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 C Com Digital.
Digitization has become a universal phenomenon that is growing with every passing day. The increasing prominence of virtual space is observed to influence almost every domain of work. Especially in India with the highest mobile penetration, the scope for digital marketing has assumed importance. Under this circumstance, it is necessary for every venture to have a digital presence and come up with ideas to woo its potential customers who are present online. A company that is helping businesses use the digital medium to its advantage is C Com Digital. C Com Digital is India’s first 360 Degree Digital Marketing Agency with an AI-powered platform, which helps companies to be ahead of their competitors through the effective marketing services it provides in various domains of digital marketing.
C Com Digital is a 360-degree digital marketing agency that employs the latest technological developments like AI and data analytics. Headquartered in Mumbai, C Com offers its services pan India. They offer a plethora of products and services, all under one roof. The products and services include:
ThinkBots (Building Brands with AI): AI-based Campaign management and performance optimization platform
Digital Assets: Website, Mobile Apps, E-commerce Store
Digital PR and Events: Media Outreach, Influencer Marketing, Brand Reputation Management
Creatives and Branding: Corporate Collaterals, Positioning, Branding
Digital Advertising: Social Media Marketing (SMM), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Network Advertising, E-Commerce advertising
Digital Content: Videos, Blogs, EDMs, Social Media Optimization (SMO) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Some of the key factors for ROI in digital marketing include Market Insights, Customer Engagement, Voice Search, Data Analytics, Predictive Analysis, and Hyper-Local Advertising. C Com Digital takes into account every factor so as to arrive at an effective strategy that gives 100% results.
Digital Advertising Industry Details
The shift of ad spending from traditional to digital media is happening at a rapid pace. The Indian ad industry stands at OVER 564 billion and is expected to touch 700 billion rupees by the end of 2022.
Digital ad spending currently stands at 199 billion Indian rupees. This is expected to touch 539 billion rupees by the end of 2024. Digital will contribute 38% of the ad market size by 2023. Brands are also focusing on digital content creation, PR and digital services such as websites, mobile apps, search engine optimization and social media engagements.
Founders of C Com Digital and team
Chandan Bagwe is the Founder and Managing Director of C Com Digital. He is an engineering graduate, and holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the United States. Besides, Chandan did MBA in Marketing from the reputed Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. He is an avid teacher; a visiting faculty member at the premier B-school, Welingker’s Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. Besides, he is passionate about reading (non-fiction books, including biographies, philosophy, and spirituality), watching science-fiction movies, jogging, and yoga.
C Com Digital Team
Nikhil Marwaha, Director of Digital Strategy, has 14 years of cross-functional experience in design, product development and digital marketing in industries such as education, retail and dotcom. He has successfully led and delivered many insightful overseas campaigns, including those that drive results and support clients’ business objectives. He brings to the table some exceptional work experience from his years with top brands such as the Future Group and Tata Interactive Systems, Tata Communication Services, Globus.
How was C Com Digital Started
Coming from a business family, Chandan Bagwe had a natural inclination towards the business sector. While he was studying in the USA, from 1995 to 2000, the IT industry in India has started gaining prominence, and soon it was flourishing. Exactly around the same period, Amazon.com started growing in the USA. TCS, Infosys, Wipro grew by many folds in India. Chandan Bagwe took inspiration from Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. Thereon, Chandan Bagwe had decided to start an IT company and outsource work from the USA to India.
C Com Digital – Name, Tagline, and Logo
The team wanted a name that was short and had good recall value. The name of the company is C Com Digital which stands for ‘Creative Communications’. Digital agencies are all about creativity and communication over the internet.
C Com Digital logo carries 2 rings connected as links which represents the world connected with the Internet. The two colours in these two rings represent the strong bond between the two organizations i.e. C Com and its associates.
C Com Digital – Growth
Founded in 1999, C Com Digital is India’s first 360 Degree Digital Marketing Agency with an AI-powered platform. The company caters to the entire spectrum of digital marketing services for B2B and B2C customers. C Com Digital ThinkBots is a proprietary AI-powered Campaign planning, campaign management and performance optimization platform. C Com Digital has become renowned as a leading agency in the country’s digital space by creating strong digital assets, effective digital PR, creative branding, digital advertising and valuable digital content
The company has grown by 200% since its establishment with a strong team of leading online influencers and advertising partners. The brand has expanded in the metropolitan cities of Chennai and Bengaluru as well as Hyderabad. Also, they have a client base in Dubai, Singapore and the USA.
In all these years, the company has managed to successfully build a very strong network of Youtubers, Influencer Marketers, Multi-Channel Agencies, Ad Networks, OTT Channels and Video Content Developers.
C Com’s clients are higher rung companies belonging to various segments, including industry leaders like Times Now, Zoom, Edelweiss, Southern Health Foods Pvt. Ltd (Manna), Tata Interactive Systems, Tata ClassEdge, Blue Cross Laboratories Pvt. Ltd., Anunta Technology Management Services Pvt. Ltd., Asian Heart Institute, We School, Chintamanis, Outlook Publishing, Ram Ratna Group, and Globus.
C Com Digital – User Acquisition
Getting the first few customers is quite a task for any startup, and so was it for C Com Digital. Chandan managed to rope in the initial customers by leveraging the contacts of his family-run offset printing business.
We have a family offset printing business which was looked after by my father and brother. I started contacting the network of clients, suppliers, associates for their requirements, and getting business slowly.
Thereafter, C Com Digital partnered with 30 advertising agencies to get more work. When C Com Digital was established, advertising agencies could not provide technology services such as website development, SEO and social media. Due to such a gap in the then existing market, C Com Digital ultimately became their preferred partners to provide technology solutions which helped C Com in expansion of its network.
C Com Digital – Technology Stacks/Tools/Software Used
C Com’s ThinkBots is a proprietary AI-powered campaign planning, campaign management and performance optimization platform. C Com uses the ThinkBots AI platform to find valuable insights for marketing the products and services. With the insights received, the company starts executing the plan and monitoring closely the progress in real-time. C Com’s partnership with leading YouTube channels and YouTubers allows it to execute successful influencer marketing campaigns. C Com has also partnered with Google, Facebook, Amazon, Flipkart, and Paytm for online marketing and e-commerce businesses.
C Com Digital – Startup Challenges
Initially, C Com Digital had to face a few challenges concerning creating their mark and distinguishing themselves from their competitors. Mainly since 2007, digital agencies began flourishing. That was the period when SEO agencies were on the rise, along with SMO agencies with Google and Facebook popularizing advertisements on their platform. Nevertheless, C Com Digital was successful in creating a niche in the market due to their background in core technology, unlike others. This further allowed them to embrace all the technological and marketing shifts that were occurring in the industry.
The demand started growing in the digital industry, and at the same time, the visionaries from the mainline media understood the importance of the digital agencies. This resulted in several mergers and acquisitions between digital marketing companies and mainline agencies to form new digital agencies. C Com Digital thrived in this digital outbreak working with all top mainline agencies and taking care of their digital work without getting merged or acquired.
C Com Digital Awards and Recognition
C Com Digital has run successful campaigns including the award-winning campaign for Times Now- NRI of the Year, resulting in doubling the growing participation with the audience from across 15+ countries.
The company also showcased its expertise in digital mediums with a successful campaign “Happy Heart India” for “Asian heart Institute”, supported by Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar to save lives of 200 underprivileged children suffering from chronic heart ailments.
C Com Digital has been growing big since it was established. Recently, it has created a huge hype in the media and won the media mandate from Blue Cross Laboratories Pvt. Ltd. for an awareness drive on dysmenorrhea- #WhySufferSilently campaign, which managed to reach 81 lakh, people, through social media platforms.
Received ‘Best Unique & Innovative Promotion of the Year’ at the National Jewellery Awards, for Chintamanis’ #LoveWins Campaign.
‘Content Marketing Agency of the year 2019’ at the AgencyCon Indian Agency Awards Summit for NRI Of The Year Awards, Season 4 Campaign.
C Com Digital was awarded by TATA classed for achieving the milestone of reaching 15,000 classrooms.
C Com Digital – Future Plans
With the arrival of IoT, Big Data, concepts and advancements in data analytics, AI is going to become all-pervasive and play a crucial role in brand engagements. Bots will be capable of doing incredible things and will exceedingly enhance the human experience in all walks of life. AI is evolving rapidly in many realms such as research analysis, design, consumer mapping, social media marketing etc. Against such a background C Com Digitals’ ThinkBots is poised to become the next big thing in AI for the digital marketing space, given its exceptional capabilities and breakthrough technology.
C Com Digital – Founder’s Advice
My advice would be to aim for sustenance rather than biting more than one can chew. Hence, the fundamentals must be in place, both in thoughts and action before critically planning further expansion. In addition, there are four essential qualities that any entrepreneur must have: belief, focus, planning, and action. All four are equally important and require maximum sincerity. A high regard for these ideals will inevitably create an unstoppable force – Chandan Bagwe
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 Autosys.
Factory automation or Industry automation is where production and operations in the factory are done with no or least human intervention. Automation can be considered a boon considering the many benefits it brings along with it. Automation, besides increasing productivity and accuracy also increases worker safety. Reports also show that ‘smart manufacturing’ which uses IoT connected devices, data analytics, robotics, RPA ( Robotic Process Automation) practices, and machine learning/artificial intelligence will lead to greener factories which is a piece of good news from the environmental perspective. Autosys, a Mumbai based startup is helping manufacturers become smart manufacturers, by offering industrial automation and industrial data management solutions.
Autosys manufactures a hardware device called Quad which retrofits into any industrial machinery (regardless of how old or new it is) accumulates various data threads. The data threads are relayed onto Autosys’ cloud servers where they have various applications hosted for real-time monitoring, shop floor digitization, maintenance tracking and an Artificial intelligence system that is equipped to perform health analysis of the machines and prediction of production and various maintenance schemas.
Quad is a simple plug and plays solution which extracts all the data from the machines through any existing mechanism (if unavailable their in-house hardware is available to do so).
Solutions provide by Autosys’ quad are:
Production Tracking
Human Resource Management & Tracking
Automated Machine Maintenance Management
Conditional Notifications (SMS/Email)
Safety Measures
Machine and part health Diagnosis and management
Improvement of OEE and other manufacturing efficiencies.
Comprehensive analytics of numerous on-goings on the shop floor.
Easy plug and play into any existing ERP system through OPEN API mechanism. Artificial Intelligence-based predictive analysis and machine health monitoring.
Autosys – Market and Industry Details
Autosys’ target market is the entire manufacturing industry. Autosys has built its platform in a modular fashion which makes it easy to plug and play various customized modules into the mainframe to get started. It can cater to any kind of shop floor. In easier words, Quad accelerates companies towards the next industrial revolution – Industry 4.0 which every competitive shop floor in India will be complied by within the next 2 years.
Autosys – Vision and Mission
Autosys’ mission is to establish a state of the art facility for the development of technologies that enhance the efficiency and productivity of industrial manufacturing. Automation being the future of manufacturing, Autosys aims to provide sophisticated technologies and solutions for various manufacturing problems globally.
Autosys visions to forecast strong and ever-growing footage in industrial automation all over the globe. In an environment where manufacturing competition rises each day, Autosys aims to set a global benchmark on improved efficiency, productivity and quality by developing new products and solutions for every industrial application.
Founders of Autosys and Team
Aaditya Damani, Founder & Managing Director
Aaditya Damani is the founder of Autosys who founded the company in 2016. Autosys currently have a team of 50 engineers and admin.
How Was Autosys Started
Autosys started off as a small project to catch the total operation time on a welding machine, which was a relatively simpler task, as it encompasses tapping into the current, welding current graph being binary in nature. Eventually, it evolved into an actual business once a detailed study was done on the market demand where it was realized that digitization is extremely important in the manufacturing sector and apart from leading ERP systems like SAP/IFS, there is not much work done in this field. Now the problem with any ERP falls back to manual data entry which gives out room for inaccuracy. Autosys believes in the realisation of true data directly from the shop floor with no human interfacing in between.
Autosys – Startup Launch
After completing months of internship with Reliance Jio, Aaditya Damaniwas clear about his future goals and that he wanted to work for himself after graduation. He started freelancing and figuring out what to do next. Started off with a project to monitor a welding machine in the final semester of his college and that was pretty much the eureka moment that encouraged him to dig deeper in the industry and identify all the problems which are faced in day to day operations on a shop floor.
The highlight of problems observed by Aaditya was the Lack of awareness, lack of dedication, tons of manual data entries and filling up log sheets. Increased downtime was also present and machines were often down and not catered to, again, because of lack of awareness. Inaccurate data accumulated, redundant analysis, lack of consistent data and unavailability during the need of the hour, were all the aspects Aaditya noticed needed attention.
