An entrepreneur should identify a need in the market before starting a product or service. When entrepreneurs build a solution that customers are satisfied with, the success of their product is quite obvious. Your value proposition should hold true for being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market demand.
On finding the Product-market fit for SaaS products, entrepreneurs from SaaS industry shared their ideas. Get an insight into the Product-market fit for SaaS startups.
Shayak Mazumder – Co-founder, Eunimart
Shayak Mazumder, Eunimart Co-founder
In 2017, before we started building the product, we did roadshows across many cities and towns of India, speaking personally to thousands of merchants to understand the kind of software they use, the network issues they face, their staffing issues, etc. We identified the biggest challenges facing these merchants both from the merchants as well as the subject matter experts who came to speak in our roadshows. This helped us to build a very robust plan for the product because we knew exactly what were the biggest challenges facing these merchants and what the impact of solving them would be.
Most external folks who didn’t have this insight initially advised that we were doing too much. However, we were certain that unless we solved the entire problem, chipping away at the minor problem statements would only help a minuscule segment of the merchants who could figure out things for themselves. This resulted in rapid growth once we launched the platform in 2020, with hundreds of merchants signing up organically. We continue to take feedback from the industry in building our platform.
Robin Das – CEO, Brandintelle
Robin Das, CEO of Brandintelle
Finding PMF is never easy. A product can improve their PMF by –
Talking to potential/current customers and understanding their day-to-day life. Sometimes getting a larger context is more important than just focusing on what your idea is addressing.
Analyzing if the problem your product is solving is big enough so that your customer will be willing to change his habit & pay for the service.
Read up on the competition. If there is no competition yet, there could be a 10% chance you’re onto something really big and a 90% chance that the problem you’re solving is either too small or does not exist.
Once you hit PMF you’ll know, as your email inbox or phones won’t stop ringing and you won’t have the resources to meet the demand.
Pramod Gummaraj – CEO, Aprecomm
Pramod Gummaraj – CEO of Aprecomm
Product Market Fit does not stop with generating MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and traction in the industry. Product Market Fit is a continuous process, particularly in the case of SaaS (Software as a Service) models. There should be a visible increase in the value addition Year on Year to keep the customers motivated and interested in continuing the engagement. So, it is particularly important to keep interacting with customers, to keep driving the innovations. Always, look for ways to upsell.
Product market fit is one of the first and most fundamental activities for any company to nail as early as possible. It can evolve to some extent over time, but getting it right as early as possible is key. Courseplay launched at a time when formal learning platforms were virtually non-existent in companies in India, especially the small and mid-sized companies. I remember spending a lot of time researching the market and speaking with real companies about challenges that they are facing when deploying skill development solutions for their companies. I remember getting a lot of clarity the more I would talk to different people because they would share real-world problems and help me focus on practical solutions rather than develop something that might sound good on paper but be impractical to deploy. I particularly remember one client that talked about the importance of measuring impact in learning, and we have been obsessed with delivering that answer ever since.
Shreyan Gandhi – Director and Co-founder, Comket Solutions
Shreyan Gandhi – Director and Co-founder, Comket Solutions
Our product market fit was identified by the problems we faced ourselves. We found a whole bag full of business cards in office and we had no idea which card we got from whom, we had no recollection of the vendor or anything that stood out. That’s when we decided to make networking impactful, a way in which the consumer can share their details in a seamless way and also to make a lasting impression on the person receiving the information. During our beta phase we realised we weren’t the only ones facing this problem. A lot of people had a stack of business cards that they eventually threw away or forgot about.
Not only the Indian market but even the global market and businesses are facing the challenge of maintaining constant communication with their customers daily. The overall call centre industry is worth $339.4 Billion, but still, businesses are losing ~10-15% of their potential revenue just because of lack of timely communication.
Considering the above stats, it is evident that the Product is a market fit that can cater to all the calling needs of businesses at a 10X faster pace by placing 1M+ calls a day.
Engaging Customers and adding value to their satisfaction level brings positive business outcomes. When customers are happy with the products and services they receive, they are more likely to be loyal to the brand.
In the SasS Startup ecosystem, where companies of different shapes and sizes are the customers, increasing Customer Engagement and building good relationships with the customer base to foster brand loyalty and awareness becomes the necessity for the business’s survival.
Here are the ideas shared by SaaS Entrepreneurs on increasing customer engagement for SaaS Startups.
Shayak Mazumder, Co-founder, Eunimart
SaaS startups, unlike other apps, have only their core product as their asset. In Ola, cars are their primary asset. In Oyo, it’s hotels and a number of rooms. In Eunimart, it’s our product. As such, thinking through the following is key to increasing customer engagement.
The user personas on the platform need to be defined in detail. We have to build for very specific people, and not everyone.
The user journeys need to be defined in detail. Other apps need not have opinions about how people will journey through their app. But, SaaS startups must know the user journey and make it easier at every step for the user to achieve success.
In-app messaging customized to each user and their usage patterns is extremely important.
Creating a community-based engagement for users to find more value is the last step.
All of the above require the platform to collect data about every step of the user’s journey.
Robin Das, CEO, Brandintelle
Robin Das – CEO of Brandintelle
Here are certain things you could do to increase customer engagement-
It’s very important to build a relationship between the Founder & the customer. This could be F2F, via email or even via e-meetings. This might not be scalable but has a really large impact when it comes to building customer loyalty and increasing their engagement.
Enable your product with tools to help the customer explore all the features in your product. This could be via tooltips, tours, checklists etc.
Product updates & blogs are a great way for your customer to know what is going on in the product.
Pramod Gummaraj, CEO, Aprecomm
Be flexible & innovative not just with the product offerings but also with the Pricing. Each market has its unique challenges in terms of affordability when comes to adapting to new technologies. It is important to understand these challenges and come up with a portfolio of modular product options that can cater to requirements based on Geographies and market sensitivity.
Penetration and Upsell strategies are especially important to get customer engagement. At Aprecomm we also educate customers about SAAS (Software as a Service) model and how it makes a difference (simplified deployments, easy manageability, elastic, etc.) compared to legacy deployments.
As a B2B SaaS Startup, I would define customer engagement as the adoption of end users on our platform. To increase customer engagement we look at 3 core attributes (AND) at Courseplay:
Awareness: Do people even know your product exists and what it’s for? Spend time to invite users to use the product, communicate the value proposition visually and make sure they have heard what you have to say. Communicate the “What’s In It For Me” story loud and clear.
Navigation: Do they know what to do and where to go once they are online? Make it intuitively clear where users have to click and avoid having to explain it in a manual.
Delight: Deliver a surprise or a wow factor to hook users and keep them coming back for long term engagement. Only after you have mastered the first two points, invest in beautiful layouts, quicky messages and smooth animations to make your users fall in love.
