returned to Manipur after graduating in business administration from Middlesex University, UK to take up organic farming and home deliveries of the produce. The coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent lockdown has made him tweak his original plan a bit to meet overwhelming needs of consumers. "When we started, it was meant to be for home delivery of only organic vegetables. We had tied up with around seven farmers and grew different types of vegetables in a chemical free manner," Lukram told . However, things changed suddenly after the lockdown. "Initially, we were doing just about 20 deliveries per day as we started in a small way with plans to double that by end of March. After the lockdown, we suddenly received around 600 calls for order in a single day, which we were in no position to fulfil," the 22-year-old said. The company decided to restrict to taking around 200 orders, and started deliveries with a small team. However, executing those deliveries continued till late evenings. "Then we ran into supply issues as our organic vegetables stock ran out and had to pause our deliveries for two days. With demand for just vegetables, not necessarily organic ones, rising, we expanded our sourcing and now we are delivering even normally grown vegetables as well," Lukram said. He added that Malemm would like to get back to its original core business of growing and home delivering organic foods, once the coronavirus crisis is over. Similarly, Kennedy Oinam, co-founder of FoodWifi, also had to adapt to the dynamic situation. "We are basically food delivery service providers through tie-ups with restaurants. When the lockdown happened we had to accelerate our plans to diversify into home delivery of groceries and essential items," said Oinam, whose father took voluntary retirement to build capital to fund his son's entrepreneurial dreams. During the lockdown, he said FoodWifi has been fulfilling around 80-100 deliveries per day despite several challenges. "One of our biggest challenges was that of delivery personnel, as parents of our staff were reluctant to let their sons go out our during the health crisis. So, my co-founder Bickychand Khangjarakpam and myself, we started doing it after hiring a van. In the following days more staff joined us," said the young entrepreneur who once worked as a chef in a local restaurant from where he got the idea of doing home delivery of food. The other hurdle was that of inventory as distributors were open only on alternate days, Oinam said, adding "we had to stand in long queues to get items and we could only sell what we could get from the distributors, limiting the choice for our customers". "Also, our delivery boys despite having permits were stopped many a times by local police when they went out as there is lack of clarity in the interpretation of orders from authorities," he added. Hummingbird co-founder Fisher Laishram said getting approval from authorities in itself was a time consuming process, but once that was done it was all about getting the staff trained about following health and hygiene protocals while delivering at doorsteps during the coronavirus crisis. "We have also faced problems with delivery personnel as people are reluctant to venture out during these times," said Laishram, who spent seven years in New York for higher studies and also honed skills of running start-up during his stint with Sprinklr. At present, Hummingbird is handling about 80 food orders on an average, he said adding fuel availability has also been a huge hurdle with many of the petrol pumps closed during the lockdown. Despite the challenges, as Oinam puts it, apart from the business aspect, it is about being able to help people in the times of crisis that has been more fulfilling. "Some people blessed us, some wished us good luck and many advised us to stay safe and follow strict hygiene protocol out of concern for us and we really appreciate that," he signed off with a smile. RKL RVK

Despite challenges, Manipur's start-ups doing home delivery during lockdown

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Deliveroo, the London company that lets restaurants start offering takeaway delivery, is expanding its service outside of the <keyword id="6354868" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="UK">UK</keyword> and into Paris and Berlin.The company gives restaurants a tablet and Bluetooth printer, and that's all they need to start taking online orders. Deliveroo handles the packaging, deliveries, booking, and works with venues to establish their online menu.<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/deliveroo-raises-16-million-series-b-funding-round-2015-1">Deliveroo raised £16 million in funding in January</a>. Its Series B round was led by Accel Partners, and included investment from Index Ventures, Hummingbird Ventures, and Hoxton Ventures.CEO William Shu told Business Insider in January that the company was planning on using its funding on expanding overseas.Now, Deliveroo is going to operate a delivery service in Paris and Berlin, as well as London and Brighton where it is currently live. It has signed up over 30 restaurants in Berlin, and over 50 locations in Paris. As well as European cities, Shu said that he was planning on expanding into Gulf states and using some of the money to increase the company's marketing spend and hire more developers. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/maps-big-countries-world-geography-russia-greenland-antarctica-2015-3">9 animated maps that will change the way you see the world </a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="xnMTYzbTrjVXj7b6Ir8JPwdraRakXLY4" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

