Tag: success story

Observe.AI – This AI-Powered Agent Will Take Your Operational Efficiency To Next Level

With all the buzz about the modern technology with AI and VR that seem to be taking the world by surprise one after another, it has become imperative for companies to keep up with these trends and make the most of it. To sufficiently provide a solution to this, Akash Singh, Sharath Keshava Narayana, and Swapnil Jain launched Observe. AI in 2017.

Observe.AI is an AI-powered agent enablement platform for voice customer service. Leveraging the latest speech and natural language processing technologies, Observe.AI enables organizations to quickly analyze 100% of calls. With Observe.AI, support teams improve call quality, monitor compliance, and coach agents into top performers. Observe.AI’s main aim is to transform the $300B voice customer service industry by turning every agent into your best brand representative through AI-based insights and coaching. In a digital world, agents provide a rare opportunity to humanize brands and improve the customer experience, Observe.AI wants to accomplish this through this venture.

Startup Name	Observe.AI
Headquarter	San Francisco, CA
Sector	Analytics, Voice AI
Founders	Akash Singh, Sharath Keshava Narayana, Swapnil Jain
Founded	2017
Parent Organization	Z21 Labs
Website	www.observe.ai

About Observe.AI and How it Works
Observe.AI – USP and Innovation
Observe.AI – Target Market Size
Founders of Observe.AI and team
How was Observe.AI Started?
Observe.AI – Name, Tagline, and Logo
Observe.AI – Startup Launch
Observe.AI – Funding and Investors
Observe.AI – Advisors and Mentors
Observe.AI – Growth

About Observe.AI and How it Works

Observe.AI' Dashboard & Features — Observe.AI’ Dashboard & Features

Observe.AI is a Voice AI platform that transcribes and analyzes 100% of voice customer service calls by using the latest Speech Recognition, Natural Language Processing, and deep learning technologies. This solves several problems for Contact Centers:

Fixing a broken Quality Assurance system: On average, only .003% of calls are reviewed for quality and compliance purposes. With Observe.AI, 100% of calls are analyzed. Additionally, with Voice AI call scoring is objective and data-driven (rather than randomly selecting calls to review, which is how the process works today).
Compliance & Security: The platform automatically identifies violations in compliance. Additionally, features like automatic PII redaction protect sensitive user data.
Targeted agent enablement and coaching: Voice AI enables supervisors to provide targeted, data-driven feedback to agents. On average, our customers provide 10X more feedback to agents per MO and have reduced onboarding time by more than 20%.
Operational improvements: With Voice, AI companies improve key contact center metrics, such as improving CSAT (5%); lowering Average Hold Time; lowering Dead Air; and improving the Quality Analyst to Agent ratio
Understanding the VoC to improve Customer Experience: Sentiment analysis via Voice AI helps companies understand how customers feel about the support experience and its products/services with objective proof.

Also Read: 13 Tips To Make A Video Ad To Pump Up Your Sales

Observe.AI – USP and Innovation

Legacy speech analytics and talent management systems are simply not meeting the needs of the world’s top brands. Today’s Voice Customer Service agents have a unique ability to emotionally connect with customers and are often a brand’s only frontline representatives. Observe.AI strives to turn every agent into the best possible brand representative through AI-based insights and coaching. The prime USP’s of Observe.AI include:

Built for Contact Centers: We offer the highest transcription accuracy in the Contact Center Space (80%, which is higher than Google and Amazon for Contact Centers). We’ve built our entire Platform around the Contact Center use case.
Rapid integration: We are the quickest solution to go live in the Speech Analytics Contact Center industry. Our customers go live in just two weeks and we offer one-click integration with Talkdesk in an industry where it can take 3MO+ just to get up and running.
Proprietary SpeechNLP: Our engineering and Machine Learning teams have rolled out some truly ground-breaking features for Sentiment Detection, Silence Detection, and automated Redaction on calls.

Observe.AI – Target Market Size

Industry: Voice Customer Service
Target Market Size: $300B

Advancements in Natural Language Processing, Speech Recognition, and deep learning will only continue to dramatically improve. This will increase transcription accuracy while opening up new opportunities to automate tedious processes, such as compliance tracking and quality evaluations. It will also open up new opportunities to augment agents with conversational insights on live calls in 2020.

