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Tag: 📄Company Profiles

  • Appyhigh – Success Story of India’s First & Largest App Ecosystem

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

    The development and usage of mobile Internet technology have been tremendous in the last decade. The growth of the mobile industry in parallel to the digital technology transformation is making the life of people much easier. The developers are helping build great mobile apps to engage and inspire millions.

    AppyHigh is a mobile internet technology company to bridge the gap between people and technology. It has built innovative products and solutions and has achieved to engage over 550 million.  Read the startup story of AppyHigh, its founders, the ideation, business model & Revenue model, and more.

    AppyHigh – Company Highlights

    Startup Name AppyHigh
    Headquarters Gurgaon
    Industry Internet Technology
    Founder Venus Dhuria and Aneesh Rayancha
    Founded 2018
    Website appyhigh.com

    AppyHigh – About
    AppyHigh – Industry
    AppyHigh – Founders and Team
    AppyHigh – The Idea and Startup Story
    AppyHigh – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    AppyHigh – Product and Services
    AppyHigh – Team Management and Work Culture
    AppyHigh – Employee Engagement Initiatives
    AppyHigh – Recruitment
    AppyHigh – Business and Revenue Model
    AppyHigh – Customer Acquisition
    AppyHigh – Challenges Faced
    AppyHigh – Growth
    AppyHigh – Funding
    AppyHigh – Investment
    AppyHigh – Award and Achievement
    AppyHigh – Competitors
    AppyHigh – Tools Used in the Company
    AppyHigh – Recognition and Achievements
    AppyHigh – Future Plans

    AppyHigh – About

    Vision: AppyHigh envisions a world where living is simple, decluttered and enriching. They are creating that reality, one app at a time.

    Purpose: They are building a house of everyday apps that are intuitive and easy to use. They seek to mitigate friction from everyday lives, by helping people save time by being more efficient & productive.

    Identity: A mobile internet technology company that builds global products to engage and inspire millions – every day. They are a multi-product, global tech company building utility and content platforms for the next billion.

    AppyHigh – Industry

    AppyHigh aims to serve a billion internet users by 2026 through its ecosystem of intuitive everyday apps. In that sense, the market is a multi-billion opportunity. The following highlight the multifaceted market opportunity –

    1. There are 6.3 bn smartphone users across the world. This is projected to cross 7.3 bn by 2025. The opportunity is even bigger in the developing world, especially India where this number is expected to shoot up to 895 mn from the current 600 mn in the same period.

    2. The digital advertising industry in India is estimated at USD 2 bn currently and is expected to expand to USD 10 bn by 2025, according to Dentsu Digital India Report 2021.  On a global scale, it’s expected to touch USD 700 bn from the current USD 378 bn.

    3. The global creator economy is pegged at almost USD 100 bnand is expected to grow to USD 500 bn by 2025, according to Kalari Capital’s report on the creator economy.

    4. Further, with their expertise in the app ecosystem after launching almost 20 successful apps, they also seek to cater to the developer community with the SaaS products that help them monitor and scale their apps. The global SaaS industry itself stands at a staggering size of $ 272 bn today and is poised to touch $ 440 bn by 2025.

    All of these are direct market opportunities for AppyHigh given its portfolio of apps focused on everyday use, creativity and design tools for the creator ecosystem, and business tools for app developers.

    AppyHigh – Founders and Team

    Venus Dhuria and Aneesh Rayancha are the co-founders of AppyHigh.

    Venus Dhuria

    Venus Dhuria - Co-Founder of AppyHigh
    Venus Dhuria – Co-Founder of AppyHigh

    Venus is a 3x tech-entrepreneur building AppyHigh as a multi-product, global internet tech company that makes mobile-first platforms for productivity and utility, entertainment, content discovery and creation, for the next billion!

    He hails from a small border town called Fazilka in Punjab. Right from his early college days at Punjab Engineering College, Venus displayed a strong entrepreneurial zeal that not only enabled him to bag laurels throughout his academic career but has also fueled his serial entrepreneurship journey.

    Venus started his career at Reckitt – one of the largest consumer goods companies in the world, scaling the corporate ropes as he worked in the supply chain,  manufacturing and value engineering for iconic brands like Dettol, Harpic & Mortein. Reckitt is also where he met Aneesh who worked there as an R&D scientist.

    Venus then went on to start Cricnwin- a cricket fan engagement platform. He raised seed funding and grew the platform to a million plus downloads.

    When away from work, Venus can often be found reading and watching anything history,  philosophy, psychology & humour. Apart from being an ardent cricket enthusiast, Venus is also an amateur rapper.

    Aneesh Rayancha

    Aneesh Rayancha - co-founder of AppyHigh
    Aneesh Rayancha – co-founders of AppyHigh

    Aneesh is a serial entrepreneur, building AppyHigh as a multi-product, global internet tech company that makes mobile-first platforms for productivity and utility, entertainment, content discovery and creation, for the next billion!

    Hailing from a small town in Telangana – Ranjana Siricilla, Aneesh’s passion for digital products stems from his affinity for computer science and information technology which ignited during his days at IIT Mumbai, where he pursued a master’s degree in chemistry.

    Together with Venus, he has started and scaled multiple ventures over the last 9 years.

    They also experimented with building aggregator apps and created 3 of them – AnyJobs, Samachari and Smartshopper. This was the starting point for AppyHigh.

    His first venture after being bitten by the entrepreneurial bug was a cleaning-chemicals company called InnoChem – banking on his experience as an R&D scientist at Reckitt working on iconic consumer brands such as Mortein and Dettol. Reckitt is also where he met Venus.

    Having undergone the struggle of entrepreneurship himself, Aneesh firmly believes in supporting the startup ecosystem and budding founders with both experience and capital. AppyHigh is a well-known name in the investing circles for pre-seed funding with investments in over 20 companies, including  Dukaan, Krishify, and One Code among others.

    In his free time, Aneesh enjoys gardening and horse-riding and is currently also training for a shot at participating in the IronMan in the near future.

    AppyHigh – The Idea and Startup Story

    Venus and Aneesh have known each other for more than a decade and are serial entrepreneurs. Aneesh holds a master’s degree in chemistry from IIT Mumbai while Venus is an electrical engineer from PEC Chandigarh. They met while working at Reckitt.

    In 2014, Aneesh & Venus together started Rutogo, a cab aggregator for outstation and local cabs. They raised funds from friends & family & scaled it to cover bookings from 20 cities in 12 months. They further expanded services to 60 cities, before Ixigo acquired them in 2015. The product merged with Ixigo Cabs & they joined Ixigo to lead this vertical and expanded it to 10,000 bookings per day.

    When they observed the rapid pace of internet expansion fuelled by the humble smartphone, they decided to experiment and observed 4 prominent patterns emerging in the consumer internet industry –

    1. Everything was becoming mobile first. Tasks were transitioning from PC to smartphones and an entire generation of internet users was entirely skipping the PC.
    2. People were spending almost half of their time awake on their smartphones, managing every aspect of their lives via their phones.
    3. There were almost 6 million apps on all the iOS AppStore and Google Playstore put together, which is causing a problem of plenty.
    4. They understood the value of building a business that is self-sufficient from day one, hence the marginal cost of scaling up should be as low as possible.
    5. There was significant impetus being given by the government to Make in India

    This gave birth to the idea of building everyday apps that are intuitive and easy to use and help people save time, become more productive and of course enjoy themselves while using them.

    There was a lot of traction around the concept of ‘All-in’1’ & that’s how MessengerGo – an all-in-1 platform to access all your social media accounts and messengers, was launched.

    Venus and Aneesh started AppyHigh with their personal savings and hence did most of the work themselves. They hired an app development intern to help them build the app, while the product design, launch & driving organic scaling was all done personally by them.

    Validation of AppyHigh’s ideas has happened through their apps achieving significant growth in downloads and active users one app after the other. In 4 years, AppyHigh has launched 15+ apps that have garnered almost 500 million downloads and their revenues have grown at a CAGR of 45% in the last 2 years as per various news report of year 2022.

    AppyHigh - Logo
    AppyHigh – Logo

    Its name and logo embody what AppyHigh truly is. Appyzens are very passionate about building apps to solve the everyday needs of the digital masses. They derive a ‘high’ feeling from doing this. Further, their apps are designed to make life easier and decluttered for people! Giving users a happy high through their apps. This defines the origin of the name AppyHigh.

    The logo’s fundamental building block is the quintessential symbol for apps – the squircle. The colon stands for bringing people and technology together, while the semicolon represents fostering startups with capital and growth.

    AppyHigh – Product and Services

    With 6 million apps available across various app stores, there are three pertinent issues that need to be addressed:

    1. Users don’t find apps they download useful enough: Almost 89% of the apps are uninstalled within 7 days of installation and this number goes up to 95% for 30 days.
    2. Phone space matters: Every user uses 80-90 apps on average. But phone space is a major constraint; in fact, 20% of app uninstalls happen due to lack of space. It is the 2nd biggest reason for app uninstall.
    3. Just too many apps: Every year almost 2 million apps are released. To date, 21 million apps have been released by developers, but only 6 million remain active. This means that only 30% of the apps ever released are useful enough to be relevant and survive.
    4. Absence of trusted brands providing quality products: Unlike the physical world where products belong to reputed and highly visible manufacturers/providers, the app ecosystem is dominated by almost a million developers, most of them not very well known. There is a dearth of reputed well-established brand/product stables that consumers can blindly trust for high-quality, reliable and safe products.

    AppyHigh aims to be a global consumer internet company that is the trusted partner for a billion users in their digital journey.

    They are addressing the above problems through their unique ecosystem of intuitive, reliable, easy-to-use everyday apps. Their apps, Instore and MessengerGo, enable people to do more with social media and communication, and acquire information (news, data, browsing); BrowserGo enhances their everyday browsing experience with a personal content feed; and apps like TV Lens, Like Karo, serve them curated content. Besides, their utility apps, Scanner GO, AppLockGO and Share Karo India, enhance their daily productivity.

    Their USP lies in their ecosystem of apps. Other players are either focused on bringing traditional services online – e.g. travel, transportation, shopping, finance, health, education, etc., or creating single apps performing one standalone feature i.e. a standalone scanning app company, or a standalone file sharing app company.

    Their ecosystem is based on what they call the ‘Digital Hierarchy of Needs’. Like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – starting from the most basic physiological needs to safety, love and belonging and eventually, self-actualisation needs – an individual’s digital life can be described using the ‘Digital Hierarchy of Needs’.

    AppyHigh Services
    AppyHigh Services

    At the bottom layer are the basics – utility apps which perform day-to-day tasks like file sharing, file storage/management, phone security and privacy, phone memory cleaning, etc. This is where AppyHigh apps like Share Karo, AppLock Go, Cleaner Go, etc., come into play.

    The middle layer focuses on experiences – those which serve the need to belong, to build genuine connections, to be understood. This happens through social media apps, content, and entertainment apps. Their products like Instore, M video maker, Like Karo, Browser Go and TVLens aim to elevate the content and entertainment experience of users.

    The top layer is the service layer where users start paying for premium services/features, which give them more personalised and exclusive experiences – like subscriptions, in-app purchases, online commerce, etc. Premium features of their products such as ScannerGo and their B2B offerings address this layer.

    AppyHigh is a one-stop shop for the most reliable and intuitive apps for a diverse range of actions users might want to perform.

    Some of the prominent products of AppyHigh with few details are:

    AI Avatar Maker

    It’s a one make individualized, one-of-a-kind avatars that showcase individuality. With more than 50 different AI avatars, one can alter how people view you. This covers social media profiles, personal portfolio, and professional social networks, as well as your dating profile.

    MageAI GPT

    The AI-powered chatbot MageAI GPT makes it simple and quick to discover answers to all of customers inquiries. As a GPT model, MageAI GPT may retain up to 1000 words from a conversation, making it simpler to rapidly and precisely obtain the needed information.

    Scanner Go

    One can scan, convert, optimize, and share documents directly from smartphone with the pocket-sized, all-in-one scanner app called ScannerGO.

    Generative AI APP

    AppyHigh has launched first generative AI in September, 2023. With its launch, AppyHigh will combine an AI picture generator, AI photo editor, chat assistant, avatar builder, VPN, and camera scanner into one platform, with the goal of democratizing top-tier technology.

    AppyHigh – Team Management and Work Culture

    They are a 51-200 team. They focus on building a positive and collaborative environment, where people can learn and have a blast while doing it. Appyzens are encouraged to experiment and take full ownership to find innovative solutions.

    They have put in place a number of initiatives to ensure the well-being and growth of their team. These include:

    Learning budgets: AppyHigh is big on upskilling and supporting people rapidly in this tech/digital-first world. Every individual gets a personal learning budget, which he or she can use for availing of Udemy courses of their choice.

    Paternity leave: 1-month paternity leave + 1 month WFH

    Period leave: AppyHigh’s leave policy includes 10 days of paid period leaves every year for all women employees. This is a small step in their journey to be an equal opportunity workplace and does their part in dispelling the taboo around menstruation. They also maintain an open and positive environment along with proper checks to ensure none of their women employees feels awkward while availing of this benefit.

    Comprehensive health insurance: They offer a comprehensive employee health insurance plan with an insured sum of up to Rs 10 lakh for each employee and his or her family through leading insurance companies. The group insurance policy covers maternity benefits, pre- and post-hospitalisation expense coverage and more.

    Device ownership policy: They have a unique policy wherein the laptop ownership is transferred to the employees on completion of three years.

    AppyHigh – Employee Engagement Initiatives

    Virtual fun sessions: With in-person get-togethers becoming difficult due to the lockdown and the flexibility to work from chosen locations, they moved many of their celebrations, such as Diwali and Independence Day, online. They kicked off their virtual town hall last year with some great team-building workshops, and also brought in Rahul Subramanian and Kumar Varun for an evening of standup comedy.

    Offsite workshops: They grew from less than 30 people to around 100, all during the lockdown. Although working online has become the new norm, the entire team continues to fire on all cylinders. To build focus on the future and achieve the scale that they want to, they have launched offsite workathons and strategy workshops starting with key functional leaders, to enable people to connect better and think in a synergised manner.

    A few of the top communications points to convey to prospective talent are:

    Learning Lifestyle
    At AppyHigh, they fail smart and learn fast.

    Their knowledge cafes, learning budgets, and test-and-learn philosophy on the job – all reflect their focus on enabling their people to maximise their knowledge and skillset.

    They also believe that you learn the most when you teach. Employees are encouraged to share their knowledge via blogs relevant to their areas of expertise.

    They empower you to make an impact
    At AppyHigh, you work with a high degree of ownership and autonomy. If you are handling a particular project or role, the canvas is yours to define the problem, identify solutions, choose the ones you think will work and then see them through to execution and measurement. This teaches decision-making and also gives you a direct understanding of the impact your presence has.

    Your individual aspirations matter
    AppyHigh offers its employees not just a career but a career path with ample opportunities for growth, promotions and building a solid relationship with the company. They want them to thrive in all areas of life. They do not track daily attendance or office hours. They are open to flexible schedules. They have adopted a hybrid model where people have the option of working from their homes.

    A great vibe
    Their team comprises people with amazing talents, be it musicians and amateur singers or rappers who have launched multiple tracks, marathon runners, gymnastics and surfing enthusiasts, pet lovers, beer connoisseurs, you name it and they have them all.

    Benefits of Employee Engagement and Why is it Important for Success of your Organization
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    AppyHigh – Recruitment

    Their recruitment is a mix of freshers and lateral candidates. They look for candidates who are eager to continuously learn and try new things. When it comes to lateral candidates, they look for people who have worked in tech roles with prior experience in product companies, software services, consulting firms, and prominent startups.

    AppyHigh – Business and Revenue Model

    The consumer internet industry works on a three-pronged model.

    Advertising revenue: Given the fact that such products are used on a daily basis by the masses, it’s a great platform for advertisers to reach their desired audience.

    In-app purchases: Subscription services and premium paid features used by users.

    Billion-plus monthly minutes are spent on their platforms that enable everyday personal and work productivity, creativity and personalised entertainment. On the other hand are advertisers that seek the attention of these audiences. They make a significant part of their revenues by bridging this gap via advertising. This, supported by in-app purchases, allows us to generate capital to invest in building better products.

    AppyHigh – Customer Acquisition

    Having launched and scaled 15+ products in just four years, they have established some golden rules. The success of AppyHigh products lies in their playbook – the build, learn-iterate approach, and fail smart and learn fast culture:

    1. Knowing what the user wants: Always keeping a sharp eye on emerging user trends – what are people looking for, what kind of apps or features are they searching for. While doing this, they also create a tech stack to help build the MVP.
    2. Identifying trends and speed to market: Once they identify the opportunity, they ship out the MVP very fast. For instance, AppyHigh was one of the first movers to capitalise on the void created in the app ecosystem when Chinese apps were restricted in India.
    3. Grow organically first to validate the product market fit: In the initial phases of the product, use all the organic growth hacks such as SEO, ASO, content, etc., to drive the mental availability of the product. As more users trickle in, iterate to make the product better. This approach is specifically important and very useful when resources are scarce.
    4. Drive engagement: Once the user base reaches a certain scale, increase the obsession around engagement and retention.
    5. Monetisation and inorganic growth: With product-market-fit in place, monetise your products with minimal disruption of user experience and at the same time start investing in inorganic acquisition channels.

    AppyHigh – Challenges Faced

    AppyHigh has not only survived the pandemic but has almost doubled its business and grown its user base 10x in two years of the pandemic.

    This has been possible by following these principles:

    1. Consistently diversified product portfolio: AppyHigh started in 2018, with 1 app – MessengerGo (an all-in-1 social media messaging app). The first two years were spent on stabilising this product and further, and understanding the major user trends in the app ecosystem. However, from 2020 onwards, AppyHigh undertook a spree of new launches in quick succession.
    2. Instore (a social media tool that lets users auto-generate captions and hashtags for their content and also bookmark their favourite content, launched in January 2020).
    3. AppLockGo (smart and convenient app to lock apps and content on your device, launched in January 2020).
    4. Browser Go (new-age fast and stable web browser, launched in July 2020).
    5. Share Karo India (a fast social sharing app for sharing media, files, documents, etc., launched in July 2020).
    6. Scanner GO (turns a user’s phone into a scanner with a host of AI-powered features, launched in October 2020).
    7. TV Lens: A TV and movie show recommendation platform.

    These new products contribute 85% to AppyHigh’s user base. The impact of continuous innovation and portfolio expansion has been the growth of their revenue from USD 3.5 million in 2019 to USD 8 million in 2021.

    1. Capitalise on market opportunities quickly: AppyHigh was one of the first movers to capitalise on the void created in the app ecosystem when Chinese apps were restricted in India. They were quick to identify the user needs that would go unfulfilled with the Chinese apps pulled out. This led to the launch of three of their leading apps – BrowserGO, Scanner Go and Share Karo India.
    2. Maintain focus on execution: When the pandemic hit in Q1 of 2020, AppyHigh’s new launches and portfolio expansion were already planned. Rather than getting distracted and holding back on investing in building more products and growing the team, they carried on unfazed.
    3. Prioritise sustainable growth: They follow a standard principle – grow the product organically and start monetisation before investing in paid acquisitions. This helps them maintain profitability and cash flows that are then reinvested into making the products better.

    AppyHigh – Growth

    In the last 4 years, AppyHigh has achieved significant business impact:

    • In a short span of 4 years, AppyHigh has revenues of 8.1 mn USD (2021)
    • In the last 2 years, revenues have grown at a CAGR of 45% as of 2021
    • In 4 years, AppyHigh has launched 15+ apps, which together have gathered more than 500mn downloads and have 50 million monthly active users on its ecosystem of apps as of 2021
    • AppyHigh today employs 51 – 200 employees.
    • Company has 550 million plus users engaged in the platform as of October, 2023.

    What makes them proud is that all of this has been done while remaining 100% bootstrapped!

    AppyHigh – Funding

    They have kept AppyHigh bootstrapped till now as they have always believed in building a business that generates profits and cash flows. Most of the initial funding for the startup came from personal savings.

    To grow to one billion users, they are to plan a fund-raising in the near future. They have strong inbound interests from investors. They will definitely associate with partners who understand their vision and operating model and have seen the explosive scaling of similar ecosystems across the globe.

    AppyHigh – Investment

    AppyHigh has done investment in 5 companies.

    Below are the details:

    Company Name Funding Stage Amount Date
    Knocksense Convertible Note $150K Nov 15, 2021
    MobiGarage Seed Round – Jul 12, 2021
    KIWInow Seed Round $250K Jan 5, 2021
    Deyor Seed Round – Mar 15, 2020
    Try & Buy Fashion Seed Round $1 million Jun 22, 2019

    AppyHigh – Competitors

    Their ambition is to build a global consumer internet giant in India. Their apps transcend the entire hierarchy of users’ digital needs. That makes their competition multifold.

    On one hand, they have established players such as Adobe Scan (document scanning), Picsart (photo editing) and Chrome (browser). On the other hand, there are Chinese tech giants such as Bytedance, Inshot and Meitu, which have evolved their own portfolios of widely adopted everyday apps (though some of them are now banned).

    Last but not the least, there are thousands of small individual developers across the globe that make apps in similar categories and vie for users.

    AppyHigh – Tools Used in the Company

    Appyhigh uses a range of tools across functions.

    • On the tech front, Taiga is used for project management.
    • For cloud platforms, AWS, IoFlood, Azure, DigitalOcean, Nvidia Triton and E2E solutions are used.
    • The design team uses Figma, Zeplin and Photoshop. For Product management, the GSuite and Notion come really handy. Strapi and WordPress are used as CMS.
    • The analytics team depends on Firebase, Google Analytics, Clevertap and Jupiter Notebooks.
    • Android Studio, VS Code, Xcode, Elasticsearch, Apache Spark, FastAPI, Celery, Django, rabbitMQ, NodeJs, React, NextJs, GraphQL, and Swagger, are very useful for the development team.
    • They also use Docker, Kubernetes, FastAPI, Apache Airflow, Devtron, Lambda, Jenkins, Github Actions, Ansible, Carpenter, rancher for their operations management, while Prometheus, Grafana, Kibana are used as dashboards.
    • MongoDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL, RDS, Redis are the most used databases at AppyHigh.
    • Besides that Wasabi, S3 are used for cloud storage, and Git are used for version control.
    • All internal communications take place on Slack.
    • The HR department uses Zoho People and Payroll.
    • The marketing team employs Firebase and Clevertap to send notifications to the users, while the sensor tower is used for SEO research.

