Monday 7 March 2016

Allizhealth raises $350K from Mumbai Angels and marquee individual angel investors



                           






Preventive Healthcare Start-up Allizhealth raises $350K from Mumbai Angels and marquee individual angel investors including Dr. Ranjan Pai, Chairman - Manipal Education and Medical group and Mr. Rahil Shah, Director at NM Medical.

June 2nd 2015,

Allizhealth (www.allizhealth.com ), a healthcare technology venture based out of Pune, is building a healthmanagement platform with an aim to help people manage their conditions better and empower them to make the right health choices, at the right time. In order to grow faster, Allizhealth raised $350K from Mumbai Angels and other individual angel investor such as Dr. Ranjan Pai. The funding round was led by Dr.Aniruddha Malpani, member at Mumbai Angels. Allizhealth plans to use these funds to further enhance its service offerings by improving their mobile app, expanding their team and building a robust health analytics backend.

“We are very thrilled with this round of funding from Mumbai Angels, and consider it a validation of our idea and vision. Healthcare in India is primarily curative and with increasing burden of NCD’s and other lifestyle related conditions, it is imperative that we start working towards a culture of preventive health. This round of funding is a step in that direction, to make AllizHealth a pioneer in the space of preventive care and risk management.“ Chinmoy Mishra, Co-founder, Allizhealth

Chinmoy is an NIT Rourkela graduate and an MBA from Babson College, Boston. Prior to co-founding the start-up, he worked with a US-based technology and health insurance company Aetna. He returned to India in 2008 and was associated with another healthcare venture before starting AllizhealthAllizhealth has 3 more co-founders: Dr. Rasmi Mishra, Gaurav Vij and Dhairya Gupta.

“The Indian healthcare system is ailing. There are too many patients, and not enough doctors. The increasing tension and mistrust between doctors and patients is just making a bad situation worse! The industry is ripe for disruption, and start-ups such as AllizHealth, which focus on putting patients first, will do very well. They can leverage technology to create a trusted platform for patients and doctors. This will help health insurers keep their customers happy; and employers keep their employees productive. The focus should be on prevention, rather than on illness care, by empowering users with trusted information that is tailored to their needs” Dr. Aniruddha Malpani, Deal Lead, Mumbai Angels

“We are happy to have completed the funding in a crucial space such as Preventive healthcare. We at Mumbai Angels believe that technology is changing the way we live and operate in our daily lives and preventive health care is one industry that will benefit highly from this. We are very excited about the healthcare sector as a whole” Prashant Choksey, Co-founder, Mumbai Angels

Mumbai Angels is one of India’s largest angel networks with 200+ members and operating in 3 active chapters; Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. They have completed over 76 investments in the start-up ecosystem spanning across multiple sectors focusing primarily on seed and early stage companies.

Massblurb secures funding from Mumbai Angels & Lets Venture


 
Massblurb secures funding from Mumbai Angels & Lets Venture 
Massblurb, an marketing automation & online presence management tool for restaurants, secures undisclosed amount of funding from Mumbai Angels & LetsVenture.

•  Round led by Mumbai Angels in co-participation with LetsVenture and other individual angels.

•  Currently serves close to 200 restaurants across metro cities in India and aim to reach 1,000 restaurants by December 2015.

•   Half of the to be invested in for sales & marketing and the rest in Product and technology development and client servicing

August 13th 2015,

MassBlurb is a marketing automation tool which provides a 360 degree marketing solution for restaurants to get more footfalls and engage customers. It’s a one-stop solution for online needs of a restaurant as it solves critical problems like information inconsistency and ubiquity in the online space with a few clicks. It makes it very easy for restaurant owners to regularly engage with their customers.

Founded in 2014, the founding team comprises of Sanket Shah, M.S. from University of Michigan and a former Head of Growth at Right Relevance and Pankit Chheda, M.S. from Carnegie Mellon, who was formerly the Head of Mobile at CouponDunia.

Pankit Chheda, co-founder of Massblurb said, “Getting relevant angels from the hospitality industry brings a lot of strategic value and helps us in building a good product and having a good reach in the market.”

Sanket Shah, co-founder of Massblurb said, “Funding is important considering the best thing about the start-up is growth and probably one most important thing that distinguish them as compared to other companies. Growth even gets better when your investors are ready to get their hands dirty and provide not just finances but also other resources. We are glad we have them.”

Massblurb has recently forayed into 3 cities apart from Mumbai - Bangalore, Delhi and Pune. They plan to target another 4 cities in the month and a half. They have recently signed up with multi-city F&B chains like The Beer Cafe, Impresario Group, Chaayos, etc.

