StartupTalky

Tag: 📄Company Profiles

  • Blockonomics – Simplifying Bitcoin Transactions

    The way people do transactions has evolved dramatically over centuries, from a barter system to a monetary system; from plastic money to now bitcoins. Since its creation in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, an increasing number of people now see Bitcoins as a trusted way of transaction, as now major companies like Microsoft, BMW, and Etsy are also accepting Bitcoin payments. Going by numbers, the cryptocurrency market was valued at USD 1.03 billion by 2019 and is projected to reach USD 1.40 billion in 2024, growing at a CAGR of 6.18% during the forecast period. This growing popularity of bitcoins inspired Shiva Sitamraju to start Blockonomics, a startup that unlocks the power of Bitcoin by allowing entrepreneurs and enthusiasts to manage their bitcoin payments with ease. Here is a peek into the journey and operations of this Hyderabad-based startup.

    Company Highlights

    Startup Name Blockonomics
    Headquarter Hyderabad
    Founder Shiva Sitamraju
    Sector Ecommerce
    Founded 2015
    Website blockonomics.co

    Blockonomics—About
    Blockonomics—Founder
    Blockonomics—How It All Started?
    Blockonomics—Work Culture
    Blockonomics—Revenue Model
    Blockonomics—Challenges
    Blockonomics—Growth
    Blockonomics—FAQ’s
    Blockonomics—Conclusion

    Blockonomics—About

    Blockonomics simplifies the process of receiving /making payments through Bitcoins and tracking Bitcoin transactions. The company has introduced a number of features for this, which includes –

    • Bitcoin Payment Plugins for e-commerce merchants, supporting sites like WordPress, Wix, WHMCS, and many more
    • Bitcoin Payment Button/URL, which allows people to set up quick and simple payment options and donations
    • Bitcoin Invoice, so you can pay your employees easily in Bitcoin, or charge customers if you’re a freelancer.
    • Wallet Watcher, so you can easily keep track of all your wallets, with many sub-features such as the Export Feature allowing you to see all your transactions in a simple place.
    • Bitcoin Tracker, a quick way to see any transactions and wallets on the Blockchain.

    “Allowing people to control their own sales and payments is an important part of Blockonomics, and is a driving force in what we do. Many e-commerce merchants have to use expensive payment solutions that go through middlemen, so it limits the control of their sales. Our products seek to ensure entrepreneurs can more directly control their cash inflow and to cut down on fees they experience. We also make the easiest to use Bitcoin payment plugin, the other options are often more complicated” says Blockonomics Shiva Sitamraju emphasizing the USPs of Blockonomics.

    Blockonomic’s products facilitate ease and direct control. The company’s e-commerce plugins tie directly into e-commerce platforms, for easy installation and tracking. For scenarios where a plugin can’t be used, Blockonomics’ in-house solutions, such as the payment button/URL and invoice function are made to be easily implemented into whatever website, email, etc might be used.

    Advantages and Drawbacks of Investing Cryptocurrency
    With the industrialization and absorption of technology, digital currencies aregaining importance over others. One such currency is bitcoins. Several peopleare acquainted with this well-known terminology.What are cryptocurrency’s pros and cons? Is it worth investing in 2020? If youhave such ques

    StartupTalkyAditi Chawda

    Blockonomics—Founder

    Shiv Sitamraju | CEO, Blockonomics (Extreme Right)

    Shiva Sitamraju is the CEO of Blockonomics. Shiva is an MTech from IIT Delhi. He has experience in scalable backend engineering and has held lead engineering roles in a number of startups before. Blockonomics currently has a team of 7 people spread throughout 4 continents. There are 3 members of the marketing team, and 3 on the software development and design.

    Blockonomics—How It All Started?

    Blockonomics started as a Wallet Watcher to track a large number of bitcoin addresses. Sitamraju himself is a bitcoin enthusiast, and was facing problems with monitoring and tracking multiple bitcoin addresses, which made him create ‘Wallet Watcher’ as a tool to help himself out. In December 2014, Sitamaraju launched Blockonomics Wallet Watcher on the bitcointalk forum. The initial response of the bitcoin community on Blockonomics’ Wallet Watcher was very good and it was very heartening for the Blockonomics team to constantly receive feedback on features to add to the product.

    “We used community forums like bitcoin talk, StackExchange, and Reddit. These channels are most important to build your MVP into an actual startup. Even though the growth of user metrics may be slow using these channels, they are valuable to build user trust and help to steer you in the correct direction. In 2015, Blockonomics’ thread became hugely popular on Reddit bitcoin.  Even though we had very few users and zero revenue, constant feedback from customers and a sense that this product is getting used kept us going” says Shiva Sitamraju.

    Blockonomics Founder & Team Members

    However, after 2 years, when Blockonomics monetized its Wallet Watcher, the team soon realized that the revenue stream for the product was very less. So the company started diversifying its offerings.

    “Though some people were willing to pay for the Wallet Watcher, the amount was very less and creating pressure on our margins. After looking at some other services that were selling e-commerce payment plugins, we realized that this market was a good fit for our product which already had backend ability to serve blockchain queries” says Shiva about the initial challenges of the startup.

    Cryptocurrency is readily redefining the future of finance sector in India
    Cryptocurrency is a thriving ecosystem, encroaching on conventional territoryand is redefining the Finance sector. Over the last few years, Bitcoin users andtransactions have averaged a growth rate of nearly 60% annually. Similarly inprivate and public investors have deepened the commitment to cr

    StartupTalkyVibhavari Madki

    Blockonomics—Work Culture

    Blockonomics’ work culture has always been completely remote (even before covid).

    When Shiva started to recruit remote work, he had two simple rules:

    • Hire from anywhere in the world
    • Don’t look at resumes

    The company never had an office and the team has never been restricted to geographical boundaries. Also, the team avoids holding unnecessary meetings and has only one meeting per week. All work is done asynchronously using tools like Slack, Trello, Github. This gives employees more flexibility and there is no assigned office time (you don’t need to be online 9-5).  This also means all team members are independent / self-driven and there is a trust that no one needs monitoring/ management.

    Blockonomics Team at Prague WordPress Conference 2018

    Cryptocurrency and Blockchain: How can it change India?
    The world is evolving at an expeditious speed, so is the world of money[https://startuptalky.com/tag/money/]and business[https://startuptalky.com/tag/business/]. The up to the minute development ismoney in the form of cryptocurrency[https://startuptalky.com/tag/cryptocurrency/]. A cryptocurrency

    StartupTalkyYash Gupta

    Blockonomics—Revenue Model

    For the Address Watcher Users, Blockonomics charges a flat subscription fee. The subscription fee ranges from 0- 20 USD per month based on address limits and API features. While, for merchants, the company offers the first 10 payments free and thereafter charges a 1% fee on payments.

    Blockonomics—Challenges

    Building a viable business has been the major challenge for the Blockonomics team. Shiva was from a tech background and he did not have any entrepreneurial experience. It took him quite some time to become able to handle a business. Initially, Blockonomics had very few users and earned almost zero revenue. The team had to dig through business knowledge from podcasts/books and learn on the road.

    Blockonomics—Growth

    Despite all the struggle, Blockonomics has today established itself as a sustainable and profitable company that is making a difference. Some major growth parameter achieved by Blockonomics are-

    • Active WordPress installs – 3000+
    • Total merchant store installs – 10,000+
    • Blockonomics is monitoring 300,000+ addresses
    • 140,000 payments have been processed through Blockonomics payment plugin/payment button/URL
    • 6,500 P2P invoices have been created through the platform.

    While there are many who are still confused and unsure about Bitcoins, startups like Blockonomics are doing a good job in making more and more people confident about using Bitcoins by making Bitcoin transactions easy.

    How to Invest in Bitcoin in India – A Beginners Guide
    Bitcoin is a digital coin and it is considered as one of the best investmentinstruments by the Millennials. Bitcoin is a virtual currency that depends onblockchain technology. It is used to make purchases but mostly it is consideredan investment option. Bitcoin has provided an amazing return ov

    StartupTalkyAlan Joseph

    Blockonomics—FAQ’s

    What is Blockonomics?

    Blockonomics is a decentralized Bitcoin payment solution that provides you with specialized transactional tools to enhance your BTC use. A bitcoin payment gateway that is decentralized and permission-less.

    Is Blockonomics safe?

    Blockonomics is built on a P2P connection, making it safe and secure as it does not save your private keys. Users also prefer Blockonomics to other payment processing platforms due to its permission-less, peer-to-peer structure.

    How do I pay my bitcoin wallet?

    If an online merchant has the option of Bitcoin payments, you just need to copy their Bitcoin address and paste it into a designated field on your wallet. Type in the right amount of bitcoins into the payment box and click ‘send’.

    How can I check my Bitcoin balance?

    You can use Blockchain.info. Just paste the address you want to check into the Search input box and the website will show you all the transactions where that address was involved, as well as the balance.

    Who gets the money when you buy Bitcoin?

    A buyer and seller agree on a price and a trade is executed over an exchange. So our $50k investor buys that amount of bitcoins and the seller receives the $50k in the form of a cash deposit. That seller may now keep it in the bank, buy other cryptos or withdraw it and spend it in any way they choose.

    Can Bitcoin be converted to cash?

    There are several ways to convert bitcoin to cash and ultimately move it to a bank account: Sell bitcoin on a cryptocurrency exchange, such as Coinbase or Kraken. This is the easiest method if you want to sell bitcoin and withdraw the resulting cash directly to a bank account.

    Blockonomics—Conclusion

    Blockonomics is a platform that is a decentralized Bitcoin payment solution. Blockonomics provides you with specialized transactional tools to enhance your BTC use. It is a decentralized and permission-less bitcoin payment solution. Its services enhance the wallets you already own. Their aim is to accept bitcoin directly without any mediator and present an invoice anonymously. They are huge fans of decentralization and cryptography.

  • Fyseko: Natural Skincare Brand With The Joy Of Ayurveda

    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 Fyseko.

    Caring for our skin is one of the easiest ways to ensure long-term skin health and radiance, and adding a pinch of natural skincare in our daily routine acts as a catalyst. Natural and organic skincare products combine essential vitamins, botanicals, and minerals that heal and restore our skin—without harming our earth. FYSEKO is one such natural skincare brand that is dedicated to redefining the beauty industry standards for products that are not only good for us but also good for our planet.

    Fyseko- Company Highlights

    Company Name FYSEKO
    Headquarter Mumbai
    Founder Hema Panjavani
    Founded January 2019
    Sector Beauty
    Website fyseko.com

    Fyseko – About
    Fyseko – Founder
    How was Fyseko Founded
    Fyseko – Name, Logo and Tagline
    Fyseko – Vision and Mission
    Fyseko – Products/ Services
    Fyseko – Business and Revenue Model
    Fyseko – Startup Launch
    Fyseko – Challenges
    Fyseko – Advisors and Mentors
    Fyseko – Recognitions and Achievements
    Fyseko – Future Plans

    Fyseko – About

    The name FYSEKO is inspired by the Greek word FYSEKO which means Natural. The team is a bunch of natural skincare enthusiasts inspired to create a holistic skincare solution. Their formulators are professionally trained from international institutes to develop effective skincare products. The brand pays utmost care in ensuring that their formulation has maximum possible natural raw material ingredients and are sourced from genuine suppliers across the supply chain.

    Fyseko is committed to providing its customers with Holistic, Affordable, and Genuine products. Their objective is to develop natural skincare products using ancient old Ayurveda with modern science and technology. Fyseko as a company is focused on limited but most important products required in the daily skincare routine. All of their products are AYUSH certified and manufactured in a GMP certified manufacturing facility. None of Fyseko’s products contain SLS and Paraben.

    FYSEKO love and respect animals and never test any of their products on them. Also, they never use artificial colors and fragrances in any of their products hence; all that beautiful look and smell is 100% natural.

    Fyseko – Founder

    Hema Panjavani is the Founder of Fyseko.

    Fyseko Founder | Hema Panjavani
    Fyseko Founder | Hema Panjavani

    Hema was a banker earlier and a full-time homemaker before founding FYSEKO. She is an avid advocate of going natural in lifestyle. The company is bootstrapped and is funded by herself and her family. She is a commerce graduate from Saurashtra University.

