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After Moglix, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy bets big on UrbanClap
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Flipkart Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kalyan Krishnamurthy has put Rs 1.6 crore in UrbanClap, the Gurugram-based home services start-up, company filings sourced from business intelligence platform paper.vc showed.
Krishnamurthy, a former Tiger Global top executive, will also act as an advisor to UrbanClap, a source with direct knowledge of the development said.
In March, Krishnamurthy had invested in B2B e-commerce firm Moglix in a similar fashion. It is not immediately clear whether the investments are a precursor to potential business partnerships between Flipkart and either of Krishnamurthy’s investee companies, but the new deal lays bare his strategy to back companies with a proven e-commerce track records.
UrbanClap declined to comments for the story while Krishnamurthy could not be immediately reached for his comments.
Company filings dated April 5 showed, Krishnamurthy was allotted 310 equity shares in Urbanclap Technologies India for Rs 51,551 apiece. The investment is part of the firm’s $50 million series D round that closed in November, according to the source cited above. The said round was led by Steadview Capital and Vy Capital.
“We believe that UrbanClap is likely to raise a massively large round at a premium equal to or higher than the 51K that Kalyan paid," said Vivek Durai, founder of paper.vc. “UrbanClap is in a small tier of venture-backed start-ups that have displayed conventionally great financial performance.
FY18 numbers show a 14% reduction in losses and a 225% increase in revenue. There is no reason to believe that graph will not continue into 2019.”...Read More
#Flipkart#Moglix#UrbanClap#Tiger Global#Flipkart CEO#Kalyan Krishnamurthy#flipkart chief executive#gurugram#Vivek Durai#stedview#ecommerce
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UrbanClap, India’s largest home services startup, raises $50M
UrbanClap, India’s largest home services startup, raises $50M
UrbanClap, a four-year-old startup that offers home services across India, has closed a $50 million Series D round for expansion.
The round was led by Steadview Capital, a hedge fund with more than $1 billion under management, and existing investor Vy Capital. It takes UrbanClap to $110 million raised to date, according to data from Crunchbase.
Via its platform, UrbanClap matches service people,…
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#amazon#Asia#Canada#ceo#Dubai#ecommerce#funding#Fundings & Exits#india#Steadview Capital#united arab emirates#UNITED STATES#Urbanclap#Vy Capital
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21 Most Popular Angel Investors in India For Startups
When you've lost money from friends and family, venture capital funding can seem like a pipe dream. When you're in the early stages of a business, angel investments can be a lifesaver.
The following are the most active Indian angels:-
#1. Sanjay Mehta
Sanjay Mehta belongs to the Indian Angel Network, Venture Nursery, and Mumbai Angel Network organisations. He has invested in over 100 firms, including Wow! Momos, Box8, Loginext, and OYO, where he achieved a 280-fold return on investment when he exited.
#2. Sandeep Tandon
Sandeep Tandon co-founded Accelyst Solutions Pvt. Ltd in 2010 and has served as its Chief Business Officer since 2015. In 2017, he made over 23 investments and had three exits. In addition to being a Harvard alumnus, he is also the co-founder of FreeCharge. Internet services, fintech, healthcare, and education are some of his key investing areas. Razorpay, Unacademy, Ziploan, Pocket Aces, and Tablehero are some of his significant ventures.
#3. Kunal Bahl
Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO of Jasper, is passionate about operations and keeping an eye on market developments. He has invested in over 60 businesses and has had five exits to date. Ola, Bira 91, Snapdeal, UrbanClap, RazorPay, and Rapido are some of his significant investments. He put $275,000 into Wobb and $16.6 million into Geniebook in 2021.
Read Full Blog On :- Top 21 Angle investors in India
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11 Best Indian Venture Capitalists & Where Are They Investing in 2020
To latch on to growth, it is the venture capitalists (VCs) that boost potential startups, ventures or small companies. There is a lot of vigilance and tracking involved in this pursuit. But VC executives are the ones that put their predictions to invest. Quite simply, such private equity firms are the ones who sit with a microscope and look for brilliance and dedication.
If figures are to be brought into action, somewhere around $254 billion was invested globally which accounted for 18,000 startups being pushed to glory. To talk about the situation of Indian venture capitalist industry, a very impressive start was seen in Q1 with the US $7.9 billion being invested in it.
Venture capital firms have been operational in India since the 90s. But majorly in the past 10years, the Indian Growing A Startup scenario has witnessed a push through the funding raised from them. It was as early as 2006, that the majority of VC firms became active and functioning.
