Tag: Chennai Startups

Chrysalis – Helping Every Child Discover Its Innate Potential
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 the organization it is based on.

‘Education is freedom’ said famous Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. Education is meant to liberate us from ignorance. Education in its real sense should allow us to experience the joy of knowing the unknown. However, when we look around we see that in our country education has become a matter of fear rather than freedom. Today’s education system merely seems to be a tool to make children job-ready rather than life ready.

The education system in India is simply letting the children absorb information and data rather than developing the thinking capabilities of the child. Chitra Ravi, a parent concerned over the damage that the present education system could do to her child, came up with certain solutions. Chitra started EZ Vidya, currently known as Chrysalis, that has come up with products that help in developing the thinking capabilities of the child, and makes education joyful, not fearful for the child. They also have a Chrysalis Home Learning program.

Recently, Chitra Ravi, founder of Chrysalis conducted Home Parent Webinar on 13th June 2020. The recording of the webinar gained 40K+ views on YouTube in just 2 days. You can watch the recording of the webinar at live.chrysalis.world.

StartupTalky interviewed Chrysalis’ Director Ganesh Subramanian.

Chrysalis – Company Highlights

StartupName Chrysalis

HeadQuarter (city) Chennai

Founder Name Chitra Ravi

Sector Education

Founded 2001

Website chrysalis.world

Parent Organization Chrysalis EZ Vidya Pvt. Ltd.

About Chrysalis and How it Works
Chrysalis – Founder
How was Chrysalis Started
Chrysalis – Name, Tagline and Logo
Chrysalis – Startup Launch
Chrysalis – User Acquisition
Chrysalis – Business Model and Revenue Model
Chrysalis – Funding & Investors
Chrysalis – Competitors
Chrysalis – Awards and Acheivements
Chrysalis – Growth
Chrysalis – Future Plans
Chrysalis – FAQs

Byju’s Success Story- Latest News, Founder, Business Model, How it Started

Imagine you are sitting in a packed class, and the teacher is explaining animportant concept. While it’s seeming that everyone else is understanding theconcept and nodding their head in unison, you are feeling a bit off beat, asevery word being explained is simply getting bounced off your head. D…

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About Chrysalis and How it Works

Chrysalis has innovated an academic program for the formative years (2-12) years of a child’s education – “ThinkRoom”. Through the name itself, schools can easily understand the function of this program, which is to awaken thinking, and where it is applied – in Classrooms. ThinkRoom is designed with a vision of awakening human potential in every child. The Curriculum (pedagogy) is created with a child-centric philosophy.

Framework for Human Potential

Our school system produces children who are tested for memory in exams and not conceptual or thinking skills. In the past children were handed down information, without considering the development of their social thinking, emotional thinking, academic thinking, or meta-cognitive thinking.

Chrysalis does not wish to hand down information. They ensure that the children develop and practice the vital skill of thinking in relation to the subjects being taught, they form habits of collaboration and self-management very early on when their personalities are forming very deep notions about life and how to live in this world.

Chrysalis’ learning solutions can be adopted by any board or any school, as the solutions are designed under the guidance of NCF (National curriculum framework) 2005 in terms of the design of the pedagogy. ThinkRoom is an integrated academic program for maths, English, science, and social studies in school. Chrysalis ThinkRoom is a synthesis of Product (Subject Books called Studios), Service Design (Continuous Professional Development training for teachers), and (Mitra Tab) Technology for Authentic Assessment. You can login to the ThinkRoom platform at mitra.chrysalis.world.

Chrysalis ThinkRoom though works within the constraints of the school syllabus, but completely transforming the way education is delivered. ThinkRoom awakens “thinking” in a child’s brain, and takes into account the whole brain, not just thinking that is academically brilliant, but while doing academics, they learn social and emotional and metacognitive skills, as the curriculum integrates learning in all dimensions within the context of the chapter being taught.

Next Education Success Story: Edtech Startup for k-12 Segment

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Chrysalis – Founder

Chitra Ravi is the founder and CEO at Chrysalis.

Chitra Ravi – Founder of Chrysalis

A management graduate, Chitra has a great passion for education. Chitra deftly combines her skills in conceptualization, story-boarding, and instructional design to deliver products and services which are dynamic and on par with any international curriculum standards.

Chitra has widely traveled to the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and South East Asia and has participated in many international training programs and conventions including the Project Zero conducted by the Harvard University exclusively for educators. She has also presented a program on the effective use of technology in the K-12 curriculum for one of the biggest satellite channels in India.

AttainU Success Story – Offers Online Software Development Courses | Founders | Funding | Business Model

The education sector is the most significant sector for any country, especiallyfor a developing country like India. In India, however, there has been a growinggap between the industry needs and the skills of the students. A study byemployability assessment company ‘Aspiring Minds’, carried out in…

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How was Chrysalis Started

An English graduate and MBA degree holder, Chitra worked with Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank after graduation and later joined her family real estate business. She had no plans to venture into the education sector until she realized that what her daughter was being taught at school was contributing nothing to bring out her innate potential.

Being a parent she was genuinely concerned to see that most of the energy of the children at school was spent in rote learning rather than gaining practical experience. She noticed that even computer science which should be taught practically was being taught through textbooks rather than through practical training.

Children were wilting away due to the pressures of the system instead of blossoming into beautiful human beings – Ganesh says.

Chitra wanted to make a difference to a way computer science is being taught at schools, and she started Chrysalis. Chrysalis initially was into the development of a teacher training module (focused on both skills and dispositions) and ICT curriculum, which was designed to deliver computer literacy.

The ICT curriculum was designed based on Chrysalis’ philosophy of making the children learn better through thinking. This later paved way for Chrysalis ThinkRoom, where Chrysalis developed a curriculum based on its framework which is a combination of practices adopted by every progressive country in the area of education. You can check out ThinkRoom at mitra.chrysalis.world. The company was initially known as EZ Vidya and in 2016, it was named Chrysalis.