    How was Fyseko Founded

    The beauty industry in the country has a plethora of skincare products claiming to be natural, organic and most of them are priced on a relatively higher side. Although those products must have their benefits, they aren’t necessarily accessible to all individuals due to their luxury pricing, appeal to affluent customers, and recurring expenses in nature. The need to provide authentic natural skin care that performs well, at affordable rates was Hema’s main focus, which she executed first at a personal level and took it up a notch by laying the foundation for Fyseko.

    A face wash typically leaves the skin feeling dry and dull after use, which makes the skin produce extra oils to combat dryness. To tackle that, Hema first created her own homemade face wash in 2017 by using a combination of natural herbs like sweet basil, peppermint, calendula flower and a few more functional ingredients. Once that worked, then she created a variety of products such as toners, moisturizers, lip balm and scrubs, all made with natural ingredients and with the focus on being gentle on skin.

    With an accommodating home lab full of natural ingredients to experiment and formulate products for her personal use, Hema began giving these products to friends and family for use too. With their rave reviews and encouragement, Hema was inspired to scale up the business and launch their own personal care brand Fyseko.

    Teal and Terra – Organic skin care and hair care products on fleek.
    When it comes to the cosmetic industry, consumers are always concerned as towhat goes behind the scenes while making these products and mainly the concernis about the ingredients. For the same reasons, nowadays we see a huge buzzabout organic products or natural hair care and skin care products. 

    StartupTalkyVidhi Punamiya

    Fyseko – Name, Logo and Tagline

    Fyseko (pronounced as FISIKO) derived from Greek word Fysikos meaning natural. Hema set up the brand in January of 2019 to cater to the masses, but the products have been around since 2017.

    Fyseko Logo

    Fyseko – Vision and Mission

    The challenging lifestyle, increasing pollution, and high level of stress impacts not only mentally but also has a tremendous impact on our skin, body, and hair. The impact becomes visible with growing age. While there are a plethora of personal care products available in the market, it is imperative to pick the product which provides natural care, easy to use, and doesn’t impact the environment.

    Their vision is to inspire and promote natural skincare. Fyseko’s principles and objectives are to bring Holistic, Affordable, and Genuine skincare with all-natural ingredients.

    Mamaearth: Bringing Toxin-Free, Pure Baby Care And Skincare Products To India
    When it comes to the cosmetic industry, consumers are always concerned as towhat goes behind the scenes while making these products and the ingredientsused. For the same reasons, we now see a huge buzz about organic products,natural hair care items, and skin care products. But when it comes to ba

    StartupTalkyRishabh Rathi

    Fyseko – Products/ Services

    Along with her partners, Hema has been studying and researching natural skincare to develop holistic and innovative products to add to their brand. Not just natural skincare, Fyseko is also focusing on social benefit and sustainability. The brand ensures the utmost use of solely natural ingredients, sustainable packaging, and manufacturing focused on people’s employment. The paper used for packaging is made entirely from waste; the printing of the packing box is handmade with a screen printing method that generates more employment as compared to digital printing and the manufacturing and packing of the products are done in an SME set-up with the least usage of machines.

    FYSEKO Products
    FYSEKO Products

    Fyseko is also working with its selling partners to ensure the selling and distribution is done through a subscription model which enables them to ship the products in a more sustainable manner with the least carbon emissions. All of their marketing material is distributed in a digital format only to ensure zero paper use.

    The products are manufactured in a GMP certified facility and are all Ayush certified. The brand also doesn’t use SLS, Paraben, artificial color, and fragrances in addition to them condemning testing on animals. The future of Fyseko holds the launch of many exciting products after the brand is absolutely certain that these additions to the line comply with their brand principles of holistic, affordable, and genuine skincare.

    Fyseko has recently been selected in the Amazon Launchpad program, which will help in accelerating brand building and visibility with the help of a structured approach and insights from Amazon.

    Fyseko – Business and Revenue Model

    The Fyseko business model has a lean business and operating model to avoid incurring unrequired expenses. Currently, they sell their products through Amazon and Flipkart only. The entire logistics and distribution are managed by the selling platforms. Fyseko’s sourcing, quality assurance, manufacturing, and marketing are managed by their strategic business partners who know their job well and can perform at the operations in the shared service model. This helps in keeping the costs in check and ensure their all-natural products available at affordable rates.

    Fyseko’s products prices range from INR 200 to 500, and Hema assures that there is no other brand offering their level of quality natural products at such competitive prices.

    Fyseko – Startup Launch

    It took a good 3 years to research, experiment, prepare, and launch the products and brand in the market. Ms. Panjavani believes that planning is very critical but it is even more important to vary of the fact that not everything can be planned. Their strategy is to start modest, learn, adopt, and then go big.

    The biggest challenge was to find suppliers and partners who would listen and believe in the vision. Minimum order quantities (MOQ) for most of the companies are extremely high and that would typically require a large customer base. The team’s persistence and focus combined with luck got them to meet their suppliers and partners who agreed to work with them. They have committed themselves to stick with them as Fyseko grows.

    Juicy Chemistry – This Husband-Wife Duo is Revolutionizing Skincare in India!
    #CertifiedOrganic #juicychemistry #OrganicByNature
    StartupTalkyRishabh Rathi

    From the user’s perspective, Fyseko’s first users were friends and family followed by beauty experts and bloggers. This group helped them experiment and modify their products before they were all set to launch their brand in 2019. They managed to get a good 20-25 orders in the first month and then the team was hit with COVID-19 in April, and that brought the sale down to almost zero due to lockdown. As the market opened up in June, Fyseko witnessed good traction and a jump in their sale. The real proof of customer satisfaction is through repeat purchase and they have seen almost 10-15% of Fyseko’s sale coming from the existing customer base. Fyseko is still taking baby steps but has an ambitious target to reach INR 10 crores of turnover by the end of 2021.

    Fyseko – Challenges

    Typically, the natural ingredients are expensive compared to synthetic chemicals and the cost further goes up due to the smaller scale of operation. Fyseko works very closely with its suppliers and manufacturing partner to get the best price of the raw material without compromising the freshness and quality. Fyseko sells them their vision and attempts to provide the right products at the right price and buy their support. The other challenge is that the company get their products and packing material manufactured in a labor-intensive set-up where there is minimal automation. This contributes to the social cause of generating employment however the cost of manual operation is almost 30-40% more expensive than automated set-up. The paper used for the packing material is made from textile and crop waste which cost higher compared to regular paper.

    While these costs are high, Fyseko still attempts every day to provide better quality products and keep their prices low. This obviously means that they run on almost negative margins at the moment and hope to go profitable once they achieve the scale and large consumer base.

    Fyseko – Advisors and Mentors

    Any company cannot be expert in all the areas and so, having a mentor for Fyseko was very important.

    • Dr. V. Suguna – She has extensive knowledge in Botany, Microbiology, Biotechnology, Genetics. Dr. Suguna holds a doctorate in Genetics and held different level scientist position over the last 15 years.
    • Vishal Singh – Vishal is the founder of the digital marketing firm – Bits & Pixels

    How Beauty Industry Is Using Personalization To Build Brand Relevance
    In 2020, no longer does the beauty industry solely cater to the mass- market. Asconsumers increasingly seek out beauty solutions suited to their specific needs,there has never been a greater need for personalization in the category. Theconcept of personalization in beauty is far from saturation. 

    StartupTalkyTanusha Verma

    Fyseko – Recognitions and Achievements

    • Fyseko’s moisturizer has consistently ranked in Top 10 natural moisturizers in India by bestreviewsguide.
    • Fyseko’s face wash is ranked in Top 15 best Men’s face wash for dry skin in India by FtaFit

    Fyseko – Future Plans

    Keeping their products affordable with genuine natural ingredients is Fyseko’s brand principle, and they abide by that in every decision they make. All elements of their business have a higher cost base as compared to typical personal care products available in the market. Fresh and natural ingredients, the recycled paper used in their packing, manual manufacturing, and box printing process cost much more than regular products.

    Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs

    What is Fyseko?

    Fyseko is a natural skincare brand that is dedicated to redefining the beauty industry standards for products that are not only good for us but also good for our planet.

    Is Fyseko Indian brand?

    Yes, Fyseko is an Indian brand headquartered in Mumbai.

    Who is the owner of Fyseko?

    Hema Panjavani is the Founder of Fyseko.

  • Buffer—Social Media Company Ditching the Office Completely

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on.

    Success on social media can often feel like a secret science. Something that only the few can achieve. But creating a successful social media strategy is a skill that can be learned. Mastered, even. And you don’t need a flashy brand or a big budget. What you need is a deep understanding of what your audience cares about, and how to get your content in front of them in the right places at the right times.

    Founded in 2010 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Buffer is an intuitive, streamlined social media management platform trusted by brands, businesses, agencies, and individuals to help drive meaningful engagement and results on social media. The application was designed by a group of European expats in San Francisco, most notably Joel Gascoigne and Leo Widrich. Gascoigne is currently the CEO of Buffer. Get to know more about the company profile of buffer by reading this article.

    Buffer—Company Highlights

    Startup Name Buffer
    Developer Buffer, Inc.
    Headquarters San Francisco, CA, US
    Industry Social Media Management
    Founded 2010
    Founders Joel Gascoigne(CEO), Leo Widrich
    Platform Android, iOS, web
    Area Served Worldwide
    Website www.buffer.com

    Buffer—About & How it Works?
    Buffer—Recent News
    Buffer—Founder & History
    Buffer—Mission
    Buffer—Business Model
    Buffer—Revenue & Growth
    Buffer—Funding & Investors
    Buffer—Acquisitions
    Buffer—Partnerships
    Buffer—Competitors
    Buffer—Challenges Faced
    Buffer—Future Plans
    Buffer—FAQs
    Buffer—Conclusion

    Buffer—About & How it Works?

    Buffer is a developer of social media tools designed to visually plan and schedule social media campaigns. The company’s tools coordinate creative campaigns to drive engagement on social media, enabling brands to tell their stories and grow their audience.

    Buffer helps users of social media share more consistently by allowing them to choose set times to post each day. Buffer is a company offering a social media management platform by enabling users to schedule their posts for later, post to their social networks, engage with multimedia, and create their own content.

    Buffer’s logo is in simple font in black colour.

    Buffer Logo

    Buffer—Recent News

    As of November 2020, Buffer introduced LinkedIn Analytics. The team designed their analytics to be simple so that we can easily get what we need and create reports in a few clicks. For this feature, the team managed to work with the LinkedIn team as they built it.

    “I’m excited about this new feature by Buffer because we have seen many small businesses leverage their LinkedIn Page to build thought leadership and recruit new teammates. This new feature will help them understand what’s working so that they can get better results on LinkedIn,” said Ting Ba, the Group Product Marketing Manager of LinkedIn Pages.

    Froogal Success Story – Bridging the Gap Between Brands & Consumers
    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 a time when rising customer expectations have forced businesses to think ontheir feet and exp

    StartupTalkyVidhi Punamiya

    Buffer—Founder & History

    Buffer began its development in October 2010 in Birmingham, United Kingdom by co-founder Joel Gascoigne, who established the idea of the social media application while he was in the United Kingdom. Once he developed the idea he created a landing page to see if enough people were interested in the product to make it a profitable venture. After reaching a critical mass of registrations, Gascoigne built and designed the first version of the application software over a span of 7 weeks.

    On November 30, 2010, the initial version of Buffer was launched. It contained limited features which only allowed access to Twitter. Four days after the software’s launch Buffer gained its first paying user. A few weeks after this, the number of users reached 100, and then that number multiplied to 100,000 users within the next 9 months.

    In July 2011, the cofounders decided to move the startup venture from the United Kingdom to San Francisco in the United States, and Buffer was converted into an incorporation. Whilst in San Francisco, the cofounders dealt with the San Franciscan startup incubators AngelPad.

    Joel Gascoigne & Leo Leo Widrich | Co-Founder Buffer

    This was due to the increase in cost after moving from Birmingham. Throughout December 2011, cofounders Joel and Leo were able to secure 18 investors to their company, after being refused by 88% of the people they met with to offer an investment to their company. The investors include Maneesh Arora, the founder of MightyText, Thomas Korte, the founder of AngelPad, and Andy McLoughlin, the co-founder of the software company Huddle.