AISPL Quad not only solves all the above problems but automates all the business processes on the manufacturing shop floor.
Autosys – User Acquisition
Autosys uses referrals and cold calling offering to give a free month-long trial which has been very beneficial in terms of user acquisition. So far, Autosys have not spent any money on marketing.
Autosys in 2018 grabbed two marquee customers, Victora Group – One of the Industry Leaders in the automobile manufacturing space and National Engineering Industries Ltd., CK Birla Group. Currently, Vodafone Group PLC also uses the Autosys service.
Autosys – Startup Challenges
Aaditya recalls the most difficult part is being able to convince customers because of the age factor.
“Imagine a 24 year old knocking doors to the management office of a manufacturing company, traditionally family owned businesses, trying to tell them that he can help improve their efficiency – which is generally conceived in a very different way as they have been running the business longer than his age!” says Aaditya, the founder of Autosys.
But persistence, dedication and belief in a strong product never go wrong. A simple month-long trial period clarified how digitization can not only enhance the entire shop floor performance but create more awareness of the operations ongoing, reduce downtime and saves the hours-long data entry jobs!
Autosys – Competitors
There are few competitors of Autosys in the market like ActiveBatch Workload Automation, Stonebranch, and Control-M.
Autosys – Future Plans
Autosys anticipates growth on their revenue and their client’s list. They target to grow with double the rate of their growth of last year and innovate more new technologies for industrial automation.
FAQs
Who is the founder of Autosys?
Aaditya Damani is the founder of Autosys.
When was Autosys founded?
Autosys was founded in the year 2016.
Is Autosys an Indian Company?
Yes, Autosys is an Indian company whose headquarters is situated in Mumbai, 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 ePayLater.
While there was a time when people used to borrow money only for fulfilling major goals like building a house or starting a business, the scenario is quite different today. Millennials today do not hesitate to borrow for meeting their lifestyle goals like shopping or travelling.
As per a report published by Paisabazaar, India’s largest digital marketplace for financial products, credit awareness in Indians is on a steady rise. According to the report, the young salaried segment of Indians have more credit awareness, maintain better credit scores, and are more confident about borrowing money.
Again, a recent report by digital lending platform, India Lends says that there has been a 55% growth in personal loans for travel purposes.
Considering this shift from the ‘save first’ philosophy to the ‘consume first and pay overtime’ way of life, and to fulfill the aspirations of the new Indians, ePayLater, a Fintech startup is providing short-term credit at the point of sale. The startup also meets the short-term credit needs of small businesses. Here’s the success story of ePayLater covering all about the startup, its Founders and Team, Name and Logo, Funding and Investors, Revenue Model, Competitors, Growth, Awards and Recognition, Future Plans and more.
ePayLater is a checkout lending platform, which provides credit at the point of sale. ePayLater offers the simplest possible checkout experience in existence today, providing customers with the ability to conclude a transaction with just a click of the mouse or a tap of the touchscreen.
It is a ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ solution through which customers can get access to an instant credit limit to make faster purchases, that too without having to pay at the same time.
There are two Major Product Lines of the Company –
Providing short-term credit at the point of sale for consumers shopping for their personal needs.
Here, ePayLater enables a “Buy Now, Pay Later” solution for frequent online purchasers with an interest-free credit term of 14 days. ePayLater has partnered with IRCTC, PVR, MakeMyTrip, Yatra, Easemytrip, Tata Croma, Travelyaari among many others.
Providing short-term credit for individual retailers for their business needs.
The service involves no hidden cost and the credit line extended is completely collateral-free. This allows businesses to continue providing services to their customers and achieve higher sales through faster inventory churns. ePayLater provides businesses credit in the form of a line of credit, short-term loans, and merchant cash advances.
Driving volume is always key to merchants. However, payment failures result in a drop in volume and this is generally not in the hands of the merchant. A typical payment process involves going to a payment gateway, then to a bank, then the user is sent back from the bank to the payment gateway, and then to the merchant.
One-click checkout
If there is an issue at any link, the payment fails. Many times the user may not even return to the merchant and can’t even retry. This problem is completely eliminated by ePayLater by providing 1 click checkout.
ePayLater also counters the high incidence of cash in P2M ( Person to Merchant) transactions. For customers who prefer cash-on-delivery, ePayLater gives customers the same benefits (like receiving the goods before deducting payment) in a cashless manner.
For offline transactions, where cash is predominant in India, ePayLater’s UPI based solution gives customers an incentive to move away from cash since one can transact on credit.
High success rate and transaction security
Further, the time and the number of steps taken to do a transaction using credit, debit, net banking is significantly higher compared to a few seconds on ePayLater. Since the customer never leaves the portal (which the customer does in case of credit/debit/net banking/wallet transactions), ePayLater can easily guarantee a very high success rate and transaction security.
Benefits of epayLater
In a nutshell, ePayLater’s benefits for consumers are threefold. First, it’s Buy Now, Pay Later functionality; second, the enabling of a single-tap checkout process; and third, its ability to safeguard consumer information from unnecessary dissemination.
ePayLater – Funding and Investors
In total, ePayLater has raised over $15.7 mn funding in 4 rounds (February 2021).
Recently, ePayLater closed the Pre-series A funding led by ICICI Bank and GMO Global Fintech Fund, an investment fund of the internet conglomerate in Japan along with family offices like Parekh and Patni and foreign investors from the UK.
Akshat Saxena, Aurko Bhattacharya and Uday Somayajula are the founders of ePayLater.
Akshat Saxena – Co-Founder, ePayLater
Akshat Saxena
An engineer by qualification from DA-IICT Gandhinagar, Mr. Akshat Saxena is a management specialist in Marketing and Information Systems with an MBA degree from the Management Development Institute, Gurgaon (MDI). Akshat carries a cross-sectional experience of setting up and managing data-driven businesses.
In his 12 years of professional experience, he has worked extensively in the BFSI, credit, and payment space, and has endeavored to solve business problems with technology and data solutions. Prior to embarking upon his entrepreneurial journey, he worked with majors like Oracle, IBM, SAP, and TransUnion.
Aurko Bhattacharya – Co-founder
Aurko Bhattacharya
Mr. Aurko Bhattacharya is an engineer by qualification from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (IIT Roorkee). Aurko is a management specialist with an MBA degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta(IIM-C).
Aurko carries Banking experience dealing with structured investment solutions across Equity, Interest Rates, and Foreign Exchange. In his 12 years of professional experience, he has worked with industry majors like ICICI Bank and Barclays Wealth and Investment Management.
Uday Somayajula, Co-founder
Uday Somayajula
Mr. Uday Somayajula is an engineer and management specialist in Finance with an MBA degree from the Management Development Institute, Gurgaon (MDI). Uday is experienced in multiple areas of banking, capital markets, and risk consulting. In his 12 years of professional experience, he has worked with industry majors like ICICI Bank and Accenture Management Consulting.
ePayLater runs with an employee strength of 51-200 employees, as per its Linkedin profile.
Market and Industry Details
With a credit card penetration of just 2% in the country and less than 10% of SMEs having access to credit, ePayLater has huge growth headroom.
The team at ePayLater arrived at the solution after intensive market research and interviews with people. Market studies showed that “pay later” products not only result in a higher transaction success rate for merchants but also bring in new customers who previously did not have access to credit.
Successful models in the USA and Europe were studied. Studies clearly demonstrated the fact that paying later products result in significantly higher transaction success, provides a better customer experience to users.
With India being on the path of an e-commerce revolution, this was the perfect time to build a “Pay Later” for India and give the much-needed credit boost and checkout convenience to people. ePayLater aims to make credit more accessible and convenient for the growing population of India.
ePayLater – Startup Story | How was ePayLater Business Started?
ePayLater was founded in December 2015, while the idea started a few months prior. Akshat, Aurko, and Udayhad been working in complementary sub-domains of BFSI and had a consensus on the potential a mass-market credit offering can unlock.
The team was amazed at the fact that despite the great strides being made by the economy and therefore retail consumption, the credit penetration remained abysmally low.
In India, we have only around 40 million credit cardholders in a billion-plus population, which in terms of percentage penetration is way lower compared to the western counterparts. The founder trio had the vision to empower every fellow citizen with a credit instrument. And that’s how the idea of ePayLater was born.
In order to actualize the same, the team of ePayLater chose a path that was non-traditional yet congruent with trends- demographic and technology alike. They decided to build a purely digital credit offering, which would leverage the best of data science and engineering, and deliver an experience that is not just inclusive, but also superior.
ePayLater today underwrites customers using alternate data, in less than a second, thereby allowing them to be a true checkout credit method at points of sale, whether online or offline. Customers could get a credit limit in real-time, and use it to ‘Book/Buy Now and Pay Later’, irrespective of their geographical presence.
The idea behind starting the company was to use data science and new-age technologies to solve real-life challenges and bridge the credit divide that exists in India today. ePayLater is a team of dynamic professionals with a goal to optimize the digital payment experience and make it seamless, reliable and secure – says Akshat.
ePayLater is a fintech company that stands as a zero-cost credit solution for SMEs, which helps them easily purchase their supplies. With this, the company aims to reduce the trust deficit that typically exists in the digital B2B commerce market.
ePayLater earns revenue from the transaction fee that is charged from the merchants. Another source of revenue is the penal charges levied on overdue payments.
ePayLater – Competitors
Some competitors of ePayLater are:
LazyPay
Simpl
Paytm Postpaid
KrazyBee
Quiklo
SlicePay
However ePayLater’s USPis its product that serves the NTC (New to Credit), non-urban residents as well as it solves the challenges of urban elites. At ePayLater, the platform leverages sophisticated algorithms that have the capacity to cater to wide and differing audiences in an inclusive way.
They have built a product that’s serving the under-served, non-urban residents as well as it solving the challenges of the urban elites.
For instance, IRCTC sees traffic from the biggest metros and the smallest towns, catering to customers of different ages that often lack credit histories. In spite of these challenges, ePayLater’s algorithms, created using advanced data science and analytics, have been able to determine their creditworthiness based on several parameters other than credit history. This made it possible for the company to solve real-life problems by disbursing credit to the right people.
ePayLater – Advisors and Mentors
Stefan van den Berg, founder and former CEO of AfterPay, a provider of ‘pay after delivery’ payment services in Western Europe and the ANZ region, has joined ePayLater as a strategic advisor.
ePayLater’s focus on continuous innovation puts them in the lead every time in offering the most convenient, secure, and seamless experience to the customer.
To cite a specific example, the launch of ePayLater’s services on IRCTC created a wave of excitement amongst customers. Partnering with India’s largest online portal is a strong testimony to their technology and analytics leadership. ePayLater is considered to be one of the most convenient methods to purchase tickets on the IRCTC platform.
Also, ePayLater is India’s first UPI-powered credit solution. The team of ePayLater came up with an innovative solution to empower individuals to transact on credit anytime anywhere. They partnered with IDFC Bank to bring instant digital credit to individuals transacting online and offline, using BHIM UPI.
For the first time, digital credit is made possible using the BHIM UPI railroad, the instant real-time payment system developed by NPCI. This allows the customers to use ePayLater on all the major merchants like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Jabong, and Uber.
ePayLater – Awards and Recognition
ePayLater won the DigiDhan Mission Fintech Award for ‘Best Fintech Innovation in Digital Payments through Lending’ at the MeitY Startup Summit 2019 in October. The Minister of IT, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad awarded the startup the award.
ePayLater – Future Plans
ePayLater looks forward to introducing a bunch of innovations that would help them further simplify the customer experience, besides making credit more inclusive. Alongside, having solved the first set of business challenges their merchant partners were facing, ePayLater are broadening the vistas and gearing up for other business metrics that could be achieved.
The startup is looking at business credit as a major thrust area, as there lies a huge unmet demand for easy credit. ePayLater believes solving the said problem would unlock the true business potential of micro-entrepreneurs across the country.
On the back of its unique product and seamless execution, ePayLater is all set to cement its position as the leading facilitator of Digital Credit aimed at individuals and small businesses.
ePayLater – FAQs
Who founded ePayLater?
Aurko Bhattacharya, Akshat Saxena, Uday Somayajula, Prasannaa Muralidharan, Shanmu Thiagaraja are the founders of ePayLater.
When was ePayLater founded?
ePayLater was founded in 2015.
Who are the competitors of ePayLater?
LazyPay
Simpl
Paytm Postpaid
KrazyBee
Quiklo
SlicePay
Stc Pay
Unicard
Twid
Solfy
What is the total funding of ePayLater?
ePayLater has raised over $15.7 mn funding in 4 rounds (February 2021).