Chrysalis – Name, Tagline and Logo

Chrysalis’ logo is a butterfly. Chrysalis is the state of transformation from a pupa to a butterfly, and butterflies are as colorful as the different kids who Chrysalis reaches out to. Nothing better communicates what they intend to do and with whom, they intend to bring a transformation in the education system and love to make products that benefit the children.

Chrysalis logo

Eupheus Learning Success Story

K-12 education is quite important as it forms the base of students’ future andprepares them for further education or aids in building a good career. As such,developing a clear understanding of subjects during these early years ofeducation is crucial. And thankfully Edtech startups are proving hel…

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Chrysalis – Startup Launch

Chrysalis’ team members were in communication with some schools through ICT program and when they came up with ThinkRoom, they promoted it organically, presented it in a lot of Principal forums, like sahodaya and more. They conducted Principal connect events across their reachable geography according to their capacity at the time.

The startup focused on consistent great product design, direct sales, and events that connected them to the stakeholders. Chrysalis is very organic in the way they proceed.

Chrysalis – User Acquisition

Schools are a complex ecosystem and the teachers, principals, school owners, parents; all of them are crucial, and it is important for Chrysalis that its curriculum is trusted by all these stakeholders. Therefore, it is different from SaaS products or other services offered in the market.

“School partnerships are an emotional bond”, says Ganesh.

Chrysalis team strives to maintain and nurture these valued bonds with its partner schools through continuous communication. Their campaigns are built to inspire transformation in the mind-sets of the stakeholders and, mostly BTL (Below the Line) in nature.

There is one campaign that brought Chrysalis a lot of traction – “Dream for the Child”, written by Chrysalis’ marketing head and recorded in Chrysalis CEO – Mrs. Chitra Ravi’s voice, it had a huge impact, and attracted 2000 members from different walks of life to join Chrysalis.

Interviewbit – Top E-Learning Platform

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Chrysalis – Business Model and Revenue Model

Chrysalis has a B2B business model and their financial transactions are with the school authorities, specifically, the school owners. Chrysalis ThinkRoom is Chrysalis’ flagship product. A good part of their revenue is from this product.

Chrysalis – Funding and Investors

In 2018, Chrysalis raised an undisclosed amount of funding from investors like Artha India Ventures, Menterra Venture Advisors, and Gray Matters Capital (GMC).

The development of edtech startups and interesting fund raise in India

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Chrysalis – Competitors

Actually, it is the children who motivate us to do our best – Ganesh says.

As competition is concerned, the Chrysalis team does not see the school ecosystem as a marketplace. Neither, they try to size up the competition to remain ahead of them.

Our product is designed to fundamentally change the nature of education while our competitors, to say it simply, are focused on making the delivery of the current education in its old state itself, faster, easier, better, etc. Yes, the market does perceive Chrysalis in the same category, so we don’t try to stay ahead, but simply communicate the divergent benefit that we are offering, and it requires an empowered school leader who is looking for such curriculum to associate with us – Ganesh says explaining Chrysalis’ view on competition.

Vedantu – Founders | Funding | Business Model | Revenue | Competitors

Conventional learning and teaching methodologies endures a lot of inadequaciesin learning outcomes. The major problem of classroom education is that it isnever equipped enough to match every individual student’s learning pace andabilities. Vedantu resolves this problem with its personalized onlin…

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Chrysalis – Awards and Acheivements
- In 2002, Chrysalis (EZ Vidya) entered into Wipro’s ‘Quality Education Forum‘. EZ Vidya within just 6 months from its inception became partners with Wipro for research in education.
- In 2011, EZ Vidya received mBillionth Award for innovation in education for ‘Bridge IT‘, an initiative to use standard mobile phones for improving quality for teaching.
- In 2013, Buzzle App was introduced by Chrysalis ( EZ Vidya). Buzzle was India’s first personalized learning and assessment app which is integrated with ‘Studio‘ ( Studio is a component of Chrysalis’ product – ‘ThinkRoom’)
- In 2013, E Z Vidya Pvt. Ltd. was chosen as the Game Changer of the year from a pool of 63000 companies, by ET NOW Leaders of Tomorrow.
- In 2017, Best Academic Innovative Curriculum, by Indian Education Awards.
- In 2018, Chrysalis was featured among the top 7 companies in KIES EduAwards.
Chrysalis Founder, Chitra Ravi at The ET Now ‘Game Changer of the Year Award’, 2013

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Chrysalis – Growth

Chrysalis has partnered with 700 schools till now and has reached over 4,00,000 students. Chrysalis enjoys the highest retention rates in the industry with over 80%.

Besides, Chrysalis is now operating in 10 Indian states including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, and also Nepal and Africa. The company is also slowly reaching Maharashtra, Delhi, northern states of the country.

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Chrysalis – Future Plans

The company is aiming to scale up and reach as many schools they can, with a growth rate of 40%+.

We are organic in our leadership as well, so we have to see how this shapes up. Education is going through a transformation now, and we are rightly positioned to take a lead, because we already have a well developed curriculum framework, and as a proof of concept, we have 700 schools operational in the existing design.

Chrysalis envisions to awaken Human Potential in every child, and is aiming to scale from its current 700 partner schools to 1500 schools in 2020-21.

Chrysalis – FAQs

What is Chrysalis ThinkRoom?

Chrysalis has innovated an academic program for the formative years (2-12) years of a child’s education – “ThinkRoom”. The learning solutions can be adopted by any board or any school, as the solutions are designed under the guidance of NCF (National curriculum framework) 2005 in terms of the design of the pedagogy

Who founded Chrysalis?

Chitra Ravi is the founder and CEO at Chrysalis.