Shreyan Gandhi – Director and Co-founder, Comket Solutions
Shreyan Gandhi – Director and Co-founder, Comket Solutions
The concept behind customer engagement is self explanatory, you have to provide the consumer with something to engage with! If your service has multiple options for active user engagement your outcome will always result in higher engagement. With tap1ce we’ve provided a reward system that enables our users to earn points based on their usage. They can redeem these points to avail discounts on our Tap1ce store as well as use the points to renew their subscription for the following year.
The use of the latest technology is something that is required for all SaaS startups to increase their customer engagement. Staying in touch with the customers is very important, and products like SuperBot suffice this need by allowing businesses to pay automated reminder calls, new offers, feedback collection calls, etc. If a solution is increasing your productivity, then it is not just an expenditure but an investment.
Pricing plays a vital role in building relationships between the startups and customers. The business’ goal is to get a greater profit, while customers want to get value for money services. The pricing needs to be optimized in a way that business and customers both get benefitted.
Here are the strategies shared by entrepreneurs of SaaS startups on pricing their Saas Products. Read to learn their SaaS pricing strategies.
Shayak Mazumder, Co-founder, Eunimart
Most subscription products need to be priced at a point that it doesn’t make it difficult for the users to continue using the platform. This means that SaaS pricing shouldn’t be more than 10% of the value that the user generates from the platform. So, if a user generates $1mn in GMV, their actual margins or revenues will be $150K approximately. As such, SaaS pricing cannot exceed $10K.
Robin Das, CEO of Brandintelle
Robin Das – CEO of Brandintelle
Here are certain things you could look at when it comes to pricing of your SaaS product-
Analyze your products value addition in terms of efficiency increases for your customer. This is one of the main metrics via which you can demand a certain price.
Your pricing should not only be a function of your costs, but also a function of your value contribution. A good mix of these two is what you should target for.
Study your competitors. This can be a great benchmark. Note that your competitor’s need not be other SaaS tools. They could also just be more manual ways of doing the same thing your product does in a better way.
Pramod Gummaraj, CEO, Aprecomm
We considered 3 main factors during Product pricing:
ROI (return on investment) the product generates – This comes from the market study and talking to customers and understanding how much a product like ours can save time & money and propel business expansion.
Competitive pricing – Our product was innovative in the industry and hence competition comparison was not available
Need – Whether our product is Good to Have or Must Have. We found the customers and markets where Aprecomm’s product is a must have and hence we could draw premium pricing.
Arjun Gupta, Founder, Courseplay
This is tough and it’s still very hard. For us it ultimately came down to value. We asked ourselves what customers would be willing to pay for our product and tweaked it every quarter based on customer feedback. We still revise Courseplay’s pricing each quarter for new customers and once a client is closed at a certain price point, that pricing is locked in for them.
Shreyan Gandhi – Director and Co-founder, Comket Solutions
Shreyan Gandhi – Director and Co-founder, Comket Solutions
We want tap1ce not to be a lifestyle product, not something only a niche audience can use. We’ve priced our product solely on the basis of the cost it takes to keep your links safe and encrypted. We’re only charging our consumers for the service we provide.
The SaaS products are requirement based products. However, the price bracket is curated encompassing several factors like the features, the quality of the technology, thorough market research, services required by the client, and lastly the RoI that the product offers in the end.
Understanding customers is the key to selling your product in market. Gaining an understanding about your customers’ interest in your product gives you an idea of getting success in the market. A minimum viable product (MVP) is a minimal version of a product for early customers. It helps in validating a product idea in the early stage of product development. An MVP should have enough features to be usable by early customers which can help in learning about customers and the market.
Here are insights shared by entrepreneurs on how to decide the features for MVP to get to the market fast.
Shayak Mazumder, Co-founder, Eunimart
Shayak Mazumder, Co-founder, Eunimart
Studying the customer profile will tell us the intersection between what are the biggest problems, the most in-demand solutions, and our USP. This intersection set is the prioritized list of features needed to go to market early.
Robin Das, CEO of Brandintelle
Robin Das – CEO of Brandintelle
Here are certain ways you can decide what to keep in MVP-
Groom your backlog using good product prioritisation techniques.
Make sure your do not spend too much time in building complex features and focus more on quick releases.
Pramod Gummaraj, CEO, Aprecomm
Pramod Gummaraj – CEO, Aprecomm
Aprecomm is solving everyday problem faced by the general Internet customers. Domain Expertise and firsthand experiences faced by our teams helped us to select the MVP. As technologists, we tend to focus on overly sophisticated features and think that would be the key differentiating factor, but they may not be the need of the hour to the customer. This is where we must think very differently. Reach out to customers and talk to them. Mostly, it would be 3 out of 10 features that you have planned that are what the customers’ needs. At Aprecomm, we have focussed on these features as our MVP to hit the markets faster.
Arjun Gupta, Founder, Courseplay
Arjun Gupta, Founder, Courseplay
This brings me back to my first answer – talk to your customers. They will tell you which features are nice-to-have and which features are must-haves. Cut out all the nice-to-haves (and half of the must-haves) and you’ve got yourself an MVP. When we first launched Courseplay we only had the bare minimum learning features on the web. Our employee experience suite for coaching, mentorship, individual development plans, behavioral scorecards, mobile apps, chatbots all came later on. You will be surprised by how little you need to launch the MVP. Stay minimal and stay agile.
Shreyan Gandhi – Director and Co-founder, Comket Solutions
Shreyan Gandhi – Director and Co-founder, Comket Solutions
Because building the software product is always an ongoing process, it makes sense to start with features available at the moment. We’ve adapted the same philosophy in our release timelines. Currently the card allows you to share all sorts of links, but other integrations such as loyalty reward points, multi-brand store to redeem points and other products are to be launched in the 2nd phase. The iOS and android applications too have been scheduled in phase 2 since, our web based platform allows for a dynamic experience without them.
The features which are of utmost necessity to launch the product and get the execution in the process are the ones to keep in MVP. The refinement and addition of features and the evolution of the product is a never-ending process. And if we plan on launching the product only once all the features are live, then the product will never be launched at the right time to capture the market.
Designing a website for your business and creating an appealing & attractive online presence can bring you numerous website visitors, who are your potential clients. Converting those potential customers into loyal paying customers needs a proper strategy. A visitor takes micro-moments on your website to decide upon your brand, capturing those moments strategically can create sales for your business. A good conversion strategy helps you boost your business exponentially.
Here are some tips shared by entrepreneurs from SaaS industry, about how to convert more leads into sales
Shayak Mazumder, Co-founder, Eunimart
Identifying the ICP (ideal customer profile) and buyer personas lead to very pointed GTM (go-to-market) strategies. In our case, we studied the market and realized the exact definition of our customers and what kind of roles in those companies were driving the sales. Based on that, we defined the biggest problem statements they had, the solutions they needed, and our competitive edge. This customized approach led to clarity among the end-users. This led to targeted messaging per customer. This is the secret sauce to converting more leads.