London food delivery startup Deliveroo is expanding to Paris and Berlin

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">DeliverooDeliveroo CEO Will Shu.</div></div></div>Meal delivery startup Deliveroo has announced it has raised a $275 million (£210 million) Series E funding round.The company says the money comes from private equity company Bridgepoint, returning investor DST Global, and General Catalyst, and it also includes participation from returning investor Greenoaks Capital.This is a huge fundraise for a British startup, and it shows that investors have confidence in Deliveroo's business (even with the uncertainty of Brexit hanging over the startup scene).Deliveroo faces competition from new services to London like UberEATS, but it has the capital to aggressively expand around the world. It says the money will go towards international expansion and its RooBox remote kitchen idea. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/deliveroo-planing-to-use-shipping-containers-to-fight-off-new-rivals-like-amazon-2016-5">It's building kitchens in shipping crates</a> that are set up as dedicated kitchens for meal deliveries. It currently has five in London but plans to launch more.<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/deliveroos-revenues-set-to-hit-130-million-in-2016-2016-6">It was reported in June</a> that Deliveroo's revenue was set to hit £130 million this year. That represents growth of more than 1,000% in the last year.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">DeliverooA Deliveroo rider.</div></div></div>Founded in 2012 and headquartered in London, Deliveroo has built a platform that allows people to get food from popular restaurants delivered to their home or office by a cyclist or moped driver.For every transaction, the company charges the customer a £2.50 delivery charge and takes a commission fee from the restaurant. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/deliveroo-signs-deal-with-pizzaexpress-2016-5" target="_blank">Restaurants like PizzaExpress</a>, Dishoom, and Gourmet Burger Kitchen have all signed up to the platform, as has Michelin-starred restaurant Trishna.<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/london-startup-deliveroo-has-raised-100-million-for-its-restaurant-delivery-service-2015-11">The last time Deliveroo raised money was in November</a>. It raised $100 million (£76 million) in a round led by DST Global and Greenoaks Capital with participation from existing investors Accel, Hummingbird Ventures and Index Ventures.Deliveroo CEO Will Shu sent the following statement about the raise:"After seeing strong growth in the markets we launched in November, our new focus is to drive further innovation in food delivery. In particular, I'm excited about exploring completely new ways to solve the hardest problems restaurants face when offering delivery. RooBox is the first illustration of this approach, and innovations like these are at the heart of our mission. We're proud and honoured to have the support of Bridgepoint, DST Global and General Catalyst in this endeavour." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/milo-yiannopoulos-defends-his-leslie-jones-tweets-2016-8">Milo Yiannopoulos defends his Leslie Jones tweets: All I did was crack a few jokes about a Hollywood star</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="wyN28yNTE6UVyvXrixnss2wwNxxI7vqn" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

Meal delivery startup Deliveroo has raised $275 million

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Deliveroo, <a href="https://deliveroo.co.uk/">the London-based startup that lets restaurants offer takeaway delivery</a> to customers online, is raising £16 million in new funding and eyeing international expansion.
The Series B funding is led by Accel Partners, with investment from Index Ventures, Hummingbird Ventures, and Hoxton Ventures.
The company gives restaurants a tablet and bluetooth printer, and that's all they need to start taking online orders. Deliveroo handles the packaging, deliveries, booking, and works with venues to establish their online menu.
Deliveroo is different to sites like Just Eat. Instead of serving as an online platform for takeaways to manage orders, Deliveroo does it all. That's proven a hit for restaurants in London and Brighton.
CEO William Shu started Deliveroo when he realised that it's tough to order decent food in London. He used to work as an investment banking analyst in New York, but moving to London made him realise that the city just doesn't have the same 24/7 food-ordering infrastructure as New York. 
Deliveroo has become a big player in London's takeaway industry. CEO William Shu told Business Insider that the company has signed up over 750 restaurants in London. He also said that many restaurants have seen a 10% increase in revenue after adding the service, with others seeing revenue rise 30% after signing up with Deliveroo.
You might have seen the Deliveroo motorbikes and bicycles driving around London. Shu says that Deliveroo has over 300 drivers, and the company has found that cyclists can sometimes be faster than motorbikes when it comes to delivering food.
Many of the restaurants on Deliveroo are higher-end than what you might find on other takeaway sites. Shu describes the typical venue as "casual premium affordable." But Deliveroo is also working with established chains - Nando's is using Deliveroo for takeaways.
The £16 million in new funding is going to be spent on three things, Shu says. First up is geographic growth, and the company is looking at European cities and Gulf states. Deliveroo also wants to increase its marketing spend and hire more developers to improve its service.