"Massblurb is a differentiated business idea that has enormous potential. The model is grounded in analytics and it is this intelligence that has impressed us at AdvantEDGE. I truly believe that Massblurbhas an exciting future" said Abhimanyu Munjal, COO - Herofincorp & Deal Lead at Mumbai Angels

" We believe that Massblurb will become a defacto for every restaurant that wants to have a meaningful social presence. The company has shown phenomenal traction within a short time and the promoters are young and enthusiastic. " said Prashant Choksey, Co-Founder of Mumbai Angels

“As an avid investor in the food and beverage space and a restaurateur myself, I was struck with the unique value proposition of the MassBlurb offering. I truly believe they are out to make every restaurateur in the country get a better social profile, and offer unique deals to their customers.Pankit and Sanket are some of the most grounded people I know, and they have really worked hard to buildMassBlurb into something we at Mumbai Angels are already proud of.” quoted Keshav Baljee, CEO - ZiP Rooms & Deal Lead at Mumbai Angels

"In the offline world, one happy customer will tell 3 others about his experience and an un-happy one will complain to 8-10 other customers. On the internet, these numbers get amplified a thousand X and can make or break a small business like a restaurant. Sanket and Pankit started Massblurb with the vision of providing a single dashboard to restaurants to manage their online and social presence wherever their customers may be talking about them. Launched as a SaaS service, Massblurb is rapidly becoming an essential tool-kit for its restaurant customers who are signing up for its service in droves. " quoted Vikram Chachra of LetsVenture.

Mumbai Angels is one of India’s largest angel networks with 200+ members and operating in 3 active chapters; Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. They have completed over 79 investments in the start-up ecosystem spanning across multiple sectors focusing primarily on seed and early stage companies.

Babychakra raises fund from Mumbai Angels and others




 

BabyChakra,(www.babychakra.com ) , the premier portal for young parents, has raised a round of funding (amount undisclosed), led by Mumbai Angels, Patni Family Office & Singapore Angel Network.

- This round of funding will be used to accelerate traction, hire top industry professionals and launch        Babychakra's android mobile app. This is Mumbai Angels' 77th start-up investment.

June 16th 2015,

Founded in 2014, BabyChakra aims to disrupt the ways young parents in India discover & select local services such as child specialists, playschools, day-cares, prenatal classes, play areas etc. It helps parents make informed choices on local services through their proprietary MomStar program, verification and social integration.

The founding team comprises of Naiyya Saggi (Harvard Business School and a former McKinsey consultant), Mitesh Karia (FMS Delhi, formerly with HSBC) & Mohit Kumar (IIT-Delhi, DzignUp co-founder).

In the last year, they have scaled to 3 cities in India: Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi and have helped more than 2.5 lakh Indian parents connect to over 5500 quality local services.

The Company has been recognized as one of the hottest Indian start-ups at multiple platforms, including Wharton India Economic Forum, Google Launchpad, Business World Young Entrepreneur Awards & The Exhibit Awards.

The funding round is led by Mumbai Angels and participating investors include The Patni Family Office, Satveer Singh Thakral from the Singapore Angel Network, Karan Maheshwari, Jatin Aneja, Kishor Ganji, Roopa Nath among others.

Naiyya Saggi, co-founder and CEO of BabyChakra said, "The funds raised through this round will be used primarily to hire top industry professionals for key roles and accelerate traction in our current markets. Our vision is to be the platform of choice to help Indian parents make better everyday decisions for themselves and their children. It’s great to have the backing of an incredible group of investors who believe in us and our ability to disrupt at scale".

“We backed the team at BabyChakra for 2 reasons. Firstly, BabyChakra is a truly innovative product that solves a real need for young parents today: making better, more informed care decisions for their families. Secondly, the team has, in a short span of time, executed fast, shown strong traction & loyalty in users and is set to scale rapidly. We are excited to join BabyChakra on their journey to being a game-changing made-in-India venture", said Karan Maheshwari, Deal Lead for Mumbai Angels.

"We are happy to be a part of the exciting business that BabyChakra is building. At Mumbai Angels we pride ourselves in identifying and partnering fantastic start-ups with the promise and ability to become the next big “Made-in-India” success stories " Said Prashant Choksey, Co-founder, Mumbai Angels.