    Drew Houston | Co-founder & CEO of Dropbox | Internet Entrepreneur | Software Engineer |
    Drew Houston is an American Internet Entrepreneur, who co-founded Dropbox andowns 25% of the company’s interests. He holds the largest individual shares ofDropbox. He serves as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dropbox, an onlinebackup and storage service. He held 24.4% voting power in the com

    StartupTalkyMegha Rani

    Buffer—Mission

    Buffer’s mission statement says, “Our passion for support, happiness and quality flow through everything that we do.”

    Buffer—Business Model

    Buffer’s customer base consists of 2 million users, of which 98% are individuals using a freemium model. The Company makes its money by offering Business plans utilized in more of a corporate setting. The Company generally sees ~2% conversion from free to paid plans. Within paid plans there is ~5% customer churn annually, a metric very much in line with the industry.

    In a world where new start-ups pop up every other day proclaiming a revolutionary solution for businesses, Buffer has been able to carve out a niche by focusing on its transformational operations. By offering a unique employment model, the Company retains top notch talent from across the globe which ultimately means a better solution for customers. Its transparency tactics have also built a culture of openness and trust not only across employees but also across its customer base. By embodying such a culture, Buffer can better serve its customers and ultimately focus on what’s best for their customer base.

    Buffer—Revenue & Growth

    Buffer’s revenue was reported to be $17.50 m in FY, 2018 which is a 18.2% increase from the previous period. In 2019, 32,349 new customers joined Buffer. Their total number of customers in 2019 was 74,825.

    Factoreal Success Story – Helping Marketers Execute their Job Effortlessly!
    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. No matter how big an organization is, when it comes to marketing, there’s nodearth of mundane an

    StartupTalkyRishabh Rathi

    Buffer—Funding & Investors

    Buffer has raised a total of $4M in funding over 3 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Oct 27, 2014 from a Series A round. Buffer is funded by 29 investors. Collaborative Fund and Stage One Capital are the most recent investors.

    Date Round Amount Lead Investors
    Oct 27, 2014 Series A $3.5M –
    Dec 20, 2011 Seed Round $450K –
    Oct 1, 2011 Seed Round – –

    Buffer—Acquisitions

    Buffer has acquired 2 organizations. Their most recent acquisition was Respondly on Dec 17, 2015.

    Acquiree Name Date Amount About Acquiree
    Respondly Dec 17, 2015 – Team Inbox for email and Twitter
    ShareFeed May 17, 2012 – ShareFeed is a company that was acquired by Buffer in 2012.

    Buffer—Partnerships

    Buffer is partnered with various other software applications and companies. Most notably, Buffer is an official Facebook Marketing Partner under Community Management. Additionally, Buffer has partnerships with WordPress, Twitter, Zapier, IFTTT, Feedly, Pocket, Reeder, and Quuu.

    Buffer—Competitors

    Top competitors of Buffer are :

    Sequoia Capital | American venture capital firm | Company Profile |
    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. Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital[/list-venture-capital-firms-in-india/] firm. The f

    StartupTalkySarika Anand

    Buffer—Challenges Faced

    “Its been ten years since I launched the first version of Buffer. What started as a landing page to gauge interest, and then a very basic product that I worked on alone, has become so much more. Buffer is now a leading social media management platform and a team of nearly 90 people working remotely worldwide, with our own approach and culture,” said Joel Gascoigne.

    One of the biggest challenges for him was to transition to working full-time on buffer. Its a big risk for any individual. Before starting Buffer, Joel was doing what is called “working in waves,” a method to have enough funds to work full-time on a project for a certain period of time. The idea is that you work a full-time job or contract work for a set amount of time and then work full-time on your startup idea once you have enough funds to support yourself for a set amount of time.

    In 2014, they received their largest acquisition offer to date. According to Joel, it was a nine-figure offer from a public company, and it stopped them in their tracks and made them truly step back and reflect.

    For myself, my co-founder, and for most of our team with early-stage stock options grants, it would have been a life-changing outcome. An offer like that drives existential questioning, making you really think about the purpose and fulfillment of what you’re doing. Ultimately, we believed there was significantly more growth from where we were, and we have since increased revenue 6x. Beyond the growth potential, however, it was the culture and the movements we had become part of (transparency and remote work, in particular), which led us to turn the offer down and continue on our path.

    HubSpot | American Company | Company Profile |
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    Buffer—Future Plans

    Building a brand is one of the most important and one of the hardest things for growing an early company. Buffer believes there’s a unique combination of circumstances and new technology that will bring about significant change in the creation of the best new brands of the next 10 years.

    The shift over the past few years has turned Buffer into a company with multiple products and as a result, multiple revenue streams. Having several revenue streams is setting them up to be a more sustainable, profitable, and long-term company. It means they can continue to be here for our customers and have the ability to make bets on what will be the most valuable to them.

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    Buffer—FAQs

    What does Buffer do?

    Buffer is a developer of social media tools designed to visually plan and schedule social media campaigns.

    Who founded Buffer?

    The application was designed by a group of European ex-pats in San Francisco, most notably Joel Gascoigne and Leo Widrich.

    How does Buffer make money?

    The Company makes its money by offering Business plans utilized in more of a corporate setting. The Company generally sees ~2% conversion from free to paid plans. Within paid plans there is ~5% customer churn annually, a metric very much in line with the industry.

    What companies do Buffer compete with?

    The top 10 competitors in Buffer’s competitive set are Sprout Social, Sprinklr, Clickable, Inc., SocialFlow, Echobox, Spredfast, BuzzSumo, MavSocial, Parallel 6.

    Buffer—Conclusion

    The Buffer company is a fully distributed team of 85 people living and working in 15 countries around the world. And they’re working to build the best products to help their customers build their brands and grow their customer’s businesses on social media. They’ve always aimed to do things a little differently at Buffer. Since the early days, they’ve had a focus on building one of the most unique and fulfilling workplaces by rethinking a lot of traditional practices.

    A commitment to support their team and their customers have helped Buffer grow from humble beginnings to now serving more than 73,000 customers. The companies passion for making meaningful connections flows through everything we do. They care about building a quality product, trusted relationships with their customers, and a sense of community that connects their customers and team with one another.

    To learn more about their approach to business and work, feel free to hop on over to their Open Blog on their own website.

  • AngelList—A Step Towards Building Secured Future

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on.

    Didn’t find a job yet? Want to start the journey from a startup company? Wasting money right now and don’t know where to utilise it? The world is filled with talented people. But these people don’t get the opportunity to fulfil their ambitions or dreams. No worries! Here is a great way to kick start your future and accomplish your goals

    AngelList is a website which helps the people to find out many startup jobs near them. Investments in the latest startups can be made as well. Read the Angellist success story below! Know and explore more!

    AngelList – Company Highlights

    Startup Name AngelList
    Headquarters San Francisco, US
    Sector Startup Community
    Founders Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi
    Founded 2010
    Parent Organization Venture Hacks, Inc.
    Website angel.co

    AngelList – About
    AngelList – Startup Story
    AngelList – Founders And Team
    AngelList – Business Model
    AngelList – Revenue Model
    AngelList – Funding And Investors
    AngelList – Growth
    AngelList – Competitors
    AngelList – Future Plans
    AngelList – FAQ’s
    AngelList – Conclusion

    AngelList – About

    AngelList Logo

    AngelList is a US company for startups. For angel investors and job seekers looking to work at startups as well. The company was founded in the year 2010. The mission of the company is to democratize the investment process. It helps the startup companies, especially in fundraising. They began as an online introduction board for tech startups that needed funding. Since 2015, the company allows startups to raise capital from angel investors free of charge.

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    AngelList – Startup Story

    The company was founded in the year 2010 April, 22nd in San Francisco by entrepreneurs Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi. Naval Ravikant thought that remote work’s time would be coming. And in the future, it will turn out to be the most important category in hiring. They had an idea of investing in companies. Which is why both shared a list of 25 investors. With whom they could share interesting companies to invest in. The company declared a list as ‘AngelList’ in 2010 along with the subscription of 50 angel investors whose intention was to invest USD $80 million in that particular year 2010.

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    AngelList – Founders And Team

    Naval Ravikant, AngelList (Founder)

    Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi are the founders of the company AngelList.

    • Naval Ravikant is the CEO and the founder of the company. He is a brilliant entrepreneur and investor. He is having one of the most innovative minds in venture capital. AngelList is his biggest startup success.
    • Babak Nivi is an entrepreneur and the co-founder of the company. He started his career as an Associate at Seed Capital Partners. Then he joined Atlas Venture as a Consultant. In the year 2005, he joined Bessemer as an Entrepreneur in Residence. He was also the Vice President at Songbird for 1 year and 2 months.

    AngelList – Business Model

    The business model of the company is to connect investors with startup companies mainly. Their job is to attract more investors to fill up the funding rounds. Whenever an investor swipes right in the website. He/she receives all the information about the startup company. AngelList also provides it’s investors a recommendation along with the information. Angel investors are wealthy individuals. They provide capital for startup companies. All are accredited individuals with a net worth of at least $1 million or an annual income of more than $200,000. Private applications are submitted to get hooked up with the investors.

    List of Angel Investors in Delhi [With Contact]
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    AngelList – Revenue Model

    AngelList is a place, especially for entrepreneurs. The core business model focuses on the revenue model. The investors here invest in each other’s deals. They also invest in similar kinds of deals. And mainly they invest in the places whom they know. This is done because in this case, the investors find themselves safe. Whenever somebody signs in to angel.co. All the “angels” get access to the IP automatically. The company receives a 5% interest whenever a deal is made through the help of the platform.

    AngelList – Funding And Investors

    AngelList has raised a total amount of $26.2 million in funding over the 6 funding rounds.

    Date Transaction Name Money Raised Lead Investors
    March 9, 2015 Series B $2.1 million –
    September 22, 2013 Series A $42 million GV, Atlas Venture
    August 1, 2013 Series B – –
    June 22, 2013 Seed Round $100,000 SOSV
    January 1, 2013 Seed Round – –
    June 1, 2012 Seed Round – –

    AngelList has got 45 investors.

    AngelList – Growth

    Success stories are growing in every corner of the world. One such story is AngelList’s story. In the year 2012, the company accepted applications for more than 500 startup companies. In the year 2013, AngelList Syndicates was noted as one of the most important innovations in the venture capital and angel investment industries. Like this, the company is growing. Today, they have 44 investors and have made 75 investments.

    AngelList – Competitors

    The top competitors of the company are Crowdfunder, SeedInvest, FundersClub, Crowdlords and Crowdzu.

    • Crowdfunder is crowdfunding the future. It connects projects with communities. In order to create great ideas all over the UK the company was founded in the year 2010.
    • SeedInvest is an online equity crowdfunding platform for venture capital and angel investing. The company was founded in the year 2011.
    • FundersClub is a company. It offers a venture capital platform to its consumers. The company was founded in the year 2012.
    • Crowdlords is a two-sided residential buy to let crowdfunding platform. It aims to bring the investors and landlords together. The company was founded in the year 2014.
    • Crowdzu is a crowd-based marketplace. Especially for entrepreneurs. The company was founded in the year 2014.

    AngelList – Future Plans

    The company is aiming towards innovating the infrastructure. They want to democratize the investment process more. These things will help the startup with money, talent and customers. AngelList has got over 35,000 recruiting companies. And has 5 million registered users. More acquisitions will support startup companies with customer generation and product launch. It is the current and main target of the company right now.

    AngelList – FAQ’s

    How much is AngelList worth?

    We eliminate the hassles of investing so they can focus on helping founders. AngelList Venture has over $1 billion in assets under management and 23 unicorns in the portfolio, including Lime and Robinhood.

    How does AngelList make money?

    AngelList’s core business model is focused on revenues from matching startups with talent. The syndicate’s platform has high upfront costs to AngelList, which AngelList hopes to cover through the 5 percent carried interest.

    How to Land a Job through AngelList?

    • Know your audience.
    • Understand how AngelList works.
    • Be the perfect candidate.
    • Follow up.
    • Follow directions.
    • First impressions go a long way.
    • Check your content.

    Who started AngelList?

    AngelList was founded in 2010 by serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi. Using the traction from the Venture Hack blog on entrepreneur financing, Naval and Babak started a list of 25 investors with whom they would share interesting companies to invest.

    How do you use AngelList?

    AngelList is also a useful platform for anyone looking to get a job at a startup. It is just a three-step process: create a free profile showcasing your experience and skills, browse jobs and select the companies you are interested in, and wait for an email saying that that company has also said yes to you.