Deliveroo, The Online Food Delivery Service Just For Restaurants, Is Raising &#163;16 Million

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">DeliverooDeliveroo cofounder and CEO Will Shu.</div></div></div>London startup Deliveroo announced today that it has raised $100 million (£66 million) for its restaurant food delivery service, bringing total investment in the company to approximately $200 million (£132 million).The Series D investment round was led by DST Global and Greenoaks Capital with participation from existing investors Accel, Hummingbird Ventures and Index Ventures.Unlike the majority of food delivery businesses that are purely online marketplaces for takeaway restaurants, Deliveroo, founded by former investment banker Will Shu and CTO Greg Orlowski in 2013, aims to partner with premium restaurants that don't typically provide delivery. The startup has partnered with over 5,000 restaurants worldwide, including the likes of Dishoom, Ping Pong and Dirty Burger, and Michelin-starred Trishna in London.Deliveroo is currently available in 30 <keyword id="6354868" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="UK">UK</keyword> cities and 20 other international cities, with most of those in Europe. Today the startup makes its first foray into Australasia, launching in Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Melbourne, and Sydney.Shu, who <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/deliveroo-ceo-will-shu-delivers-pizza-on-the-weekends-2015-11" target="_blank">still carries out Deliveroo's sub-30 minute deliveries</a>, told Business Insider that Deliveroo has received similar traction in every market it has entered. "I think we're creating a new market for restaurants, drivers, and customers," he told Business Insider over the phone ahead of the funding announcement. "Fundamentally this is something people really, really want in the developed world."The latest investment means that Deliveroo is likely to have a valuation in excess of $1 billion (£660 million), making it the UK's next unicorn company and putting it alongside the likes of Shazam, FanDuel, and Transferwise. Deliveroo was unable to confirm its valuation with Business Insider.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Deliveroo</div></div></div>When asked if Deliveroo was profitable, Shu said: "I can't really disclose anything about our financials."Deliveroo now employs 300 people, with approximately half of those in the UK. Other employees can be found in Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt, and Berlin, as well as the five new non-European cities the startup has launched in today.The idea for Deliveroo came about after Shu transferred from Morgan Stanley's office in New York to the investment bank's Canary Wharf office. Upon arriving in London, Shu said he quickly realised that there wasn't much on offer in the way of restaurant deliveries compared to New York. A few years after arriving in London, online delivery services started to become popular but Shu said the quality of the food being delivered was often relatively poor, adding that it would take too long to arrive. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/easy-ways-mac-run-faster-tips-computers-2015-11">Easy ways to make your Mac run faster</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="V4dXF0eDp4l1t_Y4QB44wgJIZjYDBHJP" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

London startup Deliveroo has raised $100 million for its restaurant delivery service

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">DropboxDropbox cofounders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi celebrated a long awaited IPO at the NASDAQ in New York City on March 23, 2018.</div></div></div><ul><li>Dropbox went public on Friday, and is now worth $20 billion.</li><li>In 2007, Houston was just trying to get his startup off the ground as a solo founder, and applied to the presitigous Y Combinator program for his first funding. </li><li>On the application, he says he would have sold Dropbox for $1 million after taxes in the first six months, if someone had made the offer. Now, his stake in Dropbox is almost certainly worth billions.</li><li>Read Houston's full application below.</li></ul>In 2007, an MIT graduate named Drew Houston was trying to get his startup, Dropbox, off the ground.He didn't have another co-founder because the person who had agreed to work with him had to back out. Houston had been programming since age 5, and he was trying to get Y Combinator to invest in his file storing and sharing startup.Y Combinator is one of Silicon Valley's premiere startup incubator programs, offering early-stage companies some of their first investment funding, and access to mentors and experts. For Houston, it was one of Dropbox's best bets to make it big.He told Y Combinator he was determined to see the idea through...although if someone offered him $1-2 million for Dropbox after six months of work, he'd have trouble walking away.It's a good thing no one made Houston that offer, because now he's worth much more than that. On Friday, Dropbox held its long-awaited IPO, and had a huge pop in first-day trading. Now, it's worth about $20 billion - and Houston's 25.5% ownesrship of Dropbox almost certainly makes his stake in the company worth billions.Here's the application Houston submitted to Y Combinator's Paul Graham back then. <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27532820/app.html">From Dropbox</a>:Y Combinator Funding Application Summer 2007 Application deadline: 12 midnight (PST) April 2, 2007. Please try to answer each question in less than 120 words. We look at online demos only for the most promising applications, so don't skimp on the application because you're relying on a good demo. We don't make any formal promise about secrecy, but we don't plan to let anyone outside Y Combinator see these applications, including other startups we fund. We recommend you save regularly by clicking on the update button at the bottom of this page. Otherwise you