    AppyHigh – Recognition and Achievements

    AppyHigh has been adjudged as one of the Top 10 developers (No.6) headquartered in India by App Annie (now Data.AI) in 2020, among industry behemoths like Times Group, Reliance Industries, and Airtel and ahead of Dailyhunt, Inshorts, and Paytm.

    • It has shown a rise in its monthly active users from 5 to 50 million as of December 2021.
    • AppyHigh won Top Publisher Award in 2021.

    AppyHigh – Future Plans

    Their ambition is to double their user base every year which means that in the next 2 years they want their apps to serve almost 200 million users. By 2026, they aspire to have 1 billion MAUs in their ecosystem.

    Appyhigh has backed almost 75 budding entrepreneurs with pre-seed investments. They include  – Fitso (now acquired by Zomato), Krishify (an agritech startup focused on improving business prospects for farmers and agri-businessmen), MyDukaan (a startup focused on digitisation of the retail landscape in India), EloElo (a live streaming and social gaming platform for creators in India), and many more, One Impression (Integrated influencer marketing network), One code (connecting digital-first brands with sellers). All of these companies have subsequently grown their businesses and undertaken fund-raising with marquee VC investors.

    FAQs

    Who is the founder of AppyHigh?

    Venus Dhuria and Aneesh Rayancha are the co-founders of AppyHigh.

    When was AppyHigh founded?

    AppyHigh was founded in 2018.

    What is the funding of AppyHigh?

    AppyHigh is a bootstrapped company. It has not received any funding yet.

    How many users use AppyHigh?

    There is over 550 million users of AppyHigh.

  • PolicyBazaar – Success Story of the Online Aggregator of Insurance Policies

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

    It’s recommended to be insured against the contingencies and emergencies of life. The whole idea behind an insurance policy is to financially cope with unforeseen losses. Being insured helps manage risk and cash flow uncertainty. It is also regarded as a good investment channel.

    However, the agents who sell insurance fail to provide options that cover customers completely. They knowingly or unknowingly hide crucial policy-related information from gullible individuals. It has been discovered that on several occasions, these agents sell irrelevant policies just for their benefit and commission rather than prioritizing the customer’s requirements. Thanks to the opacity of the insurance industry, a big chunk of the saver’s funds goes into fattening the agent’s wallet. Due to these factors, customers hesitate to buy insurance from agents.

    Yashish Dahiya founded PolicyBazaar — India’s largest platform for analyzing, comparing, and buying insurance based on price, quality, and other key features — in 2008 to bring transparency and accountability in the Indian insurance policy segment. PolicyBazaar turned unicorn on June 26, 2018, thereby becoming the second Indian unicorn in 2018. Here’s checking out the success story of the leading Indian insurtech company ahead!  

    PolicyBazaar – Company Highlights

    Startup Name PolicyBazaar
    Headquarters Gurugram
    Founder Yashish Dahiya, Alok Bansal, Manjoy Sharma, Tarun Mathur and Avaneesh Nirjar
    Sector Fintech
    Founded 2008
    Parent Organization EtechAces Marketing and Consulting
    Website policybazaar.com

    PolicyBazaar – About
    PolicyBazaar – Products
    PolicyBazaar – How does it work?
    PolicyBazaar – Industry Details
    PolicyBazaar – Founders and Team
    PolicyBazaar – The Idea and Starting Up
    PolicyBazaar – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    PolicyBazaar – Mission and Vision
    PolicyBazaar – Business Model
    PolicyBazaar – Revenue Model
    PolicyBazaar – Funding and Investors
    PolicyBazaar – Investment
    PolicyBazaar – IPO
    PolicyBazaar – ESOP
    PolicyBazaar – Growth and Revenue
    PolicyBazaar – Challenges
    PolicyBazaar – Acquistion
    PolicyBazaar – Competitors
    PolicyBazaar – Business Partners
    PolicyBazaar – Awards and Recognition
    PolicyBazaar – Future Plans

    What is Policybazaar?

    PolicyBazaar – About

    PolicyBazaar is India’s leading aggregator and marketplace of insurance products. Established in 2008, the company initially compared the prices of insurance policies and provided insurance-related information. The company saw rapid growth and has further expanded on many horizons. Along with being an insurance marketplace, the company further extends assistance for the cancellation/renewal of policies and settling claims now.

    PolicyBazaar – Products

    PolicyBazaar Products
    PolicyBazaar Products

    The main PolicyBazaar products include:

    • Policybazaar car insurance
    • Policybazaar health insurance
    • Policybazaar term insurance
    • Policybazaar investment plan
    • Policybazaar travel insurance
    • Policybazaar 2 wheeler insurance
    • Policybazaar family health insurance
    • Policybazaar saral jeevan bima
    • Policybazaar child savings plan
    • Policybazaar guaranteed return plan
    • Policybazaar retirement plan
    • Policybazaar group health insurance
    • Policybazaar 1 cr health insurance
    • Policybazaar Helpline Number For Cyclone Biparjoy
    • Policybazaar for Business
    • Policybazaar AI-enabled WhatsApp bot

    PolicyBazaar – How does it work?

    PolicyBazaar is the marketplace for all your insurance-related needs. It provides life insurance, health insurance, car insurance, travel insurance, group insurance, etc. The company offers more than 250 insurance plans and around 50 insurance brands on its platform. The platform is designed in such a way that the visitors can easily compare insurance plans and buy the ones relevant to their needs.

    The company constantly adds new features and technology to smoothen the customer experiences. It introduced a ‘My Account‘ feature some time back for the same reason. Through PolicyBazaar’s ‘My Account‘ feature, customers can easily download a policy, raise a ticket, ask for clarification, and upgrade policies. PolicyBazaar also introduced a self-inspection video feature for the revival of lapsed motor insurance.

    PolicyBazaar also adopted Amazon Polly and developed PBee, an in-house AI chatbot, to improve customer satisfaction.

    PolicyBazaar launched its mobile app in 2015. The app is available for both Android and iOS platforms. Customers can not just search, compare, and buy insurance through PolicyBazaar’s app but also take advantage of interesting features such as hospital locator, garage locator, insurance premium calculator, instant renewal of insurance policies, claim assistance, and more.

    PolicyBazaar – Industry Details

    According to NASSCOM, the Fintech market in India is likely to touch US$ 2.4 billion by 2021. The insurance industry in India is likely to touch $280 billion mark by 2021. However, a huge chunk of the Indian population does not own any kind of insurance. Overall insurance penetration, i.e., premium as a percentage of GDP, was only 3.69% in 2017. As such, there still exists a huge under-served market for insurance in India.

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    PolicyBazaar – Founders and Team

    Yashish Dahiya, Alok Bansal, and Avaneesh Nirjar founded PolicyBazaar in June 2008.

    Policy bazaar founders
    Policybazaar founders

    Yashish Dahiya

    PolicyBazaar founder Yashish Dahiya holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering from IIT Delhi (1994), a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Ahmedabad (1996), and an MBA from INSEAD (2001). Just after that, he joined Bain & Company as a consultant. He then became the Managing Director (UK) at ebookers.com. In 2005, he founded First Europa, a Global Online Insurance Broker, where he was responsible for leading its global expansion and managing the business of the company across 9 geographical locations. He is also a national-level swimmer and triathlete.

    Yashish Dahiya, the founder and ex-CEO of PolicyBazaar, is an investor and the founder of paisabazaar.com as well. PaisaBazaar provides fixed deposits and loans at your fingertips.

    Yashish served as the CEO of PolicyBazaar from its inception until February 2020. In February 2020, Sarbvir Singh was appointed as the CEO of PolicyBazaar, while Yashish went to take the responsibility of the CEO of the broader group of PolicyBazaar.

    Sarbvir Singh

    Sarbvir Singh, the PolicyBazaar CEO, served as the Managing Partner at WaterBridge Ventures before joining PolicyBazaar. An alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad, Sarbvir has a rich experience of working with companies like Emerson Electric, Citi Bank, HomeShop 18, Network 18, and JP Morgan Private Equity Group. He also co-founded Hercules Capital, a company investing institutional and private client assets in the Indian equity market. Sarbvir left Hercules Capital in 2006.

    Alok Bansal

    PolicyBazaar co-founder and director Alok Bansal is an alumnus of IIM Kolkata. Before PolicyBazaar, he held the positions of finance director at First Europa, senior Manager – Corp Strategy at Mahindra & Mahindra, and business manager at iGate Global Solutions.

    Avaneesh Nirjar

    PolicyBazaar co-founder Avaneesh Nirjar is an Alumni of IIT Kharagpur. He holds an MBA from Birla Institute of Technology. Before PolicyBazaar, he worked for Marico Industries, AT&T India, GE Capital International Services, HeroITES, Cendant ISO, and First Europa.

    Tarun Mathur

    Co-founder and CBO of PolicyBazaar, Tarun Mathur has a BIT from IGNOU, after which he joined HeroITES, worked as a Team Leader in Workforce Management, and a Manager in FE Global Technology before founding PolicyBazaar with the other co-founders in May 2008.

    Manoj Sharma

    Also known as another Co-founder who works as the Director of Finance with PolicyBazaar, Manoj Sharma is an alumnus of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. After having a brief stint with Ericsson Indian Pvt. Ltd., Sharma joined Fiamm Minda Automotive Pvt. Ltd. He eventually joined some more companies including First Europa, and Anand Nishikawa.

    Sharat Dhall

    Sharat Dhall is the COO of PolicyBazaar. Before joining PolicyBazaar, Sharat was the COO at Yatra Online Pvt. Ltd. He was the Business Head at Hindustan Liver Limited, Vice President of e-commerce at Indiatimes.com, Managing Director (India) at Expedia, and Managing Director (India) at TripAdvisor. He is also Advisory Board Member at CreditEnable, a global credit insights and technology solutions company.

    As per LinkedIn data, the PolicyBazaar team consists of around 5,000 employees. As confirmed by PolicyBazaar owner Yashish Dahiya in 2019, PolicyBazaar had plans to create 2,500 new vacancies, leading to a team strength of 6,000 employees. The recruitment will be done majorly for the customer support function of the company.

    PolicyBazaar Shareholding

    The largest owner of the PolicyBazaar shares is Softbank, which holds over 15% of the shares of the Yashish Dahiya and Alok Bansal-founded firm. Makeshift, Infoedge, and Tencent are some of the other major shareholders. The company founder and group CEO Yashish Dahiya also held over 4% of the stocks of PolicyBazaar. Among these, Dahiya opted to sell 37,69,471 equity shares on June 6, 2022. This notification in the BSE filing lead to a sharp crash in the share prices. The PolicyBazaar parent, PB Fintech’s shares tanked by more than 13% following the announcement, as of June 7, 2022. The ownership of Yashish Dahiya of PB Fintech has increased over time, and this may be around 5.98% by October 2022, as per the company’s fillings.

    The shares of Softbank which represented a 2.54 percent stake ownership in the company, were sold in PolicyBazaar parent for an average price of Rs 762.8 per share. The sale was for a total of Rs 871.2 crore as reported on August, 10, 2023.

    PolicyBazaar – The Idea and Starting Up

    The idea for starting PolicyBazaar has its seed sowed in an incident of insurance mis-selling that Yashish Dahiya once faced.

    “I was going through some of the financials with my father and few things looked dubious. On deeper inspection, my father had been cheated of a few lakh rupees by insurance agents. The transactions looked clean on the face of it but the reality emerged when I looked in closely. This got me thinking about how people are getting duped hence came into being PolicyBazaar. We started PolicyBazaar with just 14 hardworking individuals,” said Yashish Dahiya, founder and owner of PolicyBazaar.

    As the platform is a marketplace for insurance policies, it is aptly named PolicyBazaar.

    PolicyBazaar Logo

    The logo of the company depicts the brand name of the company “policybazaar” and has an interesting play on the words. Here the dot com is symbolized with a blue circle inside which is the text “com”. The company has also cleverly included the tagline of the company “Compare.Buy.Save” in its logo.

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    PolicyBazaar – Mission and Vision

    PolicyBazaar’s mission statement on its website says, “Building a safety net for households in India.”

    The vision of PolicyBazaar is to see, “a healthy and well-protected India.”

    PolicyBazaar – Business Model

    PolicyBazaar.com is an insurance aggregator website, which helps the customers research and compares the features of different insurance policies within a category. It enables them to make informed choices when it comes to policy selection. The PolicyBazaar insurance aggregator business model can be seen operating on the B2C and B2B models.

    The company has tied up with insurance brokers to procure information, such as price, benefit, insurance cover, etc., directly from them for customers to compare. Based on the information provided, the customer then chooses the best option. It doesn’t charge customers anything for this service.

    PolicyBazaar – Revenue Model

    PolicyBazaar makes money by generating leads for insurers, advertising, and policy sales. Till 2011, 85% of its revenue came from lead generation and advertising while the rest 15% came from policy sales. Now, 85% of the revenue comes from e-commerce and policy sales.

    PolicyBazaar – Funding and Investors

    PolicyBazaar has raised a total funding of more than $904.9 million in 15 rounds from 33 investors. In the latest round, the company raised around $104.5 million on October 6, 2023. The company is valued at $7.27+ billion in November 2021.

    Date Stage Funding Amount Investor
    October 6, 2023 Post-IPO Secondary $104.5 Million –
    October 4, 2021 – $13.4 Million PB Fintech
    March 17, 2021 Private Equity Round $75 Million Falcon Edge Capital
    March 3, 2021 Secondary Market $45 Million True North & Angel Investors
    November 23, 2020 Secondary Market $20 Million True North
    July 7, 2020 Secondary Market $80 Million Softbank Vision Fund
    July 7, 2020 Series H $50 Million Softbank Vision Fund
    Nov 11, 2019 Series G $150 Million Tencent Holdings
    May 1, 2018 Series F $200 Million Softbank and InfoEdge(India)
    October 13, 2017 Series E $77 Million Temasek, Tiger Global Management, Premji Invest, Info Edge(India) Ltd and other undisclosed investors
    April 15, 2015 Series D $40 Million PremjiInvest, Tiger Global Management, Ribbit Capital, Steadview Capital, ABG Capital.
    May 26, 2014 Series C $20 Million Tiger Global Management
    April 2013 Series B $5 Million Inventus Capital Partners, Info Edge, and Intel Capital.
    March 2013 Series A $4.6 Million Intel Capital and Inventus Capital Partners
    May 2011 Venture Round Undisclosed Intel Capital

    PolicyBazaar – Investment

    Policybazzar has made investments in one company till date.

    Company Name Funding Round Date Amount
    DocPrime Funding Round – DocPrime Sep 17, 2018 $50 million

    PolicyBazaar – IPO

    PolicyBazaar earlier eyed an IPO in the month of August 2021 and had already filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus then with SEBI. According to the filing, the company had reportedly filed to raise around Rs 6017.5 crores. This would include a fresh issue of shares amounting to Rs 3,750 crores. Furthermore, the company would also make an offer for the sale of shares worth Rs 2,267.5 crores by PolicyBazaar’s existing shareholders. The company also said that it might also raise up to Rs 750 crores, as per the latest news, before it goes public.

    However, the IPO was not materialized in August. The company held a meeting on September 24th with the board of directors, who approved allotting 20,20,202 equity shares of Policybazaar Insurance Brokers at a premium price of INR 485 to its parent firm PB Fintech Ltd.

    Though the initial public offering (IPO) of PB Fintech Ltd., the parent company of PolicyBazaar was approved by the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI), it had failed to lift the investor sentiments in the unlisted space earlier. Therefore, the share price of PolicyBazaar in the unlisted market was also not changed, remaining around Rs 1,700-1,800, as reported on October 19, 2021.

    The IPO of PolicyBazaar parent, P.B Fintech finally went live on November 1, 2021, and had seen the retail portion 36% subscribed right in the first hour of opening. It closed on November 3, 2021.

    PolicyBazaar IPO price was fixed at Rs 940 to Rs 980 per equity share. The PolicyBazaar IPO saw the company shares gain more than 20% over the IPO price. The stocks of India’s largest digital insurance provider were listed on the BSE at a 17.35% premium to the issue price of Rs 980. The PolicyBazaar stocks were subscribed by 16.59X. The PolicyBazaar stocks closed at Rs 1203 on the NSE, which was 22.74% higher than its IPO price, which valued the company at $7.27 bn, as of November 16, 2021.

    PolicyBazaar – ESOP

    The parent company of Policybazaar and Paisabazaar, PB Fintech, has given new options to its workers under its current Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) 2020 and 2021 as per various report news on August 1, 2023.

    According to a stock exchange filing, the business has issued 5,44,929 eligible members stock options at an exercise price of Rs 2 under the PB Fintech Employees Stock Option Scheme 2020 and 2021. The value of the new ESOPs awarded by PB Fintech was estimated by Fintrackr to be roughly Rs 40 crore based on the current stock price of the company.

    PolicyBazaar – Growth and Revenue

    PolicyBazaar is the largest insurance aggregator in India. PolicyBazaar boasts of a 100 million visitors run rate annually and has witnessed a record sale of more than 3,00,000 transactions a month. Here’s a list of the growth highlights of PolicyBazaar:

    • Over 15,000 policies were sold in a month.
    • In the fiscal year 2017-2018, the company recorded a growth of 225% in its revenues
    • After raising $200 Million from SoftBank and Info Edge in May 2018, PolicyBazaar’s valuation reached over $1 billion. Thus, the company became the second fintech company in India to enter the unicorn club after Paytm.
    • It occupied around 50% market share in the online insurance space, which later was increased to 93.4% market share in April 2022
    • It claims to hold 25% of India’s life insurance cover and around 7% of India’s retail health insurance business.
    • Policybazaar car insurance India claims to have already insured 51+ lakh vehicles, which has over 20 insurers to choose from
    • Policybazaar health insurance counts 7 lakh+ happy customers

    DocPrime

    In August 2018, PolicyBazaar launched DocPrime, an online medical service provider platform. DocPrime helps users in getting real-time consultations from doctors online through chat and call. The platform has become quite popular and within six months of operations, DocPrime’s website received 1 million unique visitors.

    Financials

    Policybazaar financials has increased from Rs 1,425 crore in FY22 to Rs 2,558 crore in FY23. Coming to company profit/loss losses increased from Rs 833 in FY22 to Rs 488 crore in FY23.

    Policybazaar - Financials
    Policybazaar – Financials

    Policybazaar Expenses Breakdown

    Company total expenses rises from Rs 2,384 crore in FY22 to Rs 3,304 crore in FY23.

    Below are the expenses details:

    Policybazaar Expenses FY22 FY23
    Employee Benefits Rs 1,255 crore Rs 1,539 crore
    Advertising and promotions Rs 864 crore Rs 1,357 crore
    Network and Internet Rs 69.5 crore Rs 96.8 crore
    Other Expenses Rs 194.5 crore Rs 311.2 crore

    EBITDA

    The financial performance of Policybazaar increased dramatically between FY22 and FY23, and its EBITDA margin decreased from -50.10% in FY22 to -14.30% in FY23. Cost effectiveness, which saw a drop in expenses per unit of operational revenue, and a rise in ROCE from -14.69% in FY22 to -8.18% in FY23 both contributed to this increase. Overall, these trends point to a significant financial turnaround for the business.

    Policybazaar FY22-FY23 FY22 FY23
    EBITDA Margin -50.10% -14.30%
    Expense/Rs of Operation Revenue Rs 1.67 Rs 1.29
    ROCE -14.69% -8.18%

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    PolicyBazaar – Challenges

    According to PolicyBazaar Marketing Head Sai Narayan, customer inertia is one of the biggest challenges. People still have the habit of buying insurance from agents. It takes effort to convince this category of people to buy insurance online.

    According to Narayan, the other challenge is that most Indians view insurance just as a tax saving tool. They fail to see the bigger picture that insurance means much more than just tax saving. As such, most insurance sales happen in January-March.

    Policybazaar Systems Hacked

    Policybazaar systems were hacked and the insurtech major revealed that it identified some vulnerabilities for Policybazaar Insurance Brokers (“Policybazaar’’) IT systems and more, which were “subject to illegal and unauthorized access.” However, it added that these attacks didn’t compromise significant customer data, as per reports dated July 25, 2022. Besides, Policybazaar also added that the vulnerabilities that it identified were sorted out, and it has also sanctioned an audit to clearly identify the damage done. The company also mentioned that it has already reached out to appropriate authorities in relation to the attack.  

    PolicyBazaar – Acquistion

    PolicyBazaar has acquired Visit Internet Services on January 15, 2022.

    Company Name Date Amount
    Visit Internet Services January 15, 2022 Rs 22.4 crore

    PolicyBazaar – Competitors

    PolicyBazaar’s major competitors are:

    PolicyBazaar – Business Partners

    The startup has reputed companies from car insurance, health insurance, life insurance, corporate insurance, and the travel insurance sectors as its business partners.

    Aegon Life, Aviva Life Insurance, Bajaj Allianz, Cigna, Edelweiss Tokio Life, HDFC Ergo, DHFL Pramerica Life Insurance, HDFC Life, ICICI Prudential, Liberty General Insurance, Cholamandalam General Insurance, PNB Metlife, Max Life, Royal Sundaram General Insurance, SBI Life Insurance, TATA AIG, Future Generali, IFFCO-TOKIO General Insurance, Apollo Munich Health Insurance, Religare Health Insurance, Start Health, and Allied Insurance, and IDBI Federal Life Insurance are some of the partners of PolicyBazaar.

    Some other partners include Reliance Life Insurance, Aditya Birla Capital, TATA AIA Life, Shriram Life/ General Insurance, Bharti AXA, National Insurance, New India Assurance, Universal Sompo General Insurance, Reliance General Insurance, Bajaj Allianz, Canara HSBC OBC Life Insurance, Max Bupa, Oriental insurance, Raheja QBE, SBI General Insurance, and United India Insurance.

