Tag: bangalore startups

MyCaptain: Shaping Future Innovators with Skill Development

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.

As a teenager, discovering and following your passion is difficult in India as neither the education system offers ample time, relevant knowledge, and the right motivation nor the society supports it. We are judged based on our ability to memorize content and attend classes. This is one of the core problems in EdTech that Zeeshan and the team are trying to solve through MyCaptain. Climber Knowledge and Careers Pvt Ltd is the Parent Company of MyCaptain.

MyCaptain is an online mentoring platform where, young achievers from across the globe, mentor school and college students in their fields of interest and passions. Read this article to learn more about MyCaptain company, products, shareholders, revenue model, business model, growth, founders, challenges, achievements, and future plans.

MyCaptain Company Details

Startup Name	MyCaptain
Headquarter	Bengaluru, India
Sector	Edtech
Founders	Mohammed Zeeshan, Sameer Ramesh, Ruhan Naqash, Fatema Hussein
Founded	2013
Parent Organization	Climber Knowledge and Careers pvt ltd
Website	mycaptain.in

About MyCaptain Company and How it Works
MyCaptain – Industry
MyCaptain – Founders and Team
MyCaptain – Startup Story
MyCaptain – Products and Courses
MyCaptain – Name, Tagline, and Logo
MyCaptain – Startup Launch
MyCaptain – User Acquisition and Growth
MyCaptain – Business Model and Revenue Model
MyCaptain – Financials
MyCaptain – Funding
MyCaptain – Shareholding
MyCaptain – Challenges Faced
MyCaptain – Advisors and Mentors
MyCaptain – Recognition and Achievements
MyCaptain – Future Plans

Learn online with MyCaptain

About MyCaptain Company and How it Works

MyCaptain is an online platform where you can learn what you love, live, and online with young Professionals. The MyCaptain team believes that students need to be able to make informed career choices and they envision enabling a societal mindset shift when it comes to different offbeat and traditional careers in the country, and eventually the World.

The Core belief of the team behind running MyCaptain is that everyone deserves to explore the magic of all the professional fields and potential careers out there.

Mentors conduct one-month-long online, live workshops for students to help them learn the basics and get an idea about career opportunities in their interest field.

The regular online sessions are one-to-many, but separate one-to-one sessions can be scheduled in case of extra queries. Any such extra session is free, and students can discuss their questions even after the program is over.

MyCaptain – Industry

In 2022, the global education market was estimated to generate $5.76 billion in revenue. By 2029, it is expected to grow to $11.83 billion. The Indian education industry is currently worth around $117 billion and is expected to grow to $225 billion by FY25. The K-12 segment plays a major role, contributing approximately $48.9 billion. Meanwhile, India’s EdTech sector is booming, with several startups reaching unicorn status.

MyCaptain – Founders and Team

Mohammed Zeeshan (CEO and Co-Founder), Sameer Ramesh (CPO and Co-Founder), Ruhan Naqash (CMO and Co-founder), and Fatema Hussein co-founded MyCaptain in 2013.

Zeeshan was Sameer’s school friend back from Nagpur and had shared a common interest in sports, music, and the desire to impact people around them. Zeeshan met Ruhan while in College (SRM University), while one was pursuing mechanical engineering and the other Electronics and communication. Sameer was pursuing a B.E in Industrial Engineering & Diploma in Experiential Education. The trio eventually decided to come together and build MyCaptain.

The current company size is 170 people, and the average age of all the team members is 23. The founders are the oldest (26, 25, 25). The company’s culture is that of ambition, perseverance, and celebrating achievements.

They also believe in being the most caring when it comes to their customers (mentees). The startup hires young people because they believe that the problems of the young generation can only be solved by young people. More recently, to further scale, they have been recruiting more experienced people who have the vigor for education and want to make a change.

MyCaptain – Startup Story

The idea of MyCaptain was born out of a hostel room discussion. Zeeshan (CEO and Co-Founder) wanted to become an Astronomer, Sameer (Co-Founder) wanted to become a Tech blogger and Ruhan (Co-Founder) wanted to become a Writer. But when they approached their parents for the same, they were met with criticism, and cynicism and eventually all three ended up studying Engineering, a subject they were never passionate about.

While in college they met amazing potential filmmakers, designers, developers, photographers, models, and whatnot, but unfortunately they all were studying subjects they had no interest in. This led the founders to believe that the problem of making uninformed career choices or not being able to follow their passions was a problem that their entire generation faced.

They launched MyCaptain in 2015, after trying out a lot of models and learning modules. They even validated their ideas by conducting offline boot camps and workshops and slowly moved them online. This is how MyCaptain began, where students could learn whatever they loved, Live and Online with young professionals.

The initial people that they talked to about their company were their target audience i.e. college students, and their parents. And everyone they talked to, said the same thing: “I wish I had something like this right now/when I was in college”.

MyCaptain – Products and Courses

Mycaptain Course Enrollment — MyCaptain Course Enrollment

MyCaptain is an Online app (and web app), where they conduct 4-week learning journeys for students in fields right from stand-up comedy to Machine learning. The 4-week learning journeys consist of International level and relatable content (both video and text), amazing projects, and exciting Live Video Classes with Young professionals and Achievers from these fields.

Each program is designed in a way that by the end of the program, the student has something tangible – Like the students from the MyCaptain novel-writing program have the first chapter of their novel ready and edited by the end of the program. The students from the MyCaptain web development program have their first website ready and so on.

The company offers skill-based courses, advanced courses to get a job, and a lot of content on your interest. An Overview of MyCaptain Courses is as follows:

Business	Visual Arts	Creatives & Literature	Technology
Entrepreneurship & Advanced	Photography	Psychology	AI
Marketing and Advertising	Graphic Design	Journalism & Media Studies	C Programming
Digital Marketing	Short Film Making	Spoken Word Poetry	Andorid App Development
Stock Market and Finance	UI & UX Design	Content Writing & Blogging	CPP Programming
Business Communication	Fashion Design	Novel & Creative Writing	Python & Java Programming
Business Analytics	Illustrations & Doodling	Music Production	Full Stack Development
Event Management		Social Media Content Creation	Data Analytics with Python
Search Engine Optimization		Humor & Standup Comedy Writing

The problem that this solves is it gives the students a kickstart into their field of passion by not only helping them build something tangible in the field but also connecting them with the right mentors to get guided and get a real-life experience of the field as well.

Initially, they launched a magazine called Inking Pages back in 2013 – 2014, which was written by college students pursuing various degrees in different colleges and was meant for school students to make a more informed career choice. However, they had failed to realize that online content consumption was way higher than print. But to be able to conduct online programs, the team needed experience in creating great learning experiences. So they started with offline boot camps and eventually moved to online programs.

In August 2020, MyCaptain announced the ‘Freemium’ version of its mobile application and website. This will allow its users to take Free Live Sessions, micro-courses, and demo classes covering 40+ Potential careers and subjects, such as Photography, App Development, and Music Production to name a few.

With 100,000+ paid users in 2020, MyCaptain wanted to go the extra mile by providing a platform to each and every individual who wishes to explore their passion, which will help them evolve in their career as well as personal lives. In this endeavor, the company decided to launch an unpaid version of its Live Online Courses for the first time ever.

MyCaptain – Name, Tagline, and Logo

MyCaptain Logo

On a train journey for a B Plan competition back in 2014, when the founders were still in college, they decided to watch a movie called “Dead Poets’ Society”. The movie in their head changed the role of a teacher and how it should evolve with time and also featured the famous poem “O Captain My Captain” by Walt Whitman. This was a turning point for them as they understood how Education and learning were not just about textbooks, videos, or lectures and had a deeper reliance on human relationships, and mentoring as well!

The tagline for MyCaptain is “Learn what you love”. It clearly talks about their culture and vision as an organization.

“We want to facilitate your learning and professional development in the field that you truly love! The logo has a hand in it, which is a symbol of being offbeat, and breaking the norms for us. We are perceived by our stakeholders, and mentees as a revolution.”, said Ruhan Naqash, co-founder of MyCaptain.

MyCaptain – Startup Launch

In February 2015, just a month after the founders formally launched MyCaptain, there was a Fest at SRM University (Zeeshan and Ruhan’s College). The team put up a stall there, with only 4 programs under their belt at that time – Entrepreneurship, creative writing, Ethical Hacking, and Astronomy. They saw a whopping 192 people pay upfront for these programs on the very first day of the Fest. This led to them having a strong belief that this product was something people wanted and it solved a real solution.

They started mentoring by delivering live online sessions on the free version of WizIQ (an E-learning delivery platform) and used WhatsApp groups to communicate and interact with the mentees. They used to share videos and other such learning materials via Google Drive.

MyCaptain has evolved over two years, and now they use their platform with a lot more added features and customization that suit the needs of mentees for the live sessions.

MyCaptain – User Acquisition and Growth

Mycaptain Customer Acquisition — MyCaptain Customer Acquisition

MyCaptain has a very strong presence in colleges and runs arguably India’s largest Campus Ambassador Program with more than 600-800 active campus ambassadors every month. Their marketing campaigns inside colleges, where their tone has been brash (for example “Has your professor ever built an app? Our mentors have! Learn App development with us”) have gone viral within campuses.

This has led to conversion rates of 20-25% on the potential leads that they generate from these campuses. The startup has scaled to more than paid mentees so far through their Campus Ambassador Model, and a strong online advertising strategy.

MyCaptain runs operations all across India and has its headquarters in Bangalore. Their revenue in the financial year 2021 was south of 1 Million dollars and has had a paid user base of 80,000+ which is equivalent to highly funded companies like Unacademy and Vedantu from the Education sector. All of this is completely bootstrapped without raising a single penny. Their NPS is above 50+ which is one of the highest for Education products all across the World.

MyCaptain also raised funding of $3 million in order to further scale course offerings, acquire more users, increase revenue, and grow the team.

MyCaptain – Business Model and Revenue Model

MyCaptain has been generating revenue and is profitable right from the first day. Students pay 1,000 rupees for a month-long workshop. Mentors get a part of this amount, and the company gets the rest.

The rest of the compensation for mentors happens by helping them get mentors for their research or work. They are also given LORs, and the startup even helps them get funds for their research or startup.

An example of one such event is the ‘Indian Youth Conclave‘ which consists of sessions that help students gain useful insights into their field of interest. The event spans over a couple of days and covers topics from various domains.

Mycaptain Course Revenue Split — MyCaptain Course Revenue Split

MyCaptain – Financials

MyCaptain has experienced fluctuations in its financial performance over the past few years. The company has shown revenue growth but has also faced increasing expenses, leading to sustained losses.

Particulars	FY23	FY22	FY21	FY20
Revenue	INR 17.3 crore	INR 12.4 crore	INR 10.9 crore	INR 4.9 crore
Expenses	INR 38.3 crore	INR 19.9 crore	INR 11.5 crore	INR 4.7 crore
Profit/(Loss)	INR -21 crore	INR -7.4 crore	INR -0.6 crore	INR 0.2 crore

Mycaptain Financials — MyCaptain Financials

MyCaptain Revenue:

The company has seen a strong revenue increase, growing from INR 12.4 crore in FY22 to INR 17.3 crore in FY23.

Revenue Breakdown	FY23	FY22
Revenue from Operations	INR 17 crore	INR 12.3 crore
Other Income	INR 0.3 crore	INR 0.2 crore

MyCaptain Profit/Loss:

MyCaptain’s losses widened from INR 7.4 crore in FY22 to INR 21 crore in FY23, primarily due to higher expenses.

MyCaptain Expenses:

Expenses more than doubled from INR 19.9 crore in FY22 to INR 38.3 crore in FY23, driven by increased employee costs and other expenses.

Expense Breakdown	FY23	FY22
Employee Benefit Expense	INR 17.3 crore	INR 10.5 crore
Finance Cost	INR 0.8 crore	INR 0.2 crore
Depreciation & Amortisation	INR 0.2 crore	INR 0.1 crore
Other Expenses	INR 20 crore	INR 8.2 crore

Quick Summary:

Revenue Growth: Increased by INR 4.9 crore (from INR 12.4 crore in FY22 to INR 17.3 crore in FY23).
Higher Expenses: More than doubled, increasing by INR 18.4 crore (from INR 19.9 crore in FY22 to INR 38.3 crore in FY23).
Losses Widened: Increased from INR 7.4 crore to INR 21 crore due to higher operational costs.
Major Expense Contributors: Employee benefits and other expenses saw significant rises.

MyCaptain – Funding

The education technology start-up secured INR 14 crore in funding from angel investing platform Inflection Point Ventures, along with MyNavi, Piper Serica, Super Capital, and Ankur Capital in March 2024. MyCaptain has raised $4.7 million in a total of 2 funding rounds.

Date	Stage	Amount	Investors
March 2024	Seed Round	INR 14 crores	Inflection Point Ventures, MyNavi, Piper Serica, Super Capital and Ankur Capital
January 2022	Series A	$3 Million	Ankur Capital, Inflection Point Ventures, Firstport Ventures, IIM Calcutta Angels Network, and Singapore Angel Investors

MyCaptain – Shareholding

MyCaptain’s shareholding pattern as of April 2024, sourced from Tracxn:

MyCaptain Shareholders	Percentage
Mohammed Zeeshan	26.6%
Sameer Ramesh	17.7%
Ruhan Naqash	8.2%
Ankur Capital	14.7%
Piper Serica	4.3%
Beacon Trusteeship	2.9%
Starfresh Ventures	0.3%
Inflection Point Ventures	0.3%
Mintosh	< 0.1%
Leadway Ventures	0.2%
Mynavi	4.5%
Roundtable My Captain	1.1%
ZoomIn	< 0.1%
DRS Dilip Roadlines	< 0.1%
Rj Estates	–
Angel	11.0%
Other People	1.8%
ESOP Pool	6.1%
Total	100.00%

Mycaptain Shareholding — MyCaptain Shareholding

MyCaptain – Challenges Faced

One major challenge was faced when the founders went bankrupt and were in heavy debt before starting MyCaptain as their magazine didn’t take off.

At the end of 2014, they had subscribers for their magazine but did not have the resources to cater to them. They were liable to print 12 more issues of the magazine, but the founders didn’t have the funds to do so and were in debt of around 2.5L.

The idea of MyCaptain was born during this phase. The revenue from the first few months of starting the company helped them clear the debt.

Another challenge MyCaptain faced in the very initial days (5 years ago) was acquiring mentors when their credibility was low. This was overcome at the time, after the IIM Bangalore incubation, that the founders got right after college. They also used a strong network effect of vetting and referral from their then-mentor pool. Right now MyCaptain has a pool of 250+ mentors.

MyCaptain – Advisors and Mentors

The company’s chief advisor has been Mr. Naga Raja Prakasham who is an investor and also a startup mentor at IIM Bangalore. His advice has been very precious for them.

MyCaptain – Recognition and Achievements

MyCaptain was incubated at NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore in 2016.
SDSN awarded MyCaptain as one of the top 50 youth-led solutions in the world working towards Quality education and Decent economic growth and work.

MyCaptain – Future Plans

MyCaptain plans to expand into new cities, set up regional sales centers, and introduce more courses, including placement readiness programs in content, design, visual arts, finance, and business. Additionally, it aims to build a full-stack career platform to help early professionals discover their passions, develop practical skills, and secure empowering jobs. MyCaptain targets over 50,000 yearly enrollments and aims to reach Rs 100 crore in bookings by FY 2025-26.

FAQs

What is MyCaptain?

MyCaptain is an online mentoring platform based in Bangalore where young achievers across the globe can mentor school and college students in their fields of interest and passions.

Who is MyCaptain Founder?

Mohammed Zeeshan, Sameer Ramesh, Ruhan Naqash, and Fatema Hussein are the co-founders of MyCaptain.

When was MyCaptain founded?

MyCaptain was founded in 2013.

What are MyCaptain Courses?

MyCaptain offers various Courses in several fields:

Business (Entrepreneurship, SEO, Business Analytics, etc.)
Visual Arts (Photography, Short film making, Fashion design, etc.)
Creatives (Creative/Novel/Humour/Content Writing, Journalism, etc.)
Technology (Web Programming, Full Stack Development, Java/C/Python, etc.)

Who are the competitors of MyCaptain?

Some top competitors of MyCaptain are:

Coursera
upGrad
Udemy
Udacity
Edureka
Simplilearn
Imarticus Learning

March 7, 2025

Yulu: Environmentally Viable Mode of Transportation for the Last Mile

A good transportation system is a must for the development of any country. However, most of the modes of transportation we are using today are damaging our environment and causing severe air pollution. Air Pollution has become a matter of serious concern in most of the cities of India, and our country is unfortunately home to 8 of the world’s 15 most polluted cities as of 2023.

Wikipedia says that Air pollution contributes to the premature deaths of 2 million Indians every year. Emissions from vehicles being one of the major contributors to air pollution, it has become necessary to move towards environmentally viable modes of transportation.

In addressing these issues, Yulu has come up with a perfect solution. Yulu caters to urban mobility, and its products are super comfortable and ergonomically designed to facilitate the easy shift from conventional vehicles.

With time, Yulu has grown to become a movement because it is solving the complex problem of first- and last-mile connectivity while also helping alleviate the challenges of congestion and air pollution.

Know more about Yulu, its founders, business model, revenue model, funding, and more.

Yulu – Company Highlights

STARTUP NAME	YULU
Headquarters	Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Sector	Travel & Transportation, Electric Vehicles
Founders	Amit Gupta, Naveen Dhachuri, RK Misra, and Hemant Gupta
Founded	2017
Website	yulu.bike

Yulu – About
Yulu – How it Works?
Yulu – Industry
Yulu – Founders and Team
Yulu – Startup Story
Yulu – Mission and Vision
Yulu – Name and Logo
Yulu – Business Model
Yulu – Revenue Model
Yulu – User Acquisition
Yulu – Startup Challenges
Yulu – Funding and Investors
Yulu – Shareholding
Yulu – Growth
Yulu – Financials
Yulu – Awards
Yulu – Competitors
Yulu – Future Plans

Yulu – About

Yulu is a technology-driven mobility platform to enable Integrated Urban Mobility across public and private modes of transport. Using Micro Mobility Vehicles (MMV) through a user-friendly mobile app, Yulu provides a seamless, shared, and sustainable first- and last-mile connectivity. The Yulu platform is simple, robust, scalable, supports multiple vehicles, and uses a common information model.

Yulu – How it Works?

Yulu uses IoT, Machine learning & AI and Cloud computing to deliver a seamless experience via a user-friendly app. Using IoT as the backbone of the operation, their dock-less vehicles can be rented seamlessly on a pay-per-use basis. Users can book a ride via the iOS or Android app and the smart bikes can be unlocked via QR codes.

After running the service with bicycles and understanding the need of the market, they decided to add electric mobility to their service. Looking at the gap in the market, they decided to design “Yulu Miracle” which is a unique battery operated, lightweight, easy to ride, small 2 wheeler.

Yulu Miracle has a maximum speed of 25 kmph and it comes under the exempted category where there is no requirement for a driving license or helmet. It has been enabling individuals to take eco-friendly rides at pocket-friendly prices and reduce their carbon footprint. Yulu Miracle is using swappable lithium-ion battery and has developed highly scalable networking of charging stations.

Yulu provides an eco-friendly UMaaS (Urban Mobility as a Service) which is an affordable and scalable solution for the first and last-mile commute options for citizens. Their vehicles are designed for shared micro-mobility for Indian climatic and road conditions.

Technology is at the core of Yulu, as they are harnessing technology to solve complex urban mobility problems using unique and smart vehicles. Their belief in data-driven business has led them to develop ML/AI models powered by data gathered from Users/IoT devices to provide a better user experience and increase operational efficiency.

Yulu – Industry

As per the analysis from Fortune Business Insights, the electric vehicle market in India is on a robust trajectory, projected to surge from $3.21 billion in 2022 to an impressive $113.99 billion by 2029. This substantial growth reflects a remarkable Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 66.52% during the forecast period of 2022-2029.

The comprehensive report underscores the significant expansion and potential of the Indian electric vehicle market, driven by a confluence of factors such as technological advancements, government initiatives, and a growing shift towards sustainable transportation solutions.

Yulu – Founders and Team

Hemant Gupta, Amit Gupta, RK Misra & Naveen Dachuri are the Co-Founders of Yulu.

Amit Gupta, – Co-Founder and CEO, Yulu

Amit graduated from IIT Kanpur and received the prestigious Distinguished Alumni Award from the institution. Amit formerly co-founded the profitable, billion-dollar startup InMobi. Amit played an instrumental role in building InMobi’s revenue engine and its expansion into 15+ countries.

Prior to starting Yulu, Amit built a new business unit for InMobi that created massive value for Telecom Operators and Smartphone manufacturers. Amit comes with experience in scaling up and building businesses from scratch.

RK Misra, Co-Founder, Yulu

He founded and successfully exited Tenet Technologies and Traveljini, after which he decided to leave the corporate world to engage with issues of Public Policy and Governance.

RK is associated with several organizations like Carnegie India, Center for Smart Cities (Founder), SAHYOG (Founder), and Karnataka CM’s Vision Group. He did his graduation from IIT Kanpur and a master’s from Tokyo University.

Naveen Dachuri, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Yulu

He played a leadership role at Ascent Consulting, where he architected and implemented a complex analytics platform for US Federal Aviation Administration from the ground up.

Prior to that, he was Technical Director for Data Analytics at BIAS Corporation. He also co-founded Learnora, an online educational platform. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from IIT Kanpur and a Master’s degree in Computer Graphics from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea (GIST).