    How much does it cost to post a job on AngelList?

    There are over 2,000,000 active candidates looking for jobs on AngelList Talent, and connecting with them by posting a job is completely free.

    Is AngelList free?

    Employers can post-startup tech jobs on AngelList for free. You’ll first need to sign up with AngelList to create profiles for you and for your startup, all of which are also free of charge.

    AngelList – Conclusion

    AngelList was started as a platform to connect founders and investors in Jan 2010 by Babak Nivi and Naval Ravikant. Since then, it has evolved into 2 companies– AngelList and AngelList Venture. AngelList is a platform to help startups recruit employees, while AngelList Venture facilitates investments into startups via funds and syndicates. The help center you’re currently in contains information about AngelList, the recruiting platform. The AngelList Venture Help Center can be accessed at help.venture.angel.co.

  • Financepeer – Loans for Quality Education for the Children of India

    In today’s world, almost all educators, majorly in developing nations, work on improving the quality of education via various means like infrastructure expansion, digital & innovative Edtech developments & partnerships, different facilities & faculties, etc. But with quality, the price point of education also increases. Due to this price point, only children from wealthy families can access this education. These wealth backed children would anyway get exposure and access to quality education facilities, even outside local schooling. But what about the children at the bottom of the pyramid? They constitute the mass of the population in a developing nation! Due to the price point, this mass does not get access to quality education. To cater to this audience, Rohit Gajbhiye, Naveesh Reddy, Sunit Gajbhiye and Debi Prasad Baral launched Financepeer in 2017.

    It is only when this mass has access to Quality Education, will there be a real impact of education on society! This is Financepeer’s firm belief and area of operation.

    Startup Name Financepeer
    Headquarter Mumbai
    Sector Fintech
    Founders Rohit Gajbhiye
    Founded 2017
    Website financepeer.com

    Financepeer – About and how it works
    Financepeer – Founders and Team
    Financepeer – How did it start?
    Financepeer – Startup Launch
    Financepeer – Business Model and Revenue Model
    Financepeer – Competitors
    Financepeer – Advisors and Mentors
    Financepeer – Growth

    Financepeer – About and how it works

    Financepeer is a Google incubated School (K-12) Fee Financing Company that helps to pay the entire year fees upfront to the School in one installment and collects fees in 3 to 12 monthly installments from parents that too at Zero Interest & Zero Cost.

    Financepeer – Founders and Team

    The Co-founders of Financepeer are Rohit Gajbhiye, Naveesh Reddy, Sunit Gajbhiye and Debi Prasad Baral.

    • Rohit Gajbhiye, CEO of Financepeer has a BTech-MTech from IIT Bombay. He worked at DBS Bank, Singapore for 4 years in the Consumer Credit Space. Post entrepreneurship studies from Stanford University, he started & failed in his 1st startup, left work & built Financepeer via his domain expertise.
    • Naveesh Reddy, COO of Financepeer also has a BTech -MTech from IITB, Naveesh was a Data Scientist in Cognizant India and Japan for more than 4 years. His expertise was in developing machine learning algorithms for Sentiment Analysis and Fraud detection.
    • Debiprasad Baral, CTO of Financepeer is BIT’s, IIMA Vs Stanford alumnus (Rohit’s class), Debi has 15yrs of experience in software product development, via Salesforce & Microsoft. He was Lead architect for developing multiple Schooling Softwares Lending Systems in multiple NBFCs.
    • Sunit Gajbhiye, CPO of Financepeer is an IIM and VJTI alumnus, he has 10 years of experience in Business Operations and Product Management via Samsung and Edgeverve. He has expertise in product development in School Eco- System & Finacle core banking system in India.

    Currently, Financepeer is having a strength of odd 90 employees across India with 7 offices. Financepeer has a bunch of young minds full of ambition, dedication, and innovative minds. Work flexibility and encouragement by mentors at Financepeer allows the employees to give 110%.

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    Financepeer – How did it start?

    All of this started with a survey, that was created in the early days to understand the pain point of parents who were not able to pay the entire fees upfront. When asked for an opinion, the majority of parents wanted to have the EMI option for school fees or any other curricular activity. Education for children, being the priority for all parents, it is necessary to have timely payments. Since the category of the mass are people who do not have enough savings to pay School Fees upfront in 1 or 2 installments, but they can afford to pay fees from their monthly income in EMI’s.

    Financepeer – Startup Launch

    Financepeer started with Mussoorie International School in Dehradun. Zero Interest on fee had already convinced the parents at an early stage during the promotional activities. A lot many people had already reached out to us before the admissions itself. Constant interactions with parents was important to gain trust.

    Financepeer acquired its first 100 customers in a time span of not more than 3 months. Financepeer team had boarded a few schools and were trying their best for the response. Fortunately, the team met people who were always welcoming. Might be from school or any other partnerships. This allowed them to function in the best way. The maintained relationships with the school and the parents have helped them to retain the customers over this period.

    Financepeer – Business Model and Revenue Model

    The Financepeer business model is simple – it provides Zero Cost, Zero Interest monthly installments to parents to pay their school fees. At the same time, on behalf of the parent, Financepeer pays the entire year fees to the School on Day 1. This way, the School does not face any collection issue and continues improving the quality of education. At the same time, the masses are also able to avail of such quality education.

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    Financepeer – Competitors

    Quite a few competitors are out there trying to provide quality education to all the kids in the country. Some of them include GrayQuest, Bajaj Finance to only name a few.

    Financepeer – Advisors and Mentors

    The advisors and mentors of Financepeer are:

    • Ashish Mittal – 30+ years experience in Finance Industry, Lotus Eduservices Private Limited
    • Vivek Anand Oberoi – Educationist, Handling Project Devi, and Vrindavan Charity, Philanthropist
    • Balajee Shrikant – Executive Director, DBS Singapore; 25+ years experience in Fintech Industries

    Financepeer – Growth

    Financepeer is working with 601+ schools and impacting the lives of 3,50,000+ kids across 37+ cities in India. It is planning to work with 2600+ schools in the year 2020-2021. Financepeer is exploring synergies with education institutes outside India.

    Financepeer – Awards and Recognition

    Over the years, Financepeer gained the following recognitions:

    • Google Incubated
    • Startup Award
    • Associated with the T-Hub

    Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs

    What is Financepeer?

    Financepeer is a Google incubated School (K-12) Fee Financing Company that helps to pay the entire year fees upfront to the School in one installment and collects fees in 3 to 12 monthly installments from parents that too at Zero Interest & Zero Cost.

    Who are the Founders of Financepeer?

    The Financepeer Founders are Rohit Gajbhiye, Naveesh Reddy, Sunit Gajbhiye and Debi Prasad Baral.

    Who are the Grayquest competitors?

    Financepeer is a competitor to Grayquest.

  • ShiftKarado—Leading Packing & Moving Services Providers

    ShiftKarado is one of the leading technology-driven packing and moving services providers in India. It operates in the competitive and unorganized relocation market to simplify the relocation process for the customers.

    Even though it was random, the name ShiftKarado easily connects with the Indian customers and it’s quite easy to remember and recall, which also helps in creating brand salience. Accordingly, the logo of ShiftKarado is designed which symbolizes the smooth and time efficient relocation from one place to another. In this article, we have discussed the business model and services provided by ShiftKarado the Leading Packing & Moving Services Providers which is headquartered at Gurgaon, India. Read the full article top know more about ShiftKarado.

    ShiftKarado—About
    ShiftKarado—Company Highlights
    Shiftkarado—Vision & Mission
    Shiftkarado—Founders
    Shiftkarado—The Product/Services
    Shiftkarado—Business & Revenue Model
    Shiftkarado—Major Challenges
    Shiftkarado—Competitors & Work Culture
    Shiftkarado—Growth & Funding
    Shiftkarado—Future Plans
    Shiftkarado—FAQ’s
    Shiftkarado—Conclusion

    ShiftKarado—About

    Started with a very focused aim to resolve the then-prevailing issues in the relocation industry, ShiftKarado is one of the leading technology-driven packing and moving services providers in India. It operates in the competitive and unorganized relocation market to simplify the relocation process for the customers.

    Amidst the chaotic landscape of Indian relocation industry where the customers used to suffer the detrimental consequences of obscure services provided by many unorganized players, the co-founders realized that digital technology could streamline a majority of the aspects of the industry. Here, we are interviewing the founder Mr. Atul Mithal to learn about his journey of ShiftKarado.

    ShiftKarado Logo

    ShiftKarado is focused on the domestic market and the Indians are the main target audience. As the purpose of ShiftKarado is to give instant relocation solutions to the customers, the co-founders considered it very important to think of a brand name that reflects this purpose as well as a sense of Indianness at prima facie. Assuming the role of customers asking for packing and moving services, there came only one thing in mind—ShiftKarado. The questions such as “Hume apna ghar shift karanahai, karado!” helped them coming up to a conclusion that ShiftKarado would be a right choice to name the brand because “Hum Shift karate hai.”

    How It All Started?

    It was in the year 2015 when this big idea of starting a tech-oriented relocation company struck Mr. Atul Mithal, the Founder of ShiftKarado. After the idea stuck, Atul was joined by other co-founders, Sahil Mithal, Aulina Mithal Sood and Ashish Mullick who imparted their knowledge onto him and diligently collaborated to lead the formation of what ShiftKarado is today.

    ShiftKarado—Company Highlights

    StartupName ShiftKarado
    HeadQuarter Gurugram
    Founder Atul Mithal
    Sector Logistics
    Founding year 2015

    Shiftkarado—Vision & Mission

    The mission that ShiftKarado began with is to hand over easy access and complete control of relocation projects to the customers using efficient technologies. It wants to become all-time relocation partner which focuses on creating additional value for customers. It is destined to plug the gaps in the fragmented relocation segment in India and provide relief to the stressed and perplexed customers through reliable and affordable relocation services.

    Shiftkarado—Founders

    Atul Mithal

    Atul is the first ever Indian President of FIDI (International Federation of International Movers), which is the umbrella organisation of international removals and relocation companies. He is also the founder and chairman of Star Worldwide Group, an internationally acclaimed company that provides fine art handling, relocation services, event & exhibition logistics and information management services.

    Sahil Mithal

    Sahil shoulders the responsibilities of being architect and technical Lead. He is a Computer Science graduate from College of William & Mary, Virginia, USA. He pursued FIDI EiM (Essentials in Moving) course in Brussels and became versed with the intensive knowledge of moving processes. Before ShiftKarado, he gained vital experience in the international industry of relocation and transportation by working with Star Worldwide Group, the parent company of ShiftKarado.

    Aulina Mithal Sood

    After doing her schooling in Delhi, she moved to the USA for pursuing a double major in Economics and Business Administration at Clark University. Later on, she completed the programmes such as Essentials in Moving, Masters in Moving, and Leaders in Moving offered by the FIDI (International Federation of International Movers) Institute for training the aspirants in moving and relocation management.

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    Shiftkarado—The Product/Services

    ShiftKarado App Service

    The spectrum of ShiftKarado’s services comprises of packing and moving services for household, office relocation and vehicle transportation. As far as household goods are concerned, the company takes care of everything from fragile crockery, books to valuable appliances while providing transit insurance. For office relocation, from shifting servers, moving and storing office documents to relocating desks and chairs, ShiftKarado helps to plan the entire office move to make it as seamless as possible. Additionally, as home relocation is complete only when the family vehicle moves along, ShiftKarado provides secure transport for a customer’s vehicle, from bike transport to car shifting.

    Shiftkarado—Business & Revenue Model

    Business Model

    ShiftKarado operates through its website and mobile app having a simple user interface to serve the clients across the nation. The customers can fill an online form on the website shiftkarado.com or mobile app planning their relocation move all by themselves and get a customized instant quote in less than ten minutes.

    The ShiftKarado mobile app works exactly like any other food ordering app—one needs to plan their move and pay for it and the team ShiftKarado will arrive on the day of moving bringing with them all the essentials required to shifting the house or office. What’s more interesting that the customers can track the status of their planned move in real-time.

    Revenue Model

    Though ShiftKarado mainly deals directly with the customers offering one-to-one relocation services, it is also engaged in taking third-party consignments and services on a frequent basis.  