What is Pay Later payment?
When Customers make payment for the goods or services, money is not debited from their accounts. Payments are done by their providers. Customers pay the transaction amount back to the provider according to the fixed schedule as regulated by the provider.
A nascent stage startup is no different from a toddler—it needs to be nurtured with utmost care and conditioned for tackling the challenges that lie ahead. To provide this grooming, several cities in India are preparing themselves for incubating and bolstering entrepreneurial ventures.
The global buzz surrounding the startup mentality has made it more important than ever to create a breeding ground for innovation and creativity, and it’s great to see that India is also taking this seriously. This has given rise to a number of startup hubs across the country, with the quantity increasing continuously.
There has been a paradigm shift when it comes to the importance of 9 to 5 day jobs. Although many Indians still prefer such jobs over conceiving new ventures, some studies report that the number of startups in India has grown over 7 times in the recent decade. Are Indian’s ditching the traditional conception of employment? Quite likely a yes.
According to the reports, the number of Indian startups in 2008 lingered at around 7000. A 2018 study estimated approximately 50,000 startups in existence across India. The startup culture in India has seen tremendous growth. According to a 2021 Global Startup Ecosystem Index by Startup Blink, three cities in India, Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai ranked among the top 20 cities globally.
If one was to single out a specific brand or entity that paved way for entrepreneurship in India, it would be Zoho. Then known as AdventNet.inc, Zoho offers productive tools (Document processing, etc.). It began in 1996 and amplified the “startup” trend in India.
Here is a list of some of the best cities for startups in India that are providing startups and initiatives to the pedestal to grow and make name for themselves. With the penetration of more international tech giants, most of these cities are changing into the IT hubs of India.
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Bengaluru, once known as the startup capital of India before it was dethroned by Delhi which added 5000 startups against 4,514 in Bengaluru from 2019 to 2021.
Bengaluru has been the womb to big shots like Ola and Flipkart. The city houses various technical and analytical firms, an enticement for budding and established entrepreneurs.
Rightly christened as the Silicon Valley of India, Bangalore is the perfect amalgamation of the corporate lifestyle and vibrant social life. Home to the country’s top technical and managerial institutions (IIM, Bangalore and IISC) and a strong industry connection, there’s no shortage of opportunities in this city. It is known as the best city for startups in India.
Even freelancers across the country have an inclination towards working out of Bangalore; such is the lure of the city. Other countries are becoming cognizant of the strategic significance of this south Indian city—large organizations are adamant about having at least one of their offices in Bangalore. This creates an extensive network highly beneficial to ventures and initiatives seeking support and guidance.
On the other hand, startups based out of Bangalore are expanding their operations and services beyond India. With the city in dire need of renovation and re-modelling (lack of space and water issues being some reasons for worry), the inevitable transformation of Bengaluru will open up new avenues for entrepreneurs. The city is also among the top IT startups in India.
Delhi
Delhi City
Delhi, the startup capital of India is the center of India that commands the respect of its own, Delhi is the seat of political power and this lends a greater hand to the startup ecosystem flourishing there. Having a stronghold in telecommunication and media, Delhi has been a destination for various entrepreneurship-related meetups and conferences, with the Government of India promoting and publicizing a majority of these events.
The close vicinity to Delhi has enabled both Noida and Gurugram to establish themselves as startup hubs. A trade and commerce place historically, Delhi has seen the rise of tech startups such as Hike and Paytm, food tech startups like Zomato, and Shopclues belonging to the e-commerce segment.
With booming infrastructure and ease of business, Delhi is counted among the top cities for startups in India where foreign behemoths like Samsung are exploiting Noida and Gurugram to the fallest; Samsung recently opened the “world’s largest mobile factory” in Noida. These regions entail a huge potential for growth along with a thriving network of investors and entrepreneurs. The presence of centres of excellence like IIT, DU and IIFT (to name a few) means there’s no shortage of expertise.
Hyderabad
Hyderabad City
Traditionally known as the city of pearls, this city in Southern India is witnessing a rise in foreign investments and the number of successful startups blossoming on its land. Hyderabad can be called the second IT hub of India after Bangalore.
With many international giants like Microsoft, Google, and Uber setting up their offices in Hyderabad, the city is slowly yet steadily catching up with Bengaluru as a startup hub. Top institutes like ISB, IIIT, and BITS being located in Hyderabad is icing on the cake—alumni from these places are directly incubating their ventures in Hyderabad.
The support from the State Government has encouraged entrepreneurs to make the best out of unrealized opportunities Hyderabad has on offer. The State Government is vesting time and money in organizing and setting up conferences, hackathons, state initiatives, and development centres—everything geared towards making Hyderabad synonymous with entrepreneurship. It is even slackening on policies and procedures to showcase the city as a favourable incubator!
Mumbai
Mumbai City
The city of dreams, also the home to some of the world’s wealthiest businessmen, has only recently been dethroned by Bangalore when it comes to India’s favourite startup destination. Mumbai is still the first choice for anyone who is into non-technical startups as it is India’s financial capital.
One of India’s most recognized institutions, IIT Bombay has been instrumental in cultivating the startup ecosystem across the nation, being the birthplace of many wildly successful startups. Moreover, alumni from this esteemed college have gone on to make name for themselves across countries through their initiatives. It’s a proud feeling to say that many globally recognized brands are the outcomes of the toil put in by IIT Bombay grads and post-grads. It is among the best cities for startups in India.
BookMyShow, JustDial, and Cleartrip are only scratch the surface of the plethora of startups to have emanated from this sea-facing city. With conglomerates like L&T and Tata group setting up their offices in Mumbai, the financial hub has seen a steep growth in the economy, employment, and business. But the rising cost of living and real estate in Mumbai has caused a few unicorn enterprises such as Ola to shift base. In spite of such issues, Mumbai will continue to dominate the entrepreneurship segment, come hell or high water.
Emerging Startup Cities in India
With big cities gradually losing their shine and attraction, many emerging startups are focusing on tier 2 cities for growth and sustenance. Some cities have seen a surge in entrepreneurial activities and have made it big in the last 3-4 years. Some of the emerging startup cities in India are:
Ahmedabad
Gurugram
Pune
Chennai
Kolkata
Nagpur
Chandigarh
Indore
Goa
Bhubaneswar
Lucknow
Surat
The Government setting up a tech park called GIFT City in Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar, Pune becoming a smart city, and Chennai emerging as a host to entrepreneurial discussions and events—smaller cities are gaining traction. Cheap land rates, low cost of living, remarkable talent yet to be utilized, and lucrative government policies have made these cities the future of the Indian startup ecosystem.
FAQ
Which city has the most startups in India?
Delhi has dethroned Bengaluru and now ranks in the first position for the most number of startups in India.
Which city is known as the startup capital of india?
Delhi is known as the startup capital of India.
Which is the best city for startups in India?
Some best cities for startups in India are Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Noida, and Pune.
What is the best city to start a business in India?
Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru are some of the best cities to start a business 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 the TagMango.
TagMango equips creators to monetize their audiences directly. It is a SAAS tool that enables creators to build their own online store to host cohort-based courses and to mint and sell NFTs.
They launched the SAAS platform for cohort-based courses in February, 2021 in which they provide a landing page builder, payment gateway, inbuilt video-hosting and a chat feature to seamlessly host cohort-based live courses.
The next addition to the SAAS platform is the NFT marketplace where creators can mint and sell their own NFTs and will go live in March, 2022.
March 2022 – Launch of the TagMango NFT Marketplace. In this Marketplace, India’s top creators would be launching their NFT’s.
February 2022 – A major rise of creators on the platform is witnessed. Creators earnings on average are growing at a rate of 62% Month on Month.
January 2022 – Launched India’s first Creator Pad in Mumbai for creators to connect, collaborate and create.
February 2021 – Started focusing on creator monetization. TagMango began helping creators monetize their courses and workshops.
March 2020 – Change in the model, TagMango started enabling personalised celebrity shout outs for fans through their platform.
November 2019 – Received funding from Y Combinator.
TagMango – About and How it Works
It is a SAAS tool that enables creators to build their own online store to host cohort-based courses and to mint and sell NFTs.
They provide a landing page builder, payment gateway, inbuilt video-hosting and a chat feature to seamlessly host cohort-based live courses and workshops.
TagMango will soon be launching their NFT marketplace which seeks to serve as a gated community for the country’s top content creators, offering a variety of tools across the metaverse and in the real world to assist them Connect, Create, and Collaborate.
Divyanshu Damani and Mohammad Hasan – Tagmango Founders
Divyanshu Damani and Mohammad Hasan founded TagMango in February 2019. The success of the venture was witnessed across the globe as both of them received the prestigious title of “Forbes 30 under 30, Asia”.
Divyanshu Damani is a passionate entrepreneur, a social media influencer, and a keynote speaker. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. Divyanshu also co-founded other startups:
‘Wakeupkid’, a social entrepreneurship venture which through its projects, videos, and posts seeks to utilize the influence of social media and youth power to make a difference in the world.
‘The Soch Network’, an online media distribution platform for dispensing thought-provoking content of national interest.
Divyanshu himself is a social media influencer. A vivid speaker, Divyanshu also hosted the ‘Divyanshu Damani Talk Show’ (an online talk show) and has spoken at various IITs and IIMs. He has also been featured on TEDx and JoshTalks.
Mohammad Hasan is an entrepreneur at heart. He is a graduate in computer science engineering and is an experienced website & mobile app developer. He also co-founded ‘Fleapo’, an information technology solutions provider specializing in mobile apps development, customized web apps development, and internet marketing services. Fleapo is currently operating in 3 countries.
TagMango – Startup Story
Divyanshu, having been a social media influencer for quite some time, saw the immense scope and opportunities present in the world of social media influence. After meeting Hasan in college they just knew that they had what it takes to potentially disrupt an industry. Initially, TagMango gave influencers a chance to work with the best brands in India such as Hershey’s, Bounce, and Raw Pressery. It had tied up with over 80,000 influencers before pivoting to the celebrity video shoutout model. After this TagMango understood the marketplace better and aimed at attacking the problem at its core. They allowed creators to monetize their D2C interactions with their audiences. Now, hundreds of Tagmango creators are monetizing their courses and workshops and building this ecosystem of passing on high quality content and knowledge to the consumer.
The big vision is for them to become the 6th logo behind the truck. If today, you see Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter – the 6th logo will be TagMango.
The mango will signify that every monetizable interaction for an entity – both virtual like workshops, courses, NFTs and physical like merchandise, products is hosted on the creator’s TagMango platform.
They aim to build an online shop for the creator that’ll help them seamlessly monetize all direct-to-consumer interactions through a single window.
TagMango – Logo
TagMango Logo
TagMango – Business Model
The company works on a commission business model. After completely aiding creators in launching their online workshops or courses TagMango has a 10% take rate on creator earnings.
TagMango – Funding and Investors
TagMango raised $2.3M so far.
Major investors in TagMango are Y Combinator, Pioneer Fund, Alan Rutledge, Kevin Lin, XRM Media, Prakhar Gupta, Varun Duggirala, MSB Vision, Ankur Nagpal, Justin Mateen, and Manish Pandey.
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
December 2021
Seed Round
—
—
December 2020
Seed Round
$750k
Y Combinator, Kevin Lin, XRM Media, Pioneer Fund, Angel investors from the USA & UAE
April 2020
Seed Round
$105K
–
March 2020
Seed Round
$300K
–
January 2020
Pre Seed Round
$150K
–
TagMango – Growth
Creator Earnings on TagMango are growing at 62% MoM.
TagMango – Social Media Presence
Social media presence of Tagmango on different platforms:
Divyanshu Damani and Mohammad Hasan founded TagMango in February 2019.
How much funding did TagMango raise till date?
TagMango has raised a total of $2.3 million in funding. The latest funding of $750,000 was raised in December 2020 from Y Combinator, Kevin Lin (Co-founder of Twitch), XRM Media, Pioneer Fund, and angel investors from the USA and the UAE.renowned creators from India like Varun Duggirala, Prakhar Gupta, MSB Vision, Dr. Sid Warrier and 15 other strategic angels.
Who are the Major Investors in TagMango?
The major investors in TagMango are Y Combinator, Pioneer Fund, Alan Rutledge, Kevin Lin, JAM Fund and XRM Media.
A healthy and fit body is essential for a human to perform the best. For the right reasons, of late, there has been increasing consciousness among individuals about fitness and health. Consequently, the fitness industry has been growing immensely. Keeping up with our new formed habit of searching for every solution online, many platforms providing guidance on fitness and health online, are also emerging. One such startup that is guiding you to attain your fitness goals is Miten Says Fitness.
