Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Windo.
Are you finding work that is something cool and interesting? On today’s date, your personal interests matter a lot! So, how about starting your career with an online business? Do you need an appropriate website to do so? Who knows what, success might knock on your door a few days later. Anyway, who doesn’t love to be successful? We all definitely do!
Windo is a tech website and app that allows all the interested solopreneurs and small to middle-sized businesses to set up an online shop absolutely free of cost that too in just a matter of moments. Read the Windo success story below!
Windo is an online platform which has got the ability to convert your Instagram page to an online shopping platform within few minutes of time. The company creates a free online store for you without any sort of coding and automates your regular deals.
Windo – Industry
Windo belongs to the Mobile App Industry. This industry is quite a fast-growing industry. Smartphones and mobile phones are increasing in numbers every day and so are the mobile app businesses. Each and every business is developing in its own way only because of its innovative ideas!
Windo – Founders and Team
Windo Co-Founders – Silus Reddy Chintapalli and Rakesh Vaddadi
The founders of the company are Rakesh Vaddadi and Silus Reddy Chintapalli.
Rakesh Vaddadi
Rakesh Vaddadi is the co-founder of the company Windo. He began his career as an intern at The Singareni Collieries Company Ltd. Rakesh was also a part-time research assistant at the Indian Council for Social Science Research.
Silus Reddy Chintapalli
Silus Reddy Chintapalli is also the co-founder of Windo. He began his career as an engineer at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. Silus was also the Vice President of sales and marketing at TopTalent.in. He was the director of sales and marketing at 1Click.
The business model of Windo is quite simple! The website helps small businesses to create their own online space hassle freely. Windo requires no credit cards also the company has got a free forever plan to offer to all of its users. The company aims towards minimizing the workload of the small businesses who are suffering real tough to make both name and fame!
Windo – Revenue Model
Windo has got 2 sorts of plans. They are:
Sprout plan (free)
Blossom plan
Sprout Plan
Online payments
Endless products
Customer support
Endless orders
Blossom Plan
Custom domain
Priority customer support
All in the free plan and more
0% transaction cost
Windo – Funding and Investors
Windo has raised a funding of $500 K in June 2021.
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
June 2021
Seed
$500 K
Aravind Sanka, Srinivas Anumolu, Meena Ganesh, Vivek Bhargava, and Unicorn India Ventures
Windo is loved by 10,000 businesses. This is what their official website claims it to be. The love and the support of all of its users are helping immensely to this new startup to survive and grow with all.
Windo – Online and Social Media Presence
Windo is now quite popular on the web because it has got its own official website to showcase all of its products and services, along with its schemes. Not only this but also Windo has got its name on various popular websites like yourstory.com, business-standard.com, etc. The company has got a social media account at LinkedIn.
Windo is considered to be a very simple and a beautiful e-commerce app, especially for store creators. Any sort of small and pretty businesses might choose to register themselves at this platform and make the most of it. Windo is not just an app. It is an opportunity for all entrepreneurs.
FAQs
What is Windo App used for?
Windo is an app for Instagram-focused businesses. It offers solutions to manage small sized business.
Who is the founder of Windo?
Windo was founded by Silus Reddy Chintapalli and Rakesh Vaddadi.
When was Windo founded?
Windo was founded in 2020.
Who has funded in Windo?
Windo has received funding in a seed round led by Unicorn India Ventures. Top investors in Windo are:
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Ezyhaul.
The Logistics service has been here since the beginning of civilization, and as we are getting evolved, and things are getting better. Technology has turned the world into a Sci-fi movie. With the digital revolution that our country is experiencing, the logistic sector has also changed completely. To aid this process with digital excellence, Mudasar Mohamed, Raymond Gillon, and Nicky Lum founded Ezyhaul in 2016.
Ezyhaul is a one of the most popular and leading digital road freight platform in Southeast Asia, is the online platform using which clients can make bookings for B2B domestic short and haul, and cross-border shipments.
Ezyhaul is a digital tech company whose main focus is to transform the road freight industry, it is basically a digital road freight platform serving the people in South Asia.
Ezyhaul is essentially a modern-day digital broker that let your clients book domestic and cross-border transportation services online. The company has taken on itself to solve the problems of logistics and that is scale, professionalism, and analytics.
Ezyhaul is a platform that focuses on connecting shippers with carriers who have enough space on their trucks. The platform enables you to use a real-time tracker to track shipments. It has launched control towers so that the truck movement can be monitored and the arrival of your shipments can be predicted.
The main goal of this innovative platform named Ezyhaul is to transform transportation logistics by creating an ecosystem that surrounded shippers, truckers, government agencies, and third-party service providers. The aim of the company is to use technology in the transport business that is otherwise has been paper-based.
Ezyhaul – Industry Details
Ezyhaul works across sectors and some of their clients on demand-side include Reliance, Exide, Pidilite, Shell, Amazon, etc. On the Supply-side, the company works typically with small and medium side transportation companies. Since they operate in India and South East Asia, the app equally concentrates on both the market.
Ezyhaul Website
Southeast Asian transport market size is $36 billion and the Indian transport market size is $160 billion. In the next five years, the team is expecting an increase in digitization in the transport space with faster adoption of new-age technologies and they believe that Ezyhaul will be a resource for this change.
Ezyhaul – Founders and Team
Mudasar Mohamed, Raymond Gillon, and Nicky Lum are the founders of Ezyhaul.
Ezyhaul founders
Ezyhaul cofounders were colleagues at UTI worldwide. Raymond Gillon is dutch, Nicky Lum is Malaysian and Mudasar Mohamed is an Indian. The three co-founders spoke, discussed, planned about launching a startup on digital broker model and transport space. Just a month later, Ezyhaul was incorporated.
Raymond Gillon, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer – He was a Managing Director (Vietnam and Cambodia) in UTI Worldwide Inc. He is an Engineer and MBA from INSEAD.
Mudasar Mohamed, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer – He was Managing Director (Singapore and Malaysia) in UTI Worldwide Inc. He is an Engineer and MBA from the University of Southern California – Marshall School of Business.
Nicky Lum, Co-Founder and Director – He had Sales Roles in companies like UTI Worldwide Inc and Kuehne Nagel.
Given that the company operates in multiple countries, the founders have split their time in different markets. For example, Mudasar takes care of India while Raymond, Nicky along with a couple of more professionals take care of South East Asia. Other executive team members of Ezyhaul are: Mark Debattista – Vice President of Sales, and Eric Soo – Head of Technology.
Ezyhaul has over 242 employees and the co-founders firmly believe in creating a joyful, respectful, and humane environment for all members of the company.
Ezyhaul – How was Ezyhaul Started?
The three co-founders earlier used to work at a Multinational Corporation logistics corporate in Singapore. They all had leadership goals and roles in the Logistics Company. Observing the supply-and-demand problem for large businesses, together they decided to start up a company to solve the problem.
When two of the co-founders were working in the United States, they realized that in the transport industry, the concept of brokers is very common. At the same time, digital platforms like Uber were revolutionizing in the action of demand-and-supply in the transport space. Understanding it all, the co-founders saw an opportunity to re-engineer the historical broker model and use modern technologies to connect the supply chain.
To revalidate the model, the founders spoke to several leaders from the logistics industry to receive feedback. The response which they received from the leaders of supply and chain was very encouraging, almost all of them told the co-founders to go for it. Five of them became their early investors and Ezyhaul raised $800,000 from angel investors which helped them in expanding the business operations in Malaysia for a year and a half.
Ezyhaul – Name, Tagline and Logo
The idea behind Ezyhaul’s name is that if you break it into two words: Ezy means making things Easy and Haul is the short form of Haulage which means the commercial transport of goods. So ideally it perfectly justified the company’s mission to create a very easy platform for trucking industries; hence the name Ezyhaul.
Ezyhaul Logo
The company’s tagline is “Transportation made Ezy“. It describes the motto of the company.
Ezyhaul – Startup Launch
Ezyhaul began as a bootstrapped company.
“It’s very tough for somebody to give you money for an idea. So you need to have that conviction to use your own money to at least get the idea off the ground. If you’re a first time entrepreneur, you need to show them (Investors) something convincing. So I think bootstrapping with your own money is quite important. It also signals to the investor that you’re serious about your business since you’ve put in your own money and that you are prepared to put in the grind.” –Mudasar Mohamed, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer
All three founders did not draw any salary in the first year of starting up. To launch in a smaller market to assess its product, Ezyhaul began operations in Malaysia first. They soon began getting offers and had a list of 10 good clients within months.
Backed by the success, Ezyhaul raised a seed fund of $800,000 from Angel investors. From then on, there was no stopping them. After strategic investors pumped in another $25 million, they began expansion into Thailand, followed by India.
Ezyhaul – Business Model and Revenue Model
The clients make online bookings for domestic and cross-border transportation services. The platform includes integrated dynamic route optimization technology that builds the most efficient delivery routes, optimizes vehicle utilization, and minimizes total transportation costs. The profit margin differs from plain regions to high dimensions and it generally lands between 5-20%.
