Business & Finance

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 09 feb 2016

Dynamics of interactions, engagement and relationships between entrepreneurs and investors is an essential component of new business development process. During the initial phase of startup creation and at different stages of development and growth of their enterprise, entrepreneurs need investors that can fulfil their financial or fundraising requirements. Prof. Thillai Rajan A. of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and Prof. Swati Panda of Institute of Management Technology at Hyderabad, provide insights on how entrepreneurs can improve their chances of getting funded if they understand the differences between various types of investors and pitch to them accordingly. They conducted a detailed survey of 45 investors, whom they classified into three categories - angel investors, independent venture capitalists (VCs) and institutional VCs. All types of investors consider valuation as having a mix of both subjectivity and objectivity, but the quantity of each vary with the type of investor. Higher number of angel investors indicated valuation as a subjective process, while higher proportion of institutional VCs consider valuation as an objective process. When asked about the priorities for the different factors that influence valuation, all investors indicated that founder and management team are the biggest influencer of valuation. Moreover all types of investors gave least emphasis to past financial performance, and focused more on the future prospects. In case of relative importance of valuation, deal structure and return covenants, although all investors gave valuation of deal first preference, but the relative priorities differ. For angel investors valuation is relatively lowest while return covenants the highest. Deal structuring has almost same emphasis for all. Prof. Rajan explains, 'This indicates that entry valuation can be an important determinant of returns. While deal structure and return covenants can help contain losses, valuation probably determines the magnitude of upside gains from the investment.' Knowing the differences between investors can assist entrepreneurs to customize their propositions and deliver effective and targeted communication. Read on...

The Hindu: Right pitching key to fund-raising
Authors: Thillai Rajan A., Swati Panda

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 30 jan 2016

A panel of health experts from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the Public Health Foundation of India and the National Institute of Nutrition, recently demanded pictorial and health warning on junk food packets in order to provide information to people on health issues caused by them. According to Prof. Vandana Jain, in-charge of Division of Pedriatrics Endocrinology at AIIMS, 'We have recommended pictorial warnings on junk foods...or health warnings saying that this product contains fat and salt in excess of what is recommended or even a picture of liver may be put on pack indicating that consuming them may lead to fatty liver in children and adults.' Consumption of products with high sugar, fat and salt have adverse health implications and World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that the best way to prevent obesity among children is to put restrictions on marketing of unhealthy foods. Read on...

The Economic Times: Health experts demand pictorial warnings on junk food packets
Author: NA

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 30 jan 2016

According to the 2016 Best Countries Ranking of U.S. News, prepared in collaboration with Wharton School and BAV Consulting, India is included at top of the Movers ranking of countries with up-and-coming economies, and overall it is ranked 22nd. Prof. David J. Reibstein, who teaches marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and participated in developing the rankings, says 'Nations should pay attention to how they are seen by others, since enhancing these perceptions could create a large economic benefit. The experience of tourists is just one of the factors that colour those impressions, along with the experiences of customers, investors, followers of global news and social media, and what people hear from others.' Read on...

Warc: India is the top mover nation
Author: NA

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 08 jan 2016

Technology-driven healthcare startups are finding new opportunities in India's mostly traditional healthcare system. But it is not an easy ride, with lack of digital orientation, policy and regulational scenario, slow pace of change in the healthcare industry etc. Simply put, these healthcare pioneers in India face more challenges than what the normal startups actually do. Mudit Vijayvergiya, Co-founder of Curofy, provides five most relevant challenges that all healthcare startups are broadly facing in India - (1) Slow Growth: Sluggish pace of growth of the industry is hard for survival. (2) Complex Industry: Complex rules and regulations can be obstacles for entrepreneurship and innovative thinking. Various policies are unclear and cause confusion at workplace. (3) Doctors are Tough: Miserable doctor patient ratio of 1:1700 and horrible 1:60000 in rural areas, make availability of doctors rare. Moreover digital healthcare is last on their mind. (4) Monetization: Slow growth of sector makes startups hard to monetize and to have a sustainable revenue model. Moreover social nature of the market and lack of financial ability of patients make it hard for private startups to make money. (5) Lack of Healthcare Mentors in India: Although India has large pool of trained medical professionals, but it has very few seasoned mentors and investors in the health-tech space to share their experience with entrepreneurs. Moreover track record of startups in healthcare is not very good either. Thus India currently lacks a win-win scenario for mentors, investors and entrepreneurs. Read on...

