StartupTalky

Tag: 📄Company Profiles

  • Gradeup – India’s Largest Online Preparation Platform for Competitive Exams

    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 Gradeup.

    With exponential growth in the number of internet and smartphone users in India, online learning has become popular irrespective of the age group. Think about it this way – you have notes, recorded lectures and other reference material piling up. The million-dollar question is – where do you start? When do you think you’ll finish? How do you plan out your study schedule and ensure that you’re actually making progress, rather than just convincing yourself of it? These are some of the challenges that Gradeup, with its online Live Courses, is successfully addressing.

    With a vision to be India’s largest and most comprehensive online preparation destination for competitive exams, Gradeup was established in 2015 to help students prepare actively for various exams & score better. They have established & nurtured highly engaging exam-specific communities of students and mentors for SSC, Banking, Railways, Teaching, JEE, GATE, NEET, UPSC, Defense, and State level exams.

    Gradeup was co-founded by Shobhit Bhatnagar, Vibhu Bhushan, and Sanjeev Kumar. Gradeup was acquired by the Edtech giant, Byju’s on September 7, 2021. The Noida-based online exam preparation platform currently serves as Byju’s Exam Prep, as rebranded by Byju’s. Read on to know more about the Gradeup success story, Revenue, Business model, Funding, Growth and more.

    Gradeup – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Gradeup
    Headquarter Noida, India
    Sector EdTech
    Founders Shobhit Bhatnagar, Vibhu Bhushan, Sanjeev Kumar
    Founded 2015
    Revenue/Turnover $3.17 million (INR 60 Crore in FY21)
    Total Funding $10 million
    Parent Organization GradeStack Learning Pvt. Ltd
    Website gradeup.co
    Contact support@gradeup.co

    Gradeup – About and How it Works
    Gradeup – Target Market Size
    Gradeup – Founders and Team
    How was Gradeup Started?
    Gradeup – Products/Services
    Gradeup – Business Model and Revenue Model
    Gradeup – Growth and Revenue
    Gradeup – Name, Tagline and Logo
    Gradeup – Startup Challenges
    Gradeup – Funding and Investors
    Gradeup – Recognition and Achievements
    Gradeup – Future Plans

    Gradeup – Latest News

    September 8 2021 – Byju’s acquired Gradeup in its 8th acquisition in 2021.

    October 12, 2021 – Byju Raveendran of Byju’s feat and his brother join the Gradeup board as Directors.  

    Gradeup – About and How it Works

    Gradeup is India’s largest online preparation platform for competitive exams with a strong user base of more than 20 million exam aspirants. Through Live classes and emphasizing a structured methodology i.e. a daily study plan, they’ve made exam preparation highly effective; while optimizing the process by connecting students with peers pursuing similar objectives to facilitate the exchange of notes, clear doubts, and take better preparatory decisions.

    Development of a Community – With the core belief that ‘people prepare better when they prepare together‘, Gradeup focuses on developing exam-specific communities, which are driven by, and focused towards, aspirants. It is the first & only Indian online platform to build a highly engaging community of expert mentors and students; where an aspirant can ask doubts, share updates, and interact with mentors and peers to develop a 360-degree perspective on every topic in the most engaging manner.

    Gradeup – Target Market Size

    The EdTech industry can be divided into segments such as the K12 segment, which can be further classified into two categories i.e. KG to 7th class & 8th to 12th; followed by the Test preparation segment and upscaling (vocational training). Within these segments, Gradeup caters to the Test preparation segment of the market. The approximate market size of Test prep is 35 Million students. And Gradeup is one of the biggest players in the market with more than 20 Million registered students.

    More students are now gravitating toward online education. More than anything, this short term situation is increasing the trust of students and their parents in EdTech. The impact of the current situation on EdTech, in the long run, will be its increased acceptance as an alternative to current offline options.

    Gradeup – Founders and Team

    Gradeup was co-founded by Shobhit Bhatnagar, Vibhu Bhushan, and Sanjeev Kumar in 2015.

    Gradeup founders - Vibhu Bhushan, Shobhit Bhatnagar, and Sanjeev Kumar
    Gradeup founders – Vibhu Bhushan, Shobhit Bhatnagar, and Sanjeev Kumar

    Shobhit, Vibhu, and Sanjeev collaborated and established Gradestack Learning Pvt. Ltd. All three of them are self-made and left their jobs to start their entrepreneurial journey. They started without any external support.

    Shobhit Bhatnagar

    Shobhit Bhatnagar, CEO of Gradeup, takes care of Marketing and Community Development. He is an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; and a B.E in I.T from Punjab Engineering College. He has over 9 years of experience. Before Gradeup, he worked as a consultant with Ernst & Young and Opera Solutions. Shobhit has been a quizzer in his college days, likes travelling, and is an avid reader.

    Vibhu Bhushan

    Vibhu Bhushan, CPO/COO of Gradeup, takes care of the Product and Operations. He completed his B.E in I.T from the Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology. He has over 13 years of experience. Before Gradeup, he worked with Yahoo, Infoedge, and was a founder of Floost; an interest-based network and a product of Nogle Technologies. He has been a marathon runner and has a keen interest in athletics. Vibhu has more than 7.5 years of experience in mobile and backend technologies.

    Sanjeev Kumar

    Sanjeev Kumar is CTO at Gradeup. An engineer by profession, Sanjeev secured his B.Tech degree from MBM Engineering College, Jodhpur. Before Gradeup, he was associated with Infosys as System Engineer. In his free time, he likes to play sports.

    Hiring is the most critical part of an organization when it is scaling at a pace. The following three things play a very important role in the company’s hiring process:

    • Culture fit
    • Passion for work and the right attitude
    • Depth in the area of expertise

    Current Company Size: The total number of employees in the organization is 330+.

    How was Gradeup Started?

    Gradeup forayed into the Edtech and test preparation space in 2013. At that time, it worked with publishers and large institutes to mobilize their content and deliver it in an online, mobile-friendly manner for students preparing for competitive examinations.

    While this focused on utilizing content in the online space, it was clearly not enough. The learning process lacked the right level of engagement and was, thus, ineffective in improving learning outcomes. It required better direction and planning to help the aspirants.

    The team realized that by focusing on learning outcomes, they can contribute significantly to this space and to a student’s preparation journey. And this inspired the founders to solve this problem and fulfill the existing gaps to make online preparation more effective than ever.

    “We did tons of student interviews to understand the problems that they face. While doing it we became more and more confident that these issues can be solved easily with the help of Technology. And that’s when we decided to launch Gradeup.”, recalls Vibhu Bhushan, Co-founder of Gradeup.

    Shobhit, Vibhu, and Sanjeev, co-founders of Gradeup, had conversations with all major VCs before they got funded. Their pitch was based on the fact that EdTech as an industry has huge potential. Access to high-quality education across all segments of the country is an area of growth and has huge market potential, especially in tier 2, 3, and 4 cities. The question they addressed was “how we can come up with a unique approach that differentiates us in the market and helps us scale faster”.

    “During that period, we were in conversation with various investors who all agreed to the fact that sooner or later technology will act as an agent of change in the education sector. And it was just a matter of right time and product that could initiate the disruption process for the offline education model. Our goal was to revolutionize online live learning and emerge as a pioneer in this segment.”, said Vibhu Bhushan.

    upGrad – Founders | Competitors | Funding | Revenue | Business Model
    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified informationon different startups and organizations. The content in this post has beenapproved by the organization it is based on. With an exponential growth in the number of internet and smartphone users inIndia, turning online…
    StartupTalkyChayanika Goswami

    Gradeup – Products/Services

    Gradeup offers two main programs – Gradeup Classroom and Test Series.

    Gradeup Classroom is a one-of its kind integrated program, with its online live courses providing a comprehensive learning experience from start to finish. It uses a number of tools and teaching techniques to enhance preparation including:

    • Live quizzes and analysis
    • Weekly discussions, mock tests,
    • 24×7 mentor support
    • Mind maps
    • A day-wise study plan for each course is designed and delivered by the best teachers in the country.
    Gradeup Classroom
    Gradeup Classroom

    Taking this a notch above is Test Series, which gives students access to mock tests based on the latest exam patterns along with previous years’ question papers and fresh questions regularly created by expert faculty. Students get provided with-

    • Detailed solutions
    • An in-depth analysis of their performance
    • They’re all India Rank and Scorecard so that they know where they stand.

    It also has an education news portal – NewsEd by Gradeup, which is aimed to help the community to stay updated with all the latest news in the sector.

    Gradeup classroom has the following features:

    The Learning Process:

    The course begins with a Live class on the relevant topics. This is followed by the students accessing ‘Mind Maps’, a unique concept through which students get to recap what they have gone through in digestible nuggets of information, resulting in complete revision in the least amount of time possible. Students are then given chapter-wise quizzes to test how much they have retained, and the answers to these quizzes are discussed along with expert faculty for greater conceptual clarity.

    Systematic Study Plan:

    Offered to the students, the team focuses on creating a plan not just for completing the syllabus, but finishing it in a convenient way while remaining motivated throughout– something that they will get hooked onto and can follow within and outside of class hours.

    Unique and Evolving Framework:

    Strengthening the collective model through the contribution of each participant is a mantra Gradeup follows dearly.

    Verified Peer-to-Peer Learning:

    Gradeup has managed to build a learner’s community of sorts, which is now at the heart of the learning process. Students interact with other students and mentors to solve doubts and ask questions to enrich their learning experience. As much as 95 percent of doubt-solving happens peer-to-peer!

    Validation Mechanism:

    What sets them apart is that the company has multiple fact-checking processes in place on its platform to filter answers based on their quality. In this way, students are only consuming material that is fact-checked and relevant, so that they do not end up misguiding each other unintentionally.

    Building Confidence:

    A constant knowledge-focused engagement also builds a sense of camaraderie, confidence, and healthy competition, which is extremely important for comprehensive personality development especially if they are aiming to crack prestigious competitive examinations.

    Mentor:

    When students enroll for a course on Gradeup Classroom, a personal mentor is assigned to them who is available 24×7 to instantly resolve any doubts that they may have.

    Also, Gradeup has a dedicated cross-function Student Success Team that-

    • Manages core elements of quality content, the comprehensive study plan, constant feedback, and updates, amongst others.
    • Evaluates every piece of this data puzzle and link together the major internal and external stakeholders – aspirants, faculty, and parents – to establish a transparent communication system.
    • Keeps the parents informed, the teachers cognizant and the students motivated. Every stakeholder is kept abreast of the progress through virtual Report Cards.
    • It addresses students’ challenges, either academic or technical, sends reminders for daily academic activity, monitors students’ performance, and organizes live online parent-teacher meetings twice a month.
    • Lastly, for faculty, the team manages the interface that they can view to check overall batch performance, student-level information, and activity-level information.

    OnlineTyari Success Story – Preparing Students For Government Jobs!
    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified informationon different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on. In 2018, Tamil Nadu Assembly Secretariat received 4,600 applications for thepost of sweepers and…
    StartupTalkyShubham Kumar

    Gradeup – Business Model and Revenue Model

    Gradeup is a freemium platform. Anyone who is preparing for competitive exams can download the app and visit the website to prepare for their respective exams – they can join the community – interact with fellow peers & mentors to get their doubts answered and they can access preparation material like previous years’ papers, quizzes, etc. All of this is free of cost.

    Additionally, on the platform, there are certain paid services like a) Green card– For Purchase of Test series and b) Classroom – Live classes, which aspirants can avail to add further value to their preparation.

    Aviate Success Story – Making College Students Job Ready
    Every student dreams of getting good grades, good college and a good life ahead.The young budding mind is curious, puzzled and still learning how the worldworks. The academic education and grades will only help too much, a person willneed practical knowledge, certain skill set and so called “expe…
    StartupTalkyChayanika Goswami

    Gradeup – Growth and Revenue

    From 2019-2020, Gradeup grew 4x and closed the year at 30 Crore revenue. Some of the current metrics are:

    • 350M+ Learning Minutes per Month
    • 25M+ Student Registration
    • 2.5 Lakh+ Paid Users
    • 18M+ App downloads
    • 60,000+ Students Enrolled for Live Courses
    • 3.5M+ MAU

    The tagline of Gradeup is “Prep Smart. Score Better.“

    Gradeup Logo
    Gradeup Logo

    Gradeup – Startup Challenges

    When Vibhu forayed into the Edtech and test preparation space with his business partners, in 2013, he worked with publishers and large institutes to mobilize their content and deliver it in an online, mobile-friendly manner for students preparing for competitive examinations.

    His low point at that time was that they made a business model that couldn’t scale. Also, they were quite dependent on external partners; for whom it was too early to change and evolve.

    “However, the high point in my entrepreneurial journey was having the realization that our learning processes needed to have the right engagement levels. And this could be done by upgrading our pedagogy systems and product by making them effective and interactive.”, said Vibhu Bhushan, co-founder of Gradeup.

    He also realized that students prepare better when they prepare together. Hence, the co-founders decided that moving forward they will have a community-based model where verified peer to peer learning and validation mechanisms builds trust and reliability towards the content and the platform.

    ‘YouTube Learning Destination’ to help Students Learn from Home
    Students and instructors are bound to stay home due to lockdown imposed becauseof COVID-19 [https://startuptalky.com/tag/covid-19/]. All the schools, collegesand institutes are ordered to remain closed during this lockdown. The closuresof schools and colleges has led to the disruption of classes.…
    StartupTalkyVarad Kitey

    Gradeup – Funding and Investors

    The Gradeup funding can be seen in the fact that it has raised a total of $10 million to date.

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    July 2013 Pre Seed Round $20k –
    March 2014 Seed Round $3 million Times Internet
    August 2015 Funding Round – –
    September 2016 Funding Round – –
    November 2019 Series A $7 million Times Internet

    There is only one external investor – Times Internet.

    Gradeup – Recognition and Achievements

    35 under 35 Young Entrepreneur 2020 – Shobhit Bhatnagar.

    Gradeup – Future Plans

    The company is going to launch Goprep – a live online coaching app that will specifically cater to the academic needs of students from 8th to 12th; especially those preparing for JEE and NEET. Through the app, it will also offer one-year courses for students from class 8th to 10th for board exam preparation and Olympiads such as NTSE.