Given that Ezyhaul is into the B2B industry, most of the sales happen through direct sales channels while a small percentage happens through digital marketing that uses B2B marketing strategies. They have a team of experts who handles clients, tie-ups, and marketing.
The startup believes and has been focusing on digitization, so the team has used a combination of both digital marketing and direct sales method to reach out to customers. The factors which worked for them are referrals by existing customers which in turn was an outcome of delighting them with exceptional customer service.
Ezyhaul – Startup Challenges
The biggest challenge in the logistics industry is enabling the drivers to use the application and increasing the adoption of smartphones amongst the driver community. Smartphone adoption is a challenge in South East Asia and India. Ezyhaul mitigated that challenge and partnered with multiple telecoms that help in getting drivers discounts on handsets and data.
Ezyhaul – Competitors
Ezyhaul’s proprietary technology has been a core differentiator especially route optimization. They have been able to reduce the client’s transport spend nearly by 15% through the Ezyhaul platform. The algorithms that Ezyhaul has created takes care of the company’s pricing aspect as well as route and lane.
The top 10 competitors in Ezyhaul’s competitive set are GoGoVan, Lalamove, Ninja Van, Deliveree, Dada, Logivan, Xdel Singapore, Cargobase, GoJavas and Whitebox.
Ezyhaul – Funding and Investors
Ezyhaul has raised a total of $21.84 million in funding to date.
For any startup it is a massive vote of confidence when an existing investor does a follow up round and more so when the investment triple their outlay. The first round of funding was $800,000 from angel investors and this helped the company in expanding the business in Malaysia for a year and a half. The company has raised $5 million in Series A round in 2018 and raised $16 million in Series B from the same strategic investor in 2019
Ezyhaul’s Funding Details
Date
Stage
Amount
Investor
2016
Seed Round
$840K
Undisclosed
2018
Series A
$5 million
Undisclosed
2019
Series B
$16 million
Undisclosed
Ezyhaul – Growth
Ezyhaul has grown more than 900% and has struck partnerships from leading companies that allowed the propagation of the clients. They have been able to draw out references from a lot of their existing clients.
With more than 30,000 trucks serving the market of Southeast Asia, the team now has set its sights on India, which is a huge market, and where despite the many innovations, the transportation industry remains fragmented but Ezyhaul, which is operational in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand believes there’s room for more.
Ezyhaul – Awards and Recognition
Ezyhaul’s biggest achievement is being the first transport startup in the transport industry, which is multinational and is progressing and expanding year after year. Recently Ezyhaul backed the Accenture-Freight & Logistics ASEAN Innovator Award!
Ezyhaul – Future Plans
Ezyhaul is one of the few startups that serve in multiple countries. Most startups prefer to operate in a single set-up. However, Ezyhaul operates in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and India.
In the next two years, Ezyhaul will be penetrating in further industry markets. In the next five years, the team is expecting an increase in digitization in the transport space with faster adoption of new-age technologies and they believe that Ezyhaul will be a resource for this change.
FAQs
Who is Ezyhaul founder?
Mudasar Mohamed, Raymond Gillon, and Nicky Lum are the founders of Ezyhaul.
What is Ezyhaul?
Ezyhaul is a leading digital road freight platform in South Asia. Using its online platform, clients can make bookings with Ezyhaul for B2B domestic short-haul, long-haul, and cross-border shipments.
How much funding has Ezyhaul raised?
Ezyhaul has raised a total of $21.84 million in funding to date.
Who are the competitors of Ezyhaul?
Ezyhaul’s competitors – GoGoVan, Lalamove, Ninja Van, Deliveree, Dada, Logivan, Xdel Singapore, Cargobase, GoJavas and Whitebox.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Berrylush.
We all do love to stay in fashion, right? In the era of the 21st century, the styling trends of the fashion sector are currently dominating the globe more than ever! In this present era, companies are not only controlling the procedure of the people’s dressing sense but also the trends in makeup, fashion, and many more. During the 60s flares weren’t everything but also the particular styling stuff defined an entire generation which is prominent to date. Fashion is very bold and this boldness is reflecting the ongoing generation who are not at all frightened of speaking on their face. It is simply not just a means of clothing but also showcases your personality.
Berrylush is a company brought into existence, especially for the younger women generations who are concerned more and genuinely about looking good and having fun. Read the Berrylush success story below!
Berrylush is a very inspiring clothing company for women of younger ages looking forward to looking decent and confident. It is quite an affordable clothing company that mainly provides its consumers with the best online shopping experience on the Internet. Their concept is to make females glow with their exotic designed dresses.
Berrylush – Industry
The Indian textile marketplace is anticipated to be growing and its worth is gonna rise to $209 billion by 2029! Cotton production is also anticipated to reach 37.10 million bales. The marketplace is additionally anticipated to regain and then grow by 10% to reach $190 billion by 2025-26.
Berrylush – Founders and Team
Alok Paul and Anusha Chandrashekar – Berrylush Co-founders
Alok Paul and Anusha Chandrashekar are the founders of the company Berrylush.
Alok Paul
Alok Paul is presently the co-founder of two different companies namely Berrylush and Prime Seller Hub. Initially, he was an engineer and he worked at companies like Accenture.
Anusha Chandrashekar
Anusha Chandrashekar is the co-founder and the CEO of the company Berrylush! She also began her career as an engineer and she worked in companies like Tata Consultancy Services and Deloitte.
Berrylush – Startup Story
Alok Paul and Anusha Chandrashekar began the company Berrylush with just four machines and a very little squad. Anusha was an IIM Raipur graduate who always used to be relatively intense about thefashion sector and did dream of running a women’s western wear brand all on her own. And her batchmate, Alok, was enthusiastic about creating eCommerce businesses!
Both got married to each other and also gave importance to each other’s attention. Soon after the couple inaugurated an online women’s western wear brand Berrylush in Noida, India.
Berrylush – Mission and Vision
The mission and the vision of the company Berrylush is to make females feel completely different whenever wearing Berrylush dresses.
Berrylush – Tagline and Logo
Berrylush Logo
The tagline of the company Berrylush is, ‘You are already beautiful. Our mission is to make you feel that way.’
Berrylush – Business Model
Berrylush business model is an asset-light model! The brand has got just two destinations situated in Noida which is an office and a manufacturing department which has got around 120 machines within. There are 14 regional fabricators who manufacture solely for the brand Berrylush.
The clothes are sold directly to the consumers with the help of Myntra which holds around (55 percent of the sales), the official website which holds around (20 percent of the sales), Ajio also holds around (10 percent of the sales), and additionally, others hold (15 percent of the sales).
Berrylush is an e-commerce brand and hence the term e-commerce makes the concept quite easier for all to understand how the company is earning money. The statistics mentioned above showcases a part and is a simple B2B (Business 2 Business) retail company.
Berrylush – Online and Social Media Presence
Berrylush is a very famous name and most of the girls reading this article know quite well about the brand. It is relatively a renowned brand if you are looking forward to online shopping, especially from the platforms ofNykaa Fashion, Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Ajio and so on.
Other than the shopping spaces, Berrylush is actively present on the social media pages of Instagram, Facebook, and also has got its name on various web portals.
FAQs
When was Berrylush founded?
Berrylush was founded in 2018.
Who is the founder of Berrylush?
Berrylush was founded by Alok Paul and Anusha Chandrashekar.
What are the platforms to buy Berrylush dresses?
Berrylush dresses are sold on different platforms:
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Tumbledry.
Laundry is a daily need for people, regardless of their income levels. In the Western world, people have high-quality laundry service that makes their routine easier. Whereas, in India, people had no reliable options to outsource laundry.
Urban Indians only had maids and dhobis who never offered good quality service. Hence, people were either compromising on comfort by doing laundry themselves or they were compromising on quality.
To remove such laundry woes of urban India, TUMBLEDRY was started in 2019. The brand has already established itself as India’s largest laundry & dry clean chain. It is best known for making the Indian laundry industry organized and adding convenience to the lives of its customers.
To know more about how Tumbledry started and grow, keep reading.
Tumbledry was founded in 2019 with an aim of removing the laundry woes of urban Indians. Today, it is India’s largest laundry & dry clean chain with 250+ stores spread across more than 83 cities.
Their services include: laundry, dry cleaning & shoe cleaning.
With an approach of providing World-class laundry & dry clean services easily accessible to every Indian household, Tumbledry has revolutionized the laundry industry.
They use CRM software to ensure smooth operations and offer mobile apps for their users and delivery boys. This tech-oriented set-up makes their operations smooth. And their customers enjoy convenience with free home pick-up & delivery, easy order placement and tracking via app.
The brand uses high-end Swedish machinery and German eco-friendly chemicals to ensure high-quality laundry & dry clean service.
Tumbledry has also introduced live laundry stores in India which has made common people trust the laundry and dry clean processes.
By working rigorously on trust building, high-quality and customer convenience the brand has clearly acquired a huge customer base.
Now, Tumbledry has the vision to build a hyper-local presence in urban India by having a store within every 3 km radius and reaching every household. The purpose is to be as easily accessible as local dhobis or laundromats. And for this, they are aiming to have 1000 live stores by 2025.