With these advancements, support teams will be able to use Voice AI more efficiently and intuitively than ever immediately putting the data to practical use. With more voice data, support teams will be able to better understand performance trends and make predictions. New integrations and alliances will also help teams leverage learnings from Voice AI across other channels, including email and chat.

Also Read: Should You Have Pop-ups On Your Website?

Founders of Observe.AI and team

Swapnil Jain, Co-founder & CEO: Swapnil is an IIT Delhi graduate and comes with a strong technology background. Before Observe.AI, he led user growth at Twitter and opened Twitter’s India office. As CEO at Observe.AI, he focuses on product innovation.
Sharath Keshavanarayana, Co-founder & CRO: Sharath is a second-time entrepreneur with over 14 years of experience in building and managing global sales teams at Unbxd, AWS, and Akamai. As the CRO at Observe.AI, he focuses on go-to-market functions, such as sales, marketing, and Customer Success.
Akash Singh, Co-founder & CTO: Akash is an IIT Delhi graduate and has both high-tech and startup experience. He works from Bengaluru and manages the engineering team.

How was Observe.AI Started?

In 2017, the co-founders Swapnil and Akash had a hunch that advancements in Speech, Natural Language Processing, and AI were opening up new opportunities across every industry and vertical. When they took a trip to the Philippines, these two entrepreneurs happened to realized that they could use these technologies to transform the way work is done by the world’s 100M contact center agents.

In 2017, they brought in co-founder Sharath who has many years of experience working in Contact Center software. During an early trip to Manila, they were shocked to see how inefficient agents were working because of outdated processes and technologies. That’s because Contact Centers typically quality check just 1-2% of their total calls. That means agents, who take an average of 1000 calls per month, only receive feedback on 2-4 of those calls each month that are typically randomly selected.

In the Philippines, the co-founders saw that many teams were using multiple systems and spreadsheets just to quality check a single call. At a time when 1 out of every 2 customers goes unsatisfied with their experience, they knew there was a massive opportunity to make life better for both Contact Center employees and their customers. And hence they validated the idea for Observe.AI when the co-founders landed their first 100 clients and drove multi-million revenue in 9MO

Observe.AI – Name, Tagline, and Logo

Observe.AI’s Logo

The tagline of Observe.AI is “Turn every agent into your best brand representative with Voice AI.” That’s because the ventures believe that agents are the voice of the brand, and they interact with customers and prospects more often than anyone else at an organization.

Also Read: How to Get The Much-Needed Initial Traction For Your Startup

Observe.AI – Startup Launch

Observe.AI is a product-centric company, and it has built a world-class AI Platform. The numbers don’t lie and this AI-powered agent happens to have an 80% transcription accuracy (vs. industry-average 75%), 80% silence detection (vs 72%), and 87% sentiment analysis (vs. 78%).

“We also take onboarding and customer success very seriously. We get our customers to live quicker than anyone else in our industry (two weeks versus the typical 3MO) and offer dedicated onboarding, Customer Service, and ongoing training.” Said one of the co-founder – Swapnil.

Finally, Observe.AI has the unique advantage of having built several alliances early-on with companies like Talkdesk, Microsoft, and leading BPOs (ERCBPO and ItelBPO).

Observe.AI – Funding and Investors

Over the years, Observe.AI has raised a huge amount of funding. In August 2017, it raised $ 900K in the pre-seed round from Emergent Ventures. Again in January 2018, it raised an amount in the same round worth $120K from Y Combinator. Nexus Venture partners invested $7.1 Million in the seed round in May 2018. Recently in December 2019, it raised Series A funding worth $26.2 Million from Scale Venture Partners.

