Friday, March 29

Author: Nitish

Decoding: The Growing Role Of Data In Sponsorship
BLOGS

Decoding: The Growing Role Of Data In Sponsorship

The Audience remains at the heart of the sponsorship proposition. However, it is no longer exposure, impressions generated or image transfer that drives and determines value. Rather—thanks to data—it is the ability to engage, involve and connect with fans that raises sports, events, entertainment, nonprofit, cultural, association and other partnerships above mere marketing. This is not a recent change; at least not on one side of the fence. Data-led, digitally enabled personalization has been at the heart of many brand marketing initiatives since the turn of the century. More recently, as the technology cost of delivering personalization has been reduced, rightsholders in some areas of entertainment—cinema, for example—have begun to take the initiative in this space. Most others, howeve...
Tatas Tech Arm GTIO Will Commercially Launch 4 Products in Next 2yrs
News

Tatas Tech Arm GTIO Will Commercially Launch 4 Products in Next 2yrs

Tata Sons Group Technology and Innovation Office (GTIO) will roll out four high-tech products in the next two years. GTIO is working on four specific products -- a smartwatch for industrial workers being tested on Tata Steels workforce, a drone-based pesticide spraying system, a factory and fleet analytics system, and an advanced material called graphene. "All the projects that we undertake will take three to five years from start to finish... You will see a rollout in the next two years," Tata Sons Group Technology Officer Gopichand Katragadda said. The salt-to-software conglomerate is the biggest spender on research and development among the large companies in the country. Last year, GTIO had spent 2.7 per cent of its USD 110 billion revenue on R&D and innovation. The incuba...
Two IIM Graduates Take the Milkman Route to Solve the Challenges of $70 Billion Indian Dairy Industry
Story

Two IIM Graduates Take the Milkman Route to Solve the Challenges of $70 Billion Indian Dairy Industry

Country Delight was started by Chakradhar Gade and Nitin Kaushal, a couple of IIM graduates (IIM Indore batch of 2007) who left their bright corporate careers to solve a very basic but prevalent problem - artificial and adulterated milk. Country Delight promises natural, fresh and unadulterated milk directly to the doorstep of the consumer. Consumer ordering and servicing happen through a first-of-its-kind mobile application that completely takes away the hassle of managing one's milk requirements. On how and why they started this, Chakradhar Gade said, "We saw a clear problem to solve, a huge industry to tap into and a sustainable business model that we could scale using technology." As Indians, we love the idea of fresh milk daily. The idea of getting fresh milk is integral to o...
News Updates: MobiKwik Partners With Domino’s Pizza, Burger King, Flipkart’s EKART Introduces Smart Courier Service
News

News Updates: MobiKwik Partners With Domino’s Pizza, Burger King, Flipkart’s EKART Introduces Smart Courier Service

MobiKwik, one of India's independent mobile payments' network has partnered with Domino's and Burger King for cashless payments across their outlets in 200+ Indian cities. With this association, MobiKwik now has enabled cashless payments across 8,000 restaurants in India. Announcing these associations, Upasana Taku, co-founder, MobiKwik said: "At MobiKwik, we are driven with the vision of a cashless India and our association with these food-retail giants like Dominos is a strong step towards realising that idea. We aim for 100 percent growth every month through offline food and retail tie ups." MobiKwik is one of the largest independent mobile payments network, connecting 30 million users with 75,000+ retailers. Founded in 2009 by Bipin Preet Singh and Upasana Taku, the company has raise...
Cook Inaugurates Apple Maps Development Office in Hyderabad
News

Cook Inaugurates Apple Maps Development Office in Hyderabad

Apple Inc today announced the opening of a new office here that will focus on development of Maps for its products including iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. The Californian tech giant said in a statement that this investment will accelerate Maps development and create up to 4,000 jobs. The company, however, did not disclose the quantum of investment that it intends to invest on the facility. "We are thrilled to open this new office in Hyderabad which will focus on Maps development," Cook said. "The talent here in the local area is incredible and we are looking forward to expanding our relationships and introducing more universities and partners to our platforms as we scale our operations," he said. Apple has been continually updating and adding new features to Maps includ...
Why Did Apple Invest $1billion in Didi (China)?
Story

Why Did Apple Invest $1billion in Didi (China)?