Tumbledry – Industry
Laundry Industry Valuation
The laundry industry was valued at $35.83 billion in FY 2020. Tumbledry’s founders studied the potential of the laundry industry and found that this industry is bigger than the mainstream industries like Diagnostic Labs ($28.6BN), Beauty & Wellness ($9BN), and Fast Food Restaurants ($4.6BN), etc. Furthermore, the laundry industry is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 4.96% through FY2026.
Tumbledry – Founders and Team
Tumbledry has been founded by Naveen Chawla, Gaurav Nigam, Gaurav Teotia, Tarun Arora, and Anuj Gupta.
Mr Naveen Chawla is the Co-founder & Director of Tumbledry. He has 25+ years of experience across Consumer durables, Telecom and FMCG industries. He has served in various senior leadership profiles like COO, Product Head and Business Head across reputed organizations like Airtel, Britannia, Reliance and LAVA.
Mr Gaurav Nigam is the Co-founder & Director of Tumbledry. He is a business leader with 17+ years of experience across the Consumer Durables and Telecom industry. He has served as Product head and Customer Service Head in reputed organizations like LAVA & Airtel.
Mr Gaurav Teotia is the Co-founder & Business Head of Tumbledry. Rank holder at IIM Ahmedabad & Gold Medalist at IIT Dhanbad, Gaurav Teotia has 7+ years of experience across Strategy, Business Planning & Sales in reputed organizations like Airtel, LAVA & DRDO.
Mr Anuj Gupta is the Co-founder & Head of Brand & Digital. With 7+ years of experience across Telecom and IT, playing a significant role in Customer Service delivery and Franchisee Planning.
Tumbledry – The Idea and Startup Story
During their professional excursions to USA, Europe & South East Asia, Tumbledry’s co-founders realized that laundry services are evolving into a major industry and most of the populace were outsourcing these services. However, in India almost 96% of the laundry industry was unorganized, people were either doing laundry themselves or were dependent on others like maids, and dhobis.
Doing laundry at home is very time-consuming & additionally one has to go through the daily rigmarole of washing & ironing clothes with limited drying places. Whereas outsourcing it to unorganized channels is a considerable compromise on the wash quality & hygiene due to the low-quality water & detergents used & mixing of the clothes with others while washing, not to mention the heavy toll it takes on the costly fabric.
After realizing these issues, they both came to a thought of solving the laundry woes of Indians by introducing – Tumbledry, a chain of live laundry & dry cleaning stores.
Laundry Business Opportunity Size
However, before actually coming up with a business model they analysed laundry as a business opportunity on six parameters:
They saw laundry has very low competition, high growth prospects. This industry had immense scope of uniqueness and financial prospects were good too. Along with this, they found that the laundry business can grow better and faster than traditional businesses due to huge unaddressed demand. At last, they found that operating a laundry business is easy too.
These findings made them sure about the future success of their business and they launched Tumbledry.
Tumbledry – Services
The brand provides World-class Laundry, Dry Clean, and Shoe Cleaning services.
Tumbledry uses high-end Swedish machines and German eco-friendly, bio-degradable chemicals for washing clothes and Italian equipment to steam iron them for a wrinkle-free crisp finish. Hygiene being the key focus, they wash each customer’s clothes separately and follow all Covid 19 guidelines prescribed by WHO and CDC.
Their laundry service is categorized into:
Wash & fold
Wash & Steam Iron
Premium laundry
They have adopted the latest Lagoon technology to provide high-quality dry cleaning service for bridal wear, haute couture, woollens, lehenga, suits, leather articles, soft toys, suitcases, blankets, curtains, carpets, etc.
Having expertise in cleaning & repairing suede, canvas, sports, leather, nubuck shoes, heels and all other types of footwear, they offer the best shoe cleaning & restoration services. They are pro at handling footwear from high-street brands including Louis Vuitton, Prada, Jimmy Choo, and Christian Louboutin.
Their USPs include:
100% garment care label adherence
Zero shrinkage
Colour restoration for old/faded garments
Colour bleeding proof process
99% stain removal
Whitex technology for three shades brighter whites
Innovation at Tumbledry
Opaque functionality to 100% Transparency – People didn’t know what happens to their clothes once they send them for laundry. They didn’t know what sort of chemicals, water and methods were used for cleaning and washing. Tumbledry launched live stores where the clothes and other items are washed in front of customers. This established trust among customers.
Labour-oriented to mechanism driven – Generally, even professional dry cleaners in India do not use advanced machines and the industry was majorly labour-oriented. It had massive growth prospects if only the approach could be changed. So, Tumbledry team made laundry a mechanism-driven industry. Instead of using age-old traditional methods and machinery, they imported the latest Swedish machines and Pro-Fabric chemicals from Germany. Having machinery from trusted brands like LG and Electrolux enhanced the quality of laundry and improved their credibility as a business as well. They saw great improvements in quality and productivity.
Pen-paper industry now runs on the web – Laundry was more like a “pen-paper industry”. From taking orders to billing, everything was done on paper. Tumbledry shifted to a sound digital infrastructure and made laundry a modern-day service. At Tumbledry, they offer web-based CRM for order management and mobile apps. The brand uses two different apps for consumers and runners to keep operations uncomplicated.
Tumbledry – Business Model and Revenue Model
They have a franchise business model where an area of 10000 relevant households is allocated to a franchise. Franchise set up costs 25 Lakhs which includes everything from franchise fees to purchase & installation of machines, store interiors, branding material etc. They provide all round support to their franchise partners in setting up and running the stores and collect 7.5% of revenue as royalty from its franchises.
The main revenue of the franchise is driven by Laundry, Dry Cleaning and Shoe cleaning services. Tumbledry focuses on high-quality, trust building and offering convenience. This works perfectly in their favour and they do great business in all cities (Tier 1, Tier2 & Tier 3). Their partners achieve operational break-even within just 3 months of launching their store. After that Tumbledry stores enjoy a monthly profit of 1.25 to 1.75 lakh depending on the city there are running in. Their partners enjoy up to 84% annual ROI and are able to recover their investment within just 24-30 months of launching their store.
After witnessing the high success rate of Tumbledry stores, 15% of their partners have opened their 2nd or more stores. Today, 35% of their total stores are owned by these partners alone.
Tumbledry Franchise
Tumbledry – Customer Acquisition
Tumbledry started with its first store in Noida. During that initial phase, they focused on offline marketing strategies because live laundry & dry clean stores were a new concept for people. Be it, people, from low-income levels, the middle class, or the richer sections of society, laundry was mostly done at home with the help of machines or maids. Dhobis were there, and the services were low cost too but they were unreliable. Tumbledry brought a paradigm shift to this scenario by making people realize that it is better to outsource laundry to a reliable organized brand like Tumbledry. They felt that they need to introduce this new concept at the ground level. And for this purpose, they focused on man-to-man marketing.
From putting canopies, banners and flyers to making door-to-door and society visits, they did everything. Tumbledry even made tie-ups with local grocery stores, parlours, salons and other places having high local walk-ins. They presented their service at kitty party venues and other such places. Because they wanted to convince people of the quality and convenience offered at Tumbledry stores, they gave first orders free or free trial orders. After the first free order, they provided two orders at a subsidized price so that the customers can get used to their services. Thereafter, the brand sold package memberships so that people can become their regular customers.
There are two factors that have always worked in their favour for both acquiring and retaining customers – Quality & Convenience. It worked for them as a double blessing. By offering world-class services and ensuring absolute convenience, Tumbledry won hearts and people referred their services to friends and family on a massive scale. While this made them gain new customers, high quality of services also made their old customers stick to them. And once the brand became a trusted name, they shifted to the next round of marketing which was Digital Marketing.
They have always focused on a “Customer-first” policy. It has helped them back in past and it is still making them grow. After seeing their clothes being treated well at live stores, customers got satisfied with us. Then, a majority of them bought their packages and became their regular customers.
Tumbledry – Challenges Faced
The prime challenge was matching the price of Tumbledry service to the cost of doing laundry at home. They knew they cannot make it big by ensuring convenience and quality alone because customers are cost-sensitive. So, they matched their prices to the cost of doing laundry at home.
Customers worry about the financial and emotional value of their clothes. A load of just 30 clothes might have a minimum cost of 10,000-15,000 to the customers. When people send their clothes to Tumbledry stores they trust the company with their belongings. And building this element of trust was another major challenge for the brand.
Tumbledry – Marketing Campaign
When their dry clean and laundry business took off, they introduced “shoe cleaning and restoration”. To spread awareness about this new service they ran “Refer a friend” campaign. Under this campaign, their customers were supposed to refer Tumbledry to their friends, on every new referral order, both the customers would get a free shoe cleaning service. This worked great in their favour as this campaign brought them new customers for two services: dry cleaning and shoe cleaning.
Tumbledry – Growth
Tumbledry Growth
Tumbledry has become India’s largest laundry chain and serves 2 lacs+ regular customers at their 250+ stores in 25 states and 83+ cities. They are growing exponentially in the metros as well as in Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities. At present, 51% of stores are successfully running in Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities.
