Tag: 📄Company Profiles

Whatfix- Empowers Users To Make Best Use Of Software Applications

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.

The Software as a Service (SaaS) model continues to gain traction across all corners of the business world, and for good reason. Also known as on-demand software, hosted software or web-based software, SaaS eschews traditional software installation, maintenance and management approaches in favour of delivering cloud-based applications via the internet. With SaaS, service provider partners shoulder the burdens of security, availability and performance.

Whatfix is revolutionizing the way Application Support and Learning content is consumed by providing Contextual and Interactive Walk Throughs inside the application at the exact time a task is being performed.

Whatfix- Company Highlights

Company Name	Whatfix
Headquarters	Bengaluru
Founders	Khadim Batti & Vara Kumar
Founded	2014
Sector	SaaS
Website	whatfix.com
Registered Entity Name	Quicko Technosoft Labs Private Limited

Whatfix – About & How It Works?
Whatfix – Founders
Whatfix – How It All Started?
Whatfix – Target Market Size
Whatfix – Shareholding
Whatfix – Business Model
Whatfix – Products/ Services
Whatfix – Startup Launch
Whatfix – Customers/ Clients
Whatfix – Challenges
Whatfix – Revenue
Whatfix – Product And Services
Whatfix – Funding & Competitors
Whatfix – Acquisitions & Mergers
Whatfix – Recognitions & Achievements
Whatfix – Partnership
Whatfix – Future Plans

Whatfix – About & How It Works?

Whatfix is a SaaS-based platform which provides in-app guidance and performance support for web applications and software products. Whatfix helps companies to create interactive walkthroughs that appear within web applications. Whatfix’s platform provides product adoption, user onboarding, employee training, self-service support and performance support for companies using enterprise web applications. The platform allows SaaS application users to create interactive walkthroughs, or in-app guidance flows, that can lead users through a task on the application.

Whatfix Logo

They choose this name because they’re all about problem solving and this conveyed it the most direct manner. Their mission is to empower companies to maximize business outcomes by eliminating technology complexities for their users.

Whatfix has obtained ISO 27001:2013 certification as well as being SCORM 1.2 and DITA compliant. Whatfix is available as a paid-Business version as well as a free version. Whatfix is most commonly used on platforms like Salesforce, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle Cloud, Workday, SharePoint, Apttus etc. Whatfix also has a free community version where individuals can create interactive walkthroughs on websites and applications and share them publicly. Whatfix has also obtained SOC 2 certification.

The product then pivoted to an interactive guidance platform for enterprises called Whatfix. Currently, Whatfix helps companies increase user adoption of the applications they use while also providing performance support.

Whatfix – Founders

Whatfix is founded by Khadim Batti and Vara Kumar. Previously, the two founders had worked together at Huawei, which helped them realize that they could work well as a team to start a new venture.

Khadim Batti is the CEO and co-founder of Whatfix. Prior to creating Whatfix, he was heading the Deep Packet Inspection and BI product portfolio for the Huawei Central Research Division. He has over 20 years of experience in leading technology teams and has worked at Kenexa, Applabs Technologies and CMC Limited in the past. Khadim has passionately educated and mentored aspiring entrepreneurial talent in technology for over a decade now. He acts as a mentor to 25+ entrepreneurs. Khadim holds a Master’s in Information Technology from the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, and a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from the University of Bombay.

Vara Kumar is the CPTO and co-founder of Whatfix. Prior to co-founding Whatfix, Vara spent nearly 9 years at Huawei in various roles from Software Engineer to Systems Architect. He began his career working on Network Management solution for WCDMA devices here. He further continued to help architect multiple products in the Deep Packet Inspection and Business Intelligence sectors. Vara holds a Master’s in Computer Applications from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, and a Bachelor’s in Science from NRK and KSR Gupta Degree College.

Whatfix – How It All Started

The Whatfix journey began in 2013 where Khadim Batti and Vara Kumar who worked together at Huawei decided to start their marketing DIY product called SearchEnabler, targeting the SMBs.

SearchEnabler basically crawled interwebs for data points, crunched the data and showed recommendations for marketing on what could be optimized. While SearchEnabler got a good traction and the duo were able to gather about 100 customers, they faced a newer challenge – most customers on the product wanted extensive support and hand-holding. That core pain-point became the inception for Whatfix.

Once the direction changed towards Whatfix, they were very clear on what they wanted – build what was required for the market rather than validate a solution after building.

So, the first step towards growth-hacking Whatfix was the creation of its community. They cold emailed SMEs to announce the Whatfix community, which was open to all to use, integrate – the only catch – the content was public. The idea was to keep engaging the customers on the community as well as on the web for the first 30 days till the product acquired some polish before formally rolling it out. The community and the initial evangelism led to their first few paid customers.

Every software organization solves for product and feature adoption, even the largest in the world. So, they reimagined the product to the current interactive guidance platform for enterprises it is today. They now play a significant role in the digital adoption process, while still allowing their customers to learn and adapt to digital transformation at their own pace. Currently, they have focused on the Enterprise segment catering to many Fortune 500 customers globally.

Whatfix – Target Market Size

Whatfix is industry and platform agnostic. And hence, they cater to a wide variety of organizations in industries like BFSI, High Tech, Automobile, etc. In short, everyone responsible for the usage and implementation of software tools needs to examine the digital adoption space.

Currently, they are one of the leading providers of Digital Adoption for Enterprises across the globe. Most of the Enterprises have a large array of web applications. To ensure effective use of these technologies and to train their workforce to utilize them, these organizations invest millions of dollars. Whatfix as a Digital Adoption Platform helps in curbing this need for onboarding, training, and in-app support with its capabilities.

Whatfix – Shareholding

Promoters 17.60%
Softbank 14.04%
Eight Roads 12.62%
Cisco Investments 2.20%
R Prime Capital Partners 5.41%
Others 4.01%
Stellaris 12.32%
Helion 14.38%
Sequoia 14.02%
DF International Partners 3.40%

Whatfix – Business Model

They’re a leader in their own space, and although they’re a private organization, their growth has been on a strongly upwards curve. Looking back at 2019, we can conclude that the company increased their total revenue by 300%.

Whatfix – Startup Launch

The first step towards growth-hacking Whatfix was the creation of the Whatfix community. They cold emailed SMEs to announce the Whatfix community, which was open to all to use, integrate – the only catch – the content was public. The idea was to keep engaging the customers on the community as well as on the web for the first 30 days till the product acquired some polish before formally rolling it out. The community and the initial evangelism led to their first few paid customers.

Once they understood the market potential, the next part was figuring out the right price point. After talking to the valley experts, they realized that it should be on the higher side of what we were providing. Few of the initial tradeshows and events like the Salesforce mega event – Dreamforce, that they sponsored helped in validating the price point as well.

Post which, Whatfix gradually started positioning themselves to serve Enterprises and their constant need for Digital Adoption in the applications used by their employees.

Whatfix – Customers/ Clients

Gartner recognized Digital Adoption Solution as a category last year. This has been a pivotal moment for Whatfix as they are one of the pioneers in Digital Adoption as a category and this has helped in connecting better with Enterprises who are potential customers

Expanding their footprint by sponsoring and presenting at events on a global stage. And also scaling up their event footprint rapidly in their largest target market – US.

Integrated campaigns have been the crux of their growth strategy. They have a wide variety of marketing activities across the board like Events both physical and virtual, ABM, creating content relevant to each part of their funnel, etc.

One of their recent viral campaign was their 1st ever virtual-conference – The Digital Adoption Summit 2020 (held in May). They hosted 41 speakers at the event, which included industry influencers from SAP, Tesla, Lynda, HP, Infosys, and many more. They saw 3500+ registered attendees and visitors from across 142 countries across the 3 days of the event. 3/4th of the attendees was from Enterprises, fitting our ICP.

Whatfix – Challenges

They are building a new category — Digital Adoption, and have been very successful in doing so. Many understand the problems they solve, but don’t necessarily understand that there is a solution available to them. That is the task they are currently solving.

Gartner recognizing our category – Digital Adoption Solution last year has positioned them as one of the pioneers in the space. Since then they have been recognized by Deloitte and Everest Consulting as well in industry reports regarding the category.

Whatfix – Revenue

Financials

Financial Year	Operating Revenue	Total Expenses	Profit/Loss
FY22	Rs 172 crore	Rs 440 crore	Loss of Rs 250 crore
FY23	Rs 382 crore	Rs 631 crore	Loss of Rs 328 crore

Expenses

Whatfix total expenses rises from Rs 440 crore in FY22 to Rs 631 crore in FY23.

EBITDA

The EBITDA Margin for FY22 was -124%, showing a serious financial difficulty. With a worse than ideal financial performance, the expense per rupee of operating revenue was Rs 2.56, and the return on capital employed (ROCE) was -41%. The EBITDA Margin improved to -96% and the Expense per Rs of Operating Revenue dropped to Rs 2.21 as the company moved into FY23, indicating a significant improvement. Nevertheless, in spite of these gains, the ROCE was negative at -93%, highlighting persistent financial issues for that fiscal year.

FY22 – FY23	FY22	FY23
EBITDA Margin	-124%	-96%
Expense/₹ of Op Revenue	Rs 2.56	Rs 2.21
ROCE	-41%	-93%

Whatfix – Product And Services

Buyer’s Guide to Digital Adoption Platforms

Leading research firm Everest Group announced on December 13, 2021, the release of the first-ever Buyer’s Guide to Digital Adoption Platforms through Whatfix. This research looks at the most crucial features that digital adoption platforms (DAPs) offer to users and the return on investment that DAPs provide to businesses.

Whatfix AI

Whatfix is developing AI using a “human-in-the-middle” methodology, which keeps people in charge of the technology while empowering them. End users can choose to provide business/IT stakeholders more precise control over AI-powered solutions by allowing them to examine them before using them.

Product Analytics

Whatfix announced the launch of its new product line, Product Analytics, on February 9, 2023. With seamless instrumentation that guarantees no-code event monitoring and data consistency, this product line enables enterprises to track, visualize, and analyze user engagement and behavior data.

Whatfix – Funding & Competitors

Whatfix has received a funding of over $139.8 million till date. There are 18 investors in total for Whatfix, as updated till July 2021.

Funding-

Date	Stage	Amount	Investors Name
June 8, 2021	Series D	$90 Million	Softbank Vision Fund, Eight Roads Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Dragoneer Investment Group and more
February 19, 2020	Series C	$32 Million	Sequoia Capital India, Eight Roads Ventures, F-Prime Capital, and Cisco Investments
March 12, 2019	Series B	$13 Million	Eight Roads Ventures, F-Prime Capital, Cisco Investments, Stellaris Venture Partners, and Helion Ventures Partners
April 4 2017	Series A	$3.6 Million	Stellaris Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners, Powerhouse Ventures and Marquee Angels Gokul Rajaram, Girish Mathrubootham, Aneesh Reddy and Vispi Daver
April 10, 2015	Seed Round	$900K	Helion Venture Partners
October 6, 2014	Convertible Note	$300K	–
August 1, 2014	Seed Round	–	–
July 10, 2014	Pre-Series Round	$45K	–

Whatfix was valued at $600 million after the last fundraising amount that came from Softbank, Eight Roads, and others. It had reportedly quadrupled the company’s valuation from its last funding round, when it was valued at $150 million, after which Whatfix decided to launch its first ESOP on July 6, 2021.

Competitors-

In their enterprise category Whatfix compete only with Walkme rest are SMB focused.

Whatfix – Acquisitions & Mergers

In October 2019, Whatfix announced the acquisition of Airim, a company that provides an AI-powered Personalization Engine for users and customers. Incorporation of Airim’s capabilities will allow for hyper-personalized in-app guidance at the user’s point of need. Airim’s offerings will allow Whatfix to analyze clickstreams and help in figuring out how long a step takes and where users get stuck or abandon the process completely. This is invaluable in further personalizing and customizing in-app guidance. This kind of information gives administrators the ability to make corrective changes to help users complete tasks in processes, even in an automated fashion.

On July 6, 2021, Whatfix has declared that the company is ready for its first employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) and has offered an ESOP buyback of $4.3 million (Rs 32 crores) for its employees. Whatfix has further granted its employees to liquidate up to 35% of their vested ESOPs. A total of 175 eligible employees would be getting this privilege of liquidating their ESOPs, out of which over 80% of them have chosen not to liquidate their vested shares, who have further reinforced their trust in the future of the company. The value of shares will be available for both the current and former employees at the series D, non-discounted valuation of the company.

Whatfix acquires Nittio Learn, a learning management system to fulfill diverse and dynamic training needs, on August 10, 2021. Nittio Learn is a platform that wields additional content options, assessment capabilities, and training course allocation, all of which will add to Whatfix’s application training capability, thereby making learning more personalized, adaptive, and rich and help to turn it into a comprehensive digital adoption platform for organizations. With Nittio, Whatfix could now promise a shockingly less ramp-up time for learning.

CEO and co-founder of Whatfix, Khadim Batti was delighted while citing this acquisition, and according to him, now Whatfix can offer the customers “with all the necessary tools to execute such a massive digital transformation effort.” He further added, “We are continuously reimagining Digital Adoption alongside our customers as we grow and expand into new markets over the next year and beyond.”

Nittio Learn is a platform that is popularly used by the largest e-commerce and retail companies of South Asia to train their employees. Gagandeep and Aravindan, the co-founders of Nittio joined Whatfix along with their team to leverage their rich expertise in the learning domain.

Below are the companies acquired by Whatfix:

Company Name	Date	Amount
Leap	Apr 26, 2022	–
Jiny	Apr 18, 2022	–
Nittio Learn	Aug 10, 2021	–
Airim	Oct 30, 2019	–

Whatfix – Recognitions & Achievements

Whatfix

Some of their key achievements and recognition –

Recognized as a Leader by Everest Group in the inaugural Digital Adoption Solution analyst report, which has been a testament to Whatfix’s position as a leader in this erupting space.
Achieved a B2B SaaS Customer Net Promoter Score of 65, that is in the 100th Percentile of the B2B SaaS industry according to GrowthScore.
Recognized in Deloitte’s Learning in The Flow of Work Solutions research report with Full Capability Scores for Incorporating Tools of Work, Providing Actionable and Relevant Data, Automated Reinforcement, Total Workforce, and Offline Activity Tracking.
Recognized in two Gartner research reports, including “Increase Sales Productivity with Digital Adoption Solutions” and “Hype Cycle for CRM Sales Technology 2019”.
Listed in LinkedIn Top 2020 Startups India as #5.
Achieved a 100% quarterly growth on a year over year basis for the past 2 consecutive quarters.
Works with a workforce of 500 employees across 6 globally located offices.
Enjoyed a 3X increase in its valuation over the past 15 months, as reported on August 10, 2021.
Enjoyed a 3X increase in its revenue and headcount over the last 2 years.

Whatfix – Partnership

C Clears

Whatfix announced on May 8, 2021, the beginning of a strategic partnership with C-Clear Partners to support Benelux companies in fast-tracking their digital transformation projects by encouraging the use of CRM platforms like Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce.

Suntec Business Solution

In order to encourage rapid customer adoption of its SaaS products and provide a smooth and user-friendly onboarding process, SunTec Business Solutions announced in October 2022 a strategic partnership and integration of its products and solutions with Whatfix, the world leader in the digital adoption platforms (DAP) space.

Whatfix – Future Plans

Whatfix has a unique opportunity in that while many organizations focus on a particular region or industry, their solutions can be integrated with almost any form of application, including desktop apps. They have recently raised a Series C round, and continue to grow their teams to meet the high demand of the digital adoption space. They have also re-invested in the development and technology they provide — continuing to innovate is critically important to them.

They have the capability to focus not just on their existing customers, but expand the scale of their offerings to provide their services to enterprise organizations. They already work with a significant portion of the Fortune 1000 and they believe it’s time for the rest of them to come aboard as well.

Whatfix – FAQ’s

How Quickly Can I Get Started Using Whatfix?

You just need to install the Whatfix Editor (extension) in Chrome or Firefox and you are ready to create guides. The user experience of the editor is so simple that you can create interactive guides in a jiffy.

Will My Application User Need To Install Browser Extension?

No, your end-users don’t need to install the browser extension.

Can I Have An On-Premises Setup?

Yes, Whatfix fully support the on-premise set up. Whatfix guides can be exported and deployed on your own web server with the companies on-premises export version.

Will Whatfix Affect My Application Performance?

Whatfix will have almost no impact on performance of your application. The JavaScript size and execution time are negligible.

How Secure Is Whatfix?

Whatfix supports HTTPS protocol and all accounts/data is access controlled. In the self-hosted/on-premises option, we ensure that no web request or data flow is sent outside your servers/premises.

What Is The Pricing For WhatFix?

Whatfix pricing is completely on the basis of customer’s requirements and usage. They have tailor-made pricing models for Small and Medium-sized Businesses and Larger Enterprises. For more details on pricing, you can contact at sales@whatfix.com or call on +1-800-459-7098.