    Reasons Why The Packers And Movers Business Model Is So Successful
    Home and office relocation is a difficult process, without any professional helpindividuals might land up in trouble while carrying out relocation on their own.Which is why the packers movers come with top quality of packing supplies toefficiently pack your house hold goods to ensure total securi

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    Shiftkarado—Major Challenges

    Initially, it was a challenge for ShiftKarado to encourage the customers to put the information for planning the move. To overcome this, ShiftKarado upgraded the website and app with intelligent templates that auto-populates the information and details so that the user only has to select what applies to his/her move. This template model resolved most of the issues as the items in the predefined list are configured in segregation of 1bhk, 2 bhk or 3 bhk.

    Shiftkarado—Competitors & Work Culture

    Competitors

    ShiftKarado gives a tough competition to other players in the relocation market, including Agarwal, EzMove and Pikkol.

    Work Culture

    The success of startups hails the commitment, dedication and the strengths of the employees. And, we strive to encourage all these qualities in our employees so that they not only perform best at work but also learn the rules and power of self-governance and self-motivation. We create a positive, healthy, and productive work environment where each employee is given opportunities to identify and polish their forte allowing them for both personal and professional growth. And, this is the key to achieve employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction, in turn.

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    Shiftkarado—Growth & Funding

    Growth

    ShiftKarado leverages the technology to substantially increase the customer base assorted from the various cities of India. It has established a strong foothold in Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Mohali, Gurgaon, Noida, Greater Noida, Faridabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Ghaziabad, and Navi Mumbai. It is registering the growth of 20% on MoM basis, which marks its increasing popularity among the masses. Available on Play store, ShiftKarado has hit over a 10,000 downloads adding to its massive user base.

    Funding

    Though it was entirely bootstrapped ever since it was founded in 2015, ShiftKarado recently raised funding of Rs 5 Crore from Star Worldwide Group in various rounds. The funds are being used to enhance the services and deploy more resources for expanding the business reach and improving customer satisfaction.

    Shiftkarado—Future Plans

    After strengthening its presence in some of the largest metro cities in India, ShiftKarado is eyeing to gain PAN-India presence, tapping on every city and town. The goal is to achieve the turnover of Rs. 50 crore by 2021 and for this, the team ShiftKarado is all buckled up.

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    Shiftkarado—FAQ’s

    Why should I use ShiftKarado Packers and Movers?

    ShiftKarado Packers and Movers is backed by a team consisting of experts in technology and operations. The management team had earlier founded and continues to successfully run the Star Worldwide Group.

    I am shifting to a new place, what do I do?

    Shifting can be a daunting and tension-filled activity for most. We at ShiftKarado would love to help and reduce any stress when it comes to moving your household goods. Simply visit our site or download our App, where you can share the details of your move at your convenience, get instant pricing and pay the booking amount. We will manage everything from there on.

    Does ShiftKarado manage local shifting or Inter-City moves?

    ShiftKarado’s experienced team manages both local shifting and Inter-City moves.

    Will I need to pack?

    We feel that as the customer you have the right to choose whether to pack or not. If you would like to pack yourself – please go ahead. We will do the needful post that. Alternatively, you can also avail of the services of our experienced packers, who will pack each item with due care.

    What will be the cost?

    ShiftKarado has created a proprietary algorithm and calculation engine to provide you with instant pricing. Once you enter the move details and item list, our Insta-Price calculator will provide you with the charges. The days of waiting for someone to organize a survey and get you a quote are now a thing of the past!.

    Does ShiftKarado provide storage services?

    Yes, ShiftKarado Packers and Movers offers storage services. We have professionally managed warehouses located at Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai. Please contact us for further details.

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    Shiftkarado—Conclusion

    Shift Karado Packers and Movers is backed by a team consisting of experts in technology and operations. The management team had earlier founded and continues to successfully run the Star Worldwide Group. Star Worldwide Group, founded in January 1996, headquartered in New Delhi, India, is one of the leading companies in international relocation services, fine art handling, event & exhibition logistics and information management services. The Group operates through 6 offices in major cities of India. These include Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Guragon and Faridabad and serves more than 100 countries through a network of 500 Global Alliance Partners across the world. Our growing team consists of over 200 committed and highly trained professionals. We have used state of the art technology and sophisticated algorithms to bring you our easy-to-use App. Just download it or visit our website and leave the rest to us.

  • Goalwise : Goal Based Mutual Fund Investing

    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 Goalwise.

    Every investment is made with a goal in mind. Be it for buying a house, for children’s education or for going on the world tour that you always wanted. Though we all save money to achieve our goals, due to lack of time or investment related expertise we fail to make the most out of our savings. This is where Goalwise comes into play. Read about Goalwise, founders, business model, funding, challenges and future plans.

    Goalwise – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Goalwise
    Headquarter Bengaluru
    Founders Swapnil Bhaskar, Ankur Choudhary & Savitri Bobde
    Sector Mutual Fund Investments
    Founded April, 2015
    Parent Organisation Niyo Solutions
    Website Goalwise.com

    What is Goalwise
    Goalwise – Parent Company | Niyo Solutions
    Mutual Fund Industry Details
    Goalwise Founders and Team
    How was Goalwise Started
    Goalwise – Name, Tagline and Logo
    Goalwise – Business Model and Revenue Model
    Goalwise – USPs and Innovation
    Goalwise – User Acquisition
    Goalwise – Funding and Investors
    Goalwise – Startup Challenges
    Goalwise – Competitors
    Comparison : Goalwise Vs Scripbox Vs Kuvera
    Goalwise – Awards
    Goalwise – Growth
    Goalwise – Partners
    Goalwise – Advisor and Mentors
    Goalwise – FAQs

    About Goalwise

    Goalwise is a Fintech startup based out of Bangalore, that ensures hassle-free, goal based mutual funds investing. It helps people invest for their financial goals according to their risk profile without them having to worry about asset allocation, mutual fund selection, etc. If you are looking for a good goal based investing website, you can simply visit their website or download the Goalwise app from Google Play Store or App Store to get the best investment options.

    Goalwise – Parent Company | Niyo Solutions

    On July 28, 2020, The Digital Banking platform Niyo Solutions acquired Goalwise for an undisclosed value. As part of the deal, the founding members of Goalwise will be joining Niyo’s leadership team and operate Niyo Wealth as an independent vertical.

    The majority of stakes were picked up by Vinay Bagri (CEO, Co-founder) and Virender Bisht (CTO, Co-founder). This acquisition was intended to align with Niyo’s goal of Building a comprehensive products suite.

    “With our combined resources, we will now be able to accelerate our road map for advanced features and inclusion of many more financial products,” said Swapnil Bhaskar, CEO and co-founder of Goalwise.

    Mutual Fund Industry Details

    According to AMFI data, assets managed by the Indian mutual fund industry have grown from INR 22.71 trillion in March 2018 to INR 24.58 trillion in March 2019. That represents an 8.25% growth.

    Again, the Mutual Fund industry had added about 9.13 lacs SIP accounts each month on an average during the FY 2018-19, with an average SIP size of about Rs 3,070 per SIP account.

    Goalwise – Founders and Team

    Goalwise was founded by Swapnil Bhaskar, Ankur Choudhary and Savitri Bobde in 2016.

    Goalwise Founders
    Swapnil Bhaskar, Ankur Choudhary and Savitri Bobde

    Swapnil Bhaskar is the CEO of Goalwise. He is responsible for spearheading the company’s overall vision and growth and he also heads its Financial Advisory department. Swapnil graduated in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 2007. He is also a SEBI RIA (Registered Investment Advisor) and a NISM certified Retirement Advisor. Prior to establishing Goalwise, he worked as a field engineer at Schlumberger where he worked for 4 years abroad and then as a Manager at the State Bank of India where he worked for 3 years across multiple verticals of retail banking. Additionally, he is also a Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB).

    Ankur Choudhary is the CIO of Goalwise. He is responsible for creating investment strategies including Mutual Fund selection and asset allocation strategies, while also overseeing the product and content functions. Having graduated from IIT Kanpur with a B. Tech degree in Computer Science and Engineering, Ankur went on to work as an investment strategist at Oxus Investments, New Delhi and then as a Quantitative Researcher (Algo trading) at WorldQuant, Mumbai. Along with possessing outstanding academic credentials, Ankur also holds the distinction of co-authoring a book on a statistical analysis of cricket titled Criconomics.

    Savitri Bobde is the COO and Product lead at Goalwise. She is responsible for overseeing the execution of all initiatives undertaken by the company and guiding the operational processes of all departments. Savitri holds a Masters degree in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in English literature from the esteemed St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. After completing her education, she spearheaded the assessment unit at ASER Center, Pratham where she was involved in designing and implementing large scale assessments across India, including the flagship ASER survey that reaches approximately 600,000 children each year in almost all districts in the country.

    The company currently has a team of 20 employees. Every employee is offered ESOPs to make them feel inclusive in the company’s growth.

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    How was Goalwise started

    It was in 2015, Ankur was looking for some good and hassle-free options to invest his money. However, to his disappointment, he did not find any investor friendly platform in India. Though, he noticed that there were some online platforms in the US who were using cutting-edge technology to deliver a fully managed solution to US investors.

    Meanwhile, Swapnil was working in the banking sector, where he witnessed rampant mis-selling.  The scenario struck the mind of the two youth, and they wanted to do something to make a difference. And finally, one day over a call Ankur and Swapnil decided to start Goalwise with the dream of making hassle-free, transparent, world-class goal-based investing and financial planning accessible to all Indians.

    “We did a lot of market research before we started up and found that people connected better with their goals than with just Mutual Funds. Hence we launched Goalwise as a goal-based investing platform. In the market research days, we even promoted our competitor’s platforms within our target audience in order to uncover the objections people had with them. Even today we have a lot of conversations with our customers on a daily basis so that we never operate in a vacuum. We initially started operations from Delhi but then moved to Bangalore because of the tech talent availability (and better weather!).”, said Ankur and Swapnil.

    The company had a soft-launch phase from February 2016 to April 2016 to test its product.

    Previously, alpahfront.com was the name the company during Market reserach phase as it aligned with its former parent company Alphafront Finserv Pvt Ltd The name was later changed to Goalwise keeping in mind the goal-based approach the company follows.

    “As we zeroed in on the concept of goals and financial planning, we came up with a shortlist of a few names like Goalwise, Finmiles for whom the .com domain names were available. We did a quick poll amongst our friends and although Goalwise was not the top choice because it did not sound not money related, we decided to go with it based on our gut feeling. And it seems to have turned out well for us.”, said Ankur Choudhary.

    Goalwise Logo
    Goalwise Logo

    Goalwise – Business Model and Revenue Model

    The startup offers its customers a ‘set and forget’ goal-based investing platform that manages all aspects of investing including fund selection, glide path, portfolio re-balancing, target tracking for goals and more.

    It is a zero-research-required platform as investors don’t need to bother about selecting or changing funds. All of that is taken care of by the in-built digital advisory. Apart from seamless investment solutions through website and app, Goalwise also facilitates one-on-one personal finance planning led by its team of in-house financial experts.

    A personalized investment plan is generated after considering the customer’s age, savings, suitable risk profile, target amount and the time horizon. The plan consists of the amount one would need to invest every month, the Mutual Funds the person should invest in and what the asset allocation (debt and equity) should be.

    Goalwise’s advisory engine (GoalSense) continuously monitors the investments to ensure that the investor is on track to achieve the set goal.

    “Unlike our competitors that are mostly DIY platforms urging investors to do their own research after bombarding them with conflicting options, Goalwise comes as a respite where zero research is required by the investors.”, said Swapnil Bhaskar.

    The startup’s revenue model is straightforward. The company operates as distributors and financial advisors and get a small % fee (known as trail commission) from the Mutual Fund companies where investments are made.

    It is a zero commission platform. It does not take any charges from the investors. They also don’t have any transaction charges, account opening or maintenance charges.

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    Goalwise – USPs and Innovation

    • One click Portfolio Rebalancing– It helps investors maintain the original desired level of asset allocation, and all the required re-balancing transactions for meeting the customer’s investment goal is done with just a click.
    • Tax Gain Harvesting– It helps the investors in systematically utilizing the 1 lakh equity LTCG ( Long Term Capital Gain) exemption available every financial year to lower the overall tax liability.
    • On-track/Off-track goal tracking– It helps the investor keep a track of his goals.
    • One-on-one financial planning by in-house financial planners- The startup focuses on providing the best investment experience be it via their beautifully designed product or their prompt and knowledgeable customer service.

