Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.
In the current era, a student needs tutoring for almost every subject. Sometimes they even find it difficult to manage various tuitions while on other occasions they struggle to get desired learnings from tutoring. This leads to unhappy students, switching tutors, which ultimately leads to wasting the students’ time and hampering their performance.
To overcome these challenges, Classplus was founded in 2018 to cater to all the learning needs of the students. Classplus is a coaching management program that helps to digitize coaching class operations. Classplus also provides personalized multimedia educational content for students and helps in lifting the performance of students across the country.
With the latest funding round, Classplus is valued at over $600 Million. Check out this StartupTalky article that covers all you want to know about Classplus’sthe Success Story, Classplus funding, Founder of the the Classplus app, its Business and Revenue Model, Acquisitions, Growth, Competitors, and more.
Classplus is a mobile-first SaaS platformthat enables coaching institutions, tuition centers and private tutors to bring their businesses online and streamline their content distribution, payments, communication, and online assessments via the all-in-one teaching app. Classplus is providing the bestmanagement softwareand mobile application service for coaching institutes, tuition centers, and private tutors. The teaching and learning approaches have been reformed with the innovative features and technologies that Classplus brings in, thereby empowering the educationalists to become future-ready.
How to take your offline coaching to online mode?
Classplus – How the App Works?
The Classplus mobile application brings tutors, students, and parents on a single platform that results in better communication and measurement of the growth and performance of a student. Now, if you are wondering about the Class plus app and the Classplus web login, then you need to know that:
One can log in via three modes – as a tutor, student, or parent.
Once logged in as a tutor, they can start their live classes, add students, share notices and also assign tests on the platform.
Objective questions are automatically corrected. Feedback can be given in the form of reports.
Analytics is shared with the parents and the tutors.
For subjective questions, students are supposed to click a picture of the answer written or the diagram.
How to use Classplus Lite?
Classplus app login
Class Plus app login is made really secure and offers a two-way authentication process for the users, which helps them take online tests accurately and with utmost transparency. The users have to enter the Org Code in the web Classplus app log-in page along with their mobile number and then make the Classplus app login securely.
MukulRustagi, VatsalRustagi, BikashDash, NikhilGoel and BhaswatAgarwal are the founders of Classplus.
Bhaswat Agarwal (left) and Mukul Rustagi (right) – Classplus Founders
Mukul Rustagi
Mukul Rustagi is the co-founder & CEO of Classplus. He has pursued his Bachelor’s Degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, after which he served as the Design Engineer Summer Internship at ISA – Intelligent Sensing Anywhere, Equity Research Analyst at ARC Financial Services Private Limited and Derivatives Analyst at Futures First.
Bhaswat Agarwal
Bhaswat Agarwal is presently the co-founder of Classplus. He pursued his B.E. in Electronics and Communication from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology. Currently, he is looking after the operations and products of Classplus. He was previously the Technology Strategist at Microsoft.
Vatsal Rustagi
Vatsal Rustagi was one of the co-founders of Classplus. He pursued his Bachelor’s Degree from Delhi College of Engineering. Presently, he is the co-founder of FactoryPlus. Rustagi managed the Industrial Switchgear Sales at Havells India Ltd before founding Classplus. He served as the Business Head – Large fleets at LocoNav Inc. after exiting Classplus in March 2018. Rustagi eventually served as the Head – Credit Cards at Happay – Expense Management Solution for Businesses and has eventually started with FactoryPlus, after founding the company in June 2021.
Bikash Dash
Bikash Dash was also one of the co-founders of Classplus. He pursued his B.Tech in Computer Science from the College of Engineering (CEB), Bhubaneswar. Dash is also one of the co-founders of FactoryPlus now after leaving Classplus in April 2018. Dash was previously the Co-founder and CTO of Classplus.
Nikhil Goel
Nikhil Goel was another co-founder of Classplus. He pursued his Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology. Presently, he is CEO of GOKADA. Goel has previous experience as the Co-founder of DropCalorie. Goel, after leaving Classplus, became the General Manager of Online Ordering at Zomato, then the Head of New Verticals at SafeBoda, and finally joined as the Vice President of Operations at GOKADA.
Classplus – Startup Story
Mukul Rustagi and Bhaswat Agarwal both used to study at the same IITJEE coaching center in New Delhi back in 2007 which went shut for 10 months before the exam date. The reason being the owners of the coaching institute finds it tedious to keep track of the performance and attendance of their growing numbers of students, they knew it was time to embrace technology.
That’s when Rustagi and Agarwal realized the need to build and scale B2B products in EdTech to solve the potential problem of educators and students. Speaking of this, Rustagi went to IIT-Roorkee and Agarwal went to Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology in Delhi for their graduation. Later in 2015, they teamed up to work together and launched Classplus in 2018.
The tagline of Classplus is “Aapki Coaching, Aapki App” which is dedicated to all the coaching institutes, tuition centers and private tutors to bring their businesses online thus empowering them to become India’s top educators with their own app.
Classplus Business Model and Revenue Model
Business Model of Classplus
Classplus operates on a B2B business model as it helps the educators to bring their offline businesses to online mode. With online comes the freedom to reach any part of the country as communication becomes bi-directional. It offers educators to take multiple live classes & teach unlimited students across the country without worrying about storage and video quality.
Not only that, educators can share their notes, post their pre-recorded lectures, collect fees, track their student’s performance and growth, and much more. This gives them an edge to improve their online teaching experience.
Revenue Model of Classplus
Classplus has a subscription-based revenue model. The platform charges subscription fees for its software suite, which handles class communication, payments, assessments, online learning programs, and attendance, thereby reducing the time spent on management activities and focusing more on classroom teaching, which ranges from INR 15,000 – INR 50,000 on a per annum basis depending on the service required. One wishing to join Classplus can book a free demo to see how Classplus can help boost the business.
Classplus shareholding as of June 2024 (source: Tracxn):
Classplus Shareholding
Percentage
Bhaswat Agarwal
6.0%
Mukul Rustogi
6.0%
Tiger Global Management
13.4%
Alpha Wave Global
16.4%
Blume Ventures
10.3%
RTP Global
8.4%
GSV Ventures
7.4%
Sequoia Capital
5.8%
STRIVE
2.9%
ESOP Pool
13.0%
Others
10.4%
Classplus Shareholding
Classplus – Investments
Classplus has made a strategic investment in Gyan Live, a platform focused on Gujarat’s state-level government exam prep. The investment will help Gyan Live expand to central government and school exam prep in regional languages. It will also enable the platform to use Classplus’ technology to improve the learning experience and expand its reach.
Classplus – Funding And Investors
Classplus has raised over $129.5 mn in funding. The last funding round raised by Classplus came in June 2021 via a Series C round where it raised $65 mn.
Classplus funding details are as follows –
Date
Transaction Name
Money Raised
Lead Investor
March 29, 2022
Series D
$70 Million
Tiger Global Management, Alpha Wave Ventures
June 23, 2021
Series C
$65 Million
Tiger Global Management, GSV Ventures, AWI, Blume Ventures, RTP Global and Blume Ventures
Today, Classplus boasts of having digitised 1 Lakh+ educators user base serving 20 million+ students in over 1,500 cities across the world and earned over INR 500 crore. During the pandemic, online learning platforms witnessed a huge rise whereby teaching is undertaken remotely and on digital platforms. Taking this as an opportunity, the company also launched Classplus Lite, a free mobile app for tutors with a small student base, which has over 500,000 users now. More than 80% of the Classplus user base is from tier 2 and tier 3 cities.
Classplus is planning to improve its technology and expand more product offerings. It enables tutors to set up their businesses online and bridge the gap between the students and tutors. It has witnessed a number of downloads and the team is heading towards earning more in numerous ways and fields.
FAQs
What is Classplus?
Classplus is a mobile-first SaaS platform. It enables private coaching institutions and their tutors to streamline their content distribution, payments, communication, and online assessments through the app.
What is the Classplus Business Model?
Classplus has a subscription-based business model. The platform charges subscription fees for its software suite & other services, which range from INR 15,000 – INR 50,000 on a per annum basis depending on the service required.
Who are the founders of Classplus?
Mukul Rustagi, Vatsal Rustagi, Bikash Dash, Nikhil Goel and Bhaswat Agarwal are the founders of Classplus.
How is Classplus login?
Classplus login is extremely secure and safeguarded with two-way authentication.
Who are the competitors of Classplus?
Classplus’s top competitors are Ethena, LearnIn, Aanaab and BabySparks.
How do Classplus works?
Classplus empowers the tutors and institutions of today to manage their own classrooms via a mobile app. They can simple:
Download the Classplus Lite app from Playstore
Invite and connect with students
Start Teaching
Is Classplus free?
Classplus Lite is a free app for teachers to teach and engage with their students.
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 Let’s Connect India.
The commercial real estate industry in India has experienced rapid growth in recent years due to the rise of startups and the increasing demand for flexible office spaces. Coworking spaces, in particular, have become a popular option for businesses of all sizes, offering affordable and flexible workspaces that promote collaboration and innovation.
According to a report by JLL, the flexible space segment in India is expected to grow by more than 50% in the coming years, with coworking spaces being a major contributor to this growth. With more and more companies looking for flexible office solutions, the competition in the coworking industry is heating up, and providers are constantly striving to offer the best services at the most affordable rates.
Let’s Connect India is one such coworking space provider that aims to disrupt the industry by offering reliable and comfortable office space at affordable rates. With a focus on creating a collaborative and community-driven environment, Let’s Connect India is quickly becoming a popular choice for startups, freelancers, and small businesses looking for a flexible workspace solution.
Let’s Connect India is a leading co-working space provider in Noida that is committed to offering reliable and comfortable office space to its clients. The company’s primary goal is to provide all the necessary services and amenities at an affordable price, making it easier for startups, freelancers, and small businesses to establish a professional workspace without the high costs associated with traditional office rentals.
By offering flexible workspaces that are fully equipped with modern amenities and cutting-edge technology, Let’s Connect India provides an ideal solution for businesses looking for a collaborative and community-driven environment.
Overall, Let’s Connect India’s coworking spaces solve the problem of high costs associated with traditional office rentals by offering affordable, flexible workspaces with all the necessary amenities, making it an ideal solution for businesses.
Let’s Connect India | Best Coworking Space in Noida
Let’s Connect India – Industry
Let’s Connect India is a key player in the coworking space and commercial real estate industry, which has experienced significant growth in recent years due to the rise of startups and the increasing demand for flexible office spaces. The global coworking space market size is projected to grow from $16.17 billion in 2022 to $19.05 billion in 2023 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.8%, according to a report by Research and Markets. This growth is driven by factors such as the rising demand for flexible workspaces, the need for cost-effective office solutions, and the increasing trend of remote working.
In India, the coworking sector is expected to cross 50 million sq ft by the end of 2023, according to a report by JLL. This growth is fueled by the country’s rapidly expanding startup ecosystem, which has created a strong demand for flexible office spaces that provide an ideal environment for collaboration and innovation. As a leading coworking space provider, Let’s Connect India is well-positioned to capitalize on this growth and provide businesses with the space, services, and amenities they need to succeed in today’s dynamic work environment.
Sagar Narang is the Founder and CEO of Let’s Connect India.