November 2, 2023

Zeta – How this Startup is Helping Financial Institutions Serve Customers Better

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.

Neobanks, as Wikipedia defines are banks that operate exclusively online without traditional physical branches. In several countries including India, neobanks are not granted banking licenses. Thus, neobanks provide their services by partnering with licensed banks. Owing to its convenience factor neobanks are gaining huge popularity especially among the millennials. Bangalore-based SaaS company Zeta is helping banks and fintechs offer neo banking experience to its customers. Here is the startup story of Zeta, and how it is helping banking and fintech company’s serve their customers better.

Zeta – Company Highlights

Startup Name	Zeta
Parent	Zeta Services Inc.
Headquarters	San Francisco, California
Industry	Neobank, Fintech, Financial Services
Founders	Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati
Founded	2015
Current CEO	Bhavin Turakhia
Website	www.zeta.tech

Zeta – About
Zeta – Founders and Team
Zeta – Mission and Vision
Zeta – Tagline, Slogan and Logo
Zeta – Business Model and Revenue Model
Zeta – Funding and Investors
Zeta – Growth
Zeta – Products and Services
Zeta – Investments
Zeta – Mergers and Acquisitions
Zeta – Partnership
Zeta – Competitors
Zeta – Awards and Achievments
Zeta – Challenges Faced
Zeta – Future Plans

Zeta – About

Zeta helps banks and financial organizations offer next-generation financial services to its customers using advanced technology. The company’s clients include leading banks and fintech companies.

Banks, fintech, and businesses all around the world use Zeta’s services.

Besides, Zeta offers program management services, whereby it offers consulting services to help banks to build, grow, market, and manage retail portfolios with a high ROA and low cost-to-income ratio.

Zeta also offers solutions that let businesses manage employee benefits packages and reimbursements, as well as corporate gifting. By using Zeta’s end-to-end solutions company HRs can manage employee tax benefits and reward programs easily. HR managers, by using a single web-based interface can stay connected to the employees via smartphones and can send, reimbursements, gifts, vouchers, etc. to the employees at the click of a button. The employees either have a Zeta app on their smartphone, or a physical Zeta super card, that they can use to spend the rewards and reimbursements.

Zeta – Founders and Team

Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati founded Zeta in April 2015.

Bhavin Turakhia

Bhavin Turakhia (born December 21, 1979) is the owner of Flock, Radix, CodeChef, and Zeta, as well as a billionaire and serial entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of both Flock and Zeta. The World Economic Forum has named him a Young Global Leader for 2011. Bhavin Turakhia made a $19 million investment in Zeta in 2016. Bhavin, together with his brother Divyank Turakhia, was among the 95th richest people in India in 2016, according to Forbes, with a net worth of US$1.3 billion.

Ramki Gaddipati

Ramki Gaddipati graduated from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani with a Master’s degree in Management and a Master’s degree in Software Systems. He worked with the Directi Group for seven years, leading different technology initiatives in various roles. He is presently the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Zeta. His responsibility at Zeta is to manage a strong team of engineers in order to provide a solid foundation for the product. When it comes to product engineering, he comes across as a highly motivated professional who takes initiative and is dedicated to attaining excellence at every stage.

Bhavin and Ramki had a desire to work in an environment where they could fundamentally modify or make major impacts. Zeta initially offered only a range of employee benefit services. Digital corporate solutions for employee tax benefits, automated cafeterias, employee gifts, and digital payments were among its first services. Later the company evolved and started offering banking tech solutions to empower banks and fintechs to serve their customers better and increase their revenue.

“Banks are still stuck in the ’80s. Many of them still use COBOL programming language. They offer poor user experience,” said Turakhia in a press briefing, adding that to make up for it, banks end up working with dozens of vendor and technology partners. “Nobody thought of building the bank stack from the ground up, until now. Any financial service you can think of, Zeta provides it today.”

As said by the founders, they do not want Zeta Tech to be a fintech, neobank, or bank; instead, they want it to be a platform that empowers financial institutions.

Zeta – Mission and Vision

Zeta’s mission and vision statement say, ” We provide comprehensive, multidisciplinary solutions, with understanding, competence, care, and precision. Our ambition at ZETA is to create profitability, reliability, and sustainability for our customers, building on the following elements: A holistic understanding of our customers’ needs and goals. “

Zeta – Tagline, Slogan and Logo

Zeta’s Company Logo

Zeta’s slogan says, “Accelerating the world towards invisible payments.”

Zeta – Business Model and Revenue Model

Zeta operates on a B2B2C model, in which it serves as a technology service provider that sells its tech-based goods to banks and fintech firms. Zeta charges banks according to the number of transactions or clients, with no specific price information available.

BFSI issuers across India, Asia, and Latin America use the company’s products. RBL Bank, IDFC First Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank are among Zeta’s clients, and the company has over 14,000 businesses as their clients. Zeta is used by 4 million people as of 2022 through their banks and other financial organizations.

Furthermore, the company’s revenue has increased as a result of the Covid 19 epidemic, which prompted individuals to convert to a digital mode of service during the lockdown.

The startup’s business strategy is to persuade large banks to outsource their digital infrastructure to it, allowing lenders to concentrate on backend compliance and services. Zeta also released an omnichannel API stack for financial institutions, allowing them to create customized backend rails for neo-banking, consumer loans, and fraud analytics.

Zeta – Funding and Investors

Date	Round	Amount	Lead Investors
Mar 7, 2022	Corporate Round	$30M	Mastercard
May 24, 2021	Series C	$250M	SoftBank Vision Fund
Jul 23, 2019	Series C	$60M	Sodexo

Zeta – Growth

Zeta’s platform is used by over 2 million individuals, and major banks like RBL Bank, IDFC First Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank. Financial institutions, including Sodexo, as well as over 14,000 corporate clients, including Amazon, are using solutions offered by Zeta. Zeta’s corporate gifting program is used by a number of Indian banks.

After the Softbank-led investment in May 2021, Zeta is valued at $1.45 billion. Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati explained that the latest funding raised this year (2021) will be utilized to grow the company’s operations in the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia.

“Our goal is to become the de facto banking tech platform globally. Based on just our existing contracts, in the next 4-5 years our platform will have 70 million users, making it the largest neo banking platform in the world.” Zeta CEO Bhavin Turakhia said in an interview after raising the May 2021 funding round.

Financials

Zeta Financials	FY21	FY22	FY23
Operating Revenue	Rs 297 crore	Rs 615 crore	Rs 815 crore
Total Expenses	Rs 347 crore	Rs 637 crore	Rs 796 crore
Profit/Loss	Loss of Rs 43 crore	Loss of Rs 21 crore	Loss of Rs 21 crore

Expenses Breakdown

Zeta total expenses rises from Rs 637 crore in FY22 to Rs 796 crore in FY23.

EBITDA

The company’s EBITDA margin increased to 4.3%. During FY23, it cost Rs 0.98 per unit to generate one rupee of operational revenue.

In terms of finances, Zeta advanced significantly between FY21 and FY22. The EBITDA margin showed a good trend in profitability, increasing significantly from -12.05% in FY21 to -1.81% in FY22. In terms of operational revenue, the company was also able to lower its expenses, which dropped from Rs 1.17 in FY21 to Rs 1.04 in FY22.

Zeta FY21- FY22	FY21	FY22
EBITDA Margin	-12.05%	-1.81%
Expense/Rs of Op Revenue	Rs 1.17	Rs 1.04
ROCE	47.39%	19.71%

Zeta – Products and Services

Zeta Omni Stack Platform

The first contemporary, cloud-native, and fully API-enabled stack for banks in the market, Zeta’s omni stack combines core banking, lending, acquiring, issuing, processing, fraud & risk, and many more features into a single vendor stack.

Zeta Tachyon Suite

Designed for banks, this contemporary package includes core banking, credit and debit processing, prepaid hosting, and loans, all of which are connected with a mobile app to help banks deliver a neobank experience, sell more loans, and minimize fraud.

Fusion

Designed for fintech, API-based, platform-as-a-service(PaaS) platform ‘Fusion’ empowers fintech companies to design and manage financial products for various use-cases. Fusion enables fintech companies to integrate their platform with banks, payment networks, card printers, and more services to create a wonderful customer experience.

Zeta – Investments

Date	Organization Name	Round	Amount
Jun 30, 2017	ZingHR	Funding Round	–

Zeta – Mergers and Acquisitions

As of July 2019, Sodexo Benefits and Rewards Services (Sodexo BRS), Sodexo India’s employee benefits and rewards arm, announced in a press conference that it has merged with Bengaluru-based fintech company Zeta’s employee benefits division. Following the transaction, Zeta has a minority share in Sodexo BRS India.

Zeta – Partnership

Mastercard

Zeta and Mastercard partnered on June 22, 2022 to support banks’ and fintechs’ next-generation credit processing.

Featurespace

The world leaders in enterprise fraud and financial crime prevention, Featurespace and Zeta, announced their partnership on March 21, 2023, to bring to market a solution that combines fraud detection with best-in-class credit card processing for US issuers.

Zeta – Competitors

Zeta’s primary competitors include companies like Fico, Fiastra, Nets, and Accarda.

Zeta – Awards and Achievements

NASSCOM named it one of the Emerge 50 startups.
India FinTech Forum announced its FinTech Rising Stars during the 2017 India FinTech Awards.
2018 BusinessWorld Techtors Award
The Finovate West Digital Best of Show Award will be presented in 2020.
Best Fintech in Value Added Services Award from Business Today and KPMG in 2020

Zeta – Challenges Faced

Zeta provides a suite of employee payment, accounts payable, and accounts receivable solutions for businesses. The firm offers commercial card issuing and hosting services to banks. Promoting interconnectivity between corporations, their banks, and back-office systems is key to reducing enterprise payments resistance on both sides.

Adoption of a new technology related to finance in any business, bank or financial institution always takes time and also faces some resistance, which is a challenge for Zeta.

“Any adoption of a solution involving payments will need to be integrated with existing financial and accounting systems within an enterprise, which takes a bit of time,” Zeta CEO Bhavin Turakhia explained, “adding that change, in general, often creates friction and can be met with resistance in company back offices.” he commented.

Zeta – Future Plans

Zeta has ambitions to grow into Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, as well as Europe. In an interview, the Zeta CEO published on June 2021, he revealed that the company has plans to expand into 30 countries over the next two fiscal years and focus on additional verticals such as wealth management.

Under its employee benefits offering, which is currently live with Sodexo, Zeta plans to provide corporate gifts soon. It is used by over 1.5-2 million people and has over 8,000-10,000 enterprises on board.

Zeta wants the top 300 banks in the world to be its clients, and it wants the US to account for 60% of its income in five years. In the next 12 months, the firm intends to quadruple its staff, which is presently about 800.

70% of the funds raised from Softbank will be used for company growth, with the remainder going toward onboarding new clients. The funds will be used to expand the company’s operations, personnel, and platform in order to fulfill the demands of its growing client base. The main focus will be on putting together a credit card processing stack.

In the short term, Zeta will concentrate on new hiring and product enhancements. It may ultimately consider a public listing.

Zeta – FAQs

What does Zeta do?

Zeta is a full-stack, data center, API-first neo-banking solution, fintech firm working on a platform that would allow employees to monitor their expenses, provide corporate gifts, and use co-branded debit and credit cards.

Who founded Zeta?

Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati founded the firm in April 2015.

How does Zeta make money?

They charged the banks based on the number of transactions or the number of customers. It also has a revenue-sharing model for fintech startups.

Which companies do Zeta compete with?

Zeta’s primary competitors are Fico, Finastra, Nets, and Accarda.

October 31, 2023

SecureDApp: Enhancing Blockchain Security Through Comprehensive Solutions and Smart Contract Audits
In today’s advancing landscape of blockchain and Web3 technologies, security is a top priority. SecureDApp, a leading player in the field, specializes in providing comprehensive blockchain security solutions and smart contract audits. Their core mission is to ensure the safety and reliability of blockchain applications, enabling startups and enterprises to navigate the Web3 landscape with confidence.

In this article, we embark on a journey to explore the captivating world of SecureDApp. We’ll delve into SecureDApp’s ideation story, the visionary founders behind its success, its unique strategies, its business and revenue model, and much more.

SecureDApp – Company Highlights

Startup Name SecureDApp

Headquarters Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Sector Blockchain Services

Founder Abhishek Singh, Himanshu Gautam

Founded 2023

Website securedapp.io

SecureDApp – About
SecureDApp – Market/Industry Details
SecureDApp – Founders
SecureDApp – Startup Story
SecureDApp – Name and Logo
SecureDApp – Vision and Mission
SecureDApp – Products/Services
SecureDApp – Business and Revenue Model
SecureDApp – Launching Company Strategies
SecureDApp – Customer Growth and Retention Strategies
SecureDApp – Challenges Faced
SecureDApp – Marketing Strategy
SecureDApp – Growth
SecureDApp – Funding
SecureDApp – Key Tools and Software
SecureDApp – Startup Programs
SecureDApp – Awards and Achievements
SecureDApp – Competitors
SecureDApp – Future Plans

SecureDApp – About

SecureDApp is a pioneering blockchain security solution that specializes in offering comprehensive security solutions to companies operating in the Web3 space. With a strong focus on identifying vulnerabilities in smart contracts and providing robust security measures to enhance the overall security of blockchain networks.

SecureDApp – Market/Industry Details

Industry: SecureDApp operates in the smart contract audit industry. Smart contract audits are a type of security assessment that is performed on smart contracts to identify and mitigate potential vulnerabilities. Smart contracts are self-executing contracts that are stored on a blockchain. They are used to automate a wide variety of transactions, from simple financial transfers to complex agreements.

Target market size: The global smart contract audit market is expected to grow from USD 150.2 million in 2021 to USD 1,515.4 million by 2032, at a CAGR of 23.5% from 2022 to 2032. The growth of the market is attributed to the increasing adoption of blockchain technology and the growing need to secure smart contracts.

Market share: SecureDApp is a relatively new company in the smart contract audit industry. However, it has quickly gained a reputation for its innovative and comprehensive solution called Solidity Shield. SecureDApp’s market share is expected to grow significantly in the coming years as the demand for smart contract audits increases.

Abhishek Singh, co-founder and CEO of SecureDApp, mentioned that he used a variety of sources, including market research reports and industry publications, to gather information on the smart contract audit industry.

He expressed his belief that the smart contract audit industry would continue to experience rapid growth in the next five years. This projection was based on the increasing adoption of blockchain technology and the growing demand for securing smart contracts.

Furthermore, Mr. Singh believes that SecureDApp is poised to become one of the leading providers of smart contract audit services in the next 5–10 years. This is due to its commitment to innovation and its focus on providing comprehensive services to its customers.

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SecureDApp – Founders

Abhishek Singh (left) and Himanshu Gautam (right) – SecureDApp Founders

Abhishek Singh and Himanshu Gautam are the founders of SecureDApp.

Abhishek Singh

Abhishek Singh, with over 15 years of experience and a Master’s in marketing, has a track record of successfully launching and scaling multiple brands, especially startups. His core expertise lies in brand building, growth hacks, and automation. Abhishek is highly skilled in fostering engaged and loyal communities integrated with PR. One of his proven strengths is the ability to build and empower teams for success.

Himanshu Gautam

Himanshu brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, with a Master’s degree in technology from IIT Kanpur and over 6 years of professional experience. His expertise is deeply rooted in Web3 products and blockchain technology. Himanshu has a successful track record of building and auditing numerous decentralized applications (DApps) and has also served as a trusted blockchain and Web3 consultant for the Government of India. Additionally, he is a core team member of a Web3 startup, with a primary focus on the latest development efforts.

Abhishek shared that they spent several weeks working together, evaluating different startup ideas, and brainstorming potential solutions to complex problems. Their meetings included debates, insightful discussions, and plenty of brainstorming.

However, one day, their common link suddenly left, leaving them uncertain about the future of their collaboration. But instead of letting this setback discourage them, they decided to stick to the idea of starting something on their own, without him. Over the next few months, they worked tirelessly, investing long hours and pouring their hearts and souls into their new venture. Despite the challenges and setbacks along the way, they remained determined and focused, driven by their shared vision and passion for success.

Finally, after much hard work and dedication, they launched the startup, and from then on are building it.

SecureDApp – Startup Story

The inspiration for SecureDApp came from the growing number of smart contract hacks and exploits. Abhishek explained that they saw a need for a more comprehensive and innovative approach to smart contract security. They also saw an opportunity to make Web3 safer for everyone by empowering blockchain developers to build secure and reliable smart contracts. Their hypothesis got firmer when they found out that more than 95% of the projects deployed on the chain were not audited.

In their efforts to understand the market, they conducted extensive research on the smart contract audit market, including interviewing industry experts and analyzing market research reports. They also validated their idea by engaging with potential customers and obtaining feedback on their proposed product offerings. They also spoke with over 50 founders to gain insights into their concerns pertaining to smart contract audits and security.