may lose work if we restart the server. # Username: dhouston # Company name: Dropbox # Company url, if any: http://www.getdropbox.com/ # Phone number (preferably cell): [Redacted] # Usernames of all founders, separated by spaces. (Please have all founders create YC accounts, or create accounts for them.) dhouston # Usernames of all founders who will move to (or already live in) Boston for the summer if we fund you. dhouston # What is your company going to make? Dropbox synchronizes files across your/your team's computers. It's much better than uploading or email, because it's automatic, integrated into Windows, and fits into the way you already work. There's also a web interface, and the files are securely backed up to Amazon S3. Dropbox is kind of like taking the best elements of subversion, trac and rsync and making them "just work" for the average individual or team. Hackers have access to these tools, but normal people don't. There are lots of interesting possible features. One is syncing Google Docs/Spreadsheets (or other office web apps) to local .doc and .xls files for offline access, which would be strategically important as few web apps deal with the offline problem. # For each founder, please list: YC username; name; age; year, school, degree, and subject for each degree; email address; personal url (if any); and present employer and title (if any). Put unfinished degrees in parens. List the main contact first. Separate founders with blank lines. Put an asterisk before the name of anyone not able to move to Boston for the summer. dhouston; Drew Houston; 24; 2006, MIT, SB computer science; houston AT alum DOT (school i went to) DOT edu; --; Bit9, Inc (went full time to part time 1/07) - project lead/software engineer Although I'm working with other people on Dropbox, strictly speaking I'm the only founder right now. My friend [redacted], a great hacker, Stanford grad and creator of [redacted] is putting together a Mac port, but can't join as a founder right now as a former cofounder of his started an extremely similar company. My friend and roommate i from MIT is helping out too, but he works with me at Bit9, and a non-solicit clause in my employment contract prevents me from recruiting him (and the VP Eng explicitly told me not to recruit him.) In any case, I have several leads, have been networking aggressively, and fully intend to get someone else on board -- either another good hacker or a more sales-oriented guy (e.g. the role Matt fills at Xobni). I'm aware that the odds aren't good for single founders, and would rather work with other people anyway. # Please tell us in one or two sentences something about each founder that shows a high level of ability. Drew - Programming since age 5; startups since age 14; 1600 on SAT; started profitable online SAT prep company in college (accoladeprep.com). For fun last summer reverse engineered the software on a number of poker sites and wrote a real-money playing poker bot (it was about break-even; see screenshot url later in the app.) # What's new about what you're doing? Most small teams have a few basic needs: (1) team members need their important stuff in front of them wherever they are, (2) everyone needs to be working on the latest version of a given document (and ideally can track what's changed), (3) and team data needs to be protected from disaster. There are sync tools (e.g. beinsync, Foldershare), there are backup tools (Carbonite, Mozy), and there are web uploading/publishing tools (box.net, etc.), but there's no good integrated solution. Dropbox solves all these needs, and doesn't need configuration or babysitting. Put another way, it takes concepts that are proven winners from the dev community (version control, changelogs/trac, rsync, etc.) and puts them in a package that my little sister can figure out (she uses Dropbox to keep track of her high school term papers, and doesn't need to burn CDs or carry USB sticks anymore.) At a higher level, online storage and local disks are big and cheap. But the internet links in between have been and will continue to be slow in comparison. In "the future", you won't have to move your data around manually. The concept that I'm most excited about is that the core technology in Dropbox -- continuous efficient sync with compression and binary diffs -- is what will get us there. # What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don't get? Competing products work at the wrong layer of abstraction and/or force the user to constantly think and do things. The "online disk drive" abstraction sucks, because you can't work offline and the OS support is extremely brittle. Anything that depends on manual emailing/uploading (i.e. anything web-based) is a non-starter, because it's basically doing version control in your head. But virtually all competing services involve one or the other. With Dropbox, you hit "Save", as you normally would, and everything just works, even with large files (thanks to binary diffs). # What are people forced to do now because what you plan to make doesn't exist yet? Email themselves attachments. Upload stuff to online storage sites or use online drives like Xdrive, which don't work on planes. Carry around USB drives, which can be lost, stolen, or break/get bad sectors. Waste time revising the wrong versions of given documents, resulting in Frankendocuments that contain some changes but lose others. My friend Reuben is switching his financial consulting company from a PHP-based CMS to a beta of Dropbox because all they used it for was file sharing. Techies often hack together brittle solutions involving web hosting, rsync, and cron jobs, or entertaining abominations such as those listed in this slashdot article ("Small Office Windows Backup Software" - http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/04/0336246). # How will you make money? The current plan is a freemium approach, where we give away free 1GB accounts and charge for additional storage (maybe ~$5/mo or less for 10GB for individuals and team plans that start at maybe $20/mo.). It's hard to get consumers to pay for things, but fortunately small/medium businesses already pay for solutions that are subsets of what Dropbox does and are harder to use. There will be tiered pricing for business accounts (upper tiers will retain more older versions of documents, have branded extranets for secure file sharing with clients/partners, etc., and an '<keyword id="6356323" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="enterprise">enterprise</keyword>' plan that features, well, a really high price.) I've already been approached by potential partners/customers asking for an API to programmatically create Dropboxes (e.g. to handle file sharing for Assembla.com, a web site for managing global dev teams). There's a natural synergy between Basecamp-like project mgmt/groupware web apps (for the to-do lists, calendaring, etc.) and Dropbox for file sharing. I've also had requests for an enterprise version that would sit on a company's network (as opposed to my S3 store) for which I could probably charge a lot. # Who are your competitors, and who might become competitors? Who do you fear most? Carbonite and Mozy do a good job with hassle-free backup, and a move into sync would make sense. Sharpcast (venture funded) announced a similar app called Hummingbird, but according to [redacted] they're taking an extraordinarily difficult approach involving NT kernel drivers. Google's coming out with GDrive at some point. Microsoft's Groove does sync and is part of Office 2007, but is very heavyweight and doesn't include any of the web stuff or backup. There are apps like Omnidrive and Titanize but the implementations are buggy or have bad UIs. # For founders who are hackers: what cool things have you built? (Include urls if possible.) Accolade Online SAT prep (launched in 2004) (http://www.accoladeprep.com/); a poker bot (here's an old screenshot: https://www.accoladeprep.com/sshot2.gif; it's using play money there but worked with real money too.) # How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? There's a joke in here somewhere. # What tools will you use to build your product? Python (top to bottom.) sqlite (client), mysql (server). Turbogears (at least until it won't scale.) Amazon EC2 and S3 for serving file data. # If you've already started working on it, how long have you been working and how many lines of code (if applicable) have you written? 3 months part time. About ~5KLOC client and ~2KLOC server of python, C++, Cheetah templates, installer scripts, etc. # If you have an online demo, what's the url? Here's a screencast that I'll also put up on news.yc: http://www.getdropbox.com/u/2/screencast%20-%20Copy.html If you do have a Windows box or two, here's the latest build: http://www.getdropbox.com/u/2/DropboxInstaller.exe # How long will it take before you have a prototype? A beta? A version you can charge for? Prototype - done in Feb. Version I can charge for: 8 weeks maybe? (ed: hahaha) # Which companies would be most likely to buy you? Google/MS/Yahoo are all acutely interested in this general space. Google announced GDrive/"Platypus" a long time ago but the release date is uncertain (a friend at Google says the first implementation was this ghetto VBScript/Java thing for internal use only). MS announced Live Drive and bought Foldershare in '05 which does a subset of what Dropbox does. Iron Mountain, Carbonite or Mozy or anyone else dealing with backup for SMBs could also be interested, as none of them have touched the sync problem to date. In some ways, Dropbox is for arbitrary files what Basecamp is for lightweight project management, and the two would plug together really well (although 37signals doesn't seem like the buying-companies type). At the end of the day, though, it's an extremely capital-efficient business. We know people are willing to pay for this and just want to put together something that rocks and get it in front of as many people as possible. # If one wanted to buy you three months in (August 2007), what's the lowest offer you'd take? I'd rather see the idea through, but I'd probably have a hard time turning down $1m after taxes for 6 months of work. # Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate? This idea requires executing well in several somewhat orthogonal directions, and missteps in any torpedo the entire product. For example, there's an academic/theoretical component: designing the protocol and app to behave consistently/recoverably when any power or ethernet cord in the chain could pop out at any time. There's a gross Win32 integration piece (ditto for a Mac port). There's a mostly Linux/Unix-oriented operations/sysadmin and scalability piece. Then there's the web design and UX piece to make things simple and sexy. Most of these hats are pretty different, and if executing in all these directions was easy, a good product/service would already exist. # Do you have any ideas you consider patentable? [Redacted] # What might go wrong? (This is a test of imagination, not confidence.) Google might finally unleash GDrive and steal a lot of Dropbox's thunder (especially if this takes place before launch.) In general, the online storage space is extremely noisy, so being marginally better isn't good enough; there has to be a leap in value worthy of writing/blogging/telling friends about. I'll need to bring on cofounder(s) and build a team, which takes time. Other competitors are much better funded; we might need to raise working capital to accelerate growth. There will be the usual growing pains scaling and finding bottlenecks (although I've provisioned load balanced, high availability web apps before.) Acquiring small business customers might be more expensive/take longer than hoped. Prioritizing features and choosing the right market segments to tackle will be hard. Getting love from early adopters will be important, but getting distracted by/releasing late due to frivolous feature requests could be fatal. # If you're already incorporated, when were you? Who are the shareholders and what percent does