    Apart from that, Gradeup is planning to raise funds in the coming months. The team will continue to emphasize Live classes as they can deliver high impact outcomes on a large scale. They plan to expand faculty up to 100 and subject matter experts up to 200. The company also plans to further manifest its presence in tier 2, 3, and 4 towns across the country. Hence, the next round of funding will also be utilized to scale the product and tech capabilities.

    Gradeup’s vision is to deliver quality exam preparation across the country through the means of technology. In the next 5 years, they plan to cater to most of the exams that happen across India.

    Our superior education quality will be able to help 5 crores + Indians who prepare for different exams. We will be able to deliver the best results among our peers because of our strong focus on quality. – Vibhu Bhushan.

    Considering the traction that its live online courses have received so far, Gradeup expects the number of enrollments to touch 60,000 students by the end of FY20, and cross 150,000 by the end of FY21. However, the app was later acquired by Byju’s, after which it has turned into Byju’s Exam Prep, serving 3 crore+ students across the country.

    Gradeup – FAQs

    Who is the founder of Gradeup?

    Gradeup was founded by Vibhu Bhushan, Shobhit Bhatnagar, and Sanjeev Kumar.

    What is Gradeup?

    Gradeup is a freemium online edtech platform to preapre for competitive exams.

    How much is Gradeup Revenue 2020?

    For FY2020, Gradeup had received around INR 24 Crores worth of revenue.

    Is Gradeup Free?

    Gradeup offered a freemium platform. You can join the community – interact with fellow peers & mentors to get your doubts answered and can access preparation material like previous years’ papers, quizzes, etc – all free of cost. However their live classes and test preps, you will need to pay a subscription fee.

    Who is Sanjeev Kumar?

    Sanjeev Kumar is the Co-founder & CTO at Gradeup. An engineer by profession, Sanjeev secured his B.Tech degree from MBM Engineering College, Jodhpur.

    What is Gradeup?

    Gradeup is India’s largest online preparation platform for competitive exams with a strong user base of more than 20 million exam aspirants. It currently serves as Byju’s Exam Prep after being acquired by Byju’s in an undisclosed deal.

  • TVFPlay — The Pioneers of the Indian Streaming Service Industry

    The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on.

    Love watching videos? Ah! Everyone loves it! Varieties of web series and engaging videos are seen and loved by all which are often produced by iconic channels. There are always places and videos that you may like or may not like. But we have to keep in mind that everyone’s choice and taste are not the same. So things should always be presented in a way that is liked, loved and respected by all by every means.

    TVFPlay is one of India’s most loved online streaming platforms. Youngsters enjoy the entertaining original web series here a lot.

    Read the TVFPlay success story below and know more about its founders, business model, revenue model, funding and more.

    Company Highlights

    Startup Name TVF (The Viral Fever)
    Founder Arunabh Kumar
    Founded 3rd August 2015
    Headquarters Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
    Parent Organization Contagious Online Media Pvt. Ltd.
    Sector Entertainment and Online Media
    Website tvfplay.com

    TVFPlay – About
    TVFPlay – Founder And Team
    TVFPlay – Logo
    TVFPlay – Business Model
    TVFPlay – Revenue Model
    TVFPlay – Funding And Investors
    TVFPlay – How Is It Becoming Viral?
    TVFPlay – Growth
    TVFPlay – Competitors
    TVFPlay – Future Plans

    TVFPlay – About

    TVFPlay started as an online YouTube channel which was introduced by TVF Media Labs in 2010. It’s presently occupied by Contagious Online Media Pvt. Ltd. The company’s motive is to reach out to the younger population who loves watching television entertainment. It was one of the early comings of the Indian digital entertainment component.

    TVFPlay – Founder And Team

    Arunabh Kumar, Founder of TVF
    Arunabh Kumar, Founder of TVF

    Arunabh Kumar is the founder of TVF. He was born on 1982 November 26th. He faced a number of troubles in his life and there seems to be no end to that. He works on presenting various sorts of social issues. He is also the mind behind the fictional web series Permanent Roommates and Pitchers. He was accused of sexual harassment that took place at his company while working. It was faced by 2 employed women. Arunabh Kumar resigned as the CEO of TVF and started his own comic book venture, Indusverse

    The team is entirely focused on producing something funny rather than acquiring fame. The one and the only man behind the invention is Arunabh Kumar – the founder and former CEO of the company.

    TVF Logo
    TVF Logo

    TVFPlay – Business Model

    The major source of revenue for the company is brand sponsorship from several brands like Ola, CommonFloor, Tata, etc and also from advertisements via YouTube as mentioned above.

    The company has also got its own app so it’s profitable for them to have something of their own. They made it possible by hosting numerous funny videos which were their objective for the youngsters of today. They succeeded indeed in fulfilling the promises they made in the beginning.

    TVFPlay – Revenue Model

    The company is an online content channel created by the founder Arunabh Kumar. It generates revenue from YouTube as well as from other brands. For such kinds of companies, subscriptions are the keys to earning. They also acquire numerous clients which is a part of the revenue model. The estimated yearly revenue of TVF is $32.7 million.

    The company also generates revenue from YouTube. They have got 2 million+ subscribers on YouTube. The company gets revenue when someone clicks on its ads. But they don’t get the money if anybody likes or shares their video or even comments on it no revenues are gathered in that case.

    TVFPlay – Funding And Investors

    TVFPlay has raised a total amount of $26.9 million in funding over the 5 funding rounds.

    Date Transaction Name Amount Raised Lead Investor
    Nov 10, 2021 Venture Debt $2 million BlackSoil
    Jun 01, 2019 Venture Debt Undisclosed BlackSoil
    May 22, 2019 Series D $5 Million Tiger Global Management
    July 20, 2018 Venture Round $6 Million Tiger Global Management
    February 17, 2016 Venture Round $10 Million Tiger Global Management

    TVFPlay is funded by only 2 investors. It is Tiger Global Management and BlackSoil.

    TVFPlay – How Is It Becoming Viral?

    The company has earned millennial audiences. Especially those ranges between 18 to 35-year-olds. These people watch several videos each day. For more than 3 hours on such sort of platforms. The spectators, as well as the viewing time, are growing every day with the help of the media.

    The strategy of the company is to offer local and youth-oriented content. This is the only formula they are using and the spectators are helping them to launch and perform well with various targets in India.

    TVFPlay – Growth

    The 1st web series of the company ‘Permanent Roommates‘ debuted. It was the 2nd most viewed long-term web series in the world at that time. Pitchers was a production of this company. It was released and the story was how 4 friends quit their jobs to build a startup company of their own by facing various obstacles.

    These 2 shows were very popular when it was released and was almost watched by all over the world starting from the youngsters to the middle-aged ones. The way you provide more likely things to your youngsters the more you build your own empire and grow with strength.

    TVFPlay – Competitors

    The competitors of the company are Apalya, YuppTV, Livestream, Spuul, Hantover, Dacast, Disney+Hotstar, iStreamPlanet, NexGTv and iflix. All together they have raised a sum which is more than 842.7 million. It is more than what all did except. TVF’s revenue is the 10th ranked company among its top 10 competitors.

    TVFPlay – Future Plans

    The company has got big plans for 2022 and more years to come. In the year 2019, it released 12 original shows and it has got plans of releasing more original shows on platforms like MX Player, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. The CEO says when they released 12 original shows, great success came to them and maybe when they will be releasing 20 something great is waiting for the entire team.

    Their contents are licensed and well received by Netflix and it’s a big thing for the entire startup company. It also puts its content on its YouTube channel. The biggest hit of the company was Kota Factory. They aspire to bring more such for its young audience.

    Conclusion

    TVFPlay is a premium content destination from The Viral Fever (TVF). It caters to all those who want to have a premium content experience, but cannot find anything worth watching on the traditional channels.

    It hosts all of TVF’s premium shows as well as shows and content from around the world which TVF believes its audience will enjoy watching. On TVFPlay, you can browse and watch regular shows and content, created and curated especially for the young audience, across a variety of genres like Humor, Drama, Trends etc.

    TVF – FAQs

    Who is the owner of TVF?

    Arunabh Kumar is the founder and former CEO of TVF.

    Why is TVF famous?

    TVF is popular because of its shows like Pitchers, Permanent Roommates, and Kota Factory which transformed the streaming service industry in India.

    Who owns The Viral Fever?

    The parent organization of TVF is Contagious Media Pvt Ltd.

    What are some of the subsidiaries of TVF?

    Girliayapa, The Screen Patti, The Timeliners, Funda Curry, and TVF Machi are some of the channels of The Viral Fever.

    What is TVF?

    The Viral Fever (TVF) is an online digital entertainment network offering original shows and videos specially curated for an Indian audience.

    When was the TVF founded?

    TVF was founded in 2010 by Arunabh Kumar.

    Is TVFPlay free in India?

    Yes, you can watch shows of TVF for free on its YouTube channel or app.

  • Resume Giants Success Story- Creating Resumes that Stands Out

    Everybody realizes how time-consuming & tricky it is to draft a resume. To move past the ATS system, you must describe your skillset that’s intriguing to recruiters and suitably present your resume.

    Several job hunters use virtual resume designers to save effort & time. Because many websites that sell resume maker apps give free tests or minimal membership fees, using a designer is a key to creating a good resume & is:

    • Simpler than drafting it yourself.
    • Less expensive than hiring a typical resume writing provider.

    However, with so many resume maker portals to choose from, it can be hard to ascertain which one is worthwhile.

    In this article, we’ll be briefly discussing about Resume Giants. Without any further ado, let’s dive right in.

    About Resume Giants
    Resume Giants- Mission
    Resume Giants- Business Model
    Resume Giants- How Do They Earn Money?
    Resume Giants- Acquiring the First 100 Users
    Resume Giants- Challenges

    About Resume Giants

    Resume Giants is a cutting-edge expert profile and a self-branding company that creates tactical, well-written, and expert rĂŠsumĂŠ, self-branding techniques, & interview guidance for grads, retired special forces, Government & executive experts looking for a leg up.

    It aims at ensuring that its users stand out, perfectly brand themselves, and are ready for their career path by incorporating an open mindset versus classic methods and status quo techniques.

    They offer world-class CVs, professional self-branding guidance, and interview mentoring to their clientele. They offer the finest detailed career assistance deals in the sector by bringing specialists, executive authors, and super-smart teammates. They are a client-focused company that prioritizes its clientele.

    Resume Giants- Mission

    Resume Giants mission is to offer incredible resume & marketing tools, as well as advisory services to their clients, irrespective of sector or profile. They aim to serve job hunters in locating their ideal jobs.

    Resume Giants- Business Model

    Their resume designer was created to make writing the finest resume as simple as possible.

    To make your hiring process more pleasant and simple, they’re continuously collecting in-depth details about the employment sector, information about fun and modern evolving professions, the most prevalent skillset, and current workplace trends.

    By providing specialized material, expert suggestions, and genuine, up-to-date cv samples that matter and boost your likelihood of landing your dream job.

    Resume Giants- How Do They Earn Money?

    Resume Giants doesn’t charge any fees for the first-year folks signing up. After that, they do charge a small amount for their services.

    It collects data on all registered jobseekers, such as one‘s resumes, contact details, profiles, & other relevant data. It then sells it to businesses that are in search of good candidates. This is also one of their sources of income.

    Resume Giants- Acquiring the First 100 Users

    To generate more traffic on their site, they initially used a generic tactic and focused solely on a single language and market. And they’re now tailoring it to a specific demographic. They are presently focusing solely on SEO and social media marketing.

    Resume Giants- Challenges

    There are times when there is less traffic on a website, lower bounce rates, or lower conversion rates. To change it and check what works and what does not there is something called AB testing which is done by Resume Giants. They assess and reject or optimize anything which doesn’t work or just doesn’t enhance the tool. They also record the progression using market information and previous encounter.

    Top 14 Must-Have skills to Include in your Resume
    The world is getting really competitive and if you want to stand out with your resume in front of employers here are top skills to include in your resume.
    StartupTalkyArijit Karan

    FAQs

    What is Resume Giants?

    Resume Giants is a free resume builder that creates resumes for any profession.

    How does Resume Giants make money?

    Resume Giants collects the data of job seekers and then sells it to companies that are in search of good candidates.

  • Coinbase – The Largest Cryptocurrency Exchange In 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 Coinbase.

    With the passage of days, currencies have evolved. The physical currency that we use today, has also undergone a list of transformations in terms of the denominations, metals used, shapes and sizes of the currencies, and more. This currency that is presently in use has a physical form, but they also stay with us, within our wallets, payment apps, and banking accounts, digitally.

    The crypto-currency is a step ahead of these currencies that are in vogue today around the world. A cryptocurrency or crypto can be summed up as a collection of binary data that is designed to work as a medium of exchange where the ownership records of the individuals are managed in computerized databases. These records are stored in the form of ledgers secured with strong cryptography, which seals the transaction records, controls the creation of additional coins, and verifies the transfer of the ownership of coins.

    The cryptocurrencies, as they work, also need cryptocurrency exchanges, to empower the users to trade these currencies for other assets, including digital and fiat currencies. Coinbase works in a similar way.

    Coinbase is an American company that operates an entirely online cryptocurrency trading network with no physical headquarters. The company was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, and as of November 2021, it is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States by trading volume.

    Know more about the Coinbase success story

    Coinbase – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Coinbase Global, Inc.
    Headquarters San Mateo, California, United States
    Industry Cryptocurrency
    Founder Brian Armstrong, Fred Ehrsam
    Founded June 2012
    Current CEO Brian Armstrong
    Website www.coinbase.com

    About Coinbase and How it Works?
    Coinbase – Target Market Audience
    Coinbase – Founders and Team
    Coinbase – Startup Story
    Coinbase – Name, logo and Tagline
    Coinbase – Products and Services
    Coinbase – Vision and Mission
    Coinbase – Business Model
    Coinbase – Growth and Revenue
    Coinbase – Funding and Investors
    Coinbase – Investments
    Coinbase – Acquisitions
    Coinbase – Competitors
    Coinbase – Challenges Faced
    Coinbase – Future Plans

    About Coinbase and How it Works?