The ideation process at SecureDApp began with the team brainstorming a list of all the ways that they could improve the smart contract audit process. Once they had a list of ideas, they started to narrow it down by focusing on the ideas that we thought were most feasible and would have the biggest impact.

Once they had identified a few key ideas, they began the design phase for their initial product offerings. Their primary focus during this phase was on crafting products that would be easy to use and would provide blockchain developers with the information they needed to build secure and reliable smart contracts.

From the start, they decided to adopt a product-based approach to audit while the industry is driven by manual audits. Once they had a design for their products, they started to prototype them. They built a small team of experienced engineers and developers to help them bring the company’s products to life. Interns played a key role in testing their hypothesis.

The initial people they talked to about SecureDApp were friends and family, as well as other industry experts. They also talked to potential customers to get their feedback on their proposed product offerings.

The response from the initial people was very positive. They were excited about the vision for SecureDApp and saw a need for the company’s products in the market.

SecureDApp – Name and Logo

SecureDApp Logo

The name of the company was suggested by Himanshu Gautam. They had decided that the name has to be the combination of real word + real meaning + relevant meaning.

SecureDApp – Vision and Mission

SecureDApp’s vision is to make Web3 safer for everyone by providing the most innovative and comprehensive smart contract audit solutions. Its products empower blockchain developers to build secure and reliable smart contracts with confidence, enabling them to focus on their core competencies and deliver innovative products to the Web3 community.

The company believes in a future where individuals and organizations can transact securely and efficiently without the need for intermediaries or middlemen. SecureDApp envisions a world where blockchain technology is used to solve real-world problems, create new opportunities, and empower people across the globe.

SecureDApp – Products/Services

SecureDApp Solidity Shield

The rise of decentralized systems has made smart contract safety and reliability a concern. A decentralized firm offering end-to-end solutions is needed to provide secure and standardized smart contract development and auditing. This will unlock the full potential of smart contracts.

The company’s flagship product, Solidity Shield, is an advanced, AI-powered vulnerability detection application designed specifically for smart contracts written in Solidity, the programming language used for Ethereum-based blockchain applications. Solidity Shield utilizes cutting-edge artificial intelligence techniques to automatically and rapidly identify vulnerabilities within smart contracts, providing developers with a powerful tool to enhance the security and reliability of their blockchain projects.

At the heart of Solidity Shield is its automated bot, a highly efficient and intelligent system that can analyze smart contracts within a matter of seconds. The bot leverages machine learning algorithms and natural language processing techniques to comprehend and interpret the code, enabling it to detect potential vulnerabilities with remarkable accuracy and speed.

In terms of technology, SecureDApp relies on a stack that includes solidity smart contracts, React.js, WalletConnect Framework, Node.js Backend, and a MySQL database.

SecureDApp – Business and Revenue Model

The product is yet to be monetized; however, the company has decided to keep the rate for audits at less than $10 per scan. A SaaS pricing model will be introduced for the company’s product, Smart Contract Audit. The idea is to help the developer community focus on building without worrying about the security or cost involved in its audit.

SecureDApp – Launching Company Strategies

When launching the company from the point of having zero users, the strategies employed to acquire the initial 100 customers played a pivotal role in the journey. The approach embraced by SecureDApp revolved around a freemium model, which started with the rollout of a public beta launch at no cost, inviting everyone to scan and test the company’s product. More than 175 projects have scanned their smart contracts using the Solidity Shield Scanner.

While the first 100 users marked a significant milestone, the company’s strength lies in its community, including subsequent members from the developer community. Notably, the security project is already deployed at Tels Network at the infrastructure level for Web3 security.

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SecureDApp – Customer Growth and Retention Strategies

SecureDApp has decided to continue working on the following strategies for customer growth and retention:
- Community development
- Content development to engage with the community
The company also aims to maintain close collaboration with ecosystem partners to expand the customer base from 100 to 1000.

SecureDApp – Challenges Faced

Every other day, the company has been facing some or other challenges, from product development to working out the right pricing strategy to marketing. Abhishek has noted that, so far, there hasn’t been a dull day in the business from the perspective of encountering these challenges. He mentioned that regulatory issues will keep you on your toes when you are building in the Web3 space.

SecureDApp – Marketing Strategy

The company has a humorous yet sarcastic series called #Outsmart, a weekly series that has its own take on Web3 developers and the blockchain community. The philosophy behind this initiative is that, ultimately, learning to take jokes about ourselves is essential to keep things on a lighter note.

SecureDApp – Growth

The current status of the company can be summarized as follows:
- Userbase: Showing a remarkable 30% month-over-month growth, with over 175+ audits conducted so far.
- NPS (Net Promoter Score): The NPS stands at around 8.5.
- Notable Clients: Blits Estate and Filmarare.
SecureDApp – Funding

The company has been bootstrapped and funded through customers’ capital. It has relied on its own resources and customer contributions to support its operations and growth.

SecureDApp – Key Tools and Software

The company utilizes a range of key tools and software to operate efficiently. These include:
- Semrush
- Google Analytics
- Amazon SES (Simple Email Service)
- Google Search Console
- WordPress
SecureDApp – Startup Programs

SecureDApp has benefited from a startup program by being incubated by CySeck, which is the Government of Karnataka’s cybersecurity initiative. This program has played a crucial role in supporting and nurturing the company.

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SecureDApp – Awards and Achievements

SecureDApp has received recognition and achieved notable milestones, including:
- SecureDApp won the 1st prize in the 60-day Polkadot’s Bootcamp organized by Blockchained India.
- SecureDApp has secured 2nd place among all the global competing DApps/ tools for on-chain verified reviews on the Smoothie platform for its product called Solidity Shield.
SecureDApp – Competitors

Some of the top competitors of SecureDApp are:
- Hacken
- CertiK
- QuillAudits
SecureDApp – Future Plans

At SecureDApp, the company is committed to making Web3 safer for everyone. In the next 1-2 years, the plans include:
- Expanding product offerings to include more comprehensive and innovative smart contract audit services.
- Expanding the global reach to serve customers in all major Web3 markets.
- Developing new Web3 security products and services to protect users from emerging threats.
FAQs

What does SecureDApp do?

SecureDApp offers comprehensive blockchain security solutions and smart contract audits to secure your smart contracts and enhance overall blockchain security.

Who are the founders of SecureDApp?

Abhishek Singh and Himanshu Gautam are the founders of SecureDApp.

What is SecureDApp’s Solidity Shield?

SecureDApp’s flagship product, Solidity Shield, is an AI-powered tool designed to identify vulnerabilities within smart contracts, providing developers with a powerful solution to enhance the security and reliability of their blockchain projects.

How has SecureDApp achieved its growth?

SecureDApp achieved its growth by adopting a freemium model, initially offering the Solidity Shield Scanner for free. This strategy led to over 175 projects scanning their smart contracts using the Solidity Shield Scanner.
October 30, 2023

Startup Name	SecureDApp
Headquarters	Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Sector	Blockchain Services
Founder	Abhishek Singh, Himanshu Gautam
Founded	2023
Website	securedapp.io

Coding Ninjas – Best Online Coding Courses in India

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.

Digital education was restricted to smartboards in classrooms until the SaaS or B2B segment came up. And with that came Coding Ninjas who changed the way education is perceived in India. Education is no longer just limited to classrooms. The company has been able to identify the importance of coding and programming and its way forward. Coding Ninjas was founded in 2016 and is one of the best best coding classes in India.

Recently, Coding Ninjas partnered with Talent500 by ANSR to offer job opportunities to students and tech professionals with Fortune 500 companies. Read this article to know more about Coding Ninjas CEO, Funding, Revenue, Business Model, Courses, Company Profile, Growth and future plans.

Coding Ninjas – Company Highlights

Startup Name	Coding Ninjas
Headquarter	New Delhi, India
Sector	Ed-tech
Founders	Ankush Singla (CEO), Kannu Mittal and Dhawal Parate
Founded	2016
Parent Organization	Sunrise Mentors Private Limited
Website	codingninjas.com

Coding Ninjas – About and How it Works
Coding Ninjas – Founders and Team
Coding Ninjas – Target Market Size
How was Coding Ninjas Started?
Coding Ninjas – USP and Innovation
Coding Ninjas – Name, Tagline and Logo
Coding Ninjas – Business Model and Revenue Model
Coding Ninjas – Growth and Revenue
Coding Ninjas – Product and Services
Coding Ninjas – Funding and Investors
Coding Ninjas – Partnership
Coding Ninjas – Partners with Talent500 by ANSR

Coding Ninjas – About and How it Works

Coding Ninjas was founded in 2016 to bridge the knowledge gap between colleges and Industry. Founded by Ankush Singla, Kannu Mittal, and Dhawal Parate, Coding Ninjas boasts of world-class teaching faculty and a state-of-art learning platform for Coding education. It teaches courses in Programming fundamentals as well as advanced courses such as Machine Learning, Data Science, Web Development, etc.

The courses are completely online and are available in both English and Hindi languages. A student no longer has to be concerned about the quality of education while enrolling for an online course with the platform due to the quality and the extended placement facility it offers students. Coding Ninjas’ students are currently placed across all major technology and product companies throughout India and abroad.

Coding Ninjas currently offers five courses in Advanced Programming and four courses for the Foundation segment along with six Ninja Career Tracks to students and professionals from across verticals in and outside India.

Coding Ninjas – Founders and Team

Coding Ninjas was co-founded by Dhawal Parate, Kannu Mittal, and Ankush Singla.

Founders of Coding Ninjas — (L-R) Dhawal Parate, Kannu Mittal, and Ankush Singla

Co-Founder at Coding Ninjas, Ankush Singla – He holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from India’s most premier institute – IIT Delhi and a master’s degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. He is a coding enthusiast and has an avid experience in Machine Learning and Data Science and has previously worked with Amazon and Facebook (USA).

Co-Founder at Coding Ninjas, Kannu Mittal – Having strong knowledge in the ATL & BTL marketing domains, he comes with over 10 years of experience in the education industry. He has previously served in the Directorial capacity for KCG Group of Institutions. He has a knack to understand the dynamics of traditional teaching methods and couple them with innovative methods.

Co-Founder at Coding Ninjas, Dhawal Parate – He holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from India’s most premier institute- IIT Delhi and is a Kellogg School of Management dropout (2014). He has an avid experience in Finance consulting, business advisory, Impact investment, evaluation of investment opportunities, alliances, and business development. In his last position, he served as the Director for Cars24.

Coding Ninjas – Target Market Size

Coding Ninjas aims at providing best-in-class quality skills and knowledge to college students and professionals who want to learn programming and reskill their existing skill set.

How was Coding Ninjas Started?

State of education is appalling in India and is not at par with the ongoing technological advancements. When Ankush Singla was hiring for Facebook in India, he realised that college students were unemployable due to the lack of appropriate skillset. That was the turning point for him, soon after he decided to do something about it. Given his domain expertise and his zeal to bring a revolution, he felt he is in the best position to do it.

“Starting the discussion from a single room with a few trusted and talented students, to a family of 120+, the growth of Ninjas is only inevitable with the growing number of students from pan India associating with us every day”, says Coding Ninja co-founder Ankush Singla.

Coding Ninjas – USP and Innovation

Faculty: IIT, Stanford, IIIT’s, Facebook, and Amazon alumni to offer hands-on experience in programming to scale your learning journey.
Curriculum: Personalized course syllabus designed at par with the industry standards.
Teaching Assistants: Facility to Audio Call, Video Call, and Screen Share with your Teaching Assistants solving 1000+ real-time doubts every day.
Videos: Educative short course videos explaining the dynamics of coding.

Introduction to Coding Ninjas’ Competitive Programming course

CodeZen: In-house practice platform with an inbuilt compiler (supporting C++, JAVA & Python) to practice without the hassle of installing a software.
Slack Groups: A chatroom to speak with your mentors, batch mates to solve, interact, and learn new ways to code.
Projects: Build web applications from music to healthcare as a part of your course curriculum.
Certification: Get awarded with a certificate after the completion of your programming course.
Internships: Enhancing your programming journey with relevant industry exposure.
Placements: Coding Ninjas’ Placement Cell has a pool of multinational companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Shuttl, and more.

Coding Ninjas – Name, Tagline and Logo

Coding Ninjas – Business Model and Revenue Model

Students have to pay a fixed amount for Coding Ninjas courses. Introduced in 2019, Career Camp is a pay later business model by Coding Ninjas where students undergo rigorous six-month-long online training and pay a part of their salary to Coding Ninjas once they receive the job offer. Being a one-of-its-kind business model, Career Camp has the potential to disrupt the existing education market and bring large scale impact in improving India’s education system.

Coding Ninjas – Growth and Revenue

Coding Ninjas ecosystem comprises of 25,000+ students and alumni, 1000+ Campus ambassadors, 2000+ teaching assistants, and 80+ employees. Coding Ninjas revenue was $2 million in an organic bootstrapped model before it raised INR 37.18 Crore in a Series A funding from Info Edge Private Limited in February 2020.

Key highlights:

25000+ students taught since 2016, and currently, Coding Ninjas teach 1500+ students each month
The largest player in the college market with penetration across 1700+ colleges
One of the largest Campus Ambassador program across 700+ colleges
The most comprehensive doubt resolution system with more than 1000 Teaching Assistants, who are a part of the education process at Coding Ninjas, solving 1500+ doubts a day.

Financials

Coding Ninja Financials	FY22	FY23
Operating Revenue	Rs 27.96 crore	Rs 58.9 crore
Total Expenses	Rs 46.66 crore	Rs 95.78 crore
Profit/Loss	Loss of Rs 17 crore	Loss of Rs 34.3 crore

Expenses Breakdown

Coding Ninjas total expenses rises from Rs 46.66 crore in FY22 to Rs 95.78 crore in FY23.

EBITDA

The company’s financial performance showed improvement in FY23 as compared to FY22. As a expenses/Rs of Op Revenue dropped from Rs 1.67 in FY22 to Rs 1.63 in FY23, the EBITDA margin improved from -58.35% in FY22 to -48.89% in FY23, and the Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) sharply jumped from -110.02% in FY22 to -49.98% in FY23. These numbers show increased operational efficiency and financial stability for the organization over this time.

EBITDA FY22-FY23	FY22	FY23
EBITDA Margin	-58.35%	-48.89%
Expense/₹ of Op Revenue	1.67	1.63
ROCE	-110.02%	-49.98%

Coding Ninjas – Product and Services

Coding Ninjas Junior

The Prodigy Program, a ground-breaking enrichment education project, was introduced by Coding Ninja in 2020, with Microsoft MakeCode serving as its inaugural partner.

Prodigy Program

The Prodigy Program, a ground-breaking enrichment education project, was introduced by Coding Ninja on August 21, 2023, with Microsoft MakeCode serving as its inaugural partner.

Coding Ninjas – Funding and Investors

The Coding Ninjas funding has not been vast but they have raised INR 37.18 Crore in a Series A funding from Info Edge Private Limited in February 2020.

Date	Stage	Amount	Investors
February 2020	Series A	$5.2 million	Info Edge Private Limited

The raised funds will help Coding Ninjas scale the online tech education business of the company, strengthen the tech and content and help expand into new business territories. The investment will also be used for scaling its new offering Career Camp – which is an Income Sharing based payment model.

Coding Ninjas – Partnership

Absorb

Absorb Software and Code Ninjas have partnered on August, 20, 2021 to provide improved assistance for Code Ninjas franchisees. The integration of textual materials and videos into training was made possible by Absorb Software, which benefited hundreds of Code Ninjas sites across the US, Canada, and UK.

Microsoft MakeCode

Coding Ninjas and Microsoft MakeCode, an online resource that provides fun and innovative tools for teaching computer programming concepts, have partnered in December 2022, striving to give kids and teenagers outstanding opportunities to learn computing through a range of activities at their own pace.

Samsung Canada

Samsung Canada partnered with Code Ninjas on June, 1, 2023 to offer youth coding workshops around the Greater Toronto Area.

Coding Ninjas – Partners with Talent500 by ANSR

Coding Ninjas partners with Talent500 by ANSR to create employment opportunities in the technology domain

Talent500 by ANSR, the exclusive talent acquisition partner for Fortune 500 companies in India, has announced its partnership with Coding Ninjas, India’s premier Ed-tech platform offering courses in Technology and skilling, to create employment opportunities for aspiring engineers and tech professionals. The strategic partnership intends to offer placement opportunities to students and tech professionals with leading tech companies.

All successful and qualified graduates from Coding Ninjas will have the opportunity to apply for exclusive opportunities on Talent500. Talent500’s proprietary AI-based algorithms then match candidates’ profiles to job requirements and select the ones that are the best fit for the role.

Speaking on the association, Ankush Singla, Co-Founder, Coding Ninjas said, “We are excited to onboard ANSR Cooperation as our Hiring Partners. The collaboration will help us identify the right opportunities based on geography with a strong distribution of our services in the corporate sector. Together we hope to bridge the skill gap between the leading MNCs and also scale the hiring process for students in the IT and technology companies.”