Sagar Narang
Sagar Narang – Founder and CEO, Let’s Connect India
Sagar Narang is an accomplished entrepreneur hailing from Noida. He earned his Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and Finance from Delhi University and went on to pursue a Master of Business Administration from Université de Bordeaux, France. He also holds a law degree from Indraprastha Law College in Greater Noida.
Before founding Let’s Connect, Sagar worked as a Marketing Executive at AIESEC in Egypt. In addition to his role at Let’s Connect, Sagar is also the co-founder of PolicyWings, a Noida-based insurance brokerage.
Let’s Connect India – Ideation Journey
Reminiscing the ideation journey of Let’s Connect India, Mr. Sagar Narang says,
“The idea of starting a coworking space was very spontaneous and came from a trip I(Sagar) took to Spain. Witnessing a concurrent space where people were paying to use the office, I got thrilled and wanted to try something like this in India”
Let’s Connect India – Name and Logo
Let’s Connect India Logo
“The idea was toconnect people with new office space and people. Therefore, the name could not be simpler than Let’s Connect”, says Sagar Narang, Founder and CEO of Let’s Connect India.
Let’s Connect India – Challenges Faced
Speaking of challenges faced by the company, Mr. Sagar (Founder & CEO of Let’s Connect India) pointed out thatSales has rather remained a bigger challenge. And the team is working its way to achieving that goal.
“Noida, being the new commercial hub, has many coworking spaces now. So, we have a lot of people venturing into our industry who are providing the same services. However, we do not think of anyone as our competitor right now. Our model and approach are quite different than others.” said Sagar.
Let’s Connect India – Future Plans
Let’s Connect India has plans for the future, including expanding to new locations and adopting cutting-edge technology to enhance the customer experience. The company is looking to become more advanced, well-equipped, and secure by implementing Internet of Things (IoT) technology such as smart CCTV cameras, biometric entry and exit systems, and a digital payment system to make all transactions cashless.
These changes will set Let’s Connect India apart from other coworking spaces in the industry. By optimizing asset utilization and reducing costs through power-saving measures and efficient energy consumption, the company will be able to offer even more affordable rates to its customers. Additionally, remote tracking and real-time tracking through IoT technology will enhance the security of the workspace and ensure the optimal utilization of resources. One of the most significant benefits of this technology will be its ability to identify trustworthy and valuable members, which will help the company build a strong community of like-minded professionals.
FAQs
What is Let’s Connect India?
Let’s Connect India is a leading co-working space provider in Noida that is committed to offering reliable and comfortable office space to its clients.
Who is the founder of Let’s Connect India?
Sagar Narang is the founder of Let’s Connect India.
When was Let’s Connect India founded?
Let’s Connect India was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, 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 College Vidya.
Be it humans or Industries, evolution is an undeniable fact for all. Every industry is seeing major changes with time, as for the education industry, the base industry for all, this evolution is an ongoing process. This is happening at a higher pace with the introduction of online education, or as some call it, virtual learning.
With evolution, comes questions and confusions. While more and more students are getting attracted towards online education due to its growing importance, more questions are being raised on how to spot fake online universities, things to look at before selecting an online university, important approvals, comparison among two universities on the basis of placements, Student Ratings etc and many such questions.
To rescue students from such problems a venture was started, College Vidya. It is an initiative to help students by giving them answers to all these questions at an unbiased education platform, fully dedicated to online universities. This platform contains every bit of information a student will require in order to make the right decision.
College Vidya was started in the year 2018, under the Parent company Blackboard Education and Research Foundation. It started as an informative educational portal. With time it recognized real problems faced by students, this inspired it to become a comparison platform. One might ask why a comparison portal? Because the vision of College Vidya was clear, they wanted students to get the best university for their career.
To educate a lot of students, College Vidya also started a youtube channel named, “College Vidya”. This channel purely gives information of different online & distance and online universities, courses, common mistakes made by students, things to look at before selecting any online university, advice given by experts and topics as such.
After gaining over 6k followers College Vidya spread its empire by starting yet another youtube channel by the name of “College Vidya Talks”. This Channel was started with the vision of offering knowledge to students which will help them in their career journey as well. For the same purpose this channel is divided in 3 sections:
2nd section gives honest university reviews of online universities.
3rd section shows pros and cons of different universities by comparing the two.
College Vidya has adopted a ‘master of one’ approach, meaning they are only dedicated to universities providing online education. The venture takes pride in being unbiased and working for students, instead of universities.
College Vidya – Founders and Team
College Vidya was founded in 2018 by Mr. Mayank Gupta.
Mayank Gupta – Founder and CEO of College Vidya
Mayank Gupta – Founder and CEO of College Vidya
‘Tough journey leads to a beautiful destination’ this saying perfectly goes hand in hand for College Vidya founder Mayank Gupta, Mayank had an interesting journey, he started by working in an organisation where his responsibility was to conduct surveys. After a period of time he realised his interest lies in the educational sector so he bought a franchise of NIIT.
After understanding the industry better, Mayank decided to do something of his own, so he opened ICFE, an institution which offered students accounting courses. His venture saw enormous growth and success, until the government decided to give the same courses for free.
After facing many hardships Mayank decided to be true to the distance & online education sector. The reason behind Mayank being inclined towards distance & online education was that he himself pursued his undergraduate and post graduation from distance while working.
Rohit Gupta – Co-founder and COO of College Vidya
Rohit Gupta, Co-founder of College Vidya saw his part in hardships too. Starting as an educational counsellor, he paved his way through. From being one to having thousands of counsellors working under him, Rohit is a true inspiration story.
Throughout his journey Rohit worked in different industries, playing different roles. This only made him realise his true purpose and the need of the hour in the education sector.
College Vidya – Startup Story
College Vidya startup story is rather interesting. As Mayank himself pursued his higher education from distance learning, he knew about the struggles that come with it. He wanted to give students a platform which not only helps students by giving them correct information but also assists them.
From the start Mayank was aware about the importance of distance & online education. With the concept of online education being introduced, he knew what was coming in the future, evolution. Mayank was well aware about the importance of online education, and how it would grow exponentially in the future. This is when College Vidya came into picture, he wanted students to have a trusted and unbiased ed tech portal to turn to in their time of need.
The name College Vidya, explains it all. It simply means ‘Knowledge about College’ which clearly states that this educational platform gives all the information about online colleges and universities.
The tagline of the company is ‘Chuno Wahi Jo Hai Sahi’.
College Vidya – Vision and Mission
From the very start the vision of College Vidya was to be an unbiased platform that helps students in getting genuine advice for free.
Mayank Gupta firmly believes that the youth has the power for bringing changes required, and education is the key to do so. A student with no proper guidance has higher chances of making a wrong decision and regretting it later. This is why the mission of College Vidya is to help more and more students in making the right decision when it comes to their education.
College Vidya – Counsellors
As of now College Vidya consists of 1000+ highly educated and experienced experts. This strength is made up of Assistance Managers, team leaders and many Counsellors available on call & video call for students.
College Vidya – Challenges
During this interesting journey, College Vidya faced many problems as well. These problems were faced while building trust and standing apart. Due to so many portals that were unable to maintain trust, students were very skeptical at first. When College Vidya was introduced it took a lot of time and hard work of its team to gain and maintain the trust of students.
College Vidya – USP
How College Vidya works?
The reason why College Vidya stands apart from the rest is, its unique features. Compare and suggest me a university.
Compare – this feature allows students to compare between top online universities on different features. The motive behind this is to help students in selecting a university which best suits them according to their own specific needs like budget, study hours available, purpose behind doing a degree etc.
College Vidya has carefully designed a list of top online universities all around India (Approved by UGC-DEB), this helps students to explore more options and decide which of these universities are catering to their needs.
Suggest me a University – with the AI based technology, College Vidya’s Suggest me a University feature gives a specially curated list of universities, according to students need, after analysing their answers. Suggest me a University is the best option for those students who want to remain hassle free and just want to know the best option for them.
Video Consultation – this feature allows students to connect F2F with their counsellor, in seconds for a better counselling session. The motive behind introducing video consultation was to improve user experience and make them feel present and more connected with their dedicated counsellor.
The major USP of College Vidya is that it saves students from the hassle of going through hundred different websites and sources to gather information. It is an all inclusive portal which has answers to every question a student can possibly have in making this irreversible decision.
College Vidya has adopted a simple yet effective marketing strategy through “the word of mouth.” They stand unbiased and only promote information that is true and helpful for students without any partiality.
They also try to build a healthy relationship with their audiences through other mediums like blogs, videos, google ads, social media marketing & even remarketing.
Recently College Vidya also launched its campaign “Chuno Wahi Jo Hai Sahi”. The aim of this campaign was to make students aware about the importance of selecting the right university after carefully comparing different aspects like approvals, budget and interest.
The marketing strategy of College Vidya is not only limited to the virtual world, the organization has also stepped outside to educate the population of tier 2 and tier 3 cities about the growing importance of online education and how to select the best for them at an affordable price.
In a short period of time College Vidya received a great response from students and working professionals. According to the CEO of College Vidya, the next step would be to expand by providing more information about online and distance & online universities around the globe.
Soon, students who wish to study abroad will also be able to compare and select the best online university for them along with free expert guidance.
FAQs
Who is the founder of College Vidya?
College Vidya was Founded by Mayank Gupta.
Is College Vidya Free of Cost?
Yes, College Vidya is absolutely free and does not charge a single penny. They also do not have a bank account.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verifiedinformation ondifferent startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by VenueLook.
Finding a good venue for any event has always been a challenging task. Checking out various venues and finding the right one in terms of budget, facilities, and size is quite time-consuming and tiring too. However, thanks to the online venue booking platforms, now the scenario is totally different. Venuelook is an online platform that makes venue booking super easy for you.
VenueLook is a Noida-based O2O platform for venue aggregation, recommendation, and booking. Founded in 2014, Venuelook is making venue booking seamless and awesome across 30 cities in India.
What is Venuelook?
Venuelook is an O2O platform for venue aggregation, recommendation, booking, disrupting the venue discovery and booking process for weddings, and other social and corporate events.
The facilities that Venuelook offers in the B2B segment, i.e to the venue owners are-
A multi-platform friendly dashboard to manage their business pipeline with booking calendar and option to create promotional offers
A mobile app for business on the go
An option to promote and sell tickets for events hosted at their venue on Venuelook.
Besides, Venuelook’s product offerings for venue seekers include –
Assistance for venue discovery and shortlisting with the availability confirmation
A communication channel to engage with one or more shortlisted venues in an easy, hassle-free way
Venue Seekers can buy tickets for upcoming events from the Live events section of Venuelook
VenueSeekers can also review the venue(s) on the platform
Venuelook has recently enabled the creation of e-invitations also for all event hosts, who are visiting the website
Evolving as a DIY platform with easy to use features and content that aid in decision-making, online booking and providing reviews and recommendations for venues
One venue property might have multiple event spaces like banquet halls, party lawns, restaurants, conference rooms, rooftops, pool-side. These spaces are independently bookable inventories, and suitable for various different kinds of events. They need to be showcased individually and mapped with the right kind of event types. The USP of VenuLook is that it enables and markets each individual space within a venue for all kinds of events it is suitable to host. These events could be social like baby showers, birthday parties, alumni events, social get-togethers; wedding-related; or corporate events like conferences, farewells, and offsite corporate events to name a few. The other services provided by Venuelook are catering services, wedding planning, event planning, and birthday planning.