Robin Das, CEO of Brandintelle
Here are certain things you could do convert more leads-
Define your ICP or ideal customer profile.
Make sure your MVP is best suited for your ICP including all your marketing communications and positioning.
Pramod Gummaraj, CEO, Aprecomm
Always understands the customer and his pain points. Do not rush to sell something to the customers without understanding them. Understand their problems and the priority of those, their budget constraints, and then try to see if there is something our product can solve. Be flexible with product features to appeal to the customers.
Stay in touch! I tell this to my sales team at Courseplay all the time. The easiest thing to avoid if you have reached out to the customer at the wrong time is that you forget about them and, even worse, they forget about you. Regular follow-ups and connecting with different people at different levels of the organization would help ensure you are there when they need you.
Shreyan Gandhi – Director and Co-founder, Comket Solutions
Shreyan Gandhi – Director and Co-founder, Comket Solutions
Based on the product we’ve built, the best approach to conversions are demonstrations. Being a product that has a ‘wow’ factor that sells itself, we only have to make sure demos happen frequently and through all channels possible.
If the lead gets qualified, i.e. the person is interested in taking your products/services, then the one tip to convert that lead into sales is rigorous follow-up. The consumer memory is very weak and fickle. If we do not approach them on time and take regular follow-ups, they tend to forget their enquiries as well as get dicey about the need of the same. Also, in a competitive market like today’s the one who approaches first and repetitively, is the one who gets the conversion. Thus the tip is “timely communication”
Every business wants to get a diverse range of growth opportunities. Expanding overseas and seeking international growth is always a temptation for businesses. Ambitious entrepreneurs are always keen to grow globally. International expansion is a huge opportunity for SaaS businesses. Thus, getting foreign clients becomes the need of businesses for this important stage of business growth.
Here are insights shared by entrepreneurs in SaaS business on how they grabbed their foreign clients. Read to know more.
Shayak Mazumder, Co-founder, Eunimart
Most people would advise performance marketing to break into foreign markets. I believe that going for a catch-all GTM model is a sure-shot recipe for disaster. What’s important is to identify the type of users who will find value in the platform. In our case, we realized that our users are b2b businesses, and this is a very concentrated cohort. Performance marketing would mean 92% junk leads. As such, we opted for a mix of content, product-led growth, and channel partnerships. These channels have proved to be extremely effective for us and have led to our growth exponentially.
Robin Das, CEO of Brandintelle
Robin Das – CEO of Brandintelle
Here are certain things you should try to grab foreign clients
Aprecomm products are B2B. Our target customers are Wi-Fi OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and Internet Service Providers. Conferences like Wi-Fi Now and WBA were extremely useful to grab the attention of Wi-Fi OEMs and ISPs (Internet Service Providers). Press Releases using these channels are also quite effective. And there is no better marketing tool than Word of Mouth Marketing. The CXO of the Business we work with highly appreciated our product and they have in turn helped us to gain more customers.
Arjun Gupta, Founder, Courseplay
Word of mouth worked the best for us at Courseplay. We would ask our existing clients if they could refer any business to us and that worked the best to close international clients while we were a much smaller company.
Shreyan Gandhi – Director and Co-founder, Comket Solutions
Shreyan Gandhi – Director and Co-founder, Comket Solutions
To be honest, there isn’t one single channel that has performed the best, it was a culmination of efforts on various platforms that enabled us to expand to foreign clients. We used the LinkedIn search feature to look for prospects. Twitter & Quora are other platforms that helped us. Attending international webinars. Like I said there was no one channel that worked best.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Toch.
We are witnessing a tsunami of video content that is growing every minute. As per the Global Video AI Market data, the growth is measured at supersonic speeds. Statistics show that the market for short-form video content is expected to be at $169.4bn by the year 2025. In the hypersonic world that we live in, the venerated IoT solutions are the only coping mechanism. Toch AI is a SaaS company with cloud-agnostic AI solutions. It offers professional services by taking noisy, large data sets and transforming them into engrossing and compelling hyper-global videos.
Founded by Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil in 2016, the startup intends to disrupt video technology by automating workflow using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms, thereby reducing the go-to-market time and costs and increasing ROI for clients.
StartupTalky interviewed Mr. Vinayak Shrivastav (Co-founder & CEO, Toch) to get insights on the startup story and roadmap ahead of the organization. In this article, you’ll discover how Toch was started, its revenue model, marketing strategies, and more.
December 23, 2021 – Toch.ai partners with USA cricket with an aim to provide video highlights and clips for the Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube channels for USA cricket.
In the hypersonic world that we live in, the venerated IoT solutions are the only coping mechanism. Toch AI is a SaaS company with cloud-agnostic AI solutions. It offers professional services by taking noisy, large data sets and transforming them into engrossing and compelling hyper-global videos. Its modernistic technological solutions converge in ways that act as a huge revenue and time management tool. Toch AI creates a coherent video editing platform with engagement analytics and real-time production capabilities. With its futuristic deep AI technologies, the team renders new assets from the existing data with a deft auto- share option across 30+ social media platforms or any destination website/app.
The startup’s vision is to build tech that empowers creators and enriches content in the dynamic video-centric world. It is at the tip of an undiscovered iceberg when it comes to what AI is capable of. Revolutionizing itself every day while creating cutting-edge technology is a tangible goal. The team doesn’t see themselves selling a general algorithm that fits all. With the expansion of business avenues, small and big enterprises alike, each patron expands and challenges their amenability to mold the technology to their needs. While they have marked themselves today in the field of entertainment, news, and sports, the team at Toch aspires to allocate their AI and ML technologies towards safety and security, healthcare, and education in the future.
“Disrupt video technology by automating workflow using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms thereby reducing go-to-market time and costs and increasing ROI for clients” has been Toch’s mission, which is both possible and plausible with its team of innovators.
The startup also sees itself building an immutable community that drives a profitable economy while creating newer standards for the tech environment.
We are sitting on a tsunami of video content that is growing every minute. As per Global Video AI Market data, the growth is taking place at supersonic speed. Statistics show that the market for short-form video content is expected to be at $169.4bn by the year 2025, and $223.98bn by 2028 (Grand View Research, Inc) with an anticipated CAGR of 21% from 2021 to 2028. As flag bearers of the industry, Toch has the vantage to predict industry demands and possesses the evolutionary AI tools that can deliver groundbreaking and trendsetting solutions at the same time. Analytically in the coming years, the startup would be able to sell across 4 different continents with its repertoire and sizable market shares. Toch functions worldwide with a focus on India, North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.
Toch – Idea & Inspiration
In the year 2016, the founders were sitting at the brink of an undiscovered potential industry that had seen a mighty rise in video content. With human attention span and patience shrinking, there was a dire need to address the video trajectory in respect to real-time. To bridge that gaping hole between unaddressed content and commerce, the potential was immense. It was almost like the ‘light bulb’ moment when Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil formed a SaaS company deploying AI and ML technology that deliberated on an easy-to-use and accessible to all, a cloud-agnostic platform to deliver customized video content in real-time, thereby birthing TOCH AI.