Addressing the collaboration, Vikram Ahuja, Co-Founder, Talent500, said, “Coding Ninjas has continued to be among the foremost platforms for upskilling and growth. We look forward to partnering with them to bring some of the best opportunities from Fortune 500 companies and global industry leaders to India’s brightest, tech minds, and help increase access to opportunity for talent across the country.”

As part of this partnership, Coding Ninjas with the help of Talent500’ AI-led approach to recruiting and exclusive access to some of the most aspirational companies in the world, will create an unparalleled talent pool of some of the best tech aspirants for Fortune 500 companies.

Coding Ninjas – FAQs

Who is the CEO of Coding Ninjas?

Ankush Singla is the Co-founder & CEO of Coding Ninjas. He is a coding enthusiast and has an avid experience in Machine Learning and Data Science and has previously worked with Amazon and Facebook (USA).

Does Coding Ninjas provide placement?

Yes. Coding Ninjas supports candidate to get placement by connecting them with HRs and lets them showcase their skills and resume. Apart from this, it also prepares one to give interviews.

Is Coding Ninjas free?

You can Start Learning for free and get access to 10+ expert led courses for free. Later, Students have to pay a fixed amount for Coding Ninjas courses.

How much is the operating revenue of Coding Ninjas?

Coding Ninjas attained annual operating revenue of Rs 58.9 crore in FY23.

What is Coding Ninjas net worth?

The net worth of Coding Ninjas is currently unknown.

October 28, 2023

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Success Story | How Does This Pharma Company Plans to Lead the Indian Market?

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.

To talk about pharma and medicines in today’s times, the industry is considered one of the most booming industries. These industries have offered a prevalence of contributions to the world of medicine. Medicines and drug usage has been there since immemorial, but the process of manufacturing has changed drastically.

These industries have a lengthy process and go through various stages such as design, formulation, fabrication, withdrawal, dispensation, distillation, and a lot of other things needed for the production of chemical substances.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories is dedicated to offering innovative, cost-effective medications for healthier living in the most integrated manner possible. It offers a variety of goods and services, such as APIs, specialised pharmaceutical services, generics, biosimilars, and unique formulations, through its three businesses, Pharmaceutical Services and Active Ingredients, Global Generics, and Proprietary Products.

Let’s dig more into Dr. Reddy Laboratories’ founders, business model, revenue, acquisitions, growth, and more in this article.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Company Highlights

Headquarters	Hyderabad, India
Sector	Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Founder	Dr. Kallam Anji Reddy
Founded	1984
Website	drreddys.com

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – About

This pharma manufacturing company was founded in 1984 by Dr. Kallam Anji Reddy. The company initially started as a supplier for Indian drug manufacturers but shortly diversified its operations to export to other less-regulated markets. The company took advantage to get approval from other drug licensing companies like the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which resulted in huge profits that led to their formulations and setting up bulk drug manufacturing factories in advanced places.

Dr. Reddy’s main therapeutic interventions are in the areas of dermatology, cancer, diabetology, gastroenterology, oncology, and pain management. It has markets all over the world like in the USA, India, Russia & CIS countries, and Europe. The company has 21 manufacturing facilities spread over 66 countries.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Industry

India is one of the top 10 exporters of pharmaceuticals. It supplies 50% of vaccines in the global market, 40% of generic demand in the US, and 25% of all medicine in the UK.

As per a Pharmaceuticals industry report, India’s domestic pharmaceutical market was at $42 billion in 2021. It is predicted to reach $65 billion by 2024, and $120-130 billion by 2030.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories is known for manufacturing and marketing a wide range of pharmaceuticals in India and overseas

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Founder

Dr. Kallam Anji Reddy is the founder of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories.

Dr. Kallam Anji Reddy

Dr. K Anji Reddy was born in 1941 to a modest but prosperous farming family in the Andhra Pradesh hamlet of Tadepalli. His inspiration goes to his father as he grew up watching him make herbal pills and distributed them without charging any penny to the needy ones.

Dr. Anji Reddy completed his schooling at Anapothana Zilla Parishath High School Nutakki. He got his degree in B.Sc. (Tech) from the University Department of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. Soon after graduation, he got his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. After that, he spent six years working for the government-owned Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Ltd (IDPL). This exposure to working at the IDPL fueled his desire to start his own business.

Dr. Kallam Anji Reddy quotes, “It was a dream. It was not a plan on the drawing board, no. But it was a dream.”

For his contributions to the Indian pharmaceutical industry, the Indian Government honoured him with the Padma Shri in 2001 and the Padma Bhushan in 2011. He was also a representative on the Trade and Industry Council for the Indian Prime Minister.

Dr. Kallam Anji Reddy suffered from cancer and lost the battle on 15 March 2013. He died at the Apollo Hospital, Hyderabad. At present, the company is run by his son, Satish Reddy and son-in-law, G.V. Prasad.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Startup Story and Growth

Soon after the construction of its manufacturing plant at Bollaram, the company commenced its business in 1985. In one year, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories got listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and entered the international market during this year with the export of the API Methyldopa.

The company started its first manufacturing of Omeprazole in 1991, which is considered to be the best product worldwide soon after, they entered the Russian market, their first-ever international exposure.

In the late 1990s, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories US generics market established its offices in New Jersey. Besides their international establishment, the company started manufacturing Biologics to give Indian consumers a taste of high–cost medicines at reasonable prices.

The company introduced the first generic medicine, “Ibuprofen” under its brand in the US in 2008 after experiencing significant growth in the Indian market.

In 2005, Dr. Reddy’s Lab developed India’s first drug for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers.

To touching a revenue of $1 billion in the mid-2000s, the company made several drugs like antibody biosimilar monoclonal antibodies to treat certain autoimmune diseases to entering into Colombia with a portfolio of high-quality and affordable medicines for cancer patients in 2016, the company has come a long way.

In 2020, to combat Covid-19, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories made several partnerships from all over the world to bring an innovative therapeutic approach to India. They came up with its first generic Otic suspension product in the U.S.

Last year, the company collaborated with Eli Lilly to export Baricitinib to India. They also collaborated with Merck to provide Molnupiravir to COVID-19 patients everywhere.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Mission and Vision

The vision of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories is to live by seven core values, which they give a lot of importance to it. The seven values are:

Sustainability
Integrity and transparency
Safety
Quality
Collaboration and teamwork
Productivity
Respect for the individual

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Name, Logo, and Tagline

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Logo and Tagline

Since it was the dream of Dr. K Anji Reddy to create affordable medicine for every class of people, he started the company with his surname, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories. The company works with the tagline, “Good Health Can’t Wait.”

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Business Model

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories’ business model is mostly about research and development, end-to-end production, and cutting-edge digital technology to fulfil its commitments to patients all around the world. Their business model is successful as they produce drugs in bulk size and have in-house R&D centres.

They do business by providing the following services:

India Branded Generics – By developing medicines for acute and chronic diseases, and establishing speciality care, institutional/hospital business, OTC, and eCommerce.
North America Generics – By having establishments in New Jersey, and Canada to offer their affordable healthcare to the world.
Emerging Markets Branded Generics – They have their services in Southeast Asian countries. The company provides medicines – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Africa, Australia, and New Zealand; CIS and Romania; China; Latin America and Russia.
Europe Generics – The company also offers its services to give access to affordable and innovative medicines in Europe as well. They have a presence in France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine, and United Kingdom.
Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) – They manufacture bulk drugs or active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), which remain a cornerstone of the company.
Biologics – The company generates and markets a variety of immunology and oncology-related biosimilar medicines. This is the most integrated part of the company.
Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services – With scale-up and commercial manufacturing facilities in India, the UK, Mexico, and the US, Dr. Reddy’s Aurigene Pharmaceutical services provide discovery and development services at top-notch facilities in India.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Revenue

The company mostly gets 45% earnings from North America Generics, then 18% from India, 19% from Russia, 12% from Europe, and 6% from the rest of the world.

The company has generated $74.9 billion from NAG, $16.6 billion from Europe, $45.7 billion from emerging markets, and $42 billion from India in FY22.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories recorded a revenue of $2.83 billion for FY22 which was an 8.94% increase from $2.59 billion in FY2021.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Products and Services

Hyperinjection in US

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories launched Hyperinjection in US. The announcement of the company’s joint launch of Treprostinil injection in the US market with its subsidiaries came in April of 2023.

Gummies

CeleHealth Kidz Immuno Plus Gummies were introduced to the Indian market in July, 2023 by Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories. The product attempts to meet the dietary needs related to the increasing worries about kid immunity in India.

Celevida wellness

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. stated that Svaas Wellness Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary, has launched “Celevida Wellness,” the company’s first direct-to-consumer (D2C) e-commerce website for diabetic patients on October, 26, 2023.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Funding

Company has raised $6 million in two funding rounds.

Date	Funding Round	Amount
Oct 3, 2022	Post-IPO Equity	–
Dec 1, 2001	Post-IPO Equity	$6M

Dr.Reddy’s Laboratories – Investments

Dr.Reddy’s Laboratories has Invested in one company to date:

Date	Funding Round	Company Name	Amount
Sep 30, 2005	Series A	Perlecan Pharma	$52.5M

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Challenges Faced

The manufacturing business is the toughest business to operate especially in medicine and drugs. Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories have had faced challenges in its journey. There were a few controversies in which the company was caught up. The company had quality problems in its Mexico unit and a few fatal accidents.

Recently, the company announced a 76% year-over-year (YoY) decline in profit after tax (PAT) to Rs 88 crore in Q4FY22 due to pricing pressure in North America and Europe, decreased export benefits, and a rise in inventory reserves.

Dr.Reddy’s Laboratories – Partnership

Shanghai Junshi Biosciences Co., Ltd

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories and Shanghai Junshi Biosciences Co., Ltd. has partnershiped on Augut, 5, 2023 to develop and market toripalimab, the anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody, in South Africa, India, Latin America, and, upon Dr. Reddy’s election, Australia, New Zealand, and other nations.

Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has revealed that Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Limited (Dr Reddy’s), has partnershiped with AWS on July, 10, 2023 as its preferred cloud provider in order to facilitate the provision of new and reasonably priced medicines.

Theranica

Theranica, an Israeli digital therapeutics firm, has signed a strategic partnership and supply deal with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. for the exclusive marketing and distribution of its FDA-approved Nerivio in India.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Shareholders

The company has several shareholders. The following are the shareholders who hold 1% or more of the equity shares as of March 2022:

Name	Number of Shares	%
Dr. Reddy’s Holdings Limited	41,325,300	24.83
Life Insurance Corporation of India	8,769,499	5.27
SBI-ETF Sensex	4,245,926	2.55
Aditya Birla SunLife Trustee Private Limited	3,631,279	2.17
First Sentier Investors ICVC-Stewart Investors	3,500,511	2.1
ICICI Prudential Value Discovery Fund	3,224,070	1.92
Government of Singapore	3,004,517	1.81
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited	2,743,177	1.64
NPS Trust and their associates	2,488,266	1.48
UTI-Mastershare Unit	1,991,477	1.19
HDFC Trustee Company	1,700,213	1.02
Government Pension Fund Global	1,677,349	1.01
Mirae Asset Tax Saver Fund and their associates	1,668,396	1

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Mergers and Acquisitions

The company has made 6 acquisitions till now and is also open for M&A and is waiting for the right opportunity. The acquisitions are:

Acquiree Name	Date	Amount
Nimbus Health	February 4,2022	Undisclosed
Betapharm Arzneimittel GmbH	March 3, 2006	$570 million
American Remedies	November 26, 1999	$90 million
BMS Laboratories Limited	March 12, 2002	Undisclosed
Imperial Credit Pvt. Ltd.	March 3, 2017	$20 million
Trigenesis Therapeutics	May 7, 2004	$11 million

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Awards and Achievements

The company has got several awards for its performance in the pharmaceutical industry. Below is the list of awards won by Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories:

Top Employers Institute – recognised as Top Employer in South Africa
Sustainability 4.0 Awards 2022 – Sustainable Corporate of the Year award
Dow Jones Sustainability Index 2021 – Among top 10 leaders globally; featured for 6th year in a row in the Emerging Markets category
Member of the Sustainability Yearbook 2022
Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index 2022 – the only Indian pharma company in the index
CII SCALE Award 2021 – for excellence in logistics and supply chain for the 7th consecutive year
CII Industrial Innovation Awards 2021
Global Generics & Biosimilars Awards 2021
United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles Awards – 2nd runner-up in the Gender Inclusive Workplace category in Asia-Pacific
Indo-American Chamber of Commerce 2021
Economic Times – Futurescape 8th Sustainability Index Report 2021
Dr. Reddy’s Columbia – Great Place to Work in 2021

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories – Future Plans

The company is aiming to be among the top 5 drug maker companies in the domestic market by planning mergers and acquisitions to up its game.

The co-chairman and managing director of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, GV Prasad said in an interview, “Getting into the top 5 is our aspiration. On an organic curve, you can’t reach there (top five). We are open for M&A but for the right price and buttressed by organic execution. We have to pull all the levers”.

FAQs

When was Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories founded?

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories was founded in the year 1984 and is headquartered in Hyderabad.

Who is the founder of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories?

Dr. Kallam Anji Reddy is the founder of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories.

What was Dr. Reddy’s revenue in 2022?

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories recorded revenue of 2.8 billion USD in FY2022.

What was Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories’ recent acquisition?

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories’ most recently acquired Germany-based Nimbus Health GmbH. The company announced the agreement of acquisition in February 2022.

Which pharma company is at the top in India?

Top pharma companies in India are:

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories
Divi’s Laboratories
Sun Pharmaceutical Industries
Biocon
Torrent Pharmaceuticals
Alkem Laboratories
Glenmark Pharmaceuticals.
Piramal Enterprises Ltd.
Emcure Pharmaceuticals
Zydus Lifesciences Limited (formerly Cadila Healthcare)

October 27, 2023

Databricks – A Unified Platform to collaborate Data, Analytics, and AI

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.

The modern world we live in today depends massively on data and information. Everything around us like, the things we use, see, and are being surrounded by, are in one or the other way influenced by technology.

As the need for technology grows, the significance of data started flourishing. With data piling up, the need for a warehouse to store, analyze and process these data for multiple purposes emerged.

This is where Databricks surfaced their platform. Databricks serves as a cloud platform to store enormous data that can be processed and run smoothly. This is an analytic platform that is built on their popular open-sourced product called Apache Spark. They’ve occupied a 10.19% market share and stand to be the third-largest occupant in the digital analytics market.

Databricks – Company Highlights

Startup Name	Databricks
Headquarters	San Francisco, California, United States
Industry	Computer Software, Data, AI
Founders	Ali Ghodsi, Andy Konwinski, lon Stoica, Patrick Wendell, Reynold Xin, Matei Zaharia, and Arsalan Tavakoli
Founded	2013
Website	databricks.com

Databricks – About
Databricks – Industry
Databricks – Founders
Databricks – Startup Story
Databricks – Mission
Databricks – Logo
Databricks – Business and Revenue Model
Databricks – Employees
Databricks – Funding and Investors
Databricks – Acquisitions
Databricks – Social Media Presence
Databricks – Growth and Revenue
Databricks – Products and Features
Databricks – Investment
Databricks – Partnerships
Databricks – Competitors
Databricks – Future Plans

Databricks – About

Databricks was established by the creators of Apache Spark, as a Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) company. It acts as a warehouse for any structured or unstructured data, on the cloud. Databricks also serves as a combined platform for all your Data, AI, and Analytics functions that helps data engineers, analysts, and data scientists to perform huge workloads, seamlessly. This is done by their Lakehouse Platform powered by Apache Spark, which is the best combination of features from Data Lakes (low-cost and flexibility) and Data Warehouses (performance efficiency).

In addition to Apache Spark, Delta Lake and MLflow are the other two open-sourced projects, that are behind the effective functions of the Lakehouse Platform. Databricks provide their Unified Data services through multiple clouds namely, Google Cloud, AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud.

About Databricks

Databricks – Industry

Data Industry has turned to be a large and significant industry in all aspects of life and business. According to Statista, the Data Market is expected to grow to a whopping $103 Billion by 2027. It is double the size of its presence in 2018. Artificial Intelligence is another rapidly growing market that has become an essential element in modern industries.

Databricks – Founders

Databricks was co-founded by a couple of professors from the University of California and five former Berkeley Ph.D. students.