Mumbai Angels is one of India’s largest angel networks with 200+ members across 3 active chapters; Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Their portfolio comprises 77 ventures across multiple sectors focused primarily on seed and early stage companies.
Media contact

For Mumbai Angels                                                                                             For Babychakra

Yash Ghatalia                                                                                                       Naiyya Saggi

yash@mumbaiangels.com                                                                                naiyya@babychakra.com

07506711246                                                                                                       09769844098

Mumbai Angels, Fireside Ventures & MAPE Advisory Group invests in 'bounty'

Mumbai Angels, Fireside Ventures & MAPE Advisory Group invests in 'bounty'
The Bangalore based nanolocal commerce app, ‘bounty’ has announced that it has raised an undisclosed seed round of investment from Fireside Ventures, Mumbai Angels and MAPE Advisory Group.  The round also saw active participation from Basab Pradhan, former Global Head of Sales and Marketing at Infosys, and real estate group scion Apurva Salarpuria of Salarpuria Group.
Bounty is a platform for customers to earn rewards seamlessly and for retail businesses to drive footfall, track customer behavior within the store and incentivize purchases. Once customers download the app, bounty automatically checks in the user whenever they visits a bounty recognized business location. Users earn rewards for checking in, while retail businesses can promote their offers through personalized and targeted campaigns.
The app currently available in Google Playstore has more than 100K+ downloads and a high repeat user rate. bounty claims that as India’s fastest growing rewards app, it is also the first to launch a smartwatch check-in in India. Bounty’s app downloads grew more than 14X times in the last 6 months and check-ins by users grew by more than 25 times – all without any advertising or marketing. The app so far has driven more than 1 Mn check-ins and rewarded users with more than 20 million bounty points.
Satish Medapati, Founder & CEO says “Nanolocal commerce is about information that is predictive, realtime and contextual – providing you what you need at the right location, just in time. Brands need to personalize offers, services and experiences to suit a consumer starting with courting the customer, getting to know them better and tailoring contextual communication to drives sales or service. Bountyprovides the perfect platform for brands to reach out to consumers in a cost effective and meaningful way.
Representing Mumbai Angels, Bharat Devanathan, former COO of Groupon APAC said – “Today, websites are able to identify a customer along various dimensions (new vs returning, customer demographics, customer lifetime value, customer purchase intent) the moment he/she visits the site. However, retail businesses do not know who has entered their store until the customer actually makes a purchase. Imagine if retail businesses have the same ability as websites - to identify customers at entry. That’s the power of bounty for retail businesses. The benefits of this to the customer and the businesses are many fold...ranging from loyalty programs, rewards and personalized offers to customers"
Commenting on the investment, Kanwaljit Singh, Founder of Fireside Ventures, Co-Founder & former Senior Managing Director of Helion Venture Partners said  “Omni-channel consumer experience is beginning to take shape globally and the team at bounty is continuously working towards making consumer life easier through data sciences and technology, the smartwatch check-in being one. The global market potential is very high and bounty’s traction has been great.”  
The 7-month-old startup will use the funds for expanding to other cities, adding new retail categories and enhancing the product and technology stacks.

Mumbai Angels, Purvi Ventures and other Individual Angel Investor invests in 'Advantage Club'

Mumbai Angels, Purvi Ventures and other Individual Angel Investor invests in 'Advantage Club'
Gurgaon based Advantage Club (previously Work Advantage) raises 2.7 Crores from Mumbai Angels, Purvi Ventures and prominent individual investors like Avtar Singh Monga (IDFC Bank), Amitabh Nagpal (Investor in Shopclues), Varun and Himanshu Agarwal (Aspiring Minds), Gaurav Bhatnagar, Ankush Nijhawan and Manish Dhingra (TBO Holidays), Gopi Prashanth (Sourabh's ex-manager at Microsoft), Rajnish Sinha (Genpact) and Vibhu Garg (Unicommerce).

Advantage Club is India's largest mobile first platform for corporate-employee benefits. By providing curated privileges not only in the luxury segment but also in essentials, it effectively increases an employee's spending/saving power by 10%.

Currently, 250+ brands in 3000+ locations across 12 different categories including Max Healthcare, Domino’s, Yatra, Grofers, UrbanClap, Mother’s Pride, Kingdom of Dreams, Flipkart and Reliance Footprint are offering exclusive privileges via Advantage Club. They have on boarded 100+ companies including Sony, Zee Media, Concentrix, Intelenet (previously Serco), Tech Mahindra, Religare, Sona Koyo, Bata and many more.