Hemant Gupta, Ex-Co-Founder and Ex-Chief of Operations (COO), Yulu

After his MBA from Symbiosis, Pune, Hemant joined A.P. Moller- Maersk as part of their highly acclaimed global talent management program. After achieving global recognition in Maersk for his stellar performance, he moved to The Netherlands.

In his professional journey, Hemant has delivered impressive results across the various management roles he has held in logistics and supply chains. Hemant is passionate about traveling, the tech domain, and some other habits he picked up in the Netherlands, like fitness and biking!. However, he left the organization in October 2022.

Yulu – Startup Story

The vision to do something for creating a bigger impact on society was the start-off point for the founding team of Yulu. Traffic congestion and air pollution were the problems which gained their attention, and thus, they built Yulu, focusing on solving urban mobility problems and addressing the rising air pollution and traffic congestion issues.

It is the only company in the country in the micro-mobility segment operating with swappable battery solutions for EVs. They have embarked on a journey with multiple hardware innovations, ranging from unique battery charging stations to developing various ML/AI models, IoT devices, etc.

As a pioneer in this space, Yulu company has influenced several policies for sustainable mobility in India. The Yulu team has built a technology platform focused on micro-mobility and is harnessing technology to solve complex urban mobility problems using its unique and smart vehicles.

Yulu – Mission and Vision

The mission on the company’s website states, “Yulu’s mission is to make urban mobility in India seamless, shareable and sustainable.”

Yulu’s vision is to “lessen traffic congestion by offering a first mile, last mile, and short-distance commuters a scalable, reasonably priced, effective, and clean alternative.”

Yulu – Name and Logo

Yulu Logo

Yulu’s parent company is Yulu Bikes Pvt. Ltd.

Yulu – Business Model

Using a business-to-consumer business model, Yulu transforms urban mobility in Bengaluru with its human-driven and battery-powered vehicles. Yulu offers a quick and easy substitute for those who are tired of paying hefty taxi fares and cramming buses.

The service facilitates easy and efficient travel to major places by providing a quick and economical way to get there. Yulu’s business concept strives to improve the overall commuter experience by seamlessly merging human-centric and electric cars, offering a workable option for time-sensitive trips in metropolitan contexts.

Yulu – Revenue Model

Yulu generates revenue from different resources; some of the prominent ones are listed below:

Fare Collection: Charging fares for rental rides is the main source of income. The high usage volume greatly increases revenue, even when the fares are reasonable.
Deposit for Security: Charging fares for rental rides is the main source of income. The high usage volume greatly increases revenue, even when the fares are reasonable.
Revenue from Advertising: Yulu takes security deposits, which differ for bicycles and miraculous bikes. This enhances the total income model significantly in addition to acting as a safeguard for the assets.

Yulu – User Acquisition

The Yulu team has utilised word of mouth marketing for their initial market reach. Nevertheless, the unique design of the products created an inquisitiveness to try the product once!

They have acquired more than 2.5 million customers with zero user acquisition cost; it’s the uniqueness of the products which helped them in acquiring the customers along with solving the pain points of first and last connectivity for the customers.

Yulu is changing the way Indians are moving in big cities. They believe Electric Vehicles are the future of mobility, for known reasons like good quality of air and their vehicles are setting the trend for EV adoption in the big cities of India.

Yulu – Challenges Faced

Yulu faces two primary challenges in introducing its concept in India, the first being the need to shift people’s mindsets and the second requiring ecosystem partners to align their thinking. Fortunately, early indicators show positive signs of changing attitudes and adoption. Over the past three years, there has been a noticeable uptick in the trend of cycling, with examples ranging from CEOs to individual employees opting for eco-friendly modes of transport to work.

This shift is driven by increased awareness of air quality issues and a collective desire to reduce carbon emissions from traditional fuel-based vehicles. The Yulu team remains optimistic that, with collaborative efforts from government agencies and private organizations, they can contribute significantly to making Indian cities pollution-free.

The difficulties encountered during the Covid-19 lockdown highlighted the vital role played by Yulu e-Bikes in Bangalore as the only vehicles on the road, guaranteeing the transportation of necessities to families in a country at a halt. Although there is hope for India’s progressive EV legislation and acknowledgement of the sizeable EV market in the country, there were clear industry hurdles.

It was noted that selecting the appropriate product is crucial when switching from gas-powered to electric automobiles. In particular, given the continued difficulties in the industry, it was emphasized that the government must give shared mobility and gig economy workers top priority in order to promote widespread adoption.

Yulu – Funding and Investors

Yuly has raised $137.5 million in nine rounds of funding.

Below are the funding details for Yulu.

Date	Stage	Amount	Lead Investors
Feb 23, 2024	Series B	$19.25 million	–
Jan 13, 2024	Debt Financing	IDR250 million	Northern Arc
Nov 14, 2022	Debt Financing	$9 million	U.S. International Development Finance Corp
Sep 12, 2022	Series B	–	Magna International
Dec 9, 2021	Debt Financing	$7 million	Magna International
Jun 22, 2020	Series A	$3.9 million	Rocketship.vc
Feb 4, 2020	Series A	$1 million	–
Nov 26, 2019	Series A	$8 million	Bajaj Auto Finance
Jul 23, 2018	Seed Round	$7 million	–

Yulu – Shareholding

Yulu’s shareholding pattern as of February 2024, sourced from Tracxn:

Yulu Shareholders	Percentage
Amit Gupta	13.9%
Naveen Dachuri	7.0%
Hemant Gupta	7.0%
R K Misra	7.0%
Rocketship	2.6%
3one4 Capital	2.5%
Blume Ventures	2.6%
Wavemaker Partners	1.0%
Angel List	0.6%
Akatsuki	0.4%
Tracxn Labs	0.4%
Incubate Fund India	0.3%
Amit and Shilpa Singhal Living Trust	0.2%
Patni Financial Advisors	0.1%
Firebolt Ventures	<0.1%
Bajaj Auto	18.8%
Magna	18.6%
Shangrila Infotech	0.1%
Blackgold Services	<0.1%
Aurora Enterprise	<0.1%
MJF	<0.1%
Angel	9.8%
ESOP Pool	6.8%
Total	100.0%

Yulu – Growth

Yulu growth highlights are mentioned below:

Yulu has covered 385 million km as of February 2024.
It has saved 20 million kg of CO2 as of January 2024.
It has completed 80 million+ rides as of January 2024.
It has swapped 10 million plus batteries as of January 2024.
The company has 30k EVs on the road as of January 2024.

Yulu – Financials

Yulu Financials	FY23	FY22
Operating Revenue	INR 41.7 crore	INR 29 crore
Total Expenses	INR 140.1 crore	INR 87.30 crore
Cost of Operations	INR 31.9 croree	INR 12.7 crore
Employee Benefit Expenses	INR 67.5 crore	INR 43.10 crore
Profit/Loss	INR -94.9 crore	INR -55.50 crore

In FY23, Yulu’s revenue increased to INR 41.7 crore from INR 29 crore in FY22. However, total expenses also rose to INR 140.1 crore from INR 87.3 crore. The cost of operations grew to INR 31.9 crore from INR 12.7 crore in FY22, and employee benefit expenses rose to INR 67.5 crorein FY23 from INR 43.1 crore. As a result, losses widened to INR 94.9 crore from INR 55.5 crore in the previous year.

Yulu – Awards

Yulu has won various awards; some of the most prominent one are listed below.

Yulu Wins 2021’s StartUp Awards’ Best Smart City Solution Startup
Yulu Won The Most Esteemed Award in India for the Software Product Sector! in 2020!
Emerging Startup of the Year by Entrepreneur India in 2019
Yulu won Coolest Startup of the Year by Business Today in 2019.
Yulu won the Cypher Great Learning Data Science Awards 2019 for AI implementation in mobility.
Yulu won Most Innovative Startup by Inc42 in 2018.

Yulu – Competitors

Yulu’s competitors in the shared electric mobility sector include Zypp Electric, EVeez, Hala, Fullfily, ONN, VA-YU, Exa Ride, and GoFuel.

Yulu – Future Plans

Yulu company has reached an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $30 million as of September 2024, growing its user base and revenue 7x in the last two years. With a $100 million Series C funding, it aims to deploy 100,000 EVs on the roads in 2025, expanding its presence in Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai.

With its sights set on seven more major Indian metropolises, Yulu, the shared electric car mobility platform already functioning in its hometown as well as Delhi and Mumbai, is ready for an expansion phase. The platform aggressively investigates possible third-party collaborations to deliver micro-mobility services in tier 2 and tier 3 cities and villages, demonstrating its ambitious intentions that go beyond urban centers.

This calculated action demonstrates Yulu’s dedication to promoting accessible and sustainable mobility options in a wider range of settings, supporting the expansion of eco-friendly mobility choices in various urban and semi-urban environments.

FAQs

What is Yulu?

Yulu is a technology-driven mobility platform to enable Integrated Urban Mobility across public and private modes of transport. It offers Yulu Miracle and Yulu Move

Who are Yulu founders?

Hemant Gupta, Amit Gupta, RK Misra & Naveen Dachuri are Yulu owners.

What is Yulu business model?

Yulu operates on a rental and subscription model, offering electric two-wheelers for short-distance travel. It earns revenue through ride fees, subscriptions, and fleet partnerships.

Can I drop Yulu anywhere?

After the use, the rider can park the cycle in the dedicated cycle space.

What is Yulu revenue?

In FY23, Yulu’s revenue increased to INR 41.7 crore from INR 29 crore in FY22

Does Yulu require helmet?

Meant for one commuter, Yulu scooters have a 48-volt motor controller, a maximum speed of 25 km per hour, and require no licence or helmet for usage.

Which is Yulu parent company?

Yulu Bikes Pvt. is the parent company of Yulu.

Is Yulu an Indian company?

Yes, Yulu is an Indian company founded by Hemant Gupta, Amit Gupta, RK Misra & Naveen Dachuri.

Is Yulu available in Mumbai?

Yulu was launched in Bangalore and is now available in Mumbai, Pune, Bhubaneswar, and Delhi.

Is Yulu profitable?

Yulu is EBITDA profitable and is aiming for IPO by 2027.

February 12, 2025

Café Coffee Day (CCD) Case Study

Café Coffee Day, popularly known as CCD, is not only a coffeehouse for the individuals of India but has become India’s favorite place for coffee and conversations today. Founded in 1996, the Bengaluru-based Indian multinational chain of coffeehouses has emerged to be one of the favorite haunts of the millennial and the Gen Z group within a short time.

CCD had served over 1.6 billion cups of coffee annually in six countries when it discovered that it was on the brink of bankruptcy. This is why it decided to shut down its operations outside India. It was present in a list of countries — Austria, Czech Republic, Malaysia, Nepal, and Egypt before this decision.

The first Café Coffee Day outlet was set up by CCD owner V. G. Siddhartha on July 11, 1996, in Bangalore, Karnataka, with the slogan’ A big deal can occur over some espresso’.

Café Coffee Day quickly extended through the urban areas in India, including new stores with more than 2000 bistros opened all over the nation by 2016. In a range of 20 years, CCD has blended its approach to progress, with the fame and cherish it has reaped.

History of Cafe Coffee Day
How CCD Started the Journey?
Mounting Debts and Controversies
The Missing of the Founder of CCD and his Death
Cafe Coffee Day Business Plan And Marketing
The Present Day CCD
Achievements of CCD

History of CCD

The history of Café Coffee Day lies in its origins as a pioneering Indian coffee chain, founded in 1996 by V.G. Siddhartha, with the vision of bringing coffee culture to India and making it a popular hangout spot for the youth. Café Coffee Day Global Limited Company is a Chikkamagaluru-based business that produces coffee on its very own land of 20,000 acres. It is the biggest maker of arabica beans in Asia, sent out to different nations including the U.S., Europe, and Japan.

V. G. Siddhartha began the Café chain in 1996 when he started Coffee Day Global, which is the parent of the Coffee Day chain. The first outlet was opened on July 11, 1996, in Bangalore, Karnataka.

Soon after the foundation of CCD Coffee, the biggest challenge faced by Café Coffee was to make a revolutionary change in Indian culture where the majority of the population preferred drinking tea rather than coffee.

CCD Founder - V. G. Siddhartha — CCD Founder – V. G. Siddhartha along with his wife Malavika

CCD quickly extended to different urban cities in India, with more than 1000 bistros opened in the country by 2011. In 2010, it was declared that a consortium driven by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts would invest INR 10 billion in Coffee Day resorts which are owned by CCD. It was during the same time the brand changed its logo to the present logo that is used by the company to feature the chain as a spot or place to talk.

Cafe Coffee Day Logo

This was finished with real changes in the format of the stores, including the expansion of parlors a complete redo of the interiors, and, above all, its slogan “A lot can happen over coffee.” The organization is vertically incorporated to cut expenses: from owning the plantations to becoming the coffee, preparing the espresso machines, and making the furniture for the outlets.

CCD Case Study

How CCD Started the Journey?

CCD started its journey with the incorporation of its parent Coffee Day Global Limited Company in 1996 by V.G. Siddhartha. It was on July 11, 1996, when the first CCD outlet was set up at Brigade Road, Bangalore, Karnataka.

Siddhartha did his Master’s in Economics from Mangalore University and had an enthusiasm for innovation. VG Siddhartha dived deep into the stock market in his early career. He had worked for JM Financial and Investment Consultancy in Mumbai when he was just 24 years of age. Veerappa Gangaiah Siddhartha Hegde acted there as a Management Trainee/Intern in portfolio Management and Securities Trading on the Indian Stock Market under Vice-Chairman Mahendra Kampani.

However, after completing his 2 years of work anniversary with JM Financial Limited, VG Siddhartha had to return to Bangalore when he received the capital from his father to start a business of his choice.

VG Siddhartha started by buying a stock market card for INR 30,000, and a company called Sivan Securities, which was later renamed Way2wealth Securities Ltd. The venture capital division of the company came to be known as Global Technology Ventures (GTV).

Siddhartha emerged as a full-time proprietary investor in the stock market in 1985. Furthermore, he also became the owner of 10,000 acres of coffee farms by then.

“When coffee trading was liberalised in the ’90s, I doubled the money I had invested in the plantations within a year,” said VG Siddhartha.

It was then that the Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company Ltd (ABCTCL), a company that focused on coffee exports, was born in 1993.

Siddhartha’s plantations began to produce 3,000 tonnes of coffee, and with the help of ABCTCL, he traded over 20,000 tonnes. This way, in around two years, the company became the second-largest exporter from India.

As soon as its first coffee outlet or CCD store was set up on Bangalore’s crowded Brigade Road, it began to start a new journey.

The company soon expanded far and wide with its revolutionary concept, which allowed the millennials to sit and talk while sipping on their favorite beverage.

CCD is India’s largest coffee chain to date and is owned by Coffee Day Global, a subsidiary of Coffee Day Enterprises.

CCD First Outlet opened in Bangalore in 1996

He was inspired by the proprietors of the “driving espresso brand in Germany, — Tchibo”. This motivation gave Siddhartha a dream of an alternate world generally speaking and opened his eyes. It likewise gave a heavenly idea. With that thought, cup by cup he made his billion-dollar domain.

The company owned around 1,700 cafes, 48,000+ vending machines, 532 kiosks, and more than 403 ground coffee-selling outlets. The annual turnover of Coffee Day Enterprises was worth INR 4,264 crore, as per a Moneycontrol report of 2019.

Mounting Debts and Controversies

Café Coffee Day had accumulated a total debt of around INR 6,550 crore, as was reported in March 2019.

The coffee price hit a 13-year low in the international market, which also dragged the Indian prices when the Indian coffee exports were down by 10 %. To combat this debt, Siddhartha had to sell his entire 20.32% stake in the Bengaluru-headquartered IT services firm, Mindtree to the engineering major, L&T for around INR 3,200 crore. He was the largest shareholder in Mindtree and exited the company after remaining invested for close to two decades.

The mounting debts were just unsettling not only for the business but for Siddhartha as well. Even with the sale of his stakes, going ahead turned out to be tough because the working capital requirements could not be met.

All these led Siddhartha to strike a deal with the global beverage maker Coca-Cola for an equity sale in the flagship Café Coffee Day (CCD) at an enterprise valuation of around INR 10,000 crore. Besides, Blackstone was also reportedly in talks with the company to buy a majority stake in the real estate venture of the founder, known as Tanglin Developments, for around INR 2,800 crore.

VG Siddhartha slowly started to come under the radar of the Income Tax Department, which first raided the premises of the Café Coffee Day owner in September 2017. They discovered around INR 650 crore of concealed income from the documents seized when they concluded the search and seizure operations.

The income tax raids were also eventually conducted at 20+ locations, including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Chikmagalur, by the senior officers of the Income Tax Department of Karnataka and Goa regions.

The Missing Founder of CCD and his Death

Siddhartha had been found missing since July 29, 2019, and this news of the missing MD was further confirmed by Coffee Day Enterprises.

Siddhartha had been found missing since July 29, 2019, and this news of the missing MD was further confirmed by Coffee Day Enterprises. Siddhartha had allegedly told his driver that he would be going for a walk near the bridge and asked him to wait at a distance on the 29th of July 2019. The driver lodged a missing complaint with the police after waiting for two long hours for his return. A fisher claimed that he saw someone jumping off the bridge, but it was only allegedly true until two days later when his body was found in the Nethravathi River backwaters.

The Café Coffee Day boss VG Siddhartha had supposedly left a letter where he expressed his unhappiness over not creating “the right profitable business”. Besides, he also alleged that a senior income tax officer allegedly harassed him.

“I have failed to create the right profitable business model despite my best efforts. I would like to say I gave it my all. I am very sorry to let down all the people that put their trust in me. I fought for a long time, but today I gave up as I could not take any more pressure.”

“I could not take any more pressure from one of the private equity partners forcing me to buy back shares, a transaction I had partially completed six months ago by borrowing a large sum of money from a friend. Tremendous pressure from other lenders led to me succumbing to the situation. There was a lot of harassment from the previous DG income tax in the form of attaching our shares on two separate occasions to block our Mindtree deal and then taking the position of our Coffee Day shares… This was very unfair and has led to a serious liquidity crunch,” goes the last letter from the CCD chief.

In September 2019, the organization named reviewing firm Ernst and Young to examine their books of records. They also asked the inspector to investigate the conditions of the last letter composed by Siddhartha and the focus he put on it.

Without leaving much room for speculation regarding the company leadership, Malavika Hegde, the widow of Siddhartha, addressed all realities and showed radical honesty by taking charge of the sinking ship in December 2020. She is the daughter of the former Chief Minister of Kerala SM Krishna. She has a degree in engineering and has been associated with the coffee business since 2008. She was appointed as a non-executive director of the company in 2013.

Malvika took office at the most unprecedented time, burdened with the multiple responsibilities to take the company out of the debt mountain of whooping INR 7000 crore, make the company profitable, and retain the trust of her employees.

CCD Business Model And Marketing

CCD has adopted a very effective business strategy, which is compartmentalized below.

Innovation and Expansion

The humongous amount of sustenance and refreshments made CCD possible. Besides, the ambitious moves of CCD and its rapid expansion into level 2 urban communities of India and other remote areas were some triumphant techniques that encouraged CCD to be on the fronts of its rivals like Starbucks and Barista.

Its different auxiliaries like Coffee Day Fresh ‘n’ Ground, Coffee Day Square, Coffee Day Resorts, Coffee Day Beverages, and so forth have helped the organization to satisfy the client’s needs and stay ahead simultaneously.

Also, CCD’s regular involvement on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram further engaged its customers. Café Coffee Day also brought in the character, Beano, to connect with the purchasers in 2016.

Strategy of Distribution

In 2020, there were 1,752 CCD outlets crosswise over 29 states of India. Café Coffee Day has likewise extended outside India with its outlets in Austria (Vienna), the Czech Republic, Dubai, Malaysia, and Cairo, Egypt. The Indian sorted-out division has the potential for around 5,000 bistros, yet less than 1,000 bistros exist, as of now.

S.No.	Elements	Illustration
1	People	17000+ employees, 20 in R&D, 70 in HR
2	Technology	The latest technology in a coffee plantation, Curing, roasting, and Probat roasting machines
3	Channels	Cafe, Lounge, Square
4	Value Proposition	Identifying target customers, defining the benefits, and providing the best value to satisfy
5	Profit Formula	Financial sustainability of the firm in long run basis
6	CSR	Provide free education and training to villagers and offer them jobs

Difference In Concoction

These are some prominent moves that made CCD stand out from its peers and rivals:

Past nourishment, the emphasis is on getting the experience right. CCD propelled its application to follow shopper conduct, customize offers and advancements, empower cashless exchanges through implicit wallets, and fabricate unwaveringly.
In 2016, CCD partnered with Freecharge to empower cashless exchanges at the outlets, where the clients could utilize their portable numbers to pay and finish the exchange in under 10 seconds. Be that as it may, Harminder Sahni, author, and MD Wazir Advisors, consider these as strategic contributions.
To further lift involvement, CCD started Café Concerts in 2016 with attention to live gigs in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, and Bengaluru. Cafe concerts were unique at the time when it was introduced by CCD and played a big hand in hooking the young crowd.

The 3As Strategy

The chief components influencing rivalry in the espresso retail area include evaluating, item/administration quality, brand recognition, taste, and item assortment.