    The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase is a San Francisco-based business, which was established in 2012. It has weathered occasional Bitcoin bubbles to become the go-to place for Americans looking to purchase so-called digital gold and other blockchain tokens. Coinbase is one of the most prominent digital finance upstarts challenging Wall Street, led by Brain Armstrong, a former Airbnb engineer.

    Coinbase is an online platform that enables merchants, consumers, and traders to transact in digital currencies. It allows users to build their own cryptocurrency wallets and use their bank accounts to buy and sell cryptocurrency. In addition, the firm provides a range of merchant payment processing systems and tools to support high-trafficked websites on the internet. The company already has a sizable client base in a market that was once dominated by crypto asset enthusiasts.

    Coinbase has increased in popularity and become the on-ramp for the mainstream cryptocurrency investors by positioning itself as a safe haven for crypto asset exchanges. Unlike many of its competitors, it has never been hacked. Coinbase has also adhered to existing legislation and law enforcement with zeal, putting it on the right side of the law — another significant advantage in a sector in dire need of regulatory oversight.

    Coinbase – Target Market Audience

    As Coinbase is a crypto-exchange platform, the target audience of Coinbase is primarily the millenials, ranging between 25-45 years from low-tech to high-tech individuals from around the globe.

    Coinbase – Founders and Team

    Coinbase was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam.

    Founders of Coinbase - Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam
    Founders of Coinbase – Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam

    Brian Armstrong

    Brian Armstrong is known as the Co-founder and CEO of Coinbase. Armstrong is a Rice University alumnus, who completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Computer Science, Economics and Computer Science respectively. Before founding Coinbase, Armstrong was an Enterprise Risk Management consultant at Deloitte & Touche, a CEO, and Founder at UniversityTutor.com, and a Technical Product Manager at Airbnb.

    Fred Ehrsam

    Fred Ehrsam is a Co-founder of Coinbase. Ehrsam is an alumnus of Duke University, from where he obtained a BS in Computer Science and Economics. He was previously a Trader at Goldman Sachs, before being a Founder of Coinbase, who is now also serving as a member of the Board of Directors. Ehrsam is also a Co-Founder of Paradigm.

    The company recently hired Snap India Head Durgesh Kaushik. The former CEO of Snapchat was appointed as the Senior Director for Market Expansion of Coinbase, effective from May 9, 2022. The company is strongly looking forward to its expansion in countries like India, which is a significant part of the reason of this appointment. Besides, Coinbase is also striving to debut in many other markets as well in the Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas.

    Coinbase has a considerably large team, which consists of more than 3K employees.  

    Coinbase – Startup Story

    Coinbase was initially created by Brian Armstrong, a former Airbnb engineer, in July 2011 and was started to be funded by Y Combinator. After co-founder Fred Ehrsam, a former Goldman Sachs trader, joined the group, Coinbase finally launched its services to buy, sell, and store bitcoins in 2012.

    “Armstrong and Ehrsam first met on Reddit and shared a bullish view on bitcoin and the cryptocurrency space as a whole,” said Ehrsam on Twitter. After this, they decided to launch Coinbase with the “mission” to “make crypto easy to use.”

    Ben Reeves, a British programmer and co-founder of Blockchain.info, was supposed to be a member of the Coinbase founding team, but he split with Armstrong shortly before the Y Combinator funding round over their conflicting views on how the Coinbase wallet should function.

    The company began offering services to buy and sell bitcoins via bank transfers in October 2012.

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    Coinbase – Name, logo and Tagline

    Coinbase is a cryptocurrency exchange network that is entirely online, as the name implies. The company’s name was influenced by Coinbase transactions, which are special transactions that put cryptocurrency into circulation in proof of work cryptocurrencies.

    Coinbase's Company Logo
    Coinbase’s Company Logo

    “Welcome to the Future of Money,” read the slogan at the top of Coinbase’s website in 2013. This was changed to “Buy and Sell Digital Currency” in 2017.

    Coinbase – Products and Services

    Coinbase offers both retail and institutional investors cryptocurrency products, as well as other cryptocurrency-related services.

    The following are some of the company’s retail trade products:

    • Coinbase is a user-friendly app for purchasing, storing, and exchanging cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and Litecoin.
    • Coinbase Pro is a sophisticated asset trading platform that lets users exchange a wide variety of digital assets.
    • Customers can use Coinbase Wallet to access decentralized crypto apps (dapps) through a dapp browser.

    Coinbase’s products for institutional traders include:

    • Coinbase Prime, a platform dedicated to institutional customers.
    • Coinbase Custody is a collection of tailored services for businesses that hold bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on the Coinbase platform. As part of the program, Coinbase members have access to an SEC-qualified custodian, third-party auditing, and financial reporting confirmation.

    Other cryptocurrency-related products offered by the business include:

    • USD Coin is a digital stablecoin that allows customers to swap US dollars for a cryptocurrency with the same value but faster trading.
    • Customers can spend cryptocurrency wherever Visa cards are accepted with the Coinbase Card, a debit Visa card.
    • Coinbase Commerce, a retailer payment program.

    Using the company’s API, developers and merchants can build applications and accept payments in both digital currencies. As of 2018, the cryptocurrency wallet was available in 190 countries, and the company’s buy/sell trading functionality was available in 32 countries. Coinbase has a mobile app for both iOS and Android.

    Coinbase – Vision and Mission

    Coinbase’s mission statement says, “our mission is to build an open financial system. We’re doing this to increase the amount of economic freedom in the world, a measurable concept that can be greatly accelerated with the adoption of cryptocurrency.”

    “We started in 2012 with the radical idea that anyone, anywhere, should be able to easily and securely send and receive Bitcoin“, says the Coinbase website, which can be considered the vision of Coinbase.

    Coinbase – Business Model

    The business of coinbase is built around the B2C and B2B models. The company targets two primary customer groups:

    • Those who use the platform for buying and selling digital assets with the help of the wallet that Coinbase (B2C) offers.
    • The next are the merchants, who use the Coinbase platform (B2B) to store their digital assets (transferred by consumers) as a kind of payment from their customers.

    Coinbase’s network is used by both retail and institutional customers to buy, sell, and shop cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Customers can use the Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, and Coinbase Wallet apps, as well as the company’s websites, to contact them. Coinbase had approximately 56 million retail users as of Q1 2021.

    As an online marketplace, Coinbase allows the consumers to trade in numerous cryptocurrencies (over 20 different cryptocurrencies), which they can buy and sell like:

    • Bitcoin
    • Ether
    • Litecoin
    • XRP and many others.

    Furthermore, Coinbase also boasts of the Coinbase Pro and Prime platforms that help individuals and institutional clients to trade in a more sophisticated manner. Besides, the traders can also plug into the Coinbase API in case they want to retrieve real-time market data and develop programmatic trading bots.

    Along with the Coinbase trading platform, also known as exchange wallet, the Coinbase customers can also choose to use the Coinbase Wallet, often referred to as the crypto wallet. The latter is designed as a standalone app via Android or iOS and is more secure than the exchange wallet. Moreover, the wallet facility also enables the users to exchange goods and services effortlessly.

    Along with the trading platform that Coinbase offers, the company also brings in a whole suite of other products both for the businesses and the consumers.

    Furthermore, Coinbase also offers a wide range of courses on cryptocurrencies, such as Dai or EOS. The platform grants these currencies as rewards for the users who manage to successfully complete the courses.

    Coinbase also helps the users order a physical VISA debit card called the Coinbase Card, via which they can spend their earned cryptocurrencies and can also track their spending.

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    Coinbase – Growth and Revenue

    Coinbase is hailed as the largest crypto-exchange by trading volume in the United States, and has seen huge growth already since it was founded in June 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. When the started, in around 2012, the worth of a bitcoin was $6, and the knowledge of the same was limited to only a “few nerds on the internet”, tweeted Ehrsam. From that to today’s awareness of bitcoin, Coinbase has a huge hand in it.    

    Over the first two years in business, Coinbase grew to be a company with 1000+ employees, which is a huge milestone indeed.

    The company has rolled out an NFT marketplace in beta, went the May 25, 2022 reports. What was announced 7 months earlier, in October 2021, the marketplace for the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is now available in beta version.


    Coinbase earns its revenue from a range of different sources, as mentioned in the above section of the Business Model.

    Trading transaction fees and services such as storage and analytics accounted for about 90% of the Coinbase revenue (as of 2020). Customers are paid transaction fees (roughly 0.5%) based on the size of their trades, with smaller trades incurring lower fees.

    Coinbase takes a share of any bitcoin trade, according to its website. It made $1.28 billion in revenue in 2020, with transaction fees accounting for 86% of that total. In 2020, Coinbase was responsible for roughly 0.57% of the $193 billion in cryptocurrency trading value.

    Sales will rise by 139% in 2020, according to Coinbase’s prospectus, from $534 million in 2019. From about $80 billion in 2019, Coinbase’s trading volume increased nearly 142% in 2020.

    In 2020, Coinbase profited $322 million, compared to a $30 million loss in 2019. Yet faster growth was seen in the first quarter of 2021. Coinbase posted $1.8 billion in sales for the year, up 906% from $179 million in the first quarter of 2020. The trading volume in the first quarter was $335 billion, which was 60% higher than the entire year of 2020. In the first year, Coinbase anticipates a profit of $730 million to $800 million.

    Coinbase – Funding and Investors

    Coinbase has raised a total of $567.3M in funding over 17 rounds. Here’s a list of the last 12 rounds that the company has seen.

    Date Round Amount Lead Investor
    Jan 18, 2021 Secondary Market $20M –
    Oct 1, 2020 Venture Round – –
    Jan 1, 2019 Secomdary Market – –
    Dec 21, 2018 Secomdary Market $22M –
    Oct 30, 2018 Series E $300M Tiger Global Management
    Aug 1, 2018 Venture Round – –
    Feb 1, 2018 Venture Round – –
    Aug 10, 2017 Series D $108.1M IVP
    Jul 7, 2016 Series C $10.5M Mitsubishi UFJ
    Jan 13, 2015 Series C $75M DFJ Growth
    Jan 13, 2015 Series C – –
    Dec 12, 2013 Series B $25M Andreessen Horowitz

    Coinbase – Investments

    Coinbase has made many investments to date. Here are some of the prominent recent investments of Coinbase:

    Date Organization Name Round Amount
    May 4, 2022 Amberdata Series B $30M
    Apr 26, 2022 Ox Series B 70M
    Apr 13, 2022 Dfns Seed Round $13.5M
    Apr 12, 2022 Nomad Seed Round $22.4M
    Mar 22, 2022 Yuga Labs Seed Round $450M
    Feb 22, 2022 Zebec Protocol Series A $28M
    Jan 14, 2022 AMIS Grant –
    Sept 5, 2021 Balt Financial Holdings Seed Round $100M
    June 28, 2021 Qredo Initial Coin Offering $16M
    May 18, 2021 Cortex Seed Round $2.5M
    April 28, 2021 Alchemy Insights Series B $80M
    April 28, 2021 Risk Harbor Seed Round $3.5M
    April 14, 2021 Tribe Accelerator Venture Round $70M
    Dec 14, 2020 Rain Series A $9.4M
    Jul 12, 2020 Securitize Series A $12.8M
    Dec 17, 2019 Alchemy Insights Series A $15M
    Nov 19, 2019 Bison Trails Series A $25.5M
    Oct 6, 2019 Coinbase-CBT Series B $80M
    Sep 2, 2019 Coinbase-CBT Series A $20M
    Aug 12, 2019 BLADE Seed Round $4.3M
    Jul 17, 2019 Horizon Blockchain Seed Round $3.8M
    Apr 22, 2019 ZestMoney Series B $20M
    Dec 17, 2018 Abacus Seed Round $2M

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    Coinbase – Acquisitions

    Coinbase has acquired 22 organizations, as of May 5, 2022. BtcTurk was the last company acquired by Coinbase, which came in on April 21, 2022.  Here’s a list of the prominent Coinbase acquisitions to date:

    Aquiree Name Date Amount About Acquiree
    BtcTurk Apr 12, 2022 – A bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange based from Turkey that utilises BTC trader’s white label platform
    FairX Jan 12, 2022 – A futures products manufacturing company that caters to the demands of the active retail investors
    Unbound Security Nov 30, 2021 – A security company that extends protection for cryptographic keys and credentials, based in New York
    BRD Nov 25, 2021 – Zurich-based company that designs, develops and markets financial software
    Agara Nov 2, 2021 – Based in Bengaluru, India, Agara helps to automate end-to-end customer support operations.
    Zabo Aug 4, 2021 – Zabo helps in connecting a crypto wallet with an application via codes.
    Skew April 30, 2021 – skew is a platform that builds cutting-edge financial infrastructure for the digital assets space.
    Bison Trails Jan 19, 2021 – Bison Trails allows the user to run secure infrastructure on multiple blockchains.
    Tagomi May 27, 2020 – Tagomi is a cryptocurrency trading platform to provide clients with trade better execution so they can keep more of their returns.
    Routefire Jan 7, 2020 – Routefire is a provider of trade execution infrastructure in the digital asset space.
    Neutrino Feb 19, 2019 – Neutrino is focused on developing a comprehensive platform for analyzing, tracking & investigating blockchain and other virtual currencies.
    Blockspring Jan 17, 2019 – Blockspring is a place to create, share, and run functions.
    Distributed Systems Aug 15, 2018 – Distributed Systems is a digital identity startup and a full-stack machine intelligence.
    Keystone Capital Corp. Jun 6, 2018 – Keystone Capital Corp. operates as a financial-services firm.
    Venovate Jun 6, 2018 – Venovate facilitates the discovery, evaluation, and purchase of private company stock and other alternative assets.
    Digital Wealth Jun 6, 2018 – Digital Wealth is a fee-only financial planning and investment management firm.
    Paradex May 23, 2018 – Paradex operates as a crypto trading relay platform.

    Coinbase – Competitors

    Coinbase’s top competitors include

    • River Financial
    • GNEISS
    • OST.com
    • Blockchain
    • Binance
    • Bittrex
    • Bitfinex
    • Kraken
    • Paxos
    • Xapo
    • Bithumb
    • Bibox.