iamwire: 5 Biggest Challenges All Healthcare Tech Startups are Facing in India
Author: Mudit Vijayvergiya

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 06 jan 2016

Entrepreneurship is an essential component of the market economy. Entrepreneurs seek new opportunities through their extraordinary drive and skills, create enterprises that provide employment and generate revenues, to help economy grow. To successfully take leverage of demographic dividend and build a thriving economy, India needs to focus on entrepreneurship and continue to build an ecosystem that facilitates new venture development. As Kunal Bahl, Co-founder of Snapdeal, rightly said recently, 'India needs more entrepreneurs and less policy.' Given below is the partial list of Indian entrepreneurs that have created startups and hold a great promise in 2016 - (1) Abhinav Asthana, Postman (2) Jaydeep Barman, Faasos (3) Sahil Barua, Delhivery (4) Abhiraj Bhal, Urbanclap (5) Hitendra Chaturvedi, Greendust (6) Sunil Coushik, Prijector (7) Abhishek Goyal, Tracxn (8) Nalin Gupta, Auro Robotics (9) Virendra Gupta, Dailyhunt (10) Amit Jain, Cardekho (11) Nithin Kamath, Zerodha (12) Mohit Kumar, Roadrunnr (13) Byju Raveendran, Byju's (14) Abhinav Shashank, Innovaccer (15) MN Srinivasu, Billdesk (16) Rajesh Yabaji, Blackbuck. Read on...

The Economic Times: 16 startup founders to watch out for in 2016
Author: NA

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 30 dec 2015

The technology-enabled interactions of consumers and businesses have provided opportunities to capture data and utilize analytics to improve business processes and enhance products and services for customers in variety of industries. The analytics industry ecosystem is mushrooming with numerous vendors, from niche providers to one-stop solutions that include capture, storage, access and study of data for valuable insights. Suhale Kapoor, Co-founder of Absolutdata Analytics, captures various aspects of the analytics industry and its evolution in 2015 and explains what are the expected trends in the year ahead. Trends in 2015 - Growth of new startups and digital marketing tools; Increased use of analytics and Business Intelligence (BI); Rise in use of social media and social advertising on mobile; Rapid expansion of Internet of Things (IoT); Video content; Content marketing and predictive analytics; End-user experience and integration of online and offline content to improve service standards. Trends for 2016 - Shift towards cloud; Streaming architectures will hasten data computations; Visuals will come to rule; Data integration tools will assume more importance; Centre of Excellence (COE) will equip a business in understanding the peculiar needs and challenges for a data scientist; The Internet of Things (IoT) is all poised to bring about a data revolution; Non-analysts will start to dabble in data. Read on...

DATAQUEST: The Analytics Sector - Emerging trends and forecast for 2016
Author: Suhale Kapoor

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 19 dec 2015

The PPP Knowledge Lab of the World Bank defines a PPP (Public-Private Partnerships) as, 'A long-term contract between a private party and a government entity, for providing a public asset or service, in which the private party bears significant risk and management responsibility, and remuneration is linked to performance.' Different countries are incorporating modified version of the definition in their laws depending upon their own legal and institutional framework. Siraj Chaudhry, Chairman of Cargill India, suggests a PPP framework for India's agriculture for sustainability and better rural development, in which the government provides and co-finance the back-end of the value chain, while the rest is done by the private sector and the farmers. Although India has made continued progress in food security, quadrupling its food grain production. But a lot more is desired as its crop yield still hovers between 30% to 60% of the best sustainable crop yields achievable in developed and some other developing countries. There is substantial room for increase in productivity and total output gains. Moreover India has some of the highest postharvest food losses due to poor infrastructure and unorganized retail. To overcome infrastructural and supply-chain inefficiencies, degrading of land and water, effects of climate change etc, India requires a collaborative multipronged strategy in the form of PPP to utilize technologically advance farming practices, build efficient supply chains and develop organized marketing and retailing. Mr. Chaudhry details the role of various PPP models that bring together all the stakeholders of the agricultural ecosystem for making India's agriculture as the engine of rural growth and development, to eradicate poverty, hunger and malnutrition, and in addition be a major source of food for the world - (1) Investing in smarter value chains: Develop food processing industry. Provide farm extension services. Enhance price realization. Cut out intermediaries. Improve supply chain through forward and backward linkages. (2) Improving access to credit, technology and markets: Utilize advance information technology and biotechnology. Provide farmers agricultural knowledge and guidance. Develop high-yield, pest resistant crops. Enable better management of natural resources. (3) Building farmer resilience to environmental shocks: Provide financial security to farmers. Enable them to de-risk through insurance etc. Develop integrated value chains. He cites the example of Maharashtra government's PPP for Integrated Agricultural Development (MPPIAD), that was catalyzed by World Economic Forum's New Vision for Agriculture (NVA), to develop integrated value chains. Read on...

