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For a company that started its journey two years back when there was no backpacking culture in India, would it be surprising if we tell you <keyword id="2232457" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Zostel">Zostel</keyword> – the only established hostel chain for travel freaks - is now gung-ho on its plans to move into South East Asian and European markets. They already have one hostel running in <keyword id="13486" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Vietnam">Vietnam</keyword>, and the aim is to run hostels in Barcelona, Puerto and Sri Lanka in the next three months. 
 
It’s not that one doesn’t expect such a mammoth step from a relatively new company present in a space that the Indian market may be not fully prepared for. But it irks a bit to think how Zostel is expanding outside without having made inroads into the Indian market fully. 
 
When it came into the picture in August 2013, Zostel followed an operation heavy model where it would lease properties and run them as its own. In March this year, they shifted to a franchise model. Under what they called <a href="http://www.zostel.com/beyou/">‘Zostel Entrepreneurship Development Programme’</a>, the company invited people who wanted to run their own hostels. It was a one-of-its-kind initiative to aid aspiring entrepreneurs to start their own Zostels with the performance linked seed amount of Rs 10 lakhs. Its funda was simple – “you do the investment and run the property as per Zostel’s specifications, we will take care of your sales, marketing, branding and technology support to help you get backpackers”. In return, it charged 15 per cent commission on each booking made from its platform — both app and website — and a monthly marketing fee. As a part of instilling trust in people, Zostel also decided to go ‘public’ with sensitive information about its business and operations like capital expenditure requirements and breakup of the same on per bed basis for setting up a backpacker hostel, operational expenditure requirements, revenue, expenses and profit margin of the company as well as occupancy in last few months. 
 
 
The offer attracted 2,000 applications from across the world out of which Zostel has decided to go ahead with nearly 60 of them. One was from Vietnam where the company has already begun running its first international hostel in Dalat. Now it has decided to stray into Barcelona, Puerto and Sri Lanka because they received applications from there too. This is not to say that there are no further plans for India though. Only last month, the company announced the launch of four hostels across India in Jaisalmer, Pushkar, Rishikesh and Goa taking its total properties in India to 11. Khajuraho, Jaipur, Mysore, Otty, Manali, Spiti, Leh, Puri, Kochi are many other places that will soon get come under Zostel’s net. 
 
But we still asked if Zostel finds international markets more benefitable than Indian market and whether they feel the home market is not ready for the famous western concept of backpacking yet? One of its co-founder said: “No that’s not that case.” 
 
“When we started out in 2013, 90 percent of our customers were foreigners and 10 per cent were Indians. It’s now 65 per cent foreigners and 30 per cent Indians. So, Zostel created the market that did not exist in India. Yes, we are slightly ahead of the curve and would shape a better market in India in the coming years,” said Akhil Malik. 
 
“We are focusing on growing the Zostel network to 25 properties across national and international destinations by the year end. Our vision is to emerge as the largest youth brand with our footprints all over the globe,” the Zostel Hospitality co-founder said. 
 As it goes big, there is hardly any investment the company is making in marketing. <keyword id="6583342" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="backpackers">Backpackers</keyword> move in groups and are well connected and by giving them good services at affordable rates, Zostel claims, it has been able to come this far. And that’s how it will move forward too. 
 The new Zostel properties are being established under the Zostel <keyword id="107737" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Entrepreneurship">Entrepreneurship</keyword> Development Programme. Currently, over 20,000 backpackers stay in Zostels every month. The company offers travelers rooms (women-only dorm, mixed dorm, private rooms) at budgets of Rs 500 a day, and offer services like laundry, access to internet, library, board games and other interactive facilities. It is in the process of launching a one-of-its-kind backpacker app that will tap into this community to share relevant information for the backpacking ecosystem. 
 
(Image credit: Zostel)

Exclusive: Zostel eyes South East Asia and European markets while expanding in India