VenueLook serves all kinds of social, wedding and corporate events throughout the year. Annual event distribution on the platform is – 35% wedding-related, 35% birthday parties of all age groups, 30% corporate events, get-togethers, parties, and festive celebrations.
Venuelook – Industry
Venue and catering, which mostly comes along, is the starting step of event planning and consumes 50-70% of the total event budget. According to researches cross birthday parties, wedding-related events, social mixers and corporate events, the opportunity across 10 major cities in India is roughly around INR 250,000 Crores ($35 Billion).
Again, taking into account event services and commerce as well, the total Industry size comes to about INR 360,000 Crores ($50 Billion).
In the first phase, by 2021, we believe 10% of venue and catering opportunity will come online, which makes our target market size as INR 25,000Crore ($3.5 Billion).
Ruchi is a B.E in computer science and holds 15+ years of experience in building products and team. She started her career with STMicroelectronics and her first startup was Eventeve.com. Being a passionate entrepreneur, Ruchi loves fixing business problems using tech and processes. Besides, reading and writing, watching sci-fi movies with her kids helps her rewind and relax.
Ruchi Garg – Founder and CEO of VenueLook
Sovit Upadhyay
Sovit Upadhyay is another founder of Venuelook. He is, as Ruchi revealed, a friend of the Founder-CEO Ruchi Garg, who started together to found Venuelook.
Venuelook has a team of 50+ young and energetic professionals.
Our team’s core belief is that we can add a lot of value on both sides of the event marketplace. We believe in trying, learning and building solutions to cross every new roadblock we encounter. Even after 4 years of brainstorming and hard work, we feel we are at Day 0 when we look at the humongous value that is yet to be delivered and tapped. We are always hungry for more!
Venuelook Team
Venuelook – Venuelook Startup Story | How was Venuelook Started?
Events, as a sector, was always close to Ruchi’s heart. She realized that finding the right venue was quite painful and cumbersome and the use of technology could simplify the task. So, team Venuelook white-boarded all possible ways of making the venue booking process easy and figured revenue generation ideas around it. After all the planning Venuelook was launched in 2014.
There was no glamorous launching of Venuelook. We performed religious rituals with the initial team to get started on Venuelook. When the MVP was ready, we enabled the Inquiry buttons, made our phone no. available on the website and ran some Google Ads. SEO worked best for us.
Venuelook – Mission and Vision
Venuelook’s mission is to “build the #1 technology enabled Social Events platform of India.”
Our long term mission is to become a single stop platform for all event management needs. Starting from venue discovery and booking, invitations, event supplies to event entertainment, we want to help event hosts and planners at every step in their event planning journey.
The vision of the company is to lead the event service industry of India.
Venuelook – Name, Tagline and Logo
According to Ruchi, finding a good domain name was not easy. The name Venulook is a close match to the services offered by the company. And domain name was also available for the same. Hence the name Venuelook was finalized.
Venuelook’s tagline is – “Making Happy Occasions Happier”.
In the initial days, some people thought we were saying “When You Look” when we were actually saying “Venuelook”. Venuelook came closest to what our family and friends liked from the available domain names.
Venuelook Logo
Venuelook – Business Model
Once on the site, a user can browse, filter and shortlist one or more venues for their event or just leave their event requirements on the company’s site. Venuelook’s technology and team help match the right venues as per the user’s preferences with confirmed availability. Soon, the shortlisted venues share their best proposals for the event. The platform further enables users and venue managers to communicate at their ease, schedule venue visits, and book.
Venuelook – Revenue Model
The Venuelook revenue model is lucid. It earns from the venues that pay for promotion on the platform. In Venuelook marketing service for B2B users (Venue Owners), the sign-up cost varies from 3500 to 200000 INR depending on the city, size, and tenure a venue chooses. While, for B2C users (Venue Seekers) who need assistance in discovering and shortlisting the best-suited venues for their events, VenueLook service is totally free.
Venuelook – User Acquisition
While speaking about Venuelook’s user acquisition, Ruchi said that Venuelook acquires its customers mostly online, both in an organic way and through paid ads. Users came first, partners followed and premium partners came 9 months after MVP (Minimum Viable Product) launch. While the company has many growth hacks in place now, in the early days, the entire focus was only on serving the first set of users and partners in the best possible way, giving them real value for money, and that eventually helped VenueLook in terms of establishing trust and good reputation in the industry.
When you are bootstrapping, you have to be very resourceful as the constraints and risks are many, you don’t have the luxury to make mistakes and learn from them. Every communication/pitch matters, every meeting is important, every conversion and every penny counts.
For Venuelook there have been multiple challenges – hiring being the biggest one. According to Ruchi, It is still difficult to find the right people with the right kind of values and entrepreneurial spirit.
We kept ourselves afloat by following lean principles, keeping our costs strictly under control and breaking-even.
Venuelook – Funding and Investors
Venuelook has recently raised pre-series A funding from a group of Angel investors.
Getting funded is a wonderful experience, quite motivating, providing us the exact levers we needed to grow Venuelook faster.
Venuelook – Growth
Venuelook is emerging as the fastest-growing venue booking marketplace. The company, which was earlier distinguished as an O2O platform for venue aggregation, recommendation, and booking, has further forayed one step further into the event-planning industry on January 24, 2020. With the addition of this new wing, Venuelook started to provide end-to-end event planning services right from venue booking to organizing an event with just some clicks. The company announced this development through a press release dated 24th January 2020.
Often while planning an event, the biggest hindrance one faces is the time taken to finalize and book an event venue and then there is the hassle of running behind various vendors (often freelancers) to organize and deliver the event without any gaps, on time. As a solution to the unorganized segment of event planning and event management, VenueLook has come up with a platform where people connect instantly to a professional Event Manager who helps them get end-to-end event experience – dream venue and event planning services – decoration, catering, artists, return gifts, etc. all under one roof, as per their needs and budget. Event planning services are currently customizable and will soon be standardized for booking through the platform with 100% transparency and commitment to a quality experience.
Commenting on their expansion, Ms.Ruchi Garg, CEO, Founder, Venuelook said, ‘We have received a lot of love from our customers since we began our journey. Often our customers asked us whether we also provide event planning services. After creating a strong foothold in the venue booking industry, we are glad to announce that now we are extending our existing portfolio by venturing into event planning services.”
The company is constantly working towards making event organization simpler for its customers. In 2019, it added e- invitation facilities for the users so that they can easily invite their guests. Also, VenueLook is using proprietary aggregation and AI-backed algorithms to help identify and match customer requirements with the best venue options available, thus simplifying the venue discovery and booking process for weddings, social and corporate events.
The growth milestones achieved by the company to date are –
20000+ venues listed on the platform
3 Lac+ happy customers
Presence in 30+ cities
Currently, the company is headquartered in Noida with a regional office in Mumbai.
Future is definitely very exciting and we are looking forward to it.
Venuelook – Competitors
Top competitors of Venuelook in India are:
OYO’s Weddingz
BookEventz
Megavenues
Venuelocus
VenueMonk
VenueFinder
Hire Space
Venue Khojo
Besides, team Venuelook looks up to international players in the event space like Cvent, XOXO group, Honeybook and Kapow.
Venuelook – Future Plans
The company plans on going deeper in Tier-I cities and expanding in Tier-II cities soon.
FAQs
What is VenueLook?
Venuelook is an O2O platform for venue aggregation, recommendation, and booking. It makes venue discovery and booking process easier for weddings, and social and corporate events.
When was VenueLook founded?
VenueLook was founded in 2014.
Who is the CEO of VenueLook?
Ruchi Garg is the CEO and Co-founder of VenueLook.
Who founded Venuelook?
Venuelook was founded by Ruchi Garg and her friend Sovit Upadhyay.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved byFareye.
For any business dealing with physical goods, logistics is an important segment to take care of. Today we are featuring FarEye, a SaaS startup that is helping business manage their logistics and supply chain easily and flawlessly. Founded by three Indian entrepreneurs, FarEye, is a global logistics SaaS startup that is simplifying logistics management for businesses and ensuring a great delivery experience for end customers. Here is more on the journey of the startup, its growth, and how it is disrupting the global logistics market.
On July 2021, FarEye secured $100 M in a Series E round headed by TCV and Dragoneer Investment Group. FarEye’s previous investors, including Eight Roads Ventures, Fundamentum, and Honeywell, were also involved in the round. The new funding also includes a little debt refinancing, but the amount was not disclosed.
The funds will be used to develop the company’s technology platform strengths, fuel expansion in Europe and North America, and investigate inorganic growth opportunities.
About FarEye and How it Works?
FarEye’s products include last-mile delivery routing software, logistics, and supply chain visibility software, and software to improve coordination between enterprises and logistics partners. FarEye’s cutting-edge logistics technology stack is making the delivery of goods a pleasant experience for everybody.
The AI-powered feature of FarEye optimizes end-to-end delivery and makes recommendations based on data aggregation. It enables businesses to obtain insights, outperforms over the last loop, and satisfy the customers. FarEye’s goal is to drive autonomously, deliver with autonomous vehicles and drones using aggregated data and real-time feedback.
FarEye enables global businesses to reduce delivery times by up to 27%, enhance courier efficiency by allowing up to 15%, remove hazards by up to 57%, and maintain operational excellence. The FarEye Intelligent Delivery Management Platform can assist your organization in going live faster, implementing process improvements quickly, and keeping your delivery ecosystem adaptable. With end-to-end visibility throughout the delivery journey, the engine provides an excellent logistics customer experience.
FarEye is a software platform that helps firms plan, track and optimize their logistics operations. If you order a pizza from Domino’s, the restaurant will use FarEye’s services, which is integrated into its database, to swiftly advise the client how long they will have to wait for their meal.
FarEye – Name, Tagline and Logo
In a world that is becoming increasingly borderless, supply chain management is more vital than it has ever been. To achieve performance and accuracy, operations would require timely coordination, insight, and control. FarEye lets businesses keep an eye on and control their logistics and supply chain remotely and easily, which possibly inspired the name ‘FarEye’.
FarEye’s Company Logo
FarEye’s tagline says, “Improving Logistics Collaboration And Driving Supply Chain Excellence.” Another tagline used in the company’s website is, ‘ Making Deliveries Better for Everyone’
FarEye – Founder and History
FarEye was founded by Kushal Nahata, Gautam Kumar, and Gaurav Srivastava in 2013.
Founders of FarEye – Kushal Nahata, Gautam Kumar, and Gaurav Srivastava
After 14 or 15 years of full-time education, the three founders really wanted to get out into the world, solve problems, and make a meaningful impact. The only question that lingered was what real-life problems could they solve? and the response came as a knock on the door. “E-commerce was just starting to take off in India at the time,” says Nahata. “However, if I ordered something online, the driver would contact me every time, inquiring where my house was, even though it hadn’t moved in years. After that, everything was done with pen and paper until the driver arrived. It was clear that there had been little change in the way logistics were organized.” This is where the idea for “FarEye” arose from.
FarEye’s first customer was Jabong’s logistics arm GoJavas in 2013, and it currently works with some of the world’s largest companies, including DHL, Walmart, Tata Steel, Hilti, and Amway, to help them digitalize and manage their logistics operations more effectively.