To separate itself from rivalry, CCD has manufactured its retail procedure on 3As:

Affordability: CCD ensures that it attracts every kind of customer — be it a school/college student or an office goer, at an affordable price.
Accessibility: The goal of the brand was to ensure that the cafes should be within arm’s reach. CCD believes in serving people across the country by providing the same experience everywhere.
Acceptability: CCD ensures that consumers should buy and drink their product without compromising on taste. The strategy was to bring people together to relax and unwind. The company further encouraged its customers with its catchy tagline that says “Let us catch up on CCD” which every Indian must have heard at one point or another.

The Present Day CCD

Case Study of Cafe Coffee Day — Number of cafes of Cafe Coffee Day across India from financial year 2014 to 2024

At its peak in 2019, CCD operated 1,752 outlets across 243 Indian cities. However Café Coffee Day reportedly shut down around 280 outlets in the wake of FY20 and with this, the company reported a total of 1480 outlets, as per the reports dated June 30, 2020. CCD closed 19 more stores in the past 12 months, reducing its total to 450 in 141 cities.

The Bengaluru-based coffee chain recorded a 10% rise in net revenue, reaching INR 1,013 crore ($120.6 million) for the 12 months ending 31 March 2024.

Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd (CDEL) reported a total default of INR 433.91 crore on interest and principal payments to banks, financial institutions, and unlisted debt securities, including NCDs and NCRPS, for the quarter ending June 30, 2024. The total loan funds of the company amounted to INR 1,159 crore, including INR 102 crore in long-term borrowings and INR 1,057 crore in short-term borrowings, with net debt at INR 881 crore as of FY24.

The company had been trying to pare its debts with the sale of its non-core assets after the death of its founder. CCD has announced to repay its debts worth INR 1644 crore to 13 of its lenders. This had been possible with the sale of its technology business park to Blackstone Group and Salarpuria Sattva at an enterprising value of INR 2,700 crore. The company also sold its stakes to Mindtree and L & L&T previously.

The company’s net debt was worth INR 2,909.95 crore in the FY20 and as per the latest reports dated March 31, 2021, CDEL’s net debt came down to INR 1,731 crore.

It was during the same time that CDEL announced that it had appointed Justice Manjunath to “suggest and oversee actions”, who will supervise the recovery of over INR 3,535 crore, which was allegedly siphoned out of the company into Mysore Amalgamated Coffee Estates Limited (MACEL), which goes as a personal firm promoted by its late founder V G Siddhartha.

The last report said that the “Management of the Company is putting its best efforts to get back the company on track.” It further added that “the debt levels have reduced significantly from the beginning of the financial year March 2021.”

CDEL’s net operational revenue was measured on a consolidated basis in FY21, which was valued at INR 853 crores against INR 2,522 crores in FY20.

The brand currently has a presence in the coffee, logistics, and hospitality segments. The coffee business of the company, which includes its popular café chain brand Café Coffee Day (CCD), contributed around 47% of its consolidated net revenue. The other remaining parts were a result of its logistics business and logistics, which accounted for 45% and 8% of the revenues.

CCD currently operates 450 cafes, which run in 141 cities, and 265 CCD Value Express kiosks. Furthermore, it also boasts of having 52,581 vending machines as of FY24 to “dispense coffee in corporate workplaces and hotels under the brand”.

Achievements of CCD

2007 – Cafe Coffee Day won the Times Food Award under the category of “Best Coffee Bar” from the Times of India
2008 – Cafe Coffee Day won the Burrper’s Choice Award for being cast a ballot as the “Coolest Café” by the clients of burrp.com
2009 – Espresso Day Global won the honor of “Retailer of the Year” under the classification of Food & Beverages (cooking administrations) by the Asia Retail Congress
2010 – Cafe Coffee Day won the Indian Hospitality Excellence Award under the category of “India’s Most Popular Coffee Joint: 2010”
2012 – Cafe Coffee Day was positioned as the 26th Most Trusted Service Brand in India and as the second Most Exciting Brand under the classification of “Nourishment Services” in India under a study done by Brand Equity (EconomicTimes)
2012 – Cafe Coffee Day won the Best Coffee Bar Award from mouthshut.com
2013 – Cafe Coffee Day was positioned as the 26th Most Trusted Service Brand in India under a study done by Brand Equity (Economic Times)
2013 – Cafe Coffee Day was granted “The NCPEDP – Shell Helen Keller Award 2013” by the National Center for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People for being a good example organization in creating work open doors for individuals with inabilities
2013 -Espresso Day Global was granted as the Best Retailer under the class of “Best Customer Service in Café Restaurant” by the Star Retailer Awards
2013 – CafeCoffee Day won the Brand Excellence Award in retail part from ABP news
2012-2013 – Espresso Day Global was granted a bronze prize by the Coffee Board of India for being the third-best exporter of green espresso
2014 – Espresso Day Global was granted “Retailer of the Year” (Organization Food and Grocery) for retail greatness by ABP News
2014 – Espresso Day Global was granted ‘Retailer of the Year for brand greatness by ABP News
2014 – Cafe Coffee Day was positioned as the 22nd Most Trusted Service Brand in India, as 27th Most Exciting Brand in India, and as second Most Exciting Brand under the class of “Nourishment Services” in India, under an overview done by Brand Equity (Economic Times)
2014 – Mr. V G Siddhartha was conferred upon the ‘ET Retail Hall of Fame for his commitment to the development of the retail part

Conclusion

Café Coffee Day has faced tough times but is still loved for shaping India’s coffee culture. The company is working hard to reduce its debt and grow again. With its strong brand, loyal customers, and new ideas, CCD can remain a favorite place for coffee lovers.

FAQs

When was Cafe Coffee Day founded?

Cafe Coffee Day was founded in the year 1996.

What is the full form of CCD?

CCD stands for Cafe Coffee Day.

Is Cafe Coffee Day in debt?

Yes, CCD has been in debt for a long time. Coffee Day Enterprises said it has Rs 518 crore of debt including both short and long term and that it has defaulted on about Rs 263 crore of payments.

Is Cafe Coffee Day shutting down?

Almost 500 cafe outlets of the coffee chain Cafe Coffee Day have been closed down since April 2019, as the company looks to arrest the falling profitability of its coffee business and readies for divestment of the business. CCD had to close these outlets as it readies for divestment.

What happened with Cafe Coffee Day?

Coffee Day Enterprises Limited reported that at least Rs 2,000 crores ($270 million) was missing from its accounts, soon after the death of founder V.G. Siddhartha which led to an investigation initiated by their board.

What is the CCD tagline?

“A lot can happen over coffee”, is the tagline of Cafe Coffee Day.

Who are the competitors of Cafe Coffee Day?

A few cafe coffee day competitors are – Starbucks, Costa Coffee, Barista, and Gloria’s.

Can I sit and work in CCD?

It’s ok to sit and work until you’re asked to leave.

Why is CCD in loss?

CCD is at a loss because the founder V.G. Siddhartha died of an apparent suicide in 2019. His sudden death came as a surprise and caused a huge loss to the company. Also, the brand has suffered another hit due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown.

December 18, 2024

Cashfree Success Story – Full Stack Payment Solution

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.

The Indian digital payments industry stands at ₹2,153 Tn i.e., ~961% of GDP (source: RedSeer report) as of 2022. Cashfree has rapidly grown in the country’s competitive environment to the point where it is now dominating the payment disbursals with more than 30% market share among payment processors. Founded by Akash Sinha and Reeju Dutta, Cashfree is a full-stack payments solution that helps Indian businesses accept and send money.

Know more about Cashfree’s business model, how it started, its funding and investors, growth, and more, in this post ahead.

Cashfree – Company Highlights

Startup Name	Cashfree
Founders	Akash Sinha (CEO), Reeju Dutta
Launch Year	2016
Headquarters	Bangalore
Sector	Fintech, Digital Payments
Website	cashfree.com

About Cashfree
Cashfree – Industry
Cashfree – Founders and Team
Cashfree – Startup Story | How it Started?
Cashfree – Startup Launch
Cashfree – Mission and Vision
Cashfree – Name, Tagline and Logo
Cashfree – Product/Service and USP
Cashfree – Business Model and Revenue Model
Cashfree – Customer Retention Strategies
Cashfree – Challenges faced
Cashfree – Marketing Strategies
Cashfree – Revenue and Growth
Cashfree – Funding and Investors
Cashfree – Partnership
Cashfree – Acquistion
Cashfree – Investments
Cashfree – Competitors
Cashfree – Recognition and Achievements
Cashfree – Future Plans

About Cashfree

Cashfree offers businesses the fastest and most seamless way to collect and disburse payments at scale. The company’s products include a payment gateway, payout processing, marketplace settlements, Cashgram, Subscriptions, bank account verification, UPI Stack, Instant Refunds, Global Payouts, and auto-collection via virtual bank accounts.

Cashgram is Cashfree’s innovative web link that allows users to provide account details and receive payments instantly from businesses. Cashfree is leading the way in payments innovation with faster settlements, advanced fast-refund solutions, and higher success rates on online transactions.

The company has introduced solutions like Instant Settlements on its payment gateway; recurring payments via Subscriptions; and a UPI stack with 15+ ready-to-use integrations for all business payment needs including collections, disbursals, and verifications using UPI infrastructure. Furthermore, Cashfree also has specific solutions tailored for NBFCs – Lending, Insurance, E-commerce, and Education verticals.

Since Cashfree’s inception in 2015, the company has built a strong presence among enterprises by innovating for experience, scale, and security. The payment industry is still seen as an evolving industry with its own challenges.

Cashfree – Payments Industry Details

The market for payment processing is robust in India. Payment processors use gateways to authorize direct payments across networks of online retailers, storefronts, credit cards, and individuals. That’s why Cashfree has rapidly grown in the country’s competitive environment to the point where it is now dominating payment disbursals with more than 30% market share among payment processors.

According to Statista, the Indian digital payments industry stands at $ 1,624.00 billion in 2024 and will grow at 16.35% CAGR to reach $3,463.00 billion by 2029. This growth will be driven by:

Strong use case of merchant payments across user cohorts
Government policies such as Jan Dhan Yojana, personal data protection bill along with the growth of MSMEs
High smartphone penetration indicates strong headroom for growth through banking and financial services collaborations

Cashfree – Founders and Team

Akash Sinha (CEO) and Reeju Dutta are the founders of Cashfree.

Both Akash and Reeju were engineering graduates. Akash and Reeju were introduced to each other by common friends, people with whom they went to college with.

Akash Sinha (CEO & Co-founder, Cashfree)

Akash was working at Amazon writing software and leading a tech team. He has a technical background and has also worked at BankBazaar, a fintech company. With Akash’s experience as a programmer and product owner, at Cashfree, he focuses on the intersection of technology and business opportunities. As a community builder in the startup and entrepreneur space, he is excited and enthusiastic about cutting-edge technologies that can help businesses experiment, scale, and innovate faster.

Reeju Dutta (Co-founder, Cashfree)

Before co-founding Cashfree, Reeju was heading marketing at FabFurnish, an e-commerce retailer. He has a background in digital marketing. He has also worked at ZS Associates, a consulting firm, advising pharmaceutical companies on managing data. At Cashfree, he focuses on customer experience, sales & marketing, finance, and hiring. He is passionate about the growth of the startup ecosystem and enjoys interacting with businesses that offer innovative solutions.

In 2020, Cashfree strengthened its workforce to over 225 employees with hiring accelerated by the growth of e-commerce and digital payments sectors. By the end of 2021, Cashfree plans to further double its workforce to 400 team members, filling up critical positions as they gear up for the next wave of transformation. As the company builds agile digital payments products, it also plans to grow its sales and support teams.

Cashfree – Startup Story | How it Started?

In mid-2015, Akash Sinha (CEO and Co-founder of Cashfree) and Reeju Datta (Co-founder of Cashfree) were bouncing ideas off each other and looking for a co-founder to build on their ideas. Akash had an idea around an AI-based chat while Reeju was thinking of something around route logistics. They were brainstorming on what could work and what wouldn’t be based on the market situation. Since hyperlocal commerce was thriving in 2015, Akash came up with the idea of finding a way to make their payments cashless – which until then was cash-intensive. That’s how Cashfree was born.

Akash and Reeju started Cashfree in 2015 and initially, they were digitizing offline COD payments. Then in April 2016, they got into the online space completely. When they started, it was only Reeju and Akash, along with another member who handled sales.

The idea worked well with night restaurants where it was difficult to make cash payments at odd hours. As a beta version, they launched a mobile web product were after the placement of an order. The customer receives a link to input their card details or uses their wallet to make the online payment. Soon after, the delivery person would get an SMS saying that the payment had been received.

A few such merchants approached them to process the payments for their businesses via their website as well and that is when Akash and Reeju started developing an online payment gateway.

Cashfree – Startup Launch

Initially, Akash and Reeju started out by working with small restaurants in Bangalore. They were focused on night delivery restaurants, as it was a segment that required alternate options for cash payments. So, night delivery restaurants are where they found their very first users.

Cashfree – Mission and Vision

Cashfree’s mission is unwavering, which is “to enable online businesses to deploy payment solutions to innovate and scale.”

The short-term vision is to invest in next-gen payments as well as banking tech to make payments processing easier and more reliable. The long-term vision is to grow Cashfree to be the leader in the payments space in India and internationally, backed by a solid foundation of in-house technologies, tech-driven processes, and in-depth industry knowledge.

Akash Sinha, CEO & Co-founder, Cashfree said, “At Cashfree, we are working towards boosting India’s fintech ecosystem, as it is the backbone of Digital India and is a key problem-solver of the economy.”

Cashfree – Name, Tagline and Logo

“Trusted by enterprises Loved by developers”, goes the tagline of Cashfree.

Cashfree Logo

Cashfree – Product/Service and USP

Cashfree has built a comprehensive payment toolkit for small to large businesses in India. It has launched various products and solutions with six first-of-its-kind fintech innovations including Payouts, Instant Refunds, Cashgram, Pre-Authorization, Subscriptions, and Instant Settlements. Their products and solutions are aimed at making online payments easier and elevating customer experience through innovation and higher transaction success rates. The company’s products include a payment gateway, payout processing, marketplace settlements, Cashgram, Subscriptions, bank account verification, UPI Stack, Instant Refunds, Global Payouts, and auto-collection via virtual bank accounts.

Payouts: The first gateway with a bulk disbursal solution for domestic and international payments. Payouts perform bank transfers to any unified payments interface, wallet, or debit card with more than 100 payment options and support for 30+ foreign currencies. It can also verify accounts in real time.
Instant Refunds: Launched on September 4, 2019, this was the first-time instant refunds were available on the Cashfree payment gateway. Merchants can initiate partial or full refunds from the dashboard or via an API. It seamlessly integrates with Shopify and Magento refund flows.
Cashgram: COD orders providing instant refunds for the first time. Customers can send a Cashgram link to a user, who can specify a destination for payments or instant refunds.
Pre-authorization: Provides the ability to block funds temporarily and debit the full or partial amount upon fulfillment. Customers can save payment gateway charges on canceled orders and integrate with their enterprise resource planning software. Users get real-time tracking of transaction progress.
Subscriptions: Cashfree was one of the first gateways to offer recurring payments via the e-mandate payment service initiated by the Reserve Bank of India and the National Payments Corporation of India.
Instant Settlements: Cashfree delivered the industry-first and fastest instant bank settlements for payment collections (within 15 minutes).
Co-lend: The first completely automated escrow management solution for co-lending in India, called “Co-lend,” was introduced by Cashfree on February 7, 2023. It allows for quick disbursal with automatic reconciliation and a dashboard for managing numerous partnerships.
BNPL Plus: To help companies give their clients more inexpensive and flexible payment choices, the fintech platform Cashfree Payments has introduced ‘BNPL Plus’ in July, 2023.
UPI Plug-in solution: The UPI Plug-in was introduced by Cashfree Payments, an API banking firm, on September 14, 2023. It enables mobile-first businesses to accept UPI payments from clients without requiring them to leave the application.

Pivot from the Initial product offering

When Akash and Reeju reached out to businesses to partner with for their online cash-on-delivery needs, around 5-6 months down the line, merchants approached them for an online payment gateway (PG) service. That’s why they went on to build the payment gateway for them because both the products were kind of similar, though not the same.

It was easy for the founders to transition to an online payment gateway. When they started rolling out the PG, they soon realized that there was still a need for a modern payment gateway that offered services like simple API integration, high transaction success rates, full collection on all the payment modes. That is how they transitioned into an online payment aggregator as businesses (customers) asked for it.

Cashfree – Business Model and Revenue Model

Cashfree is a full-stack payments solution that helps Indian businesses accept and send money and is used by 3,00,000+ businesses for vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, etc. The company makes a fee of anywhere between 1.75% and 3% of the value of the transaction as of year 2020.

Cashfree – Customer Retention Strategies

Cashfree has focused on building exceptional payment products and developing innovations for merchants to minimize pain points associated with various payment use cases. This has led to a lot of organic growth for the company, driven by word of mouth and inbound traffic.

The high success rates of Cashfree’s flagship products such as Payouts and Cashgram have led to the company winning the trust of their customers. This led to these same customers also adopting some of the company’s other products to simplify payments.

Many of the payment products built by Cashfree were a result of direct feedback from existing customers on their payment challenges. The company saw these challenges as opportunities to develop products that would add value to their customers. One of the payment innovations that was a direct outcome of customer feedback is Cashfree’s Instant Settlements cycle – where Cashfree enables merchants to get access to their funds in 15 minutes. Merchants can make use of the settled funds for disbursals to vendors and other partners even on bank holidays.

Cashfree – Challenges faced

In early 2015 when Akash and Reeju first started out Cashfree, they were making prototypes in AI chat and logistics, but it didn’t work out, as a lot of hyperlocal commerce companies were using COD and there was no way to pay digitally.

That’s how they came up with their idea to use digital payment modes such as credit cards, debit cards, and netbanking. They were able to sign up 200-300 offline stores in Bangalore. They started at the right time, tried figuring out online payment pain points and ways to solve them.

Cashfree – Marketing Strategies

One of Cashfree’s most successful marketing campaigns was for the launch of the company’s e-commerce product suite. Cashfree’s e-commerce payments platform offers merchants the best payment experience for mobile and UPI payments and allows them to collect customer payments, process refunds, pay sellers and do a lot more. Along with the regular rollout of press releases, digital marketing, email marketing, and more.

Cashfree also hosted a series of fireside chats and webinars with thought leaders in the e-commerce space as a knowledge-sharing platform. This series of sessions not only helped Cashfree reach out to thousands of businesses but also helped many entrepreneurs understand the finer points of running a successful e-commerce venture.

Cashfree – Revenue and Growth

Cashfree has been profitable since its first year of operations and counts more than 50,000 businesses amongst its merchants including leading internet companies such as Cred, BigBasket, Zomato, HDFC Ergo, Ixigo, Acko, Zoomcar, and Delhivery, among others.

Cashfree’s solutions are used by over 10,000 e-commerce platforms including Nykaa, Furlenco, EaseMyTrip, Wakefit, Vero Moda among others. In 2020, Cashfree processed more than over 100 million transactions from e-commerce orders and expects to onboard 5,000 e-commerce companies by the end of the year.

Cashfree claims to process transactions worth $80 bn annually as of 2024. Furthermore, it has an over 50% market share among the payment processors. Besides, Cashfree helps 3,00,000businesses with a wide range of activities including payment collections, vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty, and rewards. The Bengaluru-based fintech startup also boasts of an international presence in countries including the USA, Canada, and the UAE.

At the end of 2024, here are some growth highlights of Cashfree:

Cashfree Payments boasted of a 50% market share in Payouts, thereby becoming the leading disbursals solution provider in India
Cashfree received funds from SBI Bank, India’s largest lender, which invested in the company, thereby boosting the company’s operations and growth
Cashfree saw a 95% rise in the number of merchants, which helped the company increase its merchant sign-ups by 268%
It managed to process $40 Bn transactions annually
Cashfree successfully served 200+ Million bank accounts has grown beyond the startup status and has emerged as a bigger and better firm now
Cashfree is currently serving 3,00,000 merchants
The company successfully launched ‘Accounts’, which is designed to be a BaaS solution, which will help the neo-banks and fintech platforms integrate banking services into their products
The company helped grow its employee count by 2X and is aiming to to double its employee count by 2022 end
Cashfree also noticed an increasing amount of trust and credibility among its stakeholders due to the partnering of Cashfree with some of the leading brands including Dvara Solutions, Deskers, Zybra, Shipway, Shyplite, Shoptimize, Hylobiz, Syrow, and more. This list also included some of the leading internet companies like Cred, BigBasket, Zomato, HDFC Ergo, Ixigo, Acko, Zoomcar, Delhivery, and more.

Cashfree has made it possible for users and businesses to transact with ease within software platforms with the release of its payment solution as per the news report of March 6, 2024. All parties benefit from efficiency and ease as transactions happen directly without the need for external interfaces or redirects to the availability of more than 120 payment types.

Cashfree Financials

Cashfree Financials	FY23	FY24
Operating Revenue	INR 614 crore	INR 642.7 crore
Total Expenses	INR 750 crore	INR 779.4 crore
Profit/Loss	Loss of INR 133 crore	Loss of INR 135 crore

Cashfree – Funding and Investors

The funding details of Cashfree are as follows –

Date	Stage	Amount	Investors
May 18, 2023	Debt Financing	–	Trifecta Capital Advisors
June 7, 2021	Debt Financing	–	SBI
November 24, 2020	Series B	USD 35.3 Mn	Apis Growth Fund II, Y Combinator
April 9, 2019	Series A	USD 5.5 Mn	Y Combinator, George Osborne, Vellayan Subbiah
August 21,2017	Pre Seed Round	USD 120K	Y Combinator
January 1, 2017	Seed Round	–	–

Cashfree has raised a total of $40.9 Million to date. Cashfree’s investors are – Y Combinator, George Osborne (former Chancellor of Exchequer of the UK), Vellayan Subbiah (former MD of Cholamandalam Investment), and APIS Growth Fund II.