Miten Says Fitness (MSF) is a digital-based platform that provides online fitness training services and has some of the best fitness trainers in India. MSF provides personalized fitness solutions (in the form of weekly Diet and Workout Plans) that are completely customized to the requirements of each of its clients – taking into consideration their current lifestyle, body condition, preferences, limitations, and fitness goals.
Miten Says Fitness (MSF) is a Mumbai based startup that provides personalized fitness solutions to its clients through weekly diet and workout plans. These plans are updated every week – taking in any feedback and assessing the progress made by the client.
How MSF Works
This approach ensures that the plans become more and more sustainable for the clients. Also, the weekly updates hold the clients accountable to follow through with their fitness journey while Miten Says Fitness provides clients with the service remotely.
The functioning of Miten Says Fitness is quite simple. First, the customer selects any of the numerous permutation combinations of options available on the website and signs up through its portal.
MSF Workout Plans
Once they sign up, the clients receive a document called- MSF Fitness Questionnaire. This questionnaire allows the team to collect complete details about the clients’ body, lifestyle, preferences, limitations, and fitness goals, along with their body photos.
Based on the response to this questionnaire, the MSF team create a plan for Week one. The plan includes details of exactly what food they need to eat, in what quantity, and a brief recipe which makes their meal plan tasty (and not just limit themselves to boring, bland salads).
Besides, clients also get a personalized workout plan (which can be done at home or at the gym – based on client preference) that details the exact exercise that they need to do along with the correct number of sets, reps, the rest period and a brief description of the correct form to execute these exercises.
A couple of buffer days are provided to the customers so that they can arrange for groceries and other necessary material to start with their Week one. As the customer starts, the company has to be informed.
Around day 5, Miten personally collects feedback from them and prepare their week 2 plan accordingly, and so on!
Miten Says Fitness provides a wide range of fitness services. The prominent ones are,
Helping its clients with a laid down path to enable them to achieve their fitness goals.
Enabling access to world-class fitness knowledge and expertise right at their fingertips.
Making personalized fitness programs affordable to its consumers.
Educate its clients with the correct information
The USP of MSF is;
They provide the services of a personal trainer and a nutritionist under one roof.
They provide the right level of support, motivation, and guidance to ensure that their clients feel empowered to religiously follow their fitness journey – despite being remotely available to them.
The core belief of Miten Says Fitness is to always provide value to its audience (on Social Media) and its clients and deliver results above expectations.
Miten Says Fitness – Founders and Team
Miten Kakaiya is the founder of Miten Says Fitness (MSF). He studied MEng (Hons) in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Manchester. He also worked with Airbus in the UK for an year before setting up MSF.
Miten Kakiya – Founder of Miten Says Fitness
Today, MSF is a team of 9 highly motivated individuals driven to leave a meaningful and positive impact on the lives of MSF stakeholders.
Miten Says Fitness – How was it Started?
The idea for MSF occurred unusually to Miten Kakaiya, founder of MSF. During his sisters’ wedding few of his cousins approached him for fitness tips given his interest in fitness. In the process of guiding them and getting tangible results; Miten found a business idea in it.
Miten Kakaiya, during his stay abroad for studies, has come across multiple Online Personal Trainers.
A few of the personal trainers I came across, really made a huge impact on my decisions in shaping the company. I observed them grow over a span of 2-5 years and carefully analyzed the strategies employed by them to climb the ladder of success – quotes Miten.
Fascinated about the concept of online personal trainers, Miten envisioned starting something along similar lines in India. He studied the fitness industry in India very closely to understand the micro details of the market. From his research, he realized that there are few gaps in the Indian fitness industry and that there are only a few online personal training service providers.
Miten started working on his concept by helping a few dedicated individuals from his neighborhood gym at a very minimal cost. It was this careful assessment of finding motivated and dedicated individuals that helped validate the potential of his idea.
MSF started off with basic services like detailing what food the clients need to eat and what workouts/exercises they need to do. As the team received feedback from their consumers, the team started including more details on their services.
MSF came up with client transformation plans, which included things like recipes for every single meal – making their diet food super tasty and easy to cook and sustain. MSF also started including information about the exercises and details like how to correct the form and basics to keep in mind while exercising.
Our next step is to introduce a video trainer alongside – which makes the implementation of the program hassle-free for our consumers. Our focus has always been on providing value to our audience and to our clients. This simple fundamental has helped us keep our customer acquisition costs low while also ensuring that we deliver quality services. Hence, we are always on the lookout for improving the overall experience of customers.
Miten taking inspiration from his overseas Online Fitness Trainers, wanted to follow the formula of – First Name + Last Name + Fitness, to name his brand. But the formula somehow didn’t work. Narrating the story behind the name Miten says-
I didn’t really like the sound of Miten Kakaiya Fitness or MKF. And so suddenly, one night MSF struck me, and I named it as Miten Says Fitness.
Miten Says Fitness Logo
Miten Says Fitness – Business Model and Revenue Model
Miten Says Fitness follows a simple B2C model of operation. MSF products are priced between INR 1,200 to INR 30,000/-. During the sale season, they have their products going as low as INR 250, as well. Since this is an online service package, they do not have any raw material costs associated, allowing price flexibility.
Besides, their team is also very lean for now. These factors allow high-profit margins for MSF, and these high margins are being used to re-invest into the business, mainly for Product Development and Marketing.
Miten Says Fitness – User Acquisition and Growth
Prior to launching MSF officially, Miten worked with a couple of clients to understand the potential of the idea in a better manner. These clients have been able to follow the diet and workout schedule dutifully. Gradually, positive results showed, which gave Miten an encouraging push to boost his strategy. He thereon started marketing his services online.
In the initial phase, Miten’s customers were mainly his friends and acquaintances. Through mouth referrals and digital marketing, Miten was able to popularize his services. Social media was extensively used by MSF to propagate their services by creating valuable content, spreading true information, and showcasing the incredible benefits that MSF clients have achieved.
MSF’s major source of client acquisition is social media. It allowed them to disseminate information at free of cost. Besides, it has proven to be a trusted platform to gain access to customers. The MSF team then works to convert their social media followers to customers.
Miten Says Fitness Instagram Marketing
As MSF got a hold of a good number of clients, MSF has flagged of offers and value-added benefits to its clients regularly to gain more clients besides, retaining the clients.
We are investing heavily right now into growing the reach of our social media and providing our followers with more and more free, authentic, and valuable information. Apart from that, we have plans to get a small scale, but impactful influencers on board to help us increase the reach and authenticity of our brand and our services – says Miten explaining the customer acquisition strategy.
Initially, it was quite a task for Miten to convince his parents and his close social circle about the online fitness training service providers, given it is fairly a new concept for the Indian Market. Nevertheless, with a clear and structured planning process, Miten was able to convince them successfully.
A major challenge for MSF was to make its clients follow the plan regularly and be committed. Unlike other products, here the clients have to buy a package and also put in efforts so as to reap benefits – that is, improved health and fitness levels.
To increase the awareness among the public concerning fitness and to improve the brand image of MSF they have introduced, the MSF Transformation Challenge. It is a fitness challenge wherein a bunch of people sign up together and are bound by limited dates.
MSF Transformation Challenge
The best three transformations during this period win Cash Prize from MSF. So far, they have had five editions, and all of them have been a huge success.
Now we are planning to bring it back again next year – bigger and better than ever before!
Miten Says Fitness – Funding and Investors
MSF has completely relied on money generated from the MSF business itself. Right from day one the company started generating revenue.
All the money generated is re-invested for content creation and on marketing to acquire more customers with the help of Social Media.
Miten Says Fitness – Advisors and Mentors
Miten, by virtue of studies, has developed a social circle dominated by Entrepreneurs, who are guiding him in his venture and has played a good role in shaping up the organization
Miten Says Fitness – Awards
Miten Says Fiteness has been recognized for the efforts it has put to make people live healthy and fit. Awards received by the platform are-
Radio City Mumbai City Icon Award for Excellence in Nutrition and Lifestyle in 2019.
GHP News 2019 Fitness and Nutrition Awards- Best Online Fitness Training Specialist- India
Featured on Mensxp platform for 31 days fitness challenge introduced.
Miten Says Fitness – Future Plans
MSF is currently operating from Mumbai. Miten Says Fitness has so far helped more than 1000 clients in 26 countries across the globe. The Platform is experiencing a steady growth rate of 100% YoY since inception, and aims to help 100,000 individuals from across the globe as a part of the five year plan.
Our goal is to remain as lean as possible. Implement newer technologies and invest more in product development. In the long term, we want MSF to be analogous with fitness in India and Indians across the world – Miten quoted explaining the company’s future plans
FAQ
Who is the founder of Miten Says Fitness?
Miten Kakaiya is the founder of Miten Says Fitness.
What is Miten Says Fitness?
Miten Says Fitness (MSF) is a Mumbai based startup that provides personalized fitness solutions to its clients through weekly diet and workout plans.
Mumbai is the financial hub of India and among the wealthiest city globally. Headquarters of most financial institutions like the Bombay Stock Exchange, RBI, National Stock Exchange, and the Mint are located in Mumbai. Even the HQs the giant business groups like Tata Group, Aditya Birla Group, Essel Group, and Reliance Industries are situated in this city. It has also become the startup hub of India and has given rise to numerous startups recently. Here we have listed down a few successful startups in Mumbai.
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Founders: Ashish Hemrajani, Parikshit Dar & Rajesh Balpande Year Founded: 1999 Industry: Ticket Booking Funding: $224.5 Million
Bookmyshow Logo | Startups in Mumbai
BookMyShow is India’s largest online entertainment ticket booking brand. People can easily buy movie and shows’ tickets on their website. BookMyShow has also helped less popular theatres and their artists to gain an audience. The company provides ticket management software to cinemas. Along with that, the company promotes movies and shows on their website which generate good revenue for them.
BookMyShow was founded by Ashish Hemrajani, Parikshit Dar, and Rajesh Balpande. In 1999, they began from a small room in Mumbai and now have spread themselves globally. BookMyShow acquired 7 startups including MastiTickets, Townscript, Burrp, and Nfusion.
Ola is a taxi aggregator and bridges the gap between cab owners and commuters. Ola doesn’t own any cars but partners with a number of taxi drivers and owners. The company also owns the food startup “Foodpanda”. Owned by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Ola was started in Mumbai, it is now headquartered in Bangalore. Ola has continuously been expanding its range of services. Ola has its own e-wallet called Olamoney which makes it convenient for riders to pay for the rides.
The startup was founded by Bhavish Agarwal and Ankit Bhatia in 2010. You can read our Ola Startup Story to know more about the startup.
Cleartrip
Founders: Stuart Crighton, Hrush Bhatt & Matthew Spacie Year Founded: 2006 Industry: Travel booking Funding: $56.4 Million
Cleartrip logo | Startups in Mumbai
Cleartrip is an online travel booking company. It lets travelers book anything from flights to hotels. The startup started in Mumbai but now has offices in Bangalore, Gurgaon, and Dubai too. Along with B2C services, Cleartrip provides B2B services like “Cleartrip for Business”. A corporate travel management tool. AgentBox is another B2B tool for travel agents.
Cleartrip was founded by Stuart Crighton, Matthew Spacie, and Hrush Bhatt in 2006. It has raised a total of $56.4 million of funding from Concur Technologies Inc., DAG Ventures, and Gund Investment Corporation.
Founders: Rishi Malhotra, Vinodh Bhat, & Paramdeep Singh Year Founded: 2007 Industry: Music Streaming Funding: $131.6 Million
JioSaavn logo | Mumbai Startups
Saavn is a music streaming freemium service which offers songs in Hindi, English, and other regional languages. It works on the freemium model. With the free version, there are ads and some limitations whereas, in the paid version, there will be better streaming quality and many other features. The company has the rights to over 50 million songs. Later, saavn was acquired by Jio for more than $1 billion and it became JioSaavn.
The startup was founded by Rishi Malhotra, Vinodh Bhat, and Paramdeep Singh in 2006 as “BODVOD Network”. Before it was acquired, Saavn had raised funding of a total of $110 million.
Founders: Mohamed Galib, Sony Joy, Lishoy Bhaskaran & Anoop Sankar Year Founded: 2013 Industry: Fintech Funding: $7.5 million
Chillr | Mumbai Startups
Chillr allows instant money transactions directly through the individual’s bank account through the app itself. However, after the launch of the UPI system, Chillr is has nothing new to offer. But as Chillr was already running a kind of “UPI” system from 2013, they have a lot of Banks as their partners.