Date	Stage	Amount	Investor
August 2017	Pre-Seed	$900k	Emergent Ventures
January 2018	Pre-Seed	$120k	Y Combinator
May 2018	Seed	$7.1 Million	Nexus Venture
January 2018	Series A	$26.2 Million	Scale Venture Partners

Observe.AI – Advisors and Mentors

Andy Vitus, Partner, Scale Venture Partners
Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners
Dick Costolo, Founder 01 Advisors, / Ex-CEO Twitter

Also Read: Success Story of Knowlarity- The First Ever Cloud Telephony Venture of India!

Observe.AI – Growth

Company size: 52
Work culture: Observe.AI has built one of the most diverse teams in the Bay Area and have a global culture that spans San Francisco, Bangalore, and Dallas, Texas. Two of the company values are trust and transparency. Critical information about the business and learning is shared at every level, and the top-level management trusts every employee to make the best decisions in their role/own their responsibilities.
Hiring: Observe.AI is hiring for roles across every department in our Bengaluru, San Francisco, and future Dallas office.
Funding: With the recent $26 Million Series A round, the total funding stands at $34.3M.

January 20, 2020

Hidecor- Crafting the New-age Workspaces

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.

As the new generation, there’s a lot more than money and incentives that motivate us to go to work. Well crafted workspaces and decor are one of them. Companies are actively investing in creating interesting and creative work stations for their employees. Exploiting this insight to the core cofounders Anantha VR, Sujith Gopalakrishnan, and Bhavesh Godhania founded Hidecor in 2015.

Hidecor was established with the sole idea of creating office spaces that reflect the vision and ideas that the organization represents. Hidecor helps companies design and create young, lively and vibrant office spaces that make the employees proud of where they work and push them to be more productive each day.

Hidecor Highlights

Startup Name	Hidecor
Headquarter	Bangalore
Founder	Anantha VR, Sujith Gopalakrishnan & Bhavesh Godhania
Sector	Interior Designing
Founded	2015
Parent Organization	HIDECOR PVT. LTD.
Website	hidecor.in

About Hidecor and How it Works
Hidecor – USP
Hidecor – Target Market
Hidecor – Founders and Team
How was Hidecor Started
Hidecor – User Acquisition
Hidecor – Startup Challenges
Hidecor – Competitors
Hidecor – Growth
Hidecor – Awards & Recognitions
Hidecor – Future Plans

About Hidecor and How it Works

HIDECOR offers three distinct services. These are:

Architecture Workplace Strategy Consulting
Bespoke Interior Design
Creative Space Building

Hidecor strives to be a one-stop solution for any brand who is looking to design and build their new office or simply renovate their existing one to optimize space and improve workforce productivity. .They focus on the real-time problems of clients right from the inception and more often than not, start with finding the right space which fits the client specifications and turns it around to build an agile and futuristic office for its team.

Hidecor – USP

Hidecor’s unique selling proposition is that they build a fully functional and optimized workplace in less than 90 days. The use of technology like BIM, Revit, and VR helps Hidecor to reach the accuracy in everything that they do be it design or operations.

Hidecor – Target Market

According to Statista, in 2016, the global interior design market was valued at approximately 121.1 billion U.S. dollars. The latest data suggests the global interior design services market size will grow by USD 23.15 billion during 2019-2023, with 35% of the growth coming from APAC. In the next 5 years, the market is expected to accelerate growth at a CAGR of over 4%.

Factors that are driving the market growth are:

Increase in worldwide construction activities.
Growth in demand from the commercial infrastructure sector.
Improvement in standard of living and introduction of premium interior designing services.
There is a rise in the demand for smart planning and technology-integrated design services resulting from the development of smart cities, smart government institutes, airports, healthcare, and infrastructure for the public sector, driving the commercial design space.

Also read: Success Story of De Space

Hidecor – Founders and Team

Anantha VR is the CEO of Hidecor. He is an aggressive entrepreneur with a track record of delivering winning results. He has a hardcore experience in turning around businesses, developing new business units and conceptualizing and launching new products as well as effectively managing international and domestic clients. With a successful sales journey of 13+ years in versatile sectors including Technology, Enterprise Mobility, IT advisory and Research, software products & ICT services, this entrepreneur has done it all.

