New Delhi, Jan 9 () SB Investment Advisers (UK) Ltd (SBIA) on Thursday named former Google executive Vikas Agnihotri as its first operating partner in India.
 "To continue its expansion in India and bolster portfolio companies, SBIA has announced the appointment of Vikas Agnihotri as its first operating partner to foster closer connections with the region's technology ecosystem and the SBIA's global network," a statement said.
 Agnihotri joins the company from Google, where he had a stint of about a decade in various leadership roles. In his last role, he served as the interim Country Head and Managing Director of Indian operations.
 He is also on the board of Mobile Marketing Association, the Advertising Standards Council of India, and Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).
 After launching the SoftBank Vision Fund I in 2017, SoftBank Vision Fund II was announced last year to continue the strategic investment in technology and innovation globally.
 In India, SoftBank Vision Fund I has already invested over USD 10 billion in technology companies, including Grofers, Lenskart, Delhivery, FirstCry, Oyo, Ola, Paytm, and PolicyBazaar.
 SBIA had announced the opening of its India office in 2018 and hired Sumer Juneja to lead its India investing operations. SR HRS

Vikas Agnihotri named SB Investment Advisers' operating partner in India

<ul><li>The latest fund allows <keyword id="3494841" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="stellaris">Stellaris</keyword> to make bets in Series A rounds and make follow-on investments in its portfolio companies.</li><li>Stellaris’ partner Rahul Chowdhri, highlighted that the firm would keep a large reserve of the fund for its best performing portfolio companies.</li><li>It has invested in 19 startups to date, which includes Mamaearth, Whatfix, MFine and Slintel.</li></ul>Early-stage investment firm <keyword id="3537918" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Stellaris-Venture-Partners">Stellaris Venture Partners</keyword> has closed its second fund at $225 million to invest in 25-30 startups over the next few years. The firm usually invests in seed to Series A rounds, but the latest fund allows it to invest in larger Series A rounds and make follow-on investments in its portfolio companies. Alok Goyal, partner at Stellaris, in an email interaction with Business Insider said, “We have a thesis-driven approach where we’ve backed companies that are new entrants in new categories. Some of these gamechangers from our first fund include Mamaearth, Whatfix and MFine to name a few. This will continue to be our investment strategy in the second fund.” Rahul Chowdhri, partner at Stellaris, also emphasises that the $225 million fund would keep a large reserve for its best-performing portfolio companies and back them through 3-4 funding rounds. Some of the successful companies in Stellaris Venture Partners’ portfolio include: <table style="border-width: initial; border-style: none;"></colgroup><tbody><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Business </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Uptick </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Mamaearth </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">COVID-19 brought many new transacting customers to consumer brand Mamaearth. The company is now valued at $730 million. </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Whatfix </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Whatfix is a SaaS solution that helps organisations provide in-app guidance and performance support for web applications. After the tailwind of 2020, the company is now valued at half a billion. </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">MFine </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">MFine provides virtual medical consultation, online prescriptions, lab tests and medicine delivery through a mobile application. The platform claims to have more than 3 lakh transactions a month. </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Slintel </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Slintel builds sales intelligence tools for enterprise. The company claims to have seen 5-fold growth in both revenue as well as customer base in 2020 due to the pandemic. </td></tr></tbody></table> Though the investment firm did not comment on the sectors it will be keeping a close eye on for their upcoming deals, Goyal did share the sectors Stellaris has a positive thesis on. This includes artificial intelligence (AI)-focused software-as-a-service (SaaS), fullstack healthcare, embedded financial services, creator economy to help creators make money from audiences, global consumer businesses from India, and developer and infrastructure software. “India’s venture ecosystem has come of age over the last few years with large exits and a massive increase in the volume and quality of new startups. The larger second fund gives us dry powder to tap into this growing opportunity with an ability to back entrepreneurs with more capital and support them for longer. We keep a large reserve for our best-performing portfolio companies and back them through 3-4 funding rounds,” said Rahul Chowdhri, partner at Stellaris Venture Partners. With this fund, Stellaris Venture Partners now has more than $300 million in assets under management (AUM). Stellaris Venture Partners closed its $50 million maiden fund in 2017 and has invested in 19 startups to date. The firm has already led a <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/funding/vegan-brand-zouk-gets-1-5-million-from-stellaris-others/articleshow/84609318.cms">$1.5 million </a>round in direct-to-consumer brand Zouk recently, and has four other startups in the pipeline, in 2021, for fund II. The firm was initially planning to raise $160 million for Fund II, but the round was oversubscribed by more than $50 million. The fund has got three exits, till date, from e-sports gaming company Gaming Monk, snack vending machine company Kwik24 and e-commerce platform Shop101, according to data aggregation platform Crunchbase. Though the company has not shared much information about these exits. Commenting about the potential initial public offering (IPO) exits, Goyal told Business Insider, “Last 12 months have shown a very healthy investor appetite for tech IPOs and also the emergence of scaled start-ups that are ready to list. We expect this to only go up in the next 5-10 years. There is no specific number of IPOs we have in mind from our portfolio, though many of them are capable of being there in that timeframe.” SEE ALSO <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/ecommerce/news/swiggy-reports-nearly-three-fold-increase-in-annual-revenue-in-neck-and-neck-race-with-zomato/articleshow/85233393.cms">Swiggy reports nearly three-fold increase in annual revenue, in neck and neck race with Zomato</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/careers/news/lenskart-aims-to-hire-over-2000-employees-to-ramp-up-its-operations/articleshow/85235059.cms">Lenskart aims to hire over 2000 employees to ramp up its operations</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/samsung-may-dominate-the-foldable-smartphone-market-with-88-share-says-report/articleshow/85091203.cms">Samsung may dominate the foldable smartphone market with 88% share, says report</a>