While the founders and other enthusiasts were gung-ho with the projected idea, the main challenge was to integrate a team that would help them to discover the iceberg. Their enthusiastic team helped in molding the idea into a product that disrupted the video content industry. The response was overwhelming and helped the founding team forge ahead, setting a benchmark in the market.
Toch’s product is conceptualized to create epic content that leaves an impact using ingenuity and precision. Toch delivers well-crafted content through AI and ML algorithms in real-time. Creating personalized content has been a brainbox that has greatly appealed to the sport, entertainment, and news industry. Grafting content from raw footage into bite-sized videos in the form of key highlights that hyperbolize the pivotal moments across 30+ social platforms.
Its video editing options, retool and optimize videos in real-time; saving time, labor, negating human error whilst increasing productivity. It is an easy-to-use technology with illimitable resizing of videos that have diverse displays, customizable with client logos, bumpers, and sponsors messages on the dashboard. It renders multiple video formatting, scheduling feeds, innumerable web storage options that offer API and platform models, and multiple publishing renditions.
USP of Toch AI
Toch’s USP is its premium video editing feature that facilitates the patrons with automatic dynamic engagements and insertions to create their own bespoke videos. The team at Toch AI understands one standard solution does not fit all, hence it is imperative to go beyond conventional. Thinking ahead of time and ascertaining a client’s needs, thereby amplifying it with a cutting-edge solution defines vertical innovation.
Idea Pivot
At the genesis of anything, challenges are but obvious. Toch was no different, the founders faced practical challenges that just helped them address and reinvent their own technology. Since they focussed on state-of-the-art technology, it was an intricate process of evolving while remaining grounded to the core product. In their case, “our asset was our team”, which helped them with the critical process.
Toch’s final product was by itself a marketing and branding tool. When presented on different platforms, Toch was received as a welcome change. Employing cutting-edge technology such as Face and Image Recognition, Vision models, Optical Character Recognition, and Audio Detection, saved immense manual labor, erased the scope of error and time consumption phenomenally with a latency of only 10 seconds or less in real-time without altering the resolution of the feed.
Change is essential for growth, so is adaptability. Every person is a potential patron and what may work for one may not satiate the other. Hence malleability and personalization to fit each line of business are vital.
Toch – Founders and Team
Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil are the founders of Toch.
Toch Founding Team – Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil
Vinayak Shrivastav | Co-founder & CEO, Toch
He has a background in engineering and an MBA from London Business School. Vinayak directs Toch towards unique identity, growth plans, strategies, and execution. With Toch.AI, he envisions revolutionizing sports viewership by leveraging AI and ML technology to create real-time personalized content. He firmly believes that “everyone has stories to tell’ – stories that will not only engage, inform, surprise, delight, and impact their audience, but will also deliver on measurable business goals. In his personal time, Vinayak is an avid sports fan and can often be found cheering and rooting for his favorite team.
Alok Patil | Co-founder & CTO, Toch
He is the ‘Torvalds’ of Toch. He is industrious and loves challenges. Accredited with an MCA, his vision is to resolve humongous problems faced by humanity through technology. To quote him, “the world needs more technology-enabled solutions focussed at modernizing human efforts”. He believes that there is never an end to learning and motivates the team to experiment with new ideas. Alok is a vehement advocate of short-form content and a web series buff.
Saket Dandotia | Co-founder & COO, Toch
He is the operational brain behind the technology. His data-first approach ensures Toch is at the top of the game. With skills he picked from the IIM Indore, Saket is the bridge between technology and the market. His grit is focused on harnessing AI-powered disruption in the media space. Exploring the scope of AI in the future is his favorite pastime. Mentoring in Hong Kong Technical University, IIT Indore, and IIM Indore, he seeks to inspire Gen Next.
Toch Team
Since its inception in 2016, Toch has been growing exponentially with a manpower of 60+ personnel across countries. Its team is task-oriented through liberal leadership. As cliche as it sounds, but the founders believe in team building and bonding. Empathy and motivation are synonymous with that idea. At Toch, people understand diversity at its best and use it as a force for synchronous output.
Toch – Name and Logo
The name was thought of from the point of view of “touching” as many lives by cutting through the clutter and personalizing content. This evolved into TOCH only due to the availability of domain names. The logo was created in unison with the brand name.
Toch Logo
Toch – Business Model & Revenue Model
Toch is a SaaS platform and offers different subscription options for its clients. Its business model includes API integration and easy-to-use dashboard services.
Toch’s product has proved its mettle, it has been its own brand ambassador of viability and productivity. The numbers give a fair picture of its joyous sustenance (as of Oct’21) –
12.9M+ videos scanned
1.2B+ hours of video processing time saved
72% increase in viewer time spent on videos
8.3X increase in viewer engagement rate
The startup’s marketing strategy is split into brand marketing and event focussed marketing. With a global b2b target market, social media and digital marketing play a crucial role. Its campaigns focus on thought leadership through podcasts, webinars, and fire-side chats along with event campaigns focussed on the actual benefits of AI technology in the media industry.
Toch – Funding
On October 13, 2021, Toch announced an $11.75 million Series A funding by Moneta Ventures, Baring Private Equity India, Binny Bansal, Ventureast, 9 Unicorns, Anthill Ventures, Cathexis Ventures, SOSV, Artesian, and Innoven Capital (backed by Temasek and United overseas bank).
The funding will be used to scale up technology infrastructure and venture expansion into global markets with a specific focus on foreign markets.
Arul Mehra, Partner at Baring Private Equity India, said, “We believe that AI can make a lot of difference to how content is generated and consumed. Toch.ai is equipped with top notch technology & team which is greatly contributing to the revolution seen in the video sector. Thus we see this as a huge opportunity to be a part of this change as we partner with Vinayak & the team as they chart out the journey towards becoming leaders in the video-tech space.”
The company has raised around $13.3 mn in funding over 7 funding rounds.
Date
Name of the transaction
Transaction amount
Lead investors
Oct 7, 2021
Series A
$11.8 mn
Moneta Ventures, Baring Private Equity India, Binny Bansal
Toch.ai has announced a partnership with USA cricket on December 23, 2021. This partnership aims to bring all the action from the field so that the fans don’t regret missing out on the best moments from the Dafabet USA vs. Ireland Men’s International Series 2021 that began on December 22, 2021, in Florida
Toch has been the official partner of the Indian Premier League that was truncated due to the ongoing pandemic.
The Mumbai-based interactive video shopping platform has also earlier been the official partner of the Australian Open. Furthermore, Toch.ai also frequently collaborates with numerous OTT platforms.
Toch – Recognition & Achievements
Recognized as Best AI startup 2021 by Franchise India and Entrepreneur Media.