There are a lot of examples to put out. The biggest ones among them being Flipkart and Oyo are known to have raised the most amount of capital. Risk is certainly one factor. There is so much more that venture capitalists seek before investment. There is a windfall if a venture capitalist succeeds, but a backlash with the failure is imminent too. Let’s take a look at the top 10 venture capitalists in India, the type of funding they provide and their preferred niches for companies or startups.
1. Saama Capital
Saama Capital kick-started in 2006, as a wing of SVB Capital Partners. But later on in 2011, Ash Lilani and Suresh Shanmugham tore it into an altogether separate firm. It has made major investments into many platforms, including Lendingkart, Sminq India Solution, Veeba Food Services, Fisdom, Snapdeal, Paytm, Mezi, AppLabs, Tutorvists, Prizm Payments, Sula Vineyards, Sks MicroFinance, currently known as Bharat Financial Inclusion.
Saama Capital is currently invested in, Chai Point, RAW Pressery, EazyDiner and Bluestone.
Website: http://simafunds.com
2. India Quotient
India Quotient is a well-known Mumbai based investment firm that has 70 portfolio companies which it currently aids. This number is aimed to grow by 15-20 more with its upcoming fund. India Quotient, a seed-stage investor, began in 2012 with $5 million assigned to its first fund. This venture capitalist firm is interested to add manure to startups with a $20-100 million valuation.
They look out for potentiality in firms or companies making use of Big Data, AI and Blockchain technologies. Founder Anand Lunia shines as a lead investor in myHQ, Masai School, Vyapar App, Coolberg, GoComet, ShareChat, Lendingkart.
Website: https://www.indiaquotient.in
3. SAIF Partners
In 2011, SAIF Partners started as a stage sector venture capitalist firm. SAIF acts as a VC to many private and public companies. They look for visionary entrepreneurs and their vision is not niche confined. They readily take up potential startups across all diverse sectors.
It has provided major funding to startups like Swiggy, NoBroker, ShareChat, UrbanClap and Rivigo. It is looking forward to expanding and growing further in the upcoming 8-10 years. SAIF serves as a Series-A investor, particularly for consumer brands and tech-powered businesses. Additionally, this VC firm sees potential to invest in the B2B, SaaS Startup Compliance space too.
Website: http://www.saifpartners.com
4. Kalaari Capital
Kalaari Capital has been a top hit in India and looks at it as homegrown venture capitalists. It served as a seed-stage venture capitalist to Urban Ladder, Curefit, Myntra and serves as a late-stage investor too. Kalaari reaches out to entrepreneurs with a distinctive richness and a newness in their concepts. They mainly look for startups with an avant-garde concept.
Recently, in October 2019, it invested in ElasticRun by raising $40M. All in all, Kalaari Capital, founded by Vani Kola has made a total of 155 investments and stands as a lead investor for 61 of them. A total of $479M funds have been raised by Kalaari Capital. It is a Bangaluru based VC firm.
Website: https://www.kalaari.com
5. Chiratae Ventures
This VC firm is a sub-organization of IDG Ventures and has successfully raised $703M of total funds. In India, Chiratae is a progressive technology venture capital fund. It was founded by Sudhir Sethi and TC Sundaram in 2006. Chiratae is inclined towards becoming a major investor in entrepreneurial setups in India and has currently had 75+ ventures.
They are a corporate venture capital firm that has pitched in investments at an early stage venture, late-stage venture and as a seed funder. Chiratae invests in consumer media and technology, software/SaaS, Health Tech and Fin-Tech. Their Series-A funding list includes Onco.com, Miko, Play Shifu among others.
Website: https://www.chiratae.com
6. Info Edge
Info Edge serves as a parent to Naukri Internet Services (NISL). This is an early to late venture capitalist firm that has its branches spread across several domains and has become India’s top internet-based business. It has a portfolio that majorly invests in businesses and independent entrepreneurial ventures like Zomato and Policy Bazar.
Info Edge delves into the Indian consumer internet domain profoundly. It was launched in April 2006. Info Edge has made investments in Nogle Technologies, Kinobeo Software Ninety Nine Labs in the course of 2010-2011. There are two flagship products that Info Edge is known for, namely CleanProperties and PricePoint.