Mamaearth and MFine-backer Stellaris Venture Partners closes second fund to make bigger bets in existing portfolio and up to 30 new startups

<ul> <li>India has seen three startups turn unicorn and one into a decacorn between January 2020 and August 2021.</li><li>Dexter Capital Advisors's CEO believes that Teachmint, Classplus, Quizziz could make an entry to the unicorn club.</li><li>Indian <keyword id="1464841" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Edtech">edtech</keyword> startups have raised about $4 billion in the same time frame.</li></ul>Education technology or edtech was one of the least funded sectors in India until 2019, but the rise of remote learning during the COVID-ridden 2020 has given a new set of wings to this otherwise ignored segment. From January 2020 to halfway through 2021, India has seen three startups turn unicorn and one into a decacorn. A unicorn — in a startup parlance — is a company valued at above $1 billion and a decacorn is a company valued above $10 billion. A major reason for this series of <keyword id="11853360" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="edtech-unicorns">edtech unicorns</keyword> in India has been the greater interest of the investors in the segment. Indian edtech startups have raised about $4 billion since 2020, of which $2.2 billion was raised in 2020 and<a href="https://yourstory.com/2021/08/byjus-unacademy-edtech-sector-funding-2021/amp"> $1.9 billion</a> was raised between January-August 3, 2021. <div type="image" title="From Byju’s to Eruditus — India now has four edtech unicorns, thanks to a $4 billion funding inflow since 2020" msid="85300875" hostid="261"></div> India’s edtech unicorn revolution to continue <keyword id="2900267" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Byju">Byju</keyword>’s was the first Indian edtech company to turn into a unicorn in 2018. The company is now valued at a whopping $16.5 billion, positioning it as the highest valued Indian startup and the highest valued <keyword id="4534291" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="edtech-startup">edtech startup</keyword> across the globe. It took about two years and a pandemic to make <keyword id="6630114" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="unacademy">Unacademy</keyword> the second Indian edtech unicorn in September 2020. In 2021, India has found two unicorns in Ronnie Screwvala-led <keyword id="2008319" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Upgrad">upGrad</keyword> and Ashwin Damera-led Eruditus. Meanwhile, kids' live learning platform Vedantu is <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/business/vedantu-planning-a-fundraise-not-up-for-sale-founder-and-ceo-vamsi-krishna-101628298041357.html">reportedly</a> all set for its unicorn round and is in talks with investors across the board. <table style="border-width: initial; border-style: none; table-layout: fixed; width: 468pt;" class="redcator-table-advance"></colgroup><tbody><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Unicorn </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Valuation </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Year </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Byju’s </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">$16.5 billion </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">2018 </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Unacademy </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">$3.4 billion </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">2020 </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Eruditus </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">$3.2 billion </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">2021 </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">UpGrad </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">$1.2 billion </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">2021 </td></tr></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody></table> Devendra Agrawal, founder and CEO of Dexter Capital Advisors told Business Insider as the edtech sector matures, more sectors can be seen progressing in the unicorn directions. “Though, it may take some time as scale wise a