Livemint: Making India's agriculture sustainable through PPPs
Author: Siraj Chaudhry

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 30 nov 2015

India's agriculture and farming products contribute to 15% of its exports (US$ 40 billion), 17% to its GDP, and employs nearly half of its total workforce. R. Gopalakrishnan, business leader and currently non-executive director at TATA Sons Ltd., suggests that policy makers should not ignore India's agriculture sector and bring it into the main policy agenda. The sector is in a great need for a business model innovation. Government programs like 'Digital India' can connect farmers through smart phones, 'Make in India' can work to enhance exports and 'National Skills Development Mission' can upgrade skills of the 260 million farming and agricultural workforce. Experts suggest that India has the potential to double its agricultural exports and increase its farm output by lesser but better trained workers. Senior scientist and director of the Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Narendra Pratap Singh, while explaining India's pulses crisis says, 'It is not lack of research as much as policy support that is currently missing in pulses.' Mr. Gopalakrishnan recommends innovative and intelligent approach to agriculture. Collaborative programs between the center and the states can bring the next green revolution. A research paper that Mr. Gopalakrishnan co-authored with Y.S.P. Thorat (former chairman and MD of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development), titled 'Sarthak Krishi Yojana', suggests a coherent framework to transform agriculture and is inspired by the national industrialisation experiences through five pillars - technology, risk, institutionalisation, policy and skills. Read on...

Business Standard: Intelligent farming - Farming and agriculture in India are crying out for a business model innovation
Author: R. Gopalakrishnan

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 21 nov 2015

India's healthcare expenditure market is about US$ 100 billion. According to a report by Internet and Mobile Association of India and KPMG released in early 2015, India have about 159 million mobile internet users and it is projected to reach more than 300 million by 2017. Gartner predicts that Indian healthcare providers will spend US$ 1.2 billion on IT products and services in 2015. While industry estimates the healthcare sector in India to reach US$ 160 billion by 2017 and US$ 280 billion by 2020. Number of startups in India are exploring opportunities that are offered by these conditions. Saurabh Uboweja, co-founder of Credihealth, says 'Transparency, credibility and access to health care are some of the prime challenges that plague the Indian healthcare...Before tapping international patients for medical tourism, there existed great potential within India itself, where hundreds of thousands of patients throng city hospitals everyday from the hinterland.' According to Rohan Desai, founder of PlexusMD, 'In the US, health care expenditure accounts for nearly 10% of its GDP (compared to 5% of GDP in India), which basically means there is huge room for growth in India.' Nirmall L. Kumbhat, director of sales and marketing at another health related startup Godoctr (founded by Ajay Goel), says that it is seeking venture capital funding and focusing on medical tourism market. While Practo has already obtained various rounds of funds from global investors and has been growing since it was founded in 2008 by Shashank ND and Abhinav Lal. Read on...

Business Standard: Technology start-ups ride health care wave
Author: Sohini Das

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 21 oct 2015

In a highly competitive automobile industry in India, companies have to safeguard and secure their industrial designs by going through a registration and validation process. Sarthak Saran of BananaIP explains the step-by-step procedure to file a design application in India and how the companies should devise strategies and protect their designs. According to Mr. Saran, 'Industrial design means the shape and configuration of an article. Design does not protect the functionality of any product. It protects only the ornamentation of the product.' He also explains situations in which a design is considered to be invalid by the Controller of Design. In case there are no objections to the design by the Examiner and the Controller of Design accepts the application, it is registered and published in the patent office journal ordinarily within one month. The design is generally valid for a period of 10 years and can be renewed for another 5 years. The total number of registered designs by major companies in the automobile industry are - Tata Motors (396); Mahindra & Mahindra (205); Hero MotoCorp (85); TVS Motor Company (72). Read on...

Sinapse Blog: Industrial Designs for Automobile Industry in India
Author: Sarthak Saran

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