Its a brand run and owned by Backwater Technologies Pvt Ltd.Mohamed Galib, Sony Joy, Lishoy Bhaskaran, and Anoop Sankar together started Chillr in 2014.
Founders: Ashish Shah Year Founded: 2011 Industry: Furniture Funding: $245.3 Million
Pepperfry | Startups in Mumbai
Pepperfry was founded with an idea to make furniture shopping online convenient for married couples who aim to start their life afresh with a new home. The company sells sells home décor and furniture. Launched in 2011, Pepperfry is facing tough competition from FabFurnish and Urbanladder.
Ashish Shah, founder, and CEO of PepperFry is a graduate of Pune University. He later did a diploma course in Ghaziabad and has 15 years of work experience in the market.
Founders: Hemanth Goteti and Zishaan Hayath Year Founded: 2013 Industry: E-Learning Funding: $112.1 Million
Topper logo | Mumbai Startups
Toppr is an e-learning app trying to make studies fun with its interactive content. It provides study material to students from class 5th to 12th standard and also for students appearing for entrance examinations and scholarship exams.
The ed-tech startup was founded by Hemanth Goteti and Zishaan Hayath, graduates from IIT Bombay. Toppr has raised a total of $65.1 million of funding mainly from Milestone Trustee Services and Alteria Capital.
Founder: Falguni Nayar Year Founded: 2012 Industry: Beauty Products Funding: $341.9 Million
Nykaa Logo | Mumbai Startups
Nykaa is one of the top from the list of entrepreneurs in Mumbai. It is an e-commerce website that offers beauty and wellness products from all the leading brands such as Lakmé, Kaya Skin Clinic, L’Oréal Paris, M.A.C, Bobbi Brown, Clinique, Estee Lauder, and many more. Nykaa follows inventory–led model. It has inventory spaces in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru.
Falguni Nayar who founded Nykaa in 2012, is a former managing director of Kotak Mahindra Capital Company. Nykaa has 35 stores. Nykaa launched its collection of in-house beauty products in 2017.
Founders: Jaydeep Barman and Kallol Banerjee Year Founded: 2011 Industry: Food Delivery
Faasos | Startups in Mumbai
Faasos is a “food on demand” service. You can order the delicacies of your choice through its app or website. Faasos operates in more than 15 cities of India and 200+ locations. The company promises to provide a refund of up to INR 200 in case of late delivery. It shows how committed Faasos is towards giving customers the best service.
Faasos was founded by Jaydeep Barman and Kallol Banerjee in 2011. This Mumbai-based startup has raised $60 million in funding. Faasos is rapidly growing in India with the help of social media influencers.
GrabHouse
Founders: Prateek Shukla & Pankhuri Shrivastava Year Founded: 2013 Industry: Real Estate Funding: $13 Million
GrabHouse Logo | Mumbai Startups
With growing economic opportunities, people are moving from small towns and districts to big cities. For this, people require accommodation. GrabHouse helps people rent an apartment, find a PG, and a house where they can stay while working or studying in the city. What was unique in GrabHouse was that they provided fully furnished sharing or private homes with only 2 months security deposit. This is what attracted everyone towards the company.
The startup was founded by Prateek Shukla and Pankhuri Shrivastava in 2013. In 2016, Quikr acquired GrabHouse for $10 million and rebranded it as QuikrHome. Now, the website of GrabHouse redirects users to Quikr’s website.
HOUSING
Founders: Rahul Yadav + 11 Year Founded: 2012 Industry: Real Estate Funding: $147.8 Million
Housing.com Logo | Startups in Mumbai
Housing is a marketplace platform that has interactive maps allowing the visitor to look deep into the real estate market. People get a huge option of property on the website and can contact the owner to make the deal. Launched in 2012, the company claims to have more than 6,000 brokers with 1500 employees across 45 cities.
Housing.com is the mind-work of Rahul Yadav along with his team of 11 Co-founders. The startup acquired Indian Real Estate Forum in 2015 for $1.2 million. They also acquired HomeBuy360 in the same year for $2 million. Later, housing merged with PropTiger.
Founders: Sandeep Lodha Year Founded: 2015 Industry: Wedding Funding: Acquired
Weddingz Logo | Mumbai Startups
India is the world’s largest destination for wedding marketing. Keeping this fact in mind, Weddingz was founded to make it easier to choose the wedding venue online. The soon-to-be-married couples can book a venue, rooms, and other wedding related items online quickly and fast.
Weddingz.in was founded by Sandeep Lodha. Sandeep is a graduate of Wharton Business School and IIT-Delhi. The startup was acquired by OYO in 2018. OYO bought 100% stakes of Weddingz in a cash-and-stock deal.
Founders: Piyush Jain & Khushboo Jain Year Founded: 2014 Industry: Crowdfunding Funding: $4.5 million
ImpactGuru | Mumbai based Startups
ImpactGuru provides complete crowdfunding solutions to empower individuals, NGOs, and social enterprises to raise funds for medical emergencies, personal needs, creative projects, or any social cause. It is also the first crowdfunding platform in India to launch a smartphone app for customers with an AI-supported story builder. Over 20,000 patients have benefited from 2 lac donors with ImpactGuru. Also, over Rs, 150 crores / $20 million has been mobilized across 15 countries on this online platform.
The startup was founded by Piyush Jain and Khushboo Jain. ImpactGuru has raised a total of $2.5 million from various investors.
Founders: Vineet Budki, Nidhi Varma, Prashant Choudharya & Biswajeet Karmakar Year Founded: 2014 Industry: Travel guide Funding: $1.1 million
Guiddoo | Startups in Mumbai
Guiddoo is a platform to discover and book in-destination experiences. It was initially started as an audio guide. Later, it turned into an app pivoted to tours and activities booking. The app helps travelers to discover and book in-destination activities across 15 countries.
This Mumbai based startup was founded by Vineet Budki, Nidhi Varma, Prashant Choudharya, and Biswajeet Karmakar. They have raised a funding of $1.1 million to expand their services in other countries.
BAJAAO
Founders: Ashutosh Pandey Year Founded: 2005 Industry: ECommerce Funding: Bootstrapped
Bajaao Logo | Startups in Mumbai
Bajaao, a Mumbai-based e-commerce startup that sells musical instruments and other equipment online. The company also provides the servicing of musical instruments.
The startup was founded by Ashutosh Pandey in 2005. Aashutosh is himself a music lover and wishes to spread his love for music. So, he started his own commercial venture by selling instruments to young musicians and people who wish to take it up as a hobby.
Founders: Rahul Singh & Mithilesh Said Year Founded: 2015 Industry: Travel Funding: $325k
Ithaka Logo | Mumbai Startups
Ithaka is a chat-based travel planning app, that covers destinations from Thailand, Bali, Europe, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, and Turkey. The startup was launched as an in-destination experience booking website but later pivoted to travel planning. This free platform is for the people who want to plan and execute their own trips and not to book a pre-made package.
Ithaka was founded by Rahul Singh & Mithilesh Said. Both the founders love to travel and found inspiration for their startup while traveling. Rahul is the CEO of the company while Mithilesh is the CTO.
Founders: Rajiv M Ranjan & Neeta Ranjan Year Founded: 2018 Industry: Peer to Peer Platform for Lending Funding: $1.1 million
PaisaDukan Logo | Mumbai Startups
PaisaDukan is a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending platform. PaisaDukan acts as a mediator between borrowers and investors. The company serves as a digital marketplace to enable borrowers to meet their financial needs, provide investors a safer and smarter investment option, and aid financial inclusion.
A creditworthy individual can borrow money for a variety of purposes like education, health care, marriage, small business, etc at a rate of interest as low as 12% p.a. And an investor (online money lender) can lend to borrowers at an interest rate which can be as high as 24% p.a. through an alternative financial channel. Investors can choose and fund borrowers based on their risk appetite.
Heckyl Technologies
Founders: Mukesh Madras Year Founded: 2010 Industry: Tech Funding: $7.5 Million
Heckyl Technologies Logo | Mumbai Startups
Heckyl Technologies is trying to get structured as well as unstructured data in real-time analytical products to financial institutions and corporates. Heckyl provides a Risk Early Warning System (EWS) Software Platform for managing credit risk. It gets millions of data as input for businesses from which it creates output to help the credit risk team to identify potential defaulters.
Heckyl Technologies was founded by Mukesh Madras in 2010. The startup has received a total of $7.5 million in funding.
Founders: Priyanka Save & Nagesh Pai Year Founded: 2010 Industry: Wine Funding: Bootstrapped
Fruzzante` | Mumbai Startups
Fruzzante` is the world’s first and only producer of a cider-style alco beverage made from Sapodilla (chikoo) extracts. Fruzzante` is also the only company producing fruit-based (non-grape) bottled products in the wine category that is commercially available. It is both vegan and gluten-free which makes it a healthy choice. The company also makes wines in other flavours like mango, pineapple, and spice garden.
The startup was founded by Priyanka Save & Nagesh Pai in 2010.
Founders: Tarun Jagwani and Natasha Jagwani Year Founded: 2012 Industry: Jewellery Funding: Bootstrapped
Tsara is a jewellery designing and manufacturing company. The main focus of Tsara is destination jewellery. The company has four lines of jewellery to complement various occasions and events and launches a new collection every few months.
The startup was founded by the couple, Tarun Jagwani, and Natasha Jagwani. The story behind this idea is that Natasha once lost her precious jewellery. So, the couple realised how important destination jewelries are. You can read the Tsara’s Startup Story to know more about them.
Founders: Shiraz Khan Year Founded: 2004 Industry: Digital Marketing Funding: Bootstrapped
SpiceTree Design Agency is a digital marketing firm that provides services in all the areas of digital marketing. Some of its services are web designing, print, social media design, SEO, SMO, re-targeting, etc.
SpiceTree Design Agency was founded by Shiraz Khan in 2004. The company was started with Shiraz’s saving of Rs. 1,00,000. You can read the Startup Story of SpiceTree Design Agency to know more about it.
TAC Security
Founders: Trishneet Arora Year Founded: 2013 Industry: Cyber Security Funding: $1.5 Million
TAC Security is a cyber-security solutions provider with a mission to anticipate, resolve, and mitigate cybersecurity risks and challenges. This Mumbai-based startup provides network, application, and web security solutions to corporates, banks, startups, governments, and law enforcement agencies.
Trishneet Arora founded TAC Security Solutions in 2013 at the age of 19. Trishneet has a strong inclination towards technology, gaming, and computers since he was a child. He is one of the youngest ethical cyber security experts in India. Its current client portfolio includes names such as Reliance Industries Limited, Gujarat Police, Punjab Police, AMUL, Avon Cycles, RALSON, and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), among others. TAC Security raised a funding of $500k from Vijat Kedia, MD, of Kedia Securities.
Monk Entertainment
Founders: Ranveer Allahbadia & Viraj Seth Year Founded: 2017 Industry: Digital Marketing Funding: Bootstrapped
Monk Entertainment | Startups in Mumbai
Monk Entertainment or Monk-E is a digital marketing startup that works with influencers and manages their marketing. Brands also connect with them and the company finds the most suitable influencers for them. Along with that, they provide video production to influencers and brands.
The startup was co-founded by a popular YouTuber, Ranveer Allahbadia. He has a YouTube channel called “Beerbiceps” and his friends help him with managing it. So, he and his co-founder, Viraj Seth came up with the idea to help other fellow influencers. The startup is bootstrapped and was founded in 2017.
LabelBlind
Founders: Rashida Vapiwala Year Founded: 2018 Industry: Health Tech Funding: Bootstrapped
LabelBlind is a digital platform that gives out information about the nutritional value of food products. The main purpose of the platform is to provide nutrition literacy to the people. The platform reviews and rates food items so that customers can choose healthier food options for themselves after examining the value of different food products.
The company was founded by Rashida Vapiwala, an expert nutritionist in the year 2018. This startup is bootstrapped and has been one since its formation. Over 8000 packaged food labels reviews and ratings can be found here for the consumers to decide and choose from.
CoinDCX
Founders: Neeraj Khandelwal and Sumit Gupta Year Founded: 2018 Industry: Cryptocurrency Funding: $109 Million
CoinDCX is a company that gives Cryptocurrency related financial services. It is a cryptocurrency trading network that ensures its customers a quick, risk-free, and effortless trading experience. It is said to be the largest and safest cryptocurrency legal exchange platform, where buying and selling of various types of cryptocurrency are possible.
Neeraj Khandelwal and Sumit Gupta, two graduates from IIT Bombay decided to try their hand in the cryptocurrency industry when they realized that Bitcoin has gained quite a momentum in the world. Both of them decided to use Blockchain technology to deal with financial inclusions and now it has received$109 Million of funding.