FarEye’s mission statement says, “With a mission to make logistics more efficient, predictive and organized, we set out to build a robust technology platform that leading global enterprises across 30+ countries adopted. We are on the path to building an autonomous logistics platform that would make it not just efficient but also self-sustaining & profitable for enterprises.”
FarEye – Business Model & Revenue Model
FarEye is a logistics SaaS startup and earns revenue from subscription charges. Businesses use FarEye’s intelligent and sophisticated platform to deploy several delivery models from multiple inventory locations, including same-day, next-day, on-demand, and doorstep. This includes overseeing the end-to-end delivery of goods and services to both consumers and businesses, using both third-party and in-house fleet methods.
As reported in 2020, FarEye has around 350 employees, and the company is handling over 10 million transactions a day. The company has clients in over 30 nations, and across many industries including transportation, logistics, retail, and FMCG. As per some reports, in 202o FarEye made revenue worth $26.8 million, and the company’s products are being used by over 150 businesses.
“Logistics spend globally is $10.6 trillion, out of which 70% is on transportation. However, there is scope to save $10 on every $100 of freight by optimizing returns, resource utilization, cycle time, and fragmented logistics processes resulting in savings of about $700 billion,” says Nahata.
FarEye is now firmly in expansion mode and grew quickly over the next few years. While most of the company’s early customers were logistics service providers, it currently serves shippers as well, and its customers can be located anywhere in the world. FarEye’s systems track between 5 and 10 million shipments per day.
FarEye – Funding and Investors
Date
Round
Amount
Lead Investors
May 25, 2021
Series E
$100M
Dragoneer Investment Group, TCV
Aug 19, 2020
Series D
$13M
Fundamentum, KB Global Platform Fund
Apr 10, 2020
Series D
$24.5M
M12 – Microsoft’s Venture Fund
Jan 5, 2018
Series C
$9.8M
Deutsche Post
Jan 21, 2016
Series B
$3.1M
Elevation Capital
Oct 5, 2014
Series A
$317K
Indian Angel Network
Nov 25, 2013
Angel Round
$32K
–
FarEye – Acquisitions
Acquiree Name
About Acquiree
Date
Round
PY Technology Pvt. Ltd.
PY Technology Pvt. Ltd. is an enterprise software and services company that provides Information Technology & Services.
Mar 5, 2021
–
Dipper
Digital Ecosystem for freight logistics
Nov 14, 2018
–
FarEye – Competitors
Some of the top competitors of FarEye are Ecom Express, project44, SAP Integrated Business Planning, SPiN, Optimal Satcom, FourKites, G2 Deals, Shipsy & Mojro.
Handling deliveries isn’t easy, according to the CEO. Shoppers, in particular, are expecting a same-day shipment, increased flexibility, and better transparency. Even for field workers, completing a good delivery requires more than merely gathering up or dropping off a package. To ensure successful delivery, a succession of events must occur at precisely the right time.
FarEye – Future Plans
“We are solving certain problems for our customers today, but I feel we can solve much larger problems and help digitize the entire supply chain network,” FarEye CEO Kushal Nahata said.
As the coronavirus outbreak threatens supermarket and e-commerce companies’ capacity to deliver supplies to consumers on time, FarEye announced that ‘Serve’, a service that focuses on enabling the movement of everyday essentials, will be free for any company to utilize for more than a year.
“The global pandemic has accelerated the need for enterprises to scale their supply chain operations efficiently to meet the rising share of online deliveries. FarEye’s highly configurable last-mile and long-haul logistics platform has been validated by leading global enterprises across the 3PL, retail and manufacturing categories,” said Shweta Bhatia, a partner at Eight Roads Ventures, in a statement.
The startup wants to improve its integration capabilities so that it can provide organizations with a comprehensive plug-and-play solution. The firm, which already employs over 350 people, plans to add 100 more employees in order to speed up product development.
The largest future challenges for the firm will be developing better ways to assist clients to sustain the competitive advantage that comes from constant innovation and quick evolution.
FarEye has been profitable since its inception, but according to Nahata, an IPO is not in the cards for the near future. “Right now, our main aim is to grow” he stated.
FarEye – FAQs
What does FarEye do?
The AI-powered feature of FarEye, a Noida-based company, optimizes end-to-end delivery and makes recommendations based on data aggregation.
Who founded FarEye?
FarEye was founded by Kushal Nahata, Gautam Kumar, and Gaurav Srivastava in 2013.
Which companies do FarEye compete with?
Some of the top competitors of FarEye are Ecom Express, project44, SAP Integrated Business Planning, SPiN, Optimal Satcom, FourKites, G2 Deals, Shipsy & Mojro.
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 AdmitKard.
AdmitKard is a venture capital-funded Edtech that simplifies access to higher education opportunities. Founded in 2017 by Piyush Bhartiya and Rachit Agrawal, the startup has already facilitated admission for 1500 students and is tied up with 2500 universities across the globe.
AdmitKard’s platform suggests the best possible universities through data-backed algorithmsand applies to these universities from the same platform in a few clicks. The platform also suggests relevant current international students, called Mentors, who can share their real-experience of their journey to studying abroad. From end-to-end guidance on best education loans to profile building and accommodation services, students can get it all in one platform!
StartupTalky interviewed Mr. Piyush Bhartiya (Founder & CEO of AdmitKard) to get insights on the startup story and growth hacks of the company. In this article, you’ll discover how AdmitKard started, its founders, AdmitKard’s funding details, and more.
AdmitKard is a venture capital-funded Edtech that simplifies access to higher education opportunities. A lot of times students are not even aware of the possible opportunities abroad. All they know is the popular universities and courses. For the students who aspire to avail higher education abroad, AdmitKard is here to ensure that they are aware of all the courses, universities, admission criteria, financial support, application procedures, and other necessary details.
AdmitKard’s long-term goal is to make global education easily accessible to all by building information transparency and process simplicity. Enabling the flow of global talent is the only way to unlock individual potential.
AdmitKard – Industry Details
As per MEA, there were 5.88 lac Indian students who went to study abroad where globally there are 5mn students who chose to study outside their country. This has been growing at 20% YoY and in next 5 years, more than 1 mn students should go abroad from India. This is one of the fastest-growing market segments.
Rachit and Piyush were in London celebrating the success of their first startup venture. Sitting at a cafe in London, surrounded by 20 Indian students, they realized that most of them could have grabbed better opportunities. They could not avail themselves of the course or stream that they aspired for, only due to lack of awareness. Either they were misguided, misinformed, or simply lacked awareness. That is when Rachit and Piyush decided to establish AdmitKard to address the gap.
To be sure of the feasibility of the idea, the founders spent 6 months just researching, conducting surveys, and discussing the idea and model with their mentors. A lot of communication had to be done with the universities as well to understand the channel.
AdmitKard – Product/Services Offered
AdmitKard is an end-to-end platform equipped with all that is required to understand the universities and the courses. The platform suggests the best possible universities through data-backed algorithms and applies to these universities from the same platform in a few clicks. The platform also suggests relevant current international students, called Mentors, who can share their real-experience of their journey to studying abroad. Students get end-to-end guidance from availing of the best education loans, academic, and language test preparations, profile building, accommodation services, and financial services.
AdmitKard’s services are its USP. The startup is trying to solve a challenge that has been prevailing for the longest, as offline counselors are unorganized and not tech-enabled.
AdmitKard – Founders and Team
Rachit Agrawal and Piyush Bhartiya are the founders of AdmitKard.
Rachit Agrawal and Piyush Bhartiya – AdmitKard Founders
Rachit and Piyush used to work together at BCG. Then they started their own first venture.
“Since we were already enthusiastic entrepreneurs, we understood the fact that if there is a gap, then there is scope too. We decided to start AdmitKard as we could see the scope, challenges, and a feasible model. And all this following an experience that he and I shared together” Piyush added.
AdmitKard is a team of 60 dynamic and young people. A large number of members have been hired on referrals and they maintain a positive work environment. The company has monthly town halls as well as each team member has personalized development plans.
As a founder, Piyush’s responsibility is to reach out to more and more students and create the guidance framework while Rachit ensures that each student is delivered the best in class guidance.
AdmitKard Team
AdmitKard – Startup Launch
If you look at the students, they throng to various social media channels when they are in doubt and are seeking help. AdmitKard created a student community on Facebook and enabled them to get their queries answered by its mentors. Getting the first 100 was a breeze for AdmitKard.The team’s entire focus has been on creating a world-class product that enables 2 things –
Best recommendations for the student based on their objective, profile, and preferences
Making the process simple and transparent by giving them all they need on a single dashboard.
This has enabled AdmitKard to scale its advisory multi-fold with much more additional costs and yet be able to deliver quality at scale. Mentor sessions and webinars have been the most successful campaign for the startup.
It is a complex problem that AdmitKard is trying to solve. It needs information about lakhs of courses and a wide variety of interests. The team has solved this with their mentor network, where the startup crowdsources data and enables live conversation between mentors and students thereby resolving the most peculiar of doubts.
AdmitKard – Growth
AdmitKard is a startup based in Delhi-NCR. Over the period, the startup has been able to process around 12000 student applications and has guided over 1 lakh+ student. Due to the pandemic, a lot of students were struggling with the admissions, prospects, and uncertainties, which lead to a rise in the number of queries by over 1100 percent on its platform.
AdmitKard has already facilitated admission for 1500 students and is tied up with 2500 universities across the globe.
The team at AdmitKard has tried its best to create relevant tech-enabled solutions. AdmitKard’s algorithm helps students discover the best for them. And, it has heavily implemented AI to facilitate counseling for aspirants. All this requires a tech team and a lot of investment, which the startup has been able to pursue following the financial support provided by the investors.
Most of the players in the field of foreign education counseling are offline counselors only. And that market is very unorganized. In terms of edtech, AdmitKard claims to be the pioneer in this specific model.
AdmitKard’s biggest achievements are its student testimonials and it has 1000s of those. There is no bigger or more important trophy than that. That said, the startup has received multiple awards within the academic community for its career guidance to students by multiple universities and schools.
AdmitKard Review
AdmitKard – Future Plans
AdmitKard aims to help students not only from India but globally to use its platform for taking their education and career decisions. There is already fast traction that the team is seeing and a record number of students are applying through the platform. The startup plans to become a $100 revenue company in the next 2-3 years.
AdmitKard – FAQs
What is AdmitKard?
AdmitKard is a venture capital-funded Edtech that simplifies access to higher education opportunities.
Who are the founders of AdmitKard?
Rachit Agrawal and Piyush Bhartiya are the founders of AdmitKard.
How much is AdmitKard’s funding?
AdmitKard has raised total funding of $1 million from Vamsi ( Vedantu), Ravi Shankar (Doubtnut), Ashneer (Bharatpe), Mayank (Upgrad), and Sumit Jain (Unacademy) in Pre-series A Round.
Is AdmitKard trustworthy?
AdmitKard’s biggest achievement is its student testimonials and it has 1000s of those. One can check AdmitKard’s website for more details.
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 AAA 2 Innovate Pvt Ltd., the parent company of Zipaworld.
The Indian logistics market is one of the most significant ones in the global logistics and supply chain market which is worth $4.3 trillion. The growth of the logistics and supply chain sector is phenomenal and contributes to more than 14% of India’s GDP. Zipaworld is a logistics engine or can be called a marketplace, or an e-Mall that exclusively caters to the logistics services needs of the market and customers. Zipaworld happens to be the most unique digital logistics platform where e-booking and other transactions can be done related to air freight, ocean freight, and surface freight all from one platform.