    The mutual fund investments are held directly under the name of the user, and these can be redeemed anytime.

    Goalwise – User Acquisition

    According to Ankur, marketing was never a priority for the company. The company focused on doing the right thing for its customers. The company acquired its first 100 customers from within friends and family. Soon, Goalwise was able to attract many customers through word of mouth publicity.

    The startup was covered in some online publications when they announced their seed funding which gave them more visibility.

    Another channel was content – Goalwise publishes content related to personal finance and investments on their blog as well as on other websites, which helped them get in front of more customers.

    “If I had to pick one thing that really worked well for us, it has been word of mouth and referrals. Because of the focus on product and service, we are today the best rated Mutual Fund app and we have grown to more than 25,000 sign-ups just by word of mouth.”, said Ankur.

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    Goalwise – Funding and Investors

    Goalwise has raised seed funding worth $1 Million (around INR 6.8 Crore) in 2016 from HNI. As per the company filings, Mr. Akhilesh Chaudhary was nominated to be the 4th director of the company. Akhilesh is also the founder of quadeye Securities.

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    May 2016 Seed $1 million Mr. Akhilesh Chaudhary and others

    We were quite fortunate with the kind of investors we got on board as they have been extremely helpful and supportive throughout the whole journey – Ankur.

    Goalwise – Startup Challenges

    According to Ankur, one major challenge that Goalwise faced was of bringing the entire KYC process online. KYC for Mutual Funds requires an almost 20-field form, 2-2 documents and in-person verification. This was in 2016 so there was no Aadhaar-based KYC. The team spent a considerable amount of effort in building out the entire KYC process online which included online video recording and were one of the first platforms to provide that.

    Besides, some other challenges are the lack of financial awareness and education in Indian society. Overall, Mutual funds are still at a nascent stage in India with only 2% of the population investing in it.

    According to Ankur, a lot of efforts are needed by everyone in the industry to make the Indian population more financially educated so that everyone can make better decisions with their money as there are many Indians who still are only limited to investing in gold, real estate, etc.

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    Goalwise – Competitors

    Some of the competitors of Goalwise in the Indian Industry are, Fundsindia, Scripbox and Zerodha Coin. However, apart from Scripbox, all the others tend to be DIY platforms where the investors are supposed to do their own research.

    None of our competitors including Scripbox, provide true end to end goal based investing which includes features like glide path, portfolio rebalancing and goal-tracking.

    Apart from that, the company also recently released a Tax Gain Harvesting feature which is the first of its kind in the industry. It takes inspiration from similar platforms outside India like Betterment and Wealthfront as they keep raising the bar in terms of user experience.

    Comparison : Goalwise Vs Scripbox Vs Kuvera

    Goalwise provides zero-commission Direct Mutual Funds which makes investing with Goalwise completely FREE,  Whereas Scripbox provides commission-laden Regular Mutual Funds. Scripbox is one such popular portal which allows users to invest in a pre-selected list of Mutual Funds.  

    Find more detailed insight in the table below:

    Goalwise vs Scripbox vs Kuvera
    Goalwise Competitors

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    Goalwise – Awards & Achievements

    Goalwise has been awarded following awards:

    • Recognized by LiveMint as one of the top 10 promising brands to watch out for in 2018.
    • Awarded by prestigious Mutual Fund companies like ICICI Prudential and Reliance as one of their fastest growing online partners for 2017 and 2018.

    Goalwise – Growth

    Currently, Goalwise has customers across India, and also have NRI investors from Middle East, Singapore and Europe.

    Some of the major achievements of are:

    • 40,000 registered users across 450+ cities
    • over 20,000 app downloads
    • Highest rated Mutual Fund app on the play store and our combined rating across platforms is about 4.7
    • Added term insurance to its product portfolio, and is also planning to add health insurance and accident insurance soon.

    Goalwise is looking forward to doubling its tech team and tripling its advisory team to efficiently meet the growing demands. The company is expecting to reach a mutual fund AUM of 1000 crores towards the end of 2020.

    Goalwise – Partners

    It has tied up with several Mutual funds.The mutual funds it has tied up with include Franklin Templeton, ICICI Prudential, Birla Sun Life and Axis Mutual Fund.

    Goalwise – Advisor and Mentors

    The company was advised by Dexter Capital, which offers services to growth stage companies as well as new-age entrepreneurs in the early stage funding process.

    Goalwise – FAQs

    Who is Savitri Bobde?

    Savitri Bobde is the Co-founder, COO and Product lead at Goalwise.

    What is Goalwise Funding till date?

    Goalwise has raised seed funding worth $1 Million (around INR 6.8 crore) in 2016 from Mr. Akhilesh Chaudhary and other.

    Who is the Parent Organisation of Goalwise?

    Niyo Solutions, The Digital Banking Platform.

    How is Niyo Solutions connected to Goalwise?

    The Digital Banking platform Niyo Solutions acquired Goalwise for an undisclosed value on July 28, 2020,

  • Verloop.io—World’s Leading Customer Support Automation Platform

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on.

    There’s no shortage of mundane and repetitive tasks, no matter how big an organization might be. These activities eat up valuable time which could have used for increasing a company’s revenue or for value creation, in general. Thankfully, automation technology now permits businesses to get rid of such tasks and save on time and money. Using rule based automation, businesses can complete crucial action items like maintaining communication with its customers and potential leads, thereby leading to higher customer satisfaction, lead generation, and conversions.

    Verloop, a Bengaluru based startup, has come up with a platform for automating actions such as customer support, lead generation, and lead qualification. Verloop’s product is the world’s smartest conversational automation platform on a mission to make business related conversions more personal and effective—that too without the need of physical workforce.

    StartupTalky interviewed Gaurav Singh, Verloop founder and CEO, to know more about the company.

    Verloop – Highlights

    Startup Name Verloop
    Headquarters Bengaluru
    Founder Gaurav Singh
    Founded 2015
    Website www.verloop.io
    Parent Organization MagicLane Pvt. Ltd.

    Verloop – About
    Verloop – Founders And Team
    Verloop – How It Began
    Verloop – Product Validation Stage
    Verloop – Business Model And Revenue Model
    Verloop – Revenue
    Verloop – Funding And Investors
    Verloop – User Acquisition
    Verloop – Hiring Funda And Work Culture
    Verloop – Startup Challenges
    Verloop – Advisors And Mentors
    Verloop – Awards
    Verloop – Growth
    Verloop – FAQs
    Verloop – Conclusion

    Verloop – About

    Verloop is a B2B company that provides a conversational automation platform for businesses to remain in touch with their customers 24/7. This is possible through chatbots that are implemented on a company’s website/application or through Verloop’s recently launched WhatsApp chatbots. Verloop fuels businesses’ customer support, marketing and sales department 24/7 non-stop using its AI powered bots.

    Verloop’s USP is the essence of automation integrated in its chatbots. This allows one to automate a conversational chatbot by pre-feeding messages in its workflow. This is done by understanding the set of questions that customers frequently ask and possible variations of these questions.

    Verloop Model

    Some features that make Verloop a must for any B2C company are:

    • Businesses can respond to customer queries 24/7 in a personalized manner using Verloop’s always-on-bot.
    • Visitors are answered in their preferred language.
    • Real-time sentiment analysis helps businesses to deal with queries better.
    • Bots help in lead generation by connecting with the website visitors. They are can be used for lead qualification as well.
    • Bots can book meetings with web visitors.
    • Using Verloop’s 1000+ available app integrations, data can be pushed into any CRM.
    • One can use tools such as FAQ navigator, sliders, etc. to enhance customers’ chat experience. Users can create ideal chat flows as needed, edit it whenever required, and go live instantly.
    • Verloop allows seamless hand-off from the chatbot to human representatives for sales closure or if the question is out of bounds for the bot to answer.

    Our vision is to reach out to various countries and spread the word of our emerging product successfully. Our mission is to ensure that through automation we can reduce the burden off of the employees and enable them to work on vital tasks rather than monotonous and repetitive tasks.

    Verloop’s Language Understanding modules are built equally on classical machine learning as well as modern deep learning ideas. In terms of specific tooling, spaCy, MITIE, and Duckling are the main classical NLP focused toolkits that Verloop uses. Verloop uses PyTorch and Tensorflow from Deep Learning perspective. It enables businesses to understand users’ intent and respond in a personalized manner. Verloop’s NLU powered modules are used for responding customer FAQs, figure out user target, and personalize conversations—these are done in multiple languages.

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    Verloop – Founders And Team

    Verloop Founders

    Gaurav Singh is the founder and CEO of Verloop. An engineering graduate, Gaurav Singh began his entrepreneurial journey in college. He has been on the founding team of ventures like ‘Stalk Ninja’ and ‘GoDeliver’. Gaurav worked with TCS, LT Research, and Vizury before starting Verloop.

    Piyush Mishra is the ex-CTO of Verloop. Piyush was always interested in freelancing and has worked as a freelance developer with various companies. He was on the founding team of ‘GoDeliver’ alongside Gaurav.

    Gaurav reached out to Piyush about the initial B2B idea. At that point, Piyush was working several freelance engagements and was quickly convinced to begin work on a conversational automation. To Piyush, this was a profound idea which piqued him.

    Gaurav overlooks the operational activities at Verloop such as marketing, sales (pre-sales and post-sales), and lead-generation. He also attends regular meetings with top-prospects. Piyush, on the other hand, is the tech expert overseeing issues related to coding, development, processing of chatbots, etc. Both of them are masters in their respective fields and ensure systematic functioning of the processes under them while ensuring that employees are on the right track.

    Verloop has a team size of 30 at present which includes full-time employees as well as interns. The team comprises marketing and content strategists, technical team, human resource representatives, financial executives, forward deployment teams, business development teams, pre-sales, and post-sales teams.

    Verloop Founders & Team

    Verloop – How It Began

    The idea of Verloop emerged when founders Gaurav Singh, and Piyush Mishra were running a B2C Personal Concierge Startup called Magictiger. While managing a chat ops team of 100+ members, the team slowly started automating mundane and repetitive tasks. In the process, Gaurav and Piyush realized that automation of conversations with customers could help many other businesses like Magictiger. This pivoted them to become a B2B company: Verloop.

    The idea was to use machine learning, AI, and NLP (Natural Language Processing) and help companies connect with customers on a large scale while maintaining the level of personalization people expect from super agents. The idea was to use the 80-20 rule in the practical world; 80% of customers’ questions come from 20% of the company’s query database. By automating that 20%, one can free upto 80% of the teams’ time, allowing the workforce to focus on the vital components of the sales process rather than spending time on those parts which are monotonous and menial.

    We understood how monotonous tasks are very time-consuming for the employees and how through automation we will be able to reduce the burden and make the work for the employees highly productive. Automation is present around us everywhere, but to use it is most productively, is a challenge. In a way, that it is beneficial to the employees and they don’t consider it a bane. Keeping all of this in mind, we used automation in a way to help the employees and allow our bots to take over repetitive tasks.

    Verloop – Product Validation Stage

    Verloop Automation

    Considering the constant growth in the automation segment, Gaurav and Piyush decided to embark on their venture. They figured out a bunch of tasks not strongly dependent on human intervention and that could be easily performed using a digital workforce (bots). They started by automating tasks within Magictiger and then decided to provide the same services to other organizations as well.

    We sat in a shared office space initially, we talked to other startups on our floor. Our investors also came through with some connects. I also did a LOT of traveling and talking to potential customers, gathered loads of feedback on where exactly we’d fit well and what path to take from there” says Gaurav explaining Verloop’s product validation stage.

    Verloop – Business Model And Revenue Model

    Verloop has a B2B business model. Users can take a 14 day free trial.

    For revenue generation, Verloop is currently offering 3 packages:

    • A free forever starter package that allows 500 monthly conversations.
    • Business package that starts at $49/ month, and where prices vary according to the number of monthly conversations.
    • Enterprise package with a price of $699/month.

    There is a drastic change in our previous business model( for Magictiger) , which was previously Business to Consumers. Due to this change, our ideologies, campaigns, promotional methods, etc. had to be changed to a certain extent. Since our target market changed, we had to adopt a different pitch to cater to the needs of the new market. Different schemes were adopted to satiate the needs of the market. As our focus shifted to businesses, we gathered that every business will have a different use-case towards chatbots. Hence, the pitch needs to be changed accordingly by understanding each business and its priorities

    Verloop – Revenue

    Verloop reported a revenue of around $960k in 2018.  