number of players are still not that big. The players, which have a good growth momentum definitely have a shot at this coveted slot and in that players like Teachmint, Classplus, Quizziz should lead the pack,” he added. Edtech startups speculated to sashay their way into India’s unicorn club <table style="border-width: initial; border-style: none;" class="redcator-table-advance"></colgroup><tbody><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Startup </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Funding to date </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Key investors </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Teachmint </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">$40 million </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Learn Capital, Better Capital, Lightspeed India Partners </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Classplus </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">$60 million </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global Management, RTP Global, GSV Ventures </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Quizziz </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">$47 million </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Tiger Global, Nexus Venture Partners, GSV Ventures, Eight Roads Ventures India </td></tr></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody></table> Vaibhav Tamrakar, senior vice president at consultancy firm PGA Labs, in an email interaction with Business Insider shared that India’s edtech domain will gain more investor confidence especially after China’s latest regulation that has ordered all school curriculum and live tutoring edtech startups to go non-profit. “India is well-positioned to be the ‘tutor of the world’ with a strong presence of key ingredients including a large market of over 350 million learners, English-speaking population and tutors, and access to capital including both domestic and foreign investors. Edtech players in India had already expanded footprints in the global markets pre-COVID-19,” he added. Sydney-based maths learning platform Matific — which has operations across 60 countries — decided to enter India in 2019. Its chief executive Craig Shotland, talking about why Matific decided to expand to India, told Business Insider, “We see India as a key strategic market driven by factors like robust market potential, strong demand for edtech, and government policies like NEP. But most importantly the passion for education and learning, willingness to adopt technology, and strong affinity to gamified educational content makes it a great place to be right now.” What led to the rise of Indian edtech Tamrakar of PGA Labs told Business Insider, “While these trends [National Education Policy, accessibility to education and teachers, demand in upskilling and remote learning] were already transforming the market pre-COVID-19, the lockdowns did to edtech what demonetisation did to the fintech sector in India [in 2016] – accelerate these decade-long shifts within a year.” Dexter Capital Advisors’ Agrawal noted that the edtech sector was forgotten till 2015 and the issue was whether the companies operating in this segment could scale up. He added that proven players like Byju’s were able to build investors' trust in the segment and show that India had an appetite for edtech as well. SEE ALSO <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/travel-app-ixigo-files-for-a-1600-crore-ipo/articleshow/85292327.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">Travel app ixigo files for a ₹1,600 crore IPO</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/ecommerce/news/swiggy-reports-nearly-three-fold-increase-in-annual-revenue-in-neck-and-neck-race-with-zomato/articleshow/85233393.cms">Swiggy reports nearly three-fold increase in annual revenue, in neck and neck race with Zomato</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/careers/news/lenskart-aims-to-hire-over-2000-employees-to-ramp-up-its-operations/articleshow/85235059.cms">Lenskart aims to hire over 2000 employees to ramp up its operations</a>

From Byju’s to Eruditus — India now has four edtech unicorns, thanks to a $4 billion fund flowing in since 2020

