HealthKart, gurgaon based online retailer has raised $5M from Sequoia Capital and Omidyar Network as part of series B round. In April 2011 HealthKart had raised $1M from Kae Capital and Sequoia Capital.
Primarily the investments will be utilized in strengthening the product portfolio, supply chain system and good chunk of investments will be deployed in marketing.
Healthkart, is founded by two IIT-D graduates – Prashant Tandon and Sameer Maheshwari. They have able to bring in some talented entrepreneurs in their core team, for instance Animesh Jain is head of Online Marketing & Product, Animesh was CEO and Cofounder of iTasveer.
Healthkart which began as online health store has expanded its product portfolio, now it sells baby care, cosmetic products as well.
Groffr, the only group buying portal of high value items like real estate, cars, home loans etc is about to close a funding round. It is learnt that the group buying space seems to be only gaining momentum. We have learnt that Groffr is about to raise capital from a prominent Angel Network and another institutional fund. The details are not known but sources say it’s close to a million dollar. The funds are largely going to be used for expansion purposes. Since this is not from company sources we can’t confirm it with certainty.
In another development Groffr got an offer for one of the biggest internet company in India for a complete buy out which was in tune of $4-5M. Groffr founders Sandeep Reddy and Vikhyat Srivastava declined this tempting offer, Certainly they want to play bigger game in this $1B real estate brokerage market.
Transactions over Groffr platform has been very healthy, around 115 crores transaction has been done and they have saved around 21Cr for their customers. Groffr monthly net revenue has been growing steadily.
Groffr is a a year old Mumbai based startup founded by Vikhyat Srivastav and Sandeep Reddy, both IIMK graduate and worked earlier with PE real estate funds. The group aggregates people interested in a particular property and negotiates with the developers for a discounted price for everyone. Groffr employs 20 people in three cities – Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
Given the recent volatility in the sector, it makes sense for the real estate developers and car dealers also as they are able to sell a good chunk of their high value inventory in one shot. It’s a win-win situation for both the parties. Buyers get a good bargain while developers are able to sell a lot of flats in one go while saving on marketing cost.
Wouldn’t be nice on sharing the experience of your favorite hangout place with your friends and get rewarded? also getting recommendation on new hangout places you may like all through SMS. Good news is Revu.in has arrived.
Revu.in is a customer engagement plus reward platform on mobile. Revu.inis an innovative way to publish reviews about anything you like in real time by just sending a SMS. The platform enables businesses to build and engage with their community.
Revu.in is a Bangalore based startup founded by Mayank Sharma, Ishwar Sundararaman, Jaishankar Jayaramakrishnan. Revu was started in June 2010 with an idea of using mobile phone as a platform where consumers can talk about places they have been to and immediately promote it within their social media.
Revu bridges the gap between businesses and consumers using an existing device that consumers anyway use today – Their Mobile phone. Businesses run their mobile loyalty, engagement and informational programs and consumers subscribe to them with just their mobile number.
For users Revu.in provides a platform for them to share their experience in arestaurant/pub/concert plays etc with their friends on twitter/facebook and also let them socialize with other people in platform with similar interests.
Revu.in monetizes from the business for deploying its customer reward platform. For businesses Revu provides platform to offer rewards and discounts to their customers.
Now buying your favourite fruits and vegetables is just as simple as ordering pizza, Thanks to Vegwala. Its an online vegetable & fruit shop, its a Bangalore based service started by Mitera Agrotech. I have earlier tried other similar services but discontinued because of various reasons- service wasn’t prompt, need to meet their minimum order amount etc.
Couple of weeks back I tried Vegwala and was impressed with their service, within 1 hr of ordering it online i received the items. Vegwala charges extra Rs 10/- as delivery charges for bill below 200/- and no delivery charges if bill meets 200 or above.
Salient features of Vegwala-
Products are competitively priced.
Directly delivered at user doorstep, just a click away.
Fresh vegetables and fruits soured everyday.
Handpicked, hygienically packed and ready to be placed in refrigerator, user is saved from cleaning etc.
To save time for users in selecting vegetables and fruits, Vegwala has packaged box system containing vegetables/fruits/mix of fruits & vegetables for a nuclear family of 2 or 4 person. Great packaging and bundling by Vegwala.
Certainly such services surely will reduce the workload of busy Bangaloreans.
NetAmbit, one of India’s leading Financial Services Distribution Company is all set to expand its horizons in online space with the acquisition of Rupeetalk, the leading personal finance portal. With Rupeetalk’s acquisition NetAmbit will be able to start internet enabled model for fulfillment of leads.
It combines Rupeetalk’s online ability to offer comparisons on financial products and other information alongwith with NetAmbit’s offline reach in reaching the customer and offering him what is best.
Rupeetalk is an intermediary portal that serves as a bridge between users of this Site and providers of personal finance products in India. Rupeetalk provides consumers a platform to compare product offerings by various financial institutions and educate them so that the consumer would make a more informed decision.
Lets look at the monthly traction of Rupeetalk:
Unique visitors (estimated cookies)
44K
Unique visitors (users)
33K
Page views
110K
Total visits
48K
Avg visits per visitor
1.5
Avg time on site
4:10
NetAmbit is backed by Helion Venture Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, while Rupeetalk was backed by Seedfund.
Do you have a knack of loosing phones like me? Do you want information and other content should be safe and protected once phone is lost? Aren’t you keen in retrieving your contact lists? Here is good news – A pune based startup is hearing your woes and addressing your concerns.