Website: http://www.infoedge.in
7. Blume Ventures
Blume Ventures founded by Karthik Reddy and Sanjay Natch is into tech-enabled or tech-focused ventures. Blume Ventures have an inclination towards B2B businesses. But apart from that, they partner across agriculture, BioTech, CleanTech, Commerce, DeepTech, Education, FinTech, Gaming, Healthcare Startups in Delhi, HRTech, Media, Mobility, Real Estate, Retail, Social and Travel. They function as a seed funder or an early-stage venture and mostly go for long term investment.
Optimally Blume Venture provides funding somewhere around $50K- $250K and is based in Mumbai. They have had 181 investments so far and has been able to raise a total of $122.4M via their 3 funds. They have provided Series-A funding for Log 9 Materials, Wedding Brigade, FastFox and Series-B funding for HealthifyMe. They have a $0.05 Mn – $0.3 Mn seed funding range.
Their seed round findings include Lambda Test, Trell, Classplus, Cognicept Systems, InVideo, Bijak, The Healthy Billion, GreyOrange, Kaleidofin, and Unacademy. They bagged an award for Seed VC Investor of 2018 among others.
Website: https://blume.vc
8. DSG Consumer Partners
DSG Consumer Partners are a Singapore based venture capital firm that invests in consumer businesses. It’s founder and managing director, Deepak Shahdadpuri believes in long term investment and has been providing investments since 2013. They have invested in leading brands like Eazydiner, Zipdial, Tierra Food, Exito Gourmet, Redmart, Vybes and Suzette among others.
They are also widely known as an institutional backer and have funding OYO, Indian hospitality unicorn the same way. DSG looks into consumer products and India remains the crux of all their investments. They provide Series-A funding for SleepyCat, Planet SuperHeroes, Leverage Edu.
Website: http://www.dsgcp.com
9. Nexus Venture Partners
Nexus Venture Partners stipulates seed, growth stage and early-stage investments. Its founders include Naren Gupta, Suvir Sujan and Naren Gupta, in addition to are a Mumbai and Silicon Valley-based VC firm.
The venture capitalist firm, notorious for its investments in startups like Zomato, Snapdeal, Goodera, Delhivery and Komli, ScaleArc and PubMatic.
They focus mainly on early growth-stage companies. Nexus Venture Partners, have provided Series-A funding to WhiteHat Jr, Series-B funding to Postman, Rapido Bike Taxi and Series-C funding to Rancher Labs among others. For early growth stage companies, they have an investment budget of $0.5Mn and $10 Mn. They look out for investment opportunity in capital-efficient business models, driven entrepreneurs, high potential market opportunities, innovative and differentiated ventures and standalone businesses.
Website: https://nexusvp.com
10. Basil Partners
They are a Singapore based venture capitalist firm with Rajeev Srivastava as it’s CEO and Managing Partner with Soma Ghosal Dhar as it’s CEO and partner. They dedicated to fund technology service companies and has been active since 2008. They are focussed on technology investments in the USA, SE Asia and India.
In 2018 they concluded with their 3rd funding round. They have funded Accion Labs, Endeavour Software Technologies with Series-A funding, Karmic Lifesciences and Netscribes with a Series-B funding and Select Hub, CIGNEX Datamatics and Razorfish Technologies India with venture rounds.
Website: http://basilpartners.com
11. Helion Venture Partners
They can be readily called as one of the oldest homegrown private equity firms in India. Helion VC has invested in many Startup IT Services in Delhi and companies as an early to late-stage and a private equity investor. It had 4 Indian founders, out of which, 3 severed ties in 2015.
They were founded back in 2009. Successful in investments in Big basket, MoEngage, Whatfix, Toppr, GoZefo, Livspace, Workspot among others. Helion venture partners span across entrepreneurial domains of online services, mobility, outsourcing, consumer services, enterprise software, E-commerce among others.
Website: http://www.helionvc.com
With the growing private equity, Venture Capital market in India, in July it sought to soar to a high of $8.3 billion. These figures are expected to see a further rise, due to the above top 11 VCs that have been thoroughly active and engaging to boost business by raising fund
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UrbanClap, India’s largest home services startup, raises $75M
UrbanClap, a marketplace for freelance labor in India and UAE, has raised $75 million to expand its business.
The Series E round for the four-and-half-year-old India-based startup was led Tiger Global. Existing investors Steadview Capital, which led the startup’s Series D round, and Vy Capital also participated in the round. The startup has raised about $185 million to date, according to Crunchbase.
The financing round was split into two parts — a primary round which resulted in a share subscription by the aforementioned investors and a secondary share sale by some of its early backers, the startup said in a brief statement.