<ul><li><keyword id="2517934" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bhuvan-Bam">Bhuvan Bam</keyword> is one of the two YouTubers to make it Forbes India’s 30 under 30 list. </li><li>He was also the first Indian Youtube star to attend the <keyword id="69007" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="World-Economic-Forum">World Economic Forum</keyword>’s annual meeting at <keyword id="100810" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Davos">Davos</keyword>. </li><li>His videos on YouTube have received over a billion views as of now. </li></ul>It has been a wonderful year for Delhi based <keyword id="8610970" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="youtuber-bhuvan-bam">YouTuber Bhuvan Bam</keyword> until now. After rubbing shoulders with CEOs at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, the comedian has now made it to Forbes India’s 30 under 30 list. The 26 year old is one of the two YouTubers along with Technical Guruji Gaurav Chaudhary who made their debut on the list this year. “YouTuber Bhuvan Bam graduated from ‘Watch Out For’ to debut in the digital content creators category,” Forbes India said in <a href="http://www.forbesindia.com/article/30-under-30-2020/forbes-india-30-under-30-a-cut-above-the-rest/57513/1">its press release</a>. For Bam, the journey started in 2015 when he realized that very few people were making YouTube videos in Hindi, and started his channel “BB Ki Vines”. Back then, India had few homegrown comedians. The Viral Fever and All India Bakchod were creating content, but in English. “I thought I should bring some kind of humour. I’ve grown up watching Kader Khan, Johnny Lever, Govinda kind of movies, David Dhawan movies, ’90s and early 2000s movies. And that was a good change for people. The language barrier was at a breaking point,” Bhuvan<a href="https://qz.com/india/1456007/the-making-of-bhuvan-bam-indias-biggest-youtube-star/"> told Quartz. </a> Five years on, Bam has a wide fan base and his videos received a billion views. He is now as famous as any other Bollywood celebrity in India — and celebrities like Karan Johar are in awe of him as well. He also went where no one expected this expletive spewing YouTuber will go --- to the World Economic Forum to tell the story of how he captured the pulse of young Indians. Jokes that no one would laugh at In 2015, Bhuvan was yet another college boy who used to sing at a restaurant for ₹3,000 a night. The natural performer also believed he could tell funny stories though nobody in his family would laugh at them. One day, he decided to post a 15 second video — that mocked the media for their insensitive question in Kashmir floods — on his Facebook page. “A reporter was asking this lady ‘How do you feel, (now) that you’ve lost your son?’ It was a silly question. I couldn’t control myself. I had to make a satire of it,” says Bam. He decided to post some more. Fans from Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh Success did not come instantly. The first few videos received a mere 15 views. Gradually, that 15 turned to 300 and he shot to fame in his college and others. To his surprise, he built a fanbase in Karachi University. But India was still unaware of him. “India took a lot of time to warm up to my videos!” He moved from Facebook to Youtube after a friend suggested monetising what he was doing. The Karan Johar of Youtube Bam managed to get the attention of people after his video “Valentine’s Week Hutiyapa” went viral in 2016. He even got a million subscribers to his Youtube channel in 7 months. Since then, Bam experimented a lot - right from dancing to singing. He also co-produced a movie Plus minus. Soon, he became an influencer and endorsed as many as 30 brands until April 2019. He is now the face of Lenskart. His success lies in his no-cost production strategy. He created 16 characters and acted for all of them. He shoots his videos himself, edits and posts them himself. “I don’t spend a single penny on them. I take 15 to 16 days to come up with a video and do one or two videos a month. That’s a long time. People who have big production houses need to hire people, pay vendors etc,” <a href="https://qz.com/india/1456007/the-making-of-bhuvan-bam-indias-biggest-youtube-star/">he told Quartz. </a> At first Bam wanted to be a part of Bollywood but he now believes Youtube is bigger. “I want to be the Dharma productions of YouTube. Also, I want to develop the BB universe, complete with the origin story of all the characters, like Marvel comics and DC world.” SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/entertainment/news/its-saif-versus-saif-at-the-box-office-as-tanhaji-is-ahead-of-jawaani-jaaneman/articleshow/73891350.cms">It’s Saif versus Saif at the box office as Tanhaji is ahead of Jawaani Jaaneman</a>

Youtuber Bhuvam Bam is having a wonderful year - from World Economic Forum to Forbes India's 30 under 30 list

Hindustan Unilever’s (HUL) senior employees are one of the best paid in the industry. HUL has 169 executives who drew eight-digit salaries last year, six times more than its closest rival ITC's 23 crorepati employees, and half of them are less than 40 years of age, according to the Economic Times. The HUL number is also 50% higher than IT major Infosys' 123 eight-digit salary earners and more than double of Wipro's 70. 
 