Sujith Gopalakrishnan is the COO of Hidecor. Sujith, too has a wide array of experience in the field. Before co-founding Hidecor, he was the head of operations at Pearson Education for three years. He has graduated from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies with an MBA and did his B.COM from Bangalore University.

Bhavesh Godhania is the Principal Architect at Hidecor. Graduated from St Francis school of design with a master diploma in interior designing, Bhavesh has had a lot on his plate before co-founding Hidecor. He was a partner at BG design, senior project interior designer at DSP Design Associates, interior design consultant at Exquisite interiors to only name a few.

At Hidecor, Bhavesh handles the design part while Sujith makes the design come to life at the site by handling the whole operation. Anantha is the face of Hidecor and handles the whole organization keeping it balanced and healthy.

Currently, they are a team of 17 people at Hidecor.

Also read: How to effectively divide Work in Team

How was Hidecor Started

Hidecor was founded in 2015 with a vision to become a one-stop solution for workspaces designs. With intense research on workspaces around the globe, the Hidecor team realized that the Indian workspace market was not so organized due to a multi-channel approach. So they decided to solve the issue of time v/s cost to enterprises with their transparent operations model, where the team works with manufacturers directly for all the materials thereby cutting corners of dealers or multiple contractors involved which saves huge costs to the client. With the use of technology like BIM, VR, and Revit, they successfully address the challenge of time taken for the delivery of the project.

With a focused approach to making agile and futuristic workspaces, the company wants to be a partner for all enterprises right from the inception of them finding the space. They also help their clients to do a preliminary analysis of multiple parameters of any workspaces as an added value factor to them.

Hidecor – User Acquisition

When Hidecor started, they focussed more on networking, leveraging Ex-Corporate Contacts and ensuring that their initial projects are exceptional to create a contagious effect of word of mouth marketing. Also, referrals were cashed upon heavily and continue to be their biggest source of leads to date.

We invest in our team and believe in working with dedicated partners and growing together. Such partnerships have worked quite well for us. Also, the brand-building can’t be done in a day, so we try to keep things as organic as possible. – says Hidecor founder and CEO, Anantha V R.

Hidecor – Startup Challenges

One of the main roadblocks in the way for Hidecor was that the industry, contractors, laborers, manufacturers, and dealers are very unorganized with an imbalance in pricing and timelines. With the help of deep knowledge on 10000+ products across various segments, they bring in the standardization of pricing which helps the client to save a huge cost.

Also, the idea of Hidecor is to design the space with maximum utility. A vibrant office isn’t necessarily optimized, especially in terms of space utilization, which in turn can translate into recurring expenditure from the client’s pocket. Hence Hidecor focuses on creating more meaningful spaces with at par industry standards of space utility with world-class designs.

Hidecor – Competitors

This a fairly competitive market. Well, anyone who thinks can design an office space without taking subject matter opinion like Hidecor is competition.

Hidecor – Growth

Current locations- Bangalore & Hyderabad.
Year on Year growth – over 100%
Revenue – INR 30 Crores
Clients – TITAN, Decathlon, Bigbasket, Fluke, Novotech, Mitra Biotech, Ashirvad Aliaxis, Furlenco, OneCoWork, Grabhouse, ShopX, etc.

Also read: Best Growth Hacking Techniques for Startups

Hidecor – Awards & Recognitions

Being trusted by brands like Bigbasket, Decathlon, Titan, Mitra Biotech has been an overwhelming experience for the Hidecor team. Also, most of their business comes through referrals, which is a huge vote of confidence for them showered by their clients.

Also, they won the “Autodesk Entrepreneur Impact Program” in 2019 and use its digital prototyping software for all the projects.

Hidecor – Future Plans

The future initiatives of Hidecor will be focussed on penetrating the international markets mainly Singapore and Dubai.

January 14, 2020

AirCarry – Shop Your Favorite Products Across the World Right Here

There are particularly two things that every person loves to do – Shopping and Traveling; apart from exploring and enjoying the various lip-smacking cuisines/food. Today we live in an interconnected world and as the world is getting smaller, people are getting exposed to wonderful products from across the globe. But most shoppers don’t get to enjoy their desired overseas products due to their unavailability in their home country/local region.