Through its platform, UrbanClap matches service people such as cleaners, repair staff and beauticians with customers across 10 cities in India and Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The startup supports 20,000 “micro-franchisees” (service professionals) with around 450,000 transactions taking place each month, cofounder and CEO Abhiraj Bhal told TechCrunch.
Bhal said that UrbanClap helps offline service workers in India, who have traditionally relied on getting work through middleman such as some store or word of mouth networks, to find more work. And they earn more, too. UrbanClap offers a more direct model, with workers keeping 80% of the cost of their jobs. That, Bhal said, means workers can earn multiples more and manage their own working hours.
“The UrbanClap model really allows them to become service entrepreneurs. Their earnings will shoot up two or three-fold, and it isn’t uncommon to see it rise as much as 8X — it’s a life-changing experience,” he said. Average value of a service is between $17 to $22, according to the company.
In recent years, UrbanClap has also began offering training, credit, and basic banking services to better support the service workers on its platform. On its website, UrbanClap claims to offer 73 services — including kitchen cleaning, hairdressing, and yoga training. It says it has served 3 million customers.
Bhal said that around 20-25% of applicants are accepted into the platform, that’s a decision based on in-person meetings, background and criminal checks, as well as a “skills” test. Workers are encouraged to work exclusively — though it isn’t a requirement — and they wear UrbanClap outfits and represent the brand with customers.
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Amitabh Kant discusses transportation of essential goods with e-commerce, logistics firms
Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Wednesday interacted with handful of e-commerce and logistics companies to understand how their expertise can be put to use to ensure steady supply of essential commodities and services at a time when the nationwide lockdown has been extended to May 3.
Abhiraj Bahl of UrbanClap, Pradeep Parmaweswaram of Uber India, Punnet Bhirani of Olawere the key participants…
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#"amitabh kant"#"ola"#K Vijayraghavan#pradeep parmaweswaram#Uber India#UrbanClap
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The art and science behind rebranding and renaming a brand
New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/the-art-and-science-behind-rebranding-and-renaming-a-brand/
The art and science behind rebranding and renaming a brand
What do Google, Best Buy, Nike, Netflix, Accenture, and Apple Inc. have in common? The answer: All these companies had a different name when they were founded. Google’s earliest name was BackRub. Sound of Music became Best Buy. Blue Ribbon Sports was rechristened as Nike. Accenture was called Arthur Andersen. Apple Inc. was Apple Computers. It is, in fact, quite common for established companies to have their names changed for reasons varying from business expansion and mergers and acquisitions to new identity and brand crises.
Last month, Indian home services startup, UrbanClap became Urban Company. The move came after the brand expanded its international presence and forayed into new services. “It was imperative to have a name which resonates with consumers worldwide as well as that which encapsulates the bouquet of home services we do,” says Pratik Mukherjee, associate VP – marketing, Urban Company.
We asked Vani Gupta Dandia, founder, CherryPeachPlum Growth Partners and a former marketing director of PepsiCo India, what she thinks of this latest renaming exercise. Urban Company, she thinks, sounds ‘generic’, but there’s an advantage to changing a company’s name in a relatively early stage. Dandia says, “Nobody really knew the story behind the name UrbanClap. With the new name change, the brand could create a more meaningful story that is easier to understand and fit in a global cultural context.”
Interestingly, the company is not planning to spend any additional marketing monies to promote the new brand name. Mukherjee says, “It will be a gradual transition over the next few months leveraging existing marketing calendar and touchpoints.” Brand names cannot be changed in isolation, they need a build-up and a robust communication plan in order, think experts. According to Ashita Aggarwal, marketing professor SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, when a company changes its identity, building awareness is critical because “for consumers ‘out of mind’ is out of sight’.”
While UrbanClap and WeWork changed identities, Thomas Cook India Ltd (TCIL) shelled out approximately Rs 14 crore to acquire brand rights of the iconic UK travel giant Thomas Cook Plc that went bankrupt last year leaving customers stranded. At first, the Indian entity mulled a renaming after being linked to the UK company that it had no relation to. TCIL was previously contracted to pay an annual brand licence fee of Rs. 2 crore to TCUK until 2024 for usage of the brand. Eventually, management decided against a name change to distance itself from the bankrupt entity. In a news report, Madhavan Menon, managing director, Thomas Cook (India) Ltd, said, “I am delighted that we have been able to sign an agreement to acquire the rights to the iconic Thomas Cook brand across India, Mauritius, and Sri Lanka. The brand is one of the most respected names in the travel services space and one that we at Thomas Cook India have operated uninterrupted for 138 years since 1881.” The estimated cost of a new identity and rebranding was around Rs 40-50 crore.