Maverick Mobile is a pune based startup which develops innovative mobile applications for Indian and global market. Pune based Maverick Mobile is aggressively developing proprietarymobile applications and VAS products for the global and Indian market. Maverick Mobile has range of security and VAS products and are aggressively increasing their product portfolio. Maverick flagship products are Maverick Secure Mobile(MSM).
Maverick Secure Mobile (MSM) is a mobile security application. Secure Mobile helps you protect your data, track your stolen device, retrieve your phonebook & disable the stolen device remotely. The application works in hidden mode and cannot be viewed in the device. To launch / customize this application one has to press pre-defined short keys and password. After installing MSM in the device, one must add “Reporting Contact” in the application. Reporting Contact can be your second number/friends number or any other mobile number on which you want to receive all the reports.which helps you protect your data, track your stolen device,retrieve your phonebook & disable the stolen device remotely. Theapplication works in hidden mode and cannot be viewed in the device.
MSM Pro is the advanced version of MSM, It enables users to retrieve GPS location of the stolen/lost phone, with this GPSlocation user can view real time location of the phone on Google Map.MSM Pro comes with Web interface using which user can controllost/stolen phone from remote computer.
Other Popular products from their stable are – Data backup, Call trapper, Secure SMS, MDND. I am planning to buy Maverick Do Not Disturb(MDND) and check out if it works properly. It claims to block unwanted calls and messages or decide to receive calls and messages from selected numbers only. This application gives complete control over users accesibility to others.
Maverick Mobile now plans to foray into the entertainment and social network space and is developing a mobile based social network. Lets wait and watch this space.
Groffr is a year old startup based out of Mumbai founded by IIM-K graduates Vikhyat and Sandeep. Groffr is a group buying portal for high valuable items like real estate, cars. I have covered Groffr earlier, you can check here.
Groffr is looking to raise Venture Capital for expanding their operations, Let’s look at their VC pitch.
(Disclaimer: This video is uploaded after taking due permission from Groffr Founders)
Recently i have come across few bunch of smart people who spends couple of hours in a startup along with their steady job in big Software company. Best part is they have full faith in the vision of startup, its business goals but still hesitant to take a plunge and work full time. In my believe in order to kickoff an startup one has to really overcome the fear and which is the toughest thing to do.
Starting a new business is equally challenging and exciting, it can really scare the wits out of you; more so when you are leaving the comfort and security of a steady paycheck.
How you can mitigate the risks and conquer your fear of starting a business :
Empower yourself with knowledge. Understand the domain, market size, product offerings in that space thoroughly. Understand why users buy the products of from your competitor and how your product can fit in that space, list out all the merits your product will have.
List down the reasons why you want to start this venture, please don’t start just to compete with your friends who have started business and doing well. Get inspired don’t get influenced.
Assess and build your support system, in case of any fall out you can rely on you support system.
Be realistic in your aspirations, you just can’t start thinking you can give stiff competition to Apple or Google. Don’t be over ambitious.
Be confident and believe in yourself, thats the most critical factor for success. If you doubt your capability new venture is sure to doom.
There has to be an alignment with your goals and resources, you just cannot run overboard with goals which can develop friction within the team.
ZipDial is a bangalore based startup that offers a service which enables viewers to participate in TV polls without spending any rupee on sms. ZipDial is an interactive mobile-based platform for marketing and customer relationships management. Objective is to get more participation from the audience without burdening them with high sms rates.
Zipdial is founded by Sanjay Swamy(ex CEO of mChek), Amiya Pathak(VP engg of Zapak.com), Valerie Rozycki (ex eBay). ZipDial is a toll -free service and the Call will disconnect after one ring and user will receive a SMS response, basically it is as good as miss call.
For a TV channel or enterprise to use their service it will cost Rs 1,000 per number per month, which means that a yes/no question that requires two phone numbers will cost Rs 2,000 per month. At present only concern is adoption, whether TV channels will embrace this system is a big question mark. TV channels make good revenue from SMS user sends and typically for any reality show revenue goes upto few crores and TV channels wouldn’t like to loose on this revenue.
USP -
One vote per number which means the system accepts only one vote from a particular number — you cannot inflate the votes by repeated dialing.
Disruptive – Cutting down the revenue for TV channels but simultaneously encouraging wider participation from audience without charging them.
Mithaimate is a online sweet store which delivers sweets at your doorstep. User can buy sweets, chocolates, cakes, bakery items from their portal and can get it delivered at desired shipping address.
In other words Mithaimate is the branded mithai delivery service in the country. All the products at Mithaimate are sourced from famous sweet shops of respective cities to provide unmatched quality and are hand delivered. They basically fullfill the procurement process and delivers at the address specified while making the order.
MithaiMate collects the fresh stock from the vendor and within 24 hours, delivers the package to you. These sweets are delivered by Mithaimate staff themselves at customer’s doorsteps. Customer can a personal note while gifting the sweets to their loved ones and it will be tagged with the sweet box to be delivered.
User can browse through sweets catalog, they are categorized quite neatly and also user can filter the sweet listings by price. Mithaimate serves 150+ cities in India.
I recently used Mithaimate service and was quite impressed with their turn around time, product was delivered within 5hrs at a place in Delhi. Mithaimate seems to be targeting NRI audience largely and would be interesting to see if they cross deliver i.e sweets sourced from Delhi sweet shop and courier it to a Bangalore based user.