The funds will be used to enhance the product with analytical features, allowing better individual and corporate level personalization. The program is already live in NCR, Bangalore and Mumbai, and is planned to expand PAN India with stronger presence in Pune, Hyderabad and Kolkata. The aim is to create an analytical tech-platform which redefines employee benefits beyond provident funds and corporate discounts beyond dining.
Sourabh, CEO and Co-Founder says, “The perception of an employee has changed in the past decade. Every organization is looking for innovative ways to engage with its members, and offer something beyond just salary. We aim to delight corporate and employees via white-labelled apps with exclusive privileges from premium brands, and features like wish lists, a 365-day customer helpline and usage dashboard.”
Smiti, COO and Co-Founder, “Every brand wants to reach out to corporate clientele. But in today's unorganized market, even if they offer a corporate privilege, it is not promoted among the employees creating lose-lose situation for them. We not only help brands market within corporates, but through features like smart personalized notifications and newsletters, we are able to influence the choices of the customer right before he/she is about to make a decision.”
Nayan Parikh, Deal Lead & Board Member, Mumbai Angels said, "Advantage Club is a platform for corporates who want to provide exclusive and personalized deals to their employees as part of their benefits program. Corporate employees have large disposable incomes and brands aspire to target them. At the same time corporates need to provide benefits to their employees at low costs to reduce attrition. Brands directly signing with corporates aren’t the difficult part. However, employee engagement is a key challenge, addressed byAdvantage Club." 
Commenting on the investment, Ravi Srivastava, founding partner of Purvi Ventures said, "Smiti & Sourabh have identified a greenfield opportunity in the privileges space - something that’s often taken for granted in the mature workforce & human capital management circles, but is oddly missing in the Indian ecosystem so far. And we're very bullish on the team - they not only iterate rapidly, but also have this uncanny ability to close deals from scratch."







Wednesday 3 February 2016

RBI eases norms for funding start-ups - by Shweta Markandeya

Taking a cue from the Government’s Start-up India initiative, the RBI in its monthly monetary policy statement announced certain measures that will increase ease of doing business and create a conducive ecosystem for start-ups. Some of the key developments include –
·         Creating an enabling framework for receiving foreign venture capital and for transfer of shares from FVCI to other residents and non-residents,
·         Permitting in case of transfer of ownership of a start-up enterprise, differing contractual structures and receipt of consideration on a deferred basis through an escrow or indemnity arrangement for a period of upto 18 months,
·         Simplification and online submission of various forms related to inward and outward remittances (ARF, FC-GPR and FC-TRS) - Electronic reporting of investment and subsequent transactions to be made on e-Biz platform only and submission of physical forms will be discontinued with effect from February 8, 2016

RBI has created a dedicated mailbox (helpstartup@rbi.org.in) to provide assistance and guidance to the start-up sector.

Other proposals that are also under consideration by the RBI are –
·         Allowing start-ups to access rupee loans under ECB framework,
·         Issuance of innovative FDI instruments like convertible notes by start-up enterprises,
·         Streamlining of overseas investment operations for the start-up enterprises, and
·         Issuance shares without cash payment through sweat equity or against any legitimate payment owed by the company without any permissions under the FEMA

Start-ups will have easier access to foreign capital through simplified reporting and paper work and the flexibility to work with different investment structure (debt, convertible notes etc). Incentive structures for employees and advisors through sweat equity will enable start-ups to attract and retain talent.

These developments are also positive for early stage investors as they go a long way in simplify the exit process in case of sale to a non-resident, which has been a cumbersome and tedious process.




Tuesday 2 February 2016

Startup India – Stand Up India : Key Highlights



The launch of Startup India Stand up India has been done with the usual fanfare, pomp and splendor associated with the Prime Minister’s penchant for high visibility, high impact shows. What is commendable is not just the diversity of players invited to speak but also the depth of discussions and inputs gathering that has gone into this exercise. The Prime Minister seems to acutely aware of the reality that the lesser a government meddles with an industry the more it is likely to thrive and prosper. Some of the measures detailed out are certainly aimed at making the government’s interference negligible. While a clearer picture will evolve in next few weeks, the highlight from the PM’s speech and subsequent releases indicate the following broad and sweeping measures that have been announced to make Startups a force to reckon with in the Indian economy.

(*)  Compliance regime based on self-certification regime :  An important step taken is to to reduce regulatory burden for Startups. They  shall be allowed to self-certify for 
labor and environment laws compliance. In case of labor laws, no inspection will be conducted for three years.
(*) Creation of a Startup India hub :  This seems to be a pre-cursor to creating a Single window,single umbrella solution for Startups. It will be single-point of contact so that hand holding is likely to be easier since most laws have been designed with large companies in mind and this move helps recognizing the special business needs of Startups.
(*)  Simplification is the new Mantra – A startup will be to able to set up shop by just filling up a short form through a mobile app and online portal that will be launched in April. Once this comes in it is going to push India’s ranking in the Ease-of-doing-business pecking order for sure.