History Files Historically, some successful cases of rebranding to signal expansion and move away from out-of-date attributes include Indian multinational corporation Wipro. The company’s name changed a few times – first from Western India Vegetable Products Limited to Wipro Products Limited. In the early 1980s, it went from Wipro Products Limited to Wipro Limited. Each time the change was created around the brand’s purpose of expanding its offerings.
When Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) was in the process to change its name, many thought it would be difficult for the company to navigate the identity associated with the ‘Hindustan’ prefix. HLL was adopted in 1956, consequent to the amalgamation of Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing Company Limited and Lever Brothers India Limited.
It took three years and long deliberations with employees, consumers, and other stakeholders to arrive at Hindustan Unilever, a new identity after 51 years as HLL. Harish Manwani, who was chairman, HLL and president, Unilever Asia Amet, at the time, said, “The name change is a significant milestone. It retains the company’s continued commitment towards its local roots while leveraging the global scale and reputation of Unilever with its consumers and other stakeholders in India.”
Two tips to take into account if one’s mulling a renaming exercise in today’s world Name games in a Voice world: As more consumers move to voice-activated commands, it’s best to have clear and easy to pronounce names. Interestingly, Apple’s virtual assistant’s name ‘Siri’ is also slang for “penis” in Georgia (the country) and in Japanese, it is a term for “buttocks”. That brings us to the next top tip.
In an increasingly borderless consumer world, brands have to pay more attention to language and cultural differences. ‘Irish Mist’ is a great name for a whisky, just not in Germany where ‘mist’ means manure. Nokia’s once popular phone Lumia translates to Spanish slang for prostitute.
Fun Fact: A mash-up of the words for “world” (monde) and “delicious” (delez) in Latin led to Mondelez, the global foods major that owns global snack and food brands of Cadbury and Kraft Foods Inc. The word was coined by two Kraft employees after the company held an in-house naming contest that got about 1,700 entries. But the new name didn’t go down too well initially. One investor thought it sounds like a disease. Experts also pointed to the fact that the word sounds like a Russian word for a sexual act. The company press note announcing the change came with a pronunciation guide – it is “pronounced mohn-dah-LEEZ.”
Will it work? Last year, WeWork, the startup operating co-working spaces in more than 25 countries, was rebranded to The We Company. The new name was meant to better reflect the ambitions of ousted CEO Adam Neumann to expand the company “to encompass all aspects of people’s lives, in both physical and digital worlds,” as per reports. But the rebranding also came a day after reports surfaced that WeWork would not receive an expected $16 billion investment from SoftBank, the company’s biggest investor. 2019 turned into a nightmare year for WeWork after an attempt to go public led to several tumultuous months as concerns over its falling valuation, corporate governance, and Neuman’s actions kept mounting. We suppose WeWork will need a lot more than a mere renaming ceremony to change its fate.
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UrbanClap is now ‘Urban Company’, announces six new service-specific sub brands
In an announcement which had quite a lot of social media hype preceding it, UrbanClap has today announced a massive re-branding exercise. The home services upstart has now become ‘Urban Company’, with as many as six sub-brands under the umbrella brand.
Under the newly announced ‘Urban Company’ umbrella brand, the company will now run six sector-specific verticals. The home beauty/grooming division gets 3 brands of its own. There is a women-focused brand Urban Beauty and a male grooming brand called Urban Grooming. One of erstwhile UrbanClap’s most popular services, the home spa treatments, get a brand of their own under ‘Urban Spa’. Home improvements and repairs will come under the Urban Cleaning, Urban Repairs, Urban Painting sub-brands. The upstart also announced that Urban Company will also offer fitness and yoga at home and pest control and extermination services.
So why this rebranding? The company states a couple of reason. One, it feels that consumers, specially the new ones, can easily relate to the service they wish to explore. “This repositioning helps our customers rediscover use cases on the platform that they may have earlier missed and drive cross-category repeats,” said Abhiraj Bhal, CEO, Urban Company. “Eventually the thesis is that each of these sub-brands over a period of time have their own identity, microsites or apps”, adds Bhal.
The other reason is UrbanClap Urban Company’s aggressive global expansion in the past two years. In light of the same, the brand was looking at a name that can portray its global presence. The company has expanded its presence to UAE, Australia and more recently in Singapore.
Urban Company will continue to operate as a master app, with the sub-brands eventually getting their own separate apps.