How much Funding did Chrysalis raise?

In 2018, Chrysalis raised an undisclosed amount of funding from investors like Artha India Ventures, Menterra Venture Advisors, and Gray Matters Capital (GMC)
March 1, 2021

StartupName	Chrysalis
HeadQuarter (city)	Chennai
Founder Name	Chitra Ravi
Sector	Education
Founded	2001
Website	chrysalis.world
Parent Organization	Chrysalis EZ Vidya Pvt. Ltd.

Flintobox – Colouring Childhood with Creativity and Curiosity!

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 the organization it is based on.

These days, when women too fetch their passion aggressively, they often seem to be in a fix upon raising their kids right while not giving up their interests. To make it a little convenient and easy on these women, Flintobox was founded by Arunprasad Durairaj, Vijaybabu Gandhi, and Shreenidhi Srirangam in the year 2013.

Flintobox essentially produces educational activity boxes for children. These boxes are particularly based on a theme. So ideally, Flintobox makes resources for Early Child Development monthly.

Flintobox Activity Boxes

Flintobox – Company Highlights

Startup Name	Flintobox
Headquarter	Chennai
Sector	Edtech
Founders	Arunprasad Durairaj, Vijay Gandhi, Shreenidhi Srirangam
Founded	2013
Parent Organization	Flinto Learning Solutions Pvt Ltd
Website	flintobox.com

Flintobox – About and How it Works
Flintobox – USP and Innovation
Flintobox – Founders and Team
Flintobox – How did it Start?
Flintobox – Name, Tagline, and Logo
Flintobox – Business Model and Revenue Model
Flintobox – Funding and Investors
Flintobox – Growth and Revenue
Flintobox – Awards and Recognition
Flintobox – FAQs

Flintobox – About and How it Works

Flintobox provides theme-based educational activity boxes for children. It has 3–4 activities a month with a book in one theme. These activity boxes can be reused and sometimes they also tend to engage more than one child.

All activities from Flintobox come with an instruction chart. Still, if you’ve got any queries, the activities can be viewed on their website. Each of these activities is described with the help of a video and they are based on one particular theme like transport, plants, animals, mathematics, rainbow colors, a game, a crafting/ coloring activity with good items. This is complemented with one storybook with superior characters like Bobo, Mia, Benji, and Flinto.

Get Monthly Subscription! And get Flintobox every month on an Educational theme
Themes are focused on developing key skills by inculcating age appropriate activities
Watch & observe your child learning new things and concepts by having fun simultaneously!

Flintobox in Nutshell

Presenting a new theme every month, It is research-based and caters to the development of 12 areas in the child’s overall growth. These boxes are curated by Montessori experts and child psychologists.

There are two different product modules at Flinto Learning:

Flintobox – This product is mainly a subscription program that is designed to deliver engaging learning activities to children right at their doorstep.
FlintoClass – This one is a comprehensive preschool system for independent/unbranded preschools. It provides children with a top-notch learning experience in their early growth years.

Flintobox – USP and Innovation

The main USPs of Flintobox are:

Driving the kids away from ipads and Mobiles – With activities designed so well and keeping the key result areas on top, the children are ought to spend more time doing these rather than playing games on the mobile and watching cartoons on television.
Bonding time with the Parents – In the tight schedules and being disturbed by so much technology all around, parents hardly can spend any quality time with their kids. With Flintobox activities, they are ought to spend some good time doing these activities with their kids thus resulting in good bonding time.
Increasing the Creativity Quotient in the kids – With reduced time spent on Televisions and computers, the children get to creatively explore the arenas of thinking while doing the Flintobox activities. In the competitive world today where kids are not only judged at I.Q., this makes them ready for tomorrow.

Flintobox – Founders and Team

Flintobox was founded by Arunprasad Durairaj, Vijaybabu Gandhi, and Shreenidhi Srirangam.

Flintobox owners Arunprasad Durairaj, Vijaybabu Gandhi, and Shreenidhi Srirangam — Flintobox Founders

Arunprasad Durairaj, Co-Founder & CEO – He is an entrepreneur and an Ivy League graduate. He has worked in a wide array of industries like consumer goods, food services, biotech, healthcare, infrastructure development, mining, transportation in strategic and has also had financial advisory roles to play. He is currently an advisor to Startup Community in Chennai and Bangalore.
Vijay Babu Gandhi, Co-Founder & COO – With a B.Tech from Anna University, he was a co-founder at Zinghopper before co-founding Flintobox.
Shreenidhi Srirangam, Co-Founder & CTO – He has over 15 years of experience in larger organizations and startups. His expertise lies in designing and implementing mobile and web experience. He has successfully led teams and is also an individual contributor.

Flintobox – How did it Start?

All of this started with the current problem of the present generation. The problem is that they are busy with their daily and hectic schedules and at the same time they want their children to excel in their studies. In this generation, parents are truly trying their best to nurture their kid’s creativity and curiosity to an optimum level. So the basic idea for Flintobox was germinated when Vijaybabu Gandhi faced this with his 5-year-old kid who was more unconsciously deep in movies and mobiles.

This stressed out Gandhi and he began thinking of ways as to how can this situation be avoided. Therefore he wanted to create a product that can be used to increase the kids’ creativity through meaningful activities. To do so, he thought about a venture like this to protect the kids from the curse of technology. And that’s how the idea for Flintobox was germinated.

This was followed by him sharing the idea with two of his friends who are now the co-founders. Together they came up with an idea of starting a product called Flintobox.

Flintobox – Name, Tagline, and Logo

The name Flintobox is ideally originating from flint, which is defined to be a sedimentary rock that generates sparks when struck against steel.