<ul><li>WinZo, a vernacular Indian e-sports platforms, just invested $1.5 million to support local game developers in India. </li><li><keyword id="2774534" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Paavan-Nanda">Paavan Nanda</keyword>, former co-founder of <keyword id="2232457" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Zostel">Zostel</keyword>, and <keyword id="3227125" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Saumya-Singh">Saumya Singh</keyword>, a former member of the <keyword id="7888391" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="zorooms">ZORooms</keyword> team, are aiming to make WinZo a ‘household name' by the end of 2020.</li><li>The aim of the investment is to find independent game developers and partner with gaming studios to bring more original gaming content onto the e-sports platform.</li></ul>WinZo, India's largest gaming platform which is available in local languages, announced a $1.5 million fund to support game developers in India's gaming ecosystem. Founded by Paavan Nanda, former co-founder of ZORooms and Zostel, and Saumya Singh, a former member of the ZORooms team, WinZO is aiming to be a ‘household' name in India by the end of 2020 by targeting first time users in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. The Kalaari Capital-backed gaming platform wants to get the best of the talent with its new investment by "supporting and recognizing the small <keyword id="7888389" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="indian-game-developers">Indian game developers</keyword> who are sitting and making games in isolation," Singh told Business Insider India. So far, WinZo has 27 games on their platform — all made by game developers in India — but they're, more or less adaptations of existing games in the market. "Through this fund we are looking to partner with Gaming Studios as well as Independent Game Developers by offering them an infrastructure to develop top quality content and a powerful platform to monetize their games from day 1," adds Nanda. Monetizing gaming "We have a very strong emphasis on ensuring that the cost of developing a game gets compensated either through the platform or through the basic investment done by WinZO when it contracts a developer to make a game exclusively for the platform, " explains Singh. And, any game that gets pulled onto the platform, gets a share of the revenue. And, where does the revenue come from? As much as 20% of the users on WinZO are making their first online payment using the platform. "We aggregate the existing content and add an e-sports real money layer to it, so people are incentivised to make micro payments," says Singh. The incentive of winning combined, gives the user the thrill of playing with real money and WinZO a 10% platform commission.

A new $1.5 million fund is looking for good game developers in India

At a time when the hospitality industry is seeing new online hotel aggregator entrants that are largely focusing on providing standard affordable stay to any traveler, <keyword id="2825269" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Zo-Rooms">ZO Rooms</keyword> is in efforts to cater to various segment of travelers in the country differently based on their specific needs and demands. For backpackers and leisure travelers, there is <keyword id="2232457" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Zostel">Zostel</keyword> (dorm facility) and ZO homes (bed and breakfast facility); for those traveling with family, they have ZO rooms (budget hotels)/ ZO prime (premium 3 star category)/ ZO star (4-star accommodation) depending on the quality of services customers want and the money they are ready to shell out. Then there is what’s called ZO apartments, largely for corporate travelers who stay for longer duration and want their private space for meetings. 
	 
	<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Exclusive-Zostel-eyes-South-East-Asia-and-European-markets-while-expanding-in-India/articleshow/49551763.cms">ALSO READ: Exclusive: Zostel eyes South East Asia and European markets while expanding in India</a>
 

	While their properties Zostel and ZO homes are fresh and new youth-targeted services aimed at breaking the norms of leisure traveling in India, at the same time it’s clear that with ZO Room’s 1,000 properties spread across 50 cities in India already, they are playing it smart. They do not want to lose out on organizing the fragmented market for the traditional, family and corporate traveler. 
 

	“A Zostel caters to backpackers, not corporate or family travelers. These segments want different set of services from what a backpacker would want. So it is essential for us to provide clear and distinguished value proposition for different customers,” says Dharamveer Singh Chauhan, CEO and co-founder, ZO Rooms.
 

	Focused on building these diverse properties, Dharamveer says, the company wants to penetrate everywhere in the country. Currently, ZO Rooms has expanded its network to 11,000 rooms in 1,000 hotels across 50 cities and towns in India. It is targeting 5,000 hotels and 50,000 rooms in the next six months. Where is all the money coming from? 
 For a startup to be able to foray into newer sectors requires backing, and ZO Rooms flaunts of having New York-based investment firm <keyword id="260318" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Tiger-Global-Management">Tiger Global Management</keyword> and venture capital firm Orios Venture Partners behind them. It is reportedly looking to raise $200 million that will help it in raising capital, but Dharamveer refused to confirm the news or comment on it for now. 

	He, however, said that his company has been lucky in attracting investors from the college days when they raised their first round of funding for Zostels. “Ever since, we have got several offers in our journey. We have decided to go ahead with those who share our vision, have relevant experience and understanding of the ecosystem,” Dharamveer said. He feels if startups have a great team and their business is scalable, attracting funds won't be a problem.
 

	At ZO Rooms, meanwhile, efforts are on to upgrade customer services. “You cannot always expect discounts and cashback offers to get more people to stay at your hotels, a method that our competitors have increasingly resorted to. There needs to be real value for customers to opt for you over others. This is why our hotel partners are much more than somebody we are merely giving bookings to. We give them training, provide them with technology support, infrastructure upgradation, vendor collaboration and most importantly, a feedback mechanism system so that customer concerns can be learnt on an ongoing basis and rectified at the earliest,” says Dharamveer.
 