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Read what Abhiraj Bhal, CEO of UrbanClap said after #UrbanClap partnered up with Unicommerce to strengthen their Ecommerce operations Read the full story here https://t.co/asT1c71GvB #Unicommerce #SellmorewithUnicommerce https://t.co/F8HGY6kZfy
Read what Abhiraj Bhal, CEO of UrbanClap said after #UrbanClap partnered up with Unicommerce to strengthen their Ecommerce operations Read the full story here https://t.co/asT1c71GvB#Unicommerce #SellmorewithUnicommerce pic.twitter.com/F8HGY6kZfy
— Unicommerce (@Unicommerce1) December 20, 2019
from Twitter https://twitter.com/Unicommerce1 December 20, 2019 at 06:44PM via IFTTT
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After investing in UrbanClap, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Flipkart Group's CEO is systematically investing in Unacademy, an educati
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#urban company#abhiraj bhal#Abhiraj Bhal Urbanclap#abhiraj singh bhal#Abhiraj Bhal Email#urbanclap#Urbanclap CEO#CEO Of Urbanclap#Urbanclap Founder#Urban Company CEO#Urban Company CEO CEO Of Urbanclap Urbanclap Founder Urbanclap CEO Email
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UrbanClap's Abhiraj Bhal digs deep on the process of fundraising
UrbanClap’s Abhiraj Bhal digs deep on the process of fundraising
In the last podcast with Abhinav Chaturvedi, we discussed the key aspects of picking the right investor and also the actual process of fundraising.
Today, we are looking at the same topic from an entrepreneur’s perspective. We are chatting with Abhiraj Bhal, the co-founder and CEO of UrbanClap, a path-breaking company in the home services space which has grown from zero to over 300,000…
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Acko, a digital insurance provider in India, raises another $65M at a $300M valuation
Acko — a startup out of India that has taken on the country’s antiquated insurance industry with a digital-first product for drivers and others in transportation-related scenarios (for example, cancelled ticket insurance) — has raised more funding as it passes 20 million customers on its books. The company has closed a Series C of $65 million from a list of investors that includes not just the co-founder and former CEO of Flipkart, but also its arch-rival, Amazon — speaking to the opportunity in the market as a number of players zero in on services
Binny Bansal, who had been the CEO until November of the e-commerce giant, and Amazon are joined in the round by another strategic investor, Intact Ventures Inc., the corporate venture arm of Canada’s largest property and casualty insurer; along with RPS Ventures (the VC led by Kabir Misra, ex-managing partner at Softbank), Accel, SAIF and TechPro Ventures. Amazon had also led the company’s previous round of funding, a $12 million investment, last year.
Acko now has raised $107 million, and while it is not discussing valuation, a reliable source close to the company said that it is now in the region of $300 million.
Varun Dua, the CEO and founder, had spent 10 years in the insurance industry before founding Acko, most recently building a site aggregating different insurer’s quotes called Coverfox. But when it comes to the companies building the products themselves, he believes that there has been very little innovation in the past 30 years.
Acko has built its business on two fronts up to now. A direct to consumer offering sells automotive insurance both for people insuring for themselves, a business that has now insured some 200,000 cars. It also works with third parties to provide what we described to me as “microinsurance” products around other companies’ services. For example, ticket cancellation insurance, rider protection, and driver protection for about 15 companies at the moment, including Ola, redBus, Zomato, UrbanClap and Amazon.
Amazon may appear a little out of left field in the at list, but Dua said that it’s because of trends specific to the Indian market that the two work together. First, it offers vehicle insurance alongside cars that are sold on the Amazon platform. But beyond that there is the opportunity to build services for what he calls “ecosystem” players in the market, those who provide a wide array of different services, and links to services, to consumers, leveraging their data on consumers to help shape those offers.
“We continue to be impressed by Acko’s focus on data-led innovations in the insurance sector that are solving for important customer needs in this sector. We are always excited to work with companies like Acko that are led by missionary founders and management teams and we remain committed to investing in technology-backed innovations that address real customer problems,” said Amit Agarwal, SVP and Country Head, Amazon India, in a statement on the investment.
While Bansal is recently no longer in an executive role at Flipkart, it’s notable that he is getting involved with Acko at a time when Dua says he would like to be working more with the company, which is also developing an array of services beyond the basic selling of goods to service India’s rapidly growing base on online consumers.
“Technology-led insurance is expected to play a significant role in growth of the underpenetrated insurance sector in India,” said Bansal. “Acko is the pioneer of digital-native insurance and I am delighted to partner in its exciting growth journey.”