Growing Number of Tumbledry Stores
They started in 2019. In FY 2020 Tumbledry’s revenue grew by 57%. Then in 2021, it grew by 138%. And owing to the current growth, they are projecting a 175% hike in its revenue in comparison to 2021.
Tumbledry – Competitors
Some of the top competitors of Tumbledry are:
Guardini
Pressto
Dhobilite
My Cleaners
Ashoka
Westend
Liberty
Beekay
Tumbledry – Recognitions and Achievements
The Biggest achievement of Tumbledry is that they have become India’s largest laundry & dry clean with 250+ stores spread across 83+ cities. They have registered themselves with StartupIndia. Some other achievements of Tumbledry are listed below:
The Founder & Director of Tumbledry, Mr Gaurav Nigam was recently awarded the Centurion Achiever Award by DLAI (Drycleaners & Launderers Association of India).
It has been featured among the Top 10 most promising start-ups by Silicon India.
Tumbledry has been featured among the top 10 retail start-ups of 2021 by CEO Insights.
Tumbledry – Future Plans
They have planned to be a household name for laundry & dry cleaning in India by expanding their business.
By 2025: Aiming to open 1000 live stores across India.
FAQs
When was Tumbledry founded?
Tumbledry was founded in 2019 in Noida.
Who is the founder of Tumbledry?
Tumbledry was founded by Naveen Chawla, Gaurav Nigam, Gaurav Teotia, Tarun Arora, and Anuj Gupta.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by VerSe Innovation.
The evolution of technology has given rise to many modern innovations. With the introduction of TVs in 1959 and mobile phones in 1995 in India, there has been an enormous growth happening in the field of communication and entertainment. Particularly, the growth of mobile phones is unbelievable in the country. According to a report by Deloitte, India is expected to have 1 billion smartphone users by 2026.
With this medium growing, the elements (content and programs) for entertainment and communication have also started to evolve. Earlier, we listened to the news readers reading some selected news in a particular time slot. Today we get to choose what, when and where to read. The news reaches us more quickly in a short and crispy manner. Knowing the pacing world and people’s lack of time, even the entertainment industry has started making changes accordingly.
VerSe is one of those companies that has adapted itself to the haste of the world. It is the parent company of the popular news application ‘Dailyhunt’ and the short video platform ‘Josh’. This tech platform offers content and videos in many local languages to keep its users updated and entertained. The article below speaks about the growth, funding and success story of VerSe Innovation Pvt Ltd.
VerSe Innovation is a technology platform that offers its users to consume information and socialize with their community and media. Started as a Value Added Service (VAS) platform in 2007, VerSe Innovation started to flourish after the acquisition of Newshunt (Dailyhunt) in 2011. Later, in 2020, the company launched a new short video app called Josh which became an instant and tremendous hit.
Virendra Gupta, Shailendra Sharma and Umang Bedi are the co-founders of VerSe Innovation. The company’s headquarters is situated in Bengaluru, Karnataka. This platform has over 350 million users as of today. Its services (both Dailyhunt and Josh) are available in 14 Indian Languages.
VerSe Innovation – Founders and Team
Virendra Gupta and Umang Bedi – VerSe Innovation Founders
VerSe Innovation Pvt Ltd. was founded in 2007 and has three co-founders. It was founded by Virendra Gupta, Umang Bedi, and Shailendra Sharma.
Virendra Gupta
Virendra Gupta is the founder of VerSe Innovation and Dailyhunt. He also serves as the CEO of Dailyhunt. Before founding VerSe, Virendra Gupta worked in various companies namely, BPL Mobile, On mobile, Bharti Cellular Ltd. and Trilogy. He graduated with a master’s in Management from IIT Bombay – Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management.
Umang Bedi
Umang Bedi is the co-founder at VerSe Innovation Pvt Ltd. He graduated in engineering from Pune University and did a Management Program at Harvard Business School. Umang Bedi worked in various big tech companies before joining VerSe Innovation. He earlier worked in Satyam Computer Services, Wipro Corporation, Sun Microsystems Inc. and Symantec Corporation. He also served as the Managing Director of Intuit Inc, Adobe (South Asia) and Facebook (India & South Asia). Bedi currently serves as the Statutory Board Member of Goals 101 in addition to VerSe Innovation.
Shailendra Sharma
Shailendra Sharma is another co-founder at VerSe Innovation Pvt Ltd. He also served as the Senior Vice President of Engineering at Dailyhunt. Earlier, he also worked in Tata Research and Development Center, Persistent Systems Pvt Ltd and Trilogy.
Sandip Basu
Sandip Basu is the Chief Financial Officer at VerSe Innovation who was recently appointed in January 2022. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant and Cost Accountant from the respective institutes. He worked in Bharti Airtel as its CFO for 5 years until 1997. Sandip Basu served as the CEO of several companies between 1997 and 2015 namely, BPL Mobile communications Ltd, Xcel Telecom Pvt Ltd and Loop Mobile India Pvt Ltd.
Bapu Kota
Bapu Kota is currently the Senior Vice President of Engineering at VerSe Innovation. He earlier served as the Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Dailyhunt. Bapu Kota graduated M.Tech (Production Engineering) from IIT Bombay in 1996. He was once the Senior Director at Yahoo and AOL.
VerSe Innovation currently has a team of around 501-1000 employees.
VerSe Innovation – Startup Story
VerSe Innovation Logo
When VerSe Innovation was founded in 2007, it commenced its business operation as a B2B company. It was assisting telecom companies in the process of sending SMS alerts, notifying subscribers for newsletters, matrimonial sites, etc., This business went on for around three years. Later, in 2011, the founders decided to acquire Eterno Infotech, which used to run Dailyhunt (earlier Newshunt) from Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni. Newshunt was later rebranded after 4 years and made Dailyhunt. This marked the company’s foray into the B2C market, the real business and growth of VerSe Innovation began only then.
VerSe Innovation – Mission and Vision
“To learn and define the real principles of inclusive and empowering technologies that seek to bridge the divide across class, culture, language and geography” – VerSe Innovation
It is the guiding principle with which VerSe Innovation functions. The company wants to empower the nation digitally and eliminate the language barriers. It wanted its platform to be accessible by everyone.
VerSe Innovation’s vision is “To create the world’s largest, most inclusive platform for content creators and audiences.” The company utilizes every inch of technological advancements to enhance and broaden its platform. VerSe’s investments and expansion plans reveal its steady growth towards its vision.
VerSe Innovation – Business and Revenue Model
VerSe Innovation offers content to users in their local language. It provides short and authenticated content through its platform to keep the viewer entertained and informed. The company generates revenue from the ads displayed on its apps and sites. VerSe also makes revenue often from tie-ups made with some businesses on its platform.
VerSe Innovation – Funding and Investors
VerSe Innovation has received 23 investments from various investors through multiple funding rounds. With the recent funding in April 2022, VerSe Innovation’s total valuation has reached $5 billion. Here is the list of all the funding received by the company:
Sequoia Capital India, Omidyar Network, Renu Sehgal Trust, InnoVen Capital
September 3, 2018
Series E
$6 million
Alpha Wave Global
October 15, 2016
Series D
$25 million
Sequoia Capital India, Omidyar Network, Matrix Partners, Falcon Capital, ByteDance, Arun Sarin
February 6, 2015
Series C
$40 million
Sequoia Capital India, Omidyar Network, Matrix Partners, Alpha Wave Global
September 22, 2014
Series B
$13 million
Sequoia Capital India, Omidyar Network, Matrix Partners
February 7, 2011
Unknown
Rs 286 million
–
July 31, 2010
Unknown
Rs 111 million
–
September 29, 2009
Unknown
Rs 30 million
–
January 1, 2009
Unknown
Rs 200 million
Matrix Partners India
July 1, 2007
Seed
Rs 22 million
OnMobile
Sofina, Bytedance, Matrix Partners, Sequoia, Goldman Sachs, Alpha Wava Global were among some of the lead investors of VerSe, until Bytedance exited the captable at a discount of 56%, as per the news dated June 4, 2022. The regulator fillings of the company revealed that Bytedance sold its stakes to Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).
VerSe Innovation – Mergers and Acquisitions
Apart from Newshunt and Eterno Infotech Pvt Ltd (both are addressed as Dailyhunt today), VerSe Innovation has acquired three companies for an undisclosed amount.
Acquisition Date
Name of the Company
Amount
October 13, 2021
GolBol
–
March 10, 2021
Vebbler
–
February 23, 2021
Cognirel
–
VerSe Innovation – Growth
Started as an assistive company for telcos, VerSe’s growth is believed to have kickstarted with the takeover of Newshunt in 2011. With consistent funding and backup from the investors, VerSe started to grow along with Newshunt. In 2015, the company renamed its news platform as Dailyhunt. Today, Verse’s Dailyhunt offers content in 14 languages and has a monthly viewer count of over 350 million.