Flintobox – Business Model and Revenue Model

This business model of Flintobox is subscription-based. It offers three subscription plans:

3-month subscription
6-month subscription
12-month subscription

The customers are entitled to upgrade or cancel at any point in time. The company puts up efforts at teaching the children several realistic concepts throughout the subscription. Also, one of the most interesting parts is that the subscribers of Flintobox receive a digital feed on parenting tips along with weekly activity ideas to do with children through the App.

Flintobox – Funding and Investors

Flintobox has raised a total of $15.3 Million in funding over 5 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on July 2020 for $7.2 million led by Lightbox ventures

Here is a list of all the funding rounds of Flintobox:

Date	Stage	Amount	Investors
August 2013	Seed Round	$35K	–
October 2014	Seed Round	$300K	–
August 2015	Angel Round	–	Globevestor
December 2017	Series A	$7 million	Lightbox
August 2018	Debt Financing	$800K	InnoVen Capital
July 2020	Pre Series B	$7.2 million	Lightbox Ventures

“We don’t want COVID-19 to come in the way of a child’s learning. For children below 6 years of age, monotonous online classes can’t be a substitute for the multi-sensory experiences that they deserve. We wanted to ensure that children continue receiving structured hands-on learning without compromising on their safety. We will be using the funds to create, expand and distribute this product across the world so that no child’s learning stops due to Coivd-19″ says Arunprasad Durairaj, CEO & Co-founder, Flintobox

Flintobox – Growth and Revenue

In FY 2017, Flintobox had a revenue of around $2.05 million, which raised to around $3.65 million in 2018.

Over 5 lakh customers across India
Catering to 45 million children in the age group of 2-12 years
40% sales in metros, 60% in tier-II cities
Present in more than 30 cities in India
Reached a 1,000 preschools
Gone Global with establishing a presence in South and Middle-East Asia

Flintobox – Awards and Recognition

It was awarded the “Coolest Startup of 2014” by Business Today
Also, the “Best Education Startup of 2014” by the Confederation of Indian Industries
Won the Wharton India Startup Competition in 2015
And was also recognized as the best subscription boxes of 2014 by kidsstoppress

Flintobox – FAQs

What is Flintobox?

Flintobox is an India-based company that produces educational activity boxes for children. Based on a theme, the company makes resources for Early Child Development on a monthly basis.

Who are the Founders of Flintobox?

Flintobox was founded by Arunprasad Durairaj, Vijaybabu Gandhi, and Shreenidhi Srirangam.

How much is the revenue of Flintobox?

In FY 2017, Flintobox had a revenue of around $2.05 million, which raised to around $3.65 million in 2018.

How much Funding is raised by Flintobox?

Flintobox has raised a total of $15.3 Million in funding over 5 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on July 2020 for $7.2 million led by Lightbox ventures

What is the Business Model of Flintobox?

This business model of Flintobox is subscription-based. It offers three subscription plans:

3-month subscription
6-month subscription
12-month subscription

October 16, 2020

PurpleTeal – Brings Together Expert Nutritionists and AI to Keep You Healthy

Who doesn’t love to stay fit? While everyone wishes to live a healthy and active life free from ailments, owing to the unhealthy and inappropriate lifestyle that most of us follow these days, we become susceptible to many diseases. Knowingly or unknowingly we adopt many unhealthy habits which may prove detrimental to our health in the long run. We lack motivation and guidance required to maintain a healthy lifestyle. While all of us cannot afford the luxury of hiring our own personal nutritionist, wouldn’t you love it if someone is always by your side taking care as you are about to eat? If yes, then there is some good news. PurpleTeal, a startup which is operating both in India and abroad, brings to you ‘Tweak & Eat’ an app that will give you practical and real-time advice on how to tweak your meals to make it healthier. Tweak & Eat ® was launched in 2017 and is designed to help users with weight-loss and management of diet-related health issues.

Startup Success Story – PurpleTeal

Startup Info	Global	India
StartupName	PurpleTeal	PurpleTeal
HeadQuarter	Fremont, California	Chennai
Founders	Narayanan Ram and Anand Subra	Narayanan Ram and Anand Subra
Sector	Wellness	Wellness
Founded	2006	2008
Parent Organization	PurpleTeal, Inc.	PurpleTeal Technologies India Pvt. Ltd

About PurpleTeal
PurpleTeal Founder/CEO
How was PurpleTeal Started
What is PurpleTeal
PurpleTeal – Launching Startup
PurpleTeal – Revenue Model
PurpleTeal – User Acquisition
PurpleTeal – Competitors
PurpleTeal – Growth
PurpleTeal – Future Plans

About PurpleTeal

PurpleTeal is an established mobile Health (mHealth) service provider. It operates an automated, personalized mHealth messaging platform for Telcos and consumers. PurpleTeal’s mHealth platform and apps engage subscribers to take better care of their health and wellness, by educating them and prompting them to take appropriate and timely health actions.

PurpleTeal’s core business is a smartphone app ‘Tweak & Eat’ which offers just-in-time meal advice to subscribers. The company has headquarters in Foremont (California) and Chennai (India).

The company’s vision is to ‘Keep Everyone Healthy, Looking Good & Feeling Great!’ and their Mission is to ‘Transform Health & Wellness across the Globe!.

Even people who are aware that diet is important for good health, find it difficult to remember and follow their diet plans or principles (e.g. eat fewer carbs). They need specific, real-time advice and hand-holding at the ‘point of consumption’. PurpleTeal’s ‘Tweak & Eat’ App, makes it easier for people to make long-term dietary changes through incremental changes to each meal through personalized ‘tweaks’. Each meal is a ‘teachable moment’. ‘Tweak & Eat’ makes it simple by relieving people of the onerous work of remembering, recording, counting, tracking or analyzing their food intake: Users just need to send a picture of the meal in front of them and the nutritionists will tell them how to make that meal healthier for their body profile.