    Coinbase – Challenges Faced

    Coinbase was up against existing players as well as new decentralised exchanges. The company has struggled to scale up, with its support staff handling a backlog of queries about, among other items, exchange outages and money transfer delays. Finally, since crypto asset prices directly affect Coinbase, it must exercise caution if the market continues to decline.

    Coinbase has experienced internal issues as a result of poor execution. Despite a substantial increase in its user base, Coinbase has struggled to scale, as shown by recent events concerning the listing of bitcoin cash.

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    Coinbase – Future Plans

    Faced with the aforementioned obstacles, Coinbase intends to expand its core businesses while still exploring new opportunities.

    According to Coinbase’s “Digital Asset Framework,” the company plans to add more assets to its network in order to diversify its trading. This would benefit the company’s bottom line while also encouraging a huge consumer base to try out new blockchain applications. As a result, adding assets is both a hedge and a bet on the sector’s long-term viability.

    The goal of Coinbase is to assist all assets that meet their technical specifications and adhere to all applicable laws. According to Coinbase, customers around the world will eventually have access to at least 90% of the overall market cap of all digital assets in circulation through its platforms.

    FAQs

    What does Coinbase do?

    Coinbase is an American company that runs a cryptocurrency trading network that is based entirely online.

    Who founded Coinbase?

    Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam are the founders of Coinbase.

    How does Coinbase make money?

    Trading transaction fees and services such as storage and analytics accounted for about 90% of the company’s revenue. Customers are paid transaction fees (roughly 0.5%) based on the size of their trades, with smaller trades incurring lower fees.

    What companies do Coinbase compete with?

    Coinbase’s top competitors include River Financial, OST.com, Blockchain, Binance, Bittrex, Bitfinex, Kraken, Paxos, Xapo, Bithumb and Bibox.

  • How Pandemic Contributed to the Success of Zoom Video Communications?

    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 Zoom.

    The global video conferencing market size is expected to reach USD 10.92 billion by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 9.7% during the forecast period. Zoom Video Communications, Inc. incorporated on April 04, 2011, is a provider of video-first communication platform and Web conferencing services. In recent times, Zoom became a global phenomenon as businesses had to revert to working from home.

    The Company offers cloud-native platform, which unifies cloud video conferencing, online meetings, group messaging and a software-based conference room system, which enables users to easily experience Zoom Meetings in their physical meeting spaces.

    With the coronavirus pandemic hitting the whole world at large, face-to-face business activities had to take a plunge. That’s when this company became a savior for every online meeting that took place. We are talking about the Zoom cloud meeting which was founded by Eric S. Yuan in 2011.

    Zoom is an American company offering remote conferencing services. It is headquartered in San Jose, California. Zoom also has offices in Europe, Asia, and Australia. It primarily provides a remote conferencing service that combines other tertiary services like video conferencing, online meetings, chat, and mobile collaboration to facilitate conducting business virtually. It is one of the online meeting platforms which paved its way for success.

    Zoom success during pandemic was unexpected and it was a turning point in their organization. Read on to know more about the Zoom success story below.

    Zoom – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Zoom
    Headquarters San Jose, California, United States
    Industry Video Communication and Conferencing
    Founder Eric Yuan
    Founded 2011
    Total Funding Raised $276 Million
    Parent Organization Zoom Video Communications, Inc.

    Zoom – About
    Zoom – Impact of COVID19
    Zoom – Founder
    Zoom – Startup Story
    Zoom – Customer Acquisition
    Zoom – Mission
    Zoom – Business Model
    Zoom – Mergers and Acquisitions
    Zoom – Funding and Investors
    Zoom – Valuation
    Zoom – Competitors
    Zoom – Challenges Faced
    Zoom – Future Plans

    Zoom – About

    Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (or simply Zoom) is an American communications technology company headquartered in San Jose, California. It provides videotelephony and online chat services through a cloud-based peer-to-peer software platform and is used for teleconferencing, telecommuting, distance education, and social relations.

    The company develops a people-centric cloud service that transforms real-time collaboration experience. The Company offers unified meeting experience, a cloud service that provides a 3-in-1 meeting platform with HD video conferencing, mobility, and web meetings. The company’s cloud-native platform enables face-to-face video and connects users across various devices and locations in a single meeting. Zoom, which was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in San Jose, California, serves companies of all sizes from all industries around the world.

    Zoom Cloud meetings offer a free video-conferencing facility for up to 100 participants. It offers a communications platform that connects people through video, voice, chat, and content sharing. Zoom is compatible with Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Chrome OS, and Linux. Originally, it came with a 40-minute time limit but now due to coronavirus lockdown, this limit has been removed. If the companies want to add more participants and avail of more advanced features, paid subscriptions are available with the Zoom meeting app. Zoom’s closed source software is claimed to be compliant with FedRAMP, HIPAA, PIPEDA and PHIPA, and the GDPR.

    Initially, when Zoom was launched, it could host video conferences with only 15 participants which got increased to 25, two years after its inception. From there, it directly jumped to a participation limit of 100 in 2015 followed by 1000 for business customers.

    Users can hold one-on-one meetings or conduct video conferences with up to 500 participants. Screen sharing allows meeting participants to better coordinate within meetings and distribute information.

    The company has an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, collaboration, chat, and webinars across mobile devices, desktops, telephones, and room systems.

    The worldwide adoption of Zoom is powered by its two core products: Zoom Meetings and Chat as well as Zoom Rooms and Workspaces. Zoom Meetings can be attended and held via a web browser, or desktop and mobile applications. The  Chat works as an extension to the Meeting product where users can interact through a chat with each other, share files, or create groups.

    Rooms and Workspaces, on the other hand, allows businesses to utilize hardware such as a computer, tablet, camera, microphone, and more to hold virtual meetings. The product is specifically aimed at larger-scale organizations, which need to hold meetings across different offices. To make integration with the hardware easier, Zoom even offers its own set of hardware that they developed in collaboration with other manufacturers.

    Zoom – Impact of COVID19

    COVID-19 really boosted the success story of Zoom. This is when the Zoom Success strategy worked out really well. We’ve outlined its impact below!

    • With the pandemic intensifying, lockdowns were announced in almost all the affected countries which took Zoom to an altogether new level.
    • Be it companies, schools, or colleges, all started using Zoom Video Communications to conduct business meetings and deliver lectures.
    • Zoom offered its services to K–12 schools free of charge in many countries.
    • Zoom also released a paid education plan which allows unlimited meetings for up to 300 people. Not just that, these meetings are graced with the options of recording, transcription, and various other administrative controls.
    • These activities contributed to a sharp rise in Zoom usage and contributed to Zoom success during pandemic. For example, in just a day, the Zoom application was downloaded 3,43,000 times.
    • The company gained over 2.22 million users in the initial months of 2020. This number exceeded the number of users and  Zoom had amassed entirely in 2019.
    • Consequently, by March 2020, the Zoom share price increased to US$160.98 per share. This drafted an increase of about 263% as compared to its initial share prices when it came out with an IPO.
    • Zoom also became the go-to social platform for the Millennials. During this pandemic when they couldn’t step out, they used Zoom for blind dates and recess and many more fun activities that could turn their boredom into delight.
    • The founder, Yuan, added $20 Million to his net worth in just one day. This took his total net worth to $5.6 Billion!

    Zoom – Founder

    The Founder of Zoom is Eric S. Yuan.

    Eric S. Yuan, Founder, Zoom
    Eric S. Yuan, Founder, Zoom

    Educational qualification

    Bachelor’s and master’s degrees in applied mathematics and computer science from the Shandong University of Science and Technology.

    Early life

    Yuan was working with WebEx, which was acquired by Cisco Systems and that’s when he became vice president of engineering. After that, he went on to launch Zoom Video Communications.

    Zoom – Startup Story

    Eric Yuan is a former corporate vice president for Cisco WebEx. He left Cisco in April 2011 with 40 engineers to start a new company, originally named Saasbee, Inc. Prior to starting Zoom, Yuan spent 14 years leading engineering teams – first at WebEx, then at Cisco after its acquisition of WebEx in 2007.

    At Cisco, he often saw how frustrated the company’s customers were with their inability to listen to their demands and the slow product iteration process.

    The company had trouble finding investors because many people thought the video telephony market was already saturated. In June 2011, the company raised $3 million of seed money from WebEx founder Subrah Iyar, former Cisco SVP and General Counsel Dan Scheinman, and venture capitalists Matt Ocko, TSVC, and Bill Tai.

    In May 2012, the company changed its name to Zoom, influenced by Thacher Hurd’s children’s book Zoom City. In September 2012, Zoom launched a beta version that could host conferences with up to 15 video participants. In November 2012, the company signed Stanford University as its first customer.

    The service was launched in January 2013 after the company raised a $6 million Series A round from Qualcomm Ventures, Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang, WebEx founder Subrah Iyar, and former Cisco SVP and General Counsel Dan Scheinman. Zoom launched version 1.0 of the program allowing the maximum number of participants per conference to be 25. By the end of its first month, Zoom had 400,000 users and by May 2013 it had 1 million users. In the recent COVID times, Zoom rose to worldwide prominence as many companies use it to conduct meetings and organize their work processes.

    Zoom – Customer Acquisition

    Zoom's Business Customers growth
    Zoom’s Business Customers growth

    Within just one year of inception, Zoom recorded participation of 1 million user base. In its first year, Zoom established partnerships with multiple B2B collaboration software providers which included Redbooth (then Teambox), and together created a program that was named “Works with Zoom“. This, in turn, worked for Zoom in establishing more superior partnerships with hardware and software vendors like Logitech, Vaddio, and InFocus.

    Zoom in 2014

    Zoom had already reached 10 million users by 2014. And this number skyrocketed in 2015 when it went on to 40 million individuals with 65,000 organizations subscribed to the Zoom Video Conferencing Services. By 2015, Zoom had already hosted a total of 1 billion meeting minutes since its inception.

    Zoom in 2017

    Zoom hosted Zoomtopia 2017 in the year that was Zoom’s first-ever annual user conference. During this conference, they announced a dynamic series of new products and partnerships, which also included Zoom’s Partnership with Meta. This partnership was envisioned to integrate Zoom with Augmented Reality, more popularly known as AR. Also, Zoom announced its native support for Skype for Business and its futile integration with Slack, Workplace by Facebook, and its initial steps towards artificial intelligence (AI) speech-to-text converter.

    Zoom – Mission

    Zoom’s mission statement says, “Our mission is to develop a people-centric cloud service that unifies your meeting experience and improves the quality and effectiveness of communications forever.“

    Zoom – Business Model

    The business model of Zoom is built on charging businesses a reoccurring subscription fee for the various products the company offers. On top of that, Zoom makes money from the promotion of hardware products.

    Zoom – Revenue and Growth

    Zoom's Revenue Growth
    Zoom’s Revenue Growth

    Zoom has recorded annual revenue of $953 Million in 2021.

    Zoom Video Communications’ revenue for the quarter ending October 31, 2020 was $0.777B, a 366.52% increase year-over-year. Zoom Video Communications revenue for the twelve months ending October 31, 2020 was $1.957B, a 262.29% increase year-over-year.

    Zoom has 504,900 business customers.

    Zoom – Mergers and Acquisitions

    Zoom extended its communication network and service through mergers and acquisition as listed below.

    • In 2015, Zoom announced the integration of Zoom video conferencing with Salesforce’s customer relationship management platform. This collaboration allowed the sales team to initiate such conferences with their sales leads without leaving the application.
    • In 2017, Zoom went on to launch Telehealth. This platform is a scalable product in the telehealth category which allows doctors to remotely visit their patients through video communications for consultation.
    • In 2017, Zoom Video Communications announced a partnership with Polycom. This partnership integrated Zoom’s video meetings into the partnered company, Polycom’s conferencing systems and enabled a wide array of features that included multiple screens and device meetings, HD and wireless screen sharing, and calendar integration with Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, and iCal.
    • In March 2020, NextTech AR Solutions acquired a software company named Jolokia. Through this acquisition, it intends to integrate Zoom into Jolokia’s Inferno platform. The highlight is that this integration will allow Zoom Video meetings to support up to 100,000 participants. Not just that, with added and advanced features like “real-time Q&A Plus immersive AR.” and additional features like the ability to start a Zoom meeting from the Inferno platform and the incorporation of closed captioning in 64 languages to meeting recordings.
    • Very recently, in May 2020, Zoom acquired Keybase. Keybase offers end-to-end encrypted chat, file-sharing, and code-hosting all based on a cryptographic platform.
    • Zoom has acquired German startup Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions (KITES) on June 30, 2021. The company’s acquisition would bring in the knowledge of language translation via machine learning and is deemed to be a step forward to break the language barriers and speed up the work across the organizations the world over.

    Zoom – Funding and Investors

    Zoom has raised a total of $276 Million in funding over 8 rounds. Their latest funding was raised in January 2017 from a Series D round.

    Here is a list of all the funding rounds of Zoom:

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    November 2021 Post IPO Equity $130 Million ARK Investment Management
    January 2017 Series D $100 million Sequoia Capital, Emergence Capital Partners
    February 2015 Series C $30 million Emergence Capital Partners, Horizons Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures
    September 2013 Series B $6.5 million Horizons Ventures, Jerry Yang, Patrick Soon-Shiong
    January 2013 Series A $6 million Qualcomm Ventures, Jerry Yang
    June 2011 Seed Round $3 million TEEC Angel Fund, Michael Everett, Matt Ocko
    February 2010 Pre Seed Round $500K –

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    Zoom – Valuation

    The Zoom valuation is currently at $9.2 billion. It raised a total of $751 million at IPO.

    Zoom – Competitors

    There are several online video conferencing services available.

    Top competitors of Zoom are:

    Zoom – Challenges Faced

    With all this extra attention, Zoom is now facing a huge privacy and security backlash as security experts, privacy advocates, lawmakers, and even the FBI warn that Zoom’s default settings aren’t secure enough. Zoom now risks becoming a victim of its own success.

    Zoom has battled security and privacy concerns before. Apple was forced to step in and silently remove Zoom software from Macs last year after a serious security vulnerability let websites hijack Mac cameras. In recent weeks, scrutiny over Zoom’s security practices has intensified, with a lot of the concern focused on its default settings and the mechanisms that make the app so easy to use.