    In order to satisfy clients’ dual needs of financial security and wealth creation, Bharti AXA Life Insurance partners with PolicyBazaar on September 23, 2023 to develop Wealth Maximizer, an industry-first ULIP plan.

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    PolicyBazaar – Awards and Recognition

    The company has received many awards and has been recognized for its business model, customer centricity, and marketing efforts. It has won the following awards:

    • IAMAI Indian Digital Awards for the best financial website – 2013-2014
    • Frost and Sullivan Customer Value Leadership Award – 2014
    • Award for Best Mobile App Consumer Finance by GSF Mobile Appies – 2015
    • Exchange4media Golden Mikes Award – 2015
    • DMAi Asia ECHO Awards – 2015
    • CMO Asia Awards – 2015
    • BAM Award – 2015
    • Iconic IDC Insight Awards – 2015
    • Exchange4media BFSI Marketing Awards -2023

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    PolicyBazaar – Future Plans

    PolicyBazaar future plans include standing to its market leadership among the other insurtech companies. It looks to further increase the underwriting premium, expand its unique customer base, increase revenue, look towards profitability, innovate new products and technology for better customer satisfaction, and expand successfully outside India in the upcoming years.

    FAQs

    What is PolicyBazaar?

    Policybazaar is a one-stop online destination for all types of insurance products. It holds experience and expertise in insurance to help customers choose the best insurance policies.

    What is PolicyBazaar’s valuation?

    PolicyBazaar is currently valued at $7.27 billion, as of November 2021.

    Who is the CEO of PolicyBazaar?

    Sarbvir Singh is the CEO of Policybazaar.

    How much is PolicyBazaar’s revenue?

    The company has recorded its revenues at Rs 957 crore in FY21.

    Who are the top competitors of PolicyBazaar?

    The top 10 competitors in PolicyBazaar’s competitive set are:

    • BankBazaar
    • Coverfox
    • Easypolicy
    • Acko
    • Turtlemint
    • ETInsure
    • Greenlife Insurance
    • CreditMantri
    • FundsIndia
    • ApnaLoanBazaar

    What is the Policybazaar car insurance India?

    Policybazaar offers car insurance in India, which is designed as a mandatory policy that covers the cost of damages caused to cars in case of unpredictable events like theft, collision and more. The Policybazaar car insurance India has over 20 car insurers to choose from and has already insured over 51 lakh vehicles.  

    How is Policybazaar health insurance?

    The Policybazaar health insurance is an insurance plan of PolicyBazaar that acts as a contract between the insurance company and the insurer for a premium amount, which covers the medical expenses associated with the hospitalisation, surgeries, daycare visits, and more. Such healthcare insurance will either reimburse the medical costs or offer cashless treatments.  

    What does the travel insurance of Policybazaar offer?

    The travel insurance of Policybazaar protects the users from any unexpected losses while travelling in domestic or internationally. The basic plans of the PolicyBazaar travel insurance covers the medical expenses, while there are other comprehensive plans that also cover for flight delays, luggage lost, personal liability, cancellation of trips, and more.

  • upGrad Success Story- India’s Largest Online Higher Education Company

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

    With exponential growth in the number of internet and smartphone users in India, turning online to get one’s tasks done is now mainstream. Education too falls under this umbrella. Online tutoring has many benefits such as economical courses, flexible schedules, and 24/7 access to get doubts and queries cleared. This has made online learning popular among all age groups. upGrad, a Mumbai-based startup, is bringing the best out of the online education segment.

    upGrad has tied up with world-class institutes to facilitate access to career-oriented courses and assist Indian students and working professionals who want to upgrade their careers.

    StartupTalky interviewed upGrad founder Mayank Kumar to know how the startup was founded, and how it is helping students and professionals to pursue higher education online. Read on to know about upGrad’s business model, revenue model, founders, challenges, funding, growth, and the story of its success.

    upGrad – Company Highlights

    Startup Name upGrad
    Headquarters Mumbai
    Founders Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, and Ravijot Chugh
    Sector EdTech
    Founded 2015
    Parent Organization UpGrad Education Pvt. Ltd
    Website upGrad.com

    upGrad – Startup Journey
    upGrad – About
    upGrad – Industry Details
    upGrad – Founders And Team
    upGrad – How it Started?
    upGrad – Mission and Vision
    upGrad – Name, Tagline, And Logo
    upGrad – Courses
    upGrad – Business Model And Revenue Model
    upGrad – Funding And Investors
    upGrad – User Acquisition
    upGrad – Startup Challenges
    upGrad – Competitors
    upGrad – Acquisitions
    upGrad – ESOPs
    upGrad – Advisors And Mentors
    upGrad – Revenue And Growth
    upGrad – Partnership
    upGrad – Campaign
    upGrad – Layoff
    upGrad – Awards
    upGrad – Future Plans

    upGrad – Startup Journey

    upGrad Startup Story
    upGrad Startup Story

    upGrad – About

    upGrad Education Pvt. Ltd. is an online higher education company that provides programs in the areas of data, technology, and management to college students, first-time job seekers, and working professionals and empowers them to reach their peak potential. These programs are designed in collaboration with top-notch universities like IIIT-B, BITS Pilani, MICA, Cambridge Judge Business School, and many others.

    To enhance the learning experience further, a comprehensive ecosystem has been built which includes, but is not restricted to, one-on-one mentoring, peer-to-peer learning, industry networking, and expert career guidance. This ensures a holistic approach to gaining the maximum out of the programs offered.

    “We, at upGrad, had always believed in the potential of online education being able to transform careers. Hence, the development and adherence to the company’s vision statement since its inception in 2015 – ‘Building careers of tomorrow’,” said Ronnie Screwvala, upGrad founder.

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    upGrad – Industry Details

    As per an IBEF report, the higher education market in India stands at $102 billion. If we consider the online higher education market, it stands at $247 million and is expected to grow by 8X to reach $1.96 billion in 2021. Techavio’s industry research report pegs the online education market in India to be worth about $18 billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of around 20% over five years.

    The total enrollment in higher education in India has been estimated to be 34.6 million, the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in higher education is 24.5% for the age group of 18-23 years, and distance enrollment constitutes about 11.05% of the total enrollment in higher education programs. The perception of recruiters towards online degrees in India has also changed since UGC permitted eligible universities to offer degree courses online. This decision is a revolutionary step toward propelling the online education sector in India.

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    upGrad – Founders And Team

    upGrad learning platform was founded in 2015 by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, and Ravijot Chugh.

    upGrad Founders
    upGrad Founders

    Ronnie Screwvala | Co-founder & Chairman, upGrad

    Ronnie Screwvala is the chairman of upGrad. Ronnie is a well-known personality in the Indian television industry and the founder of UTV Group (now known as Walt Disney India), founder trustee of Swades Foundation, founder of Unilazer Ventures, Board of Advisor AIESEC India, and the founder of RSVP Movies. He has been featured on Esquire’s List of the 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century and ranked 78 among the 100 most influential people in the world on the Time 100 (compiled by Time Magazine, 2009). He was also listed among 25 Asia’s Most Powerful People by Fortune Magazine and titled the Jack Warner of India by Newsweek.

    Mayank Kumar | Co-founder & MD, upGrad

    Mayank Kumar is the Managing Director and leads the overall operations at upGrad. Before his upGrad stint, Mayank was the VP of Education at Bertelsmann- Europe’s largest media and education conglomerate—where he oversaw the education strategy and its multi-million dollar investments in India. He also served as a Board Member of iNurture—India’s number-one provider of industry-specific academic programs.

    Mayank holds a Bachelor’s degree from IIT Delhi and an MBA from the Indian School of Business. He received the coveted BWDISRUPT 40-under-40 Achiever of the Year Award’17 by BW Businessworld. Before joining Bertelsmann, Mayank was a Senior Principal at The Parthenon Group where he advised clients in the education sector on market potential, growth and market entry strategies, investment decisions, revenue & profit uplift strategies. He participated in deals worth USD 1 billion flowing into the education sector and worked with clients from China, South-East Asia, Middle East India, and South America. He also worked at the Tata Strategic Group, advising Tata’s strategic direction.

    Ravijot Chugh | Co-founder, upGrad

    Ravijot Chugh heads career services, product, design, content, delivery, and student success divisions at upGrad. Ravijot was at Housing.com as a product lead and then at the Parthenon Group where he advised multiple companies and private equity investors on due diligence, market-entry, and growth strategy in the education sector of emerging markets across Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. He also co-founded a social travel startup called 36hrs. is headquartered in San Francisco. Ravijot Chugh holds a Bachelors’s degree in Computer Science from IIT-Delhi and was part of the Forbes Asia 30 under 30 cohort of 2018.

    Phalgun Kompalli | Co-founder, upGrad

    Phalgun Kompalli is the head of sales and marketing at upGrad. He heads university partnerships and customer acquisition in addition to sales and marketing. Before UpGrad, Phalgun was a Principal at The Parthenon Group—an education strategy-consulting firm—where he was involved in advising large education conglomerates and investment funds on their growth and investment strategies in the education sector. Phalgun has done significant work in the field of higher education and technology-enabled learning across India, the US, Brazil, Africa, and Southeast Asia. He worked at Opera Solutions before his Parthenon stint. Opera Solutions is an analytics firm providing consultation to Fortune 500 companies on their revenue and cost optimization initiatives through data analytics. He completed his Bachelors in Technology from IIT Delhi.

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    UpGrad Team and Workforce

    upGrad has a workforce of 3800+ employees. The company has strengthened its senior leadership team to capitalize on potential opportunities in the online education sector.

    Over the last two years, the startup has developed a holistic digital education experience for working professionals and college students for upskilling and reskilling. We are happy that the new senior leadership brings diverse and rich learnings for upGrad to unlock the immense potential in the online education space and understand the Indian learners. We will continue this growth momentum, offering innovative opportunities for the working professionals and students to equip themselves with the new-age skills for the workforce of the future – Ronnie Screwvala & Mayank Kumar, Co-founders of upGrad.

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    upGrad – Work Culture

    upGrad’s vision revolves around ‘building careers of tomorrow’. The learning experience it delivers is at the core of its business. The upGrad team constantly strives for excellence and has a high degree of passion and pride in whatever it does. Some of the main highlights of upGrad’s work culture are:

    • It is committed to building the careers of tomorrow: People working with the company have a sense of job satisfaction and a feeling of doing something special since their contribution has the power to improve the customer/learner’s life and career.
    • It supports innovation: As an ed-tech company, upGrad believes that technology is the future. That’s why the employees are constantly motivated to take up innovative initiatives across various functions.
    • Open culture: The leadership team is highly approachable, the structure is flat, and employees are encouraged to take up initiatives.
    • Promote upskilling: Being a company that endorses upskilling, upGrad spurs its employees to take up its courses at discounted rates for staying relevant with changing times.

    The key traits of upGrad’s work culture are centered on:

    • Long-term thinking with clinical execution.
    • Empathy and impact.
    • Accountability and ownership.
    • Delivering excellence.    

    “We at upGrad always look for passion in an individual, be it for work or outside work. The individual may be passionate about running, social work, movies, music, traveling, etc. For us, passion demonstrates how driven an individual is & how diligently they follow their passion,” said Mayank Kumar, co-founder of upGrad.

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    upGrad History – How it Started?

    Mayank has vast experience in the education industry, both as an advisor and an investor. He observed the benefits of low infrastructure costs and a large student base in reducing the price of procuring education via the online channel. These factors led to online courses being 53% cheaper than the offline alternatives. Owing to the flexibility of time, schedule, etc., online education is a convenient mode of learning. As a result, many online education companies have sprung up to cater to the huge scope of online courses.

    Although there were companies in the K-12 segment and platforms providing MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses), none of them provided formal education coupled with a comprehensive learning experience. Mayank foresaw that the requirement for online learning would be much higher for technical certifications given the increase in the working population at that time. Again, none of the existing companies completely tapped into the online higher education space. This led to the idea behind upGrad which was subsequently launched in 2015.

    “We first built a content team which has now grown by 5 folds. They created subject matter from scratch, collecting and collating industry trends and university curriculum. We quickly developed a tech team that focuses purely on the smooth functioning of our online platform. Since then we have always focused on building a great online learning experience by collaborating with the right universities like BITS Pilani, IIIT-Bangalore, Cambridge Judge Business School of Executive Education, etc. We also have collaborations with some of the industry’s best such as Google, Flipkart, Gramener to name a few in order to create a cohesive and practical learning experience,” says upGrad owner Mayank Kumar, explaining the inception phase of the company.

    Starting with its first program in entrepreneurship, upGrad has created some of India’s largest online programs to help thousands of professionals and college students achieve their career goals in the areas of data, technology, and management.

    upGrad – Mission and Vision

    “Making our learners achieve their desired outcomes,” says upGrad mission.

    upGrad vision – “Powering career success for every member of the global workforce as their trusted lifelong learning partner.”

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    “Interestingly, we had registered the company under the name of UEducation when we started. Very soon we conducted an exercise with an external agency to determine our brand name and logo. Through that exercise, we came upon the name – upGrad,” adds Mayank.

    According to Mayank, two key reasons behind choosing the name ‘upGrad’ were:

    1. It had a smart twist.
    2. It had a nice connotation to the word “graduation”.

    upGrad is all about upgrading lives and careers by offering graduation and post-graduation programs.

    upGrad logo
    upGrad logo

    Narrating the concept of the company’s logo, Mayank says “Development of the brand logo was an interesting exercise too. While we looked at multiple options – we liked the existing one where G was in upper-case and highlighted. The shape of the ‘G’ resembles the refresh icon. Hence the logo represents that upGrad is about enabling a refresh for your life and career.”

    upGrad – Courses

    The online courses offered by the upGrad learning platform include MBA, IT Courses, Data Science, Machine Learning, Digital Marketing, Software, Blockchain, Insurance-related courses, and more. upGrad has a structured educational program for every phase of a person’s career right from college to professional employment.

    In line with its vision of ‘building careers of tomorrow’, this Mumbai-based startup inspires college students to take the initial steps towards their professional journey. It focuses on getting them job-ready. The courses prepare students to crack the recruitment processes for different roles through aptitude training, resume building, and mock interview prep sessions. Along with the paid/premium courses that upGrad offers, where the company extends numerous degrees and certifications from a wide variety of courses across the country and abroad, it also offers numerous upGrad free courses ranging from Data Science, Technology to Management.

    upGrad has also launched programs with a guaranteed job for those who are seeking their first employment stint. The program offers a guaranteed job upon successful completion of the program. On the other hand, working professionals have the advantage of going back to the university through upGrad’s immersive learning platform without the need to quit their jobs. On course completion, the learners become alumni of the partner university. They also get to attend on-campus hackathons and graduation ceremonies.

    upGrad also provides solutions to enterprises seeking the upskilling of their employees. In FY 19-20, upGrad entered into a partnership with 2 of India’s leading IT services companies—Infosys and Wipro. These are multi-year deals and have a strong repeat element. With this, the company has established a strong position in the enterprise ecosystem.

    The upGrad team has also introduced a concept called ‘upGrad basecamp’. This is a unique concept wherein the learners get a chance to network and engage in peer-to-peer learning through offline meetups. They also receive career support which involves resume building, career landscaping, mock interviews, interview guarantees, and more. The ‘Just in Time’ Interview Prep by upGrad helps learners with last-minute interview preparation, guiding them through key concepts before interviews, and mentoring them through the joining process.

    A key USP for upGrad is its mentorship; the very fact that the startup spends money on mentoring while others find a course and put it online. Some other differentiators are its tech platform, interactive interface, and content—all of which have been created from scratch by its team.

    The company has also teamed up with Agora.io, the leading voice, video, and live streaming platform, to launch upGrad Live platform. It is built to replicate a real-time classroom learning experience for enrolled students by providing greater interactivity, real-time doubt resolution, in-class concept checks, and session analytics to gauge live session performances.

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    upGrad – Business Model And Revenue Model

    upGrad is largely built on a direct B2C model of business wherein the consumer enrolls in the program (post receiving an admit) and pays upfront for the enrollment. For its enterprise business, the company receives payment from companies for training its employees.

    upGrad’s program pricing reflects its commitment towards getting students placed. 50% of the program fees are collected from the learner only if they get placed after the program’s completion. This pricing strategy is the first of its kind in India.

    upGrad – Funding And Investors

    The company has raised $668.2 million till now in 7 funding rounds, with the most recent round on March 29, 2023, totaling $30 million from investor Ronnie Screwvala.

    Here are all the details of the 7 funding rounds that UpGrad has seen so far:

    Date Series Amount Investors
    March 29, 2023 Venture Round $30 million Ronnie Screwvala
    August 8, 2022 Venture Round $210 million ETS Global, Bodhi Tree and Kaizen Management Advisors
    June 16, 2022 Venture Round $225 million Lupa Systems, Educational Testing Service.
    August 9, 2021 Venture Round $65 million IFC, IIFL and Temasek
    April 26, 2021 Venture Round $120 million Temasek Holdings
    April 14, 2021 Venture Round $9.3 million Unilazer Ventures
    August 12, 2020 Debt Financing $6.69 million IIFL Asset Management

    upGrad – User Acquisition

    For the first 100 customers, upGrad used several offline events to promote its initiative. The founders personally spoke to the learners. Prospective learners had to share their video profiles and SOPs (Statement of Purpose) before enrolling. They were then given 2 weeks of learning content for free. Only after experiencing the free content was the payment option made available to them.

    “We had expected that initially, 50-60 learners would enroll, but 100 ended up enrolling in the program. It was one of the most exhilarating and humbling experiences for us,” recalls Mayank.  

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    upGrad – Startup Challenges

    Like all businesses, upGrad encountered multiple challenges. The most significant one was the stigma surrounding the credibility of online education. There is a general perception that online education is frivolous. upGrad had to prove otherwise through its product, customer experience, and success stories; and this was a tough job.

    Getting recruiters to accept that online education could be as rigorous as offline education was the next hurdle. Finally, when it came to product pricing, upGrad priced itself at a discount to offline competitors, but at a premium to other online competitors. It was an uphill task to explain the value proposition of the programs to the learners.

    “The entire task of building a higher education brand is made more arduous by the prevailing consumer mindset around education. Education in India is considered by many as a time-bound, one-time activity, post completion of which one starts working and does not go back to studying again. It is a mammoth task to change the mindset of the people by convincing them that education has no age limit, lifelong learning is the new mantra and need of the hour for all” – Mayank.

    upGrad – Competitors

    The top competitors of upGrad are –

    However, there are certain features that set upGrad apart from its competitors. One of the main USPs is the hand-holding provided to each learner. This practice is called ‘student mentorship’ and the team behind it is known as ‘Student Success’ at upGrad.

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    upGrad – Acquisitions

    upGrad’s total acquisition count is 16 companies to date. upGrad acquired Centum Learning in an undisclosed deal, which is the latest acquisition on September 15, 2022.

    Here’s the table mentioning all the acquisitions that upGrad has seen so far.

    Acquired Date Price
    Centum Learning September 15, 2022 –
    Exampur August 1, 2022 –
    Harappa Education July 22, 2022 $37.54 million
    WOLVES India July 14, 2022 –
    INSOFE May 2, 2022 $33 million
    Work Better January 10, 2022 Undisclosed
    Talentedge December 6, 2021 Undisclosed
    Global Study Partners November 29, 2021 Undisclosed
    KnowledgeHut August 3, 2021 Undisclosed
    Impartus Innovations May 24, 2021 $20.22 million
    Rekrut India December 15, 2020 Undisclosed
    The Gate Academy November 24, 2020 Undisclosed
    CohortPlus July 4, 2019 Undisclosed
    AcadView October 29, 2018 Undisclosed
    Pyoopil Education Technologies Pvt Ltd October 17, 2016 Undisclosed

    upGrad – ESOPs

    upGrad conducted its maiden ESOP on July 13, 2021, and in it, the company promised the liquidity of an amount close to $29.5 Mn (Rs 220 crores). The maiden ESOP of upGrad has formed a large ESOP pool of around 13% of the enlarged equity base and is planned to benefit both the early and promising team members of the company. The inclusive ESOP scheme boasts of having over 600 team members, who share the growth story of the company, consisting of 37 early team members.

    The company further increased its employee stock option program (ESOPs) pool by 28% in the middle of November. upGrad, which has earlier spoken of 17,25,810 options (UPGRAD Education-Employee Stock Option (New) Scheme, 2015) has now made it 22,25,810. This also resulted in lifting the pool’s value by 29%, to Rs 427 crore, which was last reported at Rs 331 crore.

    UpGrad’s new ESOP options are estimated to be valued at Rs 244 crore ($30 million) according to Fintrackr, while the overall value of the company’s employee shares is roughly Rs 2,058 crore ($260 million)  as of reported news in March 2023.

    upGrad – Advisors And Mentors

    Emphasizing the importance of knowledgeable advisors for an entrepreneur, Mayank says, “There are many acquaintances who have been helping me, guiding me as I go along the journey. As an entrepreneur, you tend to dive deep into execution and thoughts, thereby sometimes failing to look at the bigger picture. It is always good to meet with well-wishers, bounce off ideas and get an outside-in perspective.”

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    upGrad – Revenue And Growth

    In a short span of around 5 years, the startup claimed to have onboarded over 21,500 paid learners and has impacted more than 370K individuals globally, making it India’s largest online higher-education company based on gross revenue generated from the Indian market in FY18-19.

    In the period when the impact of COVID-19 was at its peak, upGrad onboarded over 100 colleges and universities onto its platform to pave the way for blended online learning as the future of education.

    upGrad has been successful in achieving its target unicorn status on August 9, 2021, by raising around $185 million in a round led by Temasek, IIFL, and IFC at a valuation of $1.2 billion.

    Here are some of the prominent growth highlights of upGrad:

    • The company is an ed-tech unicorn and stands as a competitor of the highest-valued Edtech company in India, Byju’s
    • upGrad has witnessed a 100% growth at the beginning of FY21
    • The company also has over 45,000 paid students
    • It has crossed a milestone of acquiring 1 million learners in just 5 years of its operations
    • upGrad claims to have 10,000 graduates in 2022.
    • upGrad has 300 direct global university partners as of FY23.
    • It has 20,000 recruitment partners and 30,000 corporate partners.
    • The company claims to have provided learning to 7 million students in more than 100 countries.
    • The company’s valuation is $2.25 billion.
    • As per upGrad website, it has provided jobs in 10,000+ companies.