In 2020, VerSe Innovation launched a short video app named ‘Josh’, a replacement for ‘TikTok’ right after its ban. This app became an immediate sensational hit among Indians. It took just 45 days for this entertainment platform to reach 23 million active users. Josh today has over 150 million monthly active users with 50 million creators as of April 2022. VerSe Innovation’s uncompromising goal toward technological development paved the way for its venture’s success. There was a 149% increase in its revenue during the previous financial year (March 2021) which is further expected to grow in the current and upcoming years.
VerSe Innovation’s Expansion to the MENA Region
VerSe Innovation plans to expand in the market of the Middle East. This will be started with Dailyhunt’s foray into Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait and is expected later to expand to other countries too, including Iraq, Iran, Israel, and Egypt. Furthermore, in the MENA region, Dailyhunt would also be launched in 3 other languages – Hebrew, Farsi, and Arabic in the MENA region. Desktop, web, and mobile app version, will be the 3 different versions that Dailyhunt will launch in, which will be available for both iOS and Android platforms.
As per the news dated June 21, 2022, VerSe’s strategic and business development in the MENA region will be led by Shekhar Iyer, whom the company has appointed as the director and general manager. Iyer has previously worked with Abu Dhabi Media (Radio Mirchi), Percept Gulf (MAME), Zee Entertainment, Indian Express, and Khaleej Times for which he has been given this opportunity.
Dailyhunt’s expansion plans to the MENA region will be fuelled by VerSe’s partnership with 5000+ content partners, which will include numerous news platforms including Al Khaleej, The Brew, MENA Newswire, Brandknew, KKompany, Chalk Media, Mudgal Kreations, Buzzing, and Gulf Today.
VerSe Innovation – Competitors
BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed is an American digital media company that offers entertainment and news to its users. The company’s headquarters is located in New York, USA. The platform’s ‘social sharing’ feature and a lot of interesting content and activities keep the users coming back to them.
Inshorts
Inshorts is another digital news platform that gives the latest news in a crispy manner. Every news on its platform does not exceed 60 words. Inshorts contain news from all categories like business, sports, fashion, current events, etc. It is considered to be one of the top competitors of VerSe Innovation’s Dailyhunt.
Moj
Moj is a short-video-sharing platform similar to Josh. It proves to be the best competitor of Josh in terms of content, quality, services offered, etc. Moj is available in 16 languages.
ShareChat
ShareChat is another social networking service founded in 2015 in Bengaluru. It has both news and entertainment-based content in its application. This platform provides a facility called chatroom, which often organizes some chat sessions with celebrities. ShareChat functions in 15 languages and has 250 million active monthly users.
VerSe Innovation – Future Plans
VerSe Innovation plans to induce technological advancements and Artificial Intelligence into its system. The company recently received huge funds from investors. The co-founders said that these funds would be used to set up labs across the globe to solve video encoding problems on its platform.
VerSe also has plans to expand into the international market, especially in South East Asia. After achieving the targeted growth in India, the company will set its foot outside the country within a year.
FAQs
What is VerSe Innovation as a company about?
VerSe Innovation is a technology platform that helps its users to consume information and socialize with their community and media.
Who are the founders of VerSe Innovation?
Virendra Gupta, Umang Bedi, and Shailendra Sharma are the co-founders of the company.
What is the total valuation of VerSe Innovation?
With the recent funding worth $805 mn that came in April 2022, the company’s total valuation has reached $5 billion.
What are the platforms that are functioning under VerSe Innovation?
Dailyhunt and Josh are the two popular platforms that come under VerSe Innovation.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verifiedinformation ondifferent startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on.
Back in time, when reading books and gaining knowledge was a combination of hobbies and interests, a library was the place where all could gather and read in the vibe.
Nowadays where reading is more of a necessity, there are ecosystems that you can access virtually to read books, share reviews and ask questions from right where you are to almost around the world. One such app is Vowelor!
Founded by Mr. Lalit Sharma and Mr. Manik Ghawri in the year 2017, Vowelor is a platform where you can meet like-minded readers and interested people and share your interest in book reading in an innovative way.
Available on the website and mobile applications, Vowelor brings innovation into this industry by gathering readers, writers, and publishers all under one roof and engaging them with one another as well as sharing their experiences on reading, writing and books. Thus solving problems that were faced by each of them.
“What Should I Read Next” is the most common problem that readers have since the day they finished reading their first book. Vowelor is all about problems and solutions like these.
With the Vowelor app, you can now find the book that you should read next in a whole new way! Vowelor app’s Find Next Read feature recommends your books according to your current mood.
On the Vowelor application, readers can also create a library of books that they are currently reading, have already read, and want to read in the future. Based on these libraries or lists, users get to interact with others and discuss books with them in real-time using live chat. Vowelor does this using its AI-based algorithm.
Solving the problem of ‘Why read alone?’, Vowelor provides readers and writers with a platform to connect and solve their problem of finding the next read. Vowelor has more than 90,000 readers and more than 10,000 writers on its platform currently. Most users are between the ages of 18 and 30 years, and 56 percent of them are women.
Vowelor – Industry
India is the world’s 6th largest book publishing nation and 2nd largest in the English language. And, the Indian publishing industry is set to be worth INR 730 billion. But, no platform focused on reducing the bottlenecks that authors and readers face. India’s publishing industry is in dire need of this evolution and Vowelor has the potential to do it.
Vowelor – Startup Story
This brilliant idea struck the founders after they wrote a book and soon realized that there was no platform for readers where the book could be showcased. That’s exactly when they got the idea of starting a Facebook group where readers and writers can interact with each other.
As the book community grew, the co-founders analyzed that users were facing several problems that were quite common like readers’ struggling to find the next book to read while authors facing hurdles in book promotion.
Vowelor – Founders and Team
Manik Ghawri and Lalit Sharma, Founders of Vowelor
Manik Ghawri and Lalit Sharma, founders of Vowelor were school friends and shared the same enthusiasm for innovation and creativity.
Manik is an engineer and a tech geek. He has previously worked as a Java developer at CSC.
Lalit’s forte, on the other hand, is digital and content marketing. He has been an Associate Editor with the student guidance portal Aglasem, and a content developer at the career resource platform JagranJosh. In the past, he has worked closely with authors and was also working as a digital and content marketing professional before starting Vowelor.
Their love for reading and forming a community around the hobby pushed Manik and Lalit to start Vowelor as a Facebook page, and a Facebook community in 2016. A year later, the two platforms combined had more than 80,000 members from across the world. Overwhelmed by the numbers, the two of them quit their jobs and founded Vowelor Books & Media in 2017.
The name “Vowelor” is derived from the word ‘VOWELS’ which are the building blocks of English literature. No book will ever be written without VOWELS. And similarly, they aimed to complete the bookish world; hence they named it – VOWELOR.”
Vowelor – Business Model and Revenue Model
The primary revenue comes from helping and promoting authors to reach the maximum number of readers. This is done by utilizing the community and organic reach from the website. And in the coming days, they are planning to automate the entire process via Vowelor App.
Moreover, in the near future, Vowelor intends to collaborate with publishers and book stores opening new revenue streams as well as bringing the much-needed change in the books industry in India which is estimated to be worth Rs 739 Billion by 2020.
Vowelor – Challenges Faced
There are no doubt startups face the most challenges in the initial days. With Vowelor, the biggest challenge is to keep the platforms (App as well as a website) working effortlessly at all times so that users do not face any challenges. And, the founders succeed in doing so because of the continuous efforts in development.
Also, with constant improvements in technology, it is difficult to keep users glued and fulfill what they require on the platform. That’s why Vowelor has put a major chunk of its budget on development and research.
Another challenge for the company was securing funds at an early stage but the guidance of the fellow co-founder Mr. Himanshu Gandhi helped them achieve their first funding.
Vowelor – Competitors
In the market so dynamic and versatile, other players also have come up with applications and concepts like this. Some of the major ones are Goodreads, We Read Too, Scribd. However, all of these apps have different and unique USPs but they still cater to the same book-loving audience.
Vowelor – Funding and Investors
Voweler has raised Rs 1 crore ($140,000) in the Pre-Series A round from Dr. Sanjeev Juneja in June of 2019. The company would use the funding to develop and market an automated tool in the form of a mobile application that will help authors with limited budgets promote their books and engage with readers in India and abroad.
Juneja is an entrepreneur in the fast-moving consumer goods sector and is known mainly for selling the Kesh King hair oil brand to Emami Ltd in 2015 at an enterprise valuation of 1651 crores. He is also behind brands such as Dr. Ortho, Roop Mantra and Pet Saffa.
Vowelor – Growth
Starting as just a website, today, Vowelor is a growing community of 90,000+ readers. These readers & authors interact regularly with Vowelor on various platforms including Facebook Group, Page, Twitter, Instagram and the Vowelor’s website itself.
Since the release of the app, the response has been overwhelming and the app has crossed 5000+ downloads on the play store. Also, users have created close to 150 book clubs and have added more than 12000+ books in their Vowelor libraries.
The users are engaging with the app and have created book clubs, as specific as ‘Potterhead’ and as broad as ‘Readathon: one book per week’. On the other hand, Vowelor Website traffic has increased by 135% in the last 2 months. And the company have launched the Vowelor Author Program on the website.