Cashfree plans to use the latest round of series B funding for research & development and for creating new product lines. The company will strengthen its team in India and expand into some of the emerging markets.

The investments have supported Cashfree’s ambitious growth plans including launching and rolling out new products. The company introduced Global Payouts which enables it to offer fintech, e-commerce marketplaces, logistics platforms, remote staffing platforms, etc. based outside India, instant, simple and cost-efficient rails for bulk cross-border money transfers to India.

International businesses can use Cashfree’s solution without having to set up a place of business in India. Cashfree also launched a payments toolkit for e-commerce stores and marketplaces in India. With a host of specific solutions, this product suite enables e-commerce businesses to collect payments on the website, mobile app, or any social media channel using Cashfree’s payment gateway, and to process partial or full refunds, facilitate seller payouts, split payments with multiple sellers and affiliate partners, and more.

Cashfree – Partnership

Cashfree has partnered with many companies some of the prominent partnerships are:

Multi-Partner Cross-Border Payment Launch

Swiggy, Nykaa, BookMyShow, Zepto, and others have partnered with Cashfree Payments to enable cross-border transactions. With RBI’s license for cross-border payments, Cashfree has launched a pilot program allowing international customers to pay for services in India.

Shopify

In order to offer onsite card payments to Shopify’s Indian merchants, Cashfree Payments has partnered with the Canadian e-commerce platform in September, 2023.

Yes Bank

Together with Yes Bank, Cashfree Payments is now able to provide exporters who have accounts there with “Global Collections,” an international collection service on May 3, 2023.

Mobikwik

In order to provide its consumers with the convenience of interest-free credit at their fingertips, MobiKwik announced its partnership with Cashfree Payments on August 31, 2023, a top provider of payments and API banking services. “ZIP Pay Later” will be integrated with Cashfree Payments’ Payment Gateway.

AutoPay on QR

‘AutoPay on QR’ has been launched by Cashfree Payments on September 12, 2023 a provider of payment and API banking solutions, in partnership with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

Cashfree – Acquistion

Cashfree acquired two companies. The most recent acquisition is of Zecpe on February 28, 2023.

Company Name	Date	Amount
Zecpe	Feb 28, 2023	–
Telr	Nov 30, 2021	$15M

The company has exited Telr as per various news reports.

Cashfree – Investments

Cashfree has made a strategic investment in Telr. The company invested 15 mn in the UAE-based payment gateway on November 30, 2021. This will further allow the company to expand its international footprints, which will start from the MENA region.

Cashfree – Competitors

Payu, Paytm, CCAvenue are some of the top competitors of Cashfree.

Cashfree – Layoff

During a reorganization process, Cashfree has laid off up to 100 workers on January, 2023. In recent years, the SBI-backed company doesn’t appear to have conducted any layoffs until now.

Cashfree – Recognition and Achievements

Akash Sinha, CEO, and Co-Founder, Cashfree was listed in Forbes 30 under 30 2021
Cashfree secured as the 5th fastest growing technology company in Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India 2020

Cashfree – Future Plans

Cashfree estimates 45,000 to 50,000 merchant leads per month and is optimistic in its continued development trajectory. With the goal of becoming profitable again by the first quarter of FY25, the company intends to improve customer satisfaction and service offerings as per news report of January, 2024.

This entails broadening the range of services offered, making infrastructural investments in technology, breaking into untapped markets, putting the needs of the client first, and developing clever alliances. These calculated actions highlight Cashfree’s dedication to maintaining its position as the market leader in payment solutions and maximizing value for all parties involved.

Cashfree – FAQs

Who founded Cashfree?

Akash Sinha (CEO) and Reeju Dutta are the founders of Cashfree.

How does Cashfree make money?

Cashfree charges a fee of anywhere between 1.75% and 3% of the value of the transaction.

How much funding has Cashfree raised?

Cashfree has raised a total of $40.9 Mn to date. Its recent funding was led by Trifecta Capital Advisors as a Debt Financing round.

What is Cashfree?

Cashfree is a full-stack payments solution. It helps Indian businesses accept and send money. It offers businesses the fastest and most seamless way to collect and disburse payments at scale.

How much is Cashfree’s Operating Revenue?

Cashfree operating revenue is around INR 642.7 crores in FY24 and a Loss of INR 135 crore.

Is Cashfree free?

NO. Cashfree charges a fee of anywhere between 1.75% and 3% of the value of the transaction.

December 3, 2024

Moneyview: Rising to Unicorn Status with Smart Financial Solutions

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.

A new restaurant at the corner of the lane, online offers, sale season, and food applications make life easy by delivering in your footsteps; all of these are so tempting. With over a hundred reasons to spend, one might get concerned about the monthly expenditure. It is cumbersome to keep an account of our expenses in this life of hustle and bustle, but an application like Moneyview, which helps in monitoring day-to-day finances, is the answer to all our money-related issues.

Moneyview was launched in 2014 by two IIT friends, Sanjay Aggarwal and Puneet Agarwal. Moneyview caters to the user with personal finance management, to keep a check on everyday finances. Be it; electricity bills, or travel expenditures, it has a record of cash expenses and regularly reminds the users of payments that are due. Not only this, but Moneyview also provides loans. What more do we need from an application?

Moneyview has joined the unicorn club with a valuation exceeding $1 billion on 12 September 2024. After the latest allotment, its valuation has surged to INR 10,086 crore ($1.2 billion), marking a notable increase from its $900 million valuation in December 2022.

This article is all about this interesting startup that is helping millions of users manage their expenses and live a life of financial discipline.

Moneyview – Company Highlights

Startup Name	Moneyview
Headquarters	Bengaluru, India
Sector	Fintech
Founders	Puneet Agarwal & Sanjay Aggarwal
Founded	2014
Valuation	$1.2 billion (October 2024)
Website	moneyview.in

About Moneyview
Moneyview – Founders and Team
Moneyview – Startup Story
Moneyview – Logo
Moneyview – Business Model & Revenue Model
Moneyview – Funding and Investors
Moneyview – Acquisitions
Moneyview – Growth
Moneyview – ESOPs
Moneyview – Awards & Recognitions
Moneyview – Partnerships
Moneyview – Competitors
Moneyview – Future Plans

About Moneyview

Struggling with your monthly budget? Look no further. Moneyview is here to keep you sorted about your expenses. Moneyview is a personal money manager and expense manager app that focuses on making financial management simple, smart, and secure; thereby, enabling end-consumers to manage their day-to-day expenses and finances in a better way.

Founded in 2014, Moneyview is a versatile personal money manager app, which offers a snapshot of all your finances. It scans texts related to your bank accounts and spending on your mobile phones and gives you a well-organized view of your expenses. It also has a bill tracker, which ensures that you never miss a payment deadline. Recently they have also moved on to giving personal loans to the users.

According to the co-founders, Moneyview is an application designed to give you a single view of what’s happening with your money. It tracks all the daily expenses by sifting through the debit/credit card messages received from the bank on your phone. Thus, letting you know your expenditure on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Moreover, it tries to understand your spending pattern and reminds you to pay your bills on time. Unlike other apps, Moneyview organizes all the data through SMSs, without one having to manually segregate them.

Since 2016, Moneyview comes in 6 local languages, namely Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. The main reason to have local languages is to be able to fully solve the users’ problems. Currently serving more than 10 million users, Moneyview assures to have a security system like the best banks in the country. The company uses personal client information only to provide a better experience. The information is encrypted which helps in avoiding any data loss or misuse.

The Moneyview App Has Three Big Features

The first feature gives the consumers a single view of where their money is. It lists out all the financial accounts that one has like bank accounts, credit card accounts, loan accounts, etc. Get a graphical view of your ‘Available to spend’ before you hit your budget.

The second features tell you where your money is going. How you are spending your money? It also auto-categorizes your spending; it assembles facts like out of 50,000 bucks you have spent so much on food, rent, and shopping.

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The third feature is the app is integrated with tools for users to start making better financial decisions. The first tool is a budget management tool. It enables real-time budget management. You can set up your budget for a particular month and at any given point in time the app will tell you how much more you can spend in the remainder of the month.

Also, the company assures that the Moneyview app is safe. It uses 256-bit data encryption for data management, to keep the customer data safe and secure. Besides, it is important to know that the app decodes only the transaction-related messages on your phone, and not your OTP or other personal information.

Technological Tools

Technology is the backbone and the key facilitator in the app’s offerings. Moneyview makes use of sophisticated natural language processing and information retrieval techniques to create intelligent norms. These are then utilized by the app to produce a very accurate picture of the users’ financial data in a way that they can simply and effortlessly understand. Therefore, it uses its patent technology that systematizes the data from these messages to deliver a simple and smooth view of the users’ finances through the app.

All You Need to Know about Moneyview Personal Loan

Moneyview, a fintech startup, is a loan financer, which also helps in planning overall finances. It can provide loans ranging from INR.10,000 to INR. 5,00,000 within a day or less. The application pulls data about banking, bills, and expenses from the client’s SMS box. It provides the user with a view of their bank balance, income spent, and income dues. The application is designed for all smartphones and is also a lightweight application, which can run and be updated even without internet connectivity.

Moneyview offers personal loans of up to INR 5 lakh for a period of 3 to 60 months. You can simply download the Moneyview Loan app and apply for a Personal loan. You just need to fill in the required details and upload the documents required through the Moneyview Loan app. After your profile is verified, you receive the NACH (National Automated Clearing House) form and loan agreement on the app. After submitting a signed copy of the NACH mandate, and loan agreement, Moneyview disburses the amount to your bank account normally just within a few hours.

Eligibility criteria for receiving Moneyview Loans are:

Your age should be between 21-57 years
Your salary should come by bank transfer
Income criteria vary based on whether an applicant is salaried or self-employed, the applicant’s CIBIL score ( minimum 300 required), credit history, and the applicant’s location

Documents required for Moneyview Loans

ID proof (Aadhar card or PAN card)
Address Proof
Bank Statement of Salary Account
Income Tax Return Verification Form for the last 2 years, in case of self-employed persons

The best part about Moneyview Loans is that the entire process from documentation to verification is paperless and digital.

Moneyview Loan’s interest rates vary from 16% pa to 24% pa. EMI payment can be done manually through the app or one can also opt for the auto-debit option. Besides, users can go for foreclosure of Moneyview Loans anytime after payment of 3 EMIs.

Moneyview Loan Status Check

Moneyview offers its users the facility of loans ranging from INR 5,000 to INR 5,00,000. You can easily check the loan status in Moneyview. If you’re wondering about easy ways to Moneyview loan status check, then:

You first need to visit the website of Moneyview and then click on the Sign in option
You then need to log in to your loan account with the help of your registered email address
After that, you need to check out the Dashboard and then scroll down to the Application Status tab, where you will be able to check your loan application status.

Moneyview – Founders and Team

Moneyview was founded in 2014 by two IIT friends, Sanjay Aggarwal and Puneet Agarwal.

Puneet Agarwal

Puneet Agarwal graduated from IIT-Delhi in 1995 and moved to the US to complete his MBA from Purdue University – Krannert School of Management. He was there for the next 17 years, working at different companies including McKinsey, Capital One, and Google, where he was a product management director. Puneet started his career working as a consultant for McKinsey for about three years. He then worked with Capital One, Bling Nation, and as a Product Management Director for Google. Puneet has been an entrepreneur for 7+ years now and also advises and invests in start-ups.

Sanjay Aggarwal

Sanjay Aggarwal, the co-founder of Moneyview, is an IITian who completed his BTech degree in 1993, from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Later, he continued working as an engineer at Ciena Corporation, and Yahoo, among others. Sanjay Aggarwal has vast tech experience working with companies like Appian Communications Inc., Ciena Corporation, and Yahoo! After this, Sanjay founded minglebox.com, an education portal providing content on colleges, courses, exams, and admissions, in the year 2006.

Moneyview has a team that is of around 201-500 employees, which helps in securing the data of the clients. The company’s core value is to bring simple solutions and have control of your money at the same time.

Moneyview – Startup Story

It was a dream of both the co-founders, which started one day while sipping coffee at Starbucks. The dream was to make India financially fit through a mobile app. After Puneet came back to India in the year 2013, he moved to Bengaluru, to gauge the start-up scene and start something of his own. While looking for a place to stay in the city, he reunited with his IIT senior, Sanjay. It was the same time when Sanjay was exiting his venture, Minglebox. He along with Sanjay started Moneyview in the year 2014. They then realized at an early stage, in the year 2016, that providing the application in local languages would help solve the problems of users better. Their target is to provide young India with an application that helps to keep a check on their expenses.

In the beginning, Moneyview only provided the users with guidance to save, this helped in gaining data. In the year 2016, Moneyview became a complete fintech product. ‘We believe that access to financial services is a basic right to all individuals’ is the core belief of the start-up founders. Moneyview is now a paperless application, allowing users to set budgets, view their bank account details, manage bills, and record cash expenses.

Moneyview – Logo

Moneyview Logo

The logo design of Moneyview communicates trust and innovation, aligning with Moneyview’s mission of empowering users with financial control.

Moneyview – Business Model & Revenue Model

With Moneyview, Sanjay and Puneet are focusing on establishing a trusted brand in the personal finance management application segment. They are also looking at moving from just notifying users of their savings, to notifying them about potential investments that can be made.

“Our aim is to help our users stay on top of their finances with zero effort. With our focus continuously on adding features and offerings that help our users stay financially fit. For instance, one of the things the app helps the user with is to start saving more by managing his expenditure. The users will soon be able to find smart ways to invest their savings from within the app,” quotes Moneyview co-founders Sanajy and Puneet Agarwal.

Since Moneyview is a free application, the company does not have a fixed revenue model. It follows month-on-month metrics, and as claimed by the founders in a 2015 interview, the company was growing at almost 100 percent.

In 2016, Moneyview tied up with ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund and launched Green Account, a feature that lets the users of Moneyview App, invest through the app. Moneyview earns a commission on every investment made through the app.

Moneyview Financials

Moneyview Financials	FY22	FY23	FY24
Operating Revenue	INR 222 crore	INR 577 crore	INR 1,012 crore
Total Expenses	INR 240 crore	INR 515 crore	INR 1,190 crore
Profit/Loss	INR 17.7 crore	INR 163 crore	INR 171 crore

In FY23, Moneyview’s revenue increased by 160%, growing from INR 222 crore in FY22 to INR 577 crore in FY23. Expenses increased by 114%, from INR 240 crore to INR 515 crore. Even with higher costs, Moneyview made a strong profit of INR 163 crore in FY23, compared to just INR17.7 crore in FY22.

The company recorded a 20% growth in its revenue from operations, which became INR 98.45 crore in FY21 from INR 81.45 crore in FY20. The losses of Moneyview were also restricted by 31%, thereby making it stand at INR 46.81 crore (FY21) from INR 68.30 crore in FY20

In FY24, Moneyview reported a revenue of INR 1,012 crore, a notable increase of 75% from INR 577 crore in FY23. Total income also improved considerably, increasing from INR 677 crore in FY23 to INR 1,389 crore in FY24, representing a growth of approximately 105.6%.

Moneyview’s profit rose slightly from INR 163 crore in FY23 to INR 171 crore in FY24, an increase of about 4.9%. However, total expenses more than doubled, growing from INR 515 crore in FY23 to INR 1,190 crore in FY24, an increase of about 130.5%.

Moneyview – Funding and Investors

Moneyview has raised a total of $190.4 million so far. Its most recent funding came from a Series E-II round on September 12, 2024, where $4.6 million was invested by Accel India and Nexus Venture Partners. This new funding pushed Moneyview’s valuation up to $1.2 billion, making it a unicorn. Earlier, in a Series E round, the company raised $75 million, led by Tiger Global Management, at a valuation of $900 million.

Date	Stage	Amount	Investors
September 12, 2024	Series E- II	$4.6 Million	Accel India and Nexus Venture Partners
December 26, 2022	Series E	$75 Million	Apis Partners, Tiger Global Management
March 9, 2022	Series D Round	$75 Million	Tiger Global, Winter Capital, Evolvence India, Accel and more
December 14, 2018	Series C Round	$13 Million	Accel
January 31, 2016	Venture Round	$8.61 Million	–
April 1, 2015	Venture Round	$6.90 Million	Tiger Global, Accel India, Ribbit Capital
October 1, 2014	Series A	$1.32 Million	Accel

Moneyview is also looking at investing a part of this funding in consumer acquisition activities and building the brand. Moreover, looking at expanding their team size while looking at hiring, the co-founders aim to double their technical team strength by the end of this year. Starting with just the two of them, currently, the company can now boast of an active functioning team of 55+ individuals. Their primary spending remains to be on the technology they’re using to power the product.

Moneyview – Acquisitions

Moneyview acquired Jify on September 12, 2024. Jify is a platform offering on-demand earnings access, through a share swap. Jify’s investors, Accel and Nexus, received Moneyview shares in the deal. This acquisition will enhance Moneyview’s financial services and expand Jify’s reach, marking a significant step in Moneyview’s growth into various financial products.

Moneyview – Growth

Currently, Moneyview has a user base of over 10 million. The Moneyview app currently has customers across 400 Indian cities. Besides, Moneyview loan has also received positive reviews from customers. The Moneyview Loan app is rated 4.2 in the Google Play Store.

Moneyview currently boasts over 1 million app downloads per month and it takes pride in catering to more than 200 mn underserved customers. Currently, as per Moneyview, the business has grown 4X in the previous year and is presently disbursing loans at an annualized run rate of $700 million.

With the steady rise in the number of Indians opting for digital payments, Sanjay and Puneet are planning to take Moneyview to new heights.

Moneyview – ESOPs

Moneyview has expanded its ESOP pool, where it has added INR 72 crore worth of stock options, as of May 28, 2022. The earlier 1,33,338 stock options of Moneyview were increased to INR 1,75,390 options. Its new ESOP pool is now worth INR 300 crore ($40 million) including the recent expansion worth INR 72 crore.

Moneyview – Awards & Recognitions

To list, some of the major awards and recognitions that Moneyview witnessed in recent times are:

Moneyview has been ranked as the Best App in the year 2015 by Google, India.
It was also a runner-up in the IBM start-up challenge.
It was listed in the ‘Top 100 Startups in India 2018‘ by SutraHR.

Moneyview – Partnerships

Moneyview partners are many including the ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, with which the company has collaborated to launch an app-based solution – the Green Account platform.

Through the Green platform, it will offer two exclusive products—Savings+ and Tax Saver+—allowing users to take a step ahead towards financial fitness by saving money and growing it faster.

Savings+ is designed as a suitable alternative to traditional saving options. It allows users to park them in Liquid Funds offered by ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund. Meanwhile, the Tax Saver+, the second product offered through this partnership, helps users save on their taxes by investing in Equity Linked Savings Scheme (ELSS) option provided by ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund.

Moneyview has tied up with more than 3 banks as lending partners. Moneyview is also inviting individuals to join them as loan partners. Interested individuals can visit the Moneyview website, register as a loan partner, and start earning by referring anyone who is looking for a Moneyview personal loan. The online credit platform has partnered with over 15 financial institutions to date to expand and better its credit offerings.

Moneyview – Competitors

As far as the financial management space is concerned, Moneyview is not the only personal assistant available. There are others such as ‘Walnut’ to track expenses, get bank balances, and split bills with friends; Times Internet-backed money management app, ‘Smartspends’; expense manager ‘Gullak’, which claims to have registered over 1 million downloads; and Aditya Birla’s ‘MyUniverse’.

As bigger and more applications are building at a high speed, the market is getting tougher. Moneyview believes to be competing with applications like:

Faircent
Lendingkart
Capital Float

In the coming months, it will be interesting to see how this company will bring the necessary differentiation to rise above its competition and generate a value proposition in the minds of its customers.

Moneyview – Future Plans

The company is currently looking to have $1 billion in assets under management (AUM) over the next 12 months. Moneyview is also eyeing to be more profitable in the upcoming fiscal.

Money View – FAQs

What is the Moneyview app?

Moneyview is a fintech company founded in 2014, which has an app that is user-friendly via which the users can track and organize expenses, bills, and account balances. Furthermore, with the Moneyview app, they can also avail of personal loans.

Who is the owner of the Moneyview company?

The Moneyview has been founded by Puneet Agarwal and Sanjay Aggarwal, who are among the Moneyview owners.

Does Moneyview provide loans?

Yes, in addition to helping you keep track of your daily finances, Moneyview also provides loans ranging from INR 10,000 to INR 5,00,000 within a day or less.

Who are some competitors of Moneyview?

Some Moneyview competitors are Faircent, Lendingkart, and Capital Float.

Does Moneyview provide loans?

Yes, in addition to helping you keep track of your daily finances, Moneyview also provides loans ranging from INR 5,000 to INR 5,00,000 within a day or less. Its instant loan can also be approved within 2 minutes.

Who are some competitors of Moneyview?

Some Moneyview competitors are Faircent, Lendingkart, and Capital Float.

October 30, 2024

ZestMoney: Easy EMI and Personal Loan Solutions Without a Credit Card

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by ZestMoney.

Many times in our lives, we just need a small financial push to realize our dreams or fulfill our needs. In today’s organized money market, we turn to banks and other financial institutions for credit for various purposes. However, it’s not always easy to get a loan. From documentation to your current income and credit history, there are lots of parameters that you need to fulfill to get credit.