    UpGrad launched UpGrad Foundation

    UpGrad has announced the launch of UpGrad Foundation on April 4, 2022, which is a philanthropic initiative of the company and will serve as a non-profit arm of the edtech company. As per the recent reports, the company has already devoted Rs 50 crore to train the teachers, support decent mentorship and coaching, and conduct career counselling sessions, scholarships, internships, and online student exchange programs.

    Financials

    upGrad operating revenue has increased from Rs 679 crore in FY21 to Rs 679 crore in FY22, while company losses have increased from Rs 211 crore in FY21 to Rs 627 crore in FY22.

    upGrad Finanacials
    upGrad Finanacials

    upGrad Expenses

    upGrad total expenses increased from Rs 514 crore in FY21 to Rs 1,300 crore in FY22.

    Expenses FY21-FY22 FY21 FY22
    Advertisement promotion Rs 205 crore Rs 424 crore
    Employee benefit expenses Rs 161 crore Rs 383 crore
    University fees Rs 47 crore Rs 126 crore
    Information technology expenses Rs 13 crore Rs 49 crore
    Legal and professional fees Rs 12 crore Rs 43 crore
    Content delivery cost Rs 37 crore Rs 124 crore
    Others Rs 39 crore Rs 151 crore

    EBITDA

    The company’s financial performance in FY21 and FY22 is worrying. It had a poor EBITDA margin of -58.72% in FY21, which deteriorated to -85.12% in FY22. Per rupee of revenue throughout the two years, operating expenses grew from Rs 1.57 in FY21 to Rs 1.91 in FY22.

    FY21-FY22 FY21 FY22
    EBITDA Margin -58.72% -85.12%
    Expense/Rs of operation Revenue Rs 1.57 Rs 1.91
    ROCE – -308.91%

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    upGrad – Partnership

    upGrad has signed Amitabh Bachchan as its brand ambassador

    upGrad has announced that its brand ambassador would be none other than the Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan. The veteran actor will help lift the brand value of upGrad with the help of exclusive endorsements and advertising of the services of the platform and will emphasize the necessity of ‘lifelong learning’ for everyone.

    Startup India Learning Program

    In 2017, upGrad in collaboration with ‘Invest India’ developed the ‘Startup India Learning Program’. ‘Startup India Learning Program’ is a free online entrepreneurship course by Startup India.

    The approach of attracting consumers also included partnerships with entrepreneurship-focused publications to spread the word around. For increasing the customer base, they focused on some subject-specific channels to attract learners. It partnered with universities to launch the next set of programs. Those partnerships also helped scale the existing programs.  

    upGrad has tie-ups with the following educational institutes:

    • International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-B).
    • Birla Institute of Technology and Science.
    • Pilani (BITS Pilani).
    • MICA.
    • Duke Corporate Education (Duke CE).
    • Cambridge Judge Business School.
    • Institute of Management Technology (IMT Ghaziabad).
    • HDFC Life for insurance-related courses.
    • IIT Madras, for certification course on Machine Learning and Cloud.

    NITTE (Deemed to be University)

    In order to help B.Tech students with the additional Full Stack Development (FSD) Specialization to power their skill competencies, upGrad and NITTE (Deemed to be University), Mangalore have launched a partnershiped in May, 2023.

    JIS University

    To offer a Master of Business Administration in Digital Marketing, JIS University and upGrad Campus have signed a Memorandum of Understanding in August, 2023.

    Mumba Masters

    upGrad partnership with Mumba partners in June, 2023 and with this partnership they will entry into the sports market is an effort to further develop and increase the brand’s presence on a worldwide basis.

    upGrad – Campaign

    upGrad Ad-Campaign

    upGrad – Star India Deal

    upGrad has signed up for a high-value deal with Star India. This enabled upGrad to run its ad-campaign “Sirf Naam ki Nahin, Kaam ki Degree” across television and Hotstar (OTT platform) throughout the IPL 2020 (Indian Premiere League). The move was initiated to expedite the adoption of technology and online education.

    This is upGrad’s first major sports association and the first onboarding of an ed-tech player on Dream IPL 2020.

    “IPL is the most opportune occasion to reach out to individuals reminding them about the urgency to upskill and prepare themselves for the forthcoming competitive world. Our strategic partnership with Star will enable us with the right platform, thereby helping us reach out to a larger set of audience residing in the remotest corners of Bharat,” said Arjun Mohan, CEO, upGrad.

    In 2019, upGrad unveiled its first ad campaign featuring actor Vicky Kaushal. The film breaks the myth of online education being ineffective by showcasing how impactful the online education space is and that it is as good as traditional offline education.

    upGrad Campaign

    The second campaign was based on the insight that Indian working professionals are in a state of inertia where they feel that they do not need to go back to learning once they have a job. These films ought to make customers realize that they have no choice but to learn and upskill themselves to remain relevant in today’s day and time. The campaigns shed light upon upGrad’s unique online power learning approach and demonstrated its influence along with the role it can play in the positive transformation of an individual’s career. It further intends to establish the fact that in this fast-changing world of technology, new-age skills at the workplace are coveted and that upskilling is a necessity.

    upGrad – Layoff

    Harappa Education, which upGrad acquired, laid off 30% of its staff in the first round of layoffs that took place in July 2022.

    According to several press sources, UpGrad has let go of 60 employees about 30% of its workforce. In March 2023, the startup ecosystem experienced layoffs due to a lack of venture financing.

    upGrad – Awards

    Being a reputed name in the space of online education, upGrad has been recognized and awarded by many prestigious bodies.

    • In 2016, it was selected as the official education partner for the Government of India’s ‘Start-up India’ learning program. Through the program, upGrad offers entrepreneurship-based courses in 2 languages—Hindi and English—to the budding entrepreneurs of India.
    • In 2017, Mayank Kumar, the co-founder and CEO of upGrad, was recognized as the Achiever of the Year by BW Disrupt (Business World) at its 40 under 40 events.
    • In 2017, the startup was featured in the list of ‘Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in India’ by Fast Company.
    • The company received the ‘Best Education Brands’ award by the Economic Times and made it to LinkedIn’s ‘Top 25 Startups’ in 2018.
    • Two of the co-founders, Ravijot Chugh and Phalgun Kompalli, are listed in the Forbes 30 Under 30 class of 2018.
    • In 2018, upGrad’s Machine Learning Program – PG Diploma in Machine Learning and AI in association with IIIT Bangalore, was ranked as the #1 Course on Artificial Intelligence in India by Analytics India Magazine.
    • The company has also been awarded the ‘Best Tech for Education’ by IAMAI in 2019.
    • The company won the Best Excellence in Learning Award from Brandon Hall Group in 2021.
    • upGrad won Best Advanced in Creating a Learning Strategy in 2022 by Brandon Hall Group.
    • Company won Learning Provider of the Year Siver  winer in 2022.

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    upGrad – Future Plans

    As part of upGrad’s strategic initiative, the company has declared in April 2020, with an aim to increase the learners’ headcount and revenue, that it will focus on 4 major strategic initiatives:

    1. To launch 35 new diverse online programs in the coming years.
    2. All the 90 online programs upGrad offers would have a start date of every month rather than every quarter as done previously, to cope with the growing demand.
    3. To become the first in India to disburse university-approved degrees through blended, online degree programs.
    4. Strengthen its global footprint by targeting the 40-million-strong South Asian migrant population worldwide.
    5. To add another 26 offline experience centres on top of the 26 centres that are already launched  

    In the next 5 years, upGrad aims to train and build the careers of over 1 million learners and expects its impact to reach at least 5 million working professionals associated with it in a cascading effect. This growing ecosystem, in the long run, will serve as the momentum for establishing it as India’s largest online higher education company with a strong focus on employability.

    The company is all set to revolutionize the online learning experience and enhance the employability quotient of its learners.

    “Distance learning has been the precursor to upGrad, while augmented learning will be the successor. As a virtual university, we want both students and educators to benefit from embracing new technologies for higher education. Universities on the other side of the globe have been quick to adopt new-age technologies. It’s time our country picked up the pace, as upGrad’s online power learning experience is as good as offline, if not better.” – Mayank Kumar.

    Ronnie Screwvala stated that the number of students aligned to the platform will rise to 3 million by the end of FY23. Besides, he also indicated that the edtech platform is targeting $500 million in gross revenue for FY23. An IPO seemed ahead for the unicorn edtech company in the next 2 years, going by its statements of Ronnie.  

    “We are in active discussions. There are some interesting opportunities in these times and some great entrepreneurs too, and we are excited to bring those companies into upGrad as we look at growth this year,” said Upgrad

    UpGrad is planning to acquire US-based edtech Udacity as per various reports from June 2023.

    FAQs

    Who are the founders of the upGrad learning platform?

    upGrad was founded in 2015 by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, and Ravijot Chugh.

    Who is Upgrad’s CEO?

    Arjun Mohan is the CEO of upGrad.

    When was upGrad started?

    upGrad was founded in 2015.

    Who are the top Competitors of upGrad?

    The top competitors of upGrad are Coursera, Edureka, Simplilearn, and Unacademy.

    How much is upGrad’s  operating revenue?

    upGrad’s operating revenue was recorded at Rs 679 crore in FY22..

    Is upGrad free?

    Some of the courses offered by upGrad are free. To make the most out of upGrad’s features, you should register for upGrad’s paid programs.

    How is upGrad login done?

    You can conveniently login to the upGrad learning platform simply by signing up at the upGrad website/app, and then proceeding to Log in to the same.  

    What are upGrad free courses?

    Along with the paid/premium courses, upGrad also has a collection of upGrad free courses, where the students and professionals can learn almost everything from Data Science to Technology and Management without spending anything.

    What is the upgrad mission and vision?

    The upGrad mission and vision are:

    “Making our learners achieve their desired outcomes.” – UpGrad mission.

    “Powering career success for every member of the global workforce as their trusted lifelong learning partner.” – UpGrad vision.

  • eloelo – Elevating Entertainment

    EloElo is more than just a platform; it’s a vibrant ecology where live broadcasting flourishes. Based on the idea that “Live nahi, life hai!” — live streaming is more than just a hobby, it’s a way of life — It has been built as a place where artists and producers from all over India can mingle. The company firmly believe in the creator-first approach and their goal is to support and encourage the community of creators at each stage of their development. The company is dedicated to transforming live streaming into a positive and rewarding experience for everyone. EloElo cordially invites you to share in this adventure, where live streaming is more than just a feature—it’s a way of life.

    We interviewed eloelo co-founder and CEO Saurabh Pandey to learn more about this startup which is a pioneer in live social entertainment.

    eloelo Highlights

    Startup Name eloelo
    Headquarter Bengaluru
    Founders Saurabh Pandey & Akshay Dubey
    Sector Social Gaming, Live Streaming
    Founded 2020
    Parent Organization Greenhorn Wellness Pvt Ltd.
    Website www.eloelo.in

    About eloelo
    eloelo – Industry Details
    eloelo – Founders and Team
    The Idea Behind Starting eloelo
    eloelo – Name and Logo
    eloelo – Marketing Strategies
    eloelo – Funding
    eloelo – Growth and Revenue
    eloelo – Partnership
    eloelo – Award
    eloelo – Challenges
    eloelo – Future Plan

    About eloelo

    Eloelo is a buzzing social entertainment platform that incorporates interactive games, audio and video chat rooms, and even builds custom experiences around these pursuits. Traditional games like tambola, antakshari, and musical chairs are introduced on the site in live formats, hosted by the creators for their fans. It is a thriving hub for entertainment and social interaction.

    At eloelo one can enjoy playing games with others and watching live streaming from well-known producers. Users can meet new acquaintances there and connect with people who have similar interests to yours. Additionally, it is accessible in more than six languages, allowing more Indians to join in the fun and interact with others.

    It has made a strong case for being a go-to platform, attracting a sizable audience beyond the amazing 10 million threshold. With more than 50 live gaming and entertainment categories offered, EloElo stands out for its extraordinary diversity, which guarantees a wide range of material that caters to different tastes and interests. It facilitates approximately 1,000 live broadcasts every day, a remarkable achievement that highlights its vibrancy and demonstrates its dedication to offering original and interesting content. The company has distinguished itself as a true force in India’s constantly changing live entertainment market by introducing millions of enthusiasts to an exciting world of gaming and entertainment.

    Saurabh Pandey, CEO & Founder, Eloelo in a statement said, “We are pioneering a new category of Live Social Entertainment– almost like a ‘Digital Third Place’ where young Indians are always connected. Our growth of 400% Y-o-Y showcases the love users have given the product.

    eloelo – Industry Details

    During the COVID-19 pandemic, live streaming became an essential option for many uses. In order to provide high-quality streams, improved marketing, analytics tracking, and real-time client contact, the demand for live streaming technologies has significantly increased.

    According to a recent report of September, 2023 India’s live-streaming gaming market is worth between $35 million and $50 million. According to experts, it might reach USD 300 million in the following three years. In reality, the global live streaming market is now worth USD 10 billion, and it is expected to grow to USD 13 billion by the end of this year thanks to nearly 19 million content producers.

    Live streaming platforms are establishing new standards in the field of content creation as a result of the rise in live stream viewers in India. Live game streaming is currently gaining enormous traction and is moving into the larger picture, but content development and consumption are no longer restricted to OTT services like Netflix.

    eloelo – Founders and Team

    Ex-Flipkart employees Saurabh Pandey and Akshay Dubey are the founders of eloelo.

    eloelo co-founder and CEO Saurabh Pandey are an MBA from JBIMS (Mumbai) & an MDP from IIM-Indore. Besides working as a category leader in Flipkart, Saurabh worked with brands like P&G (Business Development) and L’oreal, before starting his own venture.

    eloelo COO Akshay Dubey is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur. Prior to eloelo, Akshay worked with companies like GoZoomo, and at Flipkart as a Senior Manager.

    eloelo founders
    eloelo founders Akshay Dubey (Left) and Saurabh Pandey (Right)

    eloelo currently has a team of 163 employees.

    eloelo bangalore
    eloelo team

    The Idea Behind Starting eloelo

    Saurabh and Akshay met during their stint at Flipkart.  Saurabh headed the Health & Fitness category at Flipkart, while Akshay was into Supply Chain Management.

    Having seen what blitz scale is like at Flipkart, both the co-founders were unanimously convinced of the community commerce idea with a vertical niche. It took a few meetings and positive reinforcement from some of their friends & angel investors that helped them take the final leap of faith.

    The startup has raised a Seed Round with investors such as Waterbridge Ventures, Ramakant Sharma (LogX Ventures, LivSpace), Raghavendra TS (QikWell), Rishi Vasudev
    (India CEO- Lifestyle) & others supporting their vision.

    The interesting part about the name eloelo is that it is the reverse play of the popular Bollywood song ‘ole-ole’. Here is what eloelo founder Saurabh Pandey has to say about the story behind the startup’s name –

    “We always wanted a name that resonates with Bharat. Given that this is a lifestyle platform, we wanted the name to be something that everyone can pronounce from South to North to East to West. eloelo was essentially a reverse-play on the popular ole-ole song. It had a nice ring to it so we went ahead & registered. Soon the name picked up in our community as well and now we are a fairly popular account on Social & the App will hopefully have a great recall too!”

    eloelo logo
    eloelo logo

    eloelo – Marketing Strategies

    eloelo started off as a humble Social Media page on Facebook & Instagram which has now gone on to have 75,000+  members with a simple philosophy – New Content posted daily! Good quality content has helped the startup reach out to new and more users.

    The app was on beta stage for over one week before the launch and already got 50+ users, who have given extraordinarily positive feedback.

    eloelo – Funding

    eloelo has secured a total funding of $37 million, with the latest funding round bringing in $22 million on September 20, 2023, from investors including Courtside Ventures and Griffin Gaming Partners.

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    Sep 20, 2023 Series B $ 22 million Courtside Ventures, Griffin Gaming Partners
    Jun 1, 2022 Series A $ 13 million Kalaari Capital, KB Investment
    Aug 17, 2021 Non Equity Assistance – Google for Startups
    Jul 27, 2021 Seed Round $ 2.1 million Lumikai, WaterBridge Ventures
    July 15, 2020 seed $450k Waterbridge Ventures, LogX Venture (Ramakant Sharma, Rishi Vasudev (CEO of Lifestyle & Home Centre), TS Raghavendra (Serial Angel & Founder of Qikwell), Others

    eloelo – Growth

    Eloelo’s growth highlights include:

    • Eloelo boasts a vibrant community of over 120,000 active creators on its platform.
    • It has an impressive user base of over 37 million individuals.
    • Eloelo’s LoveHouse achieved a remarkable feat by setting a record with a continuous 144-hour live stream on a mobile app in India.
    • It has a total of 163 employees
    • Over 1,000 live streaming take place daily on Eloelo’s remarkable platform, which has over 10 million users and over 50 different live game and entertainment categories.

    eloelo – Partnership

    TVF

    Eloelo has entered into a partnership with TVF (The Viral Fever), where Eloelo serves as the exclusive promoter for Season 2 of TVF Pitchers.

    Radio Mirchi

    Eloelo, a creator-led social gaming and live-streaming platform, has announced a new collaboration with Radio Mirchi, a popular radio station in India. Through this partnership, top Radio Jockeys (RJs) will offer special live video shows.

    Eloelo Idol

    Eloelo, creator-led social gaming and live-streaming platform has announced the launch of Eloelo Idol, a live-interactive event featuring Saregamapa finalist Rupali Jagga.

    eloelo – Award

    • Eloelo wins ‘Best Mobile App in Video Entertainment & Sports’ at MOBEXX Awards 2022.
    • Eloelo, India’s leading live-streaming app, has been awarded the Digital/Online startup of the year at the Entrepreneur Awards 2022.
    • It was named India’s Fastest Growing App at the Adjust & Apptweak’s Annual Awards on April 14, 2023, in Bengaluru.

    eloelo – Challenges

    Eloelo has faced two huge obstacles on its journey. First of all, there was no pre-existing blueprint to adhere to because they were creating something wholly original. eloelo teams were thinking creatively and created their own playbook from scratch as a result. One of the biggest and trickiest interactive entertainment projects was combining live streaming and social gaming, and it took a lot of work to get it right.

    Second, the pandemic was still ongoing when the software was released, which made the endeavor more challenging. While the first crew at Eloelo was distributed, they had to get beyond the cold start issue and draw in the first 100,000 customers. It was difficult to manage the entire launch process, launch games, and identify the initial 100 developers. But as a team, they persisted and managed to navigate.

    eloelo – Future Plan

    Eloelo is broadening its selection by releasing several fresh live game templates that producers may use to host and interact with their audience. In India, Eloelo is setting the bar for a brand-new entertainment genre. They are developing the next generation of social networking that enables actual engagement within their community through a special blend of game participation within live streaming.

    The company also wants to draw tech and product expertise and introduce new tools in the fields of artificial intelligence and augmented reality.

    eloelo – FAQs

    What is eloelo?

    eloelo is a platform for live social entertainment that mixes audio and video live chat rooms with interactive games and creates original programming (IP) around these services.

    Who is the founder of eloelo?

    Saurabh Pandey and Akshay Dubey

    When was eloelo founded?

    It was founded in 2020.

  • Lead (Ex-Lead School) – Success Story of India’s No 1 School Edtech Platform!

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

    The huge COVID-19 outbreak, which caused chaos in the global economy, has also suffocated the education sector. Over 1.5 billion children, or 90% of the world’s primary, intermediate, and tertiary students, were physically unable to attend school.

    Educators now demand technology solutions to facilitate remote teaching and learning, which has had a revolutionary effect. However, digital transformation in the education industry is not confined to online education and learning after COVID-19.

    Although some educational institutions have embraced technological solutions previously as well, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the necessity of digital transformation in the educational environment was understood in most schools and colleges. Lead provides a technology-based school transformation system that ensures children receive a high-quality education.

    Lead was founded in 2013 by Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah to provide innovative school ed-tech options to all stakeholders. The company was founded for students out there who might lead their generation ahead, as the name indicates.

    Know more about the company profile, startup story, business model, founders, etc., of Lead by reading this article further.

    Lead – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Lead
    Legal Name Leadership Boulevard Pvt. Ltd.
    Headquarters Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
    Industry Ed-tech, E-learning
    Founders Smita Deorah, Sumeet Mehta
    Founded 2013
    Valuation $1.1 billion
    Areas Served India
    Current CEO Sumeet Mehta
    Website leadschool.in

    About Lead (Formerly Lead School)
    Lead – Founders
    Lead – Startup Story
    Lead – Vision, and Mission Statement
    Lead – Industry
    Lead – Name and Logo
    Lead – Business Model, and Revenue Model
    Lead – Funding, and Investors
    Lead – Growth and Revenues
    Lead – Products and Features
    Lead – Challenges
    Lead – Campaign
    Lead – ESOPs
    Lead – Acquistion
    Lead – Competitors
    Lead – Future Plans

    About Lead (Formerly Lead School)

    Lead (formerly known as Lead School) provides a technology-based school transformation system that ensures children receive a high-quality education. The EdTech company assists in the digitization and transformation of inexpensive private schools to better serve children from moderate and low-income households.

    Lead School, as it was earlier known as, rebranded itself to “LEAD”, in July 2021. This successful branding attempt reflects Lead’s “evolution from a chain of schools to one of India’s leading edtech players that transforms traditional schools with its disruptive solutions.”

    It creates an integrated system to assist K-12 schools in developing curriculum, teaching methods, obtaining books and other materials from vendors, and better evaluating learning outcomes.

    Lead was founded by Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah in Mumbai, Maharashtra, in 2013. Through significant use of technology and a centralized curriculum design team, the organization partners with public and private school owners to assist in curriculum creation and teacher training, allowing kids from impoverished neighborhoods to have access to cheap and high-quality education.

    The startup runs a school management software application. It further helps in student learning surveillance, instructor performance, teacher training, and course content delivery. It also offers digital learning resources, as well as traditional readers and workbooks, eBooks, and learning activities. Lead also has a mobile app for Android phones and tablets.

