Ideas|Products|Startups|VCs

Mumbai Angels has invested in Pune-based supply chain solutions firm Algorhythm Tech Pvt Ltd. Algorhythm has created a proprietary software platform embedded with Advanced Optimization Engine for customizing highly effective supply chain solutions. The amount invested or stake taken were not disclosed.

The company was set up by Ajit Singh (Chief Software Architect), Sandeep Pendurkar (COO) and Abhaya Borwankar (CEO). Gulu Mirchandani, owner of MIRC Electronics and part of Mumbai Angels, is the company chairman. Algorythm’s clients include firms like Unilever, Nestle, Coca Cola, GSK, SAB Miller, Reckitt Benckiser in the CPG space, and Essar Steel, Uttam Galva, Thyssen Krupp, Mukand Ltd. etc. in the metals space.

“The investment from Mumbai Angels will bring great strategic benefits to Algorhythm as the investors are individuals with tremendous experience of various types of businesses and wide ranging contacts.We are happy to get Mumbai Angels as a partner at a time when the company is just beginning to take off on an upward path and the finance will go a long way in enabling us to achieve our objectives, said Sandeep Pendurkar, COO of Algorythm.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Komli media an online Indian ad network has raised $6M from existing investors – Nexus Venture Partners, Helion Venture partners and DFJ.   The funding will be used to accelerate the company’s overall growth including its expansion across Asia Pacific.

In 2007 Komli has raised $7m from the above mentioned VC firms.

The funding will aid the company to continue investments in the following core businesses:

• Premium Brand Solutions - Komli Media will continue to build on its already strong set of exclusive high quality publisher relationships across the region.  The company will also invest in bringing the next generation of video, mobile and brand measurement solutions to the market

• Performance Marketing – The company will invest further in its core performance optimization platform to help improve ROI for marketers and increase yields for publishers

• Audience Measurement – The company will continue to increase its panel size and bring more audience measurement solutions that will deliver significantly greater data and insights to marketers and agencies

“With India’s Internet user base growing over 50 million and increasing broadband penetration, we see an acceleration of growth in the digital advertising market. The largest brand advertisers in India are now demanding a much higher share of digital and social media in their overall marketing plans. We will continue to make India a top priority of our growth plans”, said Prashant Mehta, Chief Operating Officer of Komli Media.

Komli last month acquired Australia based PostClick a leading site representation firm, covered here.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Inmobi has raised $8m venture capital from existing VCs – KPCB and Sherpalo Ventures. Inmobi is a bangalore based mobile Ad network which serves nearly 17billion ad impression per month globally.

InMobi offers advertisers, developers, and publishers a dependable global mobile advertising platform other InMobi has invested in building a highly scalable, mobile customer discovery ad network leveraging its unique analytics engine AdROItTM to optimize ad serving in real time.

Interestingly there was a strong buzz in the market that Yahoo and Apple had shown interest in acquiring inmobi but it didnt materialize.

Inmobi was founded in 2007 by Naveen Tiwari, Amit Gupta and Abhay Singhal

Last year they had rebranded itself to inmobi from mKhoj, check out here.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Xelf, a kolkotta based startup is an online book rental library where in user can queue up the books and it will be delivered at user’s doorstep and both ways delivery is completley free. Xelf users can keep the book as long as they wish and without incurring any late fees.

Xelf is founded by RIdhi Agarwal an IIMK alumnus and Amit Agarwal an SP Jain alumnus, Xelf which started as pilot project initially has evolved into a promising company which caters to above 20k users in kolkotta.

Xelf aims to be like Bookrenter of India and plans to expand in 6-7 indian metros within next 2 years. Both being avid readers always wanted to create a hassle free library for book lovers.

Xelf USP is impeccable service quality with strict turn around time and easy to use service coupled with simple pricing options.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

MagicRooms,a Bangalore based hotel Global Distribution System, has received a Rs 7 crore investment from Nexus Venture Partners. The MagicRooms platform allows you to seamlessly integrate your hotel’s property management system (PMS) with travel agents, travel portals and large corporate customers.

Magicrooms started a year ago is founded by Niranjan Gupta, With his finger always on the pulse of the industry, Niranjan has consistently moved with the times, anticipating trends far ahead of his peers. It was this vision that saw him setting up flightraja.com(now VIA), India’s first online airline ticketing site. Flightraja has since evolved into India’s leading B2B online airline ticketing site.

MagicRooms is an internet-enabled global distribution system for hotel rooms. By integrating with the hotel’s PMS, it allows seamless real-time distribution of room inventory and rates in seconds. End-users include travel portals and websites, travel agents, and corporate houses.

MakemyTrip is also one of their clients.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Fujitsu Ltd, Japan’s biggest IT services firm, said on Tuesday that it would allow software developers to run their programs on its hardware free of charge so that they can examine performance.

Fujitsu hopes the testing will boost sales of its computer servers, aiming to double such sales to about $114 million by the financial year starting next April.

The testing would enable software makers to better promote their products to prospective clients such as manufacturers, a Fujitsu spokeswoman said.

Fujitsu has set up a test center for this programme.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Let me tell you honestly none of the VC will fund your startup based on the business plan only, having said that its a important driving component for raising Venture capital.

Lets look at the must have components you should include while preparing the deck:-

Mission statement – You need to define clearly and very crisply about your company and what you plan to do.

Team – I sincerely believe Team is one critical component in raising Venture Capital, VC look at the business plan seriously if team is phenomenally good. Its good to have a business development guy in your team, VCs love to find them in founding team.

Pain Point or Problem – Define the problem statement clearly and how your business proposition can address those pain points,  VCs are generally not interested in looking at another Me 2 kind of companies.

Solution – Clearly define the solution which will address the pain point or gap or solve the problem. Make sure you have proper workflow included in the presentation, subsequently you can also walk through the product if its ready.

Market Size – Market Size is one component which really fascinates VCs. Detail out the market size, if better you can show show market size as per geography and explain clearly how many people is experiencing the problem and how your product can solve the problem.

Business model – You need to understand clearly you are here to make money and not doing any charity work, have 1-2 strong means of revenue generating means and can also list out possibilities of generating revenue in near future.

How much to raise – You should have crystal clarity on how much fund you need and why you need, VC will definitely grill you on this, you should keep a buffer to anticipate any unexpected event which can dent your business.

Marketing – Have marketing plan in place, how you going to take your product in the market

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com