Recognized as Nasscom AI Game Changers for the category ‘Computer Vision Award’ for accelerating India with innovation in 2021.
Co-founder and CEO, Vinayak Shrivastav recognized as 30 UNDER 30 Disruptor by BW Businessworld 2021
Co-founder and CEO, Vinayak Shrivastav was recognized as The Most Promising Entrepreneur by ‘The Economic Times Promising Entrepreneurs of India’ 2021.
Co-founder and COO, Saket Dandotia was recognized as the winner of Exchange4Media’s Digital 40 under 40 awards 2021 (public announcement pending).
Toch – Current Growth and Future Plans
Toch has grown from strength to strength over the past couple of years and added many of the big banner broadcasters and OTTs to its portfolio. Although success is relative, partnering for the Indian Premier League, Champions League, and Australian Open events with top OTT broadcasters has defined its learning and experience curve.
Toch is levitating towards extensive engagements and making its mark with AI and ML-based technology in video editing. The applications for this technology can be used in the future for better healthcare services, safety, and security solutions, and education. Its future plans involve a deep dive into the entertainment and news industries and the application of AI-led technologies to create personalized content for its clients.
Toch – FAQs
What is Toch AI?
Toch AI is a SaaS company with cloud-agnostic AI solutions. It offers professional services by taking noisy, large data sets and transforming them into engrossing and compelling hyper-global videos.
Who are the founders of Toch?
Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil founded Toch in 2016.
Is Toch an Indian Company?
Yes. Toch is an Indian company headquartered in Mumbai, India. However, Toch functions worldwide with a focus on India, North America, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.
How does Toch make money?
Toch is a SaaS platform and offers different subscription options for its clients.
What is Toch’s USP?
The USP of Toch is its premium video editing feature that facilitates the patrons with automatic dynamic engagements and insertions to create their own bespoke videos.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Mogi IO.
MOGI is a B2B Video Tech SaaS venture startup that leverages Artificial intelligence (AI) in building cutting-edge IPs to disrupt the Video streaming space in the media tech domain. It has created various products catering to different industries. The startup enables content platforms to stream buffer-free videos, of high quality, at 50% of their size, leveraging its patented AI technology.
StartupTalky interviewed Vikrant Khanna, Founder & CEO of Mogi I/O, to get insights into the startup story and roadmap of the organization. In this article you’ll discover how Mogi was conceptualized, its future plans, business model and funding details, etc.,
Mogi’s solution lies in three buckets: Video Tech, Image Tech, and White Label Solutions.
Video Tech – Mogi has built a disruptive IP – Mogi Streaming Engine for which it has filed for a patent. Mogi Streaming Engine delivers buffer-free videos through its multi-CDN architecture. Its second IP is wherewith AI. Mogi can successfully achieve video compression, which is 50% superior to another transcoding/compressions solution. It does this while enhancing the quality of the video.
Image Tech – Mogi compresses the images of any website or app by up to 80%, which positively impacts the performance of the website/app. It improves their SEO Ranking, while their bandwidth consumption for image data transfer decreases by 80%.
White label solutions – If anyone has the content and wants to launch their own OTT app, they can do so in a few days using Mogi’s plug & play solutions. One can start monetizing their content via Subscription (SVOD), Pay per View (TVOD) & Advertising (AVOD)
Company’s long and short-term Vision: Mogi aims to disrupt the video streaming space by leveraging Artificial intelligence (AI). Its Vision is to be known as a video tech company from India that builds disruptive technology in the video streaming industry. It also aims to bring to people worldwide to enjoy video viewing experience seamlessly with high quality.
The core belief of Mogi: The core belief is that today the 80% of traffic on the internet is video, and as the companies advance, this market will further explode exponentially. The team at Mogi wants to make the whole video viewing experience seamless and pleasurable for every individual user on this planet.
Mogi – Idea and Inspiration
Vikrant and Rahul were initially building a short format video app of their own. To start chatting with the content creators, in this video app, viewers could gift the content creator’s with small ticket values, such as virtual gifts of a small denomination. While building this video app, they realized that a typical content platform has to undergo many tech challenges and complexities. Different solutions providers are involved in streaming the videos seamlessly to the end-user, but still, the user was facing issues like buffering, poor video quality, and jerkiness.
The duo realized that the user experience could be enhanced while watching the videos, but they did not find optimal market solutions. Thus, Vikrant and Rahul decided to build their in-house solution, an answer to address these problems. They were very excited with the results, which encouraged them to file for the patent for the new technologies in 2019. In the meantime, they showed the results to many stakeholders & industry players and got their validation which was another milestone before commercializing it.
One of the early stage clients was MOMPRESSO and Zee digital. Their response was encouraging, and since then, the team has been working with leading companies who have always encouraged them.
Mogi enables content platforms to stream buffer-free videos, of high quality, at 50% of their size, leveraging its patented AI technology. This buffer-free video results in superior viewer engagement while reducing streaming costs to half for the video platform. Mogi has built various products catering to different industries.
These include –
Photo – Image Tech for faster website loading time. 80% image compression for superfast website & app page downloads speeds. Smart Crop and Auto resize based on device. Higher Organic SEO Ranking, Lower bounce rates, Higher Revenue
Video– Video Tech, End-to-End or Individual Modules. 50% Compression with AI-enhanced quality, Patented Multi-CDN tech for buffer-free streaming and emergency redundancies.
MOTT – White Label OTT solutions (App, Backend CMS, Monetization) All monetization options like the content library with no revenue share and all AVoD (advertising video on demand, SVoD (subscription video on request), and TVoD (transactional video on demand) integration with Plug n Play. It takes less time, just 7, to launch one’s own OTT solutions.
Live – Lightweight RTMP live stream, with easy access and easy share.
Idea Pivot
Initially, when the founders pivoted, they had launched it as a short video app. But soon, due to technical issues and market demand, they decided to build their own in-house technology.
“We decided to pivot our business model to what we are today. Presently, MOGI is a B2B Video Tech SaaS venture startup that leverages Artificial intelligence (AI) in building cutting-edge IPs to disrupt the Video streaming space in the media tech domain” – says Vikrant Khanna, Founder & CEO, Mogi I/O.
Mogi – Founders & Team
Vikrant Khanna is the founder and CEO of Mogi. Vikrant’s co-founder is Rahul Lahoria, CTO of Mogi I/O.
Rahul takes care of technology and product management, and Vikrant oversees business, investments, and salary.
Mogi Founder & CEO – Vikrant Khanna
Rahul had met Vikrant when he was the vice president of the platform in Airtel, and they kept in touch with each other. The duo had a long & close friendship, and when Vikrant decided to start on his own, Rahul accepted his offer.
Vikrant’s co-founder is Rahul Lahoria, an MTech in computer science from IIT Kharagpur. Rahul has built AI Solutions & Patented technology, AI, cloud computing & mobile apps for over 10+ years. He has filed six patents to date.