    Lead – Products and Services

    Lead Products and Services
    Lead Products and Services

    The Lead platform is designed to help:

    • The School Owners – Lead helps the schools and school owners to get international standard education, marketing support, and more.
    • Teachers – Lead helps teachers to become super teachers. It promotes the use of easy and effective solutions to make teaching easy. It also helps teachers extend continuous training and development opportunities, along with helping them access Lead’s national network of excellent teachers.
    • Parents – Lead helps parents get quality education to secure the future of their kids.

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    Lead – Founders

    Lead was founded in 2013, by the couple, Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah, in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

    Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah
    Founders of Lead – Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah

    Sumeet Mehta

    Sumeet Mehta is Lead’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Sumeet has also worked for Olay Asia Pacific and Vicks & Metamucil Asia Pacific as a brand manager. He formerly worked at Zest Philippines, as an assistant brand manager.

    Smita Deorah

    Co-founder, Chief Learning Officer, and Chief Operating Officer of Lead, Smita Deorah also founded Sparsh, a non-profit organization whose mission is to impact the lives of young children from low-income communities in the field of education, enabling them to maximize their potential and live life powerfully, primarily by operating K-12 schools in rural and taluka areas and providing access to high-quality education.

    Lead currently has an employee strength of 1000+ employees.

    Lead – Startup Story

    Affordable private schools, which have sprouted up in small communities as a substitute for free and low-quality public schools, are typically just slightly better. These schools, which number between 200,000 and 400,000 students, have poor academic attainment. Unfortunately, neither NGOs nor enterprises working in the field of education technology have much time for them.

    That’s the difference Sumeet Mehta (whose parents were also teachers in rural areas) and Smita Deorah have tried to bridge with their Lead’s initiative. Both believed that nobody was resolving the difficulties that smaller towns’ APS faced, so they decided to take action by establishing their independent schools.

    When a friend offered them land in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in 2013, they took the leap. They established the Shanti Niketan English School with their own money, starting with just a few learners and gradually increasing to roughly 25. They hired and trained a few local educators. However, Mehta quickly realized that providing a high-quality education to predominantly first-generation students was more difficult than they had anticipated.

    Students could recognize the alphabet and recognize letters, but they struggled to put words together in a phrase. Likewise, while they could answer a math question using a formula, they went blank when faced with a question written in English terms.

    Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah, a couple, founded Lead in 2013. The firm claims to provide cheap private schools with an integrated curriculum and technological solutions, allowing them to deliver advanced education via an online or hybrid structure. Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah, started Lead with one school in 2013 with an approach to provide disruptive school edtech solutions for all stakeholders.

    The Lead team discovered that kids who were first-generation learners leapfrogged and filled gaps fast if the three primary concerns – a concentration on English, a more adaptable curriculum, and a more trained teacher – were addressed.

    The Lead team grew as a result of their efforts paying off. In Maharashtra’s tier-III and tier-IV towns, four new schools have been added. They now operate five schools with around 2000 pupils who pay tuition ranging from Rs 12,000 to Rs 18,000 each year.

    They expanded their learning approach to their partner schools in 2016, allowing the firm to impact the lives of even more children. Their well-researched worldwide standard curriculum and integrated solutions are presently being used by over 3,000 Lead Powered Schools.

    Lead School rebranded itself in July 2021 and is now known as Lead, with a new logo.

    Lead – Vision, and Mission Statement

    Lead’s mission and vision statement say, “We’re leading the School EdTech revolution in India as a pioneer by empowering schools across India with our integrated solutions to make international standard education affordable and accessible for every child in the country.”

    Lead – Industry

    The Covid-19 outbreak has expedited the use of technology in India’s normally slow-paced education sector. Investors began pouring money into a sector that they had previously avoided, with India seeing $0.5 billion in EdTech funding in 2019 and $4 billion in 2020 and 2021.

    The EdTech industry has grown at a breakneck pace in recent years, and it has only accelerated since Covid-19. According to research, the EdTech industry was around $750 million in 2020 and would reach $4 billion by 2025. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the wider education business, which is expected to be worth $135 billion by 2020, according to the same analysis. Early students in pre-school through continuous learners wishing to improve their skills are all part of the market.

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    Lead Logo Change - Former Logo (L) and Present Logo (R)
    Lead Logo Change – Former Logo (L) and Present Logo (R)

    The current name “Lead” marks Lead as a leading ed-tech player, which has grown from being a chain of schools, thereby, pointing out its evolutions.

    The new Lead logo marks the upward trajectory of the startup, signified by a starburst. This identifies the excellence and achievement of students, teachers, and schools.

    Lead – Business Model, and Revenue Model

    Lead is a software-as-a-service company that enables and enhances educational institutions. It’s a full-stack assessment, education, and retraining solution. Lead also has a separate app for parents that allows them to follow their children’s development while also allowing their pupils to learn from home.

    Lead operates on a SaaS model, charging schools a set cost per student per year. Adopting Lead pays for itself since it frequently eliminates the need for a slew of other tools like an LMS, textbooks, and administrative software.

    Lead also increases school enrolment and helps school revenue. The fact that Lead has a 100% net retention rate proves its unique selling proposition.

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    Lead – Funding, and Investors

    Over the course of six rounds of funding, Lead has raised a total of $184.91 million. The last funding round it raised was worth $19.6 million, and came from Alteria Capital, Stride Ventures on January 11, 2023.

    Date Round Amount Lead Investors
    Jan 11, 2023 Debt Financing $19.6 million Alteria Capital, Stride Ventures
    Jan 13, 2022 Series E $100 million GSV Ventures, Westbridge Capital
    Apr 26, 2021 Series D $29.32 million GSV Ventures, Westbridge Capital
    Aug 21, 2020 Series C $27.99 million Westbridge Capital
    Sep 1, 2019 Series B $7 million Elevar Equity
    Jul 1, 2017 Series A $1 million Elevar Equity

    Lead – Growth and Revenues

    After direct-to-consumer brand Mamaearth and artificial intelligence firm Fractal, Lead happens to be the third business to join India’s unicorn club in 2022. It is also the sixth edtech business in India to achieve unicorn status.

    Unicorns are privately held companies with a market capitalization of $1 billion or more. Lead, according to Mehta, works with over 3,000 schools in more than 400 cities. The company has doubled its valuation in the past 9 months, as of February 2022. The firm hopes to reach 2 million kids throughout the country by the start of the next fiscal year. It currently extends its services to over 1.2 million students and to more than 25,000 teachers.

    In 2021-22, according to Mehta, the edtech business will have an annual contract value of $80 million (derived from cooperating schools).

    “Lead’s growth last year, despite Covid disruptions, underlines its consumer-first approach and deep focus on learning outcomes. We are excited to double down our investment in Lead, to support its mission of transforming the education sector in India,” said Sandeep Singhal, managing director at WestBridge Capital.

    Lead is trusted by more than 3 million parents for delivering excellent quality education, and Lead partner schools are present in 400 plus cities with 9000 plus schools and 9000 plus students.

    Lead Revenue, Financials and More

    Lead operational revenue is increased from FY22 to FY23 which shows that company is making profit and is growing.

    Lead Financials
    Lead Financials

    Expenses Breakdown

    Lead expense has risen from Rs 538.2 crore in FY22 to Rs 617.46 crore in FY23.

    Expenses Breakdown FY22 FY23
    Employee benefits Rs 256.6 crore Rs 285.44 crore
    Purchase of goods Rs 63.68 crore Rs 146.77 crore
    Impairment loss on assets Rs 30.57 crore Rs 34.4 crore
    Legal and professionals Rs 48.57 crore Rs 26.26 crore
    Advertisment and promotions Rs 76.46 crore Rs 24.52 crore
    Others Rs 62.42 crore Rs 100.07 crore

    The company’s financial performance in FY23 significantly improved, with ROCE and EBITDA margin going from negative to -104.30% and -72.62%, respectively in FY23. It invested Rs 2.26 in order to generate one rupee of operating income.

    FY22-FY23 Date Amount
    EBITDA Margin -270.18% -104.30%
    Expense/Rs of operation revenue Rs 4.07 Rs 2.26
    ROCE -57.16% -72.62%

    Lead – Products and Features

    Lead has launched various apps and features; some of these are:

    Lead Products and features About Date
    Lead launched "Super 100" programme The goal of this program is to provide equal opportunity, a fair playing field, and the chance for tier two towns in India to legitimately compete for the title of national toppers. May, 2022
    Lead launches Lead Teacher App This enables teachers to access more than 200 hours of training and certification materials on instructional techniques, pedagogies, and soft skills Nov, 2021
    Lead launches iHomework It enables teachers to click once to deliver daily instructions and access a number of ready-made homework solutions. Nov, 2021
    Lead launches Mobile based coding and computational based programme It is a CCS program with a mobile component for grades 1–8 in more than 2,000 partner private schools in Tier II and higher cities. July, 2021
    Lead launches Bridge Course The course’s hybrid style (which includes both online and offline modes) is intended to give a thorough review of fundamental ideas and to remove gap. June, 2021

    Lead – Challenges

    Lead has faced loads of challenges. In fact, the company is still pushing hard to make its EBITDA positive and turn profitable. This makes Lead join the likes of other Indian edtech startups like Byju’s, Vedantu, Unacademy, and more.

    Lead – Campaign

    #SaluteTOParents Campaign

    SaluteTOParents Lead Campaign

    This campaign was launched on September, 2022 it exemplifies the unshakable commitment of parents who go above and beyond to support their children’s dreams, foster self-confidence, and get them ready for a prosperous future.

    Campaign to increase enrollment at inexpensive private schools

    Lead Campaign

    Two TV ads are used in this campaign, one for South India and the other for the rest of the nation. The effective learning outcomes of kids who attend LEAD Powered Schools are eloquently illustrated in these advertisements.

    Lead – ESOPs

    LEAD has announced an ESOP monetization scheme for its employees, which would be worth around $3 mn, as of February 2022. This ESOP plan is estimated to help the startup retain talent along with helping them gain from the same. Around 20% of its employees own ESOPs and have also offered ESOPs as appraisal bonuses previously.

    Lead – Acquistion

    Lead has acquired two companies to date. The recent acquisition is Pearson’s India K–12 learning in March 2023.

    Acquired Date Amount
    Pearson – K-12 learning Jan 6,2023 –
    QuizNext Dec 3, 2020 –

    Lead Layoffs

    Lead has laid off somewhere between 80-90 of its employees in July 2022, as per some reports. Sales, marketing, and the operations department were among the affected ones.
    The company has laid off around 60 employees as per some reports in January 2023. In the second round of layoffs, the tech and product teams have been impacted.

    Lead – Competitors

    Some of the Lead’s major competitors include:

    • CodeChef
    • Embibe
    • uFaber Edutech
    • ClassTag
    • Coassemble

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    trying

    Lead – Future Plans

    “LEAD acts as the Intel inside for affordable schools and guarantees 70%+ mastery in all subjects and all grades for low/middle income students and exceeds the guarantee,” said Deborah

    In the next school year, Lead anticipates an annual revenue run-rate of $80 million. The firm intends to use the additional funding to improve its product and curriculum. It wants to reach 25 million students in 60,000 schools by the end of 2026, and increase its annual revenue to $1 billion.

    With more than 250 million school-aged children, India has been one of the largest global educational markets. Indian parents place a high value on their children’s education because they believe it is the way to economic advancement and a better life.

    Several companies, including edtech behemoths Byju’s, Unacademy, and Vedantu, as well as American behemoths Amazon, Facebook, and Google, are striving to reach the country’s students.

    “We, at GSV, believe that the mastery guarantee is a revolutionary offering in K12 education space and has the potential to be societally transformational for students. With this strong and unique value proposition and exceptional management team, LEAD is well on its path to becoming the world’s largest and most impactful school edtech company,” she added.

    Lead has ambitious plan to reach more than 25 million kids and more than 60,000 schools by 2028. Their services are offered to elite schools in urban areas and large cities, as well as Tier 3–4 towns and villages, with medium–priced institutions serving as their primary clientele.

    FAQs

    What is Lead?

    Lead is an ed-tech company that partners with public and private school owners and provides a technology-based school transformation system that ensures children receive a high-quality education.

    Who is the founder of Lead?

    Lead was founded by Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah in Mumbai, Maharashtra, in 2013.

    Who is the CEO of Lead School (currently Lead)?

    The CEO of Lead School (now Lead) is Sumeet Mehta.

    Is Lead free?

    Lead operates on a SaaS model, charging schools a set cost per student per year.

    Which companies do Lead compete with?

    CodeChef, Embibe, uFaber Edutech, ClassTag, and Coassemble are among Lead’s major rivals.

  • Chargebee’s Success Story – A Subscription Management Unicorn Startup

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

    For business owners, monitoring their clients’ subscriptions and ensuring a positive experience with their product or service is no easy process. The list is limitless such as gathering client information, creating bills, collecting payments, etc. The challenge starts when a company has a large clientele because it gets too difficult to maintain the spreadsheet.

    Gone are the days when companies do not have to manually update their subscriptions and manage their revenue operations. Several companies offer tools or software to help businesses enhance their sales growth and billing services.

    In this article, we are going to talk about Chargebee, which is among the top 10 best subscription management software in the market today. Chargebee is a subscription management and recurring billing application that assists SaaS and SaaS-like enterprises in streamlining Revenue Operations.

    Here’s the success story of Chargebee that enfolds all about the company, including its startup story, business and revenue model, funding and investors details, acquisitions, growth, and more.

    Chargebee – Company Highlights

    Headquarters California, USA
    Sector Financial Services
    Founder Krish Subramanian, Rajaraman Santhanam, Saravanan KP, Thiyagarajan Thiyagu
    Founded 2011
    Valuation $3.5 billion

    Chargebee – About
    Chargebee – Industry Details
    Chargebee – Founder and Team
    Chargebee – Startup Story
    Chargebee – Mission and Vision
    Chargebee – Business Model
    Chargebee – Growth and Revenue
    Chargebee – Funding, and Investors
    Chargebee – Mergers, and Acquisitions
    Chargebee – Awards and Achievements
    Chargebee – Competitors
    Chargebee – Future Plans

    Chargebee – About

    Founded in 2011, Chargebee operates as a subscription and recurring billing management platform. It helps many SaaS-based businesses in simplifying their revenue processes and other billing services. The company claims to work with the world’s largest payment gateways, such as Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal, to automate recurring payment collection, as well as invoicing, taxes, accounting, email alerts, SaaS Metrics, and customer management.

    The company’s intelligent platform manages all of its client’s critical workflows from lead to ledger using powerful connectors such as Salesforce, Xero, Quickbooks, Avalara, and Slack, among others. Chargebee has four official offices in over 17 nationalities.

    Chargebee – Industry Details

    The financial services industry is one of the most important industries as it consists of money-related services and other activities like lending, payment, investments, insurance, fund transfers, etc. These services are used by every person, organization, corporates, government, and investment institution.

    The global financial service industry is expected to touch $37,34.95 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of 9.6%.

    Chargebee – Founder and Team

    Chargebee was founded by four friends; Krish Subramanian, Rajaraman Santhanam, Saravanan KP, and Thiyagarajan Thiyagu.

    Rajaraman Santhanam, Saravanan KP Thiyagarajan Thiyagu, and Krish Subramanian, Chargebee Founders
    Rajaraman Santhanam, Saravanan KP Thiyagarajan Thiyagu, and Krish Subramanian, Chargebee Founders

    Krish Subramanian

    Krish Subramanian is the CEO and Co-Founder of Chargebee. He is a graduate of Bharathidasan University. Before co-founding Chargebee, Krish worked in companies like MatexNet Pvt Ltd, TCS, and Cognizant Technology Solutions.

    Rajaraman Santhanam

    Rajaraman Santhanam is the Co-founder and COO of Chargebee. He did his graduation in Computer Science and engineering from Bharathidasan University. Before Chargebee, Rajaraman was associated with Zoho Corporation for almost 10 years.

    Saravanan KP

    KP Saravanan is the Co-Founder and chief Technology Officer at Chargebee. Previously, he worked at Zoho Corporation as a Technical Architect for 12 years.

    Thiyagarajan Thiyagu

    Thiyagarajan Thiyagu is one of the co-founders of Chargebee. He is presently serving as an Architect at Chargebee. studied at Madurai Kamaraj University. Thiyagu has 15 years of experience in the business and was formerly a Technical Lead at Zoho Corporation, where he oversaw projects to establish integration frameworks for numerous products, notably the Zoho Office suite of apps.

    Chargebee – Startup Story

    The success story of Chargebee began in 2011 with its headquarters in San Francisco.

    It began in 2009 when Krish Subramanian worked for Cognizant, he came to a fork in the road when he was offered a long-term chance to open an account and establish a team in the United States. It would have taken 5-7 years to invest. Instead, he chose to return to India and thought of starting his own business. Subramanian’s college classmate, co-founder Rajaraman Santhanam, was working at Zoho at the time, designing a SaaS platform. They both had always wanted to start their own business since they were in college. With time, they enlisted the help of Saravanan KP and Thiyagarajan T, both of whom worked at Zoho with Santhanam. They all left Zoho to work with Subramanian as co-founders of Chargebee. In the beginning, their temporary workplace was a drawing room in the house of one of the co-founders. That’s how they gradually got their headquarters in San Francisco.

    The four founders claim that success did not come easy to them and they had to work hard to reach where they are today.

    Chargebee – Mission and Vision

    Chargebee’s mission is to provide best-in-class infrastructure for every business they serve. Chargebee mentions, “We believe in the elegance of good code, the promise of subscriptions, and the importance of every single customer’s experience.”

    Chargebee carries out its business activities based on the following values:

    • Curiosity
    • Empathy
    • Customer Centricity
    • Bias For Action

    Chargebee – Name, Tagline, Logo

    Chargebee – Business Model

    Chargebee’s business model operates on a B2B model. To be more precise, it operates on a SaaS business model.

    The company’s main business operations are designed to meet the SaaS demands of businesses that deliver solutions to clients in a variety of industries. They also give critical company data, statistics, and insights to assist businesses in fast growth.

    Chargebee offers services to simplify subscription billing and management. The company’s main focus is to assist businesses in retaining and expanding their consumer base with help of their advanced subscription management software.

    Chargebee’s top services are as follows:

    Subscription Management

    Recurring Billing

    Product & Pricing Models

    Recurring Payments

    Revenue Recovery

    SaaS Reporting and Analytics

    Security and Compliance

    Retention

    Integrations

    Global Expansion

    Checkout and Self-Serve Portal

    Account Receivables

    Chargebee – Growth and Revenue

    Chargebee currently supports more than 100 currencies and has more than 6500 customers in 227 countries and territories.

    Chargebee mainly found an exciting way to generate its revenue during the ongoing pandemic, when most individuals spent their days at their homes.

    The company generates revenue through monthly subscriptions to its software, which streamlines the billing process for subscription businesses. It offers plan subscriptions like Launch Plan, Rise Plan, Scale Plan, and Enterprise Plan.

    Every plan offered by Chargebee is designed to meet every business need.

    Chargebee – Funding, and Investors

    Chargebee has received $468.2 million in investment across eight rounds. Their most recent fundraising came from a Series H round on February 1, 2022. Chargebee is funded by six investors. Their most recent investors are Sequoia Capital India and Insight Partners.

    Date Fund Round Amount Investors
    February 1, 2022 Series H $250 million Sequoia Capital India, Tiger Global Management
    April 20, 2021 Series G $125 million Insight Partners, Sapphire Ventures, Tiger Global Management
    October 6, 2020 Series F $55 million Insight Partners
    August 28, 2019 Series D $14 million Steadview Capital
    March 20, 2018 Series C $18 million Insight Partners
    March 3, 2015 Series B $5 million Tiger Global Management
    January 13, 2014 Series A $800,000 Accel
    October 1, 2012 Angel Round $370,000 –

    Chargebee – Mergers, and Acquisitions

    Chargebee has acquired two companies. On January 18, 2022, they made their most recent purchase, Brightback. Brightback provides subscription-based businesses with entrepreneurial guidance on customer lifetime value. The other company acquired by Chargebee is RevLock on October 5, 2021. RevLock is an American-based company that offers revenue recognition software for software firms that automates ASC 606 compliance.

    Chargebee simplified client receivables automation by acquiring collections platform Numberz and launching Chargebee Receivables in February, 2022.

    Chargebee – Awards and Achievements

    Chargebee has won the following awards:

    • Chargebee has accomplished a remarkable feat by taking first place in the G2 Winter 2023 report across a number of categories, including Subscription billing, Subscription revenue management, Subscription analytics, Subscription management, and Revenue management, which is a significant accomplishment for the business.
    • Chargebee was ranked no. 6 in ‘Best Small Business Products’ and no. 19 in the ‘Best Software Products of 2021’ list
    • Chargebee has achieved Cloud Award Program for Best Payment, Finance, or Billing solution (2018-2019).

    Chargebee – LayOffs

    Chargebee’s first layoff was on November 20, 2022, which affected 142 workers in total.

    Company, has recently implemented a workforce reduction, impacting around 10% of its global employees, which translates to approximately 100 to 120 individuals across various departments on September 11, 2023. Company CEO, Krishna Subramanian, cited market shifts as the primary driver behind these layoffs.

    Chargebee – Competitors

    The top competitors of Chargebee are:

    1. Maxio
    2. Recurly
    3. Zoho Subscriptions
    4. Sage Intacct
    5. Chargify.
    6. Paddle
    7. Billsby
    8. Stripe Billing

    Chargebee – Future Plans

    Since the pandemic, Chargebee has seen exponential growth with a revenue of $115.4 million. It is taking a lead role in offering subscriptions to SaaS-based companies, and e-commerce in managing their revenue systems. The company is already making great progress in helping companies become more profitable, however, it intends to further automation in this sector and enhances commercial revenue processes to emerge as a better option for its clients and to keep up with their expectations.

    FAQs

    Who is the CEO of Chargebee?

    Krish Subramanian is the CEO of Chargebee.

    Is Chargebee is Unicorn?

    Yes, Chargebee is India’s 11th Unicorn.

    How many countries does Chargebee serve?

    Chargebee serves more than 150 countries.

    Where is the head office of Chargebee?

    The head office of Chargebee is in Chennai.