Ali Ghodsi, co-founder and CEO of Databricks, was one of the creators of Apache Spark. He was a professor at the University of California (UC) as well as a board member in UC’s Rising Lab. He has held the primary responsibility for the growth and expansion of Databricks worldwide.
Ion Stoica, co-founder and Chairman of Databricks, is also a professor at UC Berkeley. He’s also a co-director at AMPLab. In addition to this, he co-founded a start-up called Conviva, for video distribution on a large scale.
Matei Zaharia, co-founder and Chief Technologist at Databricks, was earlier a part of the Spark project and now, is the Vice President of Apache Foundation. ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award was given to him in 2014 for his research in large-scale computer systems.
Patrick Wendell, co-founder and Vice President of Engineering in Databricks, had played a major role in Spark’s operations.
Reynold Xin, co-founder and Chief Architect and takes care of the technical operations in Apache Spark. He won the Best Demo Award in 2011 at VLDB.
Andy Konwinski, co-founder and Vice President of management, takes care of the AI operations in Databricks. Earlier he took care of the company’s market efforts in Spark Summit creation.
Arsalan Tavakoli-Shiraji, co-founder and Senior Vice President of field engineering in Databricks, earlier worked in McKinsey as Associate Principal. He was a former Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley.

Databricks – Startup Story

Ali Ghodsi, the CEO of Databricks was keen on coding since the age of 8 when his parents bought him a used Commodore 64. He pursued his higher education in computer engineering and a Ph.D. in distributed computing. Later, in 2009, he joined hands with Ion Stoica and they together created ‘Spark’, which was already instigated by Matei Zaharia.

They further coordinated with another team working on Machine Learning, and they together introduced ‘Apache Spark’ in the market. At first, no companies paid any attention, as the technology seemed alien. In 2013, Ben Horowitz (Co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz VC), planted some hope in them by investing $14 Million and encouraged them on creating a company, that serves as a platform to run Apache Spark. Thus, Databricks was established in 2013.

Databricks – Mission

Databricks functions with a mission to make Data Unification more efficient, by innovating new techniques to unify Data, AI, and Analytics. They strive to make the customer experience more engaging.

Databricks – Logo

Databricks Logo

Databricks logo resembles two bricks aligned perfectly like data folders organized on a shelf. It seems that Databricks intended to keep the logo with a starting and ending point without any breaks in-between. This may be done to imply that they unify data collection, storage, and analytics functions under one common platform with no need for an exit, as everything is covered here.

Databricks – Business and Revenue Model

Their business model is positioned on the web-based software that provides a platform to work with Apache Spark. It facilitates automatic group management and Python-style notebooks for Data engineers and scientists.

Databricks provides its resources in the form of Software as a Service (SaaS) and generates revenue through its subscriptions. Their major services are through three cloud platforms namely:

Microsoft Azure
Google Cloud
Amazon Web Services

Though the prices vary for each cloud, there’s a common factor to be noted: “Only pay for what you use”. Costs are calculated independently of the services opted for and require no up-front payment. The customers are required to pay only for the number of resources used as they go.

Databricks – Employees

Databricks has over 5,001 – 10,000 employees around the world as of 2023. In November 2019, Databricks celebrated the milestone of having hired the 1000th full-time employee for them. It took 6 years to reach the first 1000 employees and less than 2 years to hire the rest.

Databricks – Funding and Investors

With its recent funding of $503.7 million, Databricks has raised $4 Billion through 12 funding rounds since its formation. A total of 49 investors have so far invested in Databricks.

Date	Stage	Amount	Investors
September 14, 2023	Series I	$503.7M	T. Rowe Price
July 31, 2023	Secondary Market	–	–
March 3, 2023	Series H	–	–
September 4, 2021	Angel Round	$200K	–
August 31, 2021	Series H	$1.6 Billion	Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), Baillie Gifford, ClearBridge Investments, UC Investments, Andreessen Horowitz, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, CapitalG, CPP Investment Board, Coatue Management, Fidelity Management & Research, Franklin Templeton, GIC, Greenoaks, Octahedron Capital, T. Rowe Price Associates, Tiger Global Management, Whale Rock Capital Management, Insight Partners, Gaingels, New Enterprise Association, Alta Park Capital, a suite of BNY Mellon funds, Discovery Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, Flucas Ventures, the House Fund Geodesic, and Green Bay Ventures.
February 1, 2021	Series G	$1 Billion	Franklin Templeton, CPP Investment Board, Fidelity Management & Research LLC, Whale Rock, Amazon Web Services (AWS), CapitalG, Salesforce Ventures, Microsoft, Andreessen Horowitz, Alkeon Capital Management, BlackRock, Inc., Coatue Management, T. Rowe Price Associates, Tiger Global Management, New Enterprise Association, Discovery Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, Founders Circle Capital, Geodesic, GIC, Green Bay Ventures, Greenoaks Capital and Octahedron Capital.
October 22, 2019	Series F	$400 Million	Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock, Inc., T. Rowe Price Associates, Tiger Global Management, Coatue, New Enterprise Association, Microsoft, Alkeon Capital Management, Dragoneer Investment Group, Geodesic, and Green Bay Ventures.
February 5, 2019	Series E	$250 Million	Andreessen Horowitz, Microsoft, Coatue, Battery Ventures, New Enterprise Association, Green Bay Ventures, and Geodesic Capital.
August 22, 2017	Series D	$140 Million	New Enterprise Association, Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Geodesic Capital, and Green Bay Ventures.
December 15, 2016	Series C	$60 Million	New Enterprise Association, Andreessen Horowitz and SineWave Ventures.
June 30, 2014	Series B	$33 Million	New Enterprise Association, Andreessen Horowitz and DCVC.
September 25, 2013	Series A	$14 Million	Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel and Alfred Chuang.

Databricks – Acquisitions

Databricks has so far acquired seven companies. Below are the details:

Account Name	Date	Amount
Arcion	Oct 23, 2023	$100M
MosaicML	Jun 26, 2023	$1.3B
Okera	May 3, 2023	–
DataJoy Inc.	Oct 13, 2022	–
Cortex Labs	Apr 15, 2022	–
8080 Labs	Oct 6, 2021	–
Redash	Jun 24, 2020	–

Databricks – Social Media Presence

Databricks has good presence in Twitter and LinkedIn they utilizes these platforms to promote its products and services to gain a market advantage. They also post regarding their world tours and launch events with their latest inventions. Links to Blogs and Articles featuring Databricks or their products and information related to job openings can also be found on their social platforms.

Databricks – Growth and Revenue

Databricks was established in 2013, keeping Spark Technology as its core. Its formation was immediately succeeded by a rumor that ‘Spark Technology won’t work if your data doesn’t fit in their memory’. This discouraged businesses to use Spark.

Finally, in 2015, the founders decided to end these rumors by participating in a contest where they beat the world record for processing one petabyte of data in the lowest time and as a result, they gained media attention and popularity.

By 2017, they were valued at $500 Million but their annual revenue was way lower at $1 Million. Later, participating in the ‘sorting contest’, making some changes in employee hiring and deciding to build software with features demanded by large enterprises, turned out to be fruitful.

Since then, Databricks’s growth is only climbing uphill. Their revenue hit the $100 Million mark for the first time in 2018 and took just another year to reach $200 Million in 2019. The introduction of the Lakehouse feature was a primary factor for its success. The company’s valuation grew from $6.2 Billion in Q3 of 2019 to around $38 Billion in Q3 of 2021.

Databricks reported annual recurring revenue of $425 Million in 2020.

Databricks disclosed that during the fiscal year that concluded on January 31, 2023, it brought in over $1 billion in revenue. The business reported that it expanded by more than 60% in the previous year 2022.

Databricks – Products and Features

Some of the latest prominent launch are:

Data Unity With New Delta Lake Release

Databricks, announced a new version of its Delta Lake data storage format on June 28, 2023. According to the company, this version eliminates data silos. The latest addition to the rival open – source standards for the analytic data tables in data lake systems is Delta Lake 3.0, which includes Iceberg and Hudi from the Apache Foundation.

Dolly

Databricks unveiled an open-source language model that allows programmers to create their own chatbot applications driven by AI on March 24, 2023.

Lakehouse Federation

At its Data + AI Summit, Databricks launched what it refers to as its Lakehouse Federation function on June, 28, 2023. With this new feature, businesses can discover, query, and administer their data across a wide range of platforms by combining their disparate walled data systems.

Databricks – Partnerships

Databricks has partnered with many companies. Some of the lates prominent partnerships are:

Microsoft

With a new partnership with Databricks in August, 2023 to market AI app-development tools, Microsoft has increased the scope of its AI goals. Businesses will be able to create their own AI models from scratch using the Databricks software.

Kobai

On September 11, 2023, Databricks and Kobai partnered. Customers may take use of the power and scalability of the Databricks Lakehouse Platform, along with the simplicity and insights of knowledge graphs.

3i Infotech

In order to generate business value by combining data and AI on a single platform, 3i Infotech Ltd and Databricks has partnered on October 18, 2023.

Databricks – Investment

Databricks has invested in 24 companies. Some of the investments are listed below:

Account Name	Date	Amount
Perplexity AI	2022	–
Arcion	2018	–
Prophecy.io	Jan, 2017	–
Catalyst	Sep, 2017	–
Cleanlab	–	–

Databricks – Competitors

Some of the top competitors of Databricks are:

Snowflake
Cloudera
Datastax
Qubole
MATLAB
Alteryx
Dremio
Intellicus

Here are a few comparisons with some competitors:

Snowflake – Snowflake is much larger than Databricks. They both offer similar services with few differences (Databricks processes large data while Snowflake offers elasticity of cloud data for centralized access) at a flexible price. Databricks is making a long battle to overcome its competitor.

Cloudera – Cloudera provides a common cloud storage and management platform that stores, processes, and analyses data for an organization. It is similar to that of Databricks in the form of Data Warehouse, Processing, and Distribution.

Databricks – Future Plans

It is evident that Databricks was working on two of the fastest-growing big data domains, Streaming and Deep-Learning in 2021. They were building a multi-faceted Application Programming Interface (API) to process these two domains. Databricks is also keen on accelerating the innovation of Data Lakehouse to gain a greater advantage by conquering data-driven organizations.

According to their website, Databricks plans to enable the workspace’s favorites feature. Notes, dashboards, experiments, and searches may all be saved to a list of favorites, which you can then access from the homepage.

Databricks – FAQs

What is Databricks?

Databricks is a cloud-based tool for storing and processing huge quantities of data using Machine Learning models. This is done through their Apache Spark tool.

Who founded Databricks?

Databricks was co-founded by seven people namely, Ali Ghodsi, Ion Stoica, Matei Zaharia, Patrick Wendell, Reynold Xin, Andy Konwinski, and Arsalan Tavakoli-Shiraji.

How much has Databricks secured through funding?

Databricks secured around $4 Billion through 12 funding rounds.

What is the annual revenue of Databricks?

Databricks has reported an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $1.275 Billion for the year ending 2022.

Who are the clients of Databricks?

Databricks has around 6000+ customers worldwide. Some of their popular clients are:

Shell
CVS Health
Regeneron
T-Mobile
HSBC
Comcast

October 25, 2023

Dailyhunt Success Story – How it Brings Daily News and Content in Local Indian Languages?

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.

We no longer have to wait for the newspapers to get the latest news, nor do we have to wait till we reach home and switch on the TV to know the breaking news. With mobile phones, fast and cheap internet services, and online news aggregators accessing news, the latest information and updates are now a breeze. However, getting local news updates every day in regional languages was still far from reality in India until 2010, when Dailyhunt was founded.

The Indian content and news aggregating app, founded in 2009, is a platform that delivers local news from all corners of the country to the Indian masses in their regional languages. Headquartered in Bengaluru, Dailyhunt aggregates and presents news and daily local language content in 14+ regional languages “that informs, enriches, and entertains” Indian audiences.

Initially started as Newshunt by Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni in 2009, the Symbian-turned-Android application was acquired by Virendra Gupta in 2011. It was Viru who renamed the application to Dailyhunt, the name it is now known as, in 2015. Today Dailyhunt procures content from over 1000 publishers and is gaining much popularity due to its Indian regional language content

Dailyhunt turned into India’s first tech unicorn focused on local languages on December 21, 2020, after its parent organization, VerSe Innovation, received funding of over $100 million led by Google, Microsoft, and Falcon Edge’s Alpha Wave Incubation.

Find 650+ newspapers and channels in a single app in your own language – Dailyhunt

StartupTalky covers the success story of Dailyhunt in this post. Know all about Dailhunt, how the platform works, its business model, revenue model, funding, founder/owner, mergers and acquisitions, and more.

Dailyhunt: Company Highlights

Startup Name	Dailyhunt
Headquarters	Bangalore
Founder	Virendra Gupta, Umang Bedi and Shailendra Sharma
Sector	News, Media
Founded	2009
Parent Organization	Verse Innovation Pvt Ltd.
Website	www.dailyhunt.com

Dailyhunt – Industry | The Media and Entertainment Sector in India
Dailyhunt – About and How it Works
Dailyhunt – Founders and Team
Dailyhunt – Startup Story | How was Dailyhunt Started?
Dailyhunt – Name and Logo
Dailyhunt – Business Model and Revenue Model
Dailyhunt – Funding and Investors
Dailyhunt – Growth
Dailyhunt – Products and Services
Dailyhunt – Partnership
Dailyhunt – Investment
Dailyhunt – Mergers & Acquisitions
Dailyhunt – Competitors
Dailyhunt – Future Plans

Dailyhunt – Industry | The Media and Entertainment Sector in India

According to the PwC report, India’s Media and Entertainment sector is fairly expected to touch $45.1 billion by 2021, expanding at a CAGR of over 10.5%. The report also states that the segment has undergone substantial progress since 2016, when its valuation stood at $27.3 billion.

Dailyhunt – About and How it Works

Dailyhunt is an Indian local news and content aggregator app that provides local language content in 14 Indian languages, which include major languages like Hindi, Kannada, and Marathi, to name a few, from over 3000+ content providers as of 2021.

It is one of the early entrants in the regional content space in the country. The interesting part is that the platform also offers short videos. This video content is sourced from organizations and stringers. Through its smart technology, the platform personalizes the content as per the users’ requirements.

From the nation’s biggest news source to hyperlocal correspondents, it curates news that you will surely love to watch. Almost 90% of the users use the platform in regional languages. It serves more than 350 million users a month, as per the reports for 2022. The unique proposition is that the users can browse the topics of their interest and also share news over different social media platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook, etc.

Dailyhunt login is not difficult. The login process for the Dailyhunt app is really easy because the local news aggregating platform appears as a website that is designed as a news portal for vernacular news. To login to the same, you simply need to go to www.direct.dailyhunt.in/log in, if you are using a browser or open the Dailyhunt app, create your username and password, and log in through the same credentials to enjoy your news updates right from the comfort of your home.

Dailyhunt – Founders and Team

Virendra Gupta is the founder and CEO of Dailyhunt; Umang Bedi is the co-founder; and Shailendra Sharma is the co-founder and SVP of Dailyhunt.

Virendra Gupta

Virendra Gupta has a B.E. degree in Electronics and Communication from Jodhpur’s MBM Engineering College, after which he completed a Master’s in Management from IIT Mumbai School of Management. Gupta started his career with OnMobile, where he was in marketing and alliances. After his brief stint with OnMobile, Virendra moved on to work with other companies, including Bharti Cellular and Trilogy, where he served in various key leadership positions. Virendra Gupta eventually founded Verse, a value-added service company, in 2007, which led him to acquire Newshunt (now Dailyhunt) in 2011, thereby becoming the founder and CEO of both companies.

Umang Bedi

Now known as the co-founder of Dailyhunt, Umang Bedi was a Pune University student from whom he completed a B.E. in electronics. He then pursued a general management program at Harvard Business School. Starting his career as the Managing Director of Intuit Inc., Umang has served as the Managing Director of a couple of other notable companies too, which include Adobe and Facebook, before being appointed as the President of Dailyhunt in 2018. Bedi was elevated to the designation of co-founder in 2020. Umang is also the Statutory Board Member of Goals 101.

Shailendra Sharma

Shailendra Sharma is the SVP of Engineering at Dailyhunt. Starting as a software trainee at Tata Research and Development Center, Sharma went on to work with Persistent Systems and Trilogy before co-founding DailyHunt with the other co-founders. Sharma is also regarded as the founder of 360fy Technologies. Shailendra Sharma is also a Pune University alumnus, from which he completed an MCA in Computer Science.

Virendra Gupta had initially started the Daily Hunt. Later, he roped in Umang Bedi and Shailendra Sharma to make the platform available to a larger audience.

Dailyhunt has an employee strength of between 501 and 1,000 employees.

Dailyhunt – Startup Story | How was Dailyhunt Started?

Dailyhunt, earlier known as Newshunt, was initially started by two ex-Nokia employees, Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni. It was created as a Symbian app in 2009. However, later in 2011, Newshunt was acquired by Virendra Gupta, who was then the founder of VerSe Innovation. He had started his venture, Versé Innovation Pvt Ltd., as a value-added service (VAS) company that provides SMS alerts on jobs, matrimony, property, news, and education to subscribers from around the country. In 2015, he renamed NewsHunt aailyHunt.

Dailyhunt – Name and Logo

The name Dailyhunt was chosen because the app allows users to get daily news when searching determinedly.