MailIt is a company that deals with dispatch aggregating and work on dispatching various types of packages and all types of mailroom management service. Apart from that, they also provides services involving dispatch of bulky documents and parcels nationally and internationally as well.
It was founded in the year 1987 by Mahesh Shirodkar. The company recently got funded by Ratan Tata in the year 2021, although the amount was not disclosed. The headquarters is situated in Mumbai, India. Many leading corporations are relying on the services of MailIt.
Cube Wealth
Founders: Satyen Kothari Year Founded: 2016 Industry: Fintech Funding: $500000
Cube Wealth is a automated wealth technology application that helps people investing in a simple manner. All these are done under the guidance of well known Investment manager. All the investment of the user are managed in this app and one can do that without facing any problem.
Cube Wealth was founded in the year 2016 by one of the most successful person from the fintech industry in India that is Satyen Kothari, the person who founded Citrus pay. He is also the current CEO of Cube Wealth.
ePayLater
Founders: Akshat Saxena, Aurko Bhattacharya and Uday Somayajula Year Founded: 2015 Industry: Fintech Funding: $180 Million
ePayLater provides people an option to buy now and pay later like a credit card card from online portals. Basically it is a platform that provides an instant credit limit where one can buy whatever they want quickly with just a single click and pay for that item later.
ePay Later was formed in the year 2015 and is now on the path to simply the customer experience with their innovations. Recently the company has raise $2.5 Million by Pravega Ventures in the February of 2021.
Dream11
Founders: Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth Year Founded: 2008 Industry: Fantasy Gaming Funding: $1.62 Billion
This is an application that allows its users to creat imaginary team and play matches with them, through which they can also win money if the players performs well in the actual matches. The games that can be played here are Cricket, Football, Kabaddi and Basketball.
It is India’s biggest sports gaming platform and have over 140 million users. Both of the founders Harsh Jain and Bhavit Seth are an ardent sports lover and they founded the sports gaming platform in 2008. Recently the company has collabed with popular TiktOk star Khaby Lame in their new campaign #Dream11PeDimaagLagaNa.
Acko
Founders: Varun Dua and Ruchi Deepak Year Founded: 2016 Industry: Insurance Funding: $458 Million
This is a private insurance company in India and offers its customers insurance facilities, products and commissions. It is a digital platform and everything that is done here is online. It has become the first digital service provider in the country, India.
It was founded in the year 2016 by Varun Dua and Ruchi Deepak, the company has received fundings from Catamaran Ventures, Accel Partners, SAIF Partners. The current CEO is Varun Dua and the headquarters of the insurance company is located in Mumbai, India.
Apna
Founders: Nirmit Parikh Year Founded: 2019 Industry: Employment Funding: $193.5 Million
Apna Jobs is all about providing job opportunities to the people of India. Unemployment is a big concern in this huge country so digital recruitment can help in solving that, that is what the motive is. It is a job platform where one can find jobs and mingle with the community.
Through this app one can find job as per their skills. It was founded in the year 2019 by former Apple executive, Nirmit Parikh and with its work it was able to become the fastest Unicorn in the country.
This is the list of startup companies in Mumbai. Hope you liked it.
If you know any other Mumbai-based startups, please contact us. We will connect with them to feature in the list of startups in Mumbai.
FAQs
How many startup companies are there in India?
India has about 50,000 startups India in 2018; around 8,900 – 9,300 of these are technology-led startups 1300 new tech startups were born in 2019 alone implying there are 2-3 tech startups born every day.
How can I get startup benefits in India?
Benefits of Startup India Scheme:
Self Certification under Labor and Environmental Laws.
Tax Exemption for Three Years.
Tax Exemption on Investment Above Fair Market Value.
Easy Winding Up of Company.
Startup Patent Application and IPR Protection.
Relaxation in Public Procurement Norms.
SIDBI Fund of Funds.
Is Oyo a startup?
Oyo Hotels and Homes are raising $1.5 billion from founder Ritesh Agarwal, SoftBank Group Corp. Agarwal, who founded Oyo in 2013, has built it into India’s second-most valuable startup with a valuation of about $10 billion. Its service covers 1.2 million rooms in over 80 countries, including 590,000 rooms in China.
What are the top Mumbai based startups in India?
Some of the top mumbai based startups are:
BookMyShow
Ola
Chillr
Grabhouse
Pepperfry
Housing
Ola Cab
Toppr
Nykaa
Impactguru
Is Mumbai good for startups?
Mumbai is an attractive startup hub which is contributing highly in Indian startup eco-system. It has great connectivity with other countries and a growing number of co-working spaces. The presence of prominent venture capital firms in Mumbai makes it best for startups.
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 Toch.
We are witnessing a tsunami of video content that is growing every minute. As per the Global Video AI Market data, the growth is measured at supersonic speeds. Statistics show that the market for short-form video content is expected to be at $169.4bn by the year 2025. In the hypersonic world that we live in, the venerated IoT solutions are the only coping mechanism. Toch AI is a SaaS company with cloud-agnostic AI solutions. It offers professional services by taking noisy, large data sets and transforming them into engrossing and compelling hyper-global videos.
Founded by Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil in 2016, the startup intends to disrupt video technology by automating workflow using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms, thereby reducing the go-to-market time and costs and increasing ROI for clients.
StartupTalky interviewed Mr. Vinayak Shrivastav (Co-founder & CEO, Toch) to get insights on the startup story and roadmap ahead of the organization. In this article, you’ll discover how Toch was started, its revenue model, marketing strategies, and more.
December 23, 2021 – Toch.ai partners with USA cricket with an aim to provide video highlights and clips for the Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube channels for USA cricket.
In the hypersonic world that we live in, the venerated IoT solutions are the only coping mechanism. Toch AI is a SaaS company with cloud-agnostic AI solutions. It offers professional services by taking noisy, large data sets and transforming them into engrossing and compelling hyper-global videos. Its modernistic technological solutions converge in ways that act as a huge revenue and time management tool. Toch AI creates a coherent video editing platform with engagement analytics and real-time production capabilities. With its futuristic deep AI technologies, the team renders new assets from the existing data with a deft auto- share option across 30+ social media platforms or any destination website/app.
The startup’s vision is to build tech that empowers creators and enriches content in the dynamic video-centric world. It is at the tip of an undiscovered iceberg when it comes to what AI is capable of. Revolutionizing itself every day while creating cutting-edge technology is a tangible goal. The team doesn’t see themselves selling a general algorithm that fits all. With the expansion of business avenues, small and big enterprises alike, each patron expands and challenges their amenability to mold the technology to their needs. While they have marked themselves today in the field of entertainment, news, and sports, the team at Toch aspires to allocate their AI and ML technologies towards safety and security, healthcare, and education in the future.
“Disrupt video technology by automating workflow using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms thereby reducing go-to-market time and costs and increasing ROI for clients” has been Toch’s mission, which is both possible and plausible with its team of innovators.
The startup also sees itself building an immutable community that drives a profitable economy while creating newer standards for the tech environment.
We are sitting on a tsunami of video content that is growing every minute. As per Global Video AI Market data, the growth is taking place at supersonic speed. Statistics show that the market for short-form video content is expected to be at $169.4bn by the year 2025, and $223.98bn by 2028 (Grand View Research, Inc) with an anticipated CAGR of 21% from 2021 to 2028. As flag bearers of the industry, Toch has the vantage to predict industry demands and possesses the evolutionary AI tools that can deliver groundbreaking and trendsetting solutions at the same time. Analytically in the coming years, the startup would be able to sell across 4 different continents with its repertoire and sizable market shares. Toch functions worldwide with a focus on India, North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.
Toch – Idea & Inspiration
In the year 2016, the founders were sitting at the brink of an undiscovered potential industry that had seen a mighty rise in video content. With human attention span and patience shrinking, there was a dire need to address the video trajectory in respect to real-time. To bridge that gaping hole between unaddressed content and commerce, the potential was immense. It was almost like the ‘light bulb’ moment when Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil formed a SaaS company deploying AI and ML technology that deliberated on an easy-to-use and accessible to all, a cloud-agnostic platform to deliver customized video content in real-time, thereby birthing TOCH AI.
While the founders and other enthusiasts were gung-ho with the projected idea, the main challenge was to integrate a team that would help them to discover the iceberg. Their enthusiastic team helped in molding the idea into a product that disrupted the video content industry. The response was overwhelming and helped the founding team forge ahead, setting a benchmark in the market.
Toch’s product is conceptualized to create epic content that leaves an impact using ingenuity and precision. Toch delivers well-crafted content through AI and ML algorithms in real-time. Creating personalized content has been a brainbox that has greatly appealed to the sport, entertainment, and news industry. Grafting content from raw footage into bite-sized videos in the form of key highlights that hyperbolize the pivotal moments across 30+ social platforms.
Its video editing options, retool and optimize videos in real-time; saving time, labor, negating human error whilst increasing productivity. It is an easy-to-use technology with illimitable resizing of videos that have diverse displays, customizable with client logos, bumpers, and sponsors messages on the dashboard. It renders multiple video formatting, scheduling feeds, innumerable web storage options that offer API and platform models, and multiple publishing renditions.
USP of Toch AI
Toch’s USP is its premium video editing feature that facilitates the patrons with automatic dynamic engagements and insertions to create their own bespoke videos. The team at Toch AI understands one standard solution does not fit all, hence it is imperative to go beyond conventional. Thinking ahead of time and ascertaining a client’s needs, thereby amplifying it with a cutting-edge solution defines vertical innovation.
Idea Pivot
At the genesis of anything, challenges are but obvious. Toch was no different, the founders faced practical challenges that just helped them address and reinvent their own technology. Since they focussed on state-of-the-art technology, it was an intricate process of evolving while remaining grounded to the core product. In their case, “our asset was our team”, which helped them with the critical process.
Toch’s final product was by itself a marketing and branding tool. When presented on different platforms, Toch was received as a welcome change. Employing cutting-edge technology such as Face and Image Recognition, Vision models, Optical Character Recognition, and Audio Detection, saved immense manual labor, erased the scope of error and time consumption phenomenally with a latency of only 10 seconds or less in real-time without altering the resolution of the feed.
Change is essential for growth, so is adaptability. Every person is a potential patron and what may work for one may not satiate the other. Hence malleability and personalization to fit each line of business are vital.
Toch – Founders and Team
Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil are the founders of Toch.
Toch Founding Team – Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil
Vinayak Shrivastav | Co-founder & CEO, Toch
He has a background in engineering and an MBA from London Business School. Vinayak directs Toch towards unique identity, growth plans, strategies, and execution. With Toch.AI, he envisions revolutionizing sports viewership by leveraging AI and ML technology to create real-time personalized content. He firmly believes that “everyone has stories to tell’ – stories that will not only engage, inform, surprise, delight, and impact their audience, but will also deliver on measurable business goals. In his personal time, Vinayak is an avid sports fan and can often be found cheering and rooting for his favorite team.
Alok Patil | Co-founder & CTO, Toch
He is the ‘Torvalds’ of Toch. He is industrious and loves challenges. Accredited with an MCA, his vision is to resolve humongous problems faced by humanity through technology. To quote him, “the world needs more technology-enabled solutions focussed at modernizing human efforts”. He believes that there is never an end to learning and motivates the team to experiment with new ideas. Alok is a vehement advocate of short-form content and a web series buff.
Saket Dandotia | Co-founder & COO, Toch
He is the operational brain behind the technology. His data-first approach ensures Toch is at the top of the game. With skills he picked from the IIM Indore, Saket is the bridge between technology and the market. His grit is focused on harnessing AI-powered disruption in the media space. Exploring the scope of AI in the future is his favorite pastime. Mentoring in Hong Kong Technical University, IIT Indore, and IIM Indore, he seeks to inspire Gen Next.
Toch Team
Since its inception in 2016, Toch has been growing exponentially with a manpower of 60+ personnel across countries. Its team is task-oriented through liberal leadership. As cliche as it sounds, but the founders believe in team building and bonding. Empathy and motivation are synonymous with that idea. At Toch, people understand diversity at its best and use it as a force for synchronous output.
Toch – Name and Logo
The name was thought of from the point of view of “touching” as many lives by cutting through the clutter and personalizing content. This evolved into TOCH only due to the availability of domain names. The logo was created in unison with the brand name.
Toch Logo
Toch – Business Model & Revenue Model
Toch is a SaaS platform and offers different subscription options for its clients. Its business model includes API integration and easy-to-use dashboard services.