Thankfully, the scenario is changing now, and many financial and fintech startups are coming up with innovative ways to make borrowing easy and quick for customers.

Bangalore-based ZestMoney is one such fintech startup that is making borrowing possible for people who have an insufficient credit history. People can get quick and easy loans and pay for products with ZestMoney Easy EMI.

Let’s know more about this BNPL startup that is making life easy for millions of Indians by providing easy access to credit.

ZestMoney – Company Highlights

Startup Name	ZestMoney
Headquarters	Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Sector	Financial Services
Founders	Lizzie Chapman, Priya Sharma, Ashish Anantharaman
Founded	2015
Parent Organization	Camden Town Technologies Private Limited
Website	zestmoney.in

ZestMoney – About
ZestMoney – Founders and Team
ZestMoney – Startup Story
ZestMoney – Mission and Vision
ZestMoney – Name, Tagline & Logo
ZestMoney – Business and Revenue Model
ZestMoney – Funding & Investors
ZestMoney – Growth and Revenue
ZestMoney – Partnerships
ZestMoney – Competitors
ZestMoney – Future Plans

ZestMoney – About

ZestMoney is a platform that uses mobile technology, digital banking, and Artificial Intelligence to make getting loans easy. While many lending organizations hesitate to lend money in the absence of proper credit history, ZestMoney is the platform that does not see the absence of credit history as a barrier to getting a loan. ZestMoney through its AI-based machine learning decision engine creates a risk profile for every borrower. The ones who do not have sufficient credit history just need to provide some additional information based on which ZestMoney’s Decision Engine analyzes the credibility of the borrower and lends him money.

The products of ZestMoney include ‘credit limit’, also called ZestMoney EMI, and personal loans. To be able to access the ZestMoney Credit Limit, one just has to sign up with ZestMoney and complete the KYC process. Once approved, a user is assigned a credit limit based on his eligibility, and the user can use this credit limit to make payments to ZestMoney’s 3000+ merchant partners. ZestMoney has partnered with leading brands from different categories like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, SleepyCat, Xiaomi, NestAway, UpGrad, and many more.

The company’s lending partners include DMI Finance, Fox Capital, PACE Finance, Northern Arc, SMC Finance, Nahar Credits, InCred, Muthoot Finance, CSB Bank, Ghalla Bhansali, IIFL, and Hedge Finance.

ZestMoney offers personal loans only to customers who are using ZestMoney’s ‘Credit Limit’ service. As such one who wants to take a personal loan from ZestMoney needs to apply for ZestMoney ‘Credit Limit’ first.

ZestMoney – Founders and Team

ZestMoney’s founder trio, Lizzie Chapman from London, Priya Sharma from Delhi, and Ashish Anantharaman from Mumbai, were associated with a UK-based finance company called Wonga.

Lizzie Chapman

Lizzie Chapman served as the co-founder and CEO of ZestMoney. Lizzie was a student at the University of Edinburgh, where she obtained her BSc. degree in Microbiology. She started her career with Goldman Sachs, where she worked as a Business Analyst and an Associate. She then served as an Investment Manager at the Wellcome Trust. Wonga.com was the next company that she joined, and she served as the Country Head of India there. She then founded Abode Bombay. She also served as an Executive Director at DBS Bank and a Non-Executive Board Member at IndiaMart.

Lizzie is an advisor at India Quotient, a member of the Innovation Council of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), and a member of the National Startup Advisory Council (NSAC).

Priya Sharma

Priya Sharma served as the co-founder, CFO, and COO of ZestMoney. Priya did a B.Tech. in Metallurgical Engineering from IIT Varanasi before obtaining an MBA in Finance from London Business School. Priya Sharma served as a Senior Associate at Sapient, a Consultant at Delloite, and an associate at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and then she joined Wonga.com, where Priya was the head of corporate development before joining hands with the other co-founders and building ZestMoney.

Ashish Anantharaman

Ashish Anantharaman served as the co-founder and CTO of ZestMoney. He has a Bachelor’s degree in science, software engineering from the University of Mumbai. Ashish previously served as an Application Developer at Veritas Technologies LLC, a senior developer at Betfair, an engineering team lead at Sportingbet, and then the head of engineering at Wonga.com.

In a recent development, co-founders Lizzie Chapman, Priya Sharma, and Ashish Anantharaman have stepped down from their positions at ZestMoney. This decision comes in the wake of the collapse of the anticipated acquisition deal with PhonePe.

ZestMoney has announced that Abhishek Sharma, currently serving as the senior vice president of growth, Mandar Satpute, the chief banking officer, and Mohit Chhajer, the vice president of finance and financial operations (FinOps), will assume leadership positions within the company. This decision reflects ZestMoney’s commitment to maintaining a strong and experienced leadership team.

ZestMoney – Startup Story

Lizzie, Priya, and Ashish observed that the Online Credit Transaction facility was not up to the mark in India. Also getting credit was not easy for those who do not have proper credit history. With their knowledge and experience, they wanted to create a solution to resolve these uses, which led them to start ZestMoney in 2015.

ZestMoney – Mission and Vision

“We are on a mission to make life more affordable for India using technology-led solutions,” says the mission statement of ZestMoney. Making life affordable is the vision of ZestMoney.

ZestMoney – Name, Tagline & Logo

ZestMoney Logo

The word ‘Zest’ stands for positive feelings like enthusiasm, zeal, and passion, and thus the word ‘Zest’ in ‘ZestMoney’ represents the quick lending of money by ZestMoney thus making borrowing money a happy process rather than a matter of concern. The tagline of the company is ‘Adjust Nahi, Zest Karo.’

ZestMoney – Business and Revenue Model

ZestMoney acts as a virtual EMI platform, which integrates with merchants across online and offline channels. The company serves as a payment partner and an affiliate partner to these merchants and helps bring them new transactions and customers.

The company generates the major chunk of its revenues from the Direct Selling Agency Fees, which is the money that the company collects from its lending partners (NBFCs) as a result of the various services like lead generation, KYC, customer care and branding, which it provides. ZestMoney also charges a merchant commission on a fixed rate on products and services purchased by the borrowers from the merchants. Arranger fees are another vertical of revenue that ZestMoney has along with the other verticals, which consists of income from any other revenue wing.

ZestMoney – Funding & Investors

ZestMoney has raised funding from leading investors like Goldman Sachs, Quona Capital, Alteria Capital, and Primrose. The funding details of ZestMoney are listed below:

Date	Funding Round	Amount	Lead Investors
June 29, 2022	Debt Financing	$2.54 million	Alteria Capital
September 22, 2021	Series C	$50 million	Zip Co Limited
March 13, 2020	Venture	$11.3 million	Primrose Hills Ventures
December 19, 2019	Series B	$15 million	Goldman Sachs
April 22, 2019	Series B	$20 million	Quona Capital
January 18, 2019	Debt Financing	–	Alteria Capital
August 27, 2018	Series A	$13.4 million	Xiaomi
December 7, 2016	Series A	$6.5 million	PayU
September 1, 2015	Seed	$2 million	Nelson Holzner, Omidyar Network

ZestMoney – Growth and Revenue

ZestMoney earns commissions from merchant partners, lending partners, and also from borrowers. The company has reported that it has 17+ million registered users and expects the numbers to rise further.

In 2019, the company also had an NPS rating of 75, which is higher than that of Amazon and Uber.

In March 2021, ZestMoney stood second in a ranking of the 50 fastest-growing technology companies in India by Deloitte Technology. The rankings were based on percentage revenue growth over three years and ZestMoney grew 2,706 percent in these years.

The leading player in the Indian fintech industry, ZestMoney’s total revenue grew 1.6x to INR 145 crore in FY22 from INR 89.3 crore in FY21. Operating revenue also witnessed substantial growth, soaring by 68.6% to INR 138.4 crore in FY22 from INR 82 crore in FY21.

However, alongside its revenue growth, ZestMoney also faced widening losses, with losses expanding 3x to INR 398.8 crore in FY22 compared to INR 125.8 crore in FY21.

ZestMoney – Partnerships

Though ZestMoney is known for partnering with lenders like ICICI Bank, TATA Capital, DCB Bank, and more, the company also saw some partnerships outside of it.

ZestMoney partnered with Pickyourtrail on February 2020. The fintech company collaborated with the Chennai-based travel startup to provide consumers with flexible payment options for booking itineraries. This tie-up comes as a part of Pickyourtrail’s strategic plan to reach more customers.

The new partnership aims to facilitate travelers a more seamless travel booking experience by offering No Cost EMIs, along with options to ‘Travel now, pay later in 3 easy installments’. Providing the highest approval rates and zero pre-closure charges, travelers now don’t require credit history and are assured hassle-free online loan approval to experience their dream destination.

ZestMoney is the largest consumer lending fintech company in India. Its unique platform uses mobile technology, digital banking, and Artificial Intelligence to make life more affordable to people who currently don’t have access to credit cards or formal financing options due to insufficient credit history. Pickyourtrail is the latest brand to get Zestmoney onboard as a payment partner. The company has previously partnered with notable brands like Amazon, Myntra, Raymond, Uber, Big Bazaar, and Titan.

ZestMoney – Competitors

Some of the major competitors of ZestMoney are:

Finzy
LazyPay
Snapmint
KredXIndia

ZestMoney – Future Plans

The company plans to expand its product development and partnerships with an increased run rate in the future. While several ZestMoney Merchant Partners like Xiaomi, Titan, and Croma, accept ZestMoney EMI at offline stores, the company is partnering with more such merchants which will allow customers to pay using ZestMoney EMI in more offline outlets.

FAQs

What is ZestMoney?

ZestMoney is a Bangalore-based Fintech startup that is making borrowing possible for people who have an insufficient credit history.

Who is the Founder of ZestMoney?

Lizzie Chapman, Priya Sharma, and Ashish Anantharaman are founders of ZestMoney.

Who are the competitors of ZestMoney?

Finzy, LazyPay, Snapmint, and KredXIndia are some of the major competitors of ZestMoney.

Who are the partners of ZestMoney?

ZestMoney has partnered with leading brands like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Xiaomi, Udacity, upGrad, and many more.

Who are the lending partners of ZestMoney?

The lending partners of ZestMoney include DMI Finance, Northern Arc, SMC Finance, Nahar Credits, InCred, Muthoot Finance, CSB Bank, Ghalla Bhansali, IIFL, and Hedge Finance.

How do I pay with ZestMoney?

To pay with ZestMoney, select the EMI option at checkout and choose ZestMoney EMI as your payment method.

June 5, 2023

How BYJU’S Became the Most Valued Startup in India?

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by BYJU’S.

Imagine you are sitting in a packed class, and the teacher is explaining an important concept. It appears that everyone else is understanding the teacher’s words and nodding their heads in unison, but this is not the same with you because you cannot understand an inch of the explanation going on in the class. Does this scenario resonate with you? Whether you accept it or not, such situations have happened at least once in a student’s life. Every person has his or her own pace of learning, and it is not possible for the teacher to take care of everyone in the class.

Thankfully, the Edtech sector is growing fast enough to fill this gap. And talking about EdTech in India, one name that can’t be missed is BYJU. Read on to find out how an engineer’s passion for teaching led him to start the world’s most valued ed-tech company.

BYJU’S was founded in 2011 by Byju Raveendran, and BYJU’S The Learning App was launched in 2015. BYJU’S is now valued at about $8.4 billion.

Let’s go through the Exciting Journey of BYJU’S and also discover more about BYJU’s Success Story, History, Founders, Funding, Revenue, Competitors, Acquisitions, and more.

BYJU's Journey — Timeline of BYJU’s Success Story

BYJU’s – Company Highlights

Startup Name	BYJU’S
Headquarter	Bangalore
Founder	Byju Raveendran
Sector	Edtech
Founded	2011
Valuation	$8.4 Billion (May 2023)
Total Funding	$6 Billion (May 2023)
Parent Organization	Think and Learn Pvt. Ltd.
Website	byjus.com

About BYJU’s and How BYJU’s Works
BYJU’s – Founders and Team
BYJU’s – Startup Story | How was BYJU’s Started
BYJU’s – Name, Logo, and Tagline
BYJU’s – Business Model and Revenue Model
BYJU’s – Funding and Investors
BYJU’s – IPO
BYJU’s – Challenges faced by BYJU’s
BYJU’s – Competitors/Alternatives
BYJU’s – Acquisitions
BYJU’s – Growth and Revenue
BYJU’s – Partnerships
BYJU’s – Lay Off
BYJU’s – Future Plans

About BYJU’s and How BYJU’s Works

The Bangalore-based educational technology platform BYJU’s is an online tutoring and coaching firm that was started in the year 2011 and runs on a freemium model. BYJU’s parent company is ‘Think and Learn Pvt Ltd’. The main aim of BYJU’s is to provide coaching through online video lectures for students of class 1 to class 12 and also for people who prepare for competitive exams like IIT – JEE, NEET, CAT, GRE, and GMAT.

BYJU’s – the Learning app was launched in the year 2015 and has been a huge success. It is used by more than 15 million students all over the world and has 9,00,000 paid subscribers. The app helps the students to learn on their own rather than rely on spoon-feeding. Its approach combines the re-invention of learning, world-class teachers, proven pedagogical methods, and personalized learning.

BYJU’s – Founders and Team

Byju Raveendran is the founder of BYJU’s Classes, the education Technology firm.

Byju Raveendran

Byju Raveendran, BYJU’s founder, and CEO, was born in 1980 in Azhikode, Kerela. He has a B.Tech (mechanical engineering) from Government Engineering College in Kannur, Kerela. Before starting BYJU’s, Byju Raveendran was working in a multinational shipping firm as a service engineer. However, teaching was his passion and inspired him to start BYJU’s.

Besides being an entrepreneur and teacher, Byju Raveendran is also an expert sportsperson, active in six different sports. He played football, cricket, table tennis, and badminton at the university level. Popularly known as Byju sir among his students, Byju cleared CAT twice with 100 percentile. He never joined any IIM, though.

Divya Gokulnath

An Indian entrepreneur and educator, Divya Gokulnath is the wife of Byju Raveendran and a co-founder and director at Byju’s. Divya was a student of National College Jayanagar and R.V College of Engineering, from where she completed her B.Tech in Biotechnology after which she decided to co-found Byju’s in 2011 with her husband.

Rachna Bahadur was appointed as the Senior VP of Byju’s on December 10, 2021, who will look after the overall planning, strategies, and roadmap of Byju’s both in new and existing markets. Rachna was previously a Partner at Bain & Company.

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BYJU’s – Startup Story | How was BYJU’s Started?

Coming from Azhikode, a small village in Kerala, Byju Raveendran was an engineer with a shipping company based in the UK. While he was working, he started to help his friends prepare for the CAT exam, an entrance exam for getting into the best business schools in India. To test himself, Byju also gave the exam and secured 100 percentile! He did not join any of the IIMs but started teaching students for their mathematics exams.

Initially, he took mathematics workshops for free and then started charging a fee when he was confident about his prowess. At one point his workshops were so popular that more than 20000 students participated in one such workshop. In the year 2009, he started to record videos of the workshops he organized.

His former students who graduated from the IIMs encouraged him to start BYJU’s classes. ‘Think and Learn Pvt Ltd’ was then formed to create content for school students. He launched Byju’s – The Learning App in 2015, and the app was downloaded by more than 5.5 million people in the first year itself.

BYJU’s – Name, Logo, and Tagline

BYJU’s tagline is “Fall in love with learning“. Byju’s got its name from its founder’s first name.

Here’s the BYJU’S logo below:

BYJU’S Logo

BYJU’s – Business Model and Revenue Model

Byju’s works on a freemium business model wherein it offers customers both complimentary and paid (premium) services. The company asks the students to submit their details on its application or website and offers them a free 15 days trial. Once the free trial is exhausted, the student has to buy the courses from BYJU’s to access the complete content. The company provides one-to-one mentoring to its subscribers and also provides feedback to the child’s parents. BYJU’s also offers classroom coaching in Noida, Gurgaon, and some other areas.

BYJU’s generates revenue in three ways:

The first one is through the app. After the free trial of 15 days, students have to purchase the courses to continue their educational journey on BYJU’s. The app offers a variety of test series, courses, etc. which actually compels people to make the purchase.
BYJU’s offers electronic tablets that customers need to procure when they buy the course of their choice. This tablet has videos, tests, practice questions, quizzes, etc. pertaining to that course.
The third revenue generation mechanism is through classroom teaching. These classes are restricted to only a few cities.

BYJU’s – Funding and Investors

In 2016, BYJU’s became the first Asian company to receive funding from the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic initiative by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. It was back in 2018 when BYJU’s turned into a unicorn, becoming the first Indian edtech company to join the prestigious unicorn club of Indian startups.

During the funding round in March 2022, BYJU’s successfully concluded a round worth $800 million. Notable investors, including Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners, and BlackRock, infused $400 million, while the founder of BYJU’s, Byju Raveendran, contributed the remaining $400 million. However, the closing of this funding round faced challenges in July 2022 when Sumeru and Oxshott did not transfer their due amount of $250 million, citing macroeconomic reasons.

Byju Raveendran, the CEO of BYJU’s, holds approximately 25% of the company’s stakes, while Divya Gokulnath and the management team possess around 4% stakes.

In June 2021, BYJU’s secured a funding round that valued the edtech giant at $16.5 billion, surpassing Paytm as the most valued startup in India. This was followed by an increase in valuation to $22 billion in July 2022 after the successful funding round. However, in May 2023, BlackRock cut BYJU’s valuation by 62%, resulting in a new valuation of $8.4 billion. This followed a previous valuation cut to $11.5 billion by BlackRock, just one month earlier.

The table below covers BYJU’s funding details:

Date	Stage	Amount	Lead Investors
May 13, 2023	Debt Financing	$250 Million	Davidson Kempner
October 27, 2022	Debt Financing	$36.45 Million	Aakash Educational Services
October 17, 2022	Private Equity	$250 Million	Qatar Investment Authority
March 11, 2022	Private Equity	$800 Million	Byju Raveendran, Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners and BlackRock
November 8, 2021	Debt Financing	$1.2 Billion	–
October 4, 2021	Series F	$286.61 Million	Oxshott Capital Partners
September 8, 2021	–	$150 Million	Asmaan Ventures, Mirae Asset, ARK Ncore
June 21, 2021	Series F	$50 Million	IIFL and Maitri Edtech
June 12, 2021	Series F	$350 Million	UBS Group, Eric Yuan, Blackstone
March 29, 2021	Series F	$460 Million	MC Global Edtech Investment Holdings
September 8, 2020	Private Equity Round	$500 Million	Silver Lake
August 26, 2020	Venture Round	$122 Million	DST Global
June 26, 2020	Venture Round	$100 Million	Bond
January 9, 2020	Private Equity Round	$200 Million	Tiger Global Management
July 10, 2019	Venture Round	$150 Million	Qatar Investment Authority
March 22, 2019	Private Equity Round	$31 Million	General Atlantic & Tencent Holdings
December 11, 2018	Venture Round	$ 540 Million	Prosus & Naspers
August 2017	Corporate Round	$40 Million	Tencent Holdings
March 2017	Series F	$30 Million	Verlinvest
December 2016	Series E	$15 Million	IFC Venture Capital Group & InnoVen Capital
September 2016	Series D	$50 Million	Chan Zuckerberg Initiative & Sequoia Capital India
March 2016	Series C	$75 Million	Sequoia Capital India & Sofina

In March 2017, a case study on BYJU’s was featured in Harvard Business School’s curriculum. It is indeed one of the biggest achievements for any company from a non-monetary perspective, and that is when Byju’s started operating on a global platform.

BYJU’s – IPO

Byju’s is eyeing an IPO within the next 8-10 months. Byju Raveendran-led edtech unicorn is India’s second-highest valued startup, which has already been popular in the startup ecosystem for its fundraises and acquisitions and is currently looking for an IPO at over $16.8 bn. According to the further progress in the IPO of Byju’s the company has now decided to merge the special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) of Churchill Capital, a global strategic advisory firm, and raise around $4 bn. Such an IPO round would value the company at over $48 bn, as per the reports of December 16, 2021. The BYJU’s IPO is set to be conducted in the next 18 months, as of July 7, 2022, at a valuation between $40-45 bn.

BYJU’s – Challenges faced by BYJU’s

As said by Byju Raveendran, the founder of BYJU’s, converting the students to paid subscribers after the free trial ends is a major challenge for BYJU’s. The company is also working towards expanding to other English-speaking countries, and finding suitable partners to assist with this expansion is the second challenge.

Byju’s Owing Money to BCCI

Byju’s, which has been the jersey sponsor for the Indian cricket team, allegedly owes nearly Rs 86.21 crore in dues to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). These news reports have been rejected by Byju Raveendran’s wife and the Co-founder of Byju’s Divya Gokulnath, who have also pointed out that the cricketing board of India has also rejected such news.

It originally acquired the rights from OPPO, the smartphone manufacturing firm in 2019, and the last deal of the edtech major with BCCI expired in March 2022. However, both parties have agreed to extend their partnership in April 2022, which will continue till the 2023 ODI World Cup. The latest deal was worth $55 mn.

Byju’s Under Government Scanner for Misselling Courses

Byju’s has been identified by the Department of Consumer Affairs among the edtech companies that missell courses. Several edtech companies like Unacademy, UpGrad, Great Learning, WhiteHat Jr., and more joined the meeting with the India Edtech Consortium (IEC) on June 24, 2022, where they were drawn attention to the numerous consumer complaints against these companies, a large number of which were against Byju’s and its subsidiaries. Divya Gokulnath of Byju’s fame shared a detailed action plan to address consumer complaints. Besides, the most valued startup in India has also been advised to work with the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) for the claims that it makes in its ads.