Also, there are times when international products and new releases can be hard to avail of in one’s city or region. For example, limited edition handbags from Chanel or a beauty product from MAC/Clarins. One might want to have access to the new release that only exists in Paris or the US. This leaves you with 2 options – either pay the exorbitant international shipping fee or plead to a friend or family member to bring them their favorite overseas product on their trip.

To address this issue AirCarry.io was launched in 2019 by Preetham Siddalingaswamy. AirCarry is a web platform that helps Shoppers to get products from anywhere in the world through a verified traveler on the AirCarry community who would purchase and deliver the product for a fee.

Startup Name	AirCarry
Headquarter	Bangalore
Sector	eCommerce, Travel & Logistics
Founders	Preetham Siddalingaswamy
Founded	2019
Parent Organization	AirCarry, Inc.
Website	aircarry.io

About AirCarry and How it Works
AirCarry – USP and Innovation
AirCarry – Target Market Size
Founders of AirCarry and team
How was AirCarry Started
AirCarry – Startup Launch
AirCarry – Startup Launch
AirCarry – Business Model and Revenue Model
AirCarry – Startup Challenges
AirCarry – Growth
AirCarry – Future Plans

About AirCarry and How it Works

AirCarry is a simple to use web platform that is mobile friendly and allows Shoppers across the globe to get any product from anywhere in the world. A Shopper just needs to paste the product link from the international website and in 3 simple steps will be able to get her/his favorite overseas product through an international traveler. On the other hand, Travellers can capitalize on their unused baggage space and offset some of their travel expenses – Travellers can pick and choose which product they want to deliver by going to the orders page on the website. AirCarry has partnered with robust world-class Payment systems like PayPal, which ensures safe and secure transactions on its platform. Shoppers’ funds are transferred to the traveler only after the Shopper has received the product. Shoppers and Travellers can communicate & clarify all things on AirCarry.io through the AirCarry chat messenger system.

Also Read: Everything you need To know about Retarget Marketing

AirCarry – USP and Innovation

AirCarry wants to develop the philosophy of ‘One World. One Community’ and build the world’s most trusted peer-peer community that brings together Shoppers and Travelers alike. While the discerning shoppers get to buy and experience products they care for, AirCarry wants the travelers to earn a little in exchange that will offset some of their travel expenses and further enable them to travel and see more of this beautiful world, we all call home.

AirCarry – Target Market Size

AirCarry is set to disrupt the traditional expensive courier industry by creating its peer to peer gig economy in the Travel space between Shoppers and Travellers. Assocham recently published in EconomicTimes that the Luxury goods market alone in India is over $30 Billion and as per Boston Consulting Group this same market in China is over $120 Billion with over one-third of this spend happening overseas. When you add other product category segments like Electronics, Cosmetics, Beauty products, FMCG, Clothing, automobile accessories, etc and expand it across geographies like South East Asia, Latin American countries, Europe and Russia the opportunity get much bigger, as far as billions of dollars.

On the other hand, the number of international travelers is increasing exponentially year after year – if you look up at the sky, around 1.2 million people are flying on 9,700 planes at any given point of time. Over 50% of these passengers are frequent fliers or passengers with excess/unused baggage space like young professionals, backpackers, students, etc. AirCarry now provides these globetrotters a way to capitalize on their unused baggage space and offset some of their travel expenses.

Preetham says: “I realized this is a massive opportunity since nowadays everyone is aware of the various amazing products available across the globe and many times shopping from an international market is a much better option. Most of us in the team have spent our lives living and working away from our home countries before we got together to build this peer-to-peer community. We put in significant time & effort to ensure we design the most user-friendly & a simple system that supports people from different cultures and geographies. AirCarry.io today operates in over 80 countries.”

Founder of AirCarry and Team

Preetham has an undergraduate degree in Computer Science engineering. After having worked in the IT industry for a couple of years, he went on to pursue his MBA at North Carolina State University in Supply Chain Management and Finance. He has over 14 years of experience in Supply Chain and Logistics in the Oil & Gas Industry by working for the most prestigious Oil & Gas firm, Chevron. As part of Chevron’s future leaders’ program, he got to live and work in several international cities across the globe and is known for building and managing high performing teams across countries and continents. Preetham is passionate about helping people, traveling and is a foodie at heart.