Also Read: Food Startups in India

PurpleTeal Founders/CEO

Mr. Narayanan Ram and Mr. Anand Subra are the founders of PurpleTeal.

Mr. Narayanan Ram, is the CEO of PurpleTeal. He is an experienced entrepreneur with deep roots in the information technology industry. By education, he is an electrical engineering graduate. He graduated in 1993 and joined Cirrus Logic. From 1993-1996, he worked in Cirrus Logic holding different posts. In 1996, at the time of leaving Cirrus Logic, Mr. Ram was Director of Video Telecom Products.

In 1997, Mr. Ram founded SeeItFirst Inc., a video software tools company. From conceptualizing, architecting and implementing the first ‘interactive frame-based video streaming technology’ to receiving patents for the same, Mr. Ram has a lot to his credit. Besides, he was also successful in attracting investments from NBC/GE, MKS Ventures, and Deutsche Bank. He launched the first product in 1998 and built up a blue-chip customer base with over 100 implementations in the US, Japan and India. Mr. Ram formed and guided a strong management team and Board of Directors for SeeItFirst. SeeItFirst was acquired by the UB Group in 2001. Mr. Ram continued as CEO of SeeItFirst until 2004.

Dr. Anand Subra, is the Chief Knowledge Officer of PurpleTeal. He is an IIT alumnus and is a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. He is the co-author of many journal papers and holds US and foreign patents. He is responsible for new product development and providing knowledge support for strategy, marketing and delivery initiatives.

Anand previously worked with IBM for 20 years in various departments like sales, marketing, consulting, and strategy and business development. Anand helped a number of multinational firms in successfully developing and implementing their business strategies and operational initiatives. He led the business development of IBM innovation management services and also spearheaded these services in the healthcare industry.

Relevant Read: HealthifyMe: An App that Helps You Stay Healthy

How was PurpleTeal Started

The founders Narayanan and Anand were always looking for new ways to improve people’s lives and periodically meet in some locatioThe founders Narayanan and Anand were always looking for new ways to improve people’s lives and periodically met in some location to brainstorm new ideas. During one such meeting in Silicon Valley in 2015, they were discussing the obesity and overweight epidemic and looking at various sites and apps that were addressing the fitness/wellness space. They wanted to make a difference to people with weight-related health issues.

Narayanan and Anand were struck by the level of effort required to use some of the other health & wellness apps and felt that these apps appealed more to ‘power users’, who used these apps for record-keeping and validation from other users. Most likely, they had already established a ‘healthy’ diet and exercise habits and were using fitness apps to further hone their habits. Power users were deeply engaged with the quantitative aspects of the app and reveled in data entry, analysis and feedback. In contrast, ‘average users’ would consider these requirements to be very onerous and were likely to stop using the apps in a short while. This made them feel that they could come up with a much easier approach, one that would appeal to the average user, and require far less effort, but also provide useful functionality for power users.

Taking a step further, Narayanan and Anand consulted with their friends and others about what they would want in an ideal weight-loss app, and what they have experienced with other apps. They found out that what most people needed was not just information and actionable tips/instructions, they also needed hand-holding. They felt they were left to their own devices at meal times, especially in certain situations like a buffet, eating out with a group, someone pushing unhealthy food, etc.

They realized that while it is one thing to ‘know’ that curtailing carb intake leads to weight-loss, it is totally another thing to take the appropriate actions when sitting at a meal filled with all sorts of carb-temptations! What would really help was telling them which items to avoid and which to eat, and how much. This would make things far easier.

They also observed that while existing apps placed a lot of emphasis on recording and analyzing every morsel eaten by the user, informing the user to the nth degree of detail, but not really motivating any lasting changes in behavior. Also, these apps coached users ‘after-the-fact’, i.e. the app would tell them what all they ate and how they could do better next time – after they had already eaten their meals. Users would have to remember the instructions and make sure they followed them – all on their own! These made Anand and Narayanan feel that they could do a whole lot better by hand-holding the users as and when they were actually eating their meals. They wanted to design something which would free the users from remembering the instructions from their last meal and from entering any data. Thus the idea behind ‘Tweak & Eat” was formed.

Anand and Narayanan soon started Executing this idea. They analyzed a large number of papers and journal articles as well through which they found some very interesting information. One is that people lost some weight on almost every ‘diet’, but were unable to sustain them; the lost weight invariably came right back! This is a widely recognized phenomenon, aptly summarized by American humorist Erma Bombeck: “In two decades I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.”

Mark Twain, another American humorist, once said: “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.” The same can be said for weight-loss!

Another very surprising finding that stood out was that exercise did not play an important enough role in weight-loss! Diet played a far greater role and therein lay the rub because people find it very difficult to sustain drastic changes to their diets over the long term.

The PurpleTeal team started developing the app based upon the various findings. They laid out the technical design and requirements, applied for US and International patents (still pending), and began development. The team came up with an approach that would require very little user effort (most of the work would be done by nutritionists). – it would allow people to eat what they normally did, but with a ‘Tweak’ (meal-modification) under the guidance of nutritionists.

All the user would have to do is to take a picture of their meal and send it to ‘Tweak & Eat’. The rest backend activity would be manned by qualified nutritionists. Within a minute, the nutritionists would send back a tweak. No data entry, no remembering anything… it couldn’t be made any easier than this!

The name Tweak and Eat came from the idea that – the user will eat what he/she would normally eat and just ‘tweak’ (make incremental changes) the meal a bit to suit the user’s body profile and achieve his/her specific goals.

What is PurpleTeal

The Company’s core business is a smartphone app and Service called ‘Tweak & Eat’. ‘Tweak & Eat’ aims to empower health-conscious subscribers with ‘Just-in-time’ meal advice (i.e. ‘Tweaks’) from nutritionists who analyze the nutritive content of each meal and make suggestions for improvement.