	In this regard, the company also has what it calls ‘ZO advantage program’ using which the hotel staff at different properties are being trained daily via videos. 
 Also, ZO Rooms has partnered with <keyword id="6354720" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ola">Ola</keyword>, <keyword id="1042120" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Uber">Uber</keyword> and <keyword id="830092" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Zomato">Zomato</keyword> in a bid to make the stay experience for customers more seamless. Another crucial area for hotel budget aggregators in enhancing its services is ensuring security. Even as this can prove to be very challenging as they don't own the properties, yet it is imperative to ensure a secure stay for travelers at the same time. ZO Rooms says it has a decent security mechanism in place. Verification is done on every front from customers to hotel partners. Insurances and due licenses are also taken care of by them when they are partnering with hotels. 

	Interestingly, ZO homes, not everyone is entertained. As a security measure, only people who have already stayed at ZO Rooms at least five times are allowed to use the ZO homes category. Also as a concept, this bed and breakfast facility is a western concept just like backpackers. "It’s a fragmented sector," agrees Dharamveer. He feels it will take another five years for bed and breakfast services to emerge in India because trust and security are key essentials here.
 

	As for other ZO properties, the company's aim is to let people travel unplanned with a free mind. 
 

	"Wherever travelers go, they just have to open their apps and easily find ZO properties in the vicinity that match their requirements. That’s the kind of services and level of trust we want to build with our customers. While redefining traveling experience, we are also providing a simple, seamless process of finding, booking and staying at the best customized accommodations for everyone, everywhere,” concludes Dharamveer.

ZO Rooms has a room ‘available’ for every
traveller

<ul><li>On the occasion of women’s day, <keyword id="10924" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ambani">Ambani</keyword> has launched a social media and networking platform for women called Her Circle.</li><li>The platform will also connect women to experts across health, wellness, education, entrepreneurship, finance, philanthropy, mentorship and leadership.</li><li>On her own, Ambani runs multiple other ventures that bring her credibility apart from her family name.</li></ul><keyword id="7024" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Nita-Ambani">Nita Ambani</keyword> has another project in hand. The wife of Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani has gone on to make her name for herself through her various ventures in education, philanthropy, and of course, cricket. On the occasion of women’s day, Ambani has launched a social media and networking platform for women called Her Circle. According to a statement from the company, Her Circle will be a content, social media and goal fulfilment community. “I am delighted that we can create such a circle of support and solidarity for millions of women through HerCircle.in, a digital platform that invites every woman to join and make her own. With the Digital Revolution enabling 24x7 global networking and collaboration, Her Circle welcomes ideas and initiatives of women from all cultures, communities and countries. We make sisterhood and equality our touchpoints on this platform,” she said in a statement. The platform will also connect women to experts across health, wellness, education, entrepreneurship, finance, philanthropy, mentorship and leadership. But Ambani is not new to pulling the strings in business. While she is not actively involved in the running of <keyword id="10926" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Reliance">Reliance</keyword> Industries’ core businesses, Ambani runs multiple other ventures that bring her credibility apart from her family name. Dhirubhai International School Nita Ambani was a school teacher and a dancer before she married Mukesh Ambani. And her love for teaching led her to establish a school in honour of her famous father in law, Dhirubhai Ambani. In 2003, she launched and became the founder and chairperson of Dhirubhai Ambani International School which has two branches in Mumbai. Mumbai Indians Nita Ambani is the co-owner of the Indian Premier League cricket team Mumbai Indians. The team has won the IPL four times and was also the first franchise to cross $100 million in brand value. Ambani is almost always seen at the Mumbai Indian matches, cheering for her team. But she is also involved in managing the team, along with her son Akash. A member of the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art In November 2019, Ambani joined New York’s prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art as an honorary trustee. She will also be a member of The Met's International Council. In 2017, she was honoured by the museum at The Met Winter Party. International Olympic Committee Cricket is not the only sport that Nita Ambani is involved with. In 2017, she was elected as a member of the International Olympic Committee. She is also the founder and chairperson of Football Sports Development, which runs the Indian Super League football tournament. She is also a member of the Olympic Channel, an OTT service which is run by the IOC. <keyword id="6360465" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="reliance-foundation">Reliance Foundation</keyword> Nita Ambani is the chairperson and founder of the philanthropic organisation Reliance Foundation, which is the corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm of the Reliance Industries. In 2019-20, the foundation spent ₹1,022 crore for various initiatives across rural transformation, health, education, sports for development, disaster response, arts, culture and heritage and urban renewal. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/oyo-vs-zo-zostel-claims-victory-while-the-ritesh-agarwal-led-firm-says-theres-still-room-to-win/articleshow/81386851.cms">OYO vs Zo – Zostel claims victory while the Ritesh Agarwal-led firm says there’s still room to win</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/the-510-crore-ipo-of-easemytrip-is-now-open-for-public-subscription-/articleshow/81387576.cms">Here is why analysts maintain a bullish mood for the ₹510 crore IPO of bootstrapped online travel aggregator EaseMyTrip</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-announces-a-series-of-initiatives-on-womens-day/articleshow/81388483.cms">Google announces a series of initiatives on Women’s day – a $25 million fund, support for one million female entrepreneurs in India and a new feature on Google Maps</a>