Preetham is supported by an equally talented, dedicated and fantastic team that shares his passion for travel, technology, and shopping. Most of them have spent their lives living & working abroad before returning to their home country, which has helped them in truly understanding the opportunity at hand and think from the Shopper’s and Traveller’s perspective while designing the product.

How was AirCarry Started

AirCarry is built on Preetham’s experiences from the years he spent living overseas as well as in India. Experience of craving for something from India when he was away and on the contrary, longing for a few of the things not available when he came back home. It could have been a breakfast cereal or a sweet that he craved for, or a particular brand of apparel and the list is endless. This left him with the only choice – to wait for a traveling friend, family member or colleague to get those little things that give one joy for such little things are what makes this life joyful, right?

It is this experience that got him thinking that there are many of us in a similar state of affairs, and this made him float the AirCarry platform. The basic idea was mainly to build a trusted community of Shoppers and international Travelers.

Name, Tagline, and Logo

AirCarry logo

The logo of AirCarry has a hot air balloon carrying a gift box which indicates the scenic route a product, that is most cherished and desired by a Shopper, takes on its journey with a Traveller on the AirCarry community. The Team truly believes that they are delivering happiness to everyone in the AirCarry Community.

AirCarry – Startup Launch

Since the launch, AirCarry has helped people to send gifts to their loved ones living across countries; it has helped parents who have extended their stay abroad to get their life-saving drugs from back home; it has helped a lot of fashionistas to enjoy and flaunt the best apparel, handbags, and cosmetics from abroad. There have even been bikers who have started requesting cool biking accessories from abroad to make their ride look more elegant!

AirCarry works on the governing principles of Trust & Safety. This is the only peer to peer startup in India which connects Shoppers & Travelers providing a Money back guarantee, ensuring the authenticity of products and safety to all its community members. Travelers purchase the requested product for the Shoppers after the shopper has accepted a Traveler’s offer and deposited the funds in AirCarry payment systems. This ensures that the Traveler knows exactly what they are carrying and are assured of payment once they deliver the product to the shopper. This also helps Shopper that they don’t lose their money, and funds only get transferred to Traveler after the Shopper has received their requested product.

“Transparency, Trust, Safety, and Communities are at the core of everything we do. Our systems are designed to provide the utmost transparency and reliability right from the time you start interacting with us and our community members. Hence, we provide a chat messenger system on our platform for our community members, Shoppers & Travelers, to chat with one another and clarify all questions they might have about a requested product and indicate the taxes being paid. We take pride in helping every member of the AirCarry community” Said the founder

Also Read: How to Track Customer Acquisition in SaaS?

AirCarry – Business Model and Revenue Model

AirCarry charges a service fee on each successful delivery when it helps a Shopper connect with a Traveller, who purchases and delivers the requested product to the Shopper.

AirCarry has also been approached by a few brands who want to launch in different geographies where such brands do not have a physical presence. These brands want to deliver their products to international markets through AirCarry community members. The AirCarry team believes there are a lot more avenues in capitalizing on this opportunity.

AirCarry – Startup Challenges

AirCarry team realizes that this is a new concept in the Indian eCommerce space and many of its users come to the platform, assuming that they would be able to browse through a product catalog and purchase an overseas product. AirCarry.io is facing the challenge of educating its users that an individual who is already aware of what overseas product they want can use this platform to publish their request which becomes visible to international travelers traveling to their city. Nonetheless, responding to the users’ feedback, the AirCarry team quickly built a blog to showcase some curated deals and international shopping sites from where Users can browse for more relevant products and post their requests accordingly.

AirCarry, being a bootstrapped startup, is also facing the challenge of scaling quickly since the outreach through social media is restricted without paid advertisements. The team is working hard to create more awareness and visibility of the AirCarry brand.