‘Tweak & Eat’ helps subscribers make informed food choices and changes for the meal they are just about to eat, based on their individual body parameters and specific health goals. All the subscriber has to do is to take a picture of their food plate and send it to us using the App. Tweak & Eat nutritionists then view the plate and make appropriate portion control, food swapping or eating sequence recommendations in less than a minute. They may also make suggestions for future meals, taking advantage of meal-time ‘teachable moments’ to educate subscribers about healthy eating.

Tweak & Eat also supports integration with devices like Fitbit, iWatch, etc. and enables personalized reminders to be set for breakfast, lunch, dinner and other meal-times.

‘Tweak & Eat’ is training and using Tweakyfai (its proprietary AI platform) to help nutritionists do a better job of giving real-time advice and information to users. Tweakyfai also automates some activities such as generating nutrition labels and escalating exceptions.

Important features of ‘Tweak & Eat’ App are–

My EDR (Electronic Diet Record) – It contains all the current and past tweaks of the user along with the nutritionist’s comments and nutrition labels. It also shows the rating the user gave to each tweak.
Nutrition Labels – It helps users see the macronutrient contents of every meal. These labels are created instantly by Tweakyfai, PrpleTeal’s AI platform.
Recipe Wall– Users can find healthy recipes here.
Tweak Wall – User can share the tweak from My EDR on the Tweak Wall
My Nutrition – Helps users monitor their calorie and micro-nutrient intake trend.
My Fitness – This features allows ‘Tweak & Eat’ to be connected to other health and fitness related devices like fitbit and iWatch.

Some premium services included in the Tweak & Eat app are–

Weight Loss Service– Here the user gets a personalized diet plan from a nutritionist assigned to him/her.
AIDP (AI based Diet Plan) – under this service the user gets personalized diet plans generated by the AI platform tweakify. Besides, the user also gets to chat with nutritionists under this plan.
Twetox– it offers personalized detox plans to the user.

Besides ‘Tweak & Eat’, PurpleTeal has another app named ‘My Health Assistant’, which help people to maintain better health by guiding users to prevent ‘at risk’ conditions and help manage diagnosed conditions better.

Some other mHealth messaging services provided by PurpleTeal are–

Live Well – It provides daily health tips, periodic risk awareness alerts and tips on how to prevent diseases.
Lose Weight – It provides daily tips to lose weight.
Quit Smoke – Provides daily tips to quit smoking based on established behavioral change models.
Be CALM – Provides tips on stress relief and stress handling.
Well Woman – Provides tips on women’s health
Healthy Heart – Provides tips to manage or prevent cardiovascular diseases.
Prevent Diabetes – Provides tips to prevent diabetes. Build awareness of early signs and symptoms of diabetes.
Manage Diabetes– Provides tips for long term diabetes self-management
Pregnancy – Provides daily tips to to-be moms on various aspects of pregnancy
Prevent Cancer– Provides daily tips and information about risk factors and symptoms of cancer. And provides guidance regarding how to prevent cancer.

PurpleTeal – Launching Startup

PurpleTeal’s core product ‘Tweak & Eat’ app was first launched in India, followed by Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Kuwait and USA, Besides, it launched the App & Service on Google Play Store and Apple Store in 2017.

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PurpleTeal – Revenue Model

Tweak & Eat runs its services on a freemium model. While the base app and services are free, fee is charged for the premium services. Pricing ranges from INR 49 to INR 3,999 in India.

PurpleTeal – User Acquisition

As said by Narayanan, for ‘Tweak &Eat’ PurpleTeal got its first 100 customers just through word of mouth publicity. PurpleTeal also promotes its apps and services through Google Adwords and with the help of its Telco partners.

Google Adwords is very effective in reaching millions of potential subscribers. We have existing relationships with Telcos from our ‘Health Tips’ line of business, and through them, can reach 100’s of millions of potential subscribers. Once we get to that level, it becomes easier to grow because of the heightened visibility.

PurpleTeal – Competitors

Though there are many apps related to health, ‘Tweak & Eat’ is quite unique from the rest. It’s simple, real-time, meal modification advice from nutritionists at the time of consumption is a feature that no other app provides.

We will make it difficult for others to duplicate our app & service by speeding up our response time and making the nutritionist’s advice easy to act upon and instructive for future meals.

PurpleTeal – Growth

‘Tweak & Eat’ has been able to gain popularity among its target audience. The app’s popularity and growth is shown by the following facts-

The app has gained popularity in different countries apart from India like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and the USA.
The App caters to the daily meal-time needs of more than 500,000 users.
‘Tweak & Eat’ ranks as the 4th trending App on Google Play Store in the health & wellness category and is one among the top performing health & wellness channels according to Youtube with the engagement increasing 300% month-on-month, over the last three months.

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PurpleTeal – Future Plans

Future plans for the next 2-3 years is to rapidly grow the installed base and increase user engagement. We are now in the testing stages of an AI nutritionist that can reliably (more than 90%) identify a large number of foods. Our AI nutritionist will get better over time, as we continue to train it with ‘real-world’ images of meals sent by our users. This is an important point because training an AI nutritionist using stock images is easier but not very reliable.

March 14, 2020

TNQ InGage- Curating top-notch technology advancements to create a better world!

While the world was still stuck to the smartphone revolution, there was this founder who had the vision to revolutionize the way people and businesses train, learn and perform with superior technologies like AR, VR, etc to significantly enhance knowledge and improve the quality of life. We’re talking about none other than Vijay Karunakaran who launched InGage technologies in 2012.