    Each Zoom call has a randomly generated ID number between 9 and 11 digits long that’s used by participants to gain access to a meeting. Researchers have found that these meeting IDs are easy to guess, allowing anyone to get into meetings.

    While Zoom still states on its website that you can “secure a meeting with end-to-end encryption,” the company was forced to admit it’s actually misleading people. “It is not possible to enable E2E encryption for Zoom video meetings,” said a Zoom spokesperson in a statement.

    Zoom – Future Plans

    During the vision keynote of Zoomtopia 2020, Zoom Video Communications, Inc. unveiled major developments to its platform that evolve the future of communications.

    OnZoom: A one-of-a-kind online event platform for Zoom users to create and host free, paid, and fundraising events. Hosts can grow their businesses, expand their reach into new audiences, and give back through native donation integration. Zoom users can discover these events and sign up for new experiences with additional functionality like gifting tickets and an attendee dashboard to keep tabs on favorite events and brands.

    New end-to-end encryption (E2EE) offering: This optional feature will be generally available in technical preview to free and paid Zoom users next week. It can be enabled at the account, group, and user level, and, depending on how the account admin sets up the feature, can be toggled on and off by the host on a by-meeting basis. When enabled, Zoom’s E2EE ensures that communication between meeting participants using Zoom applications is encrypted using cryptographic keys known only to the devices of those participants.

    Customizable SDK: Zoom is adding new enhancements to its SDKs, enabling developers and companies to enrich their own custom video-based applications with Zoom’s platform, available now on Android, iOS, and web. Developers can take advantage of a customizable UI and session control, making it easier for them to bring high-quality video, audio, and instant chat to their applications.

    Zapps: Zapps enable developers to create apps that power workflows before, during, and after the meeting. Zoom has brought first and third-party developed apps into the meeting experience for real-time adoption. Zapps are designed to give developers a fast and flexible web view canvas to create apps, viral distribution, and IT deployment and manageability.

    FAQs

    Is Zoom free?

    The basic plan for Zoom is free for all with no trial period.

    Who is the owner of Zoom?

    Eric S. Yuan is the owner of Zoom. He founded Zoom in 2011 in San Jose, California, United States.

    Who’s the CEO of Zoom?

    Eric Yuan is the CEO of Zoom.

    How does Zoom make money?

    The business model of Zoom is built on charging businesses a reoccurring subscription fee for the various products the company offers. On top of that, Zoom makes money from the promotion of hardware products.

    What are the competitors of Zoom?

    Top competitors of Zoom are:

    • Cisco WebEx Meetings
    • GoToMeeting
    • Google Hangouts Meet
    • BlueJeans Meetings
    • Skype
    • Webex
    • Slack
    • Adobe Connect

  • CodeChef – Competitive Programming Community

    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 CodeChef.

    The educational platforms are growing like never before, with their impressive results after the Covid-19 outbreak, the mark that these startups are leaving is prominent on the startup ecosystem. Coding or computer programming is now turning into an essential skill and has been rising in demand, the like of which was never witnessed earlier.

    CodeChef is one of the online coding platforms that has been quite popular and though owned by Unacademy, CodeChef still is growing in its own way. Founded in 2009, Codecheck organizes algorithms, computer programming, and programming contests for programmers. It hosts programming competitions and contests for students and software professionals.

    CodeChef, headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra also helps organizations connect with developers, brand their products in the developer community, and recruit them. It’s a non-profit educational initiative of Directi, whose aim was to provide a platform for students, software professionals to practice, to build their programming skills through online contests. Apart from this CodeChef also has a ‘CodeChef for schools’ program that aims to reach students and start a culture of programming in Indian schools.

    Knowing more about CodeChef, the company owned by Unacademy will not be challenging anymore with this StartupTalky article where you discover all about CodeChef, its Founders, Codechef headquarters, Codechef Owners and key people, Business and Revenue Model, Mission, Growth and Revenue, Logo and its Meaning and more.  

    CodeChef – Company Highlights

    Startup Name CodeChef
    Type Subsidiary of Unacademy
    Headquarters Mumbai, India
    Industry Software
    Founders Bhavin Turakhia
    Founded September, 2009
    Parent Company Directi, Unacademy (2020-)
    CEO Bhavin Turakhia
    Website www.codechef.com

    CodeChef – About and How it works?
    CodeChef – Logo and its meaning
    CodeChef – Founder and Team
    CodeChef – Mission
    CodeChef – Business Model and Revenue Model
    CodeChef – Competitors
    CodeChef – Growth and Revenue
    CodeChef – Future Plans

    CodeChef – About and How it works?

    CodeChef is a competitive programming community of programmers from across the globe. CodeChef was started as an educational initiative in the year 2009 by Directi, an Indian software company. The CodeChef headquarters are in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

    Apart from its monthly coding contests for the community, CodeChef has many initiatives for Schools, Colleges and Women in competitive programming. CodeChef is credited with hosting the India regionals of the prestigious ICPC for college students, as well as for IOI for school students in India. In 2020, CodeChef’s custodianship was changed from Directi (founded by Bhavin Turakhia) to Unacademy (Gaurav Munjal, CEO). CodeChef and its various initiatives have been managed and run by its Business Unit Head Anup Kalbalia.

    It is a global programming community that fosters learning and friendly competition, built on top of the world’s largest competitive programming platform along with building a large community of problem curators. They host three featured contests every month and give away prizes and goodies to the winners as encouragement. Apart from this, the platform is open to the entire programming community to host their own contests. On average, 30+ external contests are hosted on their platform every month. They also help organisations connect with developers, brand their products in the developer community and recruit. Presently, the CodeChef community has grown to over 10,00,000+ programmers from different parts of the globe.

    CodeChef – Logo and its meaning

    The CodeChef logo comes very much from the name of the company. The icon can be seen wearing a chefs hat.

    CodeChef's Logo
    CodeChef’s Logo

    CodeChef – Founder and Team

    Bhavin Turakhia

    Bhavin Turakhia is the founder of CodeChef.

    Bhavin Turakhia, Founder of CodeChef
    Bhavin Turakhia, Founder of CodeChef

    Bhavin is a serial tech entrepreneur, who has a special interest in collaboration and payments. Bhavin first co-founded Resellerclub, Logicboxes, and BigRock in 1998. He eventually exited all of them in a $160 mn transaction in 2014. Turakhia then founded Radix in 2012, before founding Flock in 2014, and Zeta in 2015.

    He has been the co-founder of Directi from August 1997 to December 2014. He was also the founder of Ringo.co, and still is the Founder and CEO of Ringo, Radix, Flock, and Zeta.

    I have always believed that “it is our moral obligation to make an impact that’s proportionate to our potential”. During the last two decades, I have worked with an amazing team of people and continue to do so in our quest to make a difference.

    In the year 2009, Directi, an Indian software products company, launched CodeChef to help programmers improve their problem-solving skills through active participation in programming contests. The goal was to help Indian programmers in honing their problem-solving skills by fostering friendly competition and community engagement.

    In the year 2020, the custodianship of CodeChef was handed over to Unacademy from Directi. After the transition, CodeChef is led by Bhavin Turakhia, Gaurav Munjal, and Anup Kalbalia.

    CodeChef – Mission

    CodeChef’s mission is to provide a reliable, valid, and fair method of assessing the skills and knowledge needed to become better programmers and develop a community of highly skilled certified professionals who are good problem solvers.

    CodeChef – Business Model and Revenue Model

    The CodeChef business model operations are entirely non-commercial. They do not make any revenue at CodeChef as it is a non-profit educational initiative. All of CodeChef’s operations, technology, infrastructure, and management costs were sponsored by Directi. Over time they intended to subsidize some of these costs through strategic partnerships with other companies as well.

    CodeChef – Competitors

    The top 3 CodeChef competitors are:

    • TopCoder, Inc.
    • Services Sunrise Mentors Private Limited
    • LeetCode

    Together they have raised over 16.5M between their estimated 416 employees. CodeChef’s revenue is ranked 3rd among its top 10 competitors.

    CodeChef – Growth and Revenue

    Bhavin Turakhia, the CodeChef owner said “All our existing programs, contests, etc. will continue to remain exactly as they are, and will only grow better in our new home. This change in custodianship will mean that we have access to greater resources, teams, technology, platforms, and capital.”

    It indicates that the contests will always remain free, and we will always be a community-focused and community-driven organization.

    Moreover, CodeChef is going to launch a new product, and that is a paid product. CodeChef started making revenue long before Unacademy came into the picture. They already had a certification program and corporate offerings before Unacademy took over the custodianship.

    Unacademy has announced the acquisition of CodeChef, in June 2020. The acquisition is likely to help the Facebook-backed firm to launch coding skills vertical for school kids.

    “Codechef is one of the best platforms in the world for programmers and their vision is aligned to what we do here at Unacademy Group,” said Gaurav Munjal, co-founder, and CEO of Unacademy while announcing the development on Twitter.

    “All our existing programs, contests, etc. will continue to remain exactly as they are, and will only grow better in our new home. This change in custodianship will mean that we have access to greater resources, teams, technology, platforms, and capital,” said Anup Kalbalia, CEO of CodeChef.

    The Unacademy learning program is another method of said revenue-generation. However, there have been other free initiatives that CodeChef has launched after coming under the custodianship of Unacademy. They have already added 30+ video editorials to different problems. And all of this has been possible only because the company now has larger access to resources that this collaboration with Unacademy has provided CodeChef with.

    CodeChef is no longer a not-for-profit, and have thus removed that phrase from the website’s footer, and the CEO said that it will subsequently, remove it from other parts as well. Again, to reiterate the CEO also said that each and every existing feature/initiative will continue to be free, and they will support all our programs as we have always done.

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    CodeChef – Future Plans

    CodeChef announced the Go for Gold Project in 2010. The goal of the Go for Gold Project is ambitious as the CEO said that “we want an Indian team to win the ICPC contest, one of the biggest competitive programming challenge in the world.”

    He also said that the change won’t happen overnight, so their plan is to support learning and reward improvement. They’re providing ongoing scholarships, incentives, promotions, tech assistance, and training for Indian students. With a little push to get started, their mission is to change the world and give Indian students a little more exposure.

    “We are committed to being completely transparent about our activities, motives, and finances. You will find details on our allocated budgets, the manner of our budget allocation, and a list of activities that we will conduct under the Go for Gold project this year” he said.

    FAQs

    What is CodeChef?

    CodeChef is an online platform that organizes algorithms, computer programming, and programming contests for programmers. They host programming competitions and contests for students and software professionals.

    Where are the CodeChef headquarters?

    The CodeChef headquarters are in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

    Is CodeChef owned by Unacademy?

    Yes, in 2020, Unacademy acquired CodeChef and the CodeChef parent company was changed from Directi (founded by Bhavin Turakhia) to Unacademy.

    Is CodeChef free?

    Yes, participation in the contests was fully free and so was their Youtube channel. However, it is now unclear how CodeChef is serving under the ownership of Unacademy.

    What are Codechef key people?

    Bhavin Turakhia is the founder of CodeChef and its previous parent Directi, who was the key people of CodeChef, along with Anup Kalbalia, who was the CEO of CodeChef. Now, the Unacademy founders and its key executive are also among the key people of CodeChef.  

  • LocoNav – An Indian Fleet-Tech Company that is Simplifying Fleet Management Worldwide

    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 LocoNav.

    For any business that involves the transportation of goods, managing its fleet of vehicles is a major task. From accidents, and inefficient driving to theft, the risks involved in transportation are many. Though businesses understood this very well, they were not technically strong enough to manage their fleet until the invention of GPS. While some big corporates employed electronically processed management mechanisms for their fleets, things were not as simple and accessible as today. Post the development of GPS technology, fleet management started becoming easier, with the addition of new and innovative functionalities.

    Fast Forward to today Fleet Management is a full-proof system that tracks everything from the real-time location of your vehicle; fuel,  mileage, and maintenance-related data of your vehicle; the driving behavior of the driver, and so on.

    Fleet Management Companies has come up with innovative features and services that have made fleet management easier than ever before. In this article let’s introduce you to one such homegrown Fleet management company that is all set to make a mark Globally by offering a plethora of services that simplifies fleet management for businesses in 30+ countries across the globe. Here is the success story of Gurugram-based, LocoNav.

    LocoNav – Company Highlights

    Company Name LocoNav
    Headquarters Gurugram
    Sector SaaS & Fleet Management
    Founders Shridhar Gupta & Vidit Jain
    Founded 2015
    Website loconav.com

    About LocoNav
    LocoNav – Founders & CEO
    LocoNav – Startup Story
    LocoNav – Tagline & Logo
    LocoNav – Mission & Vision
    LocoNav – Business Model & Revenue Model
    LocoNav – Funding & Investors
    LocoNav – Competitors
    LocoNav – Growth & Future Plans

    About LocoNav

    LocoNav claims to be one of the world’s fastest-growing fleet-tech companies and offer a 360-degree fleet management solution. LocoNav’s fleet management software lets businesses manage all their fleet-related tasks from a single platform. With LocoNav, users can easily monitor their vehicles and rest assured that the vehicles are protected and are efficient on road. Here are some of the interesting features of the LocoNav software –

    • Fleet Lock. This feature lets users control the vehicle lock from LocoNav’s Vehicle Tracking app and ensure that the vehicles do not start without the consent of the owner.
    • Live alerts on overspeeding, idle time, service & maintenance needs of the vehicle.
    • Fleet Maintainance becomes easy with Loconav’s reports on the mileage and overall health of the vehicles.
    • Monitor the real-time location of the vehicles.
    • User-friendly video telematics solutions that let users view real-time video footage of the vehicles on road and thus keep track of the driver and guide him if required. The camera installed on the vehicles’ dashboard comes with active sensors that save vehicles from possible collisions.

    LocoNav also offers FASTag services in India. The ‘Vahan Jankari’ option available in the Loconav app allows fleet owners and operators to check all required details about the vehicles like registration details, e-challan details, etc which ensures that the documents related to the vehicle are all updated, and the vehicles do not get stopped by authorities. Loconav’s AIS 140 Certified GPS Trackers services can be used for tracking cars, buses, trucks, and school buses.