Dailyhunt Logo

Dailyhunt – Business Model and Revenue Model

Being a news aggregating app is common, but Dailyhunt, most importantly, is a vernacular news aggregating app. There is a difference. In contrast to the other traditional news platforms, which target the top 10–15% of internet users, Dailyhunt targets the remaining percentage of the audience with its local language contents.

Dailyhunt is free for users who want to read the news and other relevant content from the app. It generates revenue from:

Impressions-Based (News): tie-ups with large news media and publishing houses wherein Dailyhunt shares the advertising revenue on the news screens with these players.
Transactions-Based (Books, Magazines, and Singles): tie-ups with book and magazine publishers, wherein the platform acts as a distributor for these books, collects the revenue from the users, and shares it with the publishers, who in turn may share it with the authors.
In-App Advertisements: Dailyhunt also earns from the advertisements of the companies and startups that feature on the app.

Dailyhunt – Funding and Investors

Dailyhunt has witnessed more than $430 million in funding over 14+ funding rounds from a range of investors, including Qatar Investment, Falcon Edge, Google, Microsoft, ByteDance, Goldman Sachs, and others.

Dailyhunt and JJosh’s parent, Verse Innovation, raised a relatively large funding round on April 6, 2022, which infused $805 million into the company, led by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), where CPP alone put $425 million worth of funds. As of the reports for 2022, the Daily Hunt parent is valued at around $5 billion.

Date	Stage	Amount	Lead Investors
February 2021	Series H	$100 million	Qatar Investment Authority and others
December 2020	Series H	$100 million	Google, Microsoft and Falcon Edge’s Alpha Wave Incubation
November 2020	–	$10 million)	B Capital Group
May 2020	Series G	$35.6 million	Lupa India, ByteDance, Goldman Sachs
April 2020	Series G	$23.5 million	Falcon Edge Capital, ByteDance
November 2019	Secondary Market	–	ByteDance
August 2019	Series F	$3 million	Goldman Sachs
May 2019	Series F	$22 million	Sofina
January 2019	Series E	Rs 24.61 crore	Omidyar Network, Sequoia Capital, Renu Sehgal Trust
January 2019	Venture Round	–	Equip Capital
September 2018	Series E	$6 million	Falcon Edge Capital
October 2016	Series D	$25 million	ByteDance
February 2015	Series C	$40 million	Falcon Capital
September 2014	Series B	Rs 100 crore	Sequoia Capital India

Bytedance has reportedly exited Dailyhunt parent VerSe Innovation’s cap table at a discount of 56% as of June 4, 2022. The exit of the Chinese investor was confirmed earlier in June 2022 by VerSe. With the exit of the Tiktok owner, Bytedance, VerSe Innovation has now proclaimed that they are one of the few unicorn companies in India with 0% Chinese holding.

Bytedance has reportedly sold its stake in VerSe with the help of a secondary deal to existing investors, including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

Dailyhunt – Growth

In July 2018, Dailyhunt added over 12 million net new monthly active users, and in August, it beat the previous month’s performance with the addition of 15 million new monthly active users. Total monthly users on all platforms (Dailyhunt and OneIndia) put together, when reported in September 2018, were 138 million+, of which Dailyhunt accounted for 100 million+. Moreover, the time spent per daily active user is over 27 minutes per person per day, as reported at the end of 2018.

Dailyhunt has grown to serve over 350 million users every month, and its short video platform, Josh, claims to grow its monthly active users (MAUs) to 139 million and its daily active users (DAUs) to 68 million as of January 20, 2022. The Verse Innovation news aggregating platform Dailyhunt has turned out to be one of the leading news-providing platforms and has grown 8X bigger than its nearest rival, InShorts.

Why are losses piling up?

Dailyhunt attained unicorn status after the Google-led fundraising round in December 2020, and the Indian content and news aggregator platform is aiming to scale new horizons with the Chinese apps not yet to be unbanned anytime soon.

The Indian content and news aggregator platform has reportedly increased its operating revenue in FY20, where its total collections amounted to Rs 310 crore, which improved by 95% from Rs 159.1 crore in FY19. However, the company has simultaneously witnessed a surge in its total expenditure, which included:

Advertisement and promotional expenditure: This rose by 74% from Rs 214.6 crore in FY19 to Rs 373 crore in FY20.
Commissions to selling agents: The company distributed commissions amounting to Rs 8.4 crore to their selling agents.
Expenditure on employee benefits: This witnessed a rise of 36%, from Rs 114 crore in FY19 to Rs 155.2 crore in FY20.
Training and recruiting expenses: additional amount of Rs 3 crore
Miscellaneous expenses: This surged 54.4%, from Rs 81.6 crore in FY20 to Rs 126 crore in FY21.
Legal and professional costs: Dailyhunt has to bear Rs 16.7 crore in the name of legal and other professional costs.

Going by the income-expenses of the company, Dailyhunt had to spend Rs 2.7 to earn a single rupee, which is a slight improvement from Rs 3 spent to gain Re 1, which the company exhibited at the end of the past financial year. The main reason for the losses that Dailyhunt is picking up is the rising costs of the company, which need to be curbed in the future. These expenses would continue to grow even in FY21 and FY22 due to Josh, the short-form video app launched by Dailyhunt, according to the experts. The reasons for the upcoming expenditures are mainly associated with the promotion and seamless integration of Josh, which is facing huge market competition from ShareChat’s Moj, InMobi-owned Glance’s Roposo, and MX’s Takatak.

Financials

The parent business of Dailyhunt and Josh, VerSe Innovation, made a significant financial achievement in the fiscal year 2022-2023 (FY 2022-2023). From Rs. 1,151 crore in FY22, its total income increased by 57% year over year to reach Rs. 1,809 crore in FY23. With an additional Rs 352 crore coming from non-operating operations, the company’s operating revenue increased by 51% to Rs 1,457 crore, showing another notable increase for the industry.

Expenses Breakdown

Dailyhunt total expenses rise from Rs 3,714 crore in FY22 to Rs 3,716 crore in FY23.

Below is the expense breakdown:

Expenses breakdown	FY22	FY23
Cost of service	Rs 1,411.32 crore	Rs 1672.20 crore
Business promotion	Rs 1262.76 crore	Rs 1,003.32 crore
Employee benefits	Rs 742.8 crore	Rs 817.52 crore
Others	Rs 297.1 crore	Rs 223 crore

EBITDA

According to the company, Dailyhunt recorded more than Rs 1,200 crore in revenue and had an EBITDA margin of 10% at the end of FY23.

Dailyhunt – Products and Services

Newzly

A news-in-brief app for Android users called Newzly was introduced by Dailyhunt in January 2018. With material available in nine languages (English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, and Gujarati), the app’s initial release gives a summary of hot news stories across a variety of genres, including regional, international, entertainment, business, sports, and technology.

Josh

Dailyhunt has launched the short video app Josh in 2020. Josh is Dailyhunt’s homage to Bharat, praising its artistic beauty and diversity, according to Dailyhunt, which said it had gained amazing traction during the beta period.

Publicvibe

With the release of Publicvibe, a new app from Dailyhunt that solely offers hyperlocal video updates on crime, politics, social concerns, and local events, video has been elevated to a new level.

Dailyhunt – Partnership

Some of the prominent partnerships of Dailyhunt are:

Twitter

Twitter collaborated with Dailyhunt to bring Moments to the Indian vernacular news and content aggregating app, as per the reports on February 8, 2021. Dailyhunt currently has a dedicated section called “Twitter Moments,” where users can find curated tweets containing news and other events.

Mzzalo

In December 2020, Dailyhunt announced its partnership with Mzaalo. This will allow Dailyhunt users to get access to Mzaalo’s content and also earn a reward point. These points can later be redeemed to purchase products or services from brands in the Mzaalo app.

Mathrubhumi

Dailyhunt partnered with Mathrubhumi in January 2023. According to Dailyhunt, its users will now be able to read a wide range of content on the platform, including investigative stories, informational stories, entertainment news, and political stories. The partnership will also help Mathrubhumi by allowing it to showcase its content to a sizable portion of Dailyhunt’s readers while also providing its devoted readership with digital support.

Research and Ranking

The Daily Hunt and Research & Ranking have joined forces in January 2023. By raising awareness of wealth development and financial planning, the cooperation, according to the corporation, wants to expand its reach throughout India.

Hindu Group

The Hindu Group, India’s most reputable media organization, and Dailyhunt have partnered on February 16, 2023, to offer users even easier access to a wealth of in-depth information.

Dailyhunt – Investment

Dailyhunt has invested in one company to date:

Company Name	Date	Amount	Funding Round
OneIndia	July 18, 2016	–	Jul 18, 2016

Dailyhunt – Mergers & Acquisitions

Dailyhunt’s parent organization, VerSe Innovation, acquired India-based Vebbler, a community-focused application for sharing photos and videos, on March 10, 2021.
On February 23, 2021, VerSe Innovation also acquired Bengaluru-based AI solutions provider Cognirel Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
In June 2019, the startup acquired hyperlocal video content and news content application LocalPlay, which will help the site stream video content in smaller towns. This deal will also enable local businessmen to advertise on the platform to target consumers in their area.
In July 2015, Dailyhunt acquired Buyt.In, a search engine that enables its users to discover, compare, and purchase products from a range of e-commerce portals.

The most prominent acquisitions of Dailyhunt are listed as:

Acquiree Name	Acquired Date	Price
Vebbler	March 10, 2021	–
Cognirel	Feb 23, 2021	–
LocalPlay	June 20, 2019	–
Buyt.in	July 15, 2015	–

Dailyhunt – Competitors

Though Dailyhunt was one of the early entrants in the market, today it faces strong competition in the market. There are a lot of applications with different USPs running for the first position in the market. Inshorts directly competes with Dailyhunt in the news aggregation space, along with the other applications of:

Newsstand
Business Insider
FirstPost
NDTV
Dainik Bhaskar

On the other hand, in the short video application of Dailyhunt, Josh competes with:

Moj by ShareChat
MX TakaTak
YouTube Shorts

Dailyhunt – Future Plans

Dailyhunt has spoken of its plans to reach 600 of the 725 districts in India from its presence in 400 districts, as per various reports in 2019.

“For the next 10 years, we are going to be all about Bharat or India that does not speak English to take to consumption in a big way with smartphones”, says Virendra Gupta, founder and CEO of Dailyhunt.

With the market becoming more favorable to IT companies in recent years, Dailyhunt is preparing an initial public offering (IPO) over the next two to three years, according to a news report from 2022, a top executive revealed in an interview. The announcement of Dailyhunt’s IPO comes at a time when many internet startups are considering the public markets as a means of funding and providing investors with exits.

FAQs

What is the Daily Hunt?

Dailyhunt is an Indian news and content aggregator app, which can also be termed a local news app that provides local language content in 14+ Indian languages from over 3000+ content providers.

Dailyhunt is from which country?

Dailyhunt originated in India. It previously had the Chinese Investor, ByteDance, in its cap table, who exited the company as of June 4, 2022.

Who is the DailyHunt app owner?

Dailyhunt’s parent company is VerSe Innovation, which is owned by Virendra Gupta. He is the founder and CEO of DailyHunt.

Are NewsHunt and DailyHunt the same?

The Dailyhunt company, as it stands now, was originally rebranded as Newshunt. So, essentially, NewsHunt and DailyHunt are the same platforms.

What languages does Dailyhunt support?

Dailyhunt has content in 14+ Indian languages: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, English, Gujarati, Punjabi, Oriya, Bengali, Urdu, Nepali, and Bhojpuri.

What is the Daily Hunt valuation?

Dailyhunt is a unicorn and boasts a valuation of $5 million as of 2022.

October 22, 2023

GupShup Success Story – How is it Helping Businesses Have Better Engagements?

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.

Bots are software created by developers that conducts automated interactions with people in real-time. A recent study showed that the number of users on messaging apps has exponentially increased. This is why more and more companies that are launched today are greatly relying on automated chats and chatting services to interact with their users or potential customers. This shift towards chatting indicates that the bot phenomenon is truly here to stay.

Every Fortune 500 company has a bot strategy. Gupshup is a bot-building platform that encourages the creation of advanced bots. Gupshup gives creators all the tools required in the bot development lifecycle. One can build their bots on the cloud and can deploy them in a single click into 25+ messaging and voice platforms including Facebook Messenger, Slack, Skype, Line, Google Home, and more.

Know more about Gupshup technology, Gupshup company, Gupshup funding, owner, revenue, challenges, and more, with this StartupTalky article.

GupShup – Company Highlights

Startup Name	GupShup
Legal Name	Webaroo Inc.
Headquarters	San Francisco, California
Industry	Information Services, Information Technology, Messaging, Bot Development
Founder	Beerud Sheth, Rakesh Mathur and Dr. Milind R Agarwal(Ex-Founding Executive)
Founded	Jun 1, 2004
Current CEO	Beerud Sheth
Website	www.GupShup.io

About GupShup and How it Works?
GupShup – Industry
GupShup – Name, Logo and Tagline
GupShup – Founders and Team
GupShup – Startup Story
GupShup – Vision and Mission
GupShup – Business and Revenue Model
GupShup – Financials
GupShup – Products and Services
GupShup – Funding and Investors
GupShup – Shareholding
GupShup – Competitors
GupShup – Award
GupShup – Acquisitions
GupShup – Challenges Faced
GupShup – Future Plans

About GupShup and How it Works?

Gupshup, formerly called SMS Gupshup, is a messaging service and bot-development company that is operating in India, the US, and the UK. It provides a wide range of services including SMS, email, Voice, USSD, and IP messaging to banking, financial services, and insurance retail companies, and chatbot development to the leading retail and e-commerce companies.

Founded in 2004, by Beerud Sheth, Dr. Milind R Agarwal, and Rakesh Mathur, GupShup has extensive experience in building bots for companies such as Unilever, SAP, Tata Sky, TITAN, Vogue, and many more.

“Gupshup is simply a conversational messaging platform. When you book a ticket or buy coffee, you receive a confirmation SMS or a credit amount due to notification on your phone. We are basically the platform that facilitates that,” remarked Gupshup CEO and Co-founder Beerud Sheth in an interview.

The company provides a range of bot-building tools. The IDE bot developer gives all the features of a full-fledged development environment right in the browser of the users. It is built on NodeJS and has multifile support, a customizable UI, and also a package manager. This also enables the users to make HTTP calls to external services very easily. Each bot also comes with its own database and helps in storing and retrieving data. The most powerful feature of the Gupshup IDE bot builder is the bot scripting tool that enables the creation of bot conversations via a simple English script.

The users can also build bots without the need for any coding via the Flow Bot Builder feature. The Flow Bot builder helps them get a code-free way of creating structured bots via a graphical editor. Besides, the Bot interactions can be fully customized to involve users. One can even create structured messages and add media content with just a few clicks.

GupShup – Industry

According to statistics, over 91% of Indian users use messaging apps today. Furthermore, the premium messaging market, which was valued at around $54,579 million in 2016, is estimated to witness a rise at a CAGR of 5.4% and would be reaching $78,349 million by 2023.

Besides, reports say that the global customer service software market is set to grow at a CAGR of 20.4%, which is expected to reach $2.5 bn by 2025.

Since its inception in 2004, the company has experimented with a variety of business models in the messaging space, beginning with a consumer-focused community text messaging service, then a moment messaging app, and finally an enterprise messaging business that provides customer and brand communication solutions for developers and large businesses in a variety of industries.

GupShup – Name, Logo and Tagline

“Gupshup” as the name implies, is an Urdu term for ‘having a conversation‘. GupShup is a leading smart messaging platform provider that enables better customer engagement through conversational messaging.

gupshup – Logo

Gupshup presented a new brand identity. The revamped website, updated tagline, new logo colors, and updated brand look-and-feel make up the new brand identity in March, 2022. These modifications support Gupshup’s goal of revolutionizing business-to-customer interactions and commerce in the future through conversational engagement.

New Tagline – “One-on-one. With everyone”

GupShup – Founders and Team

GupShup was founded by Beerud Sheth, Rakesh Mathur and Dr. Milind R Agarwal.

Beerud Sheth

Beerud Sheth is the Co-founder and CEO of Gupshup. An alumnus of IIT Bombay and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Beerud was a Computer Science student. Sheth started his career working with Citibank, where he was the AVP. He then worked with Merrill Lynch with the same designation before venturing into the startup world.

When the internet was the talk of the town and names like Google, Amazon, and many more echoed in the room, Beerud decided to not miss the opportunity of doing something new. He then co-founded Upwork, where he was the Co-founder and VP. After he left Upwork, Beerud founded GupShup right in the same year.

Beerud Sheth, co-founder and current CEO of GupShup

Rakesh Mathur

Rakesh Mathur is an alumnus of IIT Bombay from where he obtained his Btech ME, after which he pursued an MS in Engineering and Operations Research from The University of Texas. Mathur has been a serial entrepreneur for quite some time now. He founded Armedia and Junglee, where he served as the VP of Marketing and the CEO respectively. Mathur then became the VP of Amazon but for a brief period post which he founded Stratify, SnapStick, and JustChalo, where he served several key designations. After this he became the VP of Rovi.