Mogi – Ideology behind name, tagline & logo
Initially, the foudners wanted a name for their short-format video app Mogi; they called it Mogi because it is about mobile gifts. i.e., MO- mobile and GI – gifts. In the short format video app, the fans could give virtual gifts. So when they pivoted the model, the name remained the same. They wanted a catchy logo and thus selected a monkey wearing sunglasses.
Mogi Logo
The tagline of Mogi: Next-gen media technologies
Mogi – Business Model and Revenue Model
Mogi is a B2B video tech SaaS venture. Thus its business model and revenue model circles around subscription fees. Mogi is a Saas product with a subscription fee model, where they charge the end-users based on their bandwidth consumption for videos/images delivered.
Mogi – Launch & Marketing Strategies
Mogi relied on channel partners who had spent more than two decades in the media industry. These people had deep connections in the media community at CTO/ CXO level.
As a part of its GVM strategy, Initially, the team at Mogi relied on the market and now on inside sales, one-on-one sales & a personalized selling/enterprise selling model.
“As we are on our way to scaling up, we have realized the importance of the retail sale model. So, presently, we are also marketing through our website and selling them through online stores, thus investing in marketing, advertising, or similar networks” – Vikrant added.
The most crucial challenge for any startup is acquiring customers and providing them with the belief in the product. Mogi overcame this by regularly giving them the demos and showing them the value of money.
Mogi raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Pentathlon Ventures.
Mogi – Competitors
There are various global companies like brivecurve, JW, Bitmovin, etc.,
Mogi – Future Plans
Mogi recently raised an undisclosed amountfrom Pentathlon Ventures and has plans to raise another round by the end of this year. It is also planning to launch retail products for video & image tech solutions across product segments along with their white label OTT.
Mogi – FAQs
What is Mogi?
Mogi is a B2B Video Tech SaaS venture startup that leverages Artificial intelligence (AI) in building cutting-edge IPs to disrupt the Video streaming space in the media tech domain. It has created various products catering to different industries.
How does Mogi make money?
Mogi is a Saas product with a subscription fee model, where they charge the end-users based on their bandwidth consumption for videos/images delivered.
Who are the founders of Mogi?
Vikrant Khanna is the founder and CEO of Mogi. Vikrant’s co-founder is Rahul Lahoria, CTO of Mogi I/O.
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 Zimyo.
Zimyo is a one-stop solution to all HR needs that helps organizations build a 2X more productive, engaged, and satisfied workforce. It provides cloud-based HR solutions to businesses of all sizes. It offers comprehensive smart HR solutions – Payroll and Expense Management, Performance Management System, Employee Engagement, Employee Benefits, Time and Attendance, and Onboarding and Recruitment solutions.
In just 3 years since its inception in 2018, Zimyo is serving more than 500 organizations with 100,000+ active users! StartupTalky interviewed the Co-founder of Zimyo, Mr, Ajay Kadyan to know the startup story of Zimyo. In this article, you’ll get an insight into how Zimyo was started, its business model, founders’ profile, and more.
Incepted in 2018, Zimyo is one of the fastest-growing unified HCM platforms in the HR tech space that automates tedious HR processes, eliminates payroll errors, and enhances employee experiences. It is a one-stop solution to all HR needs that helps organizations build a 2X more productive, engaged, and satisfied workforce. Furthermore, its intuitive HR solutions help employer organizations to drive improved data-driven decision-making and get better business outcomes.
Zimyo is a one-of-a-kind platform that uses smart technology to provide smarter experiences. The company’s philosophy is purely inclined towards a human-centric design that leverages the power of Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning to build highly efficient products. The platform boasts a voice-user interface to simplify complex tasks using speech to enhance user experience.
Zimyo Logo
The platform features a broad spectrum of modules (over 40+) to offer flexibility to its users. Around 95 percent of Zimyo’s partners find it the easiest platform to switch and set up their complex processes in no time. Further, the platform processes the entire payroll in less than 2 minutes for over 1000 employees in just 3 easy clicks. Its robust analytics-driven employee intelligence system increases team retention by 3X and enables leaders proactively with the power of on-demand data and insights to make quick and informed decisions.
Zimyo’s embedded finance solution enables employee-centric organizations to offer a one-of-a-kind employee engagement experience with benefits like advance salary, employee loans, insurance, and investments. With this solution, Zimyo intends to make financial services more accessible for employees across SMBs. This can help companies attract and retain customers while providing hassle-free financial services.
The Backstory of Zimyo – How it Started?
Kumar Mayank, CEO of Zimyo, has a background in microfinance. It is during his stint with the industry that he realized the absence of “formal credit” for employees. These employees who worked all their lives in factories with a PF account and investments to show had no bank willing to lend them credit when they needed it. Kumar analyzed this gap and decided to create a way to make credit easily accessible to these employees.
There was a need for identifying the mechanism of establishing if there was actual salary transferred, which brought the HR and Payroll of an organization into the picture. That’s how the journey began as Zimyo started an innovation drive that merged FinTech with HRTech from an employee-first perspective.
Along with co-founder Ajay Kadan, who has extensive experience of over 10 years in product development, system architecture, and data analytics, Zimyo plans to bridge the gap between the credit market and SMB employees with their innovative solutions.
Ajay Kadyan and Kumar Mayank (CEO) are the founders of Zimyo.
Ajay Kadyan | Co-founder, Zimyo
Ajay Kadyan – Zimyo Co-founder
Ajay has extensive experience of over 10 years in product development, system architecture, and data analytics. He has helped several organizations in the HR Tech, EdTech, and E-commerce space to build robust products. With his strategic leadership skills and critical thinking, Ajay has successfully built a highly efficient and collaborative team.
Presently, Ajay works as the Co-Founder of Zimyo and spearheads the business with his deep comprehensive industry knowledge. He is currently focused on positioning Zimyo as one of the most preferred brands in the HR tech space. Besides, he works closely with the marketing team to improve Zimyo’s brand visibility and outreach. In addition to this, Zimyo has also joined forces with the sales team to increase client acquisition and improve conversion rate, while working closely with the product team to strengthen the product portfolio.
With his technical and functional knowledge, Ajay envisions empowering leaders and organizations across the world to offer true ‘employee experience’ to their employees, help them get the best out of their workforce, drive higher engagement, and build a differentiating human capital advantage.
Kumar Mayank | Co-founder & CEO, Zimyo
Kumar Myanak’s role as Zimyo’s Founder involves connecting with growth-focused organizations and helping them build a great organizational culture with the help of Zimyo’s product suite. He did his BA Hons in Economics from Delhi University and is an alum of IIM – Lucknow. Before starting Zimyo, Kumar Mayank was associated with well-known companies like Equitas Small Finance Bank, ING Vyasa Bank, and Janalakshmi Financial Services.
With an extensive background in Microfinance, Kumar realized the lack of “formal credit” for employees. These Employees who worked in factories for their entire lives with PF accounts and investments to show for their work could not get credit from banks when needed. Kumar studied this gap and devised a way to make credit easily accessible to these employees.