BYJU’s – Competitors/Alternatives

People are rapidly moving toward digitization and adopting e-learning because of this revolution, and many other companies with a model similar to BYJU’s are focusing on ed-tech. BYJU’s major competitors:

UpGrad
Meritnation.com
Vedantu
ClassPlus
Unacademy
Teachable
Khan Academy
Simplilearn
Schoolwise
Toppr

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BYJU’s – Acquisitions

Byju’s Recent Acquisitions

BYJU’s has acquired a total number of 19 companies to date. With a total of 10 acquisitions under its belt in 2021, Byju’s had spent over $2.4 Bn owing to its aggressive acquisition spree, which the company has embraced eyeing a unilateral market. Byju’s acquired GeoGebra, an Austria-based Math learning tool startup on December 8, 2021, in a deal that was later recorded at around $100 mn. Founded by Markus Hohenwwarter in 2001, GeoGebra fuses geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics, and calculus on a platform that is easy to use and efficient. Besides, it boasts of having a community of 100 Mn+ learners across 195+ countries. As a platform, GeoGebra aims to make math learning fun and visually appealing. This acquisition will, thus, make Byju’s Math learning programs interesting and interactive.

Tynker was the last company that Byju’s acquired before this present acquisition on September 16, 2021. Byju’s previously acquired the e-learning app for competitive exam preparations, Toppr, and Edtech app, Great Learning on July 24, 2021, and then Whodat. Great Learning again acquired the recruitment automation company, Superset on February 28, 2022. Byju’s Great Learning acquired Northwest Executive Education on May 10, 2022, for around $100 mn, in a cash and stock deal. This acquisition would help both companies further their offerings to markets like India, the US, Europe, and Latin America.

Byju’s was in final talks of acquiring the online tutoring platform, Vedantu. The Edtech giant had already displayed a vibrant year of acquisition so doubts were relatively lesser on the same. According to the reports, the Byju Raveendran-led company had already offered an amount of $700-800 million for the deal, which was pending necessary regulatory approvals. Vedantu has been among the most prominent rivals of Byju’s, and if the deal fleshed out, it would have been another feather to the cap of Byju’s, being the fourth major acquisition of the company so far. However, Byju’s acquisition of Vedantu was dismissed by the co-founder and chief executive of Vedantu, Vamsi Krishna, who said that any talks of merger or acquisition with Byju’s are “100% inaccurate,” as per the reports on August 6, 2021.

Though the Edtech major has reportedly reached out to Unacademy and Vedantu and offered them around $1 billion last year, none of the deals has materialized this year. However, Byju’s was then in talks to acquire Tynker, a coding platform for kids from the US. The talks were at their initial stage, with no confirmation of the figures of the deal, when reported on August 17, 2021. Byju’s has been ultimately successful in materializing yet another acquisition, where it has acquired Tynker on September 16, 2021, for $200 mn. Tynker Founder and CTO, Srinivas Mandyam has stated that the platform is so popular in the US that 1 in 3 schools already use it in the States. This will surely give Byju’s an extra edge for its expansion in North America. Byju coding class along with Tynker and WhiteHat Jr. is meant to be something big in the long run.

Possible Acquisitions Ahead for Byju’s

The Edtech decacorn is now looking to acquire Hello English, according to the news dated November 22, 2021, confirmed by sources close to the company. The sources on request for anonymity have also claimed that the deal will reportedly be valued at $25 mn. Furthermore, they added that the term sheet has already been signed.

Hello English [formerly known as CultureAlley] is an eight-year-old cloud-based language learning platform that extends the facility of learning multiple languages for users including English, Chinese, Portuguese, Turkish, Nepali, Indonesian, Thai, Arabic, Malay, Urdu, Malay, Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and more. The acquisition of Hello English would be a landmark step and will signal the foray of the Edtech tech into the language learning space.

Byju’s is also reported to be acquiring Superset and is currently involved in the late-stage conversation to finalize the terms, according to sources close to the companies on request of anonymity. Superset is a campus recruitment platform from Bangalore that aims to streamline the campus hiring process, thereby making placements an easy affair for colleges, universities, and companies. It is also alleged that the Superset founding duo, Naman Agrawal and Pranjal Goswami will also join Byju’s if the deal takes shape.

The Byju Raveendran-led edtech company might acquire 2U Inc, a NASDAQ-listed edtech firm for close to $1 bn, which might stand as the largest acquisition in the space.

Byju’s Completed Aakash Acquisition

Byju’s owned Aakash Institute back in January 2021, in a deal worth $1 bn, which was to be completed in June 2022, but the company is deferring the payment and have reportedly sought a two-month extension already, as per the reports dated June 29, 2022. Blackstone, which is Aakash’s main investor and others are to be paid partly in cash and partly in Byju’s stocks, as per the reports. Many other investors also received partial payments in 2021 as reported by the firm. The Byju’s-Aakash deal, which was billed as the largest deal in the history of the Indian edtech space, declared previously that after the deal, Aakash Chaudhry and the Chaudhry family, who are the owners of the institute would completely exit the company. On the other hand, Blackstone, which owns 37.5% of the institute would be paid in June 2022. However, Byju’s spokesperson has denied the reports of Bloomberg and mentioned that Byju’s acquisition of Aakash would be completed on the mentioned date, which is in August 2022. Byju’s declared that it has completed Aakash’s pending payment as per the reports dated July 4, 2022. Via a statement, Byju’s spokesperson mentioned the closing of the Aakash deal, and that the audited financial results will be announced in the next 10 days. However, it is revealed on July 12, 2022, that Byju’s has a pending payment of close to $200 mn to the US-based private equity giant Blackstone Inc., which reportedly needs to be paid by August 2022.

Here are the details of all BYJU’s Acquisitions:

Date	Company	About Company	Value
January 2017	Vidyartha	A customised learning guidance platform for K8-K12 students	$6.71 million
July 2017	TutorVista	Online tutoring services platform	Undisclosed
July 2017	Edurite	Audio-visual educational content provider	Undisclosed
July 2018	Math Adventures	A platform that aids kids to learn math in a fun way	Undisclosed
January 2019	Osmo	Platform offers educational courses with the use of games, videos and other materials	$120 million
August 2020	WhiteHat Jr.	Offers online coding classes to school-going students in India and the US	$300 million
September 2020	LabInApp	Offers lab-like simulations for science students on a mobile app.	Undisclosed
January 2021	Aakash Educational Services Ltd	Helps students get admission to engineering and medical schools by providing coaching for entrance exams	$1 Billion
February 18, 2021	Scholr	Mumbai-based Ai-enabled online education platform	$2.4 million
May 29, 2021	HashLearn	Online coaching platform for competitive exams	Undisclosed
July 13, 2021	Gradeup	India’s largest online exam preparation website	Undisclosed
July 13, 2021	Toppr	Online learning app offering training in JEE Main, NEET, JEE Advanced, CBSE and other school exams	Undisclosed
July 21, 2021	Epic	California-based reading application that focuses on books, eBooks, learning, and educational technology	$500 million
July 24, 2021	Great Learning	Edtech platform that offers career-relevant courses from world-class universities	Undisclosed
August 4, 2021	Whodat Tech	A spatial mapping, computer vision and augmented reality startup based out of Bangalore	Undisclosed
September 16, 2021	Tynker	Tynker is a US-based coding platform that empowers kids to learning programming and code.	$200 million
December 8, 2021	GeoGebra	GeoGebra is a Austria-based math learning platform that aims to empower math learning and make it easy and interactive.	$100 mn

BYJU’s – Growth and Revenue

BYJU’s as a startup is pretty innovative and has garnered massive success in the market. It follows rigorous advertising strategies. The company has captured the Indian market and has established its presence in the Middle East as well. BYJU’s intends to expand to the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and other global markets. To expand its footprints in the USA, BYJU’s acquired US-based learning platform Osmo in January 2019. The company also tied up with Disney to launch an early learning app for classes 1-3.

BYJU’s was also in the news recently as it took a positive step during the coronavirus crisis. Since schools in different parts of India were shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak, BYJU’s made its learning app free for the students till the end of April 2020 so that students could enjoy uninterrupted learning.

BYJU’s Collaborated with NITI Aayog

Byju Raveendran-led Edtech giant partnered with the Indian government’s public policy think tank. This partnership aimed to foster a quality learning experience through tech-driven learning programs, which will be extended to children across 112 “aspirational districts” of the country. The “aspirational districts”, as mentioned, are the most developmentally challenged regions of the country across sectors like health, nutrition, education, agriculture, skill development, water resources, infrastructure, and more.

This partnership will also be responsible for setting a dedicated working group up to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the program in full, according to a statement released on September 17, 2021.

This collaboration will be comprised of 2 main components:

Byju’s Career Plus program will offer high-quality coaching to around 3000 students of Classes 11 and 12, who are aspiring to appear for NEET and JEE.
Another voluntary program will allow school-going children between Classes (6-12) to avail themselves of scholastic content from Byju’s Learning App for 3 years, as per the social impact initiative undertaken by the edtech giant named, Education for all.

On this, Byju’s Founder and CEO, Byju Raveendran said,

“Through our ‘Education for All’ programme, we have been empowering and impacting millions of children across the country, and by partnering with NITI Aayog, our efforts are being strengthened further.”

Byju’s to launch a new edtech business in the MENA region

Byju’s has partnered with Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) to launch a new edtech business and R&D centre in Doha, Qatar. The entity that will be built as a result of the deal, is expected to drive research and innovation and create cutting-edge learning solutions that will be personalised for the Middle East, and North African students, those who belong to the MENA region.

The CEO and Founder of Byju’s, Byju Raveendran, and the CEO of QIA, Mansoor Al-Mahmoud, have signed an MOU in the presence of the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the State of Qatar and chairman of QIA, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, and the representatives of BYJU’S, in the recent 2022 Doha Forum.

Furthermore, BYJU’s aims to identify and provide test preparation coaching to 3,000 meritorious students of classes 11 and 12, who aspire to appear for NEET and JEE, with the help of the Aakash+BYJU’S Career-Plus program. Additionally, the Edtech giant will also offer academic content with the help of BYJU’S Learning App for the school children studying in classes 6-12 standards for three years, under its social impact initiative called ‘Education for All’.

BYJU’s Revenue

Although BYJU’s has not yet disclosed its financial numbers for FY22, the company has claimed that it achieved approximately Rs 10,000 crore in gross revenues during that fiscal year. However, according to the annual financial statements filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), BYJU’s operating revenue showed a modest growth of only 4% to Rs 2,280 crore in FY21, compared to Rs 2,189 crore in FY20. In contrast, the company experienced a significant surge in losses, which increased nearly 15 times to Rs 4,564 crore in FY21, as compared to Rs 305 crore in FY20.

Byju’s has started offering a hybrid model where the students can embrace physical/offline education centers for their classes, as of October 2021. The all-new hybrid model of education has already been kickstarted, the success of which would make the Edtech startup scale it up around the nation. The hybrid learning centers would be dubbed, “BYJU’S Learning Centre” and would initially concentrate on Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Mathematics.

Byju’s appears to have come full circle. This is because after switching to the online mode of learning, acquiring companies, garnering fame, and becoming India’s most valued edtech startup, it is now planning to launch its offline coaching center, which would be named Byju’s Tuition Center (BTC), and would pave for its foray into blended/hybrid learning. This new initiative is planned to benefit the students between Classes (4-10) and has prominently scaled this far mainly after the acquisition of Aakash Educational Services.

BYJU’s – Partnerships

Byju’s is known as the BCCI partner and will be remaining on the jersey of the Indian cricket team as it renewed its sponsorship with the Indian cricketing board for the upcoming 18 months at a deal price of around $55 mn. The new term of Byju’s started after the end of India’s South Africa tour. The Byju’s-BCCI partnership was extended until the ODI World Cup 2023.

The edtech giant’s contract ended in March 2022, post which it applied for the extension. Byju’s bought the rights of IPL sponsorship from Oppo in 2019. Some other prominent partnerships of Byju’s include:

Byju’s and Google Partnered to offer a “Learning Solution” for schools.
Byju’s collaborated with NITI Aayog to extend free education in 112 districts.
Byju’s partnered with Intel to invest in and enhance student-teacher relationships.
The edtech giant collaborated with Akshaya Patra Foundation to help needy students get smart classrooms.

BYJU’s – Lay Off

In October 2023, BYJU’S laid off about 600 workers from its marketing and content departments. Under the direction of new India CEO Arjun Mohan, the ailing edtech behemoth is currently undergoing restructuring, which includes layoffs.

BYJU’s – Future Plans

Byju’s is currently planning to focus more on the Byju’s Tuition Center (BTC) by investing up to $200 mn on the same over the next 12 to 18 months, as of February 2022. Signing up around 1 mn students for this model is the aim of Byju’s over the next 2 years. The Byju Raveendran-led edtech giant is currently running this product as a pilot in around 23 cities and 80 centers and is willing to take the same to 500 centres across 200 cities by the end of 2022. Byju’s is also looking forward to a public listing ahead in the next 18 months. It is also looking to acquire prominent companies like the NASDAQ-listed 2U Inc.

FAQs

When did BYJU’s Start?

BYJU’s was founded in the year 2011.

What is BYJU’s Tagline?

BYJU’s tagline is “Fall in love with learning“

Why is BYJU’s Successful?

BYJU’s functions on a Freemium Business Model. The approach of BYJU’s in providing knowledge with highly creative visual content, one-on-one learning, and other facilities has led to its success. BYJU’s has been able to rightly blend technology and knowledge to impart knowledge to today’s generation.

Who is the Owner of BYJU’s?

Byju Raveendran founded BYJU’s in 2011. Think and Learn Private Ltd is the parent organization of BYJU’s.

Who is Byju Raveendran’s wife?

Byju Raveendran’s wife is Divya Gokulnath, who is an entrepreneur, and educator along with being the Co-founder and Director at Byju’s.

What is the Byju’s learning app?

The Edtech giant boasts of the BYJU’S Learning App, which is designed to offer academic content for school-going children ranging from class 6 – 12 for three years. This has been decided under its social impact initiative ‘Education for All’.

How much is BYJU’s Revenue?

BYJU’s operating revenue showed a modest growth of only 4% to Rs 2,280 crore in FY21, compared to Rs 2,189 crore in FY20.

Who are the competitors of BYJU’s?

BYJU’s major competitors are Meritnation.com, Vedantu, Teachable, Khan Academy, Simplilearn, Schoolwise, and Toppr.

How to become a teacher in Byju’s?

Becoming a teacher in Byju’s is not as hard as you think. To become a teacher, firstly, you need to record a video of yourself where you will have to teach any concept in front of the camera for around 15 minutes. Next, you need to record another clear video of yourself where you will have to solve 2 questions papers of the subject grade that you have applied for.

May 31, 2023

Story of Amagi: A Next-Generation MediaTech Company

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Amagi.

Amagi is a next-generation media technology company. It provides end-to-end cloud-managed live and on-demand video infrastructure to content owners, broadcast and cable TV networks, and OTT platforms. Its core expertise lies in broadcast-grade 24×7 linear channel creation, channel distribution to Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV platforms, live orchestration for sports and news, OTT server-side ad insertion, and analytics for monetization, cost-effective disaster recovery, among others.

Amagi supports 500+ content brands, 800+ playout chains, and over 2000 channel deliveries on its platform in over 40 countries. The company generated approximately 2 billion ad opportunities every month supporting OTT ad-insertion for 1000+ channels. Its clientele includes ABS-CBN, Fox Networks, Fremantle, NBCUniversal, Tastemade, Tegna, USA Today, and Warner Media, among others.

StartupTalky interviewed Mr. Baskar Subramanian (Co-founder & CEO, Amagi) to get insights into the startup story and roadmap of the organization. In this article you’ll discover how Amagi company was conceptualized, its business model, customer acquisition strategies, Amagi competitors, Amagi technologies revenue, Amagi logo, future plans, and more.

Amagi – Company Highlights

Startup Name	Amagi
Founders	Baskar Subramanian (CEO), Srividhya Srinivasan, Srinivasan KA
Headquarters	Bangalore and New York, USA
Founded	2008
Industry	Saas, Broadcast Technology, MediaTech
Total Funding	$240.2 mn (March 2022)
Revenue from Operations	$28.61 mn (Rs 219.3 cr in FY21)
Valuation	$1 bn+ (March 2022)
Website	amagi.com

Amagi – About and Vision
Amagi – Industry
Amagi – Startup Story
Amagi – Founders and Team
Amagi – Name, Tagline and Logo
Amagi – Business model & Revenue model
Amagi – Launch & Customer Acquisition Strategies
Amagi – Challenges Faced
Amagi – Funding and Investors
Amagi – Growth and Revenue
Amagi – ESOPs
Amagi – Competitors
Amagi – Recognition and Achievements
Amagi – Future Plans

Amagi – About and Vision

Amagi is a next-generation media technology company. It provides end-to-end cloud-managed live and on-demand video infrastructure to content owners, broadcast and cable TV networks, and OTT platforms.

Amagi’s core expertise lies in broadcast-grade 24×7 linear channel creation, channel distribution to Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV platforms, live orchestration for sports and news, OTT server-side ad insertion, and analytics for monetization, cost-effective disaster recovery, among others.

Amagi’s clients include top-tier broadcast TV networks, digital-first networks, content owners, Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST), and OTT platforms in the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions. The company has grown 100 percent over the last two years and is profitable. Amagi has a presence in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Paris, and Singapore, broadcast operations in New Delhi, and an innovation center in Bangalore. Amagi has 350+ employees and continues to hire and expand operations across all regions.

Vision

Amagi’s long-term vision is to transform the media and entertainment industry by virtualizing the whole broadcasting operation. The flexibility of cloud-built solutions for broadcasting outpaces the capabilities of traditional hardware-intensive operating systems. Its goal is to be the global leader in cloud-based SaaS technology for broadcast and connected TV.

The startup is currently amidst a global ‘cord-cutting phase with more and more viewers choosing streaming TV over traditional Pay TV services. And within streaming, Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV or FAST (the streaming version of the free TV network) is becoming immensely popular among viewers keen to revisit the simplicity of linear TV-like experience.

Amagi is playing an instrumental role in the transformation taking place in the streaming industry. In fact, it is at the front and center of it. Amagi had already established early leadership in the domain, enabling content brands to spin up linear channels on the go, distribute them to leading FAST platforms and generate ad revenues for themselves.

300+ content brands have so far chosen to engage Amagi’s services to amplify their distribution across FAST. Its short-term goal is to be able to emerge as the undisputed leader in providing the complete technology stack in streaming distribution, especially in the FAST space.

Tools used to run startup

Salesforce for CRM
Pardot for marketing campaigns
Aha for product management
Jira for issue tracking
Slack for internal/external business communication

Core Belief of the team

Amagi’s core belief is that technology has the power to transform an industry, making it more nimble and more competitive, and providing options to both service providers as well as end-users.

Take the Media and Entertainment industry for example. For several years, the industry had not undergone any major transformations until Cloud came into the picture. Cloud-led technology solutions challenged the status quo in the industry, creating radical changes in content consumption patterns (the OTT boom is a prime example). Due to the technology disruption, users have more choices and more flexibility and control over what they want to watch. Content creators, likewise, have the option of scaling their business on the cloud at lower opex compared to traditional broadcasting models.

As the front runners of next-gen media tech solutions for broadcasting, Amagi takes pride in having played an instrumental role in this transformation. Amagi has successfully introduced a flexible ‘pay-as-you-go’ model for launching and operating 24/7 linear channels by eliminating the need for traditional, hardware-driven, large expensive physical operations. The company essentially put the entire broadcast operations on the cloud.

Amagi – Industry

Target Market Size:

Rise of connected TV: In the fourth quarter of 2020, CTV devices accounted for 49% of the time people spent streaming video globally
Smart TVs’ viewership time increased by 157% in the quarter to represent 17% of overall viewership time
Global audience for FAST TV: 200 million and still growing
The connected TV market is currently generating $250 billion in ad revenues

Overall, Amagi has 500+ content brands, 800+ playout chains, and over 2000 channel deliveries on its platform in over 40 countries. Amagi has already established early leadership in the FAST domain, with 50+ FAST platforms and 100 other platform partnerships globally. 300+ content brands chose to engage Amagi’s services to amplify their distribution across FAST. This includes Fremantle, beIN Sports, Yahoo! Finance, Tastemade, Qwest TV, Shout! Factory, Cinedigm, USA TODAY, VICE UK, and more.

Industry growth in the next 5 years:

The team at Amagi believes that streaming is the future of TV with millions of viewers around the world making it their favored entertainment destination. In 2020 alone, nearly 68 million US homes had made the switch from cable to OTT, and around 300 streaming players were vying for their attention in the market. In India too, studies predict that the OTT content market is at an inflection point and is likely to reach $5 bn in size by the end of 2022.

There are shifts taking place within the OTT ecosystem too. While subscription-based streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon Prime continue to be popular among viewers, the sheer volume of options in the Subscription-Video-On-Demand space has caused ‘decision fatigue’, giving rise to a new phenomenon – Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST), a subset of Advertising Video-On-Demand (AVOD).

With FAST, viewers can go back to the simplicity of linear TV-like experience, with ad breaks that are shorter and tailored to their interest, without having to incur any Pay TV expenses. The rise of FAST in the US and other markets such as Europe, LatAm, and Asia is opening new vistas for content brands for channel creation, distribution, and monetization. The growing demand for connected TVs and the popularity of linear TV-like experiences imply that good quality content is going to become freely available to viewers, and monetization of content will be largely through advertising.