  • SuperBottoms: Cloth Diapers Trading Business in India

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

    Diapers are one of the essential things you’ll need for your little one. Making sure your baby’s bum stays clean and dry is crucial for baby’s comfort and to avoid diaper rash. Expect to become a diaper-slinging pro in no time—most newborns go through about 10 or more diapers every day. That’s more than 300 changes in the first month, but who’s counting?

    From changing diapers to starting a cloth diaper business for Pallavi Utagi; (Founder, Superbottoms) she took the traditional route and introduced cotton-based coregistered diapers as an alternative to the disposable diaper industry.

    SuperBottoms- Company Highlights

    Company Name SuperBottoms
    Headquarters Mumbai
    Founder Pallavi Utagi
    Founded 2016
    Sector Baby Care & Parenting
    Website superbottoms.com
    Registered Entity Name Navashya Consumer Products Pvt Ltd

    SuperBottoms- About
    SuperBottoms- Founder
    How Was SuperBottoms Founded
    SuperBottoms- Name, Logo and Tagline
    SuperBottoms- Vision and Mission
    SuperBottoms- Target Market Size
    SuperBottoms- Product/ Services
    SuperBottoms- Startup Launch
    SuperBottoms- Challenges
    SuperBottoms- Marketing Campaign
    SuperBottoms- Funding
    SuperBottoms- Competitors
    SuperBottoms- Tools
    SuperBottoms- Recognition and Achievements
    SuperBottoms- Future Plans
    SuperBottoms – FAQs

    SuperBottoms- About

    SuperBottoms makes baby diapers made of 100% cloth. These are an alternative to the two types of commonly known diapering systems – Langots and disposable diapers, and give the goodness of langots and the performance and convenience of disposable diapers. SuperBottoms is trying to establish a completely new category almost single handedly. Unlike regular diapers, Pallavi shifted the focus of many parents to Cloth Diapers which turned out to be valuable for the Diaper Business in India.

    SuperBottoms’ mother company is – Navashya Consumer Products Pvt Ltd, which also owns a brand called BASIC which is an economy range of diapers for economy conscious customers.

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    SuperBottoms- Founder

    SuperBottoms is founded by Pallavi Utagi.

    SuperBottoms is ably supported by Pallavi’s husband in search for a skin friendly diapering option for their son when he was born. Their current team size is 35. Since most of the members in the team are mothers, they operate remotely and are extremely result oriented in nature.  

    As for their hiring funda, SuperBottoms checks if the person is self-driven. Considering that they do not have the visibility into the candidates’ routine, they trust them fully to do their work as required. Considering this, it is important for them to hire team members who are result oriented in their approach.

    How Was SuperBottoms Founded

    SuperBottoms | Pallavi Utagi
    SuperBottoms Founder | Pallavi Utagi

    It all started with a rash – when Pallavi had her own baby and used disposable diapers on him, it gave him rashes despite of various claims, and then she realised that the baby had a sensitive skin, so diapers can be pretty harsh. Upon checking with other mothers, she found out that this is a very common issue faced by a lot of babies. Also, as a parent, she faced the challenges of diapering a baby in traditional cloth nappies.

    Then, her research started for an alternative. Cloth Diapers were already becoming popular in the US. Pallavi got a few from there but they were not very well fitted for Indian babies. She decided to follow this idea – make cloth diapers which were suitable for Indian babies and have Indianized prints which were quirky and cute! Soon, Pallavi gave a few to her friends who had their babies and they totally loved it! Before she knew it, it started selling like hot cakes and it’s them now!

    SuperBottoms Eco- friendly cloth Diapers

    Superbottoms was born out of a personal passion for a sustainable lifestyle. Those 3 crore babies are born each year with each using 5000 diapers in their lifetime, the number of diapers landing in landfills was disturbingly huge! As such, Pallavi saw a clear need for a product that would give the convenience of diapers while not harming the environment and baby’s skin.

    Some of her very first customers joined the team and so the team grew, and now they have a team of mostly moms and dads who have personally used the products on their own babies. SuperBottoms is super passionate about the concept and they have lapped up the chance to be a part of this revolution.

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    SuperBottoms- Name, Logo and Tagline

    SuperBottoms underwent a complete brand revamp exercise to align itself with the consumer needs – stated and unstated. As a part of this exercise, they refreshed their logo as well to signify their core values.

    SuperBottoms | Logo
    SuperBottoms | Logo

    Softness and gentleness of the product have been a key USP of their products. As a brand, SuperBottoms is honest with its customers which has built a very high level of trust and loyalty for the brand. In fact, they enjoy a loyalty rate of more than 40%! They wanted these values to be reflected in their mascot and logo as well.

    Hence, a Bummy was introduced to the logo and as a mascot. Bummy is cute, soft, gentle, innocent and fun as well! Fun is also what SuperBottoms as a brand wants to bring into the lives of parents, who often feel overwhelmed by the pressures of being new parents.

    SuperBottoms- Vision and Mission

    SuperBottoms’ long-term vision is to establish the category of reusable cloth diapers in India and own the category. The company wishes to make cloth usage mainstream in the world of baby hygiene, when modern convenience focused products like disposable diapers are slowly gaining penetration in the market while posing a big harm to the environment. SuperBottoms offers sustainable products which provide long term value to customers for conscious parents. Sustainability runs at the core of the brand – from sustainable products to sustainable packaging and actions like upcycling of returned products, SuperBottoms takes pride in their little contribution to the planet.

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    Their short-term goal is to create awareness about the category where new parents do not know that such an option of diapering which combines their wishes of skin friendliness and convenience exists and is available to them.

    In the age where people are seeking traditional wisdom in modern formats, this product fits perfectly with the mindset of conscious parents who believe that when it comes to their newborns, health comes first and if presented an option they would choose a product which given them this dream combination.

    SuperBottoms Team
    SuperBottoms Team

    SuperBottoms- Target Market Size

    There are about 3 crores babies born in India each year. Disposable diapers though very high on awareness still have a penetration of less than 10% as most people prefer using cotton nappies for their children for most part of their day as they understand that natural fabrics are the best for their baby’s delicate skin and they avoid using disposable diapers as much as possible. This inherent understanding of benefits of cloth paves the way for a huge opportunity of a diaper made of cloth and SuperBottoms sees it becoming a preferred way of diapering for the babies in the coming years.

    SuperBottoms- Product/ Services

    SuperBottoms makes 100% washable and reusable cloth diapers. These diapers contain three parts: a waterproof outer made which is leakproof, a set of pads which is made of multiple layers of 100% organic cotton which does the job of absorbency and a top SuperDryFeel ™ layer on the pad which gives the feeling of dryness to the baby.

    SuperBottoms Nappy
    SuperBottoms reusable cloth Diapers

    The best part about SuperBottoms UNO is that despite being made of cloth it gives the performance of a disposable diaper – waterproofing, dry feeling and a high absorption level! It even lasts all night for the baby! This concept is quite unbelievable for most people who hear about it for the first time.

    The most important benefit of the product is that, being made of organic cotton it is extremely skin friendly for the sensitive skin of newborn babies as against disposable diapers which are made of harmful chemicals and plastics which often cause rashes to delicate baby’s skins. The same diaper can be sized and fits a baby throughout their entire diapering stage which turns out to be at least 70% cheaper than disposable options. Of course, being washable and reusable the product does not sit in a landfill after use and cause environmental pollution.

    As a Direct-to-Consumer brand with a very strong social media community called SuperBottoms Family on Facebook, they are very close to the customers and engage with thousands of customers on an everyday basis listening to their said and unsaid needs, and taking their feedback.

    Innovation is the most important tenet of the brand and the current diaper the brand sells is actually the 6th version of their product! From adopting the latest in fabric technology to getting US safety certified seal to engaging with popular designers like Alicia Souza for designing the diaper prints to building a knowledge base and using that to handhold customers in their cloth diapering journey, SuperBottoms has been a brand of multiple 1sts.

    Superbottoms

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    SuperBottoms- Startup Launch

    SuperBottoms enjoys a repeat rate of 40% + which is extremely high in consumer products segment. They have received an overwhelming amount of organic User Generated Content on an everyday basis. When SuperBottoms won KSP Best Eco-friendly Diaper Brand for the 3 times in a row, their Facebook community and social media were flooded with messages that their customers felt that they had won the award!

    This kind of brand loyalty that SuperBottoms enjoys is unmatched for a consumer product! For 3 years SuperBottoms ran on purely positive word-of-mouth which was purely organic! After their angel round of fund about a year back, they started doing a bit of social media ads on a limited basis.

    The company thinks superior quality of products and a superlative customer service is what helps them to retain customers.

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    SuperBottoms- Challenges

    One of their biggest challenges has always been about educating the parents about cloth diapering and its benefits. Also, post-purchase usage and troubleshooting.

    All of this, without having a physical presence in stores and with a digitally native business was the key challenge. SuperBottoms initially got on board a call-center setup which was too ‘professional’, and they realised parents were not really happy with the interactions. They then conceptualised the ‘momsconnect team’ which is a team of mothers, who have been their customers, working out of their homes!

    This team today handles 800+ queries a day in the most professional yet empathetic manner and today, their customer service is one of the most important pillars of SuperBottoms’ success.

    SuperBottoms- Marketing Campaign

    Organically generated, positive word of mouth is SuperBottoms’ biggest campaign till now. They believe in making the customer truly happy that they spread good word about the brand and it has helped them till now.

    However, they have to make the next leap from here, and they are looking at mass campaign very soon to establish the category and create brand awareness.

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    Superbottoms brand ambassador is Indian superstar Alia Bhatt who is investor too. The company is taking the lead in the “Guilt-Free Diapering” movement in India. They’re giving parents the option to choose safe and environmentally-friendly cloth diapers, like the UNO-powered 12HR Cloth Diaper. This helps parents avoid diapers with harsh chemicals and plastic, which are not good for babies’ skin or the planet. Instead, parents can opt for cloth diapers that are better for both their little ones and the environment.

    SuperBottoms- Funding

    Supperbottoms on August, 2023 successfully raised Rs 375 million($5 million) in a Series A1 funding round, with Lok Capital and Sharrp Ventures as the key investors. The secured funds will be instrumental for Supperbottoms as it charts its course forward, with plans to diversify its product range and strengthen its offline growth strategies.

    “With the funds raised, we aim to drive initiatives that spread awareness about cloth diapering to a wider audience throughout the country,” said Pallavi Utagi, Founder of SuperBottoms.

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    August 23, 2023 Series A Rs 375 million Lok Capital, Sharrp ventures
    Jul 20, 2023 Funding Round – SuperBottoms – Alia Bhatt
    May 12, 2022 Series A- SupperBottoms Rs 225 million DSG Consumer Partners, Saama Capital
    Nov 9, 2021 Debt Financing – SuperBottoms Rs 35 million Alteria Capital
    Apr 7, 2021 Series A – SupperBottoms Rs 140 million DSG Consumer Partners, Saama Capital
    Jan 1, 2020 Seed Round SuperBottoms – DSG Consumer Partners
    Nov 1, 2018 Seed Round SupperBottoms Rs 16 milion Titan Capital

    In April 2021, Superbottoms has raised $ 2 million in series A funding from Saama Capital and DSG consumer partners. The latest funding round was raised on August 23, 2023.

    SuperBottoms- Competitors

    SuperBottoms is the leader by far in the cloth diaper category in India. Some of the other brands that exist in the market are Babyhug, Bumpadum, Bumberry, A Toddler Thing. They are the bestselling brand on Amazon as well in the baby cloth diaper category.

    SuperBottoms- Tools

    SuperBottoms- Recognition and Achievements

    SuperBottoms has won the KSP (Kids Stop Press) Awards, a popular baby awards for the Best Eco-friendly Diaper Brand for 3 years in a row – from 2017 to 2019. They won the Retail Association of India award in 2018 for Best Retail Channel Strategy for their Mom Ambassador program.

    SuperBottoms- Future Plans

    SuperBottoms is a digitally native brand and will continue to be so for the next 18-24 months. Most of their business happens via their brand website because the customers are aware of the brand and love the same. They plan to make SuperBottoms a 100cr brand in the next three years.

    SuperBottoms – FAQs

    What is Superbottoms UNO?

    Superbottoms UNO is a washable and reusable cloth diaper. It gives the performance of a disposable diaper – waterproofing, dry feeling and a high absorption level.

    Which cloth diaper is best in India?

    Superbottoms Plus Uno Reusable Cloth Diaper is the best cloth diaper.

    Who are the top competitors of Superbottoms?

    Superbottoms’ top competitors are Huggies, Pampers, Babyhug, Bumpadum, Bumberry, Tesco, Johnson & Johnson, and Kimberly-Clark.

    Who is the founder of Superbottoms?

    Pallavi Utagi is the founder of SuperBottoms.

  • CoinSwitch Kuber Success Story – How is it Easing Crypto Trading?

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

    Indians are slowly and steadily considering Cryptocurrency as a safe mode of investment. Mostly the younger generation is taking interest in Cryptos. According to some reports, the average age of crypto investors in India is around 24 years. However, there are still many speculations about crypto trading and many investors are not comfortable with Crypto trading still. This is why the Bangalore-based startup, CoinSwitch Kuber was formed in 2017 to make crypto trading simpler for Indian Investors.

    The startup enables trading in several cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, and many others, using INR. You just need to download the CoinSwitch Kuber iOS or android app and start trading. In this StartupTalky article, we are exploring more about CoinSwitch Kuber, the story behind the startup, and what the startup is offering, which includes CoinSwitch Kuber website, CoinSwitch Kuber reviews, CoinSwitch Kuber deposit, CoinSwitch Kuber investors, CoinSwitch Kuber login, CoinSwitch Kuber fees, and how it is growing!

    CoinSwitch Kuber – Company Highlights

    Startup Name CoinSwitch Kuber
    Also Known As Coinswitch.co
    Headquarters Singapore
    Industry Financial Services, Fintech, Trading Platform, Cryptocurrency
    Founders Ashish Singhal, Govind Soni, and Vimal Sagar Tiwari
    Founded 2017
    Valuation $1.9+ bn
    Current CEO Ashish Singhal
    CoinSwitch Kuber website coinswitch.co

    About CoinSwitch Kuber and How it Works?
    CoinSwitch Kuber – Industry
    CoinSwitch Kuber – Logo, Tagline, and Slogan
    CoinSwitch Kuber – Founders and Team
    CoinSwitch Kuber – Startup Story
    CoinSwitch Kuber – Mission and Vision
    CoinSwitch Kuber – Partnerships
    CoinSwitch Kuber – Business Model and Revenue Model
    CoinSwitch Kuber – Growth and Revenue
    CoinSwitch Kuber – Funding and Investors
    CoinSwitch Kuber – ESOPs
    CoinSwitch Kuber – LayOffs
    CoinSwitch Kuber – Competitors
    CoinSwitch Kuber – Challenges Faced
    CoinSwitch Kuber – Future Plans

    About CoinSwitch Kuber and How it Works?

    CoinSwitch Kuber is a cryptocurrency trading platform that aims to simplify investing in cryptocurrencies. CoinSwitch Kuber aggregates liquidity across major Indian and global crypto exchanges. The platform’s order matching engine provides the traders the best rates at the click of a button, thus making trading simpler than ever.

    “We discovered that the price of crypto swings between exchanges based on supply and demand when trading in crypto ourselves. Choosing the correct exchange is crucial if you want to obtain greater profits from the market. “We created an aggregator of various exchanges that offered us real-time data on which exchange is the best to trade at any particular instant to obtain the highest return,” co-founder Ashish says explaining the idea behind the startup

    CoinSwitch Kuber lets users trade across 100+ cryptocurrencies. Users can buy cryptocurrency using a credit or debit card at competitive prices on the CoinSwitch platform. After completing the KYC/AML processes, customers may use the pooled liquidity of India’s top exchanges to receive the best rate and trade instantly.

    The CoinSwitch Kuber mobile app comes with a simple user interface that makes crypto trading a breeze.

    While customers from over 200 locations in India invest in crypto through its platform, tier I cities account for 40% of its users, while tier II (36%) and tier III (24%) make up the majority of its clientele. On CoinSwitch, the average ticket size per user is 9,000 per month, however, this varies by city. The average ticket size in Tier I is Rs 11,600, compared to Rs 6,600 in tier II and Rs 3,500 in tier III.

    What’s interesting or concerning, depending on one’s perspective, is that the average age of a crypto investor on CoinSwitch is 24 years, and Singhal claims that crypto is the first investment in any asset class for 65% of his customers outside of savings bank accounts and fixed deposits!

    CoinSwitch Kuber – Industry

    India is one of the fastest-growing crypto markets, as per research firm Chainalysis, which said that the Indian market for crypto increased by a whopping 641% between July 2020 and June 2021.

    CoinSwitch Kuber – Logo, Tagline, and Slogan

    Company Logo of CoinSwitch Kuber

    CoinSwitch Kuber’s tagline says, “Buy, Sell, Trade.” CoinSwitch Kuber has launched a new campaign with the catchphrase “Trade Kar, Befikar.”

    CoinSwitch Kuber – Founders and Team

    CoinSwitch Kuber was founded by Vimal Sagar Tiwari, Govind Soni, and Ashish Singhal in 2017.

    Founders of CoinSwitch Kuber
    Founders of CoinSwitch Kuber

    Ashish Singhal

    Ashish Singhal is the Co-founder and CEO of CoinSwitch Kuber. Former Amazon employee who interned at Microsoft, Ashish Singhal, is a computer science graduate from Delhi’s Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology. Besides handling various technical roles in companies like Livspace.com and Reap Benefit, Ashish founded startups like CRUXPay (an open-source protocol for blockchain naming services) and Urban Tailor, which is the first of its kind at home tailoring services. He left the position at Urban Tailor in September 2016, but continued with CRUXPay, before stepping down from that too in April 2020.

    Govind Soni

    CoinSwitch Kuber Co-founder and CTO, Govind Soni was also a former Amazon and Livspace employee. Besides CoinSwitch Kuber, Govind co-founded CRUXPay along with Ashish and Vimal. Soni was also a student of the same college as Ashish, where he studied Computer Engineering, and served as the Co-founder and CTO also at CRUXPay, before stepping down from it in January 2021.

    Vimal Sagar Tiwari

    CoinSwitch’s Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO), Vimal Sagar, worked with organizations like Zynga and Accenture. He graduated from the Jaypee University of Information Technology. Vimal is also a Co-founder of CRUXPay, and is still retaining the positions of Co-founder and COO at CRUXPay.

    The CFO, CBO, and SVP quit their roles to start up a new initiative that will offer insights to web3 investors. Sarmad Nazki, Sharan Nair, and Krishna Hegde of CoinSwitch Kuber haven’t finalised the name of the startup yet, as per news dated July 8, 2022. Nazki has served in the position for a little more than a year. Nair joined CoinSwitch Kuber just after the company was launched in 2017, and held numerous positions during his long stint, whereas Hegde joined the unicorn crypto company in September 2021. CoinSwitch Kuber confirmed that the positions of CFO, CBO, and SVP will be taken up by Ramesh Bafna, Rishav Dev, and R Ventakesh. The trio has already been talking to Web3 focused-investors to raise a seed round ahead.

    The CoinSwitch Kuber team has an employee count that somewhere ranges between 501-1000, as per its Linkedin profile.

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    CoinSwitch Kuber – Startup Story

    The origin of CoinSwitch Kuber can be traced to the realisation of Govind, Vimal and Ashish, all of whom were computer engineers and friends, when they discovered that the price of cryptocurrency is dynamic. It varied slightly across all the prominent crypto exchanges, based on the demand and supply. Therefore, they thought that if the users wanted to get better returns from the market, especially when it comes to scale, they needed to choose a good cryptocurrency exchange. This is what made them decide to create an aggregator of crypto exchanges. Here, their main aim was to provide real-time data on the best prices and exchanges for cryptocurrencies to be traded.

    Ashish, Govind, and Vimal, who are all in their early thirties, have been friends since their college days when Ashish and Govind were batchmates, and Vimal was a mutual friend of theirs. They were also tech whizzes who competed in hackathons as a group. Almost every big hackathon in India was won by the trio, including the ones organised by Sequoia, Google, Amazon, and LinkedIn. Surprisingly, CoinSwitch was inspired by a hack that the trio subsequently made public.

    On one occasion, the founders-to-be of CoinSwitch created a simple crypto exchange aggregator in a hackathon, but little did they know that the hack would later turn into a full-fledged company.

    CoinSwitch Kuber was founded in 2017, and as soon as it launched, the startup started to take users on board at a rapid scale. The users “needed simplicity in the crypto world”, said Ashish, and this made the simple and intuitive nature of the product work. The only goal that the founders of CoinSwitch had while working on the product was to make crypto easy to understand and accessible to the masses.

    However, soon after CoinSwitch was launched as a product, RBI’s announcement came, where the body signaled a ban on the cryptos by asking the banks to refrain from supporting these currencies in 2018. This made the founders take their product, which was then simply known as “CoinSwitch”, to the global market.

    Eventually, Sequoia Capital backed their venture, thereby making the CoinSwitch foray into success. Though the platform turned successful indeed outside of India, the hearts of the CoinSwitch founders were set only on their country.

    This turned real when Supreme Court intervened, overruling the previous RBI ban, thereby making it an open season for the crypto-based businesses like WazirX, ZebPay, CoinSwitch and more. This was more than a silver lining for them. They soon launched CoinSwitch Kuber app just for the Indian market.

    CoinSwitch Kuber – Mission and Vision

    The CoinSwitch Kuber team believes in financial inclusion, which means that wealth, investment, and financial education should be accessible to all people.

    CoinSwitch Kuber’s mission statement says, “Our Mission is to challenge the status quo. We believe that our platform democratizes cryptocurrency investment so the everyday man can make his money work for him – without a fancy degree or a boatload of money.”

    The company’s vision is to make crypto trading simple and transparent.

    CoinSwitch Kuber – Partnerships

    NDTV and CoinSwitch Kuber have established a strategic collaboration to provide comprehensive and best-in-class cryptocurrency programming in August 2021. NDTV will create unique crypto destinations on gadgets360.com, ndtvprofit.com, and ndtvindia.in as part of this relationship. This bridge expansion includes a refreshing show on NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India every other weekend.