Nita Ambani’s latest venture is a social media and networking platform for women – here’s a look at the organisations she runs as a part of Asia’s richest family

For startups to grow they must garner funds from investors; and to gather funds, startups need to have a robust product-market fit along with a promising team and a solid business plan with the potential to scale. Then comes the role of angel investors and <keyword id="6357097" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="venture-capital">Venture Capital</keyword> (VC) <keyword id="6357455" type="EVENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="Funding">funding</keyword> that usually surfaces when larger amounts are required to grow a business. 
 Lately, major <keyword id="982553" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Indian-startups">Indian startups</keyword> have seen a tremendous boost from venture capitalists. To start with, we saw how Tiger Global Management, Softbank Corp., Morgan Stanley, Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, IDG Ventures India and SAIF Partners managed to support promising Indian startups like that of Flipkart, Snapdeal, Ola, Zomato, ShopClues, Urban Ladder and many others. Moreover, it is not only the bigger firms who are eyeing VC funds, relatively younger and smaller firms like OYO Rooms, Swiggy and Grofers have also joined the race. 
 Apart from ruling the e-commerce and fashion industry, <keyword id="153868" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="VC-funding">VC funding</keyword> is now gradually moving into other sectors too, such as agriculture, healthcare and education. As per the data from the upcoming Wharton India Economic Forum (WIEF), which is all set to launch the Wharton India Startup Competition (WISC) with over 500 entries, though majority of applicants (around 25%) belong to the e-commerce industry, the healthcare segment is not far away with around 22% applicants. Moreover, most of the participating startups already have pre-seeded and seeded funding arrangements and around 31% of them have listed themselves as social enterprises. 
 
The ecosystem for VC funding for Indian startups would be discussed at length at the Wharton India Economic Forum (WIEF). WIEF is a two-day event starting from January 6, 2017, which will bring together the best entrepreneurs, investors, distinguished Wharton faculty, students and inspirational speakers. Attendees will not only have numerous opportunities for interaction and networking across the board but will also witness in-depth discussions in terms of understanding the evolving business landscape in India and the need for business model innovation from the government, various industry leaders, and distinguished Wharton faculty. 
 
The relevance of this summit doesn’t end there. It is also known for hosting the Wharton India Startup Competition (WISC) which is giving Indian startups the opportunity to present themselves in front of an esteemed panel of judges and also win cash prizes of over $25,000 and unparalleled mentorship of up to 4 months from some of the most renowned names in the industry on strategy and funding. The jury for WISC comprises top-notch personalities with the likes of Bharati Jacob (Co-founder of Seedfund), Nipun Mehra (Investor at Sequoia Capital India), Rehan Yar Khan (Managing Partner of Orios Venture Partners), Tarun Davda (Managing Director of Matrix Partners), Aditya Nair (Investor at Nyca Partners), Ajay Hattangdi (CEO India &amp; Group COO of InnoVen Capital Group), Ankit Shah (Vice President at Unilazer Ventures), Sameer Verma (Director &amp; Junior Partner of Nexus Venture Partners), Saurabh Joshi (Strategy Manager at PayPal) and Shantanu Gangal (Head – Analytics at Fundbox). Also, past finalists of this prestigious event includes names such as Ketto, Haptik, Zoomcar, Zostel, Targeting Mantra, Qlicket, Samaan and Ambitioni. 
 
Needless to say, such competitions and summits go a long way in not only promoting upcoming startups but also in educating the audience and the participants regarding the funding scenario. Not many seem to be aware about the types and rounds of funding, the know-how of VC funding and even the right way to go about securing such funds, hence this is surely going to be one the most-sought after events at the start of the next year. 
 
(Image Credits: Thinkstock) 
 
(About the Author: This article has been authored by Aman Jain, Chairperson WIEF 2017)

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