Amagi – Startup Story

Amagi was founded in 2008 by Baskar Subramanian, Srividhya Srinivasan, and Srinivasan KA to pioneer cloud-based broadcast and advertising technology solutions. The company originally started in India providing targeted TV advertising solutions.

The founders often tell a story of how they were approached by a young palmist offering to predict their future as they were sitting in a park and brainstorming ideas for their next entrepreneurial venture, on a Monday morning in early 2008. The palmist, rightly assuming that the founders were currently in between ventures, chose to target them as they seemed the likeliest candidates for needing their futures told. This ‘targeting’ on the part of the palmist put them in mind of ‘targeting’ as a solution. They chose ‘targeted advertising’ on traditional TV as a business model, as there was a real need for technology intervention in this area, to democratize TV advertising and make it accessible to small-time advertisers.

As part of their research into the viability of this technology, the founders went to the United States and other countries to examine what was already available in this space. They found that the tech that existed was very expensive and not scalable. For it to be a success in India, the tech had to be low cost and easy to scale.

They decided to build this technology from scratch and scale it to 3000 cities at a time, which was the start of Amagi.

In the late 2000s, billions of dollars worth of advertising money were being spent by large corporations on national TV– a luxury that small-time regional advertisers could not afford. Amagi’s founders took ad democratization as their problem statement. They believed that targeted advertising technologies could have a transformational impact in this area.

They wanted to see if they could build a network of local advertisers and offer them geo-targeted advertising on traditional TV (narrow the target down to a street, if needed) as a solution to their visibility requirements on TV. They decided to build targeted advertising infrastructure in the country by splitting the satellite signals at specific locations and inserting new ads.

Advertisers loved the idea. They could now choose to target multiple locations (individually), and yet, end up spending less than a national TV ad slot (the cost of the sum of the individual locations was less than the whole national ad spot), thus gaining more visibility, at a fraction of the cost.

That was the genesis of Amagi’s foray into the TV advertising arena, which eventually led to bigger innovations at larger scales.

The company quickly pivoted from targeted advertising to lead cloud adoption and evangelize cloud technologies for broadcast.

Amagi – Founders and Team

Baskar Subramanian, Srividhya Srinivasan, and Srinivasan KA are the founders of Amagi.

Baskar, Srini, and Vidhya met and befriended one another during their graduate years at Government College of Technology, Coimbatore. They are software engineers who co-founded the company in 2008 after their previous entrepreneurial venture, Impulsesoft, was acquired by Nasdaq listed SiRF.

About the founders –

Baskar Subramanian | Co-founder & CEO, Amagi

Baskar is a serial entrepreneur with many patents to his name. As CEO, Baskar drives Amagi’s vision, growth strategy, and execution, enabling the transformation of the global media and entertainment industry through technology innovation. Baskar has been instrumental in developing several of Amagi’s path-defining technologies on cloud broadcast and frame-accurate ad splicing for both TV and OTT. Under Baskar’s leadership, Amagi has demonstrated strong growth, becoming an industry leader in SaaS-based solutions for broadcast.

Prior to Amagi, Baskar co-founded ImpulseSoft, a wireless technology company, which was later acquired by NASDAQ-listed SiRF. He started his career as a software engineer at Texas Instruments before embarking on his entrepreneurial journey. To foster a culture of entrepreneurship in society, Baskar regularly shares his insights and expertise with startups and small businesses. He is a well-known speaker at technology and industry events, evangelizing the use of the cloud for broadcast industry transformation. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Technology from the Government College of Technology (GCT), Coimbatore, India.

KA Srinivasan (Srini) | Co-founder & Chief Revenue Officer, Amagi

Srini is a technology entrepreneur with 23+ years of experience in establishing and successfully scaling businesses. Srini co-founded Amagi in 2008 and established it as a global leader in SaaS for broadcast and streaming TV on the cloud. As Chief Revenue Officer, Srini is responsible for revenue growth inclusive of sales & marketing.

Before Amagi, Srini co-founded the wireless audio company, ImpulseSoft, which went on to become a market leader and was later acquired by the American semiconductor company, SiRF. Earlier, he started his career at Texas Instruments as a software engineer. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the Government College of Technology (GCT), Coimbatore, India. Srini regularly speaks at global industry events, evangelizing the use of the cloud for channel creation and monetization. In his free time, Srini loves to travel and read, and play arbitrator for his kids in their friendly sibling conquests.

Srividhya Srinivasan | Co-founder & Chief Customer Success Officer, Amagi

Srividhya Srinivasan – Co-founder, Amagi

Srividhya is one of the few women entrepreneurs in the broadcast technology industry to have successfully conceptualized and introduced pioneering products for global markets. She loves to create innovative product solutions to tackle complex engineering problems. At Amagi, Srividhya plays the critical role of advising global clients on suitable cloud deployment architecture, designing custom solutions, and ensuring that clients transition to cloud broadcast models smoothly.

Srividhya started her career as a software engineer at Texas Instruments. She spent most of her 23 years of professional experience as a technology entrepreneur. Before Amagi, she had co-founded ImpulseSoft, a wireless audio technology company that was later acquired by NASDAQ-listed SiRF.

She graduated from the Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, India. Engineering is her first love, and she firmly believes that engineering is her reason to be.

Founders’ Task

Task divided among founders: Baskar Subramanian is the CEO of the company. He leads technology innovation, business strategy, and overall execution at Amagi. Srinivasan KA is the Chief Revenue Officer. He is responsible for revenue growth inclusive of sales and marketing. Srividhya is the Chief Customer Success Officer. She plays the critical role of advising global clients on suitable cloud deployment architecture, designing custom solutions, and ensuring that clients transition to cloud broadcast models smoothly.

Company Size & Hiring funda

The company has 400+ employees at present and is growing rapidly. Over the past two years, the company has expanded to more locations, including Latin America, Canada, and different parts of Europe. The founders are looking to onboard premium tech talent across Engineering, Product Management, and Global Sales roles in India and its international locations.

Work Culture

Amagi is a company that prides itself on being outrageously ambitious. The founders encourage their employees to think like ‘there’s no box at all.’ By asking employees to bring never-thought-before ideas to the table, they deliver breakthrough results, driving exceptional outcomes for their customers.

Amagi – Name, Tagline and Logo

Amagi’s early products and solutions were conceptualized and built with the purpose of offering advertisers greater freedom through technology. Amagi in Sumerian means “freedom” and the name seemed a fitting choice for what the company intended to do – which was to offer local advertisers the freedom to do more and achieve more despite having limited resources.

Amagi Logo

The company’s logo has undergone several changes over the years. The first version of the logo had a small TV screen as a brand mnemonic to clearly demonstrate the company’s core market and expertise. As the company grew and became more international in its operations, the logo was likewise upgraded to have a global appeal. Amagi’s logo is font-based and minimalistic. It is easily replicable across all formats and surfaces.

Amagi – Business model & Revenue model

Amagi offers three business models for customers to choose from –

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
‘Bring your own license’, and
Fully Managed Service

It also offers a revenue share model with content owners and platforms based on ad insertions enabled.

Amagi – Launch & Customer Acquisition Strategy

In the Indian ad business as well as the global cloud broadcast business, Amagi engages with customers both on-demand and supply side. Demonstrating the value-add its solutions could give them was a crucial part of the startup’s customer acquisition strategy.

In the ad business, it had to convince broadcasters to support localization of ads on their national channels, and local/regional advertisers to buy targeted ad spots on these channels. Oftentimes, the team had to buy ad inventories at its expense on a premium and then sell them to local advertisers at a fraction of the cost, to convince them that its solution worked. Amagi’s business model was that it could sell the same ad spot through as many regional advertisers as possible with the view that the sum of the parts will eventually be greater than the whole. Based on the success of this approach, Amagi was able to sell a million ad seconds per month.

In the cloud broadcast business too, Amagi was working with forward-thinking customers who were willing to place their bets on cloud technologies, which is a low-cost, low risk, pay-as-you-go infrastructure model. As these companies discovered the inherent advantages of the cloud and were willing to future-proof their business using cloud solutions, Amagi’s business saw the momentum and its list of customers grew steadily.

The OTT revolution, lockdown-imposed restrictions, and the growth of Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV were other factors that led to the increased adoption of cloud-based solutions as the de-facto infrastructure for broadcasting. From 2018 onward, Amagi’s business momentum was on a rapid incline. By 2021, it had 500+ content brands, 2000+ channel deliveries, 50+ FAST platforms, and 100 other OTT platforms in its customer portfolio.

The comprehensiveness of Amagi’s solutions: The breadth and depth of services it offers its customers are exhaustive. From broadcast-grade 24/7 linear channel creation to distribution across satellite, cable, and IP, to OTT server-side ad insertion and analytics for monetization, it provides end-to-end infrastructure for broadcast operations on the cloud.
The flexibility of the working model: Amagi’s customers can manage hundreds of channel feeds and scale up at will from any remote corner of the world using its solutions.
Comprehensive distribution network: Amagi enables its customers to distribute their content across satellite, cable, and IP. Its strongest value proposition to its customers is the FAST platform distribution network. With 50+ FAST platform partnerships globally, content owners can share their content across any platform in any part of the world.

Amagi has been able to provide tremendous value to its customers with the immense capability and agility of its solutions, which has, in turn, giving the startup a high customer retention rate (127% net retention as of July 2021).

Amagi – Challenges Faced

To kickstart its targeted advertising business, Amagi had to collaborate with cable operators from around the country, from big cities to tier 2 cities. There were around 20,000 cable operators in the country at the time.

One of the earliest challenges it faced was in collaborating with the operators who had a limited understanding of the technologies that they were building. Making them aware of its potential and bringing them on board was a herculean task.

The second challenge it experienced was in convincing channels to let it insert ads in between their content. From a technology provider standpoint, Amagi was unaware of the ad content and could not give channels the reassurance that it would be inoffensive to its viewers. Having never done local advertising before, they were also unsure of the business model and unwilling to experiment with it. To counter this challenge, Amagi had to build an in-house ad sales team, buy ad inventories and then sell it to local advertisers, at considerable risk to itself. Amagi also built an in-house ad creative team to tackle the challenge of ad content ambiguity.

It started off as a tech provider and pivoted to add multiple other capabilities into its service offerings to meet the demands of the customers. Furthermore, another challenging task that Amagi successfully pulled off was when the company pivoted to a Saas-based monetisation platform for TV networks and content owners. Amagi, which started off strictly as an advertising solution provider to offer advertising solution to local businesses TV channels dropped the same model and began afresh with a Saas-based approach in 2018. This pivot was painful indeed when the company had to bid adieu to around half of the workforce it had. However, Amagi made it out strong. The successful story of Amagi’s growth had not been discovered until the company revealed that it skyrocketed its revenues, which neared the Rs 200 crore mark along with churning significant profit in the fiscal that ended in March 2021

Amagi – Funding and Investors

Amagi has been successful in raising $240.2 million in over 6 funding rounds that it has seen to date. The last funding round for Amagi came in on March 16, 2022, where the company was successful in raising $95 million worth of funds in a funding round led by Accel, and eventually joined in by other existing investors including Norwest Ventures, Avataar Ventures, and more. This funding round helped the company gain a unicorn valuation, thereby making it the 12th Indian startup to join the unicorn club of companies in 2022.

Amagi earlier raised $100 million last in September 2021, from a bunch of investors. The lead investors of Amai include Emerald Media, Mayfield Fund, and more.

Funding Date	Name of the Funding Round	Amount	Lead Investors
March 16, 2022	Private Equity Round	$95 mn	Accel, Norwest Venture, Avataar Ventures
September 10, 2021	Private Equity Round	$100 mn	–
December 15, 2016	Series D	$35 mn	Emerald Media
January 19, 2015	Series C	–	Premji Invest
June 1, 2014	Series B	$4.7 mn	–
June 17, 2013	Series A	$5.5 mn	Mayfield Fund

Amagi has recently organized a buyback of shares worth $12 mn from its founding team and employees. The Amagi board has approved a buyback of 76,533 equity shares at Rs 11,998.63 per share, which would amount to $12 million (Rs 91.8 crore), as per the regulatory filings of the company. As a result of the buyback, only two of the company’s co-founders, Baskar Subramanian and Srividhya Srinivasan, could offload their shares that were worth $8 million (Rs 61.2 crore).

Amagi – Growth and Revenue

Amagi supports 650+ content brands, 800+ playout chains, and over 2000 channel deliveries on its platform in over 40 countries. The company generated approximately 2 billion ad opportunities every month supporting OTT ad-insertion for 1000+ channels. Furthermore, the total audience of Amagi is calculated at somewhere around 2 bn+ and is growing each quarter. The company currently has a valuation of $1 bn+ and is hailed as one of the highest valued mediatech companies worldwide.

Amagi has a presence in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Paris, Singapore, broadcast operations in New Delhi, and an innovation center in Bangalore.

Amagi clients include ABS-CBN, A+E Networks UK, beIN Sports, CuriosityStream, Discovery Networks, Fox Networks, Fremantle, NBCUniversal, Tastemade, Tegna, USA Today, Vice Media, and Warner Media, among others.

Amagi is a profitable company. In the fiscal year ending March 2021, Amagi announced a 136% increase in annual revenue and a sequential growth of 18% in revenue in the quarter ending June 2021.

Looking at the Amagi revenue, the company has seen quite a growth (2.3X) in its revenues from operations, which stood at Rs 96.1 cr in FY20 and became Rs 219.3 cr in FY21. The total revenue it earned from the US ballooned 3.3X YoY to become Rs 143.7 cr during FY21 and making up for 65.5% of the total company’s revenues. Furthermore, the revenue earned by Amagi from the rest of the world also increased by 99.4% to become Rs 31.5 cr.

Amagi Financials

Amagi Financials	FY21	FY20
Operating Revenue	Rs 219.30 cr	Rs 96.1 cr
Total Expenses	Rs 197.94 cr	Rs 115.15 cr
Profit/Loss	Profit of Rs 20.71 cr	Loss of Rs 18.70 cr
EBITDA Margin	12.7%	-11.7%

Amagi Expenses Breakdown

Amagi expenses were recorded at Rs 115.2 cr in FY20, which increased by 72% to stand at Rs 198 during FY21. Cloud hosting and other expenses associated with the server and the hosting shot up 2.4X YoY and is deemed to be the largest expense for Amagi in FY21, making up for 38.1% of the total annual costs of the company. The second largest expense for Amagi was the employee benefit expenses. Here’s a quick look at all the expenses of Amagi in FY21 and a comparison with the previous year’s expense verticals.

Amagi Expense Verticals	FY21	FY20
Server Hosting Expenses	Rs 75.50 cr	Rs 31.60 cr
Employee Benefit Expenses	Rs 66.93 cr	Rs 45.80 cr
Other Operating and Admin Expenses	Rs 26.19 cr	Rs 25.44
Broadcasting Charges	Rs 8.70 cr	Rs 3.10 cr
Subscription Membership Fees	Rs 10.17 cr	Rs 5.41 cr
Legal Professional Charges	Rs 10.45 cr	Rs 3.80 cr

Coming to the unit economics, Amagi had to spend Rs 0.9 to earn a single rupee of revenue. The company focused on growth this year after its pivot and has managed to grow by 2.4X.

Amagi – ESOPs

Amagi rolled out an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) scheme and a stock appreciation rights scheme (SARs IV), which would cumulatively be worth $24 mn.

Amagi – Competitors

Amagi has a whole bunch of rivals that are competing in the same industry. Here are some of the prominent Amagi competitors:

Encompass
Wurl
Frequency
Globecast
Evertz
Harmonic
Grass Valley
Imagine Communications
Bitcentral
Yospace
OTTera

Amagi – Recognition and Achievements

India Cloud Broadcast Company of the Year 2016
CII Design Excellence Award 2017
Front & Sullivan’s Global Product Innovation Award 2018 for Amagi CLOUDPORT
IBC Innovation Awards Winner 2015
CNBC 10 Hottest Startups in India
Deloitte 2nd Fastest-Growing Tech Firm in India, 2012
Stevie Gold Award for Medium-Sized Company of the Year (Media & Entertainment)
Stevie Bronze Award for Cloud Application / Service of the Year

Amagi – Future Plans

In the fiscal year ending March 2021, Amagi hit a revenue milestone of 136% and a sequential growth of 18% in the quarter ending June 2021. Its plan is to keep this business momentum going by offering newer cloud-innovated product capabilities and services to support new-age content providers and platforms in their growth journey.

Amagi plans to offer its customers a self-service portal – a single platform – on which they can access all its products. The platform will enable customers to leverage the benefits of all the products in its technology stack – its channel playout solution, Amagi CLOUDPORT, its server-side ad insertion solution, Amagi THUNDERSTORM, its live orchestration, and lightweight content scheduling platform, Amagi LIVE and AMAGI PLANNER, and more – on a single browser window.
The streaming TV revolution has created more opportunities for content owners to create, distribute and monetize channels. While viewers enjoy having more choices, they also expect the content to be of broadcast-grade quality standards. Amagi is offering low-cost playout options to smaller, new-age content owners to help them create compelling viewing experiences for their audiences, thereby, placing them on a level playing field with large deep-pocketed broadcasters.

FAQs

What is Amagi company?

Who founded Amagi?

If you are wondering about the Amagi founders, then Baskar Subramanian, Srividhya Srinivasan, and Srinivasan KA are the persons behind the foundation of the profitable advertising solution turned SaaS-based monetisation platform for TV networks and content owners, Amagi.

How much is the Amagi technologies revenue?

Amagi Technologies marked its revenue from operations at Rs 96.1 cr in FY20. This grew by 2.3X to become Rs 219.3 cr in FY21.

Is Amagi an Indian company?

Yes. Amagi’s headquarters is situated in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The company is also having its headquarters abroad in New York, USA.

What does Amagi’s client base look like?

Amagi clients include Fox Networks, Fremantle, NBCUniversal, Tastemade, Tegna, Vice Media, and Warner Media, among others. Amagi supports 500+ content brands, 800+ playout chains, and over 2000 channel deliveries on its platform in over 40 countries.

What is the meaning of the word ‘Amagi’?

Amagi in Sumerian means “freedom” and the name seemed a fitting choice for what the company intended to do – which was to offer local advertisers the freedom to do more and achieve more despite having limited resources.

July 20, 2022

StayAbode – How the Housr-Owned Startup is Growing its Co-living Spaces in Bangalore?

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by StayAbode.

Many young people, every year, move out of their home towns in pursuit of better education or in search of better employment opportunities. A common problem these youth have to face in the new cities is that of finding decent accommodation. Looking for a well-maintained place within budget, arranging furniture, finding good companions, arranging for domestic help, wi-fi and TV connections, all of these sounds really stressful for students and young professionals moving to new cities.

But now, a different concept is fast becoming popular among the youths in India, which solves all these worries and makes shifting to a new city easier. Co-living is the term of this new concept that brings in a new way of living for people who are staying away from their hometowns. StayAbode a Bangalore-based startup founded in 2016, has become quite a popular name in the field of co-living spaces.

NestAway’s co-living subsidiary, The Hello World had initially acquired StayAbode, with a capacity of 2000 beds, in an undisclosed value deal in 2020. The Hello World then had 20,000 beds and planned to add 30,000 more beds by the end of 2022. StayAbode has again been acquired by Housr, as confirmed by the news dated June 27, 2022. StayAbode now stays acquired by Housr, which is a managed accommodation platform in India.

Check this StartupTalky article to know more about StayAbode, its Founders and Team, Business and Revenue model, Growth, StayAbode Startup Story, the StayAbode acquisition and more.

StayAbode – Company Highlights

Startup Name	StayAbode
Headquarter	Bangalore
Founders	Viral Chhajer, Varun Bhalla & Devashish Dalmiya
Sector	Real Estate, Co-living
Founded	2016
Parent Organization	Housr

StayAbode – About
StayAbode – Industry
StayAbode – Name and logo
StayAbode – Founders & Team
StayAbode – Mission
StayAbode – How It All Started?
StayAbode – Business & Revenue Model
StayAbode – Funding & Investors
StayAbode – Growth
StayAbode – User Acquisition
StayAbode – Startup Challenges
StayAbode – Competitors
StayAbode – Future Plans

StayAbode – About

StayAbode provides professionally managed co-living spaces for rent. StayAbode takes care of all the accommodation-related worries that one faces on moving to a new city. From furnishing to security from housekeeping to maintenance, StayAbode manages it all.

StayAbode uses design, technology, service, and brand to build co-living spaces for the rental residential market at scale. StayAbode’s co-living spaces support the lifestyle of the young, single sociable household, enabling a high level of comfort, convenience, and a sense of community with shared spaces such as kitchens, common areas, game areas, and places to dine and work. StayAbode’s co-living spaces are building the future of residential real estate for urban millennials.

What is StayAbode?

StayAbode solves all the living issues that young professionals face when they move to a new city. From difficult landlords to high deposits and unfair rentals, StayAbode is the solution for all.

Currently operating in Bangalore, StayAbode offers beautiful, fully furnished living spaces. These spaces are designed in a way that the residents have their own private spaces plus there are shared spaces for working, dining, kitchen spaces, etc. Thus, the residents continue to have their private space along with a community of like-minded people, which do not let them feel lonely and left out in the new city.

The facilities that StayAbode provides to its dwellers include-

Fully furnished living spaces
Housekeeping services
On-site laundry
All-inclusive rent
A nominal deposit that is easy on the pocket.
Living spaces are fully secured
Expert team for repairing/ maintenance work
Resident-only app, through which one can avail of various services and get updates.