AirCarry – Growth

AirCarry’s growth has been organic through word of mouth and its social media profiles on Facebook and Instagram. Whoever has heard about AirCarry have loved the concept and the platform; people have requested all kinds of items like electronics, watches, luxury handbags, perfumes, clothing, protein supplements, cosmetics, chocolates and now the team is even seeing requests for biking accessories, limited edition comic/action figurines.

AirCarry has provided a much-needed web platform where people no longer need to wait for a family member to return from overseas or request a traveling friend “Please bring me that from there”. No more awkward requests, no more obligations – now everyone can enjoy all the wonderful products available across the globe without having to pay the exorbitant international shipping fee or having to make awkward requests. All the consumers have to do is post the product link on AirCarry.io and a Traveller would purchase and bring the product to your city. Shoppers are also ensured of authenticity since Travellers must upload the purchase receipt/proof of purchase on the platform. Thus, guaranteeing to the shopper of receiving genuine products.

Also Read: The Best Calendar Apps that Will Help You Stay Organized in 2020

AirCarry – Future Plans

AirCarry.io was only recently launched and made available to the public after ensuring all aspects of its platform was functioning as required. The team wants to work towards making their brand more visible to all Indian shoppers and travelers to such an extent that every Shopper must consider purchasing their desired overseas product through AirCarry. In a couple of years, the AirCarry team also wants to start supporting the B2B space by forming strategic partnerships.

January 13, 2020

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

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

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

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

About TNQ Ingage and How it Works

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

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

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

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

Also Read: 16 Must-Watch Bollywood Movies For Entrepreneurs

Founders of TNQ Ingage and team

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

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

TNQ Ingage Team

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

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

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

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

TNQ InGage – What problems does TNQ InGage solve?

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

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

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

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

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

Also Read: Top 10 Youngest Entrepreneurs of India

TNQ InGage – USP and Innovation

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

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

TNQ Ingage – Target Market Size

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

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

How was TNQ Ingage Started?

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

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

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

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

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

TNQ Ingage – Startup Launch

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

TNQ Ingage – Business Model and Revenue Model

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

TNQ Ingage – Startup Challenges

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

Also Read: A List of Books You Must Read if You Are or Want to be an Entrepreneur

TNQ Ingage – Funding and Investors

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

TNQ Ingage – Growth

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

January 7, 2020

VisionWagon- Buy affordable Fashion eyewear online

Consumers who use eyewear know how expensive and high-maintenance these products can get. To provide a viable alternative to this and make the experience hassle-free and simple, Amman Kumar, Bhavik Kumar, Rohan Kumar, and Shrijay Sheth launched VisionWagon in 2019 to enable consumers to buy eyewear like eyeglasses and sunglasses online.

VisionWagon is an online eyewear and sunglasses company, providing affordable fashion eyewear, with high standards of dispensing. The vision here is to build India’s most valued multi-modal Eyewear solutions company offering availability, accessibility and curative experience to its customers.

Driven by the core belief to provide affordable yet fashionable eyewear for the evolving needs of the customer’s lifestyle, concerning their work and other requirements. VisionWagon is all set to become the number 1 online eyewear company.

Startup Name	VisionWagon
Headquarter	Ahmedabad
Sector	Ecommerce – Online eyewear store
Founders	Amman Kumar, Bhavik Kumar, Rohan Kumar & Shrijay Sheth
Founded	2018-19
Parent Organization	SarvaGunAushdhi Pvt. Ltd.
Website	VisionWagon.com

About VisionWagon and How it Works
VisionWagon – Target Market Size
How was VisionWagon Started
VisionWagon – Name, Tagline, and Logo
VisionWagon – Startup Launch
VisionWagon – Business Model and Revenue Model
VisionWagon – Competitors
VisionWagon – Growth

About VisionWagon and How it Works

VisionWagon’s products provide the kind of protection that your eyes need, in an “always-on” world. No individual is not using a screen today – laptops, tablets, computers, phones etc. All these constitute a significant amount of screen time.

For VisionWagon, each of these individuals is a customer whose eyes will require protection from excessive use of the screen. This goes beyond the scope of consumers having a prescription and continuous education of the customer for this requirement would open the market for a much wider audience.