Just as Acko partners with companies to provide its insurance, it’s also working with an increasing array of insurers who are looking for better ways to tap consumers in the market.
“We are thrilled to support Acko in its mission to become the leading digital insurer in India. In addition to their innovative direct-to-consumer strategy, Varun and his team have taken a creative approach by developing impactful distribution partnerships that allow millions of customers to protect assets that are meaningful to them,” said Karim Hirji, Senior Vice-President of Intact Ventures. “We are excited to offer our expertise and partner with a company that shares our vision of creating simple and transparent new-age customer centric insurance products.”
Earlier today, I posted a story about Drivezy and how it was raising a lot of money to double down on building its car-sharing network out of India. One of the gaps in the market for it is that only seven percent of Indians actually own vehicles. Interestingly, that’s a number that Dua thinks is a great start.
“Seven percent is still very large in India given the size of the population,” he said. “It’s the fourth largest auto market in the world, and the auto insurance space is likely to be worth $10 billion usd in the next several years. That’s big size for a company like us.”
source https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/13/acko-a-digital-insurance-provider-in-india-raises-another-65m-at-a-300m-valuation/
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Acko, a digital insurance provider in India, raises another $65M at a $300M valuation
Acko — a startup out of India that has taken on the country’s antiquated insurance industry with a digital-first product for drivers and others in transportation-related scenarios (for example, cancelled ticket insurance) — has raised more funding as it passes 20 million customers on its books. The company has closed a Series C of $65 million from a list of investors that includes not just the co-founder and former CEO of Flipkart, but also its arch-rival, Amazon — speaking to the opportunity in the market as a number of players zero in on services
Binny Bansal, who had been the CEO until November of the e-commerce giant, and Amazon are joined in the round by another strategic investor, Intact Ventures Inc., the corporate venture arm of Canada’s largest property and casualty insurer; along with RPS Ventures (the VC led by Kabir Misra, ex-managing partner at Softbank), Accel, SAIF and TechPro Ventures. Amazon had also led the company’s previous round of funding, a $12 million investment, last year.
Acko now has raised $107 million, and while it is not discussing valuation, a reliable source close to the company said that it is now in the region of $300 million.
Varun Dua, the CEO and founder, had spent 10 years in the insurance industry before founding Acko, most recently building a site aggregating different insurer’s quotes called Coverfox. But when it comes to the companies building the products themselves, he believes that there has been very little innovation in the past 30 years.
Acko has built its business on two fronts up to now. A direct to consumer offering sells automotive insurance both for people insuring for themselves, a business that has now insured some 200,000 cars. It also works with third parties to provide what we described to me as “microinsurance” products around other companies’ services. For example, ticket cancellation insurance, rider protection, and driver protection for about 15 companies at the moment, including Ola, redBus, Zomato, UrbanClap and Amazon.
Amazon may appear a little out of left field in the at list, but Dua said that it’s because of trends specific to the Indian market that the two work together. First, it offers vehicle insurance alongside cars that are sold on the Amazon platform. But beyond that there is the opportunity to build services for what he calls “ecosystem” players in the market, those who provide a wide array of different services, and links to services, to consumers, leveraging their data on consumers to help shape those offers.
“We continue to be impressed by Acko’s focus on data-led innovations in the insurance sector that are solving for important customer needs in this sector. We are always excited to work with companies like Acko that are led by missionary founders and management teams and we remain committed to investing in technology-backed innovations that address real customer problems,” said Amit Agarwal, SVP and Country Head, Amazon India, in a statement on the investment.
While Bansal is recently no longer in an executive role at Flipkart, it’s notable that he is getting involved with Acko at a time when Dua says he would like to be working more with the company, which is also developing an array of services beyond the basic selling of goods to service India’s rapidly growing base on online consumers.
“Technology-led insurance is expected to play a significant role in growth of the underpenetrated insurance sector in India,” said Bansal. “Acko is the pioneer of digital-native insurance and I am delighted to partner in its exciting growth journey.”
Just as Acko partners with companies to provide its insurance, it’s also working with an increasing array of insurers who are looking for better ways to tap consumers in the market.
“We are thrilled to support Acko in its mission to become the leading digital insurer in India. In addition to their innovative direct-to-consumer strategy, Varun and his team have taken a creative approach by developing impactful distribution partnerships that allow millions of customers to protect assets that are meaningful to them,” said Karim Hirji, Senior Vice-President of Intact Ventures. “We are excited to offer our expertise and partner with a company that shares our vision of creating simple and transparent new-age customer centric insurance products.”