Zimyo – Business Model and Revenue Model
Zimyo provides cloud-based HR solutions to businesses of all sizes. It offers comprehensive smart HR solutions – Payroll and Expense Management, Performance Management System, Employee Engagement, Employee Benefits, Time and Attendance, and Onboarding and Recruitment solutions. The platform charges a monthly fee from employers based on their needs and the number of employees. The basic package starts from INR 5999/PM/100 employees that can be customized as per their employer’s needs.
From the HR tech space, Zimyo has also entered into the embedded finance segment. It has extended its services to offer employee benefits, tax-saving solutions, retirement plans, and financial assessments. Besides this, the platform has also integrated with other job portals to ensure an efficient hiring process.
In such a short span, the platform has onboarded prominent clients with Zimyo including Bajaj Capital, Hillson Shoes, 88 Pictures, iMocha, Yethi, M2P, TheData Team, Fleetx, Riskcovry, and many among others. Apart from this, Zimyo’s direct integration with other job portals makes the hiring processes more efficient by eliminating the need for manual data entry on multiple sites and removing the need to check back in on job posts.
Given the exacerbating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, physical & mental wellness, financial stability and job security have become top concerns for employees. To handle the crisis well, Zimyo is bringing employee wellness to the forefront. Being a people-centric company, Zimyo is emphasizing on “Employee First” culture by adopting policies such as group health insurance, reimbursement for COVID vaccinations, paid leave for vaccinations, paid medical leave for COVID positive employees, mental wellness & engagement sessions, and additional insurance cover for oxygen concentrators & medical emergency.
In addition to this, Zimyo also supports its partner organizations in building a positive and productive work culture. It has partnered with various integrators to provide Benefits such as Insurance, Tax Saving Investment Options, Wealth Management Solutions, Expense/Credit Cards, and much more.
Currently, Zimyo is serving more than 500 organizations with 100,000+ active users. Along with HRMS & other modules, Zimyo’s ‘Benefits’ module has also seen a high user adoption rate. A bunch of Zimyo’s existing partners have opted for Zimyo benefits and are very happy with the offerings under this newly launched module.
It has also designed a bilingual mobile app to further ensure a seamless employee experience. The platform has received avg. 4.2+ ratings from its users on various platforms. Recently, Zimyo has been also recognized by G2 as a “High Performer” in the HRMS, Payroll, and Time & Attendance Software categories – earning a total of 7 accolades.
In such a short span, the platform has onboarded prominent clients with Zimyo including Bajaj Capital, Hillson Shoes, 88 Pictures, iMocha, Yethi, M2P, TheData Team, Fleetx, Riskcovry, and many among others.
Zimyo is one of the fastest-growing unified HCM platforms in the HR tech space that automates tedious HR processes, eliminates payroll errors, and enhances employee experiences.
Who are the founders of Zimyo?
Ajay Kadyan and Kumar Mayank (CEO) are the founders of Zimyo.
How Zimyo makes money?
Zimyo provides cloud-based HR solutions to businesses of all sizes. The platform charges a monthly feefrom employers based on their needs and the number of employees. The basic package starts from INR 5999/PM/100 employees that can be customized as per their employer’s needs.
When was Zimyo started?
Zimyo was launched in 2018.
How much funding has Zimyo raised?
Zimyo raised seed funding of $1.5 million led by BEENEXT in September 2020.
Today Singapore is emerging to be the new home to a technology-based startup ecosystem in Asia, with an ever-growing number of companies, and is on the verge of becoming the next Silicon Valley. With an immense growth of $21 billion value, Singapore has made deliberative efforts in recent years for the development of its startup ecosystem. However, it is the baseline for the startups, enterprises, and multi-national companies, for them to manage their operations in the region and beyond. In 2020, there was an increase of the top ecosystems by 30%, while it was 20% in 2012.
The primary reasons are that the companies are gratified with their business response, along with the pro-trading policies and effectual fiscal regime. Therefore, Singapore has been listed as the world’s top ecosystem. Also, the Singapore government seems to play a greater role in developing a growth plan for young startups. With good financial assistance, the government has administered startup expansion strategies with the introduction of new innovative schemes for businesses more often.
The big boost is that the Singapore government has extended the capital gains exemption for startups until they are more stable. The startup’s first $73,000 in income will be released by 75%. In 2018 they raised tax deductions for IP registration fees from 100% to 200% and qualifying costs acquired on R&D from 150% to 250%.
There is a program, called Enterprise Singapore’s Startup SG, which provides professional mentoring to young startups, along with equity financing, business loans as well as non-repayable funds as per protocols.
Perhaps it is a win-win situation for Singapore’s ecosystem to emerge. However, The FinTech Festival was introduced to celebrate the biggest fintech success story (for innovation and knowledge). It is this platform that facilitates strong team cohesion between government, corporations, and startups.
Although we have already discussed some of the top startups from different countries, and quite apparently we take a move ahead at the complete list of Singapore’s unicorn startups.
Attune Technologies is the global leader in regards to the healthcare ecosystem and has pioneered cloud-based products. The platform offers next-generation Healthcare IT products to generate profits for its customers. And so far, they have reached more than 15 countries in the Indian Subcontinent, South East Asia, Middle East, and Africa.
Fund Raised:
With a raise of $16 million over 3 rounds and funded by 2 investors- Norwest Venture Partners and Qualcomm Ventures, Attune Technologies results in integrating hospitals, pharmacies, labs, radiology, blood banks, medical devices, accounting, and insurance companies, for growth in revenues and operational efficiency.
Recently, there have been two powerful apps launch, to minimize the existing communication gap and collaboration in the healthcare area.
V-Key is Singapore’s most reliable software security service that helps in mobile identity and verification, user access, payment protection, and data protection. Recently they have come up with a more secured version of cryptographic software called V-OS which is internationally patented as well.
V-OS is basically designed for cloud-based payments for mobile banking, and is the first virtual secure element of the world, and allows businesses to create delightful customer experiences. Major Banks, payment gateways, government agencies, and enterprises are the constant supporters.
Fund Raised:
The fund raised is $16M over 2 rounds and is funded by two investors: IPV Capital and Ant Group. They have also won a series of awards- the National Infocomm Awards as the 2nd Runner Up for Most Innovative Product/Solution in 2016, the Association of Information Security Professionals (AiSP) Cybersecurity Awards 2019– SME (Vendor) and GATES GOLD Special Award for Innovative Solutions for Vendor in 2019.
More importantly, their products have been esteemed by proficiency testing and inter-laboratory comparisons across the world. More than 9 security penetration test was augmented, but V-OS cybersecurity never failed to exploitable vulnerabilities and has never been disintegrated, and its strength is unquestionable— which marked its territory in the truest sense.
Insider is perhaps the first Integrated Growth Management Platform (GMP) that enables digital marketers to drive growth from acquisition to activation, retention, and revenue.