    LocoNav has a very easy-to-use interface, and the platform is available in English, Indian regional languages like Hindi, Punjabi, etc, and other international languages like Arabic, Spanish, Thai, and Bahasa.

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    LocoNav – Founders & CEO

    Shridhar Gupta & Vidit Jain founded LocoNav in 2015.

    Shridhar Gupta

    Shridhar is the co-founder of LocoNav. He began his career as a Brand Management Intern at ITC Limited. Shridhar Gupta also co-founded health care startups viz. DNG Enterprises and Fitho wellness. Fitho wellness got acquired by Practo in 2015. Before co-founding Loconav, Shridhar was the head of the Partnerships & Sales department at ClearTax. He is a BBA in Marketing from Jadavpur University. Shridhar completed his schooling at St James School, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

    Vidit Jain

    Vidit Jain is the co-founder of LocoNav. Before co-founding LocoNav, he was the Lead Engineer at ClearTax. Vidit Jain worked at Vinsol as a Software Developer and began his career at GREEN ADD+ as a Research Fellow. Vidit was also the Founding engineer of the automated marketing platform Bizzy.io.He pursued his B.Tech degree from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and completed his schooling at Lancer’s Convent.

    Samit Shrivastav

    In September 2021 Samit Shrivastav was appointed the CEO (SaaS Global & Chief Business Officer) of LocoNav. Samit has years of experience managing businesses of established brands like Perfetti Van Melle, HealthKart, Jubliant Life Sciences Ltd., and Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd.

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    LocoNav – Startup Story

    It was in 2015 when Vidit and Shridhar were working at Cleartax, that they stumbled upon a startup idea, which lead to the launch of BabaTrucks in 2016. BabaTrucks was an online marketplace that connected truck and fleet owners to customers. Vidit and Shrihar started to realize that fleet management was a big issue for the vehicle owners, and fleet management services can be of great help for them. Thus, BabaTrucks pivoted to become a fleet management company, LocoNav. The platform BabaTrucks is still operational as a website where users can find news and reviews about trucks, and get tyres, engines, GPS devices, Fastags, auto loans, and insurance just with a click.

    LocoNav Logo
    LocoNav Logo

    LocoNav’s website displays the following slogan – “Fleets Move Our World. We Help Them Move Safely and Efficiently”

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    LocoNav – Mission & Vision

    LocoNav is on a mission to democratize access to fleet technology for every commercial vehicle in the emerging world. The company is working to eliminate the roadblocks of the commercial vehicle industry and is in the process of developing new products and services suite to do so.

    LocoNav – Business Model & Revenue Model

    LocoNav services can be availed both for personal and commercial vehicles. The company offers fleet management services to big and small businesses and the charges for the services vary based on fleet size and customer requirements. As per the website, the charges are levied on an annual basis. Loconav has clients across industries like Transportation & Logistics, Food & Beverage, Healthcare, Oil & Gas, Construction, Passenger, and transit.

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    LocoNav – Funding & Investors

    LocoNav has raised a total amount of $44.4 Million in funding over 5 rounds.

    Date Transaction Name Money Raised Lead Investors
    June 29, 2021 $37 Million Anthemis Group, Sequoia Capital India & Quiet Capital
    Oct 1, 2020 $37 Million Anthemis Group, Sequoia Capital India & Quiet Capital
    September 9, 2019 Series B – –
    May 23, 2019 Series B $4 Million Sequoia Capital
    December 8, 2017 Series A $3.4 Million Sequoia Capital

    21 Investors have invested in LocoNav including RIT Capital Partners, Uncorrelated Ventures, Quiet Capital, Musha Ventures, and angel investors like Anand Chandrasekaran, Anjali Joshi, and Abhi Ingle

    LocoNav – Competitors

    Some of the top competitors of LocoNav are Fleetio, Samsara, and Trimble.

    Fleetio

    Fleetio is one of the top competitors of LocoNav. This company is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, and was launched in 2012.

    Samsara

    Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, USA, Samsara was founded in 2015. Besides fleet management, Samsara also helps businesses manage their equipment, site, and more using technologies like IoT and AI.

    Trimble Transport & Logistics

    This company is headquartered at Lepers, West Flanders (Belgium), and was founded in 1985. Trimble helps users keep track of fleet, besides field service management and construction logistics tracking.

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    LocoNav – Growth & Future Plans

    Growth-wise, LocoNav has achieved much. As per the company’s website,  the company has served 30+ countries and has served over 5 Million vehicles. The company boasts of over 90k happy customers.

    In terms of revenueLocoNav’s operational revenue (revenue from the sale of goods and services) for the fiscal year, 2017-18 stands at INR 2.29 Cr. In FY 2016-2017, the company reported INR 1.21 Cr in operational revenue.

    LocoNav’s revenue has also been impacted by Covid. Revenue for the Calendar Year 2020 stood at USD 2.84M down from 5.04M in the Calendar Year 2019.

    One of the major achievements of the company is that it was EBITDA positive even during the time of the pandemic.

    The company wants to connect to its existing and potential customers via multiple touchpoints spread across the areas where LocoNav is offering its services. In India Loconav’s post-sales touchpoint and network are available to all pincodes across the country. The company wants to have more touchpoints in other countries of operation as well.

    LocoNav is looking forward to establishing itself as a leading player in the developing market.  

    “We aim to bring a radical change in emerging markets where no more than 30 percent of the 250million commercial vehicles use any form of fleet management tech. This is because the end customer perceives using fleet technology as an additional cost rather than a driver of business growth. To build a democratized and accessible fleet-tech brand in these markets our first step is to understand market-specific challenges and motivations to build an awareness campaign.” said founders Shridhar and Vidit in an interview emphasizing on the company’s plans.

    LocoNav – FAQS

    What LocoNav do?

    LocoNav offers fleet management solutions that help users keep track of everything from the health status of their vehicles to the live location, how the vehicle is being driven, and much more. All in all LocoNav makes fleet management a smooth and stress-free affair.

    When was LocoNav founded?

    LocoNav was founded in 2015 by Vidit Jain and Shridhar Gupta.

    How LocoNav makes money?

    LocoNav has many fleet owners as clients. The charges vary from client to client based on their requirements and fleet size.

  • StepSetGo – How it Makes Every Step Count?

    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 StepSetGo.

    The benefits of fitness go on and on, but you need consistency and discipline in order to stick with a routine long enough to reap those benefits. That’s where technology can help. The right app can act as a virtual personal trainer or training partner to keep you motivated and accountable. Running and jogging help to build strong bones, as it is a weight-bearing exercise, strengthen your muscles, improve cardiovascular fitness, burn plenty of kilojoules and help you maintain a healthy weight.

    StepSetGo is one such health and fitness app that lets people earn coins after every walk, which they can redeem in the in-app store for free products or discounts. StepSetGo app aims to get people out of the workout rut by incentivizing the process of walking. PM Modi also recognized this fitness app in his Mann ki Baat address.

    StepSetGo- Company Highlights

    Company Name StepSetGo
    Headquarter Mumbai
    Founders Shivjeet Ghatge, Misaal Turakhia, and Abhay Pai
    Founded January 2019
    Sector Health & Fitness
    Parent Company Pepkit Media Pvt. Ltd
    Website www.stepsetgo.com

    StepSetGo – About and How it Works
    StepSetGo – Industry
    StepSetGo – Founders
    StepSetGo – Startup Story | How was StepSetGo Founded?
    StepSetGo – Vision and Mission
    StepSetGo – Name, Logo and Tagline
    StepSetGo – Business and Revenue Model
    StepSetGo – Growth
    StepSetGo – Partnerships
    StepSetGo – Challenges
    StepSetGo – Marketing Strategy
    StepSetGo – Competitors
    StepSetGo – Recognitions and Achievements
    StepSetGo – Future Plans

    StepSetGo – About and How it Works

    With StepSetGo, founders wanted to make fitness simple, engaging, fun, and get as many people as possible to take up the challenge without asking them to do too much. So, walking was something that they knew they could use as an instigator to get users to get moving. It is something that they regularly do, all they needed to do was track it, institute a rewarding system, and make it social.

    How StepSetGo works is simple; the app tracks everything from users’ steps, calories lost to the kilometers walked. It then converts those steps into SSG coins which is the currency used to redeem offers from the in-app marketplace called the ‘Bazaar’. Users can earn 1 SSG coin for every thousand steps they take. While fairly simple, earning these coins is purely dependent on the user’s diligence and persistence towards getting those steps in daily.

    Once enough coins are accumulated, the user can reward his/her progress with gadgets, apparel, online courses, wellness products, and even bikes from the Bazaar section of the app. StepSetGo has taken things one step further, by heightening the engagement and motivation by introducing a healthy dose of friendly competition through the ‘Arena’ section in the app. There, users can compete with family and friends to reach specific goals, which ultimately encourages the building of healthier communities.

    There is no limit to the number of coins a user can collect but limitations are only determined by each individual and also there are daily limitations. Therefore the longer your commitment to fitness is, the more rewards you can earn with StepSetGo. This simple yet viral concept has, in the last two years building its registered user base to nearly 7 Million.

    StepSetGo Tools

    JIRA, Confluence, Asana, Slack, Whatsapp Web are the few tools StepSetGo uses to ensure business continuity and seamlessness. Additionally, they’ve invested in an Atlassian suite for better communication within the team.

    StepSetGo – Industry

    2020 has been an extremely transformational year for the fitness industry. The almost overnight churn of traditional to virtual has not only had an impact on the responsiveness of the industry to adapt and evolve but also has molded a new generation of fitness enthusiasts. This new generation has finally been given enough nudges towards making that long-term commitment to their fitness journey and is seeking more accessible means to achieve it. Apps, virtual training, gamification with a combination of traditional offline solutions will chart out the next few years of the industry.

    StepSetGo – Founders

    StepSetGo was founded by Shivjeet Ghatge, Misaal Turakhia, and Abhay Pai.

    StepSetGo Founders | Abhay Pai, Misaal Turakhia and Shivjeet Ghatge
    StepSetGo Founders – Abhay Pai, Misaal Turakhia, and Shivjeet Ghatge

    Abhay, Misaal, and Shivjeet have been friends for a while and they’ve always wanted to work together on something they could call their own. Sports and fitness are shared passions and the trio always knew they wanted to create the next big thing in the Indian fitness space. They all come from varied backgrounds, which came together perfectly to build and launch StepSetGo.

    Abhay Pai

    Abhay Pai is the Co-founder and CTO at StepSetGo. He holds an M.Tech degree and specializes in building high-scale technology solutions while heading the engineering team that develops, manages, and maintains all server-side infrastructures. He is also involved actively in the development and optimizations of the iOS and Android mobile apps for StepSetGo. While working with high scale tech-driven companies like IBM and BookMyShow, Abhay learned quickly what goes into building and scaling up a platform – which made him the perfect fit at StepSetGo.

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    Misaal Turakhia

    Misaal Turakhia is a Co-founder and CPO at StepSetGo. With a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from NMIMS and a Master’s degree in Advanced Computer Science from the University of Leicester, Misaal handles the technical aspects of the product, UI & UX, as well as app development. After switching from a leadership position at Fork Media, Misaal developed a logistics app for his father’s spice trading business, which received a lot of attention and instigated his drive to pursue the next big thing. Watching his father run his own business gave him the inspiration to start his own entrepreneurial journey and that came into motion through StepSetGo.

    Shivjeet Ghatge

    Shivjeet Ghatge is a Co-founder and CEO at StepSetGo. As CEO, he looks after the finances, marketing, and business development for the platform, which are the areas of his core competence. After graduating from Grenoble Ecole de Management with a degree in international business, he began his journey as a working professional with some extremely reputable agencies like Duval Guillaume, a prominent and well-known advertising agency in Belgium, Publicis Paris, Umbrella Design, and Grey Worldwide. Working with these companies helped him hone his skills in brand marketing and business development, which eventually led him to start his own consulting agency. Working with this new generation of go-getters who were determined to go off the beaten path, in a direction that had not been explored by their predecessors inspired him to do the same.

    What started out as a three-person setup, out of a friend’s father’s office space, has now grown to a 32-member team. StepSetGo’s team comprises young, vivacious individuals who work dedicatedly to make the platform reach newer heights in the least amount of time possible. The success of StepSetGo is a joint and collective ambition.

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    StepSetGo – Startup Story | How was StepSetGo Founded?

    Misaal, Abhay, and Shivjeet have always had a passion for fitness, and they knew that was the space they wanted to be in. While the trio went through multiple concepts that went from the idea board to the actual business plan, they knew that they still hadn’t found a hook that would set them apart from the rest. This was when, during a seemingly innocent conversation about their sporadic workout regimens that involved spurts of rigorous workouts with bouts of none at all, Abhay mentioned that if they got paid to exercise, they’d take their commitment to fitness a lot more seriously. That was when StepSetGo was born.

    When they were about six months in, at the starting of 2019, they were hesitant about pushing its concept out into the market. After a lot of R&D and testing within their own social circles, they knew that they needed an unbiased sample size in order to get honest and actual feedback. So, they decided to take the leap and on 10th January 2019, they launched the application and did a dipstick at the NMIMS College in Bombay with the students there. Little did they know that by the end of the day StepSetGo would have 200 new registrations and by March 2019, they would be up to about 55,000+ new user registrations.

    Their dipstick at NMIMs college launched their first 200 users and from there on their concept has only further catapulted their brand awareness. In the first three months StepSetGo had reached almost 55,000+ registered users a day and today StepSetGo has clocked a total registered users base of nearly 7 million through organic routes.

    As people used StepSetGo and saw individuals in their immediate circles reap the rewards, proof of concept was established and ultimately created an almost viral momentum for StepSetGo. Today, the platform has turned into a dinner-table conversation for users and their families.

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    The organic following StepSetGo acquired a loyal user base that loves using the application, and this helped them cross nearly 7 million registered users in just 20 months. That was a huge accomplishment for them because it was then that they realized that they had a unique concept that had a sense of virality built into it.