The firm’s annual report states, 169 managers, representing just 1% of HUL's total workforce, drew home a combined salary of Rs 310 crore. 
This is more than the total employee spends of mid-sized rivals such as Marico, Godrej Consumer and Procter &amp; Gamble Health and Hygiene. "For the kind of talent HUL looks for, the company has to pay top dollars as supply is limited and they have to retain them," Aditya Narayan Mishra, chief executive at CEIL HR Services told the ET adding that HUL has the highest number of crorepati employees in India. 
 
"Since they also create strong leadership within their organisation, retaining them becomes crucial," he said. HUL is often referred to as a 'CEO Factory', having contributed over 400 CEOs within the corporate world. 
 
Despite ecommerce edging out FMCG as the hottest career destination for B-school students, HUL still remains the most preferred company overall in the list for the graduating batch of 2015, fourth year in a row and as a dream company across sectors for the sixth year running, as per Nielsen Campus Track Business School 2015 survey. 
 
"At HUL, the ability to identify, hire, groom and retain the best talent has been honed and developed over several decades and remains one of the most important agenda of my leadership team," Sanjiv Mehta, CEO and MD at Hindustan Unilever, had told the financial daily in March this year. Salaries at HUL are partly linked to the company's performance in sales and profitability, say analysts. 
 
During 2014-15, HUL posted 9% sales growth compared to 7% in the overall FMCG growth with 90% of its portfolio gaining market share. Nitin Mathur, consumer goods analyst at Societe Generale, said: "HUL is unarguably the leader when it comes to understanding the Indian consumption patterns, across economic strata. 
 
Any competitor, either incumbents or startups, would like to leverage on this experience by hiring their executives." 
 
ET in May had reported that ecommerce companies could roll out 500 jobs with salaries of more than Rs 1 crore each this year, according to estimates by five search firms, including RGF Executive Search and Longhouse Consulting. 
 
Also offering jobs with one-crore-plus salaries are Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, Ola, Uber, Quikr, CommonFloor, Yepme, OLX, Junglee, FashionAndYou, Hungama, BookMyShow, Jabong, Cleartrip and Lenskart. 
 
(Image: Think Stock)

169 employees of HUL, earn 8-digit salaries a year!