Startup Name	TNQ InGage Technologies LLP
Headquarter	Chennai
Sector	Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES)
Founders	Vijay Karunakaran
Founded	2012
Parent Organization	TNQ InGage Technologies LLP
Website	tnqingage.com

About TNQ Ingage and How it Works
Founders of TNQ Ingage
What problem does TNQ Ingage solve?
TNQ Ingage – USP & Innovation
TNQ Ingage – Target Market Size
TNQ Ingage – Acquisitions & Mergers
How was TNQ Ingage Started
TNQ Ingage – Startup Launch
TNQ Ingage – Business Model and Revenue Model
TNQ Ingage – Startup Challenges
TNQ Ingage – Funding and Investors
TNQ Ingage – Growth

About TNQ Ingage and How it Works

TNQ InGage offers construction-based services to overcome workforce training challenges, to improve performances, creating a safe work culture, and closing the experience gap – all while reducing cost and risk. The TNQ InGage services are meant for all core sectors such as Buildings & Factories, Oil & Gas, Transmission & Distribution, Heavy Civil, and Highway Engineering. The modules it provides include Site Equipment Erection Techniques & Inspection, Fire & Excavation Safety, Heavy Vehicle Management, Power Tools Training & Operation, and a whole host of others. The Augmented Reality Field services here include the provision of digital manuals – which helps the field crew to assess real-time task-based information, and Inspection & Design Reviews – where it uses HoloLens to deliver remote inspections and design review by enabling 3D views over a building.

In the manufacturing sector, TNQ InGage training helps reduce risk and accelerate implementation during the laying of complex automated facilities, and benefits configuration, safety, and workplace ergonomics. Performance training is provided in terms of product training, disassembly and maintenance training, etc. The AR Field Services in the manufacturing sector caters to Repair & Maintenance – where technicians are allowed to work hands-free and faster, with each step in a troubleshooting or repair process displayed in their field of view; Expert assistance – through AR solutions that provide remote experts with virtual views, with which they can monitor and provide instant feedback; and Quality Control – through solutions that guide operators to perform inspection tasks and identify parts that are missing or incorrectly assembled.

In the healthcare sector, custom immersive solutions are capable of enhancing the proficiency of the trainees. TNQ InGage builds realistic training simulators integrated with force-feedback technology and motion tracking so that professionals could train with real medical procedures before facing the patient. It’s customized modules here include Medical & Healthcare Training, Patient Experience, Physician Empathy, Vision Care Assessment, Rehabilitation, and more.

And its Digital Experience Centres, as already observed, is a place that encourages collaboration and has proven to be a valuable resource for company-wide workshops and employee onboarding.

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Founders of TNQ Ingage and team

TNQ Technologies is a 21-year-old company that focuses on content technologies and products, with a strength of 2,500 employees in its ranks. “They’ve joined hands with us on the firm belief that the future of content consumption lies in leveraging AR and VR environments and have made this investment with TNQ InGage as a part of their long-term strategy.” Said Vijay. Its extensive work over the last seven years and the strong relationships with prestigious customers and partners furthered the company’s interest in forming this Joint Venture.

On the other side, Ingage is looking at TNQ Technologies as a long-term strategic partner that would help them with growth and scalability. As stated earlier, they are investing in R&D to improve human interaction with virtual objects, with the object of developing projects and services that will have a socially meaningful impact on how people train, work and live. They are also looking to penetrate the global market, which includes the world of book-publishing by leveraging TNQ’s existing capabilities and competencies.

TNQ Ingage Team

TNQ Technologies would be involved in the following roles as a part of this Joint Venture:

Supporting growth and scalability by introducing process, best practices, and bandwidth.
Providing essential HR and Software support for sustaining rapid and significant growth.
Providing financial support to make investments in people, technology, and products.
Providing strategic investments with a long-term strategy.
Promoting AR to book publishing by leveraging our contacts and capabilities.
Leveraging its reach in the Indian market to support sales.
Leveraging the existing global marketing capabilities through sales personnel across Europe.

InGage’s role in this partnership is to provide meaningful technical solutions with a human touch. In this new and most exciting phase, they emphasize their commitment to providing customers with a more enriching and productive experience through our Immersive Technology portfolios. The Ingage team believes that this partnership will help us in our pursuit of developing their range of AR/VR products by embedding HCI (Human-Computer Interface), through which the objects in our environment can interact with each other, as well as with humans. And they are also looking to penetrate the global market, which includes the world of book-publishing by leveraging TNQ’s existing capabilities and competencies.

The entire team of TNQ InGage live, breathe, talk, walk immersive Computing. The team of storyboard artists, 3D engineers, animators, and lighting artists bring the creative half to the table, while the unity and unreal developers, algorithm developers, hardware specialists, Android and IOS developers, and program managers get their heads down and build solid experiences for clients. This venture hires people who are ceaselessly driven towards the pursuit of excellence and they are currently a team of 50 plus people.

TNQ InGage – What problems does TNQ InGage solve?

Its services involve empathy, which makes this venture build life-like experiences in a virtual world. VR taps into the power of tech and creative storytelling to make learning immersive, retainable, explorable, and seamless. It is a truly immersive and tactile medium that engages all senses to imprint training sessions on memory, which results in higher retention and absorption rates. Its main USP lies in upskilling, as 50% of global business leaders identify skill shortage as a key workforce challenge.

The training mode significantly reduces the time, cost, and risk spent on traditional training sessions; statistics suggest that VR Based Training improves learning quality and retention rates by 76%.

The virtual environment empowers people to practice experiences that would mean a lot of risk in a physical setting. It is a platform for technicians and engineers to explore, investigate, and learn to navigate scenarios that would be a part of their working lives. The TNQ InGage team’s expertise, which has helped complete more than 500 projects with many Fortune 500 Companies, is continuously working towards creating compelling experiences. Also, their design-centric VR development flow drives experiences across all Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs). The feedback mechanism would track the performance of people so that they can rectify their portions of error.