Vowelor – Future Plans
In the coming years, the founders plan to turn Vowelor into one of its kind platform for authors, readers, publishers, and bookstores and remove the bottlenecks that they currently face. The company is targeting over 1.50 lakh downloads and two lakh monthly website hits by 2019.
While other startups in this domain are into buying and selling books and subscriptions, Vowelor is entirely focusing on the community aspect where users can have meaningful conversations around books in real-time. The company’s short-term goals include launching the iOS version of the Vowelor books app and expanding its reader community. Soon, they will also partner with Bookstores and Publishers to take the Vowelor app to the next level.
FAQs
What is Vowelor
Vowelor is an app that connects book readers, writers, and publishers.
Who is the founder of Vowelor
Manik Ghawri and Lalit Sharma are the founders of Vowelor.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Expedia.
Are the countries present on this globe closer to you? Does the word ‘travelling’ boost your daily life activities? It always accounts for around 1 out of every 11 jobs connecting its workers globally, emotionally and most importantly physically of course not on a device, but in the real atmosphere where memories do matter the most. It expands minds, feeds souls and opens hearts! Simply, travelling is a force for good.
Expedia is an American travel organization for both consumers and small businesses. It is a travel portal offering travelers a great variety of hotels in their desired destinations and many more. Read the Expedia Success Story below!
Expedia – Company Highlights
Startup Name
Expedia
Headquarters
Bellevue, Washington, US
Industry
Online Ticket booking, Hotel Booking, Travel Agency
Expedia is such an online American company that is considered to be the 8th largest travel agency in the United States. It is the one that cares about each and everyone’s budget and activities of every kind, especially during this era of competitive rates.
Rich Barton is the founder and the CEO of the company. He initially began as a General Manager at Microsoft. Then he worked at various other companies as a Board Director most of the time. He completed his education at Stanford University.
Expedia – Startup Story
Expedia initially began providing online travel services on the Microsoft Network toward the end of 1996. Microsoft in 2001 agreed to sell its interest in Expedia and it was a deal that was finalized the next year. Expedia expanded in many ways.
It grew from selling flight tickets to providing a vast range of travel products such as hotels and packaged travel plans! It also entered the corporate travel market and expanded internationally, opening sites in Canada, and other European countries.
Expedia – Mission and Vision
The mission and the vision of the company Expedia is to power global travel for everyone and everywhere!
Expedia – Tagline, Slogan and Logo
Expedia Logo
The new tagline of the company is, ‘It matters who you travel with!‘
Expedia – Business Model
Expedia has got a merchant model when it comes to the offering of hotel rooms! Expedia buys hotel accommodations at a discounted price and then turns around and sells it at a sizable markup to the end-user. Such sort of rooms are always booked in advance by the clients and then paid for hotel rooms during the time of the main purchase done by the clients.
Expedia – Revenue Model
Expedia makes money in different ways! The greatest of all those ways is through hotel reservations, which the company is mainly known for enabling clients to do. Around 70%-75% of Expedia’s revenue is generated from hoteliers, the lodging sector. Expedia has got a very simple supply and demand strategy. Flight ticket sales comprise just 3% of the entire revenue generated by the company. Car rental, insurance and other services also do play a role in generating the revenue which is just 15% of the total induced.
It initially buys up a large number of rooms at a discounted price and then advertises the bookings through its site as the cheapest one will find currently in the marketplace.
Expedia – Funding and Investors
Expedia did raise $3.3 billion in funding over the three funding rounds.
The global revenue of Expedia rose by approximately around 65% the last year that is over the previous year. There was a decrease sharply seen to $5.2 billion in 2020 because of the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Anyway, the company’s revenue went up to $8.6 billion in 2021 as the travel need improved.
Expedia – Online and Social Media Presence
Expedia has got its social media profiles present on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and also has got its professional profile present on Linked In. Not only this but also Airbnb has got its name on various famous web portals.
The competitors of the company are CWT, American Express Global Business Travel and Booking Holdings.
CWT
CWT is one of the top competitors of Expedia! It is headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota and was founded in 1994. CWT works in the Travel Industry Sector.
American Express Global Business Travel
American Express Global Business Travel is also one of the top competitors of Expedia. It is headquartered in Jersey City, NJ, USA and was founded in 2013. This company works in the Travel Agency Sector.
Booking Holdings
Booking Holdings is perceived as one of the top competitors of Expedia. It is headquartered at Norwalk, Connecticut and was founded in 1997. It operates in the Packaged Vacations and Your Operations Field.
FAQs
When was Expedia founded?
Expedia was founded in 1996 in Bellevue, Washington, US.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by OLX.
The internet is a virtual platform where every industry has got a business concept of its own! Earlier concepts were not as easy as it is today. Anyway, now the normal trade and commerce evolved and came to be known as e-commerce. Webshops are the usual locations to buy and sell commodities online.
OLX is a classified marketplace. Over here connecting with people such as both buyers and sellers are very easy. Finding clients is completely free on this platform and one can use OLX from a phone and laptop respectively. When individuals are buying anything from OLX they exactly do not buy from OLX but do buy from a seller of OLX. Read the OLX Success Story below!
OLX is a marketplace where both buying and selling of products such as furniture, electronic gadgets, cars, accessories, bikes and household items goes on! It is a space that is currently serving more than 300 million people each passing month.
OLX – Founders and Team
Alec Oxenford and Fabrice Grinda are the Co-founders of OLX.
Alec Oxenford
Alec Oxenford – Co-Founder of OLX
Alec Oxenford is an entrepreneur! He was the co-founder and the CEO of the company OLX and there he served for a time of around nine long years. Presently he is the co-founder of Alpha Capital Acquisition Company. He completed his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Fabrice Grinda
Fabrice Grinda – Co-Founder of OLX
Fabrice Grinda was the co-founder and the CEO of the company OLX! Presently he is the founding partner of FJ Labs where he has been serving for the past nine years. He fulfilled his education at Princeton University.
OLX – Startup Story
OLX was founded in 2006 by Fabrice Grinda and Alec Oxenford. The founders thought about bringing an online platform into existence with the help of which consumers will be able to sell unwanted commodities at no cost to themselves!
Fabrice took into notice in person that the larger online marketplaces such as eBay and many more had substantial operations all across the advanced marketplaces but did show a bit of attention in establishing a presence in the rising markets mainly across Latin America, Eastern Europe, and South-East Asia.
Fabric and Alec thereafter developed the OLX platform to cater specifically to the consumers in all the rising marketplaces.
The business model of OLX is based to provide a space for the consumers to buy and sell products. According to the reports, there are more than 300 million active users of the renowned space.
Around 65% of the users of OLX are mostly younger male members. The rest are the middle-aged ones who generate traffic to the site. OLX serves more than 45 countries in the world and its largest markets are present in India and Poland.
OLX – Revenue Model
OLX Revenue
OLX generates its revenue with the help of the growth and system of an online and mobile classified ads space!
OLX major revenue streams are:
Google Adsense, with the Company regulating the traditional display and banner advertisements based on the searches made by each user.
Sponsored and premium listings, where users can stimulate their product listings by paying a little amount fee, or maybe later all the businesses can pay to have their listings occur at the top of the results for particular searches.
OLX does not publish its financial results on its website!
OLX – Growth
OLXhas seen incredible growth in the country of India. The website is really simple to drive through and also it focuses especially on mobile and proper advertising. Their different transmission strategy surely ensures total brand appeal across the board.
Olx can be used by anyone and everyone regardless of their social, cultural and geographical significance!
OLX – Online and Social Media Presence
OLX has got its social profiles on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and its professional profile on LinkedIn. Apart from traditional marketing, OLX has switched to market its services in the digital space as well. The company is quite a renowned brand and also it has got its name on various web portals.
The top competitors of the company OLX are Quikr, Clickindia, and Sulekha.
Quikr
Quikr is one of the top competitors of OLX. The company was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Quikr competes in the Online Marketplace Sector.
Clickindia
Clickindia is also one of the top competitors of Quikr. The company was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. Clickindia competes in the Real Estate Agencies Sector.
Sulekha
Sulekha is perceived as one of the top competitors of OLX. The company was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Sulekha competes in the Business Information Research Sector.
OLX – Future Plans
The plan is to grow the user base, enhance the prevailing categories, grow the new business lines and strengthen the core theme of customer-centricity across the entire OLX goods portfolio! The current brand modification aims to appeal to the global millennials.
FAQs
Who is the founder of OLX?
Alec Oxenford and Fabrice Grinda are the co-founders of OLX.
When was OLX founded?
OLX was founded in 2006 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
What is the revenue of OLX?
OLX India’s operating revenue in FY21 was recorded to be INR 228.63 crore.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Plai.
Performance reviews (aka performance appraisal, or employee evaluation) is a process to evaluate the employee’s job performance during a particular period of time and has been proven to be much of worth. Monitoring the employee performances, obtaining the reviews of the employees, and working on them is integral to a company regardless of the place or the industry that it belongs from. Staying in a loop of continuous feedback process not helps people feel valued, engaged, empowered, and encouraged to grow, it also helps them fairly evaluated and compensated, which in turn, helps the company grow, while retaining the best of the workforce.