    StepSetGo – Vision and Mission

    The ideation and final launch of StepSetGo involved an immense amount of market research. From their research, they found that there are about 400 million people who were conscious of getting fit. However, only about 45 million were actually doing anything about it. Therefore, their goal was to reach those 350 million or so people and find a way to create something that would not just get them to begin a commitment to their fitness journey or goals but ensure it was a long-term one.

    With that in mind and with a joint vision to build a fitter community, they came together to build a platform that would incentivize its users to make a long-term commitment to their fitness journey by providing them with immediate rewards.

    StepSetGo – Name, Logo and Tagline

    StepSetGo is all about getting started with one’s fitness journey, so they wanted to translate that concept to something that had a lot of energy behind it. The phrases Ready-Set-Go or Get-Set-Go were easy connections for them, considering that, that’s what one says at the start of a competition or race. So, they started to toy with terms that would be a call to action and had a concept of movement to it. That’s how StepSetGo was coined.

    • Name – StepSetGo
    • Tagline – Make Every Step Count

    StepSetGo Logo
    StepSetGo Logo

    StepSetGo – Business and Revenue Model

    The StepSetGo funding is provided by Huddle and ESV. Also, the StepSetGo revenue model as of today is through ad networks like Google, AdMob, and Facebook Audience Network as well as brand partnerships.

    StepSetGo – Growth

    The initial growth highlights can be summed up by StepSetGo’s social media following, which are:

    • Instagram – 1,38,000+ Followers
    • Facebook – 79,294+ people like this
    • Twitter – 5,162+ Followers
    • LinkedIn – 2,082+ Followers

    StepSetGo – Customers/Clients Acquisition

    ‘Word of mouth has been its most powerful tool to make a name of StepSetGo in an incredibly cluttered market. Their strategy was very simple i.e. reward users for walking and the concept spoke for itself. In fact, their referral campaign is what has helped them really escalate the momentum at which they grew, because it gave users an easy way to build their SSG coins piggy bank by just getting more people to not just join but start walking and complete a minimum of 5000 steps. Additionally, at the beginning of the lockdown, since it was mandated for people to stay at home, they even instituted an indoor walking rewards system to continue to motivate and incentivize their users to keep up their progress.

    Apart from that, marketing hasn’t played a very pivotal role in StepsetGo’s growth, however introducing new gamification features and avenues through which users can interact with social circles, at consistent intervals is what has helped keep things engaging. To enhance the appeal, they’ve collaborated with leading brands like Bajaj Avenger, Bewakoof, Skechers, Puma, and Decathlon among others to reward their users for making an effort to stay fit.

    StepSetGo – Partnerships

    StepSetGo has seen partnerships, among which the partnership with Symbo on April 28, 2022, is the latest one. The collaboration with Symbo Insurance, a leading insurtech firm, aims to launch a one-of-a-kind health insurance. This health insurance will be available on the app of the award-winning health and fitness industry disruptor, StepSetGo (SSG), which will also help the users earn cashback on their premium. This will make StepSetGo foray into the new segment of insurance. SSG, thus, will not only take care of the health of the users but also insure their health in real-time. This SSG insurance in partnership with Symbo will be cost-friendly, effective, and unique in nature.

    The incentives that StepSetGo will likely offer will be awarded as monthly cashback, where the users would be able to earn back a maximum of 25% of the price of the premium by meeting their step goals. For instance, if someone completes 60,000 steps in a month, 2000 steps daily on an average, then he/she will be able to earn a minimum of 10% cashback. Thus, if he/she wants to claim 25% cashback, then 4,50,000 steps must be completed per month, which will make 15,000 steps daily on an average. The users can, in this way, keep track of the total steps they have completed, and the cashback they have earned. This will help them stay motivated and consistent.  

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    StepSetGo – Challenges

    The challenge was creating an application that was easy to use for everyone. The founders had to keep in mind the policies required for both Android and iOS systems. Their motive was to target anyone with a smartphone who could understand the concept and smoothly use the app. Building an application for the masses is tougher than it sounds even when one has a great idea.

    StepSetGo – Marketing Strategy

    StepSetGo’s one and only marketing strategy have been ‘word of mouth’, which was only made possible by a simple concept but had a unique added concept of customer-centric engagement at its core. It helped them get their first 200 users and has continued to help them grow their base to almost 7 million today.

    StepSetGo – Competitors

    Some of StepSetGo’s competitors are

    • Curefit
    • BurnCal
    • Cadoo
    • Abvio

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    StepSetGo – Recognitions and Achievements

    StepSetGo recently won the Atmanribhar Bharat Innovation Challenge under the health & fitness category.

    PM Modi also recognized this fitness app in his Mann ki Baat address.

    StepSetGo – Future Plans

    Userbase: over 7 million registered users

    Notable client: The app has also collaborated with leading brands like Bajaj Avenger, Bewakoof, Skechers, Puma, and Decathlon among others

    As per Similarweb’s data, StepSetGo ranks second after the Aarogya Setu app in terms of user engagement under India’s free apps’ category. StepSetGo is completely bootstrapped and is less than 2 years old. More than 95% of all of StepSetGo’s users are organically acquired. In September, StepSetGo entered the top 50 free apps under the Indian ‘all’ category and reached the #2 spot in India under the ‘health and fitness category.

    There will be more fitness-oriented features that go beyond just walking. More of the gamification that you already see on the app, to keep people motivated. Additionally, there will be quite a few features that are coming up in the bazaar section that is just around the corner.

    FAQs

    What is StepSetGo?

    StepSetGo is fitness the app tracks everything from users’ steps, calories lost to the kilometers walked. It then converts those steps into SSG coins which is the currency used to redeem offers from the in-app marketplace called the ‘Bazaar’. Users can earn 1 SSG coin for every thousand steps they take.

    How does StepSetGo earn money?

    At the moment, StepSetGo gets its revenue from advertisements, which the users can choose to watch to earn coins but a user can earn only up to four coins per day through this.

    Who is the founder of Step Set Go?

    Shivjeet Ghatge, Misaal Turakhia, and Abhay Pai are the founders of StepSetGo.

    Is StepSetGo a Chinese app?

    No, StepSetGo is an Indian app headquartered in Mumbai.

  • Taghive – Providing AI-Powered Self-Assessment Solutions for Students via Class-Saathi

    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 TagHive.

    The Indian education system is the largest in the world with 170 miliion students and 1.5 million schools. Education sector in India is growing at a huge pace as it makes the foundation of social and economic growth of the Nation.

    The School systems in India are getting Tech-Savy with the technological transformation. The use of technology in the education system stimulates student engagement in learning. TagHive has brought Class Saathi app for helping students improve their performance and competency.

    Read to know more about TagHive, founder, the startup story, and more.

    TagHive – Company Highlights

    Startup Name TagHive
    Headquarters South Korea
    Industry Edtech
    Founder Pankaj Agarwal
    Founded 2017
    Total Funding Raised $3 Million
    Website tag-hive.com

    TagHive – About
    TagHive – Industry
    TagHive – The Idea and Startup Story
    TagHive – Products and Service
    TagHive – Founder and Team
    TagHive – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    TagHive – Business Model
    TagHive – Customer Acquisition
    TagHive – Challenges Faced
    TagHive – Funding
    TagHive – Advisors and Mentors
    TagHive – Competitors
    TagHive – Tools Used in the Company
    TagHive – Recognition and Achievements
    TagHive – Future Plans

    TagHive – About

    TagHive Inc., is a Samsung-funded education technology company, incorporated on April 25, 2017 is headquartered in South Korea and has an office in India. The company’s offerings include AI-powered self-assessment solutions and clicker-based classroom response systems. The company offers its solutions under the “Class Saathi” brand in India and under the “Class Key” brand globally.

    TagHive has 22 registered patents and trademarks and 10 others are pending. The company’s solutions are used in over 1,000 schools (adding 2-3 schools daily) and over 340,000 students have downloaded the Class Saathi self-assessment solution.

    Their vision is to be the learning platform of choice for schools around the world, by building a unified platform that connects all stakeholders in the education ecosystem to improve learning outcomes. They believe that education is the greatest equalizer, and that technology shouldn’t be only for students for privileged backgrounds. Class Saathi is designed to empower the current system rather than disrupt it.

    TagHive – Industry

    There are over 1 million public schools in India, with over 170 million students; who on an average, do not have access to resources to learn that a majority of more expensive private school students do. With an average per student spend of Rs. 15,000 from Governments per year, there is little to no space for solutions that aren’t built to be low cost.

    Class Saathi is designed to work exactly in this space, for teachers, administrators and parents to create a supportive ecosystem of learning for students who, if not attended to, could be at risk of dropping out. A report by KPMG shows that India is the second largest market for edtech in the world, behind the United States. By 2030, the Indian edtech industry is poised to become $30 billion in size, but this current trend is focused on the private and higher paying segment of customers. Students in higher need across public schools are not a focus area, which is exactly what Class Saathi focuses on.

    TagHive – Founder and Team

    Pankaj Agarwal - TagHive Founder
    Pankaj Agarwal – Founder of TagHive

    TagHive Inc. currently has 25 full time employees, 9 in Korea and 16 in India. Primarily, the Indian team looks at partnerships, operations, development and communications; while the Korean team focuses on research, innovations and operations beyond India.

    They believe that trust and ownership is paramount, which is why even though the Indian team is fully remote, they have full liberty to lead and be accountable for their role. They are an organization on a mission and truly value people with passion and drive to transform the education ecosystem. It is a long and difficult journey, but if anyone is ready to walk on this path with us, we’re more than happy to have them!

    Pankaj Agarwal about TagHive Startup Story

    TagHive – The Idea and Startup Story

    As a student who began his journey in a small school in a village in Bihar, I had the incredible opportunities to then study at IIT Kanpur, Seoul National University, and Harvard Business School. Studying in 3 countries made Pankaj Agarwal the person he is. Education is always highly valued by him.

    When Pankaj Agarwal started TagHive in South Korea, one visit brought him back to the school where he studied, and even after decades, he realized that hardly anything there had changed. He was surprised to see that while the world had changed, schools remained the same, and students were still not getting the resources they needed. This was when he decided to create Class Saathi to be used in schools even without internet and electricity. They took inputs and got feedback from teachers and government officials in the space, and built features and functions according to what they need, and the response was great because most solutions weren’t designed to be used in under-resourced schools and classrooms.

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    TagHive Logo
    TagHive Logo

    The ‘TagHive’ name came from their original idea to use physical (hardware) and software ‘tags’ to enhance experiences across the real and virtual world in pretty much all domains, including but not limited to play, education, entertainment, fitness, and more. They wanted to represent energy and connectedness, which is why they chose that name.

    The ‘Class Saathi’ name however, surprisingly was something that came to me in a dream. Originally it was something the founder had put as a placeholder, but as they continued developing the product, it turned out that their users actually resonated with it, and despite their reservations about it not sounding ‘global’; the idea behind it was something even TagHive’s investors and supporters in Korea loved.

    TagHive – Products and Service

    Class Saathi is a clicker based smart classroom platform that makes formative assessment easy and fast.

    Class Saathi is a combination of a clicker device for each student and a mobile application for teachers, parents and administrators. After teaching a concept in a class, the teacher can ask a few questions using Class Saathi to gauge the understanding level of each and every student. The administrators and the parents can also see the learning data on their respective screens. Class Saathi app has over 50,000 questions (in English and Hindi combined) on Maths and Science for students of Class 6 to Class 10 and is based on NCERT curriculum.  Over 6.2 million questions have been solved on Class Saathi as of April 5, 2022.

    Class Saathi is aligned with New Education Policy’s objectives of micro-learning and continuous assessments. “Data First” approach ensures greater accountability at all levels. It is the world’s first and only clicker solution that works on a mobile phone, and doesn’t require internet or electricity to function inside classrooms. This enables it to be used across absolutely any context, especially in schools with the highest need in rural contexts.

    The app is also powered by AI, enabling Personalized Adaptive Learning (PAL) for students beyond the classroom. It adapts to student learning levels to give them questions that can challenge them and help them learn, which allows for learning to happen at home without any teacher assistance. Parents are also able to understand student progress through the rich data dashboards, and support their children in learning.

    TagHive – Business Model

    Class Saathi primarily works with governments and organizations to achieve scale and impact. Through funding by either the government bodies themselves, grants, or private channel partners, they implement its solutions across a wide range of schools.

    TagHive – Customer Acquisition

    They started directly working with governments because that was their target group, and because they were developing the solution with their on-ground feedback. Through this, they were able to reach out to their first set of users, and word of mouth helped us scale up and get even more users.

    They didn’t focus on paid marketing to spread the word about Class Saathi, but rather let their impact do the talking. Being a unique solution addressing age-old challenges in the Indian education ecosystem, they were able to begin conversations with like-minded early adopters from Governments and organizations, who then helped us begin pilots.

    These pilots were able to show impact in a very short amount of time (learning outcomes and attendance increased by 8% and 10% respectively in 30 days alone), which then enabled us to continue with larger-scale implementation and also spread the word about the potential of the solution. Additionally, since Class Saathi is extremely affordable and constantly evolving based on need, they were able to invest stakeholders who saw the value in it.

    TagHive – Challenges Faced

    One of the biggest challenges was to show stakeholders in the education system like teachers and administrators the value of Class Saathi. Most, if not all of them had already worked with some other education technology solution and were always of the opinion that it would be an additional burden. However, since Class Saathi is designed to empower rather than disrupt, they had to do multiple conversations to invest in Class Saathi and help them see that it will only help them.

    They truly believe that teachers are still the cornerstones of a great education, and their idea has always been to make life easier for them so that they can strategically focus on the learning outcomes of their students, armed with data and a platform that lets them build a more conducive learning environment.

    TagHive – Funding

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    June, 2017 Seed Funding $0.5 Million Samsung Ventures
    December, 2021 Series A $2.5 Million Forest Partners

    Funding and support from Samsung Ventures and Forest Partners has allowed us to expand their development to create an even better product that truly addresses the needs of stakeholders in the education system today; and to build a high-performing team to multiply and expand this impact across India.

    TagHive – Advisors and Mentors

    Yes, they have multiple advisors and mentors from India and Korea, who’ve helped us with challenging their assumptions and connecting us to people and resources they need. They come from a variety of backgrounds and have been instrumental in helping us grow.