Zipaworld has already managed to bring multi-modal transportation and logistics like air freight, ocean freight, road freight into one platform just within a span of 9 months since its launch in September 2020. Over the past few months, it has grown organically with partnerships and associations with various vendors and other players within India, in the Gulf countries, Europe, and the USA. It managed to have associates in over 35 countries across the world providing logistics services.
StartupTalky interviewed the core team @ Zipaworld to know the Startup Story and the roadmap of the organization. Get insights on How Zipaworld started, its business & revenue model, founder, parent company, what Zipaworld does, its growth/expansion plans, and more…
Zipaworld is a logistics service provider but the digital way, or a digital logistics platform. The team calls Zipaworld – The Logistics E-mall. The concept of E-mall is applied here, that is, a single-window portal that displays several catalogs, products, or vendors providing their products and services. The idea is to provide a single-window solution to the customer who is otherwise required to go from pillar to post for their requirements.
In the logistics arena, there has been a dire need for the centralization of processes and single window sources, as currently, the customer must go to various vendors and service providers. The concept of e-Mall for logistics was coined by the founder, Dr. Ambrish Kumar, and named Zipaworld. As the name suggests, Zipaworld provides various logistics services to the numerous zip codes of the world. This includes multi-modal transportation, other freight forwarding services through air, ocean, rail, road freight along with the other aspects of the supply chain.
Zipaworld is an online platform that provides automated solutions for domestic and international courier services, air freight, ocean freight, road/ rail freight, door-to-door services, first/ last mile pick-ups and deliveries, express services, warehousing services, customs brokerage services, and other logistics services. Zipaworld offers a seamless digital experience with features like freight query management, freight rate comparisons, online booking, prompt freight forwarding, automated freight documentation, live tracking, instant invoicing, online payment gateways, e-dockets for storing and archiving e-documents, and so on.
Zipaworld Integration Process
The vision for the next few months is to integrate more than 25000 zip codes of India into the platform and integrate the same with the global zip codes connecting them using the various modes of cargo transportation. The idea is to provide a seamless convenience to the end consumers like manufacturers, distributors, exporters, importers, traders to avail transparent logistics services at their own ease without much interference by the multiple mediators. The concept of delivering anything and everything will be achieved by the end of this year. The company plans to expand outside India on a large scale in the coming couple of years and become a global player with a virtual presence in more than 150 trading countries. It plans to create a huge network in the supply chain integrating all stakeholders for smooth movement of trade.
The long-term vision of Zipaworld is to use the latest technology like Machine Learning, AI, IoT to automate the complete logistics processes and bring in blockchain technology in the logistics and supply chain. The idea is to turn the tables for the supply chain bringing in sheer visibility, mitigating risks, reducing the demand and supply gap, consequently reducing the logistics cost which is currently very high.
The logistics and supply chain sector in India is the second-fastest-growing sector after e-commerce. The growth of the sector is phenomenal and contributes to more than 14% of the GDP. The worth of the sector stands at USD 170 billion currently and is expected to grow up to USD 250 billion at a CAGR of 10.5% in the next 5 years. This was the prediction pre-COVID, but the prediction has not changed much post-COVID as well. As the global trade is increasing and the dependency of the various nations on one another is also increasing, logistics is a sector that is getting benefitted. The Indian logistics market is one of the most significant ones in the global logistics and supply chain market which is worth $ 4.3 trillion.
Also, India is set to become a global investment hub for production and manufacturing, warehousing, and a potential trans-shipment hub and gateway for trade movement from the nearby countries. The supply chain and logistics sector in India is also the largest employment provider, with more than 8 million people employed across India. However, there are several drawbacks that keep the logistics cost at 14% of the GDP.
The major reason being the unorganized, disintegrated, and fragmented processes and players across the whole supply chain ecosystem. Only 15% of the players have an organized and integrated working model. Other reasons include the under-developed infrastructure of ports, cargo terminals, not up to the mark road and rail network, an uneven network of warehouses, lagging cold-chain facilities, lack of multi-modal transportation, issues pertaining to first and last-mile connectivity, decentralized customs procedures, and most of all non-availability of centralized and single-window logistics platforms.
Zipaworld – Founders and Team
AAA 2 Innovate Pvt Ltd, the parent startup company, and Zipaworld were founded by Dr. Ambrish Kumar. The core team comprises of his co-companions from his previous company, some experts of the supply chain & technology sectors, fresh young minds aspiring to kick-start a career in logistics and supply chain and IT fields of work, and those seeking to grow with the growth of the start-up. The core team that is taking the concept forward consists of personnel from the shipping line, airline, ports and terminals, freight forwarding, technology backgrounds.
AAA2 Innovate Pvt Ltd. Logo
About Dr. Ambrish Kumar | Founder, Zipaworld
Dr. Ambrish Kumar is a renowned name in the logistics and supply chain fraternity. He has been the brain behind the award-winning Indian startup LogYcode that revolutionized the Air Freight logistics ecosystem a couple of years back. The concept coined and implemented by Dr. Ambrish Kumar turned out to be one of the initial movers to launch a mobile app for Logistics services. Dr. Ambrish holds the acumen of more than 16 years of experience in stalwart diverse combinations in the domains of Logistics, Freight Forwarding, CFS, Operation, Supply Chain Management, Warehousing & Evaluating New Project Movements.
He has held senior management pedestals of different reputed organizations like APM Terminals India Pvt. Ltd., Eastern Cargo Carriers India Pvt. Ltd, Group CEO of S.A. Consultants and Forwarders Pvt Ltd (SA Group) and LogYcode Tech Solutions Pvt Ltd (Founder).
He has an affluent academic background, having attained P.HD. in Economics, with his thesis on ‘Industrial Policy and Industrial Growth’. Also, his qualifications include M. A. in Economics and MBA in International Trade and is also SAP qualified. There is an innovation involved in every action of Dr. Ambrish and his team whether it is designing the office space of the start-up or designing a digital gateway to revolutionize the logistics sector.
Team and Work Culture
AAA2 Innovate Pvt Ltd. – Office Reception Area
The startup is gradually growing which started with a team of 6 core members and now has a team of more than 30 members in the direct payrolls. In addition, the start-up has also managed to acquire stakes in a domestic transportation company by the name of Radiant X-Ways Logistic Pvt Ltd, which has offices in more than 40 locations across India.
The startup has formed a vibrant work culture and the office resonates an aura that every employee looks forward to every day. The startup follows a circular hierarchy rather than the usual vertical or horizontal hierarchy, where any member of the team can approach any other member or senior without any hurdles or protocols.
There are only mentors and no reporting managers. The company promotes working from home as the processes are fully digitized.
Anyone can use the office space any time with sheer flexibility in timings.
There are no strict office hours to be followed as the company has aligned its work partners with its vision and everyone feels responsible towards their work.
The office encourages leisure and fun with an in-house chill-out and gossip area with couches, bean bags, and recliners, reading nooks, Table-Tennis, and other activities to keep its people engaged with more than just work.
The startup focuses on the happiness index of its workforce with policies and norms molded to justify this factor.
The startup has done its best in supporting the team members and their families during the crisis hours and the pandemic.
AAA2 Innovate workspace
Hiring and Head-hunting
While head-hunting, the company looks for partners in their crime and not employees. The aspirants who wish to be an integral part of the team, who are responsible themselves, and who wish to grow with the growth of the company. The startup is highly instrumental in campus recruitments and offering internships to freshers and thereafter rendering them opportunities to make a career in the company itself.
Zipaworld’s Ideation Journey – How it Started
The founder of Zipaworld, Dr. Ambrish Kumar is a hardcore logistics professional who has grown from ground level and held senior-level positions in various levels of the supply chain like, ports and terminals, shipping lines, freight forwarders, etc. He is also SAP qualified and always was inclined towards technological advancement, artificial intelligence, and human development. As he has experienced several loopholes in the conventional logistics processes that still exist with manual workflows and heavy paperwork, he realized that automation and integration are the need of the hour.
He, along with a team of logistics and IT experts had developed a prototype model of a logistics platform in his previous company where he held the position of CEO. However, since the company was only into freight forwarding, the scope of the digital platform was only limited to the B2B model and could not explore the larger supply chain. So, he planned to start his own venture by the name of AAA 2 Innovate Pvt Ltd which was launched during the pandemic in July 2020.
While the industry and most businesses were apprehensive of taking any new risks during the pandemic, Dr. Ambrish and his team found the pandemic as an opportunity to capitalize and bring about a digital transformation which was the need of the hour. During the unexpected and prolonged lockdowns, many conventional enterprises of the logistics sector suffered as they could not carry out their operations due to dependency on manual working, and businesses were badly affected. Zipaworld was launched within a record time of three months in September 2020 and started with automated processes for air freight transactions. This turned out to be a boon to many exporters and importers, traders of pharmaceuticals, and also to small freight forwarding enterprises as they could carry out their logistics transactions like checking competitive pricing options, book shipments, get automated freight documents, pay the freight online, track their shipments, get deals and discounts, and much more, all round the clock at their convenience.
Within a month’s time, it managed to get more than 20 customers and 30 vendors onboard the platform. There are some other reasons that rendered an impetus to Dr. Ambrish Kumar and his ambitious team to develop Zipaworld. The increasing logistics and supply chain cost which is almost 14.5% in India, compelled for integration and digitalization of the processes offering single-window solutions. Another major reason is the improving Government policies and initiatives to encourage the logistics industry and draw global trade opportunities and investments.
Zipaworld is a logistics engine or can be called a marketplace, or an e-Mall that exclusively caters to the logistics services needs of the market and customers. Zipaworld happens to be the most unique digital logistics platform where e-booking and other transactions can be done related to air freight, ocean freight, and surface freight all from one platform. Not just that, Zipaworld can be used to book both international and domestic air freight. The platform integrates multi-modal transportation. The customer can just feed their zip codes for the origin and destination and Zipaworld offers an end-to-end solution and booking options. Zipaworld has now also reached the doorsteps of people across India by getting into the B2C concept with its newly launched domestic and international Courier product, where it is even providing doorstep pick-up services from more than 2000 pin codes across India.
Hence, the customer does not need to go to various vendors for various services like transportation, warehousing, freight forwarding, customs brokerage, and so on. The portal negates conventional delays caused by time zone differences, as the price quotes and the processes are fully automated and are available 24×7.
Moreover, the whole process moves in a simple ‘Previous-Next’ model, which makes the user comprehend the flow easily. The portal logs and records stage-wise updates and send push messages and notifications to the customer thereby keeping utmost transparency of the transactions.
Zipaworld is developed keeping in view the end customer or a layman. So the user interface of Zipaworld and its flow are easily understandable by even a layman. The portal simplifies the complexities of logistics and renders an easy gateway to book cargo just like booking travel or vacation. While the platform provided end-to-end logistics services like door-to-door logistics, but it does not use complex terminologies like the Incoterms or confusing documentation names. The platform has simple-to-understand terminologies that anyone can use without any training or demonstration. Moreover, the platform does a single invoicing for multiple services availed for a single shipment. There are various analytics and reporting available for the users to assess the trends and anticipate seasonal fluctuations based on historical data.