When done right, one-on-one meetings and collaborations, aligning teams with OKRs, 360-degree feedback and reviews, appraisals, feedbacks, and appraisals provide endless benefits for the company along with making the team stronger and helping the management build better relationships with the team members. All of them and more are now offered by Plai, which helps entrepreneurs, business leaders, and managers encourage healthy and happy offices.
Plai is a people and performance management software for forward-thinking companies. Read this article to know about Plai, how Plai works, services, products, founders, business model, logo, plai coupon code, plai promo code, revenue, funding, investors, plain logo, startup launch, growth, advisors and mentors, growth, achievements and more.
Plai is a simplified performance management software. It helps early-stage companies grow and create high-performing teams with OKRs, performance/360° reviews, real-time feedback and recognition, weekly 1:1s, and check-ins. The company is on a mission to help organizations align, stay in sync, and perform better together.
Plai is free and easier to use than spreadsheets. Compared to complex enterprise solutions, teams adopt Plai from day one and employees are willing to use it. Customers say that Plai is “just the perfect match of features to roll out OKRs and reviews in the organization”.
The combination of the feature set, the pricing, and monthly billing makes Plai ideal for early-stage companies. The startup’s goal is to build Workday for SMB.
Features of Plai Products and Services
Some of the main features and services offered by Plai are:
Feedback – Provide constructive feedback regularly to the employees to watch your team grow.
Integrations – Maximise employee engagement with effective notifications and tips directly from the Slack and MS Teams.
Plai Features
Plai – Target Market Size
Grand View Research previously estimate that the HR Management Software market was worth $14.68 Bn in 2018, and Employee Collaboration, Engagement, and Talent Management (our field) – is $2.44 B. This market is expected to grow 11% annually by 2035.
Exclusive for our readers: Use the promo code “plai-startuptalky-15” to get a 15% discount for the first year for Plai Pro subscription. Email at hello@plai.team to redeem the code for your workspace.
How was Plai Started?
While working at their previous company (Uptech), founders Andriy Bas, Sasha Chepurnoi, and Oleh Kryvytskyi faced the need to align the team around common goals (OKRs), share feedback, conduct performance reviews, etc. They didn’t find any suitable solutions to meet their needs. Almost all performance management software is designed for enterprises (with annual contracts) and is too complicated and too expensive for smaller companies. And most importantly – employees don’t use them unless forced to.
So, Andriy, Sasha, and Oleh bootstrapped a solution for their needs with the combination of Google Docs/Spreadsheets/Notion. And this gave them the idea for Plai. They did some research, and over 20+ companies confirmed their hypothesis. Most early-stage companies have similar problems with performance management and struggle the way the co-founders did.
Andriy, Sasha, and Oleh quickly created a landing page and launched it in 2 weeks. They posted about it on social, BetaList, BetaPage. After receiving positive feedback and 500+ beta sign-ups, they started working on the solution.
Andriy Bas (CEO), Sasha Chepurnoi (CTO), and Oleh Kryvytskyi (Product Designer) are co-founders of Plai.
Founders of Plai
Andriy and Sasha worked on multiple projects at work together and have known each other since 2016. Oleh also worked in the same company as Andriy and Sasha since 2018, and they all 3 worked on several projects.
Andriy Bas
Andriy is a Bachelor of Science graduate from the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. He has been the CEO of Plai since July 2019. Starting as a Lifeguard at Kalahari Resorts & Conventions, Andriy has served numerous designations like Software Engineer and Senior iOS/Android Developer at many different companies like Netspace, Explain Inc. and Softermii. Bas has also been the Cofounder and Team Lead of Uptech. He was then the Co-founder and CPO of Teamroom, after which he founded Plai. Andri is currently also the Cofounder of No Code, No Problem.
Sasha Chepurnoi
Sasha has a Master’s degree in ML and is currently operating as the CTO at Plai. He is also a part-time, backend engineer at Uptech. He was also a student at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Sasha was earlier a professional soccer player, who started off his career on the field, but unfortunately had to leave the sport after a serious injury that he suffered.
Oleh Kryvytskyi
Oleh is the Cofounder and Product Designer at Plai. He was previously the UX/UI designer at Uptech, where he worked with Andriy.
They’re a small team, and it’s kind of easy to split the responsibilities. Andriy is the CEO, defines the product vision, and does partly sales/marketing. Oleh is responsible for the product and the UI. Sasha is responsible for the technical implementation, the tech stack, stability, and availability of Plai.
“We believe that Plai is a path forward for small teams to become successful companies. We didn’t argue much about the name, nor did we have long meetings to agree on the name. It was one of the options that we came up with initially, it was short and concise, there was no much competition on the internet for this short name, all the team liked it, so we adopted it from the beginning”, says Andriy Bas, CEO of Plai, about the selection of the name.
Plai – Business Model and Revenue Model
Plai offers a freemiumbusiness model (like Slack). Customers can use the Free package which includes OKRs, teams, Dashboard, and Slack integrations. Pro plan (that includes 1:1s, reviews, praise, feedback) — is a monthly user-based subscription for $7/user/month. Here’s a look at all the available subscription packages for Plai:
Free – $0 | Supports up to 5 users
Starter – $55 | Supports up to 30 users
Pro – $4 / user per month | Supports unlimited users
Plai launched the landing page in July 2019 before any product development. By promoting the product idea on BetaList/BetaPage websites and social media, the team collected over 500 beta sign-ups. These were the original users. Then, as they started working on the product, they were writing regular blog posts, and the traffic was also attracting subscribers and early users.
That way, by the time the startup launched in October 2019, it had over 2000 email lists to notify. These were the users of the free version of the product. By March 2020, when Plai launched the Pro version of the product, it managed to convert 5 users to paying subscribers. And have been growing almost 50% month-over-month in MRR ever since.
Plai – Startup Challenges
One of the first major challenges — was to identify what exactly customers need, and thus how the product should look like. To understand that — the founders launched very fast, gave their product in the hands of users, and asked for feedback. Based on that, they iterated many times and every time gave a better and better understanding of what the customers needed.
For example, the team initially planned to build the “Reviews” feature last. But customers were asking for this feature almost immediately and were willing to pay for it. Thus, Plai prioritized it and delivered it much faster than it initially planned to.
Plai started in 2019 and has come a long way now in terms of popularity and user acquisitions. The user base of Plai boasts of 300+ companies that are using Plai software and services. The one thing that has supported PLai all the way is its freemium model, which gives the users a chance to explore the software and see what difference it makes for free.
The users are from almost all countries in the world. In total, they have over 5,000 registered users. In terms of MRR, the startup is growing almost 50% since March 2020 (when launched the paying plan).
“We plan to attract 100 paying customers by the end of the year 2020. Our long-term goal is to be #1 People and Performance management solution for small and medium companies all over the world”, says CEO Andriy Bas about future plans.
Plai – Funding and Investors
Plai didn’t raise any external funding and is self-funded for now. It is going the bootstrap style.
Plai – Advisors and Mentors
The company doesn’t have any formal advisors or mentors. However, many of the co-founders’ friends share their valuable advice and suggestions.
Plai – Recognition and Achievements
Plai became a winner and takes part in the online accelerator Pioneer.app.
Also, Plai was invited to the final stage of the YC Winter 2020 batch, for the on-site interview in Mountain View. But they were not invited to the batch.
FAQs
What is Plai?
Plai is a people and performance management software that helps companies and individuals track and monitor the performance of the employees, smoothen the workflow and empower and acknowledge the employees to help better the work culture.
Who are the founders of Plai?
The Plai founders are Andriy Bas (CEO), Sasha Chepurnoi (CTO), Oleh Kryvytskyi (Product Designer).
How many employees work with Plai?
Plai has around 11-50 employees working with it now.
When was Plai founded?
Plai was founded in 2019.
Where are the Plai headquarters?
Plai headquarters are located in Los Angeles, USA.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by SportCo.
Sports can be considered nothing less than therapy. While playing a sport keeps you physically healthy and mentally alert, even watching the sports you love can help you beat stress and depression, thereby giving you the thrill you need in life. As per studies, being a sports fan can be great for your emotional, psychological, and social health. But this is not all, now being a sports fan can help you make money as well, and SportCo is the startup that helps you do so.
SportCo is a unique online platform with over 500K sports fans where you can create sports-related content, make predictions related to matches, participate in contests, and in turn get money, merchandise, and more. We interviewed SportCo founder Anuj Sharma to understand more about this interesting startup for sports lovers.
SportCo is a platform that lets sports fans get more engaged in the sports of their interest rather than just being passive viewers. SportsCo allows sports lovers to contribute sports-related content in the form of articles, images, or videos on the platform, and earn SportCo coins against it. SportCo gives its users the opportunity of writing articles, playing games, earning SportCo tokens, which they can further withdraw to their wallets, and eventually redeem the tokens for merchandise.