    TagHive – Competitors

    While there are other edtech companies in India and globally, their solution is uniquely addressing problems in the public education ecosystem. Having said that however, some of their competitors are:

    TagHive Competitors in India:

    • ConveGenius
    • EI Mindspark
    • Gooru Navigator

    TagHive Competitors Globally:

    • AssessPrep
    • EdCite
    • ClassKick
    • Formative

    TagHive – Tools Used in the Company

    The tools they use in TagHive are:

    • Google Suite
    • Asana
    • Slack
    • Trello
    • WhatsApp
    • Zoom

    TagHive – Recognition and Achievements

    Many awards and recognition has been received by TagHive:

    • TagHive was Asia Pacific finalist in the Harvard NVC in March 2021
    • Won the 2020 Time2Leap Award (presented by Ministry of SME, Govt. of India)
    • Recognized by India AI as top 5 startups reinventing Education in India with AI
    • Awarded Education Startup of the Year 2019 at DIDAC India, Asia’s largest and India’s only exhibition and conference for education
    • Founder & CEO was on the Fortune India 40 Under 40 list released in June 2021
    • 1000+ schools in Korea

    TagHive – Future Plans

    TagHive operates in South Korea and India, and works with partners like The Ford Foundation, Kaivalya Education Foundation, HCL, Google, Samsung, and the Governments of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha, with even more in the pipeline.

    Over the next 3 years, their goals are to:

    • Implement Class Saathi (both at-home learning app and in-classroom assessment solution) in State Government and Central Government run schools and networks (State Board Schools, Kendriya Vidyalayas, Tribal Welfare Schools, and more) in India first and then go global
    • Integrate into NDEAR, NEP 2020 implementation, and relevant National Education Technology frameworks through technology platform sharing, service provision, or technology partnerships
    • Partner with large scale nonprofits and foundations to implement Class Saathi across their school networks

    They are currently and constantly developing new features based on requirements and feedback from their stakeholders on the ground. By April end, they will have a completely revamped teacher-facing app, which adds in a wealth of features that they have been asked for. They are also developing new dashboards and reporting functionalities to further ease the lives of their administrators.

    FAQs

    When was TagHive founded?

    TagHive was founded in 2017.

    Who is the founder of TagHive?

    Pankaj Agarwal is the founder of TagHive.

    Who invested in TagHive?

    TagHive is funded by Samsung Ventures and Forest Partners.

    How much funding has TagHive raised to date?

    TagHive has raised a funding of $3 Million.

  • SpaceX – How the Elon Musk-Owned Company is Proceeding with its Mission to Mars?

    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 SpaceX.

    Love the word ‘space’? Passionate about astronauts? Like newly designed products? Want to gain knowledge about the launching of rockets? Then you have a chance to know all about it by learning about the spacetech industry. SpaceX is right in the centre of events that occurs in the spacetech ecosystem.

    Technology is evolving, which is bringing in all the change and the space that was unknown to all of us, is now brought closer to us by many organizations that are researching and making steps to make space exploration possible and hassle-free. SpaceX is one of such companies that is bringing in the change or the revolution, as we might fittingly call it.

    SpaceX is a private aerospace company. It was launched in the year 2002. It is a very successful startup. It has been in the list of multibillion-dollar startups right from the first and with a valuation of $100 bn, which it touched in October 2021, the Elon Musk-led company is now the second-most valuable private company.

    Read the SpaceX success story below to know all about the Elon Musk-founded company along with everything about its Founder and Team, Industry, Business and Revneue Model, Mission and Vision, Growth and more.

    SpaceX – Company Highlights

    Startup Name SpaceX
    Headquarters Hawthorne, California, US
    Sector Space tech and Manufacturing
    Founder Elon Musk
    Founded 6 May, 2002
    Parent Organization Elon Musk Trust
    Total Funding $7.8 billion (2022)
    Valuation $100 Billion (2022)
    Website spacex.com

    SpaceX – About

    SpaceX – About
    SpaceX – Industry
    SpaceX – Founder And Team
    SpaceX – Startup Story
    SpaceX – Mission and Vision
    SpaceX – Logo
    SpaceX – Business Model
    SpaceX – Revenue Model
    SpaceX – Funding and Investors
    SpaceX – Growth
    SpaceX – Acquisitions
    SpaceX – Competitors
    SpaceX – Future Plans

    Space Exploration Technologies Corp., trading as SpaceX, is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company. It is a strong brand now. It is a well known and well-established company. Elon Musk is the man behind the company’s prominence. They started with a mission to reduce space transportation costs and have since developed various launching vehicles. It is the first private company known to all, which sent a spacecraft to the International Space Station in the year 2012. It is also the first private company to reuse an orbital rocket. The company is significantly advancing in space technology.

    SpaceX – Industry

    SpaceX belongs to the spacetech industry. A little was known of the spacetech industry before SpaceX was founded and started to take giant strides towards bringing the space that surrounds us, near us. The spacetech industry has been deemed to be constantly growing, and as per the last (FY21 Q3) reports, the same sector was valued at $4.7 trillion in 2021 and will further grow to $10 trillion by the year 2030.    

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    SpaceX – Founder And Team

    Elon Musk is an engineer, technology entrepreneur, industrial engineer, philanthropist, and meme lord on Twitter. He is the founder and CEO and chief designer of SpaceX. He looks after the development of rockets and spacecraft specially designed for missions to Earth’s orbit and also to other planets. Musk was born in the year 1971 on 28th June. Adding to all these, he is also the non-executive chairman and principal shareholder of SolarCity. SolarCity is a company that is presently the leading provider of solar power systems in the United States. The founder of SpaceX and arguably the biggest entrepreneur in the world today, is now also the owner of Twitter, one of the most popular social media platforms.    

    Elon Musk, CEO, Founder, SpaceX

    SpaceX – Startup Story

    The SpaceX startup story began in 2002 by Elon Musk, an entrepreneur, who is the world’s richest person now. He started the private company with hopes of revolutionizing the aerospace industry and making affordable spacecraft into a reality. In the beginning, the company started in a 75,000 square feet warehouse in El Segundo, California. 15 months after the company started there was a plan to launch Falcon 1 in November 2003. In the year 2009, SpaceX announced the opening of its Astronaut Safety and Mission Assurance Department. They also hired Ken Bowersox, a former NASA astronaut. He was appointed as the Vice President of the company to look after the new department.

    SpaceX – Mission and Vision

    SpaceX’s mission statement is “The Company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.”

    Human spaceflight remains the core mission of SpaceX. The company takes seriously the responsibility that NASA has entrusted in them, and believes in safely carrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

    “To advance the future,” is the vision statement of SpaceX.

    SpaceX Logo

    SpaceX – Business Model

    The business model of SpaceX lies in a special customer segment. SpaceX offers a deal to the public and private organisations that they want to transport items to space. Projects like commercial satellite launch, space station resupply and government national security missions are included here. The company has created accessibility to space travel which is relatively inexpensive. This idea has enabled opportunities for many organisations looking for exploration.

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    SpaceX – Revenue Model

    The company has got a value-driven structure. The main motive of the company is to provide a proposition through product enhancements and private service. The largest cost-driven area of the company is the cost of the raw materials. Other major areas are development, research, marketing, and sales. SpaceX earns through its branded T-shirts and accessories. Products have got a wide range of varieties available on the company’s website as well as in the stores. Sales of the satellites, rockets, and merchandise that it manufactures are a part of the SpaceX revenue model as well.

    Branded T-shirts, SpaceX

    SpaceX – Funding and Investors

    SpaceX has raised a total amount of $7.8 billion over 63 funding rounds that it saw to date.

    Date Transaction Name Money Raised Lead Investor
    April 21, 2022 Grant $70 Million NASA
    December 30, 2021 Venture Round $337.4 Million –
    October 18, 2021 Secondary Market – –
    October 14, 2021 Venture Round – –
    October 8, 2021 Secondary Market $755 Million –
    September 24, 2021 Grant $14.5 Million United States Space Force
    August 25, 2021 Secondary Market – –
    July 30, 2021 Secondary Market – –
    April 14, 2021 Venture Round $350 Billion –
    April 14, 2021 Funding Round – –
    February 16, 2021 Venture Round $850 million –
    November 1, 2020 Secondary Market – –
    September 1, 2020 Venture Round – –
    August 18, 2020 Venture Round $1.9 billion –
    May 26, 2020 Venture Round $346.2 million –
    April 6, 2020 Secondary Market – –
    October 3, 2019 Grant $3 million NASA
    August 9, 2019 Secondary Market – –
    June 27, 2019 Venture Round – Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan
    May 24, 2019 Venture Round $535.7 million –
    December 19, 2018 Series J $486.2 million Baillie Gifford
    November 20, 2018 Debt Financing $250 million Bank of America

    SpaceX is funded by over 65 investors. Stack Capital and NASA are the most recent investors.

    SpaceX – Growth

    Being a revolutionary idea from a genius entrepreneur, Elon Musk, SpaceX has seen quite a growth since it was founded in May 2002. SpaceX started with only a few employees, the count of which was estimated to be 160 in 2015. This grew year-on-year to become 500+ by 2008, 1100+ in 2010, 1800+ in early 2012, and 3000+ in early 2013. The total employees of SpaceX has long crossed the 5000 mark, back in 2015-2016.

    In the year 2019, the company launched 2 NASA astronauts. A significant progress is seen even in the launching segment. The company is currently valued over $100 bn, whcih means it has scaled extremely well today, standing as the second most-valued private company.  

    According to the SpaceX API data, 1919+ satellites of SpaceX are revolving around the Earth today. In the past 18 months, a report dated March 1, 2022, said that the company had increased its internet satellites by over 185%. Starlink by SpaceX, the largest satellite internet constellation planned by Elon Musk, is now expected to provide high-speed internet connection to over 60 million US people living in the urban and rural areas of the United States.

    The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy have been launched by SpaceX 153 times. This resulted in 151 full mission successes, 1 partial success, and 1 in-flight failure.

    Billionaire entrepreneur, Yusaku Maezawa, was announced to be the first commercial passenger to a flyby around the moon. This mission is to be taking place not before 2023, as per the latest updates.  

    After sending Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on the first manned flight of the Falcon 9 on May 30, 2020, SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk revealed the first private customer to ride around the Moon in his project called Dear Moon on SpaceX’s future massive rocket, the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), woudl be Yusaku. On September 17, 2018, SpaceX announced fashion innovator and globally recognized art curator Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire and founder of Zozotown, will be SpaceX’s first private passenger to fly around the Moon in 2023 after successful Falcon 9 voyage.

    This first private lunar passenger flight, featuring a flyby of the Moon as part of a week-long mission, will help fund development of SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy. It will be an important step in enabling access for everyday people who dream of flying to space. You can watch Elon Musk announcing the details about first private space voyage around the Moon in following video:

    Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese retail entrepreneur and art collector’s first words were “I choose to go to the moon.” Standing in front of a small crowd in SpaceX’s corporate office, he announced that he wants artists of different background and specialities – director, painter, dancer, novelist, musician, fashion designer, sculptor, photographer, and architect, to accompany him to the moon. He is yet to select the invitees on the trip which will take about a week.

    The Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa said, “I would like to invite six to eight artists from around the world to join me on this mission to the Moon. These artists will be asked to create something after they return to Earth, and these masterpieces will inspire the dreamer within all of us.”

    Maezawa didn’t comment on how much he paid but said that the trip will be free for the artists accompanying him. According to Forbes, Yusaku Maezawa is the 18th-richest person, with a net worth estimated at $2.7 billion, in Japan and the head of the e-commerce company Start Today, which is worth $12 billion.  Earlier this July Maezawa’s Zozotown unveiled its first in-house line of clothes in 72 countries, including the US.

    The estimated cost of the BFR is around $5 billion and SpaceX have heaps of work to complete before the aspiration can be materialized. “We have to set some kind of date. If everything goes 100 percent right, then this is the date. But there are many uncertainties,” Elon Musk said.

    The SpaceX’s latest variation of the BFR has the payload capacity to Earth orbit of at least 100,000 kg which makes it a super-heavy-lift launch vehicle.

    Elon Musk has always been outspoken about his aspiration for human beings to colonize Mars. The idea was conceived by the conceptualization of Mars Oasis, a project to land miniature versions of experimental greenhouse and grow plants on Mars in a bid to make the planet habitable.

    SpaceX – Acquisitions

    SpaceX has acquired 1 company to date, which goes by the name, Swarm Technologies.

    Name of the Acquired Company Date of Acquisition Deal Value
    Swarm Technologies August 6, 2021 –

    SpaceX – Competitors

    The top competitors of the company are Boeing, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.

    • Boeing is one of the top competitors of SpaceX. The company was founded in Chicago, Illinois in the year 2016. This company generates more revenue than SpaceX.
    • Blue Origin is the #2 competitor of SpaceX. It is headquartered in Washington. This company competes with SpaceX in the Aerospace industry. It has got fewer employees than SpaceX.
    • Virgin Galactic is the #3 competitor of SpaceX. It is headquartered in New Mexico and was founded in the year 2004.

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    SpaceX – Future Plans

    Life on Mars is still a dream of many scientists and common people. There are people in the world who want to wake up in the morning and listen, “life on Mars is possible!” For such people as well and as well as for the company Elon Musk has plans to send a rocket to Mars with cargo by the year 2022. They want to build a city on Mars. For the year 2024, he has plans to send crew along with the cargo to Mars. And by 2050, he wants to send millions of people to the planet Mars. And Just recently, NASA picked SpaceX to win their $2.9 Billion contracr for moon lading which is just one step closer to Elon Musk’s goal!

    FAQs

    What is SpaceX?

    SpaceX is a spacetech company founded by Elon Musk in May 2002.

    Where is SpaceX headquartered?

    SpaceX is headquartered in Hawthorne, California, United States.

    Starlink is a satellite internet constellation being constructed by SpaceX providing satellite Internet access.

    When was SpaceX founded?

    SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk.

    What is the Falcon 9?

    Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond. Falcon 9 is the world’s first orbital-class reusable rocket. It has been launched a total of 112 times to date (April 2021).