Many marketers can easily automate their stories to target the right customers with Insider’s AI-powered recommendation engine. With these predictive visitor segments, marketers can easily optimize their personalized brand stories across the right ad channels and devices.
Fund Raised:
Well, the global spread of Insider offices is on a competitive edge and is not an easy feat. In 6 rounds, Insider has raised a total of $46.1 million in funding by 9 investors.
Hande Cilinger is the founder and CEO and is ranked as one of the top three women CEOs outside the US and clients like Singapore Airlines, Estee Lauder, and L’Oreal.
Ninja Van
Yearfounded: 2014
Ninja Van is a tech-based logistics provider that is growing leaps and bounds across south-east Asia. With untroubled delivery services for businesses, Ninja Van is a blessing to its clients to deliver more than a million packages daily to customers in six countries – Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Alibaba’s Lazada, Shopee, and Indonesia’s Tokopedia are some of their e-commerce partners.
Fund Raised:
To date in over 5 rounds, Ninja Van has raised more than $400 million and is funded by 12 investors. By April 2020, their latest round gave them $279 million of funding. Probably the startup is on the verge of gaining unicorn status. They might also plan another round of funding before an IPO or sale.
As because coronavirus has knocked on, online shopping for contactless buying was the new normal which indirectly help these platforms to gain unicorn status. Ninja Van is one such platform.
Number of Startups per city in Switzerland
Funding Societies
Yearfounded: 2015
Funding Societies is a Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) digital financing platform that connects with investors, making reliable SMEs likely to make more and connects those with retail and institutional lenders to solve the financial inclusion issue.
They are the first peer-to-peer platform to engage an escrow agency to keep investor’s funds safe and independent. It received operating licenses from Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
They have won a series of awards like the Global Excellence Award from ITU telecom. Needless to say that ‘Funding Societies’ has reached unicorn status. In 5 years, Funding societies had financed over 3.3 million business loans with more than $1.8 billion in funding.
Fund Raised:
They raised a total of $112.5 million over 7rounds and were funded by 10 investors and in December 2020, they received investment capital from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation. However, the amount is not disclosed. With this investment, prospective partnerships and collaborations were introduced.
To expand its technology team across the region and develop its strategic and new business models in its next stage of evolution, pushing its vision of financial inclusion for SMEs in Southeast Asia, is the aim of Funding Societies.
Doctor Anywhere
Yearfounded: 2016
Doctor Anywhere is an online 24/7 healthcare platform that gives quick access to its users. With a strong network of skilled doctors, they reach out to any location for wellness and health solutions via video call and users can get medication delivered to their house within hours.
Based on personalized preferences, ‘Doctor Anywhere’ modifies the traditional medical system in all aspects, making healthcare more efficient and more convenient. Now as coronavirus started to spread, Doctor Anywhere gained more popularity with more than 1,300 general practitioners and health care specialists in Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore registered on the platform.
Fund Raised:
Doctor Anywhere raised a total of $31.3 million in 2 rounds, and 5 investors have funded the business plan. And in the latest round in March 2020, they raised $27 million from a group of investors, including Malaysian hospital operator IHH Healthcare. Also, an online mental health video consultation service was launched in October 2020.
AIDA that focuses on delivering Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the insurance and banking branch is perhaps the best-known marketing strategy, for it has stood the test of time. In the most general sense, it is a popular developer of machine learning solutions for risky compliance analytics. Driven by an eagerness for success and effective solutions, the award winner offers a set of smart AI solutions for companies across all organizational levels.
The awards won are the FinTech Innovation Award 2017, Global FinTech and Hackcelerator Award 2016, and AI & Machine Learning solutions Award.
Fund Raised:
In 2019 AIDA raised 1 round and is funded by 3 investors. However the investment will be put into market penetration and North Asia’s expansion, focusing on Hong Kong and Japan. AIDA therefore can be called the new wave tech startup with global potential and its counterparts.
Horangi
Yearfounded: 2016
Horangi is a SaaS cybersecurity platform that provides solutions to industry leaders for a secure organization. Safer cyberspace and technology-designed software that solves challenging cybersecurity problems are what Horangi is all about.
Fund Raised:
Horangi raised US$23 million in Series B round and with the funding Horangi concentrates on the cloud security product to strengthen Cyber Security in Southeast Asia. Gojek, Ninja Van, Shopback, and Property Guru are the investors of Horangi. Other Investors include Monk’s Hill Ventures, Right Click Capital, and Genetic Alternative Ventures.
Skuad is a digital platform that helps companies effortlessly build, pay, and manage globally virtual teams, without setting up local offices. With Skuad, there is no worry to hire talent from anywhere in the world as it has control over global payroll, taxation, and local compliance.
Fund Raised:
In December 2020, Skuad is estimated to have raised $4 million over 1 round, along with 4 investors. Hence the startup is becoming a mere necessity for remote employment infrastructure to scale its growing team in various geographies. And with this, they aim to become the next standardized economic hub for remote working.
Volofin
Yearfounded: 2020
Powered by Blockchain Technology, VoloFin is Singapore’s next-generation fintech platform offering accounts receivable financing for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore, India, and the USA. It is also the first company to leverage digital ledger, however making a bridge for SME lending while delivering value to equity owners. As a result, SME’s get immediate price indications and capital expansion.
VoloFin is user-friendly and it allows a quick and easy onboarding journey. The best part is that companies can profit their business without bothering about the risk involved, as the whole trade cycle is on the blockchain, however making it watertight and transparent for all stakeholders.
Along with AI capabilities, VoloFin also has a team of reliable professionals to support its clients. More than 200 customers are associated with this highly advanced technology, including Gojek, Shop Back, Ninja Van, Property Guru, and Marine Insurance Singapore. There are a total of 5 offices around the globe.
Fund Raised:
VoloFin is invested by 9 investors with a total raise of $23.1 million. And in March 2020, VoloFin had a good hit with a raise of $20 in the latest round.
FAQs
How many startups are there in Switzerland?
According to a report by IFJ, a total of 33,617 new companies were founded in the first three quarters of 2020 in Switzerland.
Which country has the most startups?
The United States has the most number of Startups as of 2020.
Is Switzerland a good place to start a business?
Switzerland is a great starting point for businesses that want to enter the European market. As it has a strategic location.
Conclusion
Overall it may be said that Singapore is predominantly quick-witted for its economic dynamism. And so far, it is counted among the world’s top ecosystems with the 17th rank, and it’s still been trying to prove its resilience to the world. Even after the worst economic decline, caused by the pandemic, Singapore has made a progressive recovery.
In 2021, Singapore’s GDP grew by 4-6%, sticking to the records of November 2020. Hence it is rated as the second-best country with an international launch and is listed in ‘The World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Ranking’, because of its stable currency and unlimited trade and capital contributions-inflows and outflows.
Rishabh Rathi