Earlier today, I posted a story about Drivezy and how it was raising a lot of money to double down on building its car-sharing network out of India. One of the gaps in the market for it is that only seven percent of Indians actually own vehicles. Interestingly, that’s a number that Dua thinks is a great start.
“Seven percent is still very large in India given the size of the population,” he said. “It’s the fourth largest auto market in the world, and the auto insurance space is likely to be worth $10 billion usd in the next several years. That’s big size for a company like us.”
Via Ingrid Lunden https://techcrunch.com
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Text
Acko, a digital insurance provider in India, raises another $65M at a $300M valuation
Acko — a startup out of India that has taken on the country’s antiquated insurance industry with a digital-first product for drivers and others in transportation-related scenarios (for example, cancelled ticket insurance) — has raised more funding as it passes 20 million customers on its books. The company has closed a Series C of $65 million from a list of investors that includes not just the co-founder and former CEO of Flipkart, but also its arch-rival, Amazon — speaking to the opportunity in the market as a number of players zero in on services
Binny Bansal, who had been the CEO until November of the e-commerce giant, and Amazon are joined in the round by another strategic investor, Intact Ventures Inc., the corporate venture arm of Canada’s largest property and casualty insurer; along with RPS Ventures (the VC led by Kabir Misra, ex-managing partner at Softbank), Accel, SAIF and TechPro Ventures. Amazon had also led the company’s previous round of funding, a $12 million investment, last year.
Acko now has raised $107 million, and while it is not discussing valuation, a reliable source close to the company said that it is now in the region of $300 million.
Varun Dua, the CEO and founder, had spent 10 years in the insurance industry before founding Acko, most recently building a site aggregating different insurer’s quotes called Coverfox. But when it comes to the companies building the products themselves, he believes that there has been very little innovation in the past 30 years.
Acko has built its business on two fronts up to now. A direct to consumer offering sells automotive insurance both for people insuring for themselves, a business that has now insured some 200,000 cars. It also works with third parties to provide what we described to me as “microinsurance” products around other companies’ services. For example, ticket cancellation insurance, rider protection, and driver protection for about 15 companies at the moment, including Ola, redBus, Zomato, UrbanClap and Amazon.
Amazon may appear a little out of left field in the at list, but Dua said that it’s because of trends specific to the Indian market that the two work together. First, it offers vehicle insurance alongside cars that are sold on the Amazon platform. But beyond that there is the opportunity to build services for what he calls “ecosystem” players in the market, those who provide a wide array of different services, and links to services, to consumers, leveraging their data on consumers to help shape those offers.
“We continue to be impressed by Acko’s focus on data-led innovations in the insurance sector that are solving for important customer needs in this sector. We are always excited to work with companies like Acko that are led by missionary founders and management teams and we remain committed to investing in technology-backed innovations that address real customer problems,” said Amit Agarwal, SVP and Country Head, Amazon India, in a statement on the investment.
While Bansal is recently no longer in an executive role at Flipkart, it’s notable that he is getting involved with Acko at a time when Dua says he would like to be working more with the company, which is also developing an array of services beyond the basic selling of goods to service India’s rapidly growing base on online consumers.
“Technology-led insurance is expected to play a significant role in growth of the underpenetrated insurance sector in India,” said Bansal. “Acko is the pioneer of digital-native insurance and I am delighted to partner in its exciting growth journey.”
Just as Acko partners with companies to provide its insurance, it’s also working with an increasing array of insurers who are looking for better ways to tap consumers in the market.
“We are thrilled to support Acko in its mission to become the leading digital insurer in India. In addition to their innovative direct-to-consumer strategy, Varun and his team have taken a creative approach by developing impactful distribution partnerships that allow millions of customers to protect assets that are meaningful to them,” said Karim Hirji, Senior Vice-President of Intact Ventures. “We are excited to offer our expertise and partner with a company that shares our vision of creating simple and transparent new-age customer centric insurance products.”
Earlier today, I posted a story about Drivezy and how it was raising a lot of money to double down on building its car-sharing network out of India. One of the gaps in the market for it is that only seven percent of Indians actually own vehicles. Interestingly, that’s a number that Dua thinks is a great start.
“Seven percent is still very large in India given the size of the population,” he said. “It’s the fourth largest auto market in the world, and the auto insurance space is likely to be worth $10 billion usd in the next several years. That’s big size for a company like us.”
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