Zipaworld is a web and cloud-based platform that makes it readily handy for anyone with a smartphone or laptop to use. It is developed in such a way that people located in remote areas can also carry out their logistics and supply chain transactions from one gateway without having to go through the otherwise puzzling processes and documentation formalities.
While discussing the pain areas that have been addressed by Zipaworld, let us first highlight the pain areas of the customers seeking logistics services –
The logistics sector is largely disintegrated and fragmented. This causes the end customer or the owner of a consignment, to suffer the most.
Currently, not just in India, but across the world, there are very few single-window gateways that offer all logistics and multi-modal transportation services from one gateway.
Hence, the end customer must go to various disintegrated vendors for various services, like a vendor for warehousing, another for transportation, another for freight forwarding, and so on.
Moreover, the customer is required to manage the pricing, invoicing, and payments separately for each vendor.
This calls for not just wastage of time and energy, heavy paperwork, multiple authorizations, etc., but also fetches high-cost factors as there are many players and mediators involved.
In a nutshell, the uniquely designed Zipaworld portal addresses the pain areas and optimizes cost-effectiveness, time efficiency, and service efficiency.
Zipaworld – Name, Tagline and Logo
Significance of Name ‘Zipaworld’
The name ‘Zipaworld’ signifies the various zip codes of the world. As Zipaworld is a centralized platform that is involved in 3PL/ 4PL services, the name justifies the service portfolio encompassing all logistics services from origin zip code to destination zip code from a single window, anywhere in the world.
Notion Behind Zipaworld’s Logo Design
The logo shows speeding lines with Zipaworld written, which shows fast and prompt service.
Zipaworld Logo
Zipaworld’s Tagline
The tagline ‘The Logistics E-Mall of India’ again means a one-stop e-marketplace that offers all logistics services.
Logo & Tagline of Zipaworld’s Parent Company
AAA Logo
The logo of the parent company AAA 2 Innovate Pvt Ltd is a pencil with a tree growing on top of it. This denotes writing and starting innovation and flourishing into various levels and fields of work. As the startup is into various other services like software (ERP, SaaS) development, digital marketing, cloud and server services, Trading and sourcing, financial management services, logistics consultancy. The tagline of the parent company is ‘Innovation is our addiction’, resonating with the innovative addictive impetus that each team member carries with them.
Zipaworld is an online marketplace from where the customers can choose and book one or more logistics services as per their requirement. Zipaworld offers options to pick and choose services with instant pricing quotes available for air freight, ocean freight and express services thereby optimizing the turnaround times. For air or ocean consignments, just like booking a travel ticket, one needs to insert some basic information like origin, destination, date of materialization, number of packages, weight and dimensions, and commodity type, checking the requisite services from the checkboxes.
The portal flashes instant live market pricing options with all-inclusive cost options to view cost break-up. The customer may choose based on service levels and cost, and e-book the consignment. Upon booking, the Airway Bill, Bill of Lading, or other freight documents get automatically created after which the online payment can be made. The pricing is fetched real-time from the various contracted vendors and carriers, thereby making the pricing realistic and competitive.
Zipaworld’s revenue comes from the incentives, performance-linked bonuses and volume-based contracts, and commitments with vendors and carriers. The margins levels and service/ convenience fees and commissions have always been kept on the lower side as the bigger aim is to cater with a competitive and reliable gateway for the service seekers.
Zipaworld – Startup Launch and Growth Hacks
The company was launched during the pandemic which was a time of disillusionment for most businesses. However, the team saw it as an opportunity and looked forward to launching the platform for prospective customers from the pharmaceutical and medical sectors. The idea was planted rightly and they started getting pharmaceutical customers on board just within a fortnight of the launch. The first customer to be on board with the company was a pharmaceutical manufacturer and trader. The customer located in Mumbai could easily access the portal and e-book shipments on their own which helped them during the pandemic when they could not rely on their vendors who were mostly closed.
Earlier people had to approach multiple vendors like transporters, warehouse providers, freight forwarders, customs brokers, which was hectic and they could not focus on their core business. Also, they had to chase the vendors for freight documentation, trade-related authorizations, billing invoices which was a painstaking hassle. Also, they did not get proper information regarding the status of the processes and shipments. Zipaworld portal helped them improve their supply, procurement, exports, and distribution turnaround time to less than 1/4th of what it was before. They were able to focus on their core business more and maximize the production and distribution activities during the COVID time.
It initially managed to multiply the customers through existing customers who suggested Zipaworld to other exporters of pharmaceuticals, mostly they were from western Indian cities. Hence it can be stated that the initial customer onboarding was through word-of-mouth and traditional sales and marketing drives.
Zipaworld started carrying out digital marketing activities through social media, news media, and email marketing which further enhanced the reach of Zipaworld to other parts of India and also globally. It managed to get recognition from customers from the Middle Eastern countries and Europe as well. Gradually the startup managed to gain more than 100 customers within 4 months of the launch of the Zipaworld portal.
By the first quarter of 2021, Zipaworld started witnessing a huge influx of visiting customers and prospects through the Zipaworld portal which could be used for price comparison purposes without logging in or registration process. The launch of the Ocean Freight Module in early Feb 2021 saw an increasing demand for ocean freight inquiries through the portal mostly from the western Indian regions.
Further, the team managed to leap ahead investing stakes in Radiant X-ways Logistic Pvt Ltd, a 10-year-old Indian domestic logistics giant renowned for express distribution, catering to the first and last-mile transportation by air and road to a huge client base that consisted of electronics, spare parts, and pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors. This helped it gain access to catering to the international logistics requirements of the customers.
Zipaworld – Challenges Faced
The Logistics sector still follows an orthodox working model. If one compares the air freight forwarding process with the passenger air travel industry, the latter is fully automated for almost 15 years with e-booking platforms and smooth paperless transactions.
In the logistics and freight forwarding sector, the fraternity is still accustomed to using e-mails and phone calls for inquiries with paper-based transactions galore. The team at Zipaworld faced an initial reluctance from the prospects to cling to a new digital means to carry out the transactions. However, they started getting overwhelming penetration and recognition amongst its customers within a month as the need of the hour was a digital single window gateway during the pandemic. The customers started understanding the dire need for automation of processes, accuracy, transparency, visibility thereby reducing turnaround time and following best practices. The idea of saving time, cost, and manpower and rather using these elements for more productive works has been comprehended by the customers.
Zipaworld is a digital portal that can be accessed from across the world, hence the idea is to be virtually omnipresent in all parts of the world. Over the past few months, it has grown organically with partnerships and associations with various vendors and other players within India, in the Gulf countries, Europe, and the USA. It managed to have associates in over 35 countries across the world providing logistics services.
The complete logistics market of India is worth $170 billion and is growing at a CAGR of 10.5% to reach $ 250 billion in the next 5 years. For assessment, the startup takes into consideration only the exports market from the top 8 cities of India, which as per its study from the DGCA data, stands at approx. 1020 tons.
With the kind of centralized and multimodal platform developed, Zipaworld has considered a modest 5% of the total volumes handled from the origin. This is only an instance of the exports market, however, its scope includes imports, domestic market, express and courier, and other logistics services.
The team at Zipaworld expects the payback period of the initial investment in 2.5 years as per the growth trend and assessment of volumes, revenues, and cost.
The Zipaworld has an average of more than 5000 visitors daily which forms the base for the visiting customers. This is in addition to the already registered 250+ regular customers availing of logistics services across the world. The popularity of the Zipaworld website (zipaworld.com) has been growing phenomenally with the website being ranked 70000 among the global websites and 7200 among the Indian websites in just within a span of 9 months on Alexa ranking and various other popularity measures.
Zipaworld – Funding
The startup has remained self-funded and bootstrapped till now and has managed to successfully stay above the breakeven. The team shall look for the funding when it is the right time and have encompassed most of the supply chain activities within the online platform.
The concept and the idea are formulated and mentored by the founder of the company, Dr. Ambrish Kumar who leads from the front to propel the ventures to achieve the larger vision and mission.
However, it has several IT consultants and mentors guiding to use the right technology, switch gears whenever required to stay abreast with the market requirements. Zipaworld has a robust team of logistics professionals who keep the workflows up to the mark with the present standards also adhering to the trade norms and protocols. It has reliable and renowned vendors and partners associated who provide the most competitive and transparent pricing options.
Zipaworld – Acquisition & Investment
It invested a stake in Radiant X-ways Logistic Pvt Ltd, a 10-year-old Indian domestic logistics giant renowned for express distribution, catering to the first and last-mile transportation by air and road to a huge client base that consisted of electronics, spare parts, and pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors.
The company has a presence in over 27 states across India with more than 40 offices and warehouses. The direct control over own and fixed transport fleet of specialized vehicles enabling reach to the remotest part of the country makes Radiant commit pick-up from and delivery to any corner of India.
There are several traditional logistics players embracing technology to automate processes and a lot of startups entering the supply chain arena to bring innovative solutions to the pain areas. However, one fact to be noted is that most of the digital transformations are taking place at the entity or enterprise level. That is, the automation is taking place to simplify a particular process and not integrating the complete end-to-end workflow.
For instance, there are enterprises and startups that have come out with solutions for first and last-mile connectivity, there are others that have brought solutions for warehousing, some others with ocean freight booking platforms. However, until the integration between these players happens with more single-window solutions, the loopholes in the supply chain ought to remain and the end customer will suffer.
If looked at the competition, it can be stated that there are very few online platforms across the world that offer multi-modal freight options in one dashboard. However, there are ocean freight platforms like Cogoport, FreightBro, air freight platforms like Freightos, and other logistics platforms like Far-eye, Shipsy, etc.
The growing popularity of the Zipaworld website across India and around the globe is the most significant recognition for the team.
Zipaworld has been in the news for all the good reasons that have been highlighted and praised by the various media that have covered the endeavors of Zipaworld in addressing the pain areas, especially during pandemic times.
The team has seen enterprises and organizations showing interest and getting associated with them over the past few months from the Middle-east, Europe, and the USA.
The parent company AAA 2 Innovate Pvt Ltd is registered with DPIIT (Start-up India), is MSME registered, and is a member of the global logistics trade network 7Connetwork.
Zipaworld – Future/Expansion Plans
Zipaworld will be soon having its Partner program for registering on-board the aspirants who wish to carry out a logistics business from their convenience and location and be a part of the logistics ecosystem.
The online portal is all set to integrate more than 25000 zip codes across India with extensive global connectivity in the remainder of the year 2021, thereby resolving the first and last mile connectivity issues pertaining to the sector.
Zipaworld will soon be introducing a fleet of more than 150 Electronic/battery-operated transport vehicles along with its partner companies in their drive to reduce carbon footprint and also to reach out to cover the remotely commercial and non-commercial locations across North India.
Further ventures this year include integrating goods transportation and drivers to the Zipaworld application and connecting them with the manufacturers, exporters, shippers, traders, bookings through Zipaworld App. The concept of delivering anything and everything will be achieved by the end of this year.
Zipaworld plans to expand outside India on a large scale in a coming couple of years and become a global player with a virtual presence in more than 150 trading countries. It plans to create a huge network in the supply chain integrating all stakeholders for smooth movement of trade.