In 1995, <keyword id="3612226" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Adi-Tatarko">Adi Tatarko</keyword>, a college student from Israel, boarded a bus in Thailand with a few of her college girlfriends. They were headed for the islands - a 15-hour ride from Bangkok. The bus was crowded, so the bus driver directed Tatarko to an empty seat in the back next to another foreigner. This stranger’s name was <keyword id="3612225" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Alon-Cohen">Alon Cohen</keyword> and he would soon become her husband and later co-founder of <keyword id="1291598" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Houzz">Houzz</keyword>, a $4 billion home renovation and design company that has global ambitions. On October 11, 2017, Houzz announced a strategic partnership with <keyword id="4519251" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="times-bridge">Times Bridge</keyword>, the investment arm of The Times Group, to dramatically expand its footprint in India (disclosure: Business Insider is a strategic partner with Times Bridge). If the relationship between Tatarko and Cohen led to the catharsis that is Houzz, then one could view their rapid expansion in South Asia as a homecoming of sorts. “We ended up talking throughout the entire 15-hour bus ride and spending the rest of our vacation together,” recalls Tatarko. She describes it as feeling like four dates at once. Three years later they got married. Shortly thereafter, they moved to New York City and, in 2001, to Palo Alto where their quest to decorate their new home led to the first iterations of what would become Houzz. It was a project built organically from need, a trait investors love because it reveals a true consumer pain point. Houzz lets homeowners browse and save design ideas by architects and designers, connecting professional and consumer so people improving and designing their homes can buy what they like from anywhere. For Tatarko, Houzz can be broken into four phases: side project, company, monetization and expansion. A SIDE PROJECT The idea for Houzz emerged sometime during the three years when Tatarko and Cohen were struggling to get their four-bedroom ranch house in Palo Alto renovated. Several months went by as they scanned through magazines and books looking for pictures that could match their vision. Once they found a design, they then had to search for the right products and professionals to turn their dream house into a reality. Each and every effort made reaped no results - Google was barely three years old. Facebook did not exist (Mark Zuckerberg had not even been accepted into Harvard yet). While it was disappointing and frustrating, they were quick to spot the underlying opportunity. Despite the mad rush in the consumer Internet startup space, no one seemed to have noticed the same problem they had. Houzz’s first users were 20 parents from the school that their kids attended, and a few architects and designers from the Bay Area. At that time, Tatarko was working at an investment firm and juggling the demands of work and home, managing two young children. Cohen was leading teams of developers at eBay. While the early days gave the couple the time to focus on building a great product and user experience, stacking this work onto their full time jobs it was very easy for them to lose work-life balance, and their kids would often notice it. “We sat down as a family and figured out together how we could make things right. Now, we have regular check-ins to assess where we are and adjust as needs change both at work and at home,” says Tatarko. While the personal concerns were being taken care of, challenges on the professional front were increasing. A COMPANY Both Tatarko and Cohen quit their jobs. They also realized more money needed to flow into Houzz if it had to expand. They opted to put in personal money - the idea of approaching venture capitalists was dropped for the time being. Instead, the couple focused on the quality of the services being offered on Houzz and continued bootstrapping in favour of providing jittery homeowners with exactly what they wanted so they could build their dream homes. Turns out a moral call they took years back is one of the major reasons for the success of Houzz today.
	
	
	
	
	<div type="image" title="houzz 1" msid="61055535" hostid="261"></div>











 Tatarko feels proud to share that bootstrapping ended up being one of the best things to have happened to Houzz. “By the time we decided that we should turn Houzz into a company, we already had a product that many people used and loved using. In retrospect, we didn’t realize that what we were doing was bootstrapping but it enabled us to take our time and build the company from the ground up the right way," she says. But not every feature they created was perfect. “For a long time, I asked Alon to kill the ‘Buzz’ section and to launch an 'Ask A Question' section on Houzz instead. He delayed it for a long time as he was working on other site functionalities,” says Tatarko. Alon was the only developer for Houzz at the time. When he eventually flipped the switch on “Ask A Question,” Houzz immediately saw hundreds of questions every day from homeowners accompanied by responses from professionals. “It was a lesson well learnt,” Tatarko says jokingly, adding what Cohen often says about the incident: “Sometimes small changes can have high impact; and sometimes you should listen to your wife.” But for all the focus on user experience and feature improvements, people could still not buy anything on Houzz. MONETIZATION "I remember taking calls to the office from people asking where the ‘Add to Cart’ button was on our site, or whether we could ship a freestanding bathtub they saw in a photo to their home. People saw the green tags we had on photos with product information... but still had to go to many different places to purchase the products they liked.” recalls Tatarko. This burgeoning demand from the fast-expanding community led the couple to introduce a home products marketplace in October 2014. The beta version of the Houzz Marketplace was launched in the U.S.. This closed the loop for people and became their one-stop solution where they could get everything they needed to renovate or design their home in a single place. Meanwhile, money was being poured into Houzz by investors. This had begun in July 2010 with a $2 million investment. By late 2014, Houzz had closed a $165 million Series D round led by Sequoia Capital valuing the company at $2.3 billion. More recently, Houzz raised a $400 million Series E round of funding nudging the valuation up to roughly $4 billion. With funding and revenue came expansion. “The third phase [of Houzz] would be establishing the infrastructure to be a global company and the beginning of monetization. We expanded beyond our small office in Palo Alto to other locations, including our first international office in London,” says Tatarko. They made money mostly through paid listings for local home professionals and service providers, and through the product marketplace. "We are now monetizing in many of the countries where we operate," says Tatarko. In India, however, she says revenue taking off will happen later; right now Houzz is focusing on spreading its wings. SCALE While the deal with Times Bridge was only announced yesterday, Houzz’s footprint in India is a bit older. A million customers and more than 50,000 service providers signed up from India on Houzz even before it was launched in the country. Indians were using the international site to build their brands, collaborate with clients and connect with homeowners globally. The Houzz team then decided to launch a custom site for the Indian market in January this year. 
	