The AR Based Services allow engineers in the construction and manufacturing industry to use AR glass or a smartphone to get virtual step-by-step live instructions while performing machine repair and other maintenance tasks. The integration with IoT leads to faster performance of machines, embedding sensors and intelligence that can monitor and generate data so that timely action can be taken to prevent any instances of downtime. AR Healthcare Solutions enable surgeons to perform complicated procedures better, by rendering 3D reconstructions of the body part. TNQ InGage converges IoT and AR to transform industrial maintenance and field services by real-time capturing of data and conversion of the same into recommendations. This leads to faster and efficient identification of errors, with scope for speedy remedial.

Ideally, TNQ InGage conceptualizes, designs, and delivers Digital Experience Centers that provide a hands-on, experiential space for customers, employees, and trainees to collaborate with technologies such as AR, VR, MR, AI, IoT, Robotics, and other techniques. It is specifically designed for performing thoughtful, transformative digital initiatives in a space that encourages innovation and engagement. These Centres have proven to be a valuable resource for company-wide workshops and employee onboarding.

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TNQ InGage – USP and Innovation

TNQ InGage’s technology-based solutions are specifically meant for enterprises because it believes that to make the world better, one needs to make it smarter. “We don’t believe in tech for tech’s sake, but in tech for humanity’s sake. Since our inception, we have been continuously observing, developing, and testing production techniques and optimized hardware solutions. Our passion for this technology means that we will continue to learn from any future advancements as the technology is moving towards mainstream adoption. Our higher level of consumer focus helps us deliver projects with compelling content.” Says the founder

TNQ InGage also has creative technologists who blend creativity and technology to create compelling experiences. Its Bespoke range of solutions serves the purpose of analyzing requirements and caters to other purposes like Architecture and Interior Design, procurement and deployment of the appropriate hardware, as well as the development and deployment of content. Apart from this, the team works with strong expertise that has helped them complete more than 500 projects in a short span of years, a cross-platform technology that can be deployed across all AR & VR devices, and an intelligent feedback mechanism. Last but not least, TNQ InGage solutions are cost-effective.

TNQ Ingage – Target Market Size

Industrial investments of AR/VR are exceeding the expectations. It is envisaged to triple its size in the years to come. To say that we are in a digital age is an understatement, post-digital may be an appropriate term. This is because the technology of today is getting more and more intuitive that it would change the way we learn and conduct our endeavors.

The global market of AR/VR was estimated at USD 18.4 billion in 2018, which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 76% and hit the 180 billion mark by 2022. The Indian AR/VR market is expected to grow to $ 6.5 billion by the same time. We have a lot of significant players, both minor and major, in the areas of Technology and Platform Development, App Development, and System Integration, who could tap into the promising global Immersive Media Market. We can look forward to a time when India emerges as a large supplier of the global AR/VR demand, while also catering to the domestic segment.

How was TNQ Ingage Started?

It all started much before the company was founded. Vijay’s journey with this technology began in the year 2002 while at Intel, building the first generation bulky VR systems for healthcare industries. As a Director at Intel, he was part of the team that drove the 1st two waves of computing – desktop & mobile. He was fully aware that a third wave of “immersive computing” is around the corner where technology can sense, predict with the possibility of virtual presence anytime, anywhere using virtual and augmented reality.

And so he launched InGage Technologies in the year 2012, sensing the next wave of immersive computing that would make people change the way they create and consume content from observation to immersion.

Vijay has been in this industry for around 15 years and witnessed closely the seeds of transformation that we are experiencing now. His first-hand experience in this sphere and the knowledge of potential implications made him believe in immersive computing, which comes with a lot of scopes, thanks to its brilliance and transformative capabilities.

“We began our endeavors by coming up with India’s first-ever 4D Augmented Reality application in 2013 for Rajinikanth starrer Kochadaiiyaan Film. We had tied up with Karbonn smartphones & Kochadaiiyaan for the project.” Says Vijay.

The application, which allows Rajinikanth fans to see him perform stunts and actions right at their home, was then shown to the Superstar, who was quite delighted with the experience and approved the project immediately. The AR application received very positive feedback and won accolades across the world for its quality.

TNQ Ingage – Startup Launch

The belief in immersive computing, 18 years of international experience and the financial stability that Vijay achieved by then helped in launching the company with no user. Digital marketing, attending events, references through our good work and age-old networking helped in the acquisition of initial customers.

TNQ Ingage – Business Model and Revenue Model

The current focus is service business through customized AR VR short-term and long-term projects across the manufacturing, construction and healthcare industries. TNQ InGage just launched VR As A Service (VAAS) model that would give us a recurring subscription revenue. The team is also working towards launching products next year.

TNQ Ingage – Startup Challenges

Team building was a challenge since there was no AR VR development talent pool then. As a result, the top management had to train the hires within the company through a rigorous process to overcome that. At the time one of the AR platforms/App called Jaadu that lets people scan objects, images and find the cheapest deal available across on-line & nearby stores didn’t work out since it was too early for consumers to download the App and change their buying behavior. This posed a threat back then.

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TNQ Ingage – Funding and Investors

In early 2019, Eyeing strong AR & VR business opportunities in India’s enterprise market, TNQ Technologies has formed a Joint Venture (JV) with InGage to launch TNQ InGage. This Joint Venture brings together InGage’s immersive technology expertise and IP, and TNQ’s initial investment of $2 million and management expertise. The funding will be used to scale up the delivery of immersive products and services and invest in product R&D.

TNQ Ingage – Growth

As mentioned, the current focus is service business through customized AR VR projects across manufacturing, construction and healthcare industries. TNQ InGage also just launched VR As A Service (VAAS) model that would give them a recurring subscription revenue. The team is also working towards launching products next year. The future is quite positive and exciting due to the penetration and adoption of the immersive technologies in the enterprise market and the success, expertise, and clientele the venture has achieved so far

January 7, 2020