The entrepreneurial journey resumed again for Mathur as soon as he left his job at Rovi. He again founded a string of companies including Droptalk, InfoNam, GupShup, percipient.ai, and WhiteRabbit.ai. Along with being the Co-founders of a bunch of companies, Mathur always believes in taking up key leadership roles for the same. Besides, Rakesh also has been a notable investor in the startup ecosystem where he even led seed investments in many of them.

Dr. Milind R. Agarwal

Known as the Founding Executive of GupShup, Dr. Agarwal has Manipal Institute of Technology as his alma mater, from where he completed his BTech degree in Electronics and Communication after which he went for an MBA from Michigan State University and then a Ph.D. degree from the University of Mumbai in Indian Philosophy and Management.

On the work front, Dr. Agarwal has been the Director of Sai Transport Corporation, after joining GupShup as the Founding Executive. He eventually left the company in 2013, after more than 7 years. He then became the Founder and National Coordinator and eventually the Member of the International Advisory Board at the Michigan State University. Quickwork was the last company that Dr. Agarwal founded in 2015, where he is still serving as the CEO.

GupShup has somewhere between 10001 – 5000 employees who work for the company.

GupShup – Startup Story

Beerud started a company named ‘Elance’ with his two IIT Bombay classmates before he was approached by Rakesh Mathur, who was an accomplished entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Mathur and Beerud started a company named ‘Webaroo’ in 2014-15.

“Users could publish their thoughts like tweets, and people could follow them and receive messages,” Beerud explains. “Gupshup grew to 70 million users in India at a time when Facebook and Twitter had only one million users in the country.”

The company was a unicorn with its headquarters in the coveted Silicon Valley, was not a huge hit back then when it started its run. The startup was initially an SMS application, strictly, the business model of which revolved around subsidizing the cost of sending messages. Though the idea was successful, there were many regulations that prevented it from monetizing the application. This is why it hit a roadblock. Gupshup eventually changed its business model from consumer-oriented to enterprise-oriented, and since then, the company had to never turn back nor pause.

GupShup – Vision and Mission

GupShup’ s mission statement says, “build the tools that help businesses better engage customers through mobile messaging and conversational experiences.”

“Our vision is a world where it’s as easy for consumers to interact with a business as it is to chat with a friend; where consumers can shop, buy, pay, book, learn, transact and interact with businesses through short, simple conversations,” said Beerud Sheth, CEO and Co-founder, GupShup.

GupShup – Business and Revenue Model

Though GupShup was initially started with a business model that revolved around the consumers, the company eventually changed its business model to focus on enterprises. This is how the company operates now where the businesses use GupShup’s application programming interface for customer interaction across more than 30 contact networks, including SMS. Developing chatbots, omnichannel inbox capabilities, conversational AI, and client-side apps to handle interactions are among the API services.

GupShup earns its revenues from mobile messaging services, and the facilities of mobile advertisement through text messages that it offers.

GupShup – Financials

Operating revenue for Gupshup grew from INR 739.0 in FY21 to INR 1,132.1 in FY22. Regarding net profit for the company, it went up from INR 52.5 crore in FY21 to INR 39.9 crore in FY22.

GupShup – Products and Services

Click-To-WhatsApp Ads Manager

The Click-To-WhatsApp Ads Manager, a full-funnel application that enables companies to harness the power of CTWA, was revealed by Gupshup on August 4, 2023. This launch’s primary goal is to enable brands to amass relevant performance insights through accurate attribution.

Auto Bot Builder

Gupshup has introduced Auto Bot Builder on January 18, 2023, which creates sophisticated enterprise chatbots using GPT-3. The GPT-3 LLM (long language model) will be used by the tool, which will be tuned using its own enterprise knowledge base and domain knowledge.

GupShup – Funding and Investors

Date	Round	Amount	Lead Investors
July 23, 2025	Equity and debt funding	$60M	Globespan Capital Partners and EvolutionX Debt Capital
May 19, 2022	Private equity Round	$100M	Tiger Global Management
July 28, 2021	–	$240M	Tiger Global Management, Fidelity Management and others
Apr 8, 2021	Series F	$100M	Tiger Global Management
Jan 1, 2021	Venture Round	–	–
Aug 31, 2011	Series E	$10M	Tenaya Capital
Mar 2, 2010	Series D	$12M	Globespan Capital Partners
Oct 14, 2008	Series C	$11M	CRV, Helion Venture Partners
Dec 22, 2006	Series B	$10M	–
Jun 9, 2005	Series A	$1.1M	–

GupShup – Shareholding

Indian unicorns have experienced a slew of valuation reductions as a result of the ongoing macroeconomic problems facing the world, with SaaS unicorn Gupshup suffering the reduction. The value of Gupshup have reduced by 31.6% on March 23, 2023, according to US asset management firm Fidelity Investments. The SaaS startup is valued at about $957 million, down from its initial valuation of $1.4 billion made on April 8, 2021, during its Series F funding round.

Fidelity reduced the value of its position in Gupshup from $10.15 million at the end of May 2023 to $8.08 million at the end of June, 2023. The total value of Fidelity’s share in Gupshup has been reduced and making total valuation of $697 Mn recently, removing the unicorn label from the company as per news resources of July 31, 2023.

GupShup – Competitors

Top competitors of GupShup are:-

IBM Watson Assistant
Verloop
Haptik
Yellow Messenger
TARS
ManyChat
Qualified
Rulai
e-bot7
LivePerson

GupShup – Award

Some of the recent awards are:

GupShup has won STAB Success Award 2023 designed by G7 CR and Microsoft at the STAB Success Awards.
Company won Partner of the Year Award on September, 2023.

GupShup – Acquisitions

GupShup acquired OneDirect on June 2, 2022. The customer engagement platform that is powered by AI was acquired in an all cash deal, according to which the founders and employees of the company will also be joining GupShup.

This acquisition of OneDirect marked the 4th acquisition of GupShup in 2022, which acquired AskSid, Active.ai, and Knowlarity Communications earlier in the same year. OneDirect, has offered services in over 10 languages and has served 1 bn+ customers to date. Indian Railways, Myntra, KFC, Indigo, and Airtel are some of the distinguished customers of OneDirect.

Knowlarity was acquired with an undisclosed amount on February 2, 2022, after which it acquired Active.ai on April 5, 2022, in a deal that involved mainly cash. Active.ai is a Conversational Banking as a Service (CBaaS) platform, headquartered in Singapore, which aims to make client communication easy with the customers.

The enterprise-tech unicorn has acquired 5 companies so far in its journey. Here’s taking a quick look at them:

Company Acquired	Acquired Date	Price
OneDirect	June 2, 2022	–
AskSid Technnology Solutions	April 20, 2022	–
Active.ai	April 5, 2022	–
Knowlarity Communications	February 2, 2022	–
Dotgo	September 23, 2021	–

GupShup – Challenges Faced

When GupShup (formerly called Webaroo) launched in 2007, mobile was the only means to communicate with many people. At that point (which was before the smartphone era) everybody used to use feature phones. The sole way to reach people on feature phones was via SMS.

GupShup developed a really noteworthy idea of an SMS application but that was found to be increasingly difficult to monetize back then. “We could neither subsidise nor monetise. The platform was great; the scale was engaging, but we could not afford the model,” he shares. This is the time when the company changed its business model and began to build an enterprise-oriented model, and success followed.

GupShup – Future Plans

As per the reports of July 28, 2021, the company’s co-founder and CEO, Beerud Sheth stated that the company is looking for a US listing in the forthcoming year. He has further mentioned that GupShup will be buying back shares from its employees and early investors. Fast forward to April 5, 2022, after it acquired Active.ai, Beerud stated that the company would most likely be launching its IPO later in 2022 or the next year. This will make the company build an enviable track record, which will lead to building relations with the marquee firms.

FAQs

What does GupShup do?

GupShup, formerly called SMS Gupshup, Webaroo, is a messaging services and bot-development company operating in India, the US, and the UK providing SMS, email, Voice, USSD, and IP messaging and chatbot development to many Retail and e-commerce companies.

Who are the GupShup founders who founded Gupshup?

GupShup was founded by Beerud Sheth and Rakesh Mathur.

What companies do GupShup compete with?

GupShup’s top competitors are ServiceNow Now Platform, IBM Watson Assistant, TARS, ManyChat, Qualified, Rulai, e-bot7 and LivePerson.

Is Gupshup a unicorn?

GupShup was a unicorn, which entered the unicorn club of the Indian companies on April 18, 2021. As per various news reports, the GupShup valuation is $697 million as of July 2023.

Is Gupshup India a listed company?

The Gupshup Company is not listed but is aiming to launch an IPO soon in 2022 or 2023, and would likely list in the US market.

October 13, 2023

Spotify Success Story: How it Brings Music for Everyone?

Like they say there’s a song for every mood, but in a practical sense, it is not possible to have such a large number of songs stored on any device. Spotify perfectly solves this problem. Spotify is an international online and offline music streaming and media services provider, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Founded in April 2006, which is the Spotify creation date, Spotify is the world’s largest music streaming service provider. In India, Spotify is the largest audio streaming platform among international players. So, let’s have a look at the Spotify success story, where we will also learn about Spotify, the Founders of the app or the Spotify creator, the Fundings it received, Spotify Business Model, Revenue Model, Acquisitions, Challenges and discuss how it gained the immense popularity it enjoys among the music lovers globally.

Spotify – Company Highlights

Company Name	Spotify
Headquarter	Stockholm, Sweden
Sector	Music streaming, Application
Founders	Daniel Ek, Martin Lorentzon
Founded	2006
Parent Organization	Spotify Technology S.A.
Website	spotify.com

About Spotify
Spotify – Industry
Spotify – Startup Story | History
Spotify – Founders and Team
Spotify – Name, Tagline and Logo
Spotify – Mission and Vision
Spotify – Business Model and Revenue Model
Spotify – Funding and Investors
Spotify – Shareholding
Spotify – Acquisitions
Spotify – Investment
Spotify – Partnerships
Spotify – Challenges and Controversies
Spotify – Growth
Spotify – Products and Services
Spotify – Future Plans

About Spotify

Spotify began its journey in the year 2006, which was the start of Spotify, and since then, it has been serving a platter of podcasts, videos, and music to its customers. Founded by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, Spotify is a Swedish audio streaming and music service provider. Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Spotify brings a wide selection consisting of more than 70 million songs from an array of diverse record labels and media companies. As the company brings digital, copyright-protected podcasts and musical content to its users, it helps them enjoy the basic features and access limited contents that are distinguished for the advertisements in them as freemium. However, Spotify also brings affordable subscriptions for the users, which helps them access its treasure trove of content, add-free.

The core business of the company lies in music or audio streaming. Although Spotify was founded in 2006, it was launched 2 years later in the year 2008. One of the main reasons for the commercial success of the Spotify business is that it provides a good list of search variables where the users can type the song, artist, album, or genre on the search bar and then hit go, THAT’S IT. Spotify enjoys a huge cheering section of about 381 million active users (monthly), of which 172 million are premium users as of September 2021.

A user can use Spotify in two modes i.e, online and offline. For offline mode, a premium membership is needed with which you get access to download from Spotify’s collection of 13 million+ songs. However, for the online mode, the internet connection is a prerequisite and premium membership is not needed. Spotify App is available both for mobile and desktop, so you can just sign in to spotify.com and start listening if you don’t want to go with the app.

Spotify also introduced “Spotify for Artists” a platform to provide artists and their teams with audience statistics and various tools to promote their music and manage their profiles on Spotify. From promoting their shows to selling artist-branded merchandise, Spotify for Artists is a great platform for artists.

Spotify – Industry

The market size of the music streaming industry across the globe was last reported to be around $20.9 bn in 2019. This was estimated to be going up at a CAGR of 17.8% from 2020 to 2027. This rapid growth of the industry of music and online streaming of music is expected to expand due to the increasing adoption of smartphones and rapid digitalization coupled with the growth of digital platforms. Here, Spotify was reported to have a market share of more than 32%, as of November 2021’s reports.

Spotify – Startup Story | History

Spotify was founded by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon as a way to deal with the problem of music piracy. Before the music streaming services got popular, there were many who downloaded pirated music files. This was a growing challenge for the whole music industry and is the base of Spotify history. Daniel and Martin realized that music streaming has a huge potential, which made them start Spotify startup in 2006.

The name ‘Spotify’ came to the founders just by chance. It was when Daniel and Martin were yelling out some possible names for their music streaming business that Daniel misheard the name ‘Spotify’. Spotify name meaning was later summed up as a combination of two words “Spot” and “Identify”.

Spotify’s services were publicly released (by invitation only) for the first time on 7 October 2008, in Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, France, and Spain. In 2009, Spotify started offering free but limited access to its services in the UK. As of today, Spotify is operational in over 180 countries and is working towards entering many more new territories, when last reported in October 2021.

Spotify – Founders and Team

Spotify has been founded by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon.

The Spotify founders’ story is quite an interesting one.

Daniel Ek

Spotify founder Daniel Ek is currently the Chairman and CEO of Spotify. Ek started his entrepreneurship when he was just 13! He used to design websites for his clients. Daniel Ek worked in a senior role at an online commerce company, Tradera. After Tradera he served as CTO of Stardoll ( a browser-based game and fashion community). He later started an advertising company Advertigo which was sold in 2006. After this, Daniel worked as the CEO of μTorrent (BitTorrent download client on desktops) for some time before starting up Spotify.

Martin Lorentzon

Spotify co-founder Martin Lorentzon initially began with an internship in Telia (a Swedish Multinational Telephone Company) and was later shifted to San-Francisco where he joined AltaVista (one of the early search engines that were later purchased by Yahoo). There he met web entrepreneurs and landed a job in Cell Ventures, an investing company. Martin went on to co-found Netstrategy in 1999, which later came to be known as Tradedoubler – a leading European Marketplace. Tradedoubler bought Daniel Ek’s advertising company Advertigo in March 2006, and this is when Daniel and Martin came to know each other.

Spotify operates globally with a team between 5,000 – 10,000 employees.

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Spotify – Name, Tagline and Logo

The naming of Spotify has a really interesting backstory. As shared by one of the creators of Spotify, who is also the CEO of the company, Daniel Ek, the naming of Spotify was decided when Daniel and Martin stayed at a flat in the suburbs of Stockholm. The founders of Spotify were sitting in different rooms one day, and exchanging different naming ideas of the brand, shouting them back and forth. Then, Martin shouted a brand name to Daniel, which was misheard by the later as “Spotify”. As soon as he heard the name, or rather misheard it, Daniel googled the same, and finding no matches or hits for Spotify on Google, they registered the same for their company immediately. However, the founders are often embarrassed to disclose this story behind the naming of the popular music streaming app and generally weaves in the after construction that the name of Spotify is a portmanteau of “Spot” and “Identify”.

Spotify is fueled with the tagline “Music for Everyone.”

Spotify – Mission and Vision

Spotify claims that its mission is “to unlock the potential of human creativity—by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it.”

Spotify’s vision revolves around extending a cultural platform where the professional creators can break free of their medium constraints and can thereby enjoy an immersive artistic experience.

Spotify – Business Model and Revenue Model

Spotify works on a “freemium” business model. According to this model, there are certain services that are free while the other services are paid. The source of revenue for Spotify is the premium subscription for paid services. It also earns revenue by selling ad space on its non-premium streaming service.

Other than paying the artists, Spotify also pays the rightsholder of any song anything between $0.006 to $0.0084 per play ( according to 2018 reports).

Spotify – Funding and Investors

Spotify has raised a significant amount of $2.1 billion to date (February, 2023). It has witnessed over 19 funding rounds and the last funding round was a Post-IPO round, which came in on February 10, 2023. There are 3 lead investors for the company.

Below are details of funding raised by Spotify –

Date	Stage	Amount	Investors
Feb 10, 2023	Post-IPO Round	–	ValueAct Capital
February 25, 2021	Post-IPO Round	–	–
January 8, 2018	Corporate Round	–	SharesPost Investment Management, EquityZen
December 15, 2017	Funding Round	–	Tencent Holdings, SchindlerAM Ventures, Tencent Music
April 2, 2017	Secondary Market	–	–
July 28, 2016	Secondary Market	–	Manhattan Venture Partners, blisce, Harmony Partners, GP Bullhound
March 30, 2016	Debt Financing	$1 Billion	Dragoneer Investment Group, TPG, Vulcan Capital
January 2016	Convertible Note	$500 Million	–
January 21, 2016	Secondary Market	—	blisce
August 30, 2015	Secondary Market	–	EquityZen, SharesPost Investment Management
June 10, 2015	Series G	$526 Million	Goldman Sachs Investment Partners
April, 2015	Funding Round	–	Goldman Sachs Investment Partners
November 25, 2014	Secondary Market	–	blisce, Groupe Arnault
November, 2012	–	–	$100 Million
June, 2011	–	$100 Million
February, 2010	–	–	Founders Fund

Spotify – Shareholding

Several distinct parties jointly own Spotify. Martin Lorentzon, who as of January 3, 2023, owned 10.9% of Spotify’s total shares, and Daniel Ek, who owns 7.3% of the total shares, collectively hold the majority of the company’s stock. Investment corporation Baillie Gifford & Co., which owns a 14.5% stake in the business, is the company’s largest institutional stakeholder.