	
	
	
	<div type="image" title="houzz 3" msid="61055512" hostid="261"></div>











 This comes at a time when the Indian home design and decor market is poised to grow from $13 billion in 2010 to over $45 billion by the end of this year. The boom in the residential real estate industry over the last few decades has given impetus to the home decor market. Also driving the growth of this sector is an increased consciousness among homeowners about stylish interiors coupled with the means to actualize that desire. According to National Council of Applied Economic Research, it is estimated that the size of India’s new middle class will run as high as 11.38 million by 2025-26. This year alone, as many as 4,00,000 new homes will be bought across just the major cities and the vast majority of them will need to get their home designed. When it comes to India market competitiveness, Houzz already dominates the online interior design and furnishing space globally and is quick in embracing new technologies to enhance the user experience, something Indian <keyword id="6362513" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Startups">startups</keyword> lack at the moment. “Designs from across Asia are some of the most popular and in-demand styles among the global Houzz community,” says Tatarko. “People are eager to learn from, buy from as well as hire talented Indian professionals. We’re excited to make Indian design and talent even more accessible to Houzz users around the world.” Regarding technology, Houzz came out with the initial version of View in My Room 3D within its iPhone and iPad apps this past May. Users can use it to preview hundreds of thousands of home furniture and decor products from the Houzz Shop in 3D, within their own homes, before buying. Last year, it introduced a deep learning tool to scan more than 15 million retina-quality home photos on Houzz to identify furniture and decor in living spaces and surface visually similar inventory from the Houzz marketplace. It’s also applying deep learning technology to natural language understanding to improve things like search, ads and recommendations. While a few Indian start-ups like Lenskart and Caratlane have invested in Augmented Reality to offer users enhanced experience, the home remodelling and design market in India is slow in adopting newer technologies. “Each market has unique challenges, which is why our focus first and foremost is on tailoring the experience and building our community the right way, based on the needs of the industry in India. This focus on first localizing our platform and building our local content and community is the approach we have taken in every market where we have launched, including the United States, and it’s working,” says Tatarko. But with so much going on, could this new phase of global scaling affect work-life balance again? Not according to Tatarko: family is never going to take a backseat. Whenever the parents get time off, they like to spend it as a weekend away together or just spend quality time at home. They are particularly fond of holidaying in Tel Aviv for its great food, beach, nightlife, culture, architecture and people. As the unlikely Thai bus pair turned Silicon Valley power couple makes mistakes, learns and moves ahead, Tatarko remembers what she said to her husband years ago when they started a life together: "When I married Alon, I told him life with me would be one big, fun, crazy ride. I think it has been! We’ve been together for more than 20 years now and our relationship has only gotten stronger. The truth is, we really enjoy working and building things together.”

You Searched For "lenskart hiring" and got 6 results

Vikas Agnihotri named SB Investment Advisers' operating partner in India

PTI

Mamaearth and MFine-backer Stellaris Venture Partners closes second fund to make bigger bets in existing portfolio and up to 30 new startups

Kritti Bhalla

From Byju’s to Eruditus — India now has four edtech unicorns, thanks to a $4 billion fund flowing in since 2020

Kritti Bhalla

Youtuber Bhuvam Bam is having a wonderful year - from World Economic Forum to Forbes India's 30 under 30 list

Preeti Soni

169 employees of HUL, earn 8-digit salaries a year!

BI India Bureau

The inspiring story of Houzz, a $4 billion Silicon Valley company that wants to remodel India

Anushree Singh