    The need for trustworthy and accurate information is more important than ever as cryptocurrencies become more mainstream and more individuals begin to evaluate this asset class. With NDTV’s credibility and confidence, as well as CoinSwitch Kuber’s subject expertise and powerful trading platform, this collaboration aims to bridge that gap.

    CoinSwitch Kuber Partners with Startup Karnataka for Blockchain Hackathon

    The Blockchain Hackathon, Building Future Cities, an initiative decided by Startup Karnataka of Karnataka government, and Tejasvi Surya, Bengaluru South MP, will also have CoinSwitch as its partner. This initiative is aimed to recognize blockchain-based solutions and bring them to the citizens from across the country, in order to dissolve the everyday problems they face. Sequoia India will also be backing this hackathon.

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    CoinSwitch Kuber – Business Model and Revenue Model

    CoinSwitch Kuber is one of just a few cryptocurrency companies currently functioning. Users may acquire shards of various major cryptocurrencies on the crypto market. On CoinSwitch, for example, a user may buy bitcoin and other currencies in tiny sachets for as little as 100 Indian rupees ($1.30), which proves really profitable for the users. Besides, where other crypto exchanges came up with products for the traders who are acquainted with the order books, and are well-versed with buying/selling orders, CoinSwitch distinguished itself by targeting the users who hadn’t see an order book before, and wasn’t aware of what it was.

    CoinSwitch Kuber presents itself as an aggregator and don’t charge the users, in contradiction to other crypto exchanges, which usually charge transaction fees from the users. CoinSwitch Kuber, instead, of a maker, negotiates with the crypto exchanges on transaction fees.

    Speaking on the business and revenue model of CoinSwitch Kuber, Founder and CEO, Ashish Singhal said, “We give a fixed price to users and aggregate supply on the backend, Our execution engine is where the revenue comes from. But going forward, earning models may evolve as innovations and regulations come into play.”

    CoinSwitch Kuber offers its users free trading, deposit, and withdrawal facilities for the first 100 days. After that, a fee is charged on each transaction made through the platform. As per the terms of the company, there is no fee for the transfer of digital assets to the CoinSwitch Kuber wallet, however, withdrawal of digital assets from the wallet may attract charges. The platform also charges for the transfer of fiat currency through credit/debit cards or net banking.

    CoinSwitch Kuber – Growth and Revenue

    CoinSwitch Kuber has managed to impress investors with its concept and performance. In addition to Tiger Global Management’s $25 million investment in April 2021, Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, Paradigm, Kunal Shah, the creator of Cred, and others have backed CoinSwitch. With the recent funding received from Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase Ventures in October 2021, CoinSwitch Kuber reached Unicorn status with a valuation of $1.9 billion.

    CoinSwitch Kuber boasts of witnessing the highest number of downloads among the crypto startups in India in 2021 when it was downloaded more than 6.1 mn times.

    CoinSwitch Kuber is the most download crypto exchange app in 2021
    CoinSwitch Kuber is the most downloaded crypto exchange app in 2021downloaded

    Ever since CoinSwitch was started and was taken global after the RBI ban, the company started seeing huge transactions through their app. Within just 2 years, CoinSwitch Kuber has seen more users onboard its app than any other crypto exchange in India. This growth has been mainly due to the simplified UX that the app brought in, and its decision to not provide the users with certain trading features.

    Singhal points out that unlike other startups they did not knock on the investors’ doors.

    “We did not reach out to Tiger Global for funding. They contacted us and expressed their willingness to invest in our company. Tiger doesn’t invest less than $100 million but we said we just need $25 million,” says Singhal.

    Kuber claims to have over 15 million users in India, and the monthly active user count of CoinSwitch Kuber is over 7 million. It has also been disclosed that more than half of them are under the age of 25. CoinSwitch Kuber claims to have handled $5 billion in transactions in the last 11 months.

    The firm intends to expand its operations outside cryptocurrency in the future.

    “We intend to expand into traditional finance, such as equities, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and bonds, and provide a full portfolio on our platform to retail customers,” says the company.

    “We are not a capex-intensive business, and don’t need too much money. Hence, our EBITDA margins are in the range of 60-65%,” reveals Singhal.

    CoinSwitch Rolls Out the Web3 Discovery Fund

    CoinSwitch has launched the Web3 Discovery Fund, which is a fund that will invest in and help incubate early-stage startups that are engaged in building blockchain solutions for the Web3 space. This Web3 startups funding initiative of CoinSwitch is currently aiming to help up to 100 Indian startups, as per the reports dated August 10, 2022. Ashish Singhal, the CoinSwitch Co-founder and CEO stated that the fund has already received an initial corpus of $10 mn and the company is further looking to raise some more funds from marquee investor partners ahead.

    CoinSwitch: some of the major growth highlights are:

    • It has over 2 crore+ users as of February 2024
    • It is backed by some of the world’s leading investors including a16z, Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India.

    Financials

    CoinSwitch Financials
    CoinSwitch Financials
    CoinSwitch Financials FY22 FY23
    Operating Revenue Rs 249 crore Rs 46 crore
    Total Expenses Rs 763 crore Rs 482 crore
    Profit/Loss Loss of Rs 513 crore Loss of Rs 385 crore

    EBITDA

    CoinSwitch FY22-FY23 FY22 FY23
    EBITDA Margin -204% -396.3%
    Expense/Rs of Op Revenue Rs 3.07% Rs 10.57%
    ROCE -25% -24%

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    CoinSwitch Pro

    On November 22, 2023, CoinSwitch launched the multiexchange trading platform CoinSwitch Pro on November 22, 2023. This platform marks a significant advancement for cryptocurrency enthusiasts and traders. This cutting-edge platform not only provides users with a comprehensive view of multiple tokens across various exchanges but also empowers them to make informed decisions by comparing prices and selecting the most suitable options.

    What sets this platform apart is its seamless functionality, allowing users to effortlessly trade crypto assets in INR across a multitude of exchanges, all through a single login. This streamlining of the trading process not only enhances the user experience but also signifies a pivotal step towards greater accessibility and user-friendliness within the cryptocurrency realm.

    There is a variable transaction charge associated with using the cross-exchange platform, depending on the crypto exchange that is used. The CoinSwitch Pro platform stands out for its flexibility in serving various users and exchangers.

    CoinSwitch Kuber – Funding and Investors

    CoinSwitch Kuber has raised over $300 mn over 4 funding rounds. It is now counted among the unicorn startups of India, with a valuation of over $1.9 bn.

    Date Round Amount Lead Investors
    October 6, 2021 Series C $260M Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures
    Apr 22, 2021 Series B $22.7M Tiger Global Management
    Jan 13, 2021 Series A $15M Paradigm, Ribbit Capital
    Mar 24, 2018 Seed Round $1.5M –

    Andreessen Horowitz is a CoinSwitch Kuber investor, who invested for the first time ever in India in the $260 mn funding round of CoinSwitch, and was joined by Coinbase Inc., which turned CoinSwitch into a unicorn. Some other investors of CoinSwitch are Tiger Global, Paradigm, Ribbit Capital etc.

    CoinSwitch Kuber – ESOPs

    CoinSwitch Kuber recorded their first-ever ESOP buyback programme on March 21, 2022, worth $2.5 million. This buyback round was a mixture of funding that came from both the internal and external sources.

    CoinSwitch Kuber – LayOffs

    CoinSwitch in a recent move, has undertaken a strategic restructuring initiative, resulting in the reduction of its workforce by 8%. This decision translated to approximately 44 employees being laid off from various departments. Presently, CoinSwitch boasts a total workforce of 519 employees, as per their LinkedIn profile.

    The impact of these layoffs has predominantly been felt within the customer support team, where the majority of the affected employees were stationed. While such decisions are often undertaken as part of broader efforts to optimize and realign company resources, they undoubtedly bring about significant transitions for both the organization and the employees involved.

    In the official statement company spokesperson said, “we right-sized our customer support team to align with the present volume of customer queries on our platform. This impacted the roles of 44 members of our customer support team, who voluntarily resigned from their roles after a detailed discussion with their managers earlier this month.”

    CoinSwitch Kuber – Competitors

    To mention, the top 10 competitors of CoinSwitch Kuber are:

    CoinSwitch Kuber – Challenges Faced

    CoinSwitch Kuber employs over 120 people and has over 4.5 million users on its network. In comparison to other applications on the market, the app provides consumers with a clean UI and UX design. However, it was recently discovered that the app does not support UPI payments.

    On April 21, 2021, the organization announced on all of its official social media accounts that INR deposits in the CoinSwitch Kuber App will be disabled. CoinSwitch Kuber said on Twitter that the firm has temporarily blocked all INR deposits owing to unforeseen problems with their banking partner. The issue was later resolved and now INR deposits are enabled.

    Cryptocurrency is a murky area in India. Despite the legalization of crypto investments in India, there are many fears and doubts related to the topic. When it comes to difficulties, Ashish believes the company’s sole issue is teaching people in India about cryptocurrencies and the ecosystem.

    CoinSwitch Kuber had got into trouble in association with the idea of lending feature with the SEC, and as a result, Ashish had to drop the idea. However, the founders still are of the opinion that they would be able to use the lending and stakes feature to utilise them for earning revenues in the future. They have already started working to make it possible by working with regulators and gaining their confidence.

    As the trading of cryptocurrency lacks defined regulations, CoinSwitch Kuber temporarily paused crypto withdrawals.

    CoinSwitch Received ED Notice in Association with FEMA investigation

    CoinSwitch reportedly received a notice from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) along with some other cryptocurrency firms like CoinDCX in association with the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) investigation. Here, ED is determining whether or not these companies were engaged in offences related to foreign currencies. On this, CoinSwitch mentioned that it has received notifications from ED and is ready to comply with them, as per reports dated July 12, 2022.

    CoinSwitch Kuber – Future Plans

    CoinSwitch has revealed plans to build a cryptocurrency investment platform by June 2024 that is targeted at retail investors as per news report of March 11, 2024. Through the provision of user-centric technology, this program seeks to democratize access to digital asset trading and enable users to navigate investments with confidence.

    FAQs

    What does CoinSwitch Kuber do?

    CoinSwitch Kuber is a crypto trading platform for individual investors that is available only in the Indian market via a mobile application. It enables trading in several cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, and many others, using INR and is available as a mobile application (INR).

    Is CoinSwitch Kuber an Indian company?

    Yes, CoinSwitch Kuber is an Indian company.

    Where is the CoinSwitch Kuber headquarters?

    CoinSwitch Kuber is currently headquartered in Singapore.

    Which companies do CoinSwitch Kuber compete with?

    Unocoin, WazirX, CoinDCX, Instamojo, Glidera, ZebPay, SmartCoin, IPaxful, Bitxoxo Bitcoins, and Coinbase are the top ten competitors of CoinSwitch Kuber.

    When was CoinSwitch Kuber founded?

    CoinSwitch Kuber was founded in 2017.

    Who founded CoinSwitch Kuber?

    CoinSwitch Kuber was founded by Vimal Sagar Tiwari, Govind Soni, and Ashish Singhal in 2017.

    What is the CoinSwitch Kuber website?

    The CoinSwitch Kuber website is coinswitch.co

    What are the CoinSwitch Kuber fees?

    CoinSwitch Kuber doesn’t ask the users anything such as the CoinSwitch Kuber fees. It rather poses itself as an aggregator and negotiates with the crypto exchanges on transaction fees.

    How is CoinSwitch Kuber login done?

    The CoinSwitch Kuber login procedure is really easy where the users need to download the app of the company and then they need to first have an account to log in to the same, with the same login credentials.

    What are CoinSwitch investors?

    Some of the prominent CoinSwitch investors are Ribbit Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, Coinbase Inc., Sequoia, Paradigm and others.

    What was the CoinSwitch deposit issue?

    CoinSwitch deposit of rupees was temporarily disabled, but it was fixed after 2 long weeks.

    What is wrong with CoinSwitch Kuber withdrawals?

    When it comes to CoinSwitch Kuber withdrawals, the company has announced that it has temporarily disabled the withdrawal of cryptocurrencies.

  • Built: Construction and Real Estate Platform Transforming the Loan Management Process

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

    When it comes to construction lending, the application process moves quite slowly, leading to delayed and inefficient construction projects. Even when project directors verify that every document is accurate, they can still get hamstrung by the lending procedure.

    A fintech company, Built Technologies, popularly recognized as Built, proves with its construction and real estate finance platform that such wrinkles in the construction lending process can be smoothed out, resulting in the timely completion of construction work. It is a U.S.-based company fixing lending and spending for the construction and real estate finance ecosystem.

    In this article, we will delve into the success story of Built, including its founders, startup story, business and revenue model, funding, growth, and more.

    Built – Company Highlights

    Company Name Built Technologies
    Headquarters Nashville, Tennessee, United States
    Sector Fintech
    Founders Chase Gilbert, Scott Sohr, and Andrew Sohr
    Founded 2014
    Valuation $1.5 billion (2021)
    Website Getbuilt.com

    About Built
    Built – Industry
    Built – Founders and Team
    Built – Startup Story
    Built – Mission and Vision
    Built – Business Model
    Built – Revenue Model
    Built – Products and Services
    Built – Challenges Faced
    Built – Funding and Investors
    Built – Mergers and Acquisitions
    Built – Growth
    Built – Partners
    Built – Awards and Achievements
    Built – Competitors
    Built – Future Plan

    About Built

    Built, incorporated as Built Technologies, is an enterprise technology company that provides construction and real estate finance platforms. Its centralized platform enables increased efficiency, transparency, collaboration, and business agility while reducing risk and allowing companies to improve how communities around them are built and managed.

    The company serves over 270 leading lenders and asset managers and thousands of developers, contractors, and home builders across Portland, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, and many other cities in the United States.

    Built – Industry

    Built Technologies, Inc. caters to the financial technology industry, particularly the construction fintech sector. In 2018, the revenue of the fintech industry worldwide was approximately 92 billion euros and is projected to increase by nearly 12%, amounting to 188 billion euros by 2024.

    With fintech allowing financial institutions and companies to provide convenient services and help maintain transparency in financial inclusions, it has primarily driven the global market. Moreover, during COVID-19, the adoption of online and digitized financial products significantly increased, positively impacting the fintech industry’s revenue growth. Bankable, Blockstream Corporation Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., and Circle Internet Financial Limited are some leading companies in the fintech industry.

    Fintech Sector Worldwide Revenue
    Fintech Sector Worldwide Revenue

    Built – Founders and Team

    Chase Gilbert, Scott Sohr, and Andrew Sohr are the co-founders of Built.

    Chase Gilbert

    Chase Gilbert - Co-founder and CEO, Built
    Chase Gilbert – Co-founder and CEO, Built

    Chase Gilbert is the Co-founder and CEO of Built. He completed his graduation in Finance and International Business from the University of Tennessee. Before co-founding Built Technologies Inc. in 2014, he was the Partner and Investor at Taziki’s Mediterranean Café (Green Hills).

    Scott Sohr

    Scott Sohr - Co-founder, Built Technologies
    Scott Sohr – Co-founder, Built Technologies

    Scott Sohr graduated from Auburn University in Mechanical Engineering and completed an MBA from Vanderbilt University. Currently, he is the President at STS Ventures Nashville and Canary Ventures. In addition to Built Technologies, Inc., Scott is the Co-founder of Elmington Capital Group and Correct Care Solutions.

    Andrew Sohr

    Andrew Sohr - Co-founder, Built Technologies
    Andrew Sohr – Co-founder, Built Technologies

    Co-founder of Built Technologies, Inc., Andrew Sohr, studied Management at The London School of Economics and Political Science and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Economics from the University of San Diego. Moreover, he owned and invested in Taziki’s Mediterranean Café from 2011 to 2013.

    Built is currently working with approximately 350+ employees.

    Built – Startup Story

    Built was co-founded by Chase Gilbert, Scott Sohr, and Andrew Sohr in 2014. Andrew Sohr was the impetus for the company. He was involved in multiple construction projects and was dealing with many lenders for the same projects. Andrew was frustrated with every lender’s application process because each loan application differed. He said the unique application process for construction loans was not required. Moreover, the construction loan lending procedure also worked slowly.

    Chase, Scott, and Andrew discussed Andrew’s problem and possible solutions. It was when Andrew had this idea that there had to be a better way with technology. And three of them started figuring out what is the better way and how does this work. They talked to the lenders, inspectors, and everyone involved to understand why the loan process works the way it works. And then they obsessed over thinking about how it should work to make things better.

    It was when they came up with Built Technologies in 2014 to improve the lives of project owners, bank lenders, contractors, inspectors, subcontractors, and other parties involved.

    Amid Covid19, Built launched a Portfolio Monitoring Solution for construction lenders, and in February 2021, it launched revolutionary enhancements to make the platform’s Billing process more visible. In December 2021, the company announced Built Pay to simplify the construction community’s payment-making and receiving process. A year later, it launched Inspection Technology & Services Solutions in November 2022. In April 2013, Built launched a new business unit focused on commercial property developers.

    Built – Mission and Vision

    Built aims to improve the outcomes for those involved in building and managing the world. The company’s vision is to become one of the most important and trusted partners in the built world.

    Built – Business Model

    Built’s collaborative construction and real estate finance software streamlines the collateral monitoring and draw management process to reduce construction loan risk, transform borrower experience, increase loan profitability, simplify compliance, and provide portfolio insights.

    This platform allows lenders to access real-time data to make more informed construction portfolio-related decisions. Moreover, it provides borrowers with a convenient digital experience with faster access to money to complete construction projects on time.

    Built has managed around 200,000+ projects worth $135B construction volume and has protected approximately $24 billion in payments.

    Built – Revenue Model

    Built earns revenue by providing construction financing solutions for lenders, inspectors, builders, contractors, and subcontractors.

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    Built – Products and Services

    Built provides a construction and real estate finance platform. In addition, the company offers Construction Loan Administration, Project Pro, Inspections Technology and services, and Title Search for construction lending for CRE Management, facilitate Deal Management, Pipeline Management, Portfolio and Asset Management, and Underwriting.

    Built – Challenges Faced

    In February 2023, Built laid off around 8% of its workforce, and five months later, it underwent another round of employee cuts. The company’s CEO, Chase Gilbert, said in February that downsizing was done due to the rapidly changing business climate.

    Built – Funding and Investors

    Built has successfully acquired nearly $312.7 million by undertaking seven funding rounds. Its latest funding round – Venture Series Round, was completed on April 13, 2023. The company’s leading investors include Fifth Wall, Citi, Nine Four Ventures, HighSage Ventures, Brookfield Growth, TCV, XYZ Venture Capital, and others.

    Date Round Number of Investors Money Raised Lead Investor
    April 13, 2023 Venture Round 1 – Citi
    July 13, 2022 Private Equity Round – $23.6 million –
    September 30, 2021 Series D 10 $125 million TCV
    February 4, 2021 Series C 15 $88 million Addition
    April 29, 2019 Series B 6 $31 million Goldman Sachs Investment Partners
    March 28, 2019 Series B – $24.1 million –
    November 14, 2017 Series A 3 $21 million Index Ventures

    Built – Mergers and Acquisitions

    Built has acquired two companies with Nativ as its recent acquisition. Nativ was acquired on July 29, 2022, and lienwaivers.io on January 21, 2020.

    Built – Growth

    In 2021, Built secured a $1.5 billion valuation and turned into a unicorn after its new venture funding round. The company’s team headcount doubled in 2021 to 330 employees. Since 2017, Built has more than tripled its customer base. In addition, the company managed a total construction value of over $200 billion for lenders and builders, securing 144% YOY in 2021.

    Construction Lending. Built the way it should be.

    Built – Partners

    Built has secured partnerships with the following companies:

    • GreenState Credit Union
    • Fulton Mortgage Company
    • Encompass
    • Sage
    • Black Knight
    • PandaDoc
    • Procore
    • Jack Henry & Associates Inc.
    • American Bankers Association

    Built – Awards and Achievements

    Built is recognized by industry leaders with several accolades, some of them are as follows:

    • Listed as one of the Tennessean’s Top Workplaces in 2022
    • Won 20th Annual American Business Awards in the ‘FinTech Solution’ and ‘Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year’ categories in 2022
    • GGV Capital and Crunchbase named Built to Inaugural SMBTech 50 list in 2022
    • Named a Top Tech Firm in Mortgage Finance by HousingWire in 2018

    Built – Competitors

    Here listed are some main competitors of Built:

    • Lending Club
    • LendingPad
    • Finflux
    • Sageworks Lending
    • Encompass Digital Mortgage Solution

    Built – Future Plan

    Built plans to launch its first commercial property developer product in 2023.

    FAQs

    What is Built about?

    Built, incorporated as Built Technologies, is an enterprise technology company that provides construction and real estate finance platforms.

    Who are the founders of Built Technologies?

    Chase Gilbert, Scott Sohr, and Andrew Sohr co-founded Built Technologies in the year 2014.

    Who are the main competitors of Built Technologies?

    The main competitors of Built Technologies include Lending Club, Lending Pad, Finflux, Sageworks Lending, and Encompass Digital Mortgage Solution.

  • CoinDCX Success Story – Leading the Crypto Revolution Through Innovation and Accessibility

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organisations. The content in this post has been approved by CoinDCX.

    A massive increase in the number of internet users has reactivated virtual world concepts and spawned a new market phenomenon known as cryptocurrency to enable financial transactions such as purchasing, selling, and trading.

    Cryptocurrencies are digital representations of precious and intangible objects that can be used in a variety of applications and networks, including online social networks, online social games, virtual worlds, and peer-to-peer networks.

    In recent years, virtual currency has been widely used in a variety of schemes. It’s clear that cryptocurrencies are an important and rising element in today’s digital economy.

    CoinDCX is a cryptocurrency trading site, which is famous as one of India’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges. The company earned the unicorn status by raising $90 million on August 10, 2021, and turned into India’s first unicorn crypto startup.

    Here we will delve deep into the CoinDCX company, where you will find all about CoinDCX, CoinDCX Founders, its Funding, Investors, Mission, Vision, Business and Revenue Model, Challenges Faced, Future Plans, and more. So, stay glued.