The long-term vision of Zipaworld is to use the latest technology like Machine Learning, AI, IoT to automate the complete logistics processes and bring in blockchain technology in the logistics and supply chain. The idea is to turn the tables for the supply chain bringing in sheer visibility, mitigating risks, reducing the demand and supply gap, consequently reducing the logistics cost which is currently very high.
Zipaworld – FAQs
What is Zipaworld?
Zipaworld is an online platform that provides automated solutions for air freight, ocean freight, road/ rail freight, door-to-door services, first/ last mile pick-ups and deliveries, express services, courier, warehousing services, customs brokerage services, and other logistics services.
Who founded Zipaworld?
AAA 2 Innovate Pvt Ltd, the parent startup company, and Zipaworld were founded by Dr. Ambrish Kumar.
What is AAA2 Innovate?
AAA2 Innovate Pvt Ltd is the parent company of Zipaworld. It is into various other services like software (ERP, SaaS) development, digital marketing, cloud and server services, Trading and sourcing, financial management services, logistics consultancy.
How does Zipaworld make money?
Zipaworld is an online marketplace from where customers can choose & book one or more logistics services as per their requirement. Zipaworld’s revenue comes from the incentives, performance-linked bonuses and volume-based contracts, and commitments with vendors and carriers.
What is Zipaworld’s USP?
Zipaworld is a logistics engine or can be called a marketplace, or an e-Mall that exclusively caters to the logistics services needs of the market and customers. Zipaworld happens to be the most unique digital logistics platform where e-booking and other transactions can be done related to air freight, ocean freight, and surface freight all from one platform.
When was Zipaworld launched?
Zipaworld was launched in September 2020, amidst the pandemic.
Is Zipaworld an Indian Company?
Yes. Zipaworld is an Indian Company headquartered in Noida.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on.
Whether it’s buying a real estate, selling one or investing in real estate properties, nothing is easy. One needs to do a lot of market research to buy a property suited to his requirements. On the other hand, selling a real estate property is a complicated task and takes much time in most of the cases. Besides, price negotiations are always a troublesome issue. In such a scenario will not it be nice if someone guides us regarding the best property to buy, the best price to sell or the best way to manage our realty?
Fairpockets, a Noida based startup is doing all these for you so that, you can buy and sell properties easily. The startup even helps you to manage your existing properties profitably.
Know more about Fairpockets Company Profile, Founders, Funding, Business Model, Revenue Model, Challenges, Future Plans, Logo
Fairpockets is a Fair price property portal and a SaaS based builder broker mobile marketplace. It is an online platform that connects the buyers, sellers and brokers.
In the case of sellers, Fairpockets allows free property posting on its site and property valuation is done for resale property before going live. After selling a property, it even suggests reinvestment options to the sellers. One can also rent properties through Fairpockets. Price calculator, Inventory management, Lead management, communication system are some of the features used by sellers.
The company’s short term goal is to help builders and brokers bring sales growth, efficiency and transparency. Fairpockets is working towards a PAN-India broker network and connect them with builders and ultimately to the end consumers. All information flow happens seamlessly so that there is transparency of information, speed of connecting between builders & brokers and professional response to the query of consumers to build trust between these three stakeholders.
In the long term, FairPockets is looking forward to connecting serious property sellers to its broker network and help them in selling the property fast within a specified timeline and hence bringing predictability.
Our website will help us in identifying serious sellers at the right price and our app will help in pushing inventories to the broker network.
Fairpocket’s current target market in the Real Estate industry is Builders and Brokers as it is currently providing SaaS solution. In India, the real estate CRM is currently used by only large developers and few brokers.
Client Segment
Real Estate, SaaS, Marketplace
Target Companies
Medium Enterprise, Small Enterprise, Large Enterprise
Geography
India
“As per our internal estimates the market size of real estate CRM is around 30cr and is currently a very underserved market. Going forward we will be leveraging our broker network for transaction services which as per various media report is around $4bn” Says Ritesh.
Founders of Fairpockets and Team
Ritesh Anand and Rumki Sengupta are the founders of Fairpockets.
Fairpockets Founder – Ritesh Anand and Rumki Sengupta
Ritesh Anand is the Co-founder & CEO of Fairpockets. Ritesh completed his MBA from Ivey Business School, Canada and has been part of Media/Internet industry for over 15 years in Sales, Strategy and as Business Head before starting Fairpockets. He has worked with organization like Radio Mirchi, SHL, Monster and Times Internet. He has been a long time real estate investor in cities like Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Patna – having executed residential/commercial/land/JV with developers and related transactions. He is also passionate about teaching and had been a visiting faculty at IIM Raipur & IMT Ghaziabad.
Ritesh is also Co-founder and Director of India Canada Alumni Network (ICAN), an organization that represents Canadian Alumni residing in India. Ritesh handles Product, Sales, and marketing departments in Fairpockets.
Rumki Sengupta is the Co-Founder & Director of Operations in Fairpockets. Rumki has around 14 years of experience in Human resource and Operations. She has worked with companies like Patni Computers, L&T Infotech & Octopus Retail. She has completed her MBA from Pune University & Sunstone Business School. Rumki is also a professional artist who has participated in many group shows. Rumki takes care of research and operations.
Another core members of the team is Digpal Singh, the Tech Lead. Digpal has over 6 years experience in developing small to large web application using PHP, CakePHP, Laravel framework. Digpal has done his masters in physics & computer science.
Ritesh has been a long time real estate investor and has bought and sold multiple properties in 3-4 cities. One problem which he faced all the time is that of selling the property. It takes a long time to sell a property. He observed that people have to wait for months and sometimes even years to find suitable buyers for their property. He realized that it’s one of the biggest challenges in the real estate sector and also a large opportunity.
Ritesh with a motive to find a solution to this issue started speaking to many property owners and brokers in Delhi NCR, Mumbai and Bangalore to understand the selling cycle and process. This dawned upon him that there are many problems in the real estate sector that requires a solution.
There are primarily 2 ways by which any property owner or developer can sell their property:
Advertising
Broker Network
Advertising is moving away from print and shifting to the internet. Most of the property portals have a lot of broker listing with fake pricing or very low pricing. Because of this, the buyer gets attracted and brokers get the leads. On the other side, the owners generally post at higher than market price with the hope that they will negotiate when they get serious sellers but that doesn’t happen so easily.
As far as broker network is concerned most of the property owners may not have time to be in touch with them on a regular basis. There are so many unsold inventories so brokers generally push only the ones which are on their top of the mind.
To solve these issues that have been prevalent in the real – estate sector for years, Fairpockets was formed. Fairpockets was launched in Noida.
The name Fairpockets was given focusing on the company’s mission to establish price transparency in the real estate sector.
Fairpockets Logo
If you have ever bought or sold any property either through a new or any resale property then the one thing which you are not sure about is the price. You speak to multiple brokers about the same property and everyone will quote you a different price as there is no standardization and you may find it very unfair at times. So our idea was to bring price transparency in the entire selling and buying process and make it a fair transaction for you. The name Fairpockets syncs with this idea .
Fairpockets – Business Model and Revenue Model
Fairpocket’s business model revolves around providing mobile project listing and software service to builders and brokers. Builders can provide all the relevant information related to their project, price, inventory, leads etc to their sales team and channel partners through Fairpockets mobile or web platform.
Fairpockets earns revenue through the subscription of its web and mobile app services to builders and has just started the same for brokers as well.
Being a B2B service Fairpockets reaches out to its customers through direct interaction. However, for its B2C services, Fairpockets uses online marketing to reach out to users/customers.
Reaching out to customers directly is the best way for us, but we are exploring some strategic alliance to reach out to customers quickly. Though we are getting some good referral as well and we are very confident that with time our model has the potential to go viral. Currently, our marketing spends on Campaign is nil as we are building through organic mode.
At present, Fairpockets has some good clients associated with it. Its rate of client acquisition is also on a growth trajectory. The company’s app user base is also growing and its services for brokers will help it further in increasing the base. The company is also focusing on its B2C business. It plans to start the process of raising funds to speed up growth.
Fairpockets – Startup Challenges
One of the biggest challenges faced by Fairpockets was getting the business model right.
“We wanted to solve a very large problem of reducing the time to sell the property for owners and developers. When we started exploring the solutions, we found some direct ways to solve this problem but none seems very effective. So we broke our problem into 3-4 small or tactical problems and started solving them one by one, making sure that each solution generates revenue for us and is a step towards solving our big problem in a much more effective way” says Ritesh.
Fairpockets – Competitors
Currently, Fairpockets is operating in B2B SaaS space in Real Estate Sector. Some competitors of Fairpockets operating in this domain are mini ERP/CRM players like FarVision and SalesForce.
Fairpockets – Future Plans
Going forward, Fairpockets will be focusing on the transaction services which is a very fragmented market but have some large players in it.
Fairpockets – FAQs
What is Fairpockets?
Fairpockets, a Noida based startup is doing all these for you so that, you can buy and sell properties easily. The startup even helps you to manage your existing properties profitably.
Who are the Founders of Fairpockets?
Ritesh Anand and Rumki Sengupta are the founders of Fairpockets.
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 Mad Influence.
This age is often regarded as “the social media age”. With the increasing number of social media users, influencer marketing is becoming an important component of marketing strategy for many brands. The increasing popularity of influencer marketing can be gauged from the very fact that Google searches for the term ‘influencer marketing’ grew 1500% over 3 Years, from 2015-2018. Social Media today is flooded with influencers and that too of many types – Mega, Macro, Micro, Advocates, Referrers, and Loyalists. If you too are planning to leverage influencer marketing for promoting your business, and wondering how to do it best, ‘Mad Influence’ is the place to be.
It is one of the Best Influencer Agency in India .Read more about Mad Influence Company Profile, Challenges, Founder, Revenue, logo, tagline, etc.,
This platform connects brands to influencers across various social media platforms, so that brands can find the best influencers for attracting customers. Mad Influence is among the top 10 infuencer marketing agencies in India.
StartupTalky approached Mad Influence CEO Gautam Madhavan, to get a better picture of how the company is simplifying influencer marketing for brands.
Mad Influence helps build the brand through influencers. From the amplification of content to the creation of content – Mad Influence does it all for the brands. It brings together talents, content creators and influencers to create amazing influencer marketing campaigns for brands.
What we offer is solution for humans by the humans. Real life Influencers spreading word of mouth and promoting a brand or a service in real time is the best way to market anything and that’s what we do – Mad Influence founder Gautam Madhavan says emphasizing the services provided by the company.
Mad Influence provides the brands with a dedicated dashboard, and with the help of an integrated Artificial Intelligence tool built-in on their platform, Mad Influence helps brands get real time analytics of their influencer campaigns and track performance. The platform also helps brands to access between thousands of influencers with just one click.
Gautam Madhavan is the founder of Mad Influence. A commerce graduate by qualification, Gautam, worked with various organizations in marketing and business development roles before starting his own venture. He also founded ‘Go Dutch India’, a reward based crowdfunding platform, prior to plunging into the influencer marketing domain.
How was Mad Influence Started
Mad Influence was started with a vision to connect humans digitally and build a sustainable community of content creators.
The idea clicked Gautam while he was attending a conference. Gautam noticed that while there was just one speaker speaking at the conference, there were many listeners who were not only interested to listen to the speaker, but also were serious enough to take the learnings and implement in their lives. This made Gautam to think of a platform that brings together many influencers and content creators, who could bring about a large impact on a larger audience. Thus Mad Influence came into the picture.