Toch’s product has proved its mettle, it has been its own brand ambassador of viability and productivity. The numbers give a fair picture of its joyous sustenance (as of Oct’21) –
12.9M+ videos scanned
1.2B+ hours of video processing time saved
72% increase in viewer time spent on videos
8.3X increase in viewer engagement rate
The startup’s marketing strategy is split into brand marketing and event focussed marketing. With a global b2b target market, social media and digital marketing play a crucial role. Its campaigns focus on thought leadership through podcasts, webinars, and fire-side chats along with event campaigns focussed on the actual benefits of AI technology in the media industry.
Toch – Funding
On October 13, 2021, Toch announced an $11.75 million Series A funding by Moneta Ventures, Baring Private Equity India, Binny Bansal, Ventureast, 9 Unicorns, Anthill Ventures, Cathexis Ventures, SOSV, Artesian, and Innoven Capital (backed by Temasek and United overseas bank).
The funding will be used to scale up technology infrastructure and venture expansion into global markets with a specific focus on foreign markets.
Arul Mehra, Partner at Baring Private Equity India, said, “We believe that AI can make a lot of difference to how content is generated and consumed. Toch.ai is equipped with top notch technology & team which is greatly contributing to the revolution seen in the video sector. Thus we see this as a huge opportunity to be a part of this change as we partner with Vinayak & the team as they chart out the journey towards becoming leaders in the video-tech space.”
The company has raised around $13.3 mn in funding over 7 funding rounds.
Date
Name of the transaction
Transaction amount
Lead investors
Oct 7, 2021
Series A
$11.8 mn
Moneta Ventures, Baring Private Equity India, Binny Bansal
Toch.ai has announced a partnership with USA cricket on December 23, 2021. This partnership aims to bring all the action from the field so that the fans don’t regret missing out on the best moments from the Dafabet USA vs. Ireland Men’s International Series 2021 that began on December 22, 2021, in Florida
Toch has been the official partner of the Indian Premier League that was truncated due to the ongoing pandemic.
The Mumbai-based interactive video shopping platform has also earlier been the official partner of the Australian Open. Furthermore, Toch.ai also frequently collaborates with numerous OTT platforms.
Toch – Recognition & Achievements
Recognized as Best AI startup 2021 by Franchise India and Entrepreneur Media.
Recognized as Nasscom AI Game Changers for the category ‘Computer Vision Award’ for accelerating India with innovation in 2021.
Co-founder and CEO, Vinayak Shrivastav recognized as 30 UNDER 30 Disruptor by BW Businessworld 2021
Co-founder and CEO, Vinayak Shrivastav was recognized as The Most Promising Entrepreneur by ‘The Economic Times Promising Entrepreneurs of India’ 2021.
Co-founder and COO, Saket Dandotia was recognized as the winner of Exchange4Media’s Digital 40 under 40 awards 2021 (public announcement pending).
Toch – Current Growth and Future Plans
Toch has grown from strength to strength over the past couple of years and added many of the big banner broadcasters and OTTs to its portfolio. Although success is relative, partnering for the Indian Premier League, Champions League, and Australian Open events with top OTT broadcasters has defined its learning and experience curve.
Toch is levitating towards extensive engagements and making its mark with AI and ML-based technology in video editing. The applications for this technology can be used in the future for better healthcare services, safety, and security solutions, and education. Its future plans involve a deep dive into the entertainment and news industries and the application of AI-led technologies to create personalized content for its clients.
Toch – FAQs
What is Toch AI?
Toch AI is a SaaS company with cloud-agnostic AI solutions. It offers professional services by taking noisy, large data sets and transforming them into engrossing and compelling hyper-global videos.
Who are the founders of Toch?
Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil founded Toch in 2016.
Is Toch an Indian Company?
Yes. Toch is an Indian company headquartered in Mumbai, India. However, Toch functions worldwide with a focus on India, North America, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.
How does Toch make money?
Toch is a SaaS platform and offers different subscription options for its clients.
What is Toch’s USP?
The USP of Toch is its premium video editing feature that facilitates the patrons with automatic dynamic engagements and insertions to create their own bespoke videos.
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 Freightwalla.
Freightwalla offers a full-stack online platform for businesses to plan, book and manage international freight shipments seamlessly. The Company provides instant quotations & booking of ocean freight, real-time tracking of shipments, and several other digital solutions to streamline supply chain processes. With over 300+ active customers, 30+ shipping line partners, and serving over 1000 port pairs, Freightwalla envisions revolutionizing international maritime logistics with much-needed transparency, simplicity, and service excellence at each step of the operation.
StartupTalky interviewed Mr. Sanjay Bhatia (Co-founder & CEO, Freightwalla) to get insights into the startup story and roadmap of the organization. In this article, you’ll discover how Freightwalla was started, its business model, funding, growth, future plans, and more.
Established in January 2017, Freightwalla is India’s leading digital freight forwarding company.
Freightwalla offers a full-stack online platform for businesses to plan, book and manage international freight shipments seamlessly. The Company provides instant quotations & booking of ocean freight, real-time tracking of shipments, and several other digital solutions to streamline supply chain processes. It thus empowers shippers with state-of-the-art technology and tools to better organize and monitor their logistics at scale and affordable prices.
While the current freight and shipping industry is largely unorganized and reliant on manual and offline processes, Freightwalla is digitizing the country’s traditional USD 160 billion logistics sector by introducing the latest technology solutions for the EXIM fraternity. The Company addresses shippers’ major pain points associated with working with traditional freight forwarders. It includes enabling exporters to view the costs & schedules of multiple shipping lines, helping them choose the best option for their needs, managing all their shipments online, including document automation and track & trace, and also providing all logistics services under a single roof such as Customs Clearance, Transportation, Insurance, Pre-shipment inspection, Trade finance, etc. through its partners.
All of the above is backed by the use of state-of-the-art data analytics and ML algorithms offering intelligent and customized insights, prediction of cargo delays, efficient document processing, and other trend analysis.
Ultimately Freightwalla offers improved transparency through these solutions that empower businesses to make intelligent decisions and improve efficiency. It has helped save as much as 70% of man-hours otherwise spent on traditional freight forwarding processes. At the same time, customers who have used the digital platform have reduced their documentation processing and turnaround times by 30%. Customers can now make better decisions due to increased transparency and thus exercise better control of their supply chains’ performance & costs.
The mission of the company: To build a service that addresses the needs of modern business of simplicity and transparency for shippers worldwide
Freightwalla – Market/Industry Details
India’s Shipping & Logistics sectors are the backbone of the Indian economy. The sector is increasing at a 10.5 percent CAGR and hit USD 215 billion in 2020. India’s trading around 95% in volume and 70% in value terms accounts for maritime transport. India has 12 major, and 205 notified minor and intermediate ports. The Indian ports and shipping industry plays a vital role in sustaining growth in the country’s trade and commerce. India is the sixteenth largest maritime country in the world, with a coastline of about 7,517 km. In FY20, essential ports in India alone handled 704.82 million tonnes (MT) of cargo traffic.
This industry is mainly dependent on two of the most unorganized sectors of India – transportation, and warehousing. Digitalization is now being introduced in logistics services, which has drastically improved port management and transportation efficiency, directly boosting the economy by speeding up the delivery of goods and improving international relations.
(Source: Indian Logistics Industry Outlook, 2020, NITE)
Post Sanjay’s master’s degree from Singapore Management University, he worked with many leading consulting, private equity, and venture capitalist firms. While working with PWC as a strategy consultant in the logistics industry, he realized numerous challenges the sector was going through. Similarly, while working with a leading venture capital firm based in Singapore, Sanjay grew his understanding of various technology-backed business models that could solve several challenges of the EXIM industry. During the same period, numerous digitized platforms and Logitech companies were on the rise, and the introduction of modern technology to the logistics industry was catching pace.
The founders started by developing a prototype and reaching out to the exporters and shipper associations to pitch their idea. Upon their feedback, the founders concluded that the demand for such platforms would continue to grow in the coming period, and that’s when after a few months of Beta launch, they finally propelled Freightwalla. With three co-founders, Freightwalla was formed in January 2017.
Freightwalla – Product/Services offered
The shippers moving goods from India to overseas primarily face three problems:
Delays & opacity in price quotations
Highly inconsistent delivery timelines
Multiple manual errors that result in delays and cost escalations
Freightwalla, with its technology-backed platform, solves these challenges while offering an end-to-end digitally-enabled logistics solution. Its innovative digital platform empowers its clients by providing unique tools that leverage technology to bring in unparalleled transparency & control over the supply chain.
The gamut of services described below, driven by process automation, is the first of its kind in the Indian industry and is the primary reason the company has been able to scale to such a significant level with minimal investments.
Services –
Instant Quotes and Schedules: A congregated destination of multiple shipping lines serving over 1000 port ports. Shippers instantly compare rates and draw the best pricing, effectively reducing the time spent choosing the right shipping partner from 4 days to 4 minutes.
Cost Transparency: Freightwalla provides comprehensive cost break-up, including local charges and all other additional costs at the time of quotes. Whereas Freightwalla’s services result in better cost management and hassle-free transparent booking, traditional forwarders do not serve all prices at the time of booking.
Real-time Tracking:It offers fully automated ocean and in-land tracking that provides transparency on the shipment status to all stakeholders. The tools such as track & trace, real-time notifications over email & mobile app for all important shipment milestones, alert shippers in due time for corrective actions if any.
Digital Workflow & Document Management: The digital platform uses cloud computing technology and robotic process automation to store bookings, invoices, and critical shipping documents. Digitization also helps reduce manual errors and risks in the documentation process, improving on-time cargo performance and lowering revenue leakages.
Data Analytics Reporting:Users can analyze historic pricing reports to plan for future shipments in advance.
One-Stop Value-Added Shipping Services:
Pre-Trip Inspection and Container Survey – Pre-trip inspection of containers and trucks to ensure reliability and avoid delays due to breakdowns.
Cargo Insurance- Cargos Insurance with trusted partners at competitive rates.
Sanjay Bhatia (CEO), Punit Java (CTO), and Bharat Thanvi (CMO) are the founders of Freightwalla.
The founders at Freightwalla bring decades of experience in building world-class technology and logistics operations, backed by advisors with 50+ years in the shipping industry, creating the perfect marriage of technology and domain experience that is needed to transform this industry.
Sanjay Bhatia | Co-Founder & CEO, Freightwalla
Sanjay Bhatia – Co-founder & CEO of Freightwalla
Sanjay brings in a wealth of experience from his prior experience with PwC Strategy Consulting, Solera Partners – a venture capital firm, and Everstone Capital – one of India’s biggest home-grown private equity firms. He has consulted numerous Fortune 500 firms and MNC logistics companies and founded and led an NGO. Sanjay holds degrees in Economics, Politics, and Philosophy from the University of Warwick. He also holds a Master of Science degree in Applied Finance from Singapore Management University. He has completed International Baccalaureate from Dhirubhai Ambani International School.
Punit Java | Co-Founder & CTO, Freightwalla
Punit Java – Co-founder & CTO of Freightwalla
As the technology expert at Freightwalla, Punit possesses the experience of leading product and engineering teams at Microsoft, Amazon, and other startups. He has built world-class applications using voice recognition, computer vision, and other advanced technologies. Punit has completed his education at the University of Waterloo in Canada, from where he holds a BASc degree in Computer Engineering.
Bharat Thanvi – Co-Founder & CMO:
Having started his career in freight forwarding and logistics at the age of 17 and worked his way up through different positions, Bharat’s knowledge and passion for this industry know no bounds. As part of his long career, Bharat has handled accounts for some of the country’s largest multinational companies, including Bajaj Auto Ltd. and Responsive Industries Ltd.
Freightwalla – Ideology behind Name & Logo
The team wanted the name and brand to convey trust and reliability. Freightwalla’s logo was designed to look like an abstract view of the bow of a ship to represent the business it is in and to represent a shield to convey that businesses could trust the company to protect their goods. They chose shades of blue to represent the startup’s sea trade industry
And finally, the name, ‘Freightwalla’, was chosen to emphasize the startup’s goal of being a leading player in the freight industry.
Freightwalla Logo
Freightwalla – Business Model & Revenue Model
Freightwalla follows a transactional revenue model. It earns a fixed service fee for every shipment handled. Besides standard services, it also offers customized services and pricing plans to meet the specific requirements of different sizes of business.
Freightwalla – Launch and Marketing Strategies
“Getting to your first 100 customers takes grit and determination. Getting to this significant milestone means not only have you found the market for your product(s), but you have also been able to build and grow your team, figure out how to hustle to win new customers, and continue to retain your existing customers base with a great product and service” – Sanjay added.