T. Rowe Price and Morgan Stanley are two more significant institutional shareholders, each holding a 6.18% and 3.66% interest respectively. Other institutional and private investors in the business include Tencent, which is the owner of 8.61% of the company’s shares, and Sony Group Corporation, which is the owner of 2.65% of the company’s shares.

Spotify – Acquisitions

In 2013 Spotify acquired Swedish music discovery app Tunigo
In 2014 it acquires music tech company The Echo Nest
2015 Spotify acquired Seed Scientific, which is a data science consulting firm.
In 2016 Spotify acquired two companies within a day. The companies are Soundwave (music discovery startup) and Cord Project (audio messaging apps building startup)
In 2016 it acquired photo startup Crowd Album.
In 2016 again, Preact was acquired. Preact is a startup that helps businesses acquire and retain subscribers.
In 2017 Spotify acquires Sonalytic, a United Kingdom-based audio detection startup
In 2017 Spotify also acquired content recommendation service MightyTV.
Spotify acquired blockchain startup Mediachain Labs in 2017, in order to solve music’s attribution issue.
In 2017 Spotify acquires Niland, a Paris-based AI startup, to improvise its music personalization and recommendations feature.
In 2017 it gets Stockholm-based online music studio Soundtrap
In 2018 Spotify acquired Loudr, San Francisco-based licensing startup. This acquisition will help Spotify to identify, track and pay royalties to music publishers.
Spotify acquired SoundBetter, a music production marketplace that connects artists, producers, and musicians.
In 2019 Spotify acquired podcasting studio Parcast.
In 2019 Spotify acquired Anchor, an online platform that lets users create and distribute podcast content.
In 2019 Gimlet Media was acquired by Spotify. Gimlet is a podcasting startup.
In 2020, Spotify acquired The Ringer, a leading creator of sports, entertainment, and pop culture content. With this acquisition, Spotify is all set to expand its sports and entertainment offerings.
In 2020 Spotify acquired Megaphone (formerly Panoply Media) for $235 Million. Megaphone is also a podcast hosting company. they definitely want to take over the Podcast market.

Here’s taking a better look at some of the recent Spotify acquisitions:

Acquired Company Name	Date of Acquisition	Price
Kinzen	Oct 5, 2022	–
Heardle	Jul 12, 2022	–
Sonantic	Jun 12, 2022	–
Chartable	Feb 16, 2022	–
Podsights	Feb 16, 2022	–
Whooshkaa	December 16, 2021
Findaway	November 11, 2021	–
Podz	June 17, 2021	–
Betty Labs	March 31, 2021	–
Megaphone (formerly Panoply Media)	November 10, 2020	$235 mn
The Ringer	February 5, 2020	–
Parcast	March 26, 2019	–
Gimlet Media	February 6, 2019	–
Anchor	February 6, 2019	–
Loudr	April 12, 2018	–

Spotify – Investment

Spotify has invested in three companies to date.

Below are the details:

Company Name	Date	Funding Amount	Funding Stage
DistroKid	Oct 18, 2018	–	Corporate Round
Tencent Music Entertainment	Dec 15, 2017	–	Funding Round
Soundtrack Your Brand	Jun 23, 2015	$10.9M	Series B

Spotify – Partnerships

Spotify frequently teams up with companies and organizations from around the world to help see an increase in its user counts. The music streaming giant has partnered with over 47 companies to date where 20 of these partners are channel partners and 27 of them are technology partners. Among the biggest of the Spotify partners are Slack, Salesforce, and wufoo.

Calm

On July 18, 2023, Spotify and Calm entered into a relationship with the goal of delivering a variety of calming material from Calm to support people on their mental health journeys.

Open AI

Spotify and Open AI announced a partnership on February 23, 2023. With this partnership, Spotify has created a new AI-powered service called DI to provide the music streaming service with better personalization features.

Spotify – Challenges and Controversies

Spotify is facing opposition from many artists, who see the platform as an ‘unwanted middleman’. Artists like Thom Yorke, Johnny Marr, and David Byrne have been vocal against Spotify. While some artists feel that the payouts they receive from Spotify are inadequate, some others feel that the platform is not supportive enough for emerging artists and the Spotify team is trying to deal with this effectively. In 2013 Spotify launched ‘Spotify for Artists’ which is an attempt to clarify its business model to the artists and help the artists create a fanbase and earn great revenues as well.

Besides experts holds that making money from the streaming business is not an easy task. From paying royalties to artists to other costs involved it is tough to turn profitable, and Spotify despite its popularity has incurred many losses. However, with the increase in the paid customer base, Spotify will be able to deal with it better. As per a 2019 report, Spotify has turned profitable only thrice since its inception.

Another challenge for Spotify is the competition that it is facing from competitors like Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited.

Spotify – Growth

According to Spotify’s 2020 Q1 report, the platform has 286 million monthly active users, of which 130 million are Spotify premium subscribers.
Spotify witnessed a 29.0% year-on-year growth in paid subscribers in 2019
In 2019, Spotify reported revenue worth €6.764 billion (around $7.44 billion)
Spotify occupied a market share of over 32% in the global streaming market in November 2021
Spotify market cap in early May 2020 was $26.9 billion
Spotify is now available across devices and diverse Operating Systems
The app is currently available in over 184 markets
Spotify has last been known to be operational in 180+ countries, as reported in October 2021
The app boasted of having 381 million monthly active users, which includes 172 million paying subscribers, when last reported in September 2021
13,000 out of 7 million artists on Spotify, reportedly generated around $50,000 and even more in payments in 2020

Financials

Operating revenue for Spotify grew from Rs 0.34 crore in FY21 to Rs 16.12 crore in FY22. In terms of company profit/loss, the company went from Rs 44.25 crore in FY21 to Rs 156.46 crore in FY22.

Spotify – Products and Services

Free Spotify Service

In India in October 2023, Spotify had restricted access to a few important features for free users. Only premium subscribers will have access to it, and users won’t be able to play songs in a particular order, replay songs, or go back to their prior tracks or features.

Audiobooks

As part of a larger push into the market, Spotify Technology SA is providing 15 hours of audiobook listening for free each month to its premium users in the UK and Australia as per news report of October, 2023. Spotify Audiobook was launched in September 2022.

Daylist Feature

The Daylist feature that Spotify has introduced allows users to customize according to their emotions or moods on September 12, 2023. Depending on the users’ previous listening patterns during the day, the Daylist will be updated.

Spotify – Future Plans

The Spotify team looks forward to increasing their active users monthly and also at growing the number of their premium subscribers. “Our goal (is to become) the world’s No. 1 audio platform,” says Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify.

According to a news article from October 9, 2023, Spotify is going to offer a Super premium service with lossless music, AI playlists, enhanced mixing capabilities, and more.

Spotify will test out Voice Translation as per news report of September, 2023, an innovative AI-powered function that converts podcasts into multiple languages while preserving the podcaster’s voice. In order to mimic the original speaker’s manner, this Spotify-developed tool makes use of the most recent technological advancements, including OpenAI’s just-released voice generation technology.

Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs

Is Spotify free now?

Yes, there is a free version available but with limited features and frequent ads. However, the content is the same. With the premium version, on the other hand, you get access to all the content and all of its features.

How do I listen to Spotify without downloading it?

You can access Spotify through their website on your desktop if you do not want to download their app. Signing up is free!

Can I download songs from Spotify?

Yes, absolutely! You can download songs playlists or podcasts from Spotify if you have the premium plan and listen to music offline. However, as soon as your premium version expires you will lose access to the songs playlists, or podcasts.

How long is Spotify free?

Spotify Free lets you listen to music, but you have to listen to advertisements as well. After six months of use, you get a time limit of 10 hours per month.

Can you listen to Spotify without WIFI?

Yes, if you have the premium version you can listen to Spotify offline without WIFI as long as you have downloaded the tracks or podcasts previously.

How many devices can use Spotify?

Spotify allows premium users to install the application on as many devices as they like. However, you can only stream music on one device at a time.

Who owns Spotify app?

The Spotify app is owned by Spotify Technology S.A.

When was Spotify created in US?

Spotify was created in US in 2006.

October 12, 2023

How Dior Still Stands Tall Even After Its Turbulent History
In the 21st century, the fashion industry isn’t just about clothes or accessories. It’s a dynamic force shaping our culture, identity, and the way we express ourselves.

Beyond the runways and glossy magazines, fashion has become a powerful storyteller, reflecting societal shifts, breaking down stereotypes, and championing diversity. This cultural phenomenon has succeeded in blurring boundaries, fostering creativity, and influencing the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us.

Let us take you on a journey into the world of one such fashion brand that has stood against time with all its beauty & elegance – the world of DIOR.

Dior – Company Highlights

Name Dior

Headquarters Paris

Sector Fashion-Apparel-Accessories

Founder Christian Ernest Dior

Founded 1946

Website Dior.com

Dior – About
Dior – Industry
Dior – Founders and Team
Dior – Startup Story
Dior – Mission and Vision
Dior – Logo
Dior – Business Model
Dior – Revenue Model
Dior – Challenges Faced
Dior – Mergers and Acquisitions
Dior – Online and Social Media Presence
Dior – Advertisements and Social Media Campaigns
Dior – Competitors

Dior – About

Dior is a fancy fashion brand that’s been making waves in the fashion industry since 1946. Started by Christian Dior, this brand is all about making clothes that are super fancy and stylish. Imagine clothes that celebrate how awesome it is to be a woman – that’s Dior’s vibe!

That said, Dior isn’t just about clothes, though. They are also known for products like wines and spirits, leather goods, perfumes, cosmetics, watches, jewelry, and much more.

It’s like a whole lifestyle and art thing.

Every collection they make tells a cool story that mixes together history, culture, and new ideas.

Being part of the Dior world is like stepping into a place where fashion is more than just clothes – it’s a way to show who you are and what you dream of.

Dior – Industry

Dior, a beacon of elegance and innovation, has played a pivotal role in shaping the fashion landscape since its inception. As a symbol of sophistication, Dior’s impact on the fashion industry stands as an inspiration to many other brands.

This industry which is estimated to be worth $3 trillion worldwide, is a dynamic world where designers, both iconic and emerging, bring their imaginations to life on the runway, shaping the way we express ourselves through clothing and accessories.

Dior – Founders and Team

Christian Dior – Founder, Dior

Christian Dior, a luminary in the world of fashion, was born on January 21, 1905, in Granville, France. He started the House of Dior in 1946 after World War II.

Before establishing his own fashion house, Dior had gained experience working with renowned designers and had a keen understanding of the fashion industry. With financial backing from Marcel Boussac, a prominent textile magnate, Dior opened his couture house at 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris.

As Christian Dior was building this great fashion empire, unfortunately, he had an untimely death in 1957.

After that, the House of Dior experienced a succession of creative directors like Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons, and Maria Grazia Chiuri each contributing a distinct touch to the iconic brand.

Dior – Startup Story

Before entering the fashion industry, Christian Dior, who had a strong passion for art, owned an art gallery in France. He worked for couturier Lucien Lelong and fashion designer Robert Piguet after closing his gallery during the Great Depression.

However, Dior was eager for his own work to be appreciated, which inspired him to create his own fashion house in 1946, giving rise to Christian Dior.

Just after a few months, Dior’s revolutionary “New Look” collection in 1947, featuring luxurious fabrics and extravagant silhouettes, created a sensation in the fashion industry and marked a post-war departure from wartime austerity, especially for women.

Dior’s innate flair for design and business acumen propelled him to the forefront of the industry.

Christian Dior’s “New Look” Fashions | Movietone Moment

Dior – Mission and Vision

Dior’s mission says, “Our mission, to only leave beauty as a legacy, means being fully committed to reducing our carbon emissions by 46% full scope by 2030 and aligning our business with the 1.5°C pathway. It also means to gather our efforts in favor of biodiversity with flower farming as driver of regeneration”

Dior’s vision says “At the heart of everything we do lies the limitless love of flowers that inspired Monsieur Dior. They are the source of every fragrance, skincare and make-up we create. We believe it is the responsibility of Parfums Christian Dior to harness the power of flowers to regenerate biodiversity by cultivating, preserving and reintroducing them into ecosystems.”

Dior – Logo

Dior – Logo

Dior’s logo, a bold and elegant “CD” intertwined, holds a fascinating story. It was created by Christian Dior himself when he founded the fashion house in 1946. The iconic emblem not only represents his initials but also symbolizes the unity of tradition and modernity.

The letters “C” and “D” are interlocked in a stylish manner, reflecting Dior’s vision of bringing together classic elegance with a fresh and contemporary approach to fashion.

The logo captures the essence of the brand’s enduring legacy and its founder’s innovative spirit.

Dior – Business Model

Christian Dior’s business model reflects a balance between tradition and innovation, luxury and accessibility, ensuring its enduring presence in the competitive world of fashion.

It also encompasses a diversified approach, including collaborations, strategic partnerships, and a strong online presence to reach a global clientele.

The brand’s commitment to sustainability and ethical practices is increasingly integrated into its business model, aligning with evolving consumer values.

Dior – Revenue Model

Dior makes money through a variety of products and services that showcase its luxury and style. The main sources of revenue include selling ready-to-wear clothes, chic accessories, and iconic handbags that fashion enthusiasts around the world adore. Dior’s exquisite fragrances and high-quality cosmetics also contribute significantly to their income.

Dior – Challenges Faced

While talking about all these success stories, let’s not forget the challenges that Dior faced like the scarcity of resources in the post-World War II world, financial constraints, initial resistance to the ‘New Look’, untimely death of Christian Dior, succession challenges, changing consumer trends, global economic turbulence and many more unforeseen hurdles.

Chanel vs. Dior: A Clash of Fashion Titans

Chanel and Dior are two luxury fashion brands that have global appeal. They are business rivals for sure, but each has a different focus.

Kinnary NenseeStartupTalky

Dior – Mergers and Acquisitions

Bernard Arnault, one of France’s richest men and the one who runs Louis Vuitton and Moet Champagne was already a main shareholder in DIOR.

In 2017, the Arnault family purchased the rest of the Dior at a $13.1 billion buyout.

Now, Dior holds 42.36% of shares and 59.01% of voting rights within LVMH.

Dior – Online and Social Media Presence

The company has a strong online presence and the social media profiles for Dior target a certain audience. Dior is integrating its offline strategy into its online channels through a variety of means, including famous influencers and creative advertisements.

For instance, the brand has a very elegant Instagram account flooded with beautiful pictures of models wearing Dior.

Dior – Advertisements and Social Media Campaigns

In the latest, Dior’s “SPRING 2023 MEN’S CAMPAIGN”, the new collections are unveiled in a campaign featuring Dior’s ambassador Robert Pattinson.

The A-Z Marketing Strategies of Christian Dior

Christian Dior is considered a Premium Luxury Fashion Brand. Explore Dior’s successful marketing strategies, popular marketing campaigns, and more.

Archana KarthikeyanStartupTalky

Dior – Competitors

Some of its competitors in the fashion market are:
- Chanel
- Gucci
- Burberry
- Ralph Lauren
- Prada
- Zara
- Louis Vuitton
- Hugo Boss
FAQs

When was Dior founded?

Dior was founded in the year 1946.

Who is the latest ambassador of Dior?

Dior’s Spring 2023 Men’s Campaign features ambassador Robert Pattinson.

Who are the main competitors of Dior?

The main competitors of Dior are Chanel, Gucci, Zara, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Burberry, and Ralph Lauren.
October 12, 2023

Name	Dior
Headquarters	Paris
Sector	Fashion-Apparel-Accessories
Founder	Christian Ernest Dior
Founded	1946
Website	Dior.com

Tag: 📄Company Profiles

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Whatfix- Company Highlights

Whatfix – About & How It Works?

Whatfix – Founders

Whatfix – How It All Started

Whatfix – Target Market Size

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EBITDA

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Whatfix AI

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Funding-

Competitors-

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Suntec Business Solution

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How Secure Is Whatfix?

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Zeta – Company Highlights

Zeta – About

Zeta – Founders and Team

Bhavin Turakhia

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Zeta – Mission and Vision

Zeta – Tagline, Slogan and Logo

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Zeta Omni Stack Platform

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What does Zeta do?

Who founded Zeta?

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SecureDApp: Enhancing Blockchain Security Through Comprehensive Solutions and Smart Contract Audits

SecureDApp – Company Highlights

SecureDApp – About

SecureDApp – Market/Industry Details

SecureDApp – Founders

Abhishek Singh

Himanshu Gautam

SecureDApp – Startup Story

SecureDApp – Name and Logo

SecureDApp – Vision and Mission

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SecureDApp – Business and Revenue Model