By using the code “STARTUPTY25” to buy anything on VisionWagon, you can get 25% off.

VisionWagon – Target Market Size

According to Business News Media Sources, the Indian eyewear market is quite complex. With independent opticians commanding 94.02% of the market, organized retail chains form 5% of the pie and Ecommerce accounting for the remaining 0.98%.

In the next 5 years, a big surge of smart eyewear in the affordable range is anticipated. More in line with smart devices like mobile phones, watches & headphones.

Also Read: How Pepperfry Grew to Become the largest online furniture store in India

VisionWagon – Founders & Team

VisionWagon was founded by Amman Kumar, Bhavik Kumar, Rohan Kumar and Shrijay Sheth. Amman, Bhavik and Rohan were working in the same business. Shrijay’s success with his earlier Ecommerce ventures made him the natural choice as a partner for the venture – creating a hassle-free eyewear shopping experience online.

How was VisionWagon Started

Three of the co-founders were working in the same business. And Shrijay”s experience in building scalable Ecommerce ventures made him the natural choice as a partner for creating a hassle-free eyewear shopping experience online.

The founders wanted to take their legacy of 60+ years online to reach out to a wider audience beyond the geographical scope of physical stores. The Ecommerce market in India is booming and the online eyewear market is very negligible, hence there is a lot of scope for players who focus on customer-centric eyewear solutions.

Ideation and consultations with the supply-chain partners, end consumers, and business consultants gave them added insights. Ease of shopping online was amongst the core insights the founders derived from the research.

VisionWagon – Name, Tagline, and Logo

VisionWagon Logo

The founders wanted VisionWagon to come across as a wholesome Vision solutions company that carries all relevant eyewear solutions currently available in the market. And also they were geared to embrace any new developments in this ever-changing scenario. Hence they wanted a logo that appealed to the youth.

VisionWagon – Startup Launch

The first few customers of VisionWagon came from friends & family, where the founders actively promoted the brand. Later, they incentivized them to bring their connections to visit the website.

Apart from the organic push, they found social media, both organic and paid – to be an apt traffic source for their brand. Since eyewear is a product that has visual appeal, Instagram, in particular, is observed to be an apt platform for promotions.

Their outreach through various marketing campaigns is backed by re-marketing channels like emails (for registrants) and re-marketing through social media and google are important to get initial traction.

VisionWagon provides 15% discounts to 1st-time sign-up clients. Adding new collections, cash-back on each transaction through PayPal and attractive discounts during festive times. This has helped this venture reach out to more customers through the initial phase.

Also Read: How to Find the Right CTO For Your Startup

VisionWagon – Business Model and Revenue Model

The revenue model looks simpler for VisionWagon. There are 3 simple price-points (inclusive of lens-prices). Any additional coatings or features that the client wishes to add over the existing lenses can be add-ons for a very nominal cost. VisionWagon is enabled with an online transactional model with secure payment gateways.

VisionWagon – Competitors

Though the online market for eyewear products is minor as compared to the offline market, there are still competitors playing in the minor online market. The major competitors include lenskart.com, eyedo.in, coolwinks.com, Lensbazaar, Titan Eyeplus, Vision Express to name a few.

VisionWagon – Growth

The company is growing steadily in revenue every month, orders per day are growing, repeat customers are assuring that VisionWagon is giving the right quality. With more social media influencers approaching the company to collaborate, the fashion quotient of the eyewear is increasing with every passing day.

“We wish to constantly improve and upgrade the customer experience by embracing new trends & technologies.” Said the founders.

FAQ

Who are the Founders of VisionWagon?

VisionWagon was founded by Amman Kumar, Bhavik Kumar, Rohan Kumar and Shrijay Sheth.

Who are the competitors of VisionWagon?

The major competitors of VisionWagon include lenskart.com, eyedo.in, coolwinks.com, Lensbazaar, Titan Eyeplus, and Vision Express.

What is the Revenue model of VisionWagon?

There are 3 simple price-points (inclusive of lens-prices). Any additional coatings or features that the client wishes to add over the existing lenses can be add-ons for a very nominal cost.