each own? If you've had funding, how much, at what valuation(s)? Not incorporated # If you're not incorporated yet, please list the percent of the company you plan to give each founder, and anyone else you plan to give stock to. (This question is as much for you as us.) Drew # If you'll have any major expenses beyond the living costs of your founders, bandwidth, and servers, what will they be? None; maybe AdWords. # If by August your startup seems to have a significant (say 20%) chance of making you rich, which of the founders would commit to working on it full-time for the next several years? Drew # Do any founders have other commitments between June and August 2007 inclusive? No; I've given notice at Bit9 to work on this full time regardless of YC funding. # Do any founders have commitments in the future (e.g. have been accepted to grad school), and if so what? No. Probably moving to SF in September # Are any of the founders covered by noncompetes or intellectual property agreements that overlap with your project? Will any be working as employees or consultants for anyone else? Drew: Some work was done at the Bit9 office; I consulted an attorney and have a signed letter indicating Bit9 has no stake/ownership of any kind in Dropbox # Was any of your code written by someone who is not one of your founders? If so, how can you safely use it? (Open source is ok of course.) No # If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, feel free to list them. One may be something we've been waiting for. One click screen sharing (already done pretty well by Glance); a wiki with version-controlled drawing canvases that let you draw diagrams or mock up UIs (Thinkature is kind of related, but this is more text with canvases interspersed than a shared whiteboard) to help teams get on the same page and spec things out better (we use Visio and Powerpoint at Bit9, which sucks) # Please tell us something surprising or amusing that one of you has discovered. (The answer need not be related to your project.) The ridiculous things people name their documents to do versioning, like "proposal v2 good revised NEW 11-15-06.doc", continue to crack me up.

Dropbox just went public and is now worth $20 billion - now read the CEO's application for its first round of funding

<div class="image-container float_right"><div class="image">Owen Thomas, Business Insider</div></div>In 2007, an MIT graduate named <keyword id="684171" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Drew-Houston">Drew Houston</keyword> was trying to get his startup, <keyword id="285445" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Dropbox">Dropbox</keyword>, off the ground.
He didn't have another co-founder because the person who had agreed to work with him fell through. He had been programming since age 5, and he was trying to get Y Combinator to invest in his file storing and sharing startup.
He told Y Combinator he was determined to see the idea through...although if someone offered him $1-2 million for Dropbox after six months of work, he'd have trouble walking away.
It's a good thing no one made Houston that offer, because now he's worth much more than that, and his company is worth multiple billions.
Here's the application he submitted to Paul Graham back then. 
<a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27532820/app.html">From Dropbox</a>:
Y Combinator Funding Application Summer 2007 Application deadline: 12 midnight (PST) April 2, 2007. Please try to answer each question in less than 120 words. We look at online demos only for the most promising applications, so don't skimp on the application because you're relying on a good demo. We don't make any formal promise about secrecy, but we don't plan to let anyone outside Y Combinator see these applications, including other startups we fund. We recommend you save regularly by clicking on the update button at the bottom of this page. Otherwise you may lose work if we restart the server. # Username: dhouston # Company name: Dropbox # Company url, if any: http://www.getdropbox.com/ # Phone number (preferably cell): (redacted) # Usernames of all founders, separated by spaces. (Please have all founders create YC accounts, or create accounts for them.) dhouston # Usernames of all founders who will move to (or already live in) Boston for the summer if we fund you. dhouston # What is your company going to make? Dropbox synchronizes files across your/your team's computers. It's much better than uploading or email, because it's automatic, integrated into Windows, and fits into the way you already work. There's also a web interface, and the files are securely backed up to Amazon S3. Dropbox is kind of like taking the best elements of subversion, trac and rsync and making them "just work" for the average individual or team. Hackers have access to these tools, but normal people don't. There are lots of interesting possible features. One is syncing Google Docs/Spreadsheets (or other office web apps) to local .doc and .xls files for offline access, which would be strategically important as few web apps deal with the offline problem. # For each founder, please list: YC username; name; age; year, school, degree, and subject for each degree; email address; personal url (if any); and present employer and title (if any). Put unfinished degrees in parens. List the main contact first. Separate founders with blank lines. Put an asterisk before the name of anyone not able to move to Boston for the summer. dhouston; Drew Houston; 24; 2006, MIT, SB computer science; houston AT alum DOT (school i went to) DOT edu; --; Bit9, Inc (went full time to part time 1/07) - project lead/software engineer Although I'm working with other people on Dropbox, strictly speaking I'm the only founder right now. My friend (redacted), a great hacker, Stanford grad and creator of (redacted) is putting together a Mac port, but can't join as a founder right now as a former cofounder of his started an extremely similar company. My friend and roommate (redacted) from MIT is helping out too, but