The platform was started on January 1st, 2018. Since then, they have on-boarded over 10,000 content creators, influencers, and brands across India from multiple networks including Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube, Twitter, etc.
Mad Influence – Startup Challenges
During the inception of Mad Influence, the concept of Influencer Marketing was new. This created a havoc of lack of trust with much less market knowledge. This also effected the startup to hire freshers in the influence marketing domain.
Though this still remains an issue, but things have changed considerably over the years. Maintenance of cash flow in this field is a struggle. As it is necessary for the startup to pay its creators on time, in order to not lose credibility. But on the other hand, the payment schedules of clients is different.
In order to overcome the challenges, Mad Influence conducted workshops across Delhi for influencers, teaching them how to create content, monetise and grow.
The team also replicated this initiative in other cities like Mumbai and Chandigarh. It help influencers with content production, which enables speeding up the entire process of influencer marketing.
Regarding the imbalance in Cash flows, the team figured out a financial cycle set up with each customer and made sure that the mutual agreement is relied upon at all times. It has solved a lot of cash flow cycles compared to the previous ones.
Mad Influence is all about bringing the digital influencers to come together and create immersive content to engage with their audience and upsell. To achieve this, Mad Influence is created as a community, where the members are passionate and Mad about Influencing, Mad about creating, Mad about everything they do. Hence the name Mad Influence.
MAD is not a word, it’s emotion here – the Mad Influence founder, Gautam Madhavan says
Mad Influence Marketing Agency – Be the Brand
Mad Influence’s tagline is ‘Be the Brand’
As we cater to the digital community who are normal human beings and not real time celebs , we want them to become a brand first and then Influence later. This makes us work harder to make every associated creator with us to build a self sustaining brand for himself or herself – Gautam quotes speaking about the idea behind the tagline.
As far as the logo is concerned, the MAD is designed in such a way that M looks like a magnet and the Influence that’s written beneath that means that MAD attracts Influence.
Mad Influence Logo
Mad Influence – Revenue
With initial investment of Rs.1 Lakh , Mad Influence started as an influencer marketing startup in 2018. Currently, its revenue is over 50 lakh per month
The platform recently won a place in the Top 100 Marketing Startups in Asia at MadCon Dubai.
Mad Influence – User Acquisition
What helped the Mad Influence team best regarding user acquisition and retention is their approach to clients. They take their client’s projects personally like it’s their own brand. This helps the brand to open up with them more genuinely. Proper understanding of the client’s needs helps them serve the clients in the best possible way.
Today, Mad Influence is working with almost all the leading Music Labels and Movie Production houses of Bollywood and Pollywood and soon they plan to collaborate down south.
In terms of brands, they are already catering to the Fortune 500 brands like Puma, Idea Cellular, Colgate, etc and also the upcoming startups in India like Oyo Rooms, Club Factory, Alibaba.com, etc and soon would be planning to build sustainable yet affordable solutions for every brand that enters India. Mad Influence is the official agency Partner of TikTok in India. Mad influence is also the official influencer partner of T-Series, which owns a 90% market share in Bollywood music.
Mad Influence – Future Plans
With growing advent in technology, the startup is on a verge to build various Internet Products in field of AR (Augmented Reality), VR(Virtual Reality) and AI(Artificial Intelligence) to support business. An automated dashboard is being built for influencers and brands, This will help them make the process more sophisticated and reliable.
Mad Influence – FAQs
What is Mad Influence?
Mad Influence is one of the best Influencer Marketing agencies in India. It helps you build your brand by connecting brands to influencers across various social media platforms.
Who is the Founder of Mad Influence?
Gautam Madhavan is the founder of Mad Influence.
What is the tagline of Mad Influence?
Mad Influence’s tagline is – “Be the Brand”.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing involves a brand collaborating with an online influencer to market one of its products or services. Influencers have specialized knowledge & insight into a subject. Their pre-existing presence in a niche helps brands to connect with their prospective/existing customers.
What does Mad Influence offer?
This platform connects brands to influencers across various social media platforms so that brands can find the best influencers for attracting customers. Mad Influence is among the top 10 influencer marketing agencies in India.
Who is an influencer?
An influencer is the people who have the power to influence the audience and customers by their established reputation and expert-level knowledge in their field.
Invest19.com is disrupting the stock market with its AI-powered stock tech platform. Invest19 Technologies is a fintech company serving in the technology sector and leverages the power of emerging technologies like machine learning, data science, Artificial Intelligence, to simplify, automate, and enhance the user experience – from customers to businesses.
Invest19.com is building an innovative platform capable of providing next-generation, scalable and low-latency tools and technology solutions to individuals and businesses in meeting the swiftly evolving needs of today’s fast-growing industry.
StartupTalky interviewed Mr. Kaushlendra Singh Sengar, Founder & CEO of Invest19.com to know how the startup is planning to disrupt the stock market industry by leveraging emerging technologies. Read all about the USP, Features, Revenue Model of Invest19.com, its marketing strategies, future plans and more in this post ahead!
1.What USP Invest19.com provides over its competitors?
Invest19.com is an Investment ecosystem providing multi broker choices to scale capital market into small towns by build next generation stock market industry on cloud where in market participants like exchanges, depositories, stock brokers, market experts can come together and provide seamless investment experience to create new breed of smart investors.
invest19 founder – Kaushlendra Singh
2.Over 30% of market share in the discount brokerage industry is held by top players like Zerodha, Angel Broking, 5paisa, Upstox among many. How do you plan to set yourself apart and grab the investors trust?
Invest19.com is supporting stock brokers by providing next generation cloud infrastructure to scale their broking business by increasing their reach up to small town users, disrupting human centric technology is providing better user experience, which leads to high user retention ratio and better revenue. Invest19.com is building business beyond technology by referring new users to stock brokers.
3. How is Invest19.com ahead in its technology implementation? What emerging technologies are you disrupting to enhance the user experience from customers to businesses?
There is a lack of financial literacy in India and complexities of available trading platforms are the biggest entry barriers for novice investors. We at Invest19.com is trying to fix these challenges with the help of latest blend of technologies, which is highly scalable, can handle millions of orders per second, simplifying investment experience by using human centric user interface and experience, making system more intelligent by mixing human brain with Artificial intelligence and data science and proving one touch investment platform.
With this we are able to provide an investment platform where in a layman can also investment with confidence and grow their wealth.
4. Found this intriguing- “Become an Investor @ Cost of Burger” How do you plan on executing this? What revenue model mechanism are you adopting?
We believe that like 2 decades ago computer education became mandatory for everyone from schooling, in the same way we should also make investment education mandatory from schools this is the right time when one should learn the art of savings and power of investment. If we want to build a new breed of future smart investors we should start working from roots.
That’s why we have built this product name “become an Investor @ cost of burger” this signifies that students can become investors by compromising from a piece of a burger and their pocket money is sufficient enough to start the investment journey.
We, along with SEBI registered market experts have created a special poll of high potential listed companies with good fundamentals and future business projections with low stock prices. Our specially designed artificial intelligent system will help users to build a low risk and high growth portfolio.
We have all three business model, B2B, B2C and SaaS along with monetization Strategies like Financial Literacy, Gamification, Referral Reward, Sponsorship & Space Selling, Freemium Model, Transactional Fee, Membership Selling, Licensing Fee.
5. How are you planning to make yourself known in the investment world? What marketing and user acquisition strategies are you employing?
BuildingInvestment ecosystem for millennials, offering multiple BFSI service provider and investment assets class choices, simplified investment experience with affordable tailor made investment ideas by mixing human brains with artificial intelligence and cash back on brokerages.
As we are on beta stage, so we do understand that there is high chance of app performance issue. That’s why we have started a physital model a mix of digital and human touch to spread financial literacy and create trust among small town users and to trained users about platform features. Human touch approach is bridging the gap wherever there is a bug or app performance issue. This is cost effective for the early stage startup because here you pay only on business conversion.
6. What exactly is Execution Partner Opportunity for Stock Brokers? How does it work?
Invest19.com is an investment ecosystem where in any regulated stock brokers can get registered as an execution partner by doing some necessary paper work with the respective exchanges and can become a next generation tech broker, here broker will get everything which is required to run and expand the business, starting from user acquisition, investment ideas services, trading features, customer support, portfolio tracker and many more.
This way a regional broker can become national stock broker and can acquire user from pan India with no time and marketing budget. This is reducing market cost, sales cost, tech and server cost, operation cost, research team cost and many more.
7. Launching a company amidst the start of pandemic must’ve bought its own opportunities and challenges. How is Invest19.com coping with it?
Invest19.com was hardly 2 months old when lockdown started in March 2020. Initially it was quite challenging for us, as no one was prepared for that and business dynamics completely changed after lockdown.
As product was into development stage that time. So we missed the chance to grab the user growth opportunity. But we saw this pandemic as an opportunity and people have realized the importance of savings in this hard time.
It’s being more than a year we are working from home, seeing the changed business dynamics in covid-19. We focused on building the paperless 100% online investment ecosystem, which can convert the offline brokers into online as due to lockdown their sales people are not able to go out for business development or demat account opening.
To reduce risk due to Covid uncertainty we focused on:
Fund raising and investments: In parallel with Product development, I have started pitching investors to meet out working capital requirements of the company. As product was into development stage so we were completely dependent on the investors’ fund. I have followed a sustainable business, wherein all the resources, particularly monetary resources and funds, need to be used consciously. Managing cash flow and conserving resources for a few months post resumption of normal operations is a key to sustainability.
Incorporated short cycle planning: Instead of looking at long-term plans three months, six months, and one-year plans should be ready. In the current scenario, making up for the lag due to lockdown and preparing the organisation to cope up with the situation needs to be focused upon.
We are also doing Effective and regular monitoring: The need for mentoring is going to be the highest in given times, as team is working from home and lots of coordination is required to deliver the project on time.
We have created Strong communication channel: During the Covid times, it is essential that the channel of communication is effectively and efficiently maintained. Being open and available to the concerns of all stakeholders, including customers and investors, becomes extremely important to maintain their association with the business.
8. It’d be great if you could highlight some of your achievements
We received our first success in July 2020, when we got the exchange approval of our platform to go live in one go without any observation. In the history of stock market, we are the first platform who got go live approval in one go.
Second success came by August end when we did beta launch of this platform.
9. Where do you see Invest19.com in the next 5 years in comparison to your competitors? Any business expansion/partnership/funding plans?
In next 5 years Invest19.com will become the world’s largest investment ecosystem, with more than 45 stock exchanges and all the possible investment asset class you can think of. We are doing partnerships with banks, stock brokers, NBFC’s, insurance companies, AMCs, Fintech platforms, financial platforms, etc. and also raising funds to speed up our product launches, soon will do the funding announcements.
Conclusion
Startups are always a step ahead in disrupting the emerging technologies, be it any field. Invest19.com being one among is aiming to be the world’s largest investment ecosystem by 2026 by leveraging artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science. Launching the company amidst the start of pandemic bought its own opportunities and challenges to the team, but Invest19.com paved its way over the beat launch in August 2020 and is looking for a main launch in 4 months i.e., July-August 2021.
Rishabh Rathi
Dev Gupta
