The timing was right,” says Meghna Saraogi, the co-founder and CEO of StyleDotMe, an augmented reality (AR) SaaS company whose AR tech platform, mirrAR, helps shoppers try on jewellery virtually. The software—launched in 2017 as an in-store solution for inventory management—came up with a web version in January 2020. Less than three months later, the country went into lockdown. “Stores were shut and the only brands that could connect with customers were those that had an online presence,” she says. Even initially hesitant jewellers began reaching out to Saraogi, asking her to integrate AR into their websites, enabling their customers to try on jewellery online.
If you have travelled internationally, more specifically to the European countries, you must have seen shared bicycles that one can avail by scanning a barcode, paying the amount, reaching the destination and then leaving it at the desired location. This concept of shared mobility helps travellers explore a city with ease, without much dependency on the public transport. To make it further attractive and reach wider audience, such shared mobility brands are now offering electric two wheelers, that are much easier to operate, and green for environment. One such brand offering services in India is Yulu. If you have visited Delhi and seen blue coloured scooters outside Metro stations, those are Yulus. We recently had an interaction with Amit Gupta, Founder & CEO, Yulu Bikes to understand the concept and benefits of shared mobility.
When you think of fantasy gaming, electric vehicle, a soonicorn, or an ecommerce major, you would think they would be based in India’s silicon valley Bengaluru, unicorn hub Gurugram, or financial capital Mumbai. Interestingly, Jaipur, the pink city of India, is emerging as a startup hub in the country due to its proximity to Delhi and a unique mix of urban and semi-urban infrastructure.
Businesses today rely on a combination of inbound and outbound sales models to drive revenues. While the inbound sales process has rapidly evolved over the last decade, outbound sales hasn’t. Outbound sales teams typically use high-volume tactics to drive revenue. But this approach isn’t scalable and the revenue eventually becomes a function of the size of the outbound sales team. This is because outbound sales teams don’t have a data-driven approach for targeting prospects that are most likely to convert and end up spending time emailing or cold-calling hundreds of prospects hoping to convert a few.
Radio City, India’s leading radio network partnered with Chingari, India’s No.1 social-commerce app to promote the exceeding demand of digital content for a niche user base. This collaboration between the renowned social media app and popular broadcast media house has been formulated with the purpose of providing wholesome entertainment to the people amidst the pandemic and expanding the brand presence for both the media hubs. The two renowned brands consist of talented content creators with different content ideas and an amalgamation of these will only work wonders for the audiences, as they now have a different outlook, as both the platforms will have an influx of new energy and ideas.
Outplay has raised $7.3 million from Sequoia Capital India in its Series A round, as the sales engagement platform looks to ride the tailwind of digitisation of outbound sales due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Founded in 2018 and launched in the subsequent year, Outplay helps automate and personalise sales calls and brings conversations from multiple channels such as email, phone, SMS, LinkedIn, Twitter and chat into a single interface.
Bengaluru-based integrated leadership success platform for growing organizations, SuperBeings on Thursday raised its seed round led by Endiya Partners. The round also saw participation from existing investor Axilor Ventures along with Cloud Capital and prominent angels like Rajaraman Santhanam (Founder, Chargebee), Shanmugam Krishnasamy (Founder & CTO, Freshworks), Sanjoe Tom Jose (Founder, Talview) and Piyush Shah (Co-founder, InMobi Group).
Outbound sales managers typically rely on high volumes of inquiries to find customers, but this means that their revenue is often in proportion to the size of their team. Outplay helps them scale more easily with tools that automate campaigns, identifies the likeliest prospects and uses data to decide the right time to send pitches. The company announced today it has raised $7.3 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital India. The new capital will be used for tech development and hiring, and brings Outplay’s total raised so far to $9.3 million. Its previous funding was a $2 million raise from Sequoia Capital India’s Surge announced in March after Outplay took part in the program’s fourth cohort.
Bengaluru-based integrated leadership success platform for growing organizations, SuperBeings on Thursday raised its seed round led by Endiya Partners-an early-stage venture capital fund that invests in IP-led Indian product startups. The round also saw participation from existing investor Axilor Ventures along with Cloud Capital and prominent angels like Rajaraman Santhanam (Founder, Chargebee), Shanmugam Krishnasamy (Founder & CTO, Freshworks), Sanjoe Tom Jose (Founder, Talview) and Piyush Shah (Co-founder, InMobi Group)
Traditionally, location has always been a mainstay of some of the biggest industries – be it retail, real estate or banking. But, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, spatiality has begun to take centrestage like never before. Be it creating containment zones or planning vaccination drives, the only way to fight the pandemic has been to understand the ground reality rapidly and take decisive action.