he works with me at Bit9, and a non-solicit clause in my employment contract prevents me from recruiting him (and the VP Eng explicitly told me not to recruit him.) In any case, I have several leads, have been networking aggressively, and fully intend to get someone else on board -- either another good hacker or a more sales-oriented guy (e.g. the role Matt fills at Xobni). I'm aware that the odds aren't good for single founders, and would rather work with other people anyway. # Please tell us in one or two sentences something about each founder that shows a high level of ability. Drew - Programming since age 5; startups since age 14; 1600 on SAT; started profitable online SAT prep company in college (accoladeprep.com). For fun last summer reverse engineered the software on a number of poker sites and wrote a real-money playing poker bot (it was about break-even; see screenshot url later in the app.) # What's new about what you're doing? Most small teams have a few basic needs: (1) team members need their important stuff in front of them wherever they are, (2) everyone needs to be working on the latest version of a given document (and ideally can track what's changed), (3) and team data needs to be protected from disaster. There are sync tools (e.g. beinsync, Foldershare), there are backup tools (Carbonite, Mozy), and there are web uploading/publishing tools (box.net, etc.), but there's no good integrated solution. Dropbox solves all these needs, and doesn't need configuration or babysitting. Put another way, it takes concepts that are proven winners from the dev community (version control, changelogs/trac, rsync, etc.) and puts them in a package that my little sister can figure out (she uses Dropbox to keep track of her high school term papers, and doesn't need to burn CDs or carry USB sticks anymore.) At a higher level, online storage and local disks are big and cheap. But the internet links in between have been and will continue to be slow in comparison. In "the future", you won't have to move your data around manually. The concept that I'm most excited about is that the core technology in Dropbox -- continuous efficient sync with compression and binary diffs -- is what will get us there. # What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don't get? Competing products work at the wrong layer of abstraction and/or force the user to constantly think and do things. The "online disk drive" abstraction sucks, because you can't work offline and the OS support is extremely brittle. Anything that depends on manual emailing/uploading (i.e. anything web-based) is a non-starter, because it's basically doing version control in your head. But virtually all competing services involve one or the other. With Dropbox, you hit "Save", as you normally would, and everything just works, even with large files (thanks to binary diffs). # What are people forced to do now because what you plan to make doesn't exist yet? Email themselves attachments. Upload stuff to online storage sites or use online drives like Xdrive, which don't work on planes. Carry around USB drives, which can be lost, stolen, or break/get bad sectors. Waste time revising the wrong versions of given documents, resulting in Frankendocuments that contain some changes but lose others. My friend Reuben is switching his financial consulting company from a PHP-based CMS to a beta of Dropbox because all they used it for was file sharing. Techies often hack together brittle solutions involving web hosting, rsync, and cron jobs, or entertaining abominations such as those listed in this slashdot article ("Small Office Windows Backup Software" - http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/04/0336246). # How will you make money? The current plan is a freemium approach, where we give away free 1GB accounts and charge for additional storage (maybe ~$5/mo or less for 10GB for individuals and team plans that start at maybe $20/mo.). It's hard to get consumers to pay for things, but fortunately small/medium businesses already pay for solutions that are subsets of what Dropbox does and are harder to use. There will be tiered pricing for business accounts (upper tiers will retain more older versions of documents, have branded extranets for secure file sharing with clients/partners, etc., and an 'enterprise' plan that features, well, a really high price.) I've already been approached by potential partners/customers asking for an API to programmatically create Dropboxes (e.g. to handle file sharing for Assembla.com, a web site for managing global dev teams). There's a natural synergy between Basecamp-like project mgmt/groupware web apps (for the to-do lists, calendaring, etc.) and Dropbox for file sharing. I've also had requests for an enterprise version that would sit on a company's network (as opposed to my S3 store) for which I could probably charge a lot. # Who are your competitors, and who might become competitors? Who do you fear most? Carbonite and Mozy do a good job with hassle-free backup, and a move into sync would make sense. Sharpcast (venture funded) announced a similar app called Hummingbird, but according to (redacted) they're taking an extraordinarily difficult approach involving NT kernel drivers. Google's coming out with GDrive at some point. Microsoft's Groove does sync and is part of Office 2007, but is very heavyweight and doesn't include any of the web stuff or backup. There are apps like Omnidrive and Titanize but the implementations are buggy or have bad UIs. # For founders who are hackers: what cool things have you built? (Include urls if possible.) Accolade Online SAT prep (launched in 2004) (http://www.accoladeprep.com/); a poker bot (here's an old screenshot: https://www.accoladeprep.com/sshot2.gif; it's using play money there but worked with real money too.) # How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? There's a joke in here somewhere. # What tools will you use to build your product? Python (top to bottom.) sqlite (client), mysql (server). Turbogears (at least until it won't scale.) Amazon EC2 and S3 for serving file data. # If you've already started working on it, how long have you been working and how many lines of code (if applicable) have you written? 