SportCo coin is a Blockchain-based currency, that users can use for buying merchandise, memorabilia, game tickets, purchasing apps, and more. These coins can also be redeemed for participating in virtual contests like sports-related quizzes, face merge games, and predictions on matches. On winning these contests, users are entitled to win more SportCo coins. Thus, SportCo believes in rewarding the users for their love and passion for sports!
“At SportCo, we aim to redefine the engagement of Sports fans worldwide by rewarding their contributions. Rewarding the Sports fans is the cornerstone of our vision. We believe that blockchain will disrupt the Sport industry by introducing a transparent reward system and help in building coherent & decentralized Sport fan communities. With several years of experience and more than 500,000 fans on our existing platforms SportCo aims to be the catalyst of this change by focusing & expanding its product range and seamless integration of technology within Sport communities. This will be possible by Blockchain enabled Sportco coin. The decentralized peer to peer community will also store historic data bases and fan contribution records on the basis of which transparent reward mechanism will be rolled out.” SportCo co-founderAnuj Sharma quotes about the startup’s vision.
Some of the main activities that SportCo allows the users to do are:
SportCo Sports Fantasy – It also allows the users to play fantasy sports games that are captain and player-centric.
SportCo Quiz and Trivia – It helps the users play sports quiz and games, exhibit their knowledge and win titles, thereby becoming a winner.
SportCo Predictor – SportCo lets users predict sports events both on and off the court and helps them win prizes.
SportCo Swarm Community – The company also helps the users predict about the sports matches, teams, players, and their lifestyles.
SportCo Stat Analytics – SportCo allows users to follow and share analytics and their impacts.
Among the technologies that SportCo uses are the Blockchain network, AI in sports data, and well and app layers to operate the business successfully.
SportCo uses blockchain to reward users for their passion for sport
SportCo – Industry Details
One of six people on this planet has a common passion for sports. As such SportCo’s target market includes more than a billion sports fans. Among this sports population, several people have an affinity for multiple sports and events. Also, Sports fans create several markets. These markets consist of competitive Sports tournaments across the world, games, merchandising, media and of course lifestyle sports.
The total value of sports and related commercial activities including online games is currently over $200 billion. And growing, it is growing at a pace faster than the fastest GDP growth of any country!
“The consumption of sports has changed in the last twenty years and will continue to change in the next twenty. Leaps in technology enable us today to experience sports at a far more personalized & convenient manner. And this is just the beginning” Anuj quotes speaking about the sports industry.
SportCo Founders – Anuj Sharma, Phiroze Mogrelia and Michael Serres (From L to R)
Anuj Sharma
Anuj Sharma is the Founder & CEO of SportCo. Anuj Sharma is a business graduate from IIM Ahmedabad with over 25 years of experience across sports media, financial services, and technology industries. As an entrepreneur, he has brought the 3 components together to envision the SportCo ecosystem using token economy based on blockchain technology. Anuj was previously Principal Consultant & Head of Retail and CPG Domain at Infosys.
Phiroze Mogrelia
Phiroze Mogrelia is known as COO and Senior Advisor at SportCo. He now advises Sportco on how to strategically grow its international footprint. Mogrelia received his Master of Science degree from the University of Nicosia in Digital Currency, which helped him expand his knowledge of the technical underpinnings of digital currency. Phiroze served as the Global Head of Lending and Liquidity Solutions, Products and Solutions, and Private Banking International at ABN AMRO Bank before he joined to build SportCo.
Michael Serres
Michael Serres is known as the CTO and the Head of Market Analytics at SportCo. Michael has a joint BSc degree in Maths and Computer Science, which he completed from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. Serres is fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Italian. He is the Co-founder at Blockleo Bitfolios, which is a news, insights, and exchange platform for cryptocurrencies, and before that, Serres was the Head of Digital for Asia Pacific at Manulife and at BlackRock, often refered to as the world’s largest asset manager.
Having a collective business experience of over 200+ years, the SportCo team has the drive, experience, and what it takes to bring an idea to life and make a business successful. Core members of the team are –
The Idea Behind Starting SportCo
For many, watching their favorite teams play is not just mere entertainment. Sports fans are very passionately and emotionally engaged while watching a match. Anuj felt that while people are so deeply connected to the sports they love, their engagement with the sport is limited to being just passive viewers.
Through SportCo, Anuj wants to make the sports fans feel more engaged with the sports they love by creating and sharing content related to it, playing quizzes and contests on their favorite posts and getting rewarded in the process.
The SportCo team identified the following problems-
The vast majority of sports fans are not rewarded for their online contributions.
No single platform to fulfill the online sporting needs of Sports fans.
Lack of a global peer-to-peer currency in Sports.
Sports fans, today, do not have technology-enabled tools to enhance their engagement. They are fully dependent on external media in this regard.
SportCo intends to solve the above-said problems with the following solutions–
Providing multiple ways for all Sports fans who contribute in content creation, knowledge sharing and building of communities to be rewarded on our platform.
A multi-layered platform that will holistically capture the journey and fulfill the needs of the sports fan.
SportCo coin aims to be the preferred currency of choice across the global sports world.
SportCo uses blockchain to decentralize and provide specific tools for analytic overlays, gaming, and online media experience.
The mission of SportCo is to “help initial coin offerings and token sales brands achieve their desired capital funding and expand their coin and token value.”
SportCo – Name & Logo
In the name, SportCo “Co” stands for coin, community, communication, and contest. The logo signifies a combination of a baseball and a gold coin, where gold represents value and the ball represents sports.
SportCo Logo
SportCo – Revenue Model
SportCo’s sources of revenue include –
Revenue is generated when users buy SportCo Coins
Membership fee of SportCo Club
Merchandise for the fans with leading brands; with handling fees for SportCo
Customized content for sports institutions
Ad network for brands that wish to engage with the SportCo community
Tie-up with leading sports leagues for their merchandising, ticketing for premium events
The fee paid by the users for participating in SportCo’s own Tournaments and contests
Revenue earned from registration and trade of memorabilia
SportCo – Funding and Investors
SportCo has raised an angel round of funding worth $400K.
Being in the sports sector, utilizing online communities has been one of the go-to marketing strategies for SportCo team. The team worked hard to promote the SportCo brand in Facebook groups around different teams, sports, leagues etc. Furthermore, they also worked with the contributors, who provide content on the platform and their network to expand their personal reach and bring users on to our platform.
SportCo – Challenges
Acquisition of initial writers was the most challenging part, which the SportCo team overcame with the help of brilliant marketers who designed great strategies that attracted users.
SportCo – Advisors & Mentors
SportCo’s advisors include –
Football player and coach Bryan Roy – Bryan picked up 32 international caps for the Netherlands national football team and played in numerous championship games, also believes in the vision of SportCo and will help SportCo spread its vision.
Tim De Leede of KNCB Cricket Halden – Tim de Leede is a former Dutch cricketer, who had a long One Day International career of 11 years for the Dutch national team. A right-handed all-rounder, he played for the Netherlands at 1996, 2003, and 2007 World Cups. After his retirement in 2007 he started a coaching career and in 2015 was appointed as the head coach of the France national cricket team. Tim de Leede is recorded in KNCB (Netherlands Cricket Association) Hall of Fame.
Tennis Player and Coach Juan CarlosBáguena is a tennis coach and former professional tennis player from Spain. He has played to a high professional level, acquiring ATP rankings of 190 in singles and 100 in doubles. He has won several ATP tour events in doubles and a singles ATP tour event in Madrid.
SportCo was listed among the Top 10 sports startup that uses blockchain technology, by Disruptor Daily.
SportCo – Growth
SportCo is built around a unique concept and has received positive responses from users. Initially, SportCo was launched in Europe over all the digital platforms- and then gradually shifted to Asia and Africa. There are already more than 500,000 sports fans on the platform.
SportCo – Future Plans
Sports market will continue to grow in double digits for the next few decades thereby adding millions of sports fans. With platforms like SportCo future sport fans will have more ways to engage with their favorite sport. SportCo is moving towards being a platform that will connect Sports institutions, Sport clubs, Sports professionals, and Sports fans and thus create a huge community of sports lovers
“The last 4 years were crucial to understand fan centricity behaviors, needs, revenue inflection points and building a network with Sporting institutions. We will continue on our path to improve fan engagement with technology. The race is on and we are in this race to win!” Anuj Shrama quotes speaking about the startups journey and future plans.
FAQs
What is SportCo?
SportCo is a unique online platform with over 500K sports fans where you can create sports-related content, make predictions related to matches, participate in contests, and in turn get money, merchandise, and more.
Who is the Founder of SportCo?
Anuj Sharma is the Founder & CEO of SportCo.
How much Funding has SportCo raised?
SportCo has raised an angel round of funding worth 400,000 USD in 2018.
When was SportCo founded?
SportCo was founded in 2018.
What is SportCo Coin?
SportCo coin is a Blockchain-based currency, that users can use for buying merchandise, memorabilia, games tickets, purchasing apps, and more. These coins can also be redeemed for participating in virtual contests like sports-related quizzes, face merge games, and predictions on matches.
Piyush Mishra