(*)  Protecting IP: Patent protection is important and PM Modi said patent protection and IP rights are a ‘punji’or ‘prime asset’ and hence a major concern for Indian Startups. The government will make IPR procedure transparent for Startups.
(*) Rebate of Fees: 80% rebate on filing patent applications by Startups is a big move since protecting IPs should not become prohibitively expensive. This move will enable Startups to reduce costs in their crucial formative years. The bigger objective that helps India move ahead in the number of patents filed every year also helps Startups quantify their assets via legal provisions of a patent. It perhaps reflects the PM’s confidence in the Startup founders of the country to come up with solutions that will solve major issues facing the people. The government certainly does not want to make money from this avenue.  
(*) Public procurement for Startups : It would be a big fillip for Startups if their output can be bought by government since channeling of government funds for businesses has been a big trigger in the advanced economies too. The fact that the government has announced relaxed norms for Public procurement means there is  big market for Startups that just opened up for them. Startups (in the manufacturing sector) shall be exempted from the criteria of prior ‘experience/turnover’ without any relaxation in quality standards or technical parameters. This is an area that will have to be watched closely because of the propensity of vested interests to take disadvantage of a good scheme.

(*) Faster exits for Startups : The government is cognizant that not all Startups will become successful and hence a painful long drawn out winding down process may make it unattractive for Startups. To make it easier for startups to exit, provision for fast-tracking closure of businesses have been included in ‘The insolvency and 
Bankruptcy  Bill 2015’. Startups with simple debt structures may be wound up within a period of 90 days from making of an application for winding up on a fast-track basis. The PM was candid about the Parliament logjam and the delay one can expect before the bill becomes the law.
(*) The Government as a VC  perhaps : The government has mooted a Funds of funds with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore to provide funding support for development and growth of innovation driven enterprises, Government will set up a fund with an initial corpus of Rs 2,500 crore and a total corpus of Rs 10,000 crore over a period of 4 years.
(*) Credit Guarantee Fund has been mooted so that entrepreneurship can be sustained through credit to innovators across all sections of society. This will be an important cash flow support for Startups. Credit guarantee mechanism through National Credit Guarantee Trust Company/SIDBI shall be rolled out with a budgetary corpus of Rs 500 cr per year for the next four years.

(*) Exemption from Capital Gains Tax – Exemptions shall be given in case capital gains are invested in the fund of funds recognized by the government. In addition, existing capital gain tax exemption for investment in newly formed MSMEs by individuals shall be extended to all Startups.

(*) Tax exemption for Startups –All Startups set up after April 1,2016, shall be exempted from income-tax for a period of three years. One could also argue that the first three years are low revenue years in an ycase and a longer window would have helped the Startups better but it is certainly a right start in the right direction.

(*) The government has announces the Atal Innovation Mission to provide a platform for  showcasing innovation and providing a collaboration platform. This encompasses setting up of all kinds of support mechanisms for Entrepreneurs in form of promotion, training, incubation 
facilitate and Institution of innovation awards (three per state/UT) and three at national level. Launch of Grand Innovation Challenge Awards for finding low cost solution to India’s pressing and intractable problems

(*) Big commitment for setting up of 35 new incubators in institutions – Funding support of 40% (subject to a maximum of Rs 10 crore) shall be provided by central government for establishment of new incubators in existing institutions for which 40% funding by the respective state government and 20% funding by the private sector has been committed.
(*) The Government has announced the setting up of 7 new research parks modeled on the research park at IIT Madras – Government shall set up seven new research parks – six in IITs, one in IISc with an initial investment of Rs 100 crore each. These parks shall enable companies with a research focus to set up base and leverage the expertise of academic/research institution. 31 centres of innovation, 13 Startup centers and 18 technology business incubators in national institutions will be established. This is going to take some time but this is serious commitment to create an infrastructure worthy of a country like India

(*) Promoting entrepreneurship in biotechnology  seems to be a big priority for the Government .Five new bio clusters, 50 new bio incubators, 150 technology transfer offices and 20 bio connect offices will be established.

(*) The government seems to have acknowledged that it is important to catch them young. It has announced Innovation focused programmes for students .Innovation core program shall be initiated to target school kids with an outreach to 10 lakh innovations from five lakh schools. A Grand Challenge Program (National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations) to support young minds and award Rs 10 lakhs to 20 student innovations from Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centres has been mooted. Uchhattar Avishkar Yojana has earmarked Rs 250 crore per annum towards fostering ‘very high quality’ research amongst IIT students.