3 months part time. About ~5KLOC client and ~2KLOC server of python, C++, Cheetah templates, installer scripts, etc. # If you have an online demo, what's the url? Here's a screencast that I'll also put up on news.yc: http://www.getdropbox.com/u/2/screencast%20-%20Copy.html If you do have a Windows box or two, here's the latest build: http://www.getdropbox.com/u/2/DropboxInstaller.exe # How long will it take before you have a prototype? A beta? A version you can charge for? Prototype - done in Feb. Version I can charge for: 8 weeks maybe? (ed: hahaha) # Which companies would be most likely to buy you? Google/MS/Yahoo are all acutely interested in this general space. Google announced GDrive/"Platypus" a long time ago but the release date is uncertain (a friend at Google says the first implementation was this ghetto VBScript/Java thing for internal use only). MS announced Live Drive and bought Foldershare in '05 which does a subset of what Dropbox does. Iron Mountain, Carbonite or Mozy or anyone else dealing with backup for SMBs could also be interested, as none of them have touched the sync problem to date. In some ways, Dropbox is for arbitrary files what Basecamp is for lightweight project management, and the two would plug together really well (although 37signals doesn't seem like the buying-companies type). At the end of the day, though, it's an extremely capital-efficient business. We know people are willing to pay for this and just want to put together something that rocks and get it in front of as many people as possible. # If one wanted to buy you three months in (August 2007), what's the lowest offer you'd take? I'd rather see the idea through, but I'd probably have a hard time turning down $1m after taxes for 6 months of work. # Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate? This idea requires executing well in several somewhat orthogonal directions, and missteps in any torpedo the entire product. For example, there's an academic/theoretical component: designing the protocol and app to behave consistently/recoverably when any power or ethernet cord in the chain could pop out at any time. There's a gross Win32 integration piece (ditto for a Mac port). There's a mostly Linux/Unix-oriented operations/sysadmin and scalability piece. Then there's the web design and UX piece to make things simple and sexy. Most of these hats are pretty different, and if executing in all these directions was easy, a good product/service would already exist. # Do you have any ideas you consider patentable? (redacted) # What might go wrong? (This is a test of imagination, not confidence.) Google might finally unleash GDrive and steal a lot of Dropbox's thunder (especially if this takes place before launch.) In general, the online storage space is extremely noisy, so being marginally better isn't good enough; there has to be a leap in value worthy of writing/blogging/telling friends about. I'll need to bring on cofounder(s) and build a team, which takes time. Other competitors are much better funded; we might need to raise working capital to accelerate growth. There will be the usual growing pains scaling and finding bottlenecks (although I've provisioned load balanced, high availability web apps before.) Acquiring small business customers might be more expensive/take longer than hoped. Prioritizing features and choosing the right market segments to tackle will be hard. Getting love from early adopters will be important, but getting distracted by/releasing late due to frivolous feature requests could be fatal. # If you're already incorporated, when were you? Who are the shareholders and what percent does each own? If you've had funding, how much, at what valuation(s)? Not incorporated # If you're not incorporated yet, please list the percent of the company you plan to give each founder, and anyone else you plan to give stock to. (This question is as much for you as us.) Drew # If you'll have any major expenses beyond the living costs of your founders, bandwidth, and servers, what will they be? None; maybe AdWords. # If by August your startup seems to have a significant (say 20%) chance of making you rich, which of the founders would commit to working on it full-time for the next several years? Drew # Do any founders have other commitments between June and August 2007 inclusive? No; I've given notice at Bit9 to work on this full time regardless of YC funding. # Do any founders have commitments in the future (e.g. have been accepted to grad school), and if so what? No. Probably moving to SF in September # Are any of the founders covered by noncompetes or intellectual property agreements that overlap with your project? Will any be working as employees or consultants for anyone else? Drew: Some work was done at the Bit9 office; I consulted an attorney and have a signed letter indicating Bit9 has no stake/ownership of any kind in Dropbox # Was any of your code written by someone who is not one of your founders? If so, how can you safely use it? (Open source is ok of course.) No # If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, feel free to list them. One may be something we've been waiting for. One click screen sharing (already done pretty well by Glance); a wiki with version-controlled drawing canvases that let you draw diagrams or mock up UIs (Thinkature is kind of related, but this is more text with canvases interspersed than a shared whiteboard) to help teams get on the same page and spec things out better (we use Visio and Powerpoint at Bit9, which sucks) # Please tell us something surprising or amusing that one of you has discovered. (The answer need not be related to your project.) The ridiculous things people name their documents to do versioning, like "proposal v2 good revised NEW 11-15-06.doc", continue to crack me up.

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