    CoinDCX – Company Highlights

    Company Name CoinDCX
    Headquarters Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
    Industry Cryptocurrency, Software
    Founded April 2018
    Founders Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal
    Valuation $2 billion
    Website www.coindcx.com

    About CoinDCX and How it Works?
    CoinDCX – Industry
    CoinDCX – Founders and Team
    CoinDCX – Startup Story
    CoinDCX – Mission and Vision
    CoinDCX – Name, Logo and Tagline
    CoinDCX – Business and Revenue Model
    CoinDCX – Growth and Revenue
    CoinDCX – Funding and Investors
    CoinDCX – Partnerships and Campaigns
    CoinDCX – Achievements
    CoinDCX- LayOffs
    CoinDCX – Competitors
    CoinDCX – Challenges Faced
    CoinDCX – Future Plans

    About CoinDCX and How it Works?

    Billed as India’s largest and safest cryptocurrency exchange platform, CoinDCX allows users to legally exchange various cryptocurrencies. It is built for all types of traders, taking into account their trading background, risk tolerance, and trading frequency, allowing customers to trade their crypto assets according to their requirements.

    CoinDCX is a company that is working on a cryptocurrency trading network. The business is focused on developing cross-border financial services that ensure a smooth and continuous flow of resources. The trading experience is quick, reliable, and effortless thanks to its liquidity, powerful wallet, and impenetrable protection. CoinDCX has given its traders access to a variety of industry-first products that enable them to trade using exchange liquidity.

    Currently, CoinDCX Go offers a range of tokens in INR pairs such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Binance Coin (BNB), Chainlink (LINK), EOS (EOS), Tether (USDT), Cardano (ADA), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Ripple (XRP), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Matic Network (MATIC), Tron (TRX) etc.

    CoinDCX announced its 3rd birthday on April 7, 2021. Three years ago, CoinDCX has begun an exciting journey of providing cryptocurrency trading and exchange services to the general public. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) declared a banking ban for cryptocurrency and related entities around the same time. In addition, India’s crypto industry was in desperate need of a shake-up. It was enough to keep the momentum going, and CoinDCX began with a single goal in mind: ‘Cryptocurrency Adoption.‘

    The services of CoinDCX are tailored to fit all styles of traders, taking into account their trading history, risk tolerance, and frequency of trading. The company’s mission is to democratise finance and make investing more accessible to the general public.

    CoinDCX announced the launch of CoinDCX Go app on January 20, 2021. A future Bitcoin app that allows users to legally purchase Bitcoin and other common cryptocurrencies with a single click, CoinDCX Go stands as a simple, safe, and secure method to invest in cryptocurrencies.

    CoinDCX – Industry

    CoinDCX is a part of the cryptocurrency industry, which is growing at an unimaginable pace across the globe. Looking at the global cryptocurrency industry, we can discover that it reached a valuation of $1,782 billion in 2021. The same sector is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 58.4% and will reach $32,420 billion by 2027. While looking at the growth of cryptocurrency in India, the same industry is inching to touch a valuation of $241 million by 2030, as of December 2021.      

    CoinDCX – Founders and Team

    CoinDCX was founded by Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal in April 2018.

    Founders of CoinDCX - Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal
    Founders of CoinDCX – Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal

    Sumit Gupta

    Sumit Gupta is known as the Co-founder and CEO of CoinDCX. Sumit holds a B.Tech in Electrical and Electronics, and an MTech degree in Electronics and Signal Processing, from IIT Bombay. He served as a Data Research Analyst at Columbia Business School before joining Sony as a Software Engineer. However, he left the role after a little more than a year and co-founded ListUp before leaving it too and founding CoinDCX.  

    Neeraj Khandelwal

    Neeraj Khandelwal is another Co-founder of CoinDCX, who also serves as CTO of the company. Khandelwal also is an alumnus of IIT Bombay, who completed his graduation in Electrical Engineering from the same university. It is Khandelwal who leads the technical development of the CoinDCX products.

    The CoinDCX team created the entire platform from the ground up. Full-stack developers, blockchain developers, machine learning engineers, app developers, software engineers, and data scientists make up the 100+ members team, giving them the expertise to incorporate any innovative logic or functionality in our market. CoinDCX plans to have a workforce consisting of 200+ members soon.  

    CoinDCX – Startup Story

    Sumit Gupta first learned about distributed ledger technology when Bitcoin mining was gaining popularity. This is when the concept of putting together different decentralised marketplaces and cryptocurrencies, which serve as the marketplace medium of exchange, stayed with him.

    He then reached out to his friend Neeraj Khandelwal, with whom he worked to bridge the crucial market gaps between this emerging technology and global consumers. The duo realised that blockchain traders, who could keep track of thousands of crypto trades every second, lacked a single trading network. In April 2018, the IIT-Bombay graduates launched CoinDCX as a result of this.

    The startup claims to have had a daily trading volume of more than $10M and a monthly trading volume of $400M since its launch. After researching the industry and the potential of crypto technology, they launched the DCX journey with a cryptocurrency exchange in 2018.

    CoinDCX – Mission and Vision

    CoinDCX mission and vision statement says,

    “CoinDCX envisions to enable global financial inclusion of billions of people around the planet with a crypto-based financial services. We aim to make decentralized financial services accessible to the common man on their palms and tips.“

    CoinDCX – Name, Logo and Tagline

    DCX is a company based in Singapore that specialises in crypto-enabled financial services, and so the name ‘Coin’ DCX is a fitting add-on to let the company ooze of uniqueness.

    Company Logo of CoinDCX
    Company Logo of CoinDCX

    CoinDCX’ s tagline is, “Your Gateway to Crypto.“

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    CoinDCX – Business and Revenue Model

    The CoinDCX business model has established single-point access to trade all cryptocurrency instruments available in over 500 markets, according to the founders. It claims to have developed a highly scalable trade machine engine capable of processing one million transactions per second. Any transaction or exchange on CoinDCX incurs a transaction fee. Deposit fees (charged on exchanging currencies), withdrawal fees, trading commissions (0.01 percent of the overall transaction is normal on any exchange), and listing fees are how CoinDCX makes money, just like any other cryptocurrency exchange.

    The trader will convert INR to Cryptos and vice versa on DCXInsta, gain by lending their holdings with DCXlend, and leverage trades with DCXmargin on DCXtrade’s 500+ markets. CoinDCX aspires to be the world’s best cryptocurrency exchange. Its patented liquidity aggregation model gives users access to liquidity from the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges.

    CoinDCX – Growth and Revenue

    CoinDCX is popularly hailed as India’s first crypto unicorn. Founded in 2018, CoinDCX brings easy investing and trading solutions for cryptocurrency-based products for all. This ISO-certified crypto platform, which is insured by BitGo, provides an array of products like CoinDCX, CoinDCX Pro, DCX Learn, Cosmex, and more. It is the only crypto startup in India that has raised 3 CoinDCX funding rounds in less than a year.

    CoinDCX witnessed a 45.78% growth in its installed users between October and November 2021 alone. The growth of CoinDCX definitely depends on the innovative ideas on which CoinDCX was founded, its ability to battle with the challenges thrown in, the funding rounds it has witnessed, and the innovative and interesting marketing strategies that CoinDCX executes.  

    Some more growth highlights of CoinDCX are:

    • CoinDCX became the first crypto unicorn in India valued at $1.1 billion as of August 10, 2021, with the latest funding round where the former Facebook co-founder, Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital Group took part along with a bunch of the company’s existing investors – Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, Block.one and more. CoinDCX was valued at $2.15+ bn last in April 2022.
    • CoinDCX has grown its user base from 150K to 400K in just 15 months and currently over 1.4 crores users.
    • The quarterly trading volume of CoinDCX is  over 16,500 users.
    • CoinDCX has already crossed $10 billion in trading volume in February 2021
    • It has witnessed a 4X growth Q-o-Q in daily active users
    • It has listed 500+ coins and 1000+ trading pairs

    CoinDCX Revenue, Financials and More

    CoinDCX’s Indian business, Neblio Technologies, witnessed a remarkable growth in its net profit in FY21, which rose 9X YoY to become Rs 4.4 crore from Rs 45.6 lakh in FY20.

    All of it started with the Supreme Court verdict of March 2020, which lifted the banking ban on the trade of cryptocurrency in India. CoinDCX started seeing quite a growth starting from August 2020 onwards. It noticed a 38% month-on-month (MoM) growth since its inception in 2018. This is due to the fact that more and more Indians started to show interest to participate in the global crypto economy.

    The CoinDCX operating revenue surged by more than 527% YoY from Rs 6.2 crore in FY20 to Rs 38.9 crore in FY21.

    The expenses also ballooned by more than 7X, which increased from Rs 5.7 crore in FY20 to Rs 40.7 crore in FY21.  

    CoinDCX Financials FY20-2023

    CoinDCX Ventures

    CoinDCX launched CoinDCX Ventures with an aim to establish its own venture investment arm on May 10, 2022. The venture investment arm of the Indian crypto-exchange unicorn, CoinDCX Ventures will help the company invest in early and late-stage crypto and blockchain startups. Rohit Jain, a Harvard Business School alum has been appointed by the startup as the Senior Vice President and the Head of Ventures and Investments to lead the CoinDCX Ventures which is designed to strengthen the digital asset ecosystem of India and give a push to the country’s digital economy. According to the Co-founder and CEO of CoinDCX, Sumit Gupta, CoinDCX Ventures is nothing short of a “great milestone”, and that the crypto exchange has plans to invest around Rs 100 crores in CoinDCX Ventures within the next 12 months.

    CoinDCX “Earn” Crypto Yield Initiative

    CoinDCX has announced the launch of its new initiative on May 26, 2022. This “Earn” crypto yield initiative that CoinDCX launched, will allow the crypto asset holders to earn interests on their crypto assets.

    The platform will deploy the assets under ‘Earn’ among the wide array of yield generating options like lending, margin trading, and staking, in order to create returns. This new opportunity to yield income promises no lock-in periods and withdrawals at any moment, thereby offering the customers full flexibility and control over their cryptocurrency assets. However, the tenor must be of seven days.

    CoinDCX grew considerably even during the pandemic, speaking about which, Sumit Gupta, the CEO and Co-founder of CoinDCX said in a statement, “This has been the most exciting year for CoinDCX. While the pandemic forced everyone indoors, CoinDCX scaled up exponentially and continues to do so. Our team tripled in number from 30 in March to 90 in December, and we are continuing to hire aggressively.”

    If more investors looked into these emerging liquidity alternatives as a result of the global pandemic, interest in digital assets grew steadily. As institutional and individual investors adopt these emerging asset classes to diversify their portfolios, this trend is expected to intensify exponentially, according to analysts.

    India is regarded as a developing market for cryptocurrencies, with retail investors aged 25 to 40 spending millions of dollars every day on cryptocurrency trading in the nation. In the April-June quarter of 2020, the exchange says it saw a 3X increase in total volume traded and a 4X increase in daily active users.

    “In the end of 2020, interest in digital assets was growing consistently as more investors explored these new liquidity options. With the global events this year, we’re seeing this trend accelerate exponentially, as both institutional and individual investors embrace these new asset classes to diversify their portfolios,” Block.one’s CEO Brendan Blumer said.

    CoinDCX – Funding and Investors

    CoinDCX has raised around $245 million over 8 Coindcx funding rounds that the company has seen. The last (Series D) round of funding came in on April 19, 2022, and helped CoinDCX raise $135 mn. Pantera Capital and Steadview Capital led this CoinDCX funding round, which helped the crypto unicorn raise its valuation to around $2 billion. The previous round of funding helped the company raise $90 million, which turned the company into an Indian unicorn startup at a valuation of $1.1 billion on August 10, 2021.

    The CoinDCX funding till date is as follows:

    Date Round Amount Lead Investors
    April 19, 2022 Series D $135M Steadview Capital and Pantera Capital
    August 10, 2021 Series C $90M B Capital Group, Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital and others
    Dec 22, 2020 Series B $13.43M Block.one
    May 26, 2020 Series A $2.5M Polychain
    Mar 23, 2020 Series A $3M 100x Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Polychain
    Mar 20, 2019 Seed Round – Bain Capital Ventures
    January 7, 2019 Secondary Market – –
    March 30, 2018 Seed Round – –

    CoinDCX has been funded to date by some of the famous venture capitals in the world of startups like Steadview Capital, Pantera Capital, B Capital Group, Polychain Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, and more, which have led to elevating CoinDCX to the position of the first crypto unicorn of India. However, little was known about the shareholding pattern of CoinDCX until now. This is why we have taken a dive into the shareholding pattern of the company.

    Here goes CoinDCX shareholding pattern, as of April 29, 2022:

    Owning Company/Individual Percentage of Stakes
    Polychain Ventures 19.40%
    Block One Investments 18.52%
    Neeraj Khandelwal 14.36%
    Sumit Gupta 14.36%
    Bain Capital 7.13%
    Others 6.43%
    Jump Capital 3.73%
    B Capital 2.96%
    Cadenza Capital 2.79%
    Steadview Capital 2.38%
    Coinbase 2.34%
    Uncorelated fund 2.01%
    Pantera Blockchain fund 1.46%
    Choi Sung Ho 1.11%
    Vivek Nagpal 1.01%

    The shareholding status of CoinDCX shows that Polychain Ventures owns the highest stakes in the company whereas the co-founders of CoinDCX – Neeraj Khandelwal and Sumit Gupta, have 14.36% of stakes each. Reports say that the collective valuation of the co-founder is over $590 mn.    

    CoinDCX – Partnerships and Campaigns

    CoinDCX Makes Amitabh Bachchan its Brand Ambassador

    CoinDCX has seen quite some partnerships that involved Bollywood actors and more. The company didn’t see any brand ambassadors until it partnered with the veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan, who became the first brand ambassador of the brand according to the reports dated October 4, 2021. With this agreement, CoinDCX aims to boost the overall knowledge of crypto and popularise the currency as an emerging asset class. Furthermore, Bachchan is also deemed to be the new face of the latest campaign by CoinDCX.

    According to CoinDCX, Bachchan’s personality matches the brand’s values. Amitabh Bachchan, who is always forward in his league, whether it is in movies or anything else, is the paragon of wisdom, which will help the company add more credibility. Besides, the veteran actor has been a crypto investor himself and has already been successful in launching his own NFT (Non-fungible token), thereby gathering a considerable amount of knowledge of the crypto space. “His knowledge will prove valuable in building trust and credibility amongst new users. We are certain that his association with CoinDCX will help bring greater visibility to the world of crypto and develop a strong brand recall for us,” mentioned Sumit Gupta, Co-founder, and CEO of the brand.

    CoinDCX is yet to proceed with its ad campaign with Amitabh Bachchan as of October 15, 2021. The company has reportedly put the advertisement campaigns with the legendary actor due to the lack of clarity on the regulation and policy framework. On the other hand, Amitabh has also disclosed in a recent blog post that he will be reconsidering the advertisement campaign signed with the crypto trading major. He had also mentioned that he would be revoking his endorsement with the pan masala brand Kamala Pasand on the same blog.

    CoinDCX Ropes in Ayushmann Khurana

    The crypto unicorn has roped in celebrated actor Ayushmann Khurana for its new campaign titled “Future Yahi Hain” on October 18, 2021. This CoinDCX campaign is designed to address concerns surrounding crypto investments of Indian audiences.

    #BitcoinLiyaKya Campaign

    CoinDCX has launched a digital campaign titled #BitcoinLiyaKya, which is a humorous take on the inclusion of cryptocurrencies like bitcoins. This campaign aims to drive more audiences to use bitcoins via companies like CoinDCX.

    HAPPY DAY REWARDS Campaign

    CoinDCX launched the “HAPPY DAY REWARDS” campaign to fuel its crypto awareness campaign across the country and present crypto as a dominating asset class.

    CoinDCX Happy Days

    The campaign, which started on 19th September 2021 and ended on October 15, 2021, brought opportunities for numerous eligible new users to win up to Rs 1 lakh worth of Bitcoin (BTC) every day.

    Some other partnerships that CoinDCX saw are:

    • The unicorn crypto startup partnered with BITS Pilani on March 8, 2022, to foster research, development, and innovation in crypto among the students in India.
    • CoinDCX partnered with Solidus Labs on February 19, 2022. This collaboration is aimed to enhance anti-money laundering protection.
    • Partnership with Onfido – CoinDCX partnered with Onfido. The UK-based company that has its headquarters in London, is recognised as a world leader in AI for identity verification and authentication and was partnered with by CoinDCX to help the company figure out whether the user identities of the users’ identity documents are authentic.
    • Partnership with BitGo – CoinDCX collaborated with BitGo in May 2020 to secure Indian crypto trader funds.
    • CoinDcx partnered with Cryptocurrency Exchange OKEx, with over 50 million users worldwide, OKX is a global spot and derivatives exchange for cryptocurrencies and the second-largest exchange by trading volume.

    CoinDCX – Achievements

    CoinDcx is rewarded with the following recognitions from industry leaders:

    •  Great Place to  Work Award 2021 & 2022.

    •  Tech Start-up of the Year Entrepreneur Awards.

    •  Elite list of Unicorns in India 2021 by Tracxn.

    •  Next Hottest Product by Amplitude Award.

    CoinDCX- LayOffs

    According to reports, CoinDcx has decided to direct the company’s growth in the direction of profitability and sustainability; they have let go of 12% (or about 70 employees) of the total workforce. According to Sumit Gupta, CEO of CoinDcx, “…Today, some of our incredibly talented team members will be parting ways with the organization. We are deeply sorry for that and we want to share our thoughts and reasons for the same,”.

    Additionally, he added, “As you all know, startups and businesses globally are going through challenging times due to tough macro conditions, more so in crypto because of the prolonged bear market and impact of TDS on domestic exchanges. These factors had a significant impact on our volumes and thus revenues. To adapt, we undertook several proactive measures, including direct cost optimization and investment in automation to drive efficiency and productivity”

    CoinDcx underwent internal reorganisation earlier in January, but it denied that any employees were laid off as a result of the process.

    CoinDCX – Challenges Faced

    CoinDCX was launched in 2018, and in the same year, RBI announced a banking ban on the transactions of cryptocurrencies. This ensured the shutdown of cryptocurrency startups in many parts of India, however, CoinDCX was one of the exceptional players who contested this ban, which finally, in March 2020, was invalidated by the Supreme Court of India. This lifting of the ban helped CoinDCX grow its user base from 150K to 400K investors on its exchange.

    As the price of Bitcoin, the world’s leading cryptocurrency, dropped dramatically to a multi-month low, Indian cryptocurrency exchanges WazirX and CoinDCX experienced hour-long outages. Bitcoin’s price fell 30% in a few hours to $31,000 on May 19th, 2021. Many investors tried to sell their crypto assets to prevent large losses when the price fell, but they were unable to do so because WazirX and CoinDCX’s servers crashed, denying those trades.

    Other investors attempted to purchase cryptocurrencies when the price was low, but their purchases were unsuccessful, resulting in a loss of valuable time before Bitcoin’s price rebounded to $40,000. Several investors converted their cryptocurrencies to Indian rupees and requested withdrawals, but stated that the funds were withdrawn from their crypto wallets but not reflected in their bank accounts.


    Following an informal advisory from the Reserve Bank of India, many Indian banks have stopped providing services to Indian crypto companies (RBI). Despite the Supreme Court’s decision in March 2020 to overturn the RBI’s 2018 circular prohibiting banks from offering services to crypto exchanges, this is still the case.

    The current accounts of crypto companies have been suspended by ICICI Bank, one of the last few large lenders to provide services to them. Payment gateways for merchants buying or selling cryptocurrencies have reportedly been told by the private sector lender to turn off its net banking services.

    CoinDCX was Questioned by ED in Relation to FEMA

    The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has been working on an ongoing Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) to verify whether or not the Indian cryptocurrency companies are engaged in foreign currency offences. CoinSwitch Kuber has also been notified by ED in relation to the same. The ED has already questioned Sumit Gupta, the founder of CoinDCX, at its headquarters in Bengaluru. His statements were also videotaped, as far as the reports go.

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    CoinDCX – Competitors

    Top Competitors of CoinDCX are as follows:

    CoinDCX – Future Plans

    • Aims to get 50 million Indians into the cryptocurrency bandwagon this year.
    • Aims for widespread adoption among new crypto enthusiasts, especially millennials and Generation Z.
    • Strives to spread awareness about cryptocurrencies.
    • Looks forward to improve the company’s existing array of products.
    • Aims to strengthen customer retention campaigns.

    Speaking from a development perspective of the app, Neeraj Khandelwal, Co-founder, CoinDCX said, “Most of the app users are in the age group 22 to 45. This app has been introduced to serve a simple purpose; remove the fear of technology, make the market numbers more understandable and provide the ability to make informed decisions in the crypto universe. A smart investor will regularly invest at least 1 percent of his disposable income for Bitcoins in his investment portfolio. People having faith in the future of technology should do the same. The app just makes the induction easy. Buying Bitcoin on CoinDCX Go will be as easy as using any of the popular apps such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Amazon, or booking your cab through Uber.”

    The company invested $1.3 million in TryCrypto, its own project aimed at making blockchain and cryptocurrency more available to mainstream consumers, in yet another effort to accelerate mass acceptance of cryptocurrencies.

    FAQs

    How does CoinDCX work? What does it do?

    CoinDCX is a platform that allows users to legally exchange various cryptocurrencies. It is built for all types of traders, taking into account their trading background, risk tolerance, and trading frequency, allowing customers to trade their crypto assets according to their requirements.

    Who founded CoinDCX?

    CoinDCX was founded by Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal in March 2018.

    Which companies do CoinDCX compete with?

    Top Competitors of CoinDCX are UPHOLD, Binance, Coinbase, Poloniex, LocalBitcoins, HitBTC, Kucoin, C-Cex, Bitso, and WazirX.

    How does CoinDCX make money?

    Deposit fees (charged on exchanging currencies), withdrawal fees, trading commissions (0.01 percent of the overall transaction is normal on any exchange), and listing fees are how CoinDCX makes money, just like any other cryptocurrency exchange.

    How is the CoinDCX funding?

    CoinDCX funding is impressive. In fact, CoinDCX is also hailed as the only crypto startup in India to have raised three funding rounds in less than a year.

    What is the CoinDCX transaction fees?

    If you are wondering about the CoinDCX transaction fees, then you need to know that CoinDCX charges 0.10% commission from both the takers and makers.