    For revenue generation, Verloop is currently offering 3 packages:

    • A free forever starter package that allows 500 monthly conversations.
    • Business package that starts at $49/ month, and where prices vary according to the number of monthly conversations.
    • Enterprise package with a price of $699/month.

    Verloop – Funding And Investors

    Verloop raised funding worth $3 Million from IDFC Parampara Fund and others in November 2018. The amount is intended to be used for technology enhancement and team expansion.

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    Verloop – User Acquisition

    The Verloop team has worked on various channels to spread the word about the venture and secure multiple sign-ups.

    We have noticed that people love videos and that they are very engaging. The most engaging channels are LinkedIn and Twitter for spreading awareness about your product and the outreach is also very high since everyone has a different network and a different set of followers. That’s exactly why these two work the best.

    For customer retention, Verloop follows the same funda that most companies usually do: “customer is king”. The company puts high intensity efforts into its post-sales procedure as the team ensures that customers are satisfied. The team also makes sure that the chatbot is updated as and when users want a change within the bot’s flow. The Verloop team also sees that the use-case is pitched to each business based on their need and requirement.

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    Verloop Hiring Funda And Work Culture

    Interested candidates usually reach out to Verloop through LinkedIn and other hiring portals. Once the candidate’s resume has been verified and they are seen as a potential fit, the candidate is called down for a set of tests/interviews for evaluation. Interviews at Verloop are designed to not only understand the candidate’s technical capabilities, but also to identify any scope for improvement and openness towards learning.

    Verloop’s work culture is very positive and encouraging. The team indulges in various activities such as gaming, team outings, and various other motivation based activities.

    We believe that automation at this day and age is highly important. We make sure each one of us are aware of each of our roles and run a smooth and fair collaboration in whatever work is to be completed by us. We believe in teamwork and constantly updating new features and satisfying the customers.

    Verloop – Startup Challenges

    Speaking of the challenges, Gaurav tells, On a meta-level, initially the challenge was about knowing what was necessary for customers. Once we had a brief idea of that, we kept digging deeper. Initially, it was about survival. First through the next few weeks, then months. Right now we’re talking years, so now the focus is more on growth

    Verloop – Advisors And Mentors

    Although Verloop is not being mentored by any organization or individual at the moment, it is consulting Smooch and Kaleyra to get an idea of what templates to run and how to approve WhatsApp templates for its recently launched WhatsApp chatbots, . Kaleyra and Smooch are directly accelerated by WhatsApp and are in constant contact with Verloop.

    Verloop falls under Y Combinator’s Track’17 company, a hub for emerging startups with different agendas and plans of action.

    Verloop – Awards

    Verloop received the “most-agnostic award” from MIT.

    Verloop – Growth

    Verloop has a customer base consisting of leading organizations like Aadhar Bridge, Apollo Munich Health Insurance, Livpure, Portea, LockTheDeal, and Nykaa.

    Verloop’s recently introduced WhatsApp chatbots have brought a significant increment in its clientele list. The company is also receiving recognition from various magazines and websites.

    The team focuses on improving its services for maintaining customer satisfaction and provides its users with the most advanced technology. The Verloop team is hoping to gain more recognition overseas in coming time. The company has clients in the UK, UAE, Australia, and is planning to expand its presence to cover several other markets.

    Since automation is slowly catching up with people, they are starting to realize how essential automation is for businesses to run smoothly and to reduce the employee turnover rate. Through automation, we only wish it will make the lives of the employees more productive and reduce the unnecessary workload. Automation will be considered a boon and not a bane, where people will understand the requisite need to implement it within their company –  Gaurav Singh

    Verloop – FAQs

    Who is the Founder of Verloop?

    Gaurav Singh is the founder and CEO of Verloop

    What is Verloop?

    Verloop is a B2B company that provides a conversational automation platform for businesses to remain in touch with their customers 24/7

    How much is Verloop Funding till date?

    Verloop raised funding worth $3 Million from IDFC Parampara Fund and others in November 2018.

    What is Verloop’s Revenue?

    Verloop reported a revenue of around $960k in 2018.

    Verloop – Conclusion

    At Verloop.io, we believe that the internet was the single largest revolution for global communication. It’s how you can talk to your friends and family across the globe in seconds, and how we’re talking to you right now. But even as technology was built to make it quicker and easier for people to talk to each other, businesses didn’t buy in – using old tools and older ideas. Verloop.io aims to achieve a single mission – to help enterprise businesses help their customers better. From creating easier outreach to building more meaningful relationships, our technology-first focus empowers businesses to get the most out of every interaction.

  • 21CC Education – Bridging the skill gap in Logistics & Transportation

    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 21CC Education

    The World Economic Forum states that half of India’s 350 million workforce requires to be reskilled! Here comes the role of 21CC Education, founded by industry veterans Sanjay Tiwari, Marloeke Werst, Ludo Tieman and Sumer Shankardass in 2019.

    21CC Education offers industry-relevant skills in the logistics and transportation space to enhance the employability of India’s workforce as well as the productivity of India’s booming logistics sector. The 21CC app allows individuals to skill, upskill and re-skill. 21CC Education has already worked with market leaders in the logistics space like DB Schenker, DHL Global Forwarding, DP World, Sarjak Container Lines and the Port of Amsterdam to serve their training and recruitment needs.

    StartupTalky interviewed Mr. Sanjay Tiwari, co-founder of 21CC Education to know the Success Story of 21CC Education. Along with it know about 21CC Education Business model, funding, founders, how it started & more.

    21CC Education – Company Highlights

    Startup Name 21CC Education
    Founders Sanjay Tiwari, Marloeke Werst, Ludo Tieman, Sumer Shankardass
    Headquarters Mumbai
    Founding Year 2019
    Sector Edtech, Logistics, Re/Upskilling

    21CC Education – About
    21CC Education – Market/Industry Details
    21CC Education – Founders and Team
    21CC Education – Ideation (How it started?)
    21CC Education – Product/Services Offered
    21CC Education – Name, Tagline and Logo
    21CC Education – Business Model and Revenue Model
    21CC Education – Startup Launch
    21CC Education – Challenges faced
    21CC Education – Funding and Investors
    21CC Education – Competitors
    21CC Education – Future Plans
    21CC Education – FAQs

    21CC Education – About

    21CC Education aims to offer industry-relevant skills in the logistics and transportation space to enhance the employability of India’s workforce as well as the productivity of India’s booming logistics sector.

    21CC Education, well-researched and intelligently designed app based skilling platform that delivers complex content in consumable, efficient modules with high retention outcomes. The app allows individuals to skill, upskill and re-skill. It is a powerful ally of the L&D and recruitment teams by bringing pre-skilled workforce in contact with hiring companies through its unique skills-match feature.

    In short, our vision and mission would be to ‘skill the world’ says Sanjay, co-founder, 21CC Education

    The smartphone disseminated technology is a scalable solution helping organizations with on-boarding , training and mass hiring to efficiently bridge the skill gaps.  

    Sanjay as he states enjoys the stress of entrepreneurship, both within and outside of a large organization. There are many learnings as the work progresses and takes a lot of creative effort to get all the noses in the same direction, while trying to figure out the core value proposition. His major interest in logistics and supply chain education led to the setting up of 21CC Education with friends in the U.S., Netherlands and India.

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    21CC Education – Market/Industry Details

    According to a McKinsey report –  Because of AI and technology, 375 million globally need to be re-skilled, and this was pre-pandemic!

    The World Economic Forum states that half of India’s 350 million workforce requires to be reskilled. India has 21 million employees in logistics and the industry is growing by more than 10% per annum. The Government is spending billions of dollars on new infrastructure, private equity and VC players are investing billions in new companies.

    In the warehousing industry alone 48,000 new positions will get added between 2020 and 2022. A new McKinsey Global Survey on future workforce needs, nearly 9 in 10 executives and managers say their organizations either face skill gaps already or expect gaps to develop within the next five years.  All of these people need to be skilled remotely, on the fly and preferably before their first day of work.

    21CC Education – Founders and Team

    21CC Education was founded in 2019 by Sanjay Tiwari, Marloeke Werst, Ludo Tieman and Sumer Shankardass. The company is headquartered in Mumbai and has an office in The Hague, The Netherlands.

    Sanjay Tiwari- Co-Founder, 21CC Education

    Sanjay Tiwari

    Sanjay has close to thirty years’ experience in trading, transportation and logistics having worked for a Dutch steel trading and warehousing company in Singapore and Malaysia, for KLM Cargo in The Netherlands and the U.S. and for Maersk in India.

    Marloeke Werst

    Marloeke has a product management background at L’OrĂ©al and Air France KLM Cargo, followed by a consulting and training career. Marloeke was hired to work at KLM Cargo by Sanjay when they were building up a new air cargo security product in 2002. Her subsequent background in consulting, training and change management was a great help when they re-connected in 2013. Marloeke has deep connects with the Dutch government and industry bodies.

    Sumer Shankardass

    Sumer was part of the team that took WNS to the NYSE and has extensive BPO experience, as well as experience as a strategic advisor to startups. Sumer and Sanjay know each other from their days in Chicago in 2007 and coincidentally both moved back to India in 2010 with their families. As the co-promoter of 21CC Education, he helps the company to secure the large corporate contracts, leveraging his network and advising on fund raising.

    Ludo Tieman

    Ludo comes from a family of entrepreneurs in The Netherlands. He ran his own company in The Netherlands in the DIY space and then worked with two startups in Thailand. He heads technology development for 21CC. Ludo and Sanjay both went to the University of Groningen in The Netherlands many many many years ago and have backpacked through India together in the late 1980s. Ludo leads on the technology development and also helped conceptualize the UI / UX of the 21CC App.

    The core team of 16 people is split over India and The Netherlands in addition to contracted writers, programmers, illustrators etc.

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    21CC Education – Ideation (How it started?)

    The inspiration came from the fact that Sanjay has extensively worked in the transportation and logistics industry across Northern Europe, South East Asia, South America, United States and India for more than 30 years now. Having experience on the front lines coupled with practical understanding of the pitfalls in the sector and a steady willingness to overcome the barriers led to creating 21CC Education

    Logistics works with an approximate 15% margin of error that seems to have been become acceptable; but this would not be the norm in any other sector. Therefore, the idea behind 21CC education was a win-win for both business and people- reduce error, and most importantly skilling the workforce.

    21CC Education was founded in January 2019 in response to the changing face of logistics and transportation. The accelerated growth track of the sector was facing disruptions owing to lack of skills. Issues like unorganized logistics and packaging operations as well as a lack of administrative capabilities continue to hold the sector back. As logistics gains increasing significance, entering an era of unprecedented change, they recognized the urgent need for scalable and sustainable skill development solutions that could significantly help re-engineer the Indian logistics sector.

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    21CC Education – Product/Services Offered

    21CC Education was founded to respond to this urgent call for individuals and organizations alike by simplifying learning through gamification and reskilling through its unique mobile and web application. This first of its kind application aims to significantly bridge the recruitment-skilling gap by creating enhanced learning and skilling experience for operationally intensive industries.

    The company creates a steady and large funnel of aptly skilled resources for organisations and maps opportunities for reskilling and upskilling for individuals and blue-collared job seeker to increasing their earning potential and enable them to build lucrative careers.

    21CC Education’s holistic mobile platform is backed by an experienced team across Netherlands and Mumbai. Its library offers industry-relevant, engaging and adaptive learning content with more than 110 e-learning modules, over 50 courses and 8 interactive games, all focused on logistics and transportation sectors.

    The 21CC App is built on a technology stack of developed on a technology stack consisting of HTML CSS, Angular, Groovy Grails, JavaScript and jQuery, and supported by a strong LMS.

    21CC education makes the complex clear by delivering learning and skill-building modules in both online and mobile formats, based on a vast and continuously growing library of industry-validated content in an accessible and fun manner using illustrations, practical examples, humor and gamification.

    21CC Education already works with market leaders such as DBSchenker and DHL to serve their training and recruitment needs and as such is geared to help large enterprises connect with the vast resource requirements while ensuring the talent pool is rightly skilled and  aware of the space thereby, eliminating the time required in the training of the employees.

