Ideas|Products|Startups|VCs

Parallocity, head-quartered in the Silicon Valley with a Product Engineering Center in Bangalore,  which develops high performance runtime program analysis and defect detection frameworks announced that it has closed Series A round of funding from venture capital firm Accel Partners.

Parallocity has created a virtual machine for program analysis and error detection, especially for multi-threaded / concurrent programs.  Zeus Virtual Machine (ZVM) brings in a new dimension to software testing and quality by incorporating best of current research in computing coupled with innovative applied testing methodologies. By empowering software developers and quality engineers find complex software errors with ease, Parallocity is paving way for next generation of software applications which take full advantage of the computing capabilities of state-of-the-art multi-core/ multi-processor platforms.

Subrata Mitra, Partner at Accel Partners, take the board seat at Parallocity. Parallocity houses an exceptional team delivering the next generation of capabilities in complex program analysis,” said Subrata Mitra, Accel Partners. “Investment in Parallocity is in-line with Accel’s mission to partner with companies that are truly path-breaking. We commit Accel’s global network of resources to help Parallocity scale quickly and realize its true potential.”

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

vcBytes – Congratulates!! Sachin

Well while we talk about money, budgets and economy, there is a start up named Sachin Tendular where Ramakanat Achrekar invested in to groom up and today it’s a multi million dollar single person start up. Congrats to Sachin Tendulkar.
Across all we liked what – Times Magazine has put together, and here is how”

When Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan to face one of the finest bowling attacks ever assembled in cricket, Michael Schumacher was yet to race a F1 car, Lance Armstrong had never been to the Tour de France, Diego Maradona was still the captain of a world champion Argentina team, Pete Sampras had never won a Grand Slam.

When Tendulkar embarked on a glorious career taming Imran and company, Roger Federer was a name unheard of; Lionel Messi was in his nappies, Usain Bolt was an unknown kid in the Jamaican backwaters. The Berlin Wall was still intact, USSR was one big, big country, Dr Manmohan Singh was yet to “open” the Nehruvian economy.

It seems while Time was having his toll on every individual on the face of this planet, he excused one man. Time stands frozen in front of Sachin Tendulkar. We have had champions, we have had legends, but we have never had another Sachin Tendulkar and we never will.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

What are the most important things that investors look for before investing in a start-up? What separates rejects from stars? Here are seven characteristics most venture capital investors look for in a promising venture.

A Proprietary Product, System, Method or Approach

Investors look for surefire indications that the firms they are investing in have a leg up on competitors. While patents, trademarks, copyrights and other trade secrets do not guarantee success, many successful ventures enjoy one or more of these advantages.

A Large Potential Market

What good is a great product or service if the potential market is too limited? In a relatively small market, a venture might have to capture the entire market to be profitable. Most investors look for ventures that operate in markets large enough to result in significant revenues and profits. Large sustainable profits usually lead to greater enterprise value.

Customer Acceptance

Nothing is more convincing than a rapidly growing base of satisfied customers. Well-written business plans, multiple patents and spectacular Power Point presentations are great, but early rapid product acceptance is where the metal meets the road.

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Gradatim raises $3M from NEA-IndoUS ventures as part of series A round funding. GRA-DA-TIM pronounced as grey-dey-tim is a Latin word meaning “step-by-step”, “gradually” or “by degrees”. Gradatim’s objective is to reduce the cost of computing, increase reliability and flexibility by transforming the way people use technology and third party outsourcing partnerships.

Gradatim, a pioneer in the Business Process Utility (BPU) space, delivers evolutionary, on demand business process utilities to customers across industries. Robust industry strength technology platforms which form the underpinning of Gradatim’s delivery makes Gradatim capable of managing parts of customer’s business in an efficient and cost effective manner.

Gradatim has operations in India, Australia and Singapore. Gradatim’s clients include MFIs and NBFC’s, Insurance providers across Asia and Australia.

-Hitesh, vcbytes.com

MotorExchange as the name succinctly tells you what it is about, has raised undisclosed sum of capital from Canaan Parnters. Motorexchange is a platform for buyers and sellers to carry transactions of the used vehicles and target dealers.

MotorExchange has been founded by former Mahindra First Choice CEO Vinay Sanghi and ex-eBay India head Rajan Mehra. Sanghi is currently the CEO, and Mehra, currently a venture partner at Clearstone Venture Advisors, is the founder-director. Alok Mittal, general partner at Canaan, is joining the board of MotorExchange.

Motorexchange is targeting to capture significant market share of $15billion used car sale. Motorexchange has tied up with leading banks like ICICI and HDFC for easy finance.

-Hitesh, vcbytes.com

mchek, a mobile payment solution company which securely links your credit or debit card to your mobile number and helps make payments from your mobile has raised $5million USD from Nexus Venture Partners, NVP seems to be in funding spree!! last month they announced funding of vdopia and NVP seems to have inclination towards mobile applications and services.

mChek’s services support mobile banking, mobile payments and financial inclusion. The company is operational in India and Sri Lanka.

Airtel is one of their first and very prominent client, others include VISA, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank.

DFJ has invested early but not participated in this round of investment and serious doubt sinks in about the the profitability and operating margin of the company.

-Hitesh, vcbytes.com

Rediff invests undisclosed amount in Imere,  Imere is a free software platform that bring location awareness to applications and provides a host of comprehensive geospatial features for cutting edge mobile and internet location based service.

Imere main features include -

Geo Location - Find user’s location on mobile without GPS devices. Imere technology translates cell and WiFi ID to geographic locations. Built with proprietary algorithms, it gives  higher accuracy than any other GPS alternates in the market today.

Push Ads - Imere can be integrated with leading Ad servers to push location relevant ads, Directly to the user’s mobile devices.

POI - Point of interest lookup is a feature that helps you get the nearest geographic points of interest based on categories.

Eka Software Solutions, a leading global provider of multi-commodity trade and risk management solutions, announced that it has received a funding commitment of US $10 million from Nexus Venture Partners. Eka was earlier seed funded by the GP Group, a conglomerate with interests across shipping, manufacturing, real estate development and hospitality.

Talking about the new funding, Mr. Manav Garg, Founder & CEO, Eka Solutions says, “Eka is very well positioned to take advantage of the growing need for commodity trade and risk management software. Our products, technology and team are highly regarded in the market, and the rapid expansion in our customer base is testimony to this. The new funding will allow us to further enhance our technical, support and sales capabilities, and help capitalize on current opportunities to accelerate our growth“.

Eka’s products have been deployed by some of the major players in the global commodity market, enabling them to better manage their operations in complex, volatile, 24×7 global markets. The offerings help buyers, sellers and traders of commodities better manage their business across physical trading, risk management, derivatives, logistics, inventory and P&L. Eka’s clients include AWB, CHS, Louis Dreyfus and others who have deployed its products across a cross section of businesses, commodities and geographies. Eka was recently selected by Nasscom, India’s premier trade body and the chamber of commerce of the IT-BPO industries, as one of India’s top 10 emerging software companies.

“Our investment in Eka reflects the high degree of confidence we have in the management of the company and the soundness of the business model,” says Sandeep Singhal of Nexus Venture Partners, who will join Eka’s Board of Directors. “Eka has created a product that solves real customer pain area. Given the high demand for sophisticated products that meet complex risk management requirements of firms in the global commodity markets, Eka is very well positioned for greater success. We now look forward to working closely with the team to help take Eka to the next level.”