Sanjay Bhatia (Co-founder & CEO, Freightwalla) breaks this journey down into two parts:
First, it is about winning your first 20 customers. Here is where you will really discover your customers. Sure, you have an idea of a product you want to build, and you will get lots of enthusiasm & feedback from the market and potential customers for your solution that is going to disrupt the world. But you will hit a wall as soon as you ask your customers to adopt or pay for your solution as it now requires an investment of effort on their part. You will have to be open to pivot your ideas, dive even deeper into your customers’ psyche, and figure out the need (not want) that will drive them towards your products.
Now you’ve reached your first 20, time to get to 100. You’ve gotten to a point where you will start to recognize the pattern, which markets/segments are best to target, your key USPs, and the most important talking points. This is the time you actually have to figure out how to scale the process, the products & the team. You need to build a scalable customer funnel; you have to hone your sales process; you need to quickly adapt your product to growing customer needs while ensuring that you don’t compromise on the quality & reliability of your services. And this is the most challenging part; you have to do it while learning to manage a team. You can’t do everything yourself, so you have to hire the right people, ensure they are aligned with your vision and empower them to help grow your business. Getting the right people on board is one of the most critical parts of this phase of growth.
The marketing campaign becomes most successful when you get to care about customers deeply. For Freightwalla, It came when the startup touched its customer’s challenges at the core by educating them about different business solutions and government schemes. Last year, the business organized a series of webinars with Industry leaders and Government Officers, including a session with MSME Minister Shri Piyush Goyal. Freightwalla got overwhelming responses from companies of all sizes.
“Like many, our challenge has been finding the right product fit. The international logistics market is a US $30billion industry, with many players in the industry. As a startup, we’ve had to find which segments to focus on, ones that really resonate with the vision we are trying to build” – says Sanjay Bhatia, Co-founder & CEO, Freightwalla.
Freightwalla found many customers who were highly price-sensitive but not as concerned about service levels & the robustness of their supply chains. These were not the best fit for the startup. Eventually, they figured out which segments were a better fit. Even for the companies within this segment, the team at Freightwalla had to figure out whom to target (i.e. the business decision-makers) & how to reach them best. And finally, they had to figure out how to tackle the massive undertaking of digitizing their logistics processes; where to start? What does success look like? Even today, Freightwalla continues to discover more about its customers and evolve the products to meet their needs.
Freightwalla – Growth and Stats
With over 300+ active customers, 30+ shipping line partners, and serving over 1000 port pairs, Freightwalla envisions revolutionizing international maritime logistics with much-needed transparency, simplicity, and service excellence at each step of the operation. Its notable clients include Aditya Birla, Cipla, and Bajaj Electricals, among other mid-sized import & export businesses.
Key milestone achieved:
Achieved over 1000% growth in volumes over the last 18 months
30+ shipping lines partners cover services to multiple destinations globally
Have shipment handling partners in over 40 countries
USD 4 million secured in series A funding from global investors
Freightwalla – Funding and Investors
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
December 2019
Series A
$4 Mn
Led By – Amplo, FJ Labs & Rogue One Capital. Other participants – Kae Capital & Tekton Ventures
Sasha Mirchandani, Founder, and MD, Kae Capital, India
Sheel Tyle, Managing Partner, Amplo, USA
Sailesh Bhatia, MD, Bhatia Shipping, India
Freightwalla – Recognition and Achievements
Freightwalla has been recognized as ‘Top 10 APAC Logistics Solutions Provider’ by CIO Advisor
It has also been honored with ‘Top 10 emerging companies of India’ by CEO Insights.
Recently it got acknowledged for its excellent smart-tech solutions and won IMC’s Digital Technology Award.
Freightwalla – Future Plans
In the post-pandemic world, many SMEs have realized the importance of building a more robust supply chain by adopting better planning of their needs & digitization to help them improve the visibility of their supply chain, which has helped Freightwaala see a massive increase in demand for the solutions it has built.
The company continues to invest in its products & technology like IoT, AI/ML, and blockchain to help its customers improve their efficiency, give them better visibility, reduce costs, and ultimately give them an edge in this highly competitive market.
Freightwalla – FAQs
What is Freightwalla?
Freightwalla is India’s leading digital freight forwarding company. It offers a full-stack online platform for businesses to plan, book and manage international freight shipments seamlessly. The Company provides instant quotations & booking of ocean freight, real-time tracking of shipments, and several other digital solutions to streamline supply chain processes.
Who are the founders of Freightwalla?
Sanjay Bhatia (CEO), Punit Java (CTO), and Bharat Thanvi (CMO) founded Freightwalla in January 2017.
Is Freightwalla an Indian company?
Yes. Freightwalla is an Indian company headquartered in Mumbai, India.
How does Freightwalla make money?
Freightwalla follows a transactional revenue model. It earns a fixed service fee for every shipment handled. Besides standard services, it also offers customized services and pricing plans to meet the specific requirements of different sizes of business.
Who are the notable clients of Freightwalla?
Aditya Birla, Cipla, and Bajaj Electricals, among other mid-sized import & export businesses.
What is Freightwalla’s funding details?
Freightwalla raised $4 million in a Series A round led by Amplo, FJ Labs, and Rogue One Capital.
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 MissCallPay.
MissCallPay aims to provide UPI-based payment solutions for the Bharat population or Non-tech savvy people using feature phones. Founded by Mitesh Thakker, MissCallPay has introduced voice-based payment solutions using the mechanism of ‘Miss Call’. The startup is expecting to commercialize the launch in December 2021 and is already in talks with banks to launch the 1st voice-based payment solution for their customers.
StartupTalky interviewed Mr. Mitesh Thakker (Founder, MissCallPay) to get insights into the startup story and roadmap of the organization. Know how MissCall was started, its funding details challenges faced, future plans, and more.
MissCallPay is a fintech startup providing a payment solution based on UPI for the Bharat population or Non-tech savvy people using feature phones. It is a pioneer in bringing voice-based payment solutions and aims to bring banking & financial services to all the strata of society. This payment platform would enable Indians to go cashless thus making mobile payments simpler for the masses who are digitally not tech-savvy.
“We aim to bring convenience & ease of use to all the users whether they are not digitally literate or bandwidth is slow or using feature phones. This product is for everyone” – Mitesh Thakker, Founder, MissCallPay.
The team has designed a payment solution simply keeping in mind the feature phone users and Non-tech savvy people using simply a MISS CALL which is a known habit to entire masses in Bharat. One needs to give a missed call to a merchant-specific number to initiate a transaction, post which user get a call back to confirm the Merchant Name and amount over voice call in their local language and once they confirm the transaction by inputting their UPI PIN for their Bank account linked with UPI the transaction is processed and SMS Notification is sent to both payer and payee.
MissCallPay – Industry/Market Details
From relevant government sources –
India has 117.6 cr wireless subscribers but only less than 20 crore use UPI. Thus, close to 97 crores, people are still to adopt digital payments.
Nearly 96 % of Indian villages (5.72 lakhs out of 5.97 lakhs villages have mobile /network connectivity with over 500 million (50 crores) using feature phones.
Thus, there is a very big wide untapped market with unique opportunities for Misscallpay to serve the close to a billion underserved population.
Voice payment technology is transforming the FinTech industry. The global voice payment market size reached USD 19.87 Billion in 2020 and is expected to register a revenue CAGR of 9.8%, during the forecast period, according to the latest analysis by Emergen Research. The Asia Pacific is expected to account for the largest revenue share than other regional markets over the forecast period owing to increasing demand for voice-enabled consumer electronics products including smartphones, laptops, smartwatches, and laptops in countries in the region.
Mitesh got the inspiration to start MissCallPay, when he was attending a vibrant Gujarat Summit, listening to the motivational speech of PM Modi that deliberated startups to innovate and think of what problems they can solve for the population. Moreover, during demonetization, he saw how people were facing problems in terms of cash. Being an innovator, his mind was full of ideas and when Mitesh heard PM’s speech, he decided on a product aiming for making India cashless thus benefiting the entire population. Thus, he took a plunge into the fintech space. He realized that financial inclusion without a payment solution that works without the Internet, smartphones are going to be a challenge in India, but he worked on the product using awarded patents and thus MissCallPay was born. Mitesh then started building the MissCallPay prototype product.
It was around this time, the founder began participating in various startup challenges. One of them was IIGP 2.0, a Social Impact Innovation Challenge organized by FICCI and supported by Tata Trusts, Lockheed Martin, CIIE, IIM-Ahmedabad, IIT-Bombay, MIT-USA, and DST, the Government of India. Mitesh was short-listed as a Top-50 Finalist for social impact innovations at IIGP 2018. There was no looking back as he won Fintegrate Zone F50 2018 and Maharashtra Startup Week 2019.
Despite winning numerous awards, there were many hurdles to make Misscallpay a reality. One among them was not fulfilling the minimum net worth requirement for RBI Regulatory Sandbox for feature payment. Thus, he started exploring African markets, then he came across Bill Gates’ Grand Challenge announcement for Feature phone payments with 1 lakh US Dollars Prize money for 3 winners. This participation gave a ray of hope and a huge but final opportunity to make MissCallPay idea see the light of the day in India.
The Bill Gates Grand Challenge was highly competitive as over 750 Global Innovations were vying for this prestigious award and pilot opportunity in the world’s largest market for feature phones. Mitesh won this challenge defeating 750 global contestants to pilot a Feature phone and voice-based Payment solution in India. This grant which he received helped sustain the business operations, and the pilot got him running and building a solid team. After months of making the scalable product and getting the certifications done.
“We are expecting to commercialize the launch next month (Dec’21) and are already in talks with banks to launch our 1st voice-based payment solution for their customers” – Mitesh added.
MissCallPay – Ideology behind the name
Miss Call is known to everyone including the Bharat population. So the team wanted to introduce a payment solution that adapts to the habits of the masses. Thus by the name “MissCallPay”, the startup wanted to resonate with this population.
MissCallPay Logo
MissCallPay – Founder
Mitesh Thakker is the founder of MissCallPay and has over 21 years of experience selling, marketing, and building IT products in startup environments. Moreover, he has six patents to his credit. Mitesh is an MBA graduate from SP Jain and has done his product management training from Blackbolt Consulting USA.
Mitesh Thakker – Founder of MissCallPay
MissCallPay – Challenges Faced
Any startup journey is a mixed bag of learning new things and challenges. But one major challenge Mitesh encountered was a new authentication method that needed clearance from bureaucrats. Since 2018 he visited various higher authorities to make them aware of MissCallPay and get the use-case cleared. But things didn’t move as the priorities of the regulators were altogether different. It was only in December 2019, when the need for UPI payments on feature phone payment became a priority, RBI announced its first cohort, Regulatory Sandbox, for feature-phone payment solutions. In spite of this innovation, he got disqualified as it didn’t fulfill the minimum net worth requirement for RBI Regulatory Sandbox applicants which was another roadblock.
MissCallPay has raised an undisclosed angel funding.
Advisor/Mentor: Raju Wadalkar (currently on Board with Hygge Energy and former CTO of Tech Mahindra) and MissCallPay is incubated with the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) team, IIM Ahmedabad
MissCallPay – Competitors
Tonetag and Gupshup are the competitors of MissCallPay.
MissCallPay – Recognition & Achievements
The company has gained global recognition for the innovation done in the payment solution.
MissCallPay was the Winner of Bill Gates Grand Challenge for feature phone payments 2020. It received the cash prize of $ 30,000 and has been piloted by NPCI and PSU Bank of India in support of the Gates Foundation.
It was shortlisted as a Top-50 finalist for social impact innovation at IIGP 2018, India Innovation Growth Program 2.0
Fintegrate 2019 awards MissCallPay as one of the leading startups in the Fintech space
MissCallPay was recognized at the Maharashtra Startup Week, 2019 organized by MSInS and won the reward of Rs.15 lakhs for its innovation among #Fintech Start-ups of 3200+
Mitesh Thakker (Founder, MissCallPay) was short-listed as a Top-50 Finalist for social impact innovations at IIGP 2018.
MissCallPay – Future Plans
The startup is building a strong leadership team for successful execution and plans to work/partner with a couple of banks to help them serve more than 100 million users by the end of the year 2022.
MissCallPay is a fintech startup providing a payment solution based on UPI for the Bharat population or Non-tech savvy people using feature phones. It is a pioneer in bringing voice-based payment solutions.
Who is the founder of MissCallPay?
Mitesh Thakker is the founder of MissCallPay.
When will MissCallPay commercially launch?
MissCallPay is expecting to commercialize the launch around December 2021 and is already in talks with banks to launch its 1st voice-based payment solution for their customers.
Is MissCallPay an Indian company?
Yes. MissCallPay is an Indian company headquartered in Mumbai.