    Its training content is also finding favor with organizations wanting to create social impact through their CSR initiatives. Aligning CSR projects with skill building drives, 21CC Education is partnering with several leading organizations to help build capability and employability through the immersive and vernacular content.

    Additionally, through a recent partnership with the NSDC’s eskillindia.org portal—which is an online learning hub, with more than 800 courses in over 20 sectors— 21CC Education will be offering its App based content to help bridge India’s skill deficit in the logistics and transport sector. The new association with the NSDC, will help build a skilled talent pool in India, ensuring a robust workforce that has the opportunity to be gainfully employed and be contributively aligned with the nation’s growth agenda.

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    The name came up many years ago quite charmingly on the streets of Chicago while Sanjay was walking his dog, Rustom. It was then that someone spoke to him about ‘21st Century Cargo’. Since then, ‘21CC’ stuck with Sanjay and he thanks Rustom or the kind stranger for the tag line!

    21CC Education Logo

    “As for the logo, although it was an evening’s worth of work for Dutch designer, Marlies Bloemendaal based in Mumbai, she did a great job in terms of design, colors and messaging” added Sanjay

    21CC Education – Business Model and Revenue Model

    21CC Education’s business model is both B2B and B2C. 21CC Education’s library offers industry-relevant, engaging and adaptive learning content with more than 110 e-learning modules, over 50 courses and 8 interactive games, all focused on logistics and transportation sectors.

    As stated by Sanjay Tiwari, 21CC Education’s revenue model is –

    • Employers pay for candidates that have come to them via the 21CC App
    • Employers pay a fixed monthly amount for ongoing employee training
    • Employees will pay in future for their ongoing education and job placement

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    21CC Education – Startup Launch

    21CC Education has been B2B from day one so getting those large corporate customers on board took its own effort. The first 100 B2C customers have come about via its listing on NSDC’s eskillindia.org platform as well as its partnership with portall.in

    “The partnerships with the likes of NSDC and Portall.in in India and Dubai Trade in the UAE are very important from an outreach point of view” says Sanjay

    21CC Education – Challenges faced

    Creating awareness of its offering was one of the major challenge faced by the team at 21CC Education.

    “It’s a challenge to create large-scale awareness of opportunities in logistics and make people aware of it. It feels a bit like promoting the BPO industry or IT industry in the 1980s and 1990s, as people aren’t yet fully aware of logistics. So getting college students to download our content is still a struggle, once they do they apparently love it” expressed Sanjay Tiwari, co-founder, 21CC Education

    21CC Education – Funding and Investors

    21CC Education has raised 1.1 Million Euros in a seed round led by a Dutch Angel Investor in March 2020.

    The development of edtech startups and interesting fund raise in India
    Educational institutes, professional training programs, schools and collegeshave been going online for a while now, even e-learning companies are rising tothis situation. This type of learning is not limited to high school and collegestudents who are availing their services, even professionals/em

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    21CC Education – Competitors

    Aapna is considered to be the top competitor of 21CC Education in this industry.

    21CC Education – Future Plans

    21CC Education aims to be the world’s premier skilling app for entry level employees in logistics

    21CC Education – FAQs

    Who are the founders of 21CC Education?

    21CC Education was founded in 2019 by Sanjay Tiwari, Marloeke Werst, Ludo Tieman and Sumer Shankardass.

    What is 21CC Education?

    21CC Education offers industry-relevant skills in the logistics and transportation space to enhance the employability of India’s workforce as well as the productivity of India’s booming logistics sector.

    How much funding has 21CC Education raised?

    21CC Education has raised 1.1 Million Euros in a seed round led by a Dutch Angel Investor in March 2020.

  • Voonik – Personalizing The Shopping Experience More Than Ever

    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 Voonik.

    There was a time when women/men used to take their friends to go shopping just to have a little help in the selection process. Roundabout the same time, people were paying huge amounts to the stylists and designers to get a personalized style statement.

    To shift this paradigm online and optimize the whole process to being smooth and handy came in Voonik in 2013. Get insights on Voonik’s Company Profile, Voonik Founders, Funding, Competitors, Business Model, Growth, Revenue and more.

    Voonik – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Voonik
    Headquarter Bangalore
    Sector eCommerce
    Founders Sujayath Ali and Navaneetha Krishnan
    Total Funding $34.5 Million
    Net Profit Rs 28.9 crore (FY20)
    Revenue/Turnover Rs 44.76 crore (FY20)
    Expenses Rs 15.99 crore (FY20)
    Founded 2013
    Website Voonik.com

    Voonik – About & How it Works
    Voonik – Founders and Team
    How was Voonik Started?
    Voonik – Name, Logo and Tagline
    Voonik – Business Model and Revenue Model
    Voonik – Funding and Investors
    Voonik – Startup Challenges
    Voonik – Competitors
    Voonik – Acquisitions
    Voonik – Growth and Revenue
    Voonik – Awards
    Voonik – Future Plans
    Voonik – FAQs

    Voonik – About & How it Works

    Sujayath Ali and Navaneetha Krishnan launched Voonik to personalize the shopping experience for men and women. Yes, Voonik initially was launched for both men and women but later they decided to only focus on women’s clothing.

    Now, Voonik is a personal clothing shopping app for women, allowing them to buy apparel from multiple brands and fashion stores, according to their body type, lifestyle, and budget.

    Voonik enables women customers to directly shop like on any other e-commerce portal or the customer can provide some inputs like her body shape, skin tone, height, and personal style to let the application advise some dresses for her.

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    Voonik – Founders and Team

    Sujayath Ali and Navaneetha Krishnan are the founders of Voonik.

    Sujayath Ali and Navaneetha Krishnan - Founders Voonik
    Founders of Voonik

    Sujayath Ali

    Sujayth did his MBA in Technology and Finance from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science Engineering from MepcoSchlenk Engineering College.

    Before Voonik, he was working as VP, head of Visa Checkout merchant program at Visa. He has also worked for Amazon as a senior product manager in the states for 7 Years.

    Before co-founding Voonik, he worked for Freshdesk as a Principal Developer, Narus Networks as Tech-Lead and Aryaka Networks as Technical Architect. Voonik originally started with a 12 member team which now grew to more than 150 employees.

    How was Voonik Started?

    Navaneetha and Sujayath went to college together and have known each other for more than 20 years now. Navaneetha was not very new to the startup scene because he had been a garage stage engineer at big companies like Zoho, Freshdesk, and Aryaka. And as we know, the other co-founder, Sujayath was in America spending 7 years at Amazon and Visa.

    “We first discussed the idea of starting something together over a Facebook chat session” Says Sujayath.

    Back then, Navaneetha had an idea for a SaaS offering based on his long and intriguing experience at Zoho and Freshdesk. On the other hand, Sujayath pitched an idea of creating an entirely new way of shopping to enable the users in buying what suits their build, lifestyle, and budget. The former was convinced by the idea of the latter, both quit their jobs and that’s how the idea of Voonik was originated.

    Voonik – Name, Logo and Tagline

    Voonik’s tagline is “Everyday Fashion”, suiting its tagline, Voonik offers a range of options in every fashion category for the Indian urban market.

    Voonik Logo
    Voonik Logo

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    Voonik – Business Model and Revenue Model

    Business Model

    Voonik basically is a marketplace where the retail stores register and get to showcase their products. Voonik brings multiple online stores into a single cart. So it showcases product ranges from stores like Jabong, Snapdeal, Fashionara, Fashionandyou, Yepme, Zovi, etc.

    Revenue Model

    The revenue model of Voonik is generated by charging a 15 percent commission on every sale to the brand or the seller. And the deliveries are done by a third-party logistics partner.

    Voonik – Funding and Investors

    Voonik has raised a Total Funding of $34.5 Million till date.

    Here is the Vooniks Funding Details:

    Date Amount Round Investors
    February 2014 $500k Seed SeedFund
    June 2015 $5 Million (~Rs 32 crores) Series A Sequoia Capital, SeedFund
    June 2016 $20 Million Series B Sequoia Capital India
    July 2016 $3 Million Debt InnoVen Capital
    February 2017 $6 Million Series C RB Investments Pte. Ltd.

    Voonik – Startup Challenges

    Costly Shipping

    Our biggest challenge for Voonik in the initial days was extremely costly shipping. It was particularly losing money on every shipment. And so the venture decided to work on projects where the team observed shipping across each category.

    They eventually came up with the right algorithms through permutations and combinations to make shipments more cost-efficient. And soon after, Voonik had a 20% gross margin on shipping.

    Marketing

    The second-biggest cost driver for Voonik was marketing. Apparently, to save recurring overheads, it stopped focusing on traditional channels like Facebook and Google.

    Instead, Voonik approached innovative channels for marketing to make money immediately. One of these initiatives was referral programs that allowed Voonik to make money from the very first transaction.

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    Voonik – Competitors

    Voonik’s Competitors – LimeRoad, Jaypore, FabAlley, Myntra, Jabong, FashionAndYou, Adoro Marketplace, ShopClues, Yepme and Snapdeal.

    Online fashion space is as crowded as it can get. New players are coming in fashion industry. And now with Instagram and its buzz, it has become very easy for people to sell fashion apparel online.

    Given that, there’s so much happening out there in the online fashion zone. Be it creative concepts like style cracker who customly assigns stylists to its customers to make a box of accessories paired with the dress. Be it bag fashion portals like Myntra and Shein, all of these along with Voonik are competing neck to neck to cater to the same audience.

    Voonik – Acquisitions and Mergers

    TrialKart

    Voonik acqui-hired TrialKart in 2015. TrailKart is a mobile platform providing a virtual dressing room experience to the users.

    Getsty

    In 2016, Voonik acquired Getsty which is a personalized shopping portal for men.

    Vilara

    In June 2016, Voonik stepped into the premium e-commerce segment by launching Vilara.

    Dekkoh

    In September of 2016, Voonik undertook an acquisition of Dekkoh which was a personalization and styling app.

    Dekkoh

    Voonik did not stop here. It has also acqui-hired three startups, Zohraa, Picksilk.com, and Style, to further build the platform and taking it deep towards personalization by adding more and more personal stylists and connecting them with its users through a chat-based app.

    ShopUp

    According to the reports in February 2020, Vooniks B2B business was merged with Bangladesh-based startup ShopUp. ShopUp is a platform that helps businesses go online. It enables e-commerce, store, logistics, sourcing, marketing and working capital requirements.

    Schoolay

    On February 2020, Vooniks B2C business was merged with kids activewear startup Schoolay.

    Voonik – Growth and Revenue

    • Voonik reported 264% jump from losses of Rs 17.63 crore (FY19) to the Net Profits of Rs 28.7 crore (FY20)
    • Voonik had a revenue of Rs 44.76 crore in FY20 as compared to FY19 i.e Rs 21.45 crore
    • Voonik had over 10,000 downloads in the first month with an average rating of 4.7.
    • Today, it has over 20 Mn registered users
    • Total 17 million application downloads
    • Close to 2 million unique visitors per month
    • Displays more than 15 Lakh products from 22,000 sellers.
    • Caters to an average of 20,000 daily orders
    • Currently has a rating of 4.1 at Google Play Store.

    Voonik – Awards

    2014 – Voonik was amongst the Microsoft Ventures India’s list of 16 startups for its summer batch of the accelerator program.

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    never futile. Especially clothing is a very important aspect of fashion. It’s
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    Voonik – Future Plans

    Voonik has big plans of taking onboard offline boutiques and launching chat-based features. Currently, the app is only giving recommendations to the customers, but the users are not able to chat with the stylists. Hence their main priority in the long term plan is to take personalization to the highest level on Voonik.

    Voonik – FAQs

    Who are the Founders of Voonik?

    Sujayath Ali and Navaneetha Krishnan are the founders of Voonik.

    How much is Voonik Funding?

    Voonik has raised a total funding of $34.5 Million till date.

    How much is Voonik’s Revenue?

    Voonik reported 264% jump from losses of Rs 17.63 crore (FY19) to the Net Profits of Rs 28.7 crore (FY20).

    How does Voonik make money?

    Voonik basically is a marketplace where the retail stores register and get to showcase their products. The revenue for Voonik is generated by charging a 15% commission on every sale to the brand or the seller.

    What is Voonik store?

    Voonik is an online marketplace operating in products for women’s fashion.