We believe we are well set to solve for millennial living in today’s sharing economy where the consumer gives access, a greater significance than ownership.

A community of like-minded and inspiring individuals, a designated community manager who takes care of every need of the residents, and a policy of indiscrimination that lets everyone irrespective of gender, marital status, etc be a part of its co-living community which is an important USP of StayAbode.

StayAbode – Industry

As per the recent IBEF reports, there are more than 75 co-living companies in India, which itself, indicates the demand for co-living spaces in the country. The co-living market of India is expected to grow to 5.7 mn from 4.19 mn. The size of the coliving sector, which stood at over $6.5 bn, when last recorded in April 2022, is expected to grow 2X to reach $13.92 bn by the same time.

StayAbode – Name and Logo

The idea was to build a brand that solves for living across the journey of a consumer from the first time they become independent in life all the way into their retirement years.

“We were looking for a name that could encompass this entire journey and we felt that ‘Abode’ captured that. To reinforce the ‘living’ emotion, we liked the way StayAbode worked and it was something that was effortless and rolled off smoothly”.

StayAbode Logo

StayAbode – Founders & Team

Viral Chhajer, Varun Bhalla and Devashish Dalmiya are the founders of StayAbode.

Viral Chhajer

Viral Chhajer is the CEO of StayAbode. He is a graduate in Business Administration and worked with companies like Goldman Sachs and Runnr, before StayAbode. He also co-founded Bribe Me, an app that is India’s first flash sale marketplace that allows users to avail of exclusive offers in real-time. Viral exited Bribe Me in 2015.

Varun Bhalla

Varun Bhalla is a computer science graduate and was also a part of the Bribe Me venture with Viral. Prior to StayAbode Varun worked as a mobile app developer in companies like foofys and Treebo Hotels.

Devasish Dalmiya

Devasish Dalmiya holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration. Devashish and Viral are an alumnus of Christ University Bangalore. Devashish had been a part of companies like International Money Matters Pvt Ltd, Right Horizons Investment Advisory and Wealth Management Pvt Ltd, and Roadhouse Hostels, before starting up with StayAbode. Dalmiya left StayAbode in October 2020 and is currently working at BASIC Home Loan as a Director of Business Development.

StayAbode Ventures has registered its employee count between 51-200, as per its Linkedin profile.

StayAbode – Mission

The StayAbode mission statement says that the startup is looking to “make life convenient and enriching for our residents.”

StayAbode – How It All Started?

“It all started off with independent living,” says Devashish. Devashish noticed that though people somehow manage to find a living space in cities, they are left with many unsolved problems. They do not find like-minded people to live with, plus just finding a home is not enough, there are lots to take care of like food, furnishing, etc. While Devashish was backpacking across Europe, he saw that there were managed communities where students lived together, and wanted to introduce the same concept to India also.

He pondered on the issues young people moving to a new city were facing. “It pretty much boils down to two – uncertainty and loneliness. It’s not just enough that they have to navigate a new and unknown real estate market, they also have to figure out how to mesh in with the city and its people so that they don’t keep feeling like outsiders”.

There are 3 types of people who come to the city on any given day: tourists, travellers, and settlers. While the tourist and traveller have their own defined solutions, the settler is the group that needs the ecosystem, both great living space and a like-minded community. That’s the category that StayAbode aims its services at. StayAbode was started with the intention to create a brand that allows the settlers to maximize their productivity with a supportive community and a hassle-free living experience.

“StayAbode is the answer to all your big city living woes,” said he.

The concept is fairly new in India. But data shows young professionals and students would prefer to stay in places where they can be part of a community while having their own little piece of private space. StayAbode enables this by using technology and design thinking to create private spaces and common areas that lead to collisions that bring the community together.

Living with like-minded people and engendering a community of people ready to share and create together, can be the perfect recipe for the millennial living experience. When you live and learn together, you grow together. Imagine being able to meet new people, be supremely productive, come home to a great living space and be able to truly find yourself in a new city. Life suddenly seems so simple.

StayAbode – Business & Revenue Model

The StayAbode business model follows a full-stack model, not a part-inventory one. It leases out complete buildings – from the basement to the terrace, and turns them into co-living spaces. After that, StayAbode’s team puts together the furniture and common-room setups, ensuring the space has everything that a tenant needs, including add-ons like community kitchens, study areas, reading spaces, and even barbeque grills in some properties.

As far as the StayAbode revenue model is considered, they charge a fixed rent that covers living and utility expenses and has a defined margin with every landowner, which differs from property to property. The company’s objective is to create a win-win situation for itself and the property owners by ensuring high occupancy.

StayAbode – Funding & Investors

The StayAbode funding to date is as follows:

Funding Date	Funding Stage	Funding Amount	Investors
March 2019	Pre Series A	Undisclosed	Voyage Group, Akatsuki and Incubate Fund
July 2018	Pre Series A	Undisclosed	Anupam Mittal, Vineet Sekhsaria, Lets Venture Legacy Global Projects MD Sanjay Shenoy and Mridul Upreti (ex Joint MD JLL India) and Akatsuki.
August 2017	Seed	Undisclosed	Incubate Fund
February 2017	Angel	Undisclosed	Angie Mahtaney & Ishan Manaktala

StayAbode – Growth

StayAbode has grown to become one of the leading names when it comes to co-living spaces in Bangalore since it was founded in 2016. This Bangalore-based coliving service provider has been acquired by Housr, one of India’s leading co-living players on June 27, 2022.

With this deal, Housr will add more than 20+ properties launched in Bengaluru, and over 1200 beds to its inventory in the major hubs of Bangalore like HSR Layout, Koramangala, Marathalli, Indiranagar, and Electronic City. The StayAbode acquisition of Housr will mark its powerful foray into Bengaluru and will strengthen its presence in South India. The parent of StayAbode further has planned to have 12000+ beds by March 2023, This will be made possible by combining Housr Co-Living and Housr Homes.

On its acquisition, team StayAbode said, “The concept of co-living is still germinating in India. Handing over the baton to one of India’s leading co-living players puts us on a better collective footing to popularise managed accommodation amongst a skeptical Indian audience.”

StayAbode – User Acquisition

Referrals, SEM, and social media marketing worked best for StayAbode. StayAbode is one of the first players in co-living spaces and people were quite curious about and eager to try this new concept. Besides, StayAbode was also building up curiosity regarding co-living spaces through Facebook posts.

The company launched its first few properties in popular locations across Bangalore where the target group for co-living spaces was present.

“Cliched as it may sound, a great experience and community engagement in our business is the ultimate hack. We have seen the highest percentage of extensions where we have ensured a consistent experience across both the living and community experience. This has guaranteed us a fairly high rate of referrals across these properties too and we have always used these properties and the teams running them as a benchmark within the organization to ensure a consistent experience” says Devashish.

StayAbode – Startup Challenges

A major challenge, in the beginning, was solving the sales pitch for the property owners. There were property owners who hesitated about letting their properties be transformed by StayAbode in the process of designing co-living areas. In such cases, the StayAbode team focused on explaining and showing the property owners how a well-designed property was allowing for better return and performance.

StayAbode – Competitors

Some competitors of StayAbode are CoLive, CoHo and OyoLiving.

An increasing number of players are now entering the co-living space but everyone tends to operate on different models with different focus areas. StayAbode strives to stand out from the competition by providing an excellent resident experience to its dwellers. Besides, it is also constantly improving operational efficiency to give the property owners better value.

StayAbode—Future Plans

StayAbode is currently operating with around 20 properties in Bangalore. As a Housr subsidiary, the company is dreaming the Housr dream of having over 12K beds, and scaling up to 100+ properties across the country by the end of March 2023.

Moving to a new city can be daunting and inconvenient. Over the last few years, it has become more challenging to find a convenient and fulfilling home on rent at an affordable cost. So, we decided to address this very issue by serving StayAbode as a solution – beautiful, fully-furnished private homes with shared spaces, that add value to our residents’ lives at less cost. All said and done, we’re here to make a difference – in living and in lives.

Conclusion

StayAbode is more than just brick and mortar. They go beyond giving their residents four walls. The company knows that shifting to a new city can be a nightmare. This is why the ready-to-move-in homes of StayAbode, come with all-inclusive amenities. Besides, the thoughtfully designed shared spaces of StayAbode make it super convenient to move in and have an enriching stay. Also, StayAbode has been designed to foster human interactions. With a community of inspiring people from different walks of life, it is the perfect place to share experiences, network, learn and stay inspired.

In the StayAbode community, the possibilities of events and gatherings are infinite. From movie nights, match nights, mini gigs, cook-offs, and potluck parties to festival celebrations, you can indulge in a myriad of events and celebrations. At StayAbode, they curate the profiles to maintain the quality of their community. They verify the personal and professional profiles of every applicant and follow up with a thorough background check. Moreover, all the shared spaces are equipped with CCTV cameras to ensure safety and security. In the conclusion, with StayAbode joining Housr, dreams are big, and ever-expanding both for the startup and its parent.

FAQs

What is StayAbode?

StayAbode is a provider of coliving spaces in Bangalore, which has a cluster of co-living spaces for rent, thoughtfully designed to create a positive impact on the way people live. Convenience and community are at the core of what StayAbode does, making city-living affordable and meaningful for its residents.

What is co-living?

Co-living is a modern way of living better together. It is an amalgamation of convenient, affordable city-living and inspiring community living. StayAbode has been designed to foster human interactions. With shared spaces, events and gatherings hosted every so often, the residents of the startup can indulge in a rich and engaging network of people, perspectives, and experiences.

How can I visit StayAbode properties?

You can set up a visit through the StayAbode website or give the team a call on 08061914619 to schedule a visit.

Why was StayAbode started?

Moving to a new city can be daunting and inconvenient. Over the last few years, it has become more challenging to find a convenient and fulfilling home on rent at an affordable cost. So, StayAbode decided to address this very issue with its beautiful, fully-furnished private homes with shared spaces, that add value to its residents’ lives at less costs.

What does a regular day for a StayAbode resident look like?

The StayAbode residents can wake up at their convenience, and have their homes cleaned spick and span by its housekeeping crew. They can then spend their day working or relaxing at home or at the StayAbode shared spaces designed to inspire and collaborate with the community. On a day when a social event has been planned, they can also indulge in some networking and meaningful conversations with other community members. Moreover, they can also head to their private rooms when slumber takes over. That’s the beauty of co-living at Abode. It’s a wonderful blend of personal and social life, under one roof.

What does the housekeeping staff of StayAbode take care of?

The well-trained housekeeping crew of StayAbode leaves the homes squeaky clean, 6 days a week. This includes dusting, mopping, cleaning the utensils, making the bed, and cleaning the washroom on alternate days.

What does the people that rent at StayAbode properties get?

The one-for-all rent of the people renting at StayAbode properties, is inclusive of the monthly rent, housekeeping services, WiFi, utility bills, and access to shared spaces and community events.

Are the StayAbode apartments furnished?

StayAbode homes are beautifully designed and fully furnished to match the lifestyle of everyone. They’re ready-to-move-in homes to make lives more convenient. So, you can just move in with your suitcase. StayAbode will have the rest covered.

Is StayAbode acquired?

Yes, StayAbode has been acquired by Housr, a hospitality company from Gurgaon that is founded by Deepak Anand and Kalpesh Mehta, on June 27, 2022.

June 29, 2022

Ezyhaul: Revolutionising the Way Businesses Deal With Logistics
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Ezyhaul.

The Logistics service has been here since the beginning of civilization, and as we are getting evolved, and things are getting better. Technology has turned the world into a Sci-fi movie. With the digital revolution that our country is experiencing, the logistic sector has also changed completely. To aid this process with digital excellence, Mudasar Mohamed, Raymond Gillon, and Nicky Lum founded Ezyhaul in 2016.

Ezyhaul is a one of the most popular and leading digital road freight platform in Southeast Asia, is the online platform using which clients can make bookings for B2B domestic short and haul, and cross-border shipments.

Ezyhaul – Company Highlights

Startup Name Ezyhaul

Headquarters Bangalore

Industry Logistics

Founders Mudasar Mohamed, Raymond Gillon, and Nicky Lum

Founded 2016

Total Funding $21.84 Million

Website ezyhaul.com

Ezyhaul – About and How It Works?
Ezyhaul – Industry Details
Ezyhaul – Founders and Team
Ezyhaul – How was Ezyhaul Started?
Ezyhaul – Name, Tagline and Logo
Ezyhaul – Startup Launch
Ezyhaul – Business Model and Revenue Model
Ezyhaul – Startup Challenges
Ezyhaul – Competitors
Ezyhaul – Funding and Investors
Ezyhaul – Growth
Ezyhaul – Awards and Recognition
Ezyhaul – Future Plans

Ezyhaul – About and How It Works?

Ezyhaul is a digital tech company whose main focus is to transform the road freight industry, it is basically a digital road freight platform serving the people in South Asia.

Ezyhaul is essentially a modern-day digital broker that let your clients book domestic and cross-border transportation services online. The company has taken on itself to solve the problems of logistics and that is scale, professionalism, and analytics.

Ezyhaul is a platform that focuses on connecting shippers with carriers who have enough space on their trucks. The platform enables you to use a real-time tracker to track shipments. It has launched control towers so that the truck movement can be monitored and the arrival of your shipments can be predicted.

The main goal of this innovative platform named Ezyhaul is to transform transportation logistics by creating an ecosystem that surrounded shippers, truckers, government agencies, and third-party service providers. The aim of the company is to use technology in the transport business that is otherwise has been paper-based.

Ezyhaul – Industry Details

Ezyhaul works across sectors and some of their clients on demand-side include Reliance, Exide, Pidilite, Shell, Amazon, etc. On the Supply-side, the company works typically with small and medium side transportation companies. Since they operate in India and South East Asia, the app equally concentrates on both the market.

Ezyhaul Website

Southeast Asian transport market size is $36 billion and the Indian transport market size is $160 billion. In the next five years, the team is expecting an increase in digitization in the transport space with faster adoption of new-age technologies and they believe that Ezyhaul will be a resource for this change.

Ezyhaul – Founders and Team

Mudasar Mohamed, Raymond Gillon, and Nicky Lum are the founders of Ezyhaul.

Ezyhaul founders

Ezyhaul cofounders were colleagues at UTI worldwide. Raymond Gillon is dutch, Nicky Lum is Malaysian and Mudasar Mohamed is an Indian. The three co-founders spoke, discussed, planned about launching a startup on digital broker model and transport space. Just a month later, Ezyhaul was incorporated.
- Raymond Gillon, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer – He was a Managing Director (Vietnam and Cambodia) in UTI Worldwide Inc. He is an Engineer and MBA from INSEAD.
- Mudasar Mohamed, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer – He was Managing Director (Singapore and Malaysia) in UTI Worldwide Inc. He is an Engineer and MBA from the University of Southern California – Marshall School of Business.
- Nicky Lum, Co-Founder and Director – He had Sales Roles in companies like UTI Worldwide Inc and Kuehne Nagel.
Given that the company operates in multiple countries, the founders have split their time in different markets. For example, Mudasar takes care of India while Raymond, Nicky along with a couple of more professionals take care of South East Asia. Other executive team members of Ezyhaul are: Mark Debattista – Vice President of Sales, and Eric Soo – Head of Technology.

Ezyhaul has over 242 employees and the co-founders firmly believe in creating a joyful, respectful, and humane environment for all members of the company.

Ezyhaul – How was Ezyhaul Started?

The three co-founders earlier used to work at a Multinational Corporation logistics corporate in Singapore. They all had leadership goals and roles in the Logistics Company. Observing the supply-and-demand problem for large businesses, together they decided to start up a company to solve the problem.

When two of the co-founders were working in the United States, they realized that in the transport industry, the concept of brokers is very common. At the same time, digital platforms like Uber were revolutionizing in the action of demand-and-supply in the transport space. Understanding it all, the co-founders saw an opportunity to re-engineer the historical broker model and use modern technologies to connect the supply chain.

To revalidate the model, the founders spoke to several leaders from the logistics industry to receive feedback. The response which they received from the leaders of supply and chain was very encouraging, almost all of them told the co-founders to go for it. Five of them became their early investors and Ezyhaul raised $800,000 from angel investors which helped them in expanding the business operations in Malaysia for a year and a half.

Ezyhaul – Name, Tagline and Logo

The idea behind Ezyhaul’s name is that if you break it into two words: Ezy means making things Easy and Haul is the short form of Haulage which means the commercial transport of goods. So ideally it perfectly justified the company’s mission to create a very easy platform for trucking industries; hence the name Ezyhaul.

Ezyhaul Logo

The company’s tagline is “Transportation made Ezy“. It describes the motto of the company.

Ezyhaul – Startup Launch

Ezyhaul began as a bootstrapped company.

“It’s very tough for somebody to give you money for an idea. So you need to have that conviction to use your own money to at least get the idea off the ground. If you’re a first time entrepreneur, you need to show them (Investors) something convincing. So I think bootstrapping with your own money is quite important. It also signals to the investor that you’re serious about your business since you’ve put in your own money and that you are prepared to put in the grind.” –Mudasar Mohamed, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer

All three founders did not draw any salary in the first year of starting up. To launch in a smaller market to assess its product, Ezyhaul began operations in Malaysia first. They soon began getting offers and had a list of 10 good clients within months.

Backed by the success, Ezyhaul raised a seed fund of $800,000 from Angel investors. From then on, there was no stopping them. After strategic investors pumped in another $25 million, they began expansion into Thailand, followed by India.

Ezyhaul – Business Model and Revenue Model

The clients make online bookings for domestic and cross-border transportation services. The platform includes integrated dynamic route optimization technology that builds the most efficient delivery routes, optimizes vehicle utilization, and minimizes total transportation costs. The profit margin differs from plain regions to high dimensions and it generally lands between 5-20%.

Given that Ezyhaul is into the B2B industry, most of the sales happen through direct sales channels while a small percentage happens through digital marketing that uses B2B marketing strategies. They have a team of experts who handles clients, tie-ups, and marketing.

The startup believes and has been focusing on digitization, so the team has used a combination of both digital marketing and direct sales method to reach out to customers. The factors which worked for them are referrals by existing customers which in turn was an outcome of delighting them with exceptional customer service.

Ezyhaul – Startup Challenges

The biggest challenge in the logistics industry is enabling the drivers to use the application and increasing the adoption of smartphones amongst the driver community. Smartphone adoption is a challenge in South East Asia and India. Ezyhaul mitigated that challenge and partnered with multiple telecoms that help in getting drivers discounts on handsets and data.

Ezyhaul – Competitors

Ezyhaul’s proprietary technology has been a core differentiator especially route optimization. They have been able to reduce the client’s transport spend nearly by 15% through the Ezyhaul platform. The algorithms that Ezyhaul has created takes care of the company’s pricing aspect as well as route and lane.

The top 10 competitors in Ezyhaul’s competitive set are GoGoVan, Lalamove, Ninja Van, Deliveree, Dada, Logivan, Xdel Singapore, Cargobase, GoJavas and Whitebox.

Ezyhaul – Funding and Investors

Ezyhaul has raised a total of $21.84 million in funding to date.

For any startup it is a massive vote of confidence when an existing investor does a follow up round and more so when the investment triple their outlay. The first round of funding was $800,000 from angel investors and this helped the company in expanding the business in Malaysia for a year and a half. The company has raised $5 million in Series A round in 2018 and raised $16 million in Series B from the same strategic investor in 2019

Ezyhaul’s Funding Details

Date Stage Amount Investor

2016 Seed Round $840K Undisclosed

2018 Series A $5 million Undisclosed

2019 Series B $16 million Undisclosed

Ezyhaul – Growth

Ezyhaul has grown more than 900% and has struck partnerships from leading companies that allowed the propagation of the clients. They have been able to draw out references from a lot of their existing clients.

With more than 30,000 trucks serving the market of Southeast Asia, the team now has set its sights on India, which is a huge market, and where despite the many innovations, the transportation industry remains fragmented but Ezyhaul, which is operational in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand believes there’s room for more.

Ezyhaul – Awards and Recognition

Ezyhaul’s biggest achievement is being the first transport startup in the transport industry, which is multinational and is progressing and expanding year after year. Recently Ezyhaul backed the Accenture-Freight & Logistics ASEAN Innovator Award!

Ezyhaul – Future Plans

Ezyhaul is one of the few startups that serve in multiple countries. Most startups prefer to operate in a single set-up. However, Ezyhaul operates in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and India.

In the next two years, Ezyhaul will be penetrating in further industry markets. In the next five years, the team is expecting an increase in digitization in the transport space with faster adoption of new-age technologies and they believe that Ezyhaul will be a resource for this change.

FAQs

Who is Ezyhaul founder?

Mudasar Mohamed, Raymond Gillon, and Nicky Lum are the founders of Ezyhaul.

What is Ezyhaul?

Ezyhaul is a leading digital road freight platform in South Asia. Using its online platform, clients can make bookings with Ezyhaul for B2B domestic short-haul, long-haul, and cross-border shipments.

How much funding has Ezyhaul raised?

Ezyhaul has raised a total of $21.84 million in funding to date.

Who are the competitors of Ezyhaul?

Ezyhaul’s competitors – GoGoVan, Lalamove, Ninja Van, Deliveree, Dada, Logivan, Xdel Singapore, Cargobase, GoJavas and Whitebox.
June 23, 2022

Date	Stage	Amount	Investor
2016	Seed Round	$840K	Undisclosed
2018	Series A	$5 million	Undisclosed
2019	Series B	$16 million	Undisclosed