From last 2-3 days, we were discussing a topic daily in our team meeting that Why Apple invested $1Billion in Chinese Taxi aggregator Didi xihuang? Why an iPhone maker company changes its strategy? Is this a master stroke from Apple to convince chinese government that they are not US based company only? Or Apple wants to show chinese people that they are ready to invests on chinese people on the theory of "if you care about us, we care about you"? Or A Gameplan from chinese government to show the world that how world's most innovative smartphone company depended heavily on China? Yesterday, I was watching a youtube video of Jack Ma (Alibaba founder) speech in Harward university, where he said that at business point both country's China and America should support and mai...
Ratan Tata Invested in Medical Startup MUrgency Inc
FUNDING

Ratan Tata Invested in Medical Startup MUrgency Inc

Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus has invested in San Francisco-based medical emergency response MUrgency Inc. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. "He (Tata) clearly wanted us to launch and grow the network in India first before taking it overseas. Mr Tata's investment in MUrgency will help attract leading talent to the company and major partnerships beyond India," MUrgency Inc Fonder Shaffi Mather said in a statement. Founded in 2014 in Silicon Valley and incubated out of Stanford ChangeLabs, MUrgency recently received investments from Kris Gopalakrishnan and S D Shibulal led Axilor Ventures. The company launched its service in Tricity area in Punjab on February 16, with a responder network of 36 hospital emergency rooms, over 40 ambulances and more than 350 me...
Bridging The Gap Between Arranged Marriage and Love Marriage – A DIY Matrimonial Network
Story

Bridging The Gap Between Arranged Marriage and Love Marriage – A DIY Matrimonial Network

When Saneesh Sukumaran saw his friends, cousins and even himself struggling through awkward arranged marriage meetings and scouring impersonal matrimonial networks, he thought of a Self Arranged matrimonial platform as an obvious solution. As destiny would have it, he found his partner well before the site was up and running. Wedeterna is a new-age, personalised and fresh approach to arranged marriages where all profiles are self created. Wedeterna is meant for those who want to give traditional arranged marriages a shot without leaving it entirely to family and relatives. On Wedeterna you can hide personal details, email id and phone number, to be shared only upon user's approval. The main idea behind Wedeterna was to retain the goodness of traditional arranged marriages which is the...
Decoding: Facebook’s Trending Topic Controversy
ANALYSIS

Decoding: Facebook’s Trending Topic Controversy

What's behind the accusations that Facebook is manipulating its "trending topics" feature to promote or suppress certain political perspectives? According to the technology blog Gizmodo, a former Facebook contractor with self-described conservative leanings said Facebook downplayed news that conservatives are interested in and artificially promoted liberal issues such as the "BlackLivesMatter" hashtag. Gizmodo did not name this person. Facebook denied the claims, but the GOP-led US Senate Commerce Committee has sent a letter to Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg requesting answers about the matter.   What are 'trending topics'? Facebook shows some of the most popular topics being discussed at any given moment. On browsers, the topics appear on the top right corner, separate f...
Hindi Social Networking Portal ShabdaNagari Raised Funding From ah! ventures
FUNDING

Hindi Social Networking Portal ShabdaNagari Raised Funding From ah! ventures

Hindi social networking portal ShabdaNagari has raised undisclosed amount of bridge funding from ah! ventures.  The company had said that it plans to use the funds raised to expand its genres and improve its user interface, marketing and promotional activities. Artha Energy Project's Anirudh Damani & others also participated in this round. "ShabdaNagari team's thorough understanding of the Hindi speaking market and their innovative solutions to the various requirements make them stand apart. The positive results we have witnessed in the last one year makes us confident that ShabdaNagari is soon to be the biggest player in this niche category." said Harshad Lahoti, founder and CEO of ah! Ventures. ShabdaNagari had earlier raised Rs 1.2 crore from Kanpur Angels and a clutch of other...
Media is Not Foolish Mr. Rahul Yadav, Mind Your Own Business
Story

Media is Not Foolish Mr. Rahul Yadav, Mind Your Own Business

"Rahul Yadav" a name which does not require any kind of introduction. From last 6 to 7 months, this name is promoted by the person himself through his own activities on social media and in media. Why?   Let's start from the beginning, 1) Rahul Yadav is an IItian who left IITB in his last year. He started Housing.com with his 11 IITian friends and raised million dollar funding from Softbank & others. The Company was running smoothly, until one day he wrote an open letter to Mr. Shailendra Singh from Sequoia Capital warning him to stop activities against him. The "Rahul Saga" starts from here but the question is why open this letter to media? Ok let me guess might be someone else did this but if Rahul Yadav did it then why?   2) During leaving Hosuing.com, he ...
FUNDING

Zenify Raises Rs 6 Crore in Pre-Series A Round to Facilitate Growth

Zenify, a home aggregator and rental management start-up based in Bengaluru has raised Pre-Series A funding of INR 6 crores from High Networth Individuals (HNI), who have a minor stake in Zenify. Zenify will use the raised funds to further expand their range of services in India and strengthen its team to complement their capabilities. The company had earlier raised Rs 4 crore in angel funding from Srikanth and Bharath from K12 Techno Service Pvt. Ltd & Atul Jalan, Founder & CEO of Mathan Software Service Pvt Ltd. Zenify, today has a total funding of Rs. 10 crores. Sudarshan Purohit, Kailash Rathi and Ankur Agarwal, alumni of IIT- M, co-founded Zenify, which lists over 1700 properties available for rent across Bengaluru. The platform provides owners and tenants a hassle free ...