IBS TIMES 214TH ISSUE

IBS TIMES THE AGE OF UNICORNS

An Explosion of Unicorn companies in India!

INSIDE STORY o Zomato - Eating their way to Success ; Neha Thampi o Delhivery - The Unicorn Disrupting Logistics ; Vikram Leo Singh o The rise of India’s Billion-Dollar Club - Byju’s ; Preethika Sampath

214th ISSUE FINSTREET, IBS HYDERBAD

TEAM IBS TIMES Samriddhi Bhatnagar (Editor in Chief) Rahul kumar G S (Managing Editor) Supriya Panse (Associate Editor) Bidisha De (Associate Editor) Achintya Saraswat Krishma Mohanan Narayan Tripathi Akanshi Bargava Simran Abhichandani Jagdish Samudrala Kartik Bhardwaj Anisha Jose Revathi Menon

Shreya Jariwala Utkarsh Ranjan Neha Thampi Vidushi Bisani Puja Bhowmick Nithin Abraham Sandra Maria Babu Simi Gopalakrishnan Harshada Mahindrakar Preethika Sampath Priyanka Tiwari Vikram Leo Singh

Designed by: Samriddhi Bhatnagar Bidisha De

EDITOR’S LETTER India is home to one of the world's highest proportion of "unicorns"- unlisted companies with a valuation of more than $1bn (£778m). In 2003, the odds of building a billion dollar company were so low that it was similar to sighting the mythical unicorn.

2019 became the game changer for start-ups as today, there are about 418 unicorns globally, of which 18 are from India, making it the world's fourth-largest breeding ground for unicorns, behind the US, China and the UK. In India, the start-up scene has become the equivalent of what a lucrative corporate career meant to the previous generation - or a stable government job to the one before that. The 214 th issue of IBS Times discusses the highs and lows of India's unicorn growth story and its intersection with India's e-commerce policies.

As an editor, it gives us immense pleasure to hear from our readers. We intend to improve ourselves on every way step of the way and would like you to invite our readers to support the same. Keep following us on www.finstreetibshyd.wordpress.com as well. Please write to us become a part of the discussion.

Email ID: editor.ibstimes@gmail.com Samriddhi Bhatnagar (Editor-in-Chief) POC, Team IBS Times FinStreet

CONTENTS  Bigbasket - “Bringing Goodies for Foodies”  The rise of India’s Billion-Dollar Club - Byju’s  Delhivery - The Unicorn Distrupting Logistics  Voyage to the Billion Dollar Club - Dream11  Zomato - Eating their way to Success  Oyo – The Face of Indian Start-ups  Make My Trip - Capturing Skies  Phonepe - Digitizing Wallets  Quickr Hunts  The Tale of an Expeditious Takeoff – Udaan  PAYTM- A Revolution for Digital Payments

BIGBASKET-“BRINGING GOODIES FOR FOODIES�

-Shreya Jariwala categories and features more than 1000 brands in its catalogue.

Bored to go out of the house for grocery shopping?. Here is the solution for you. You can now buy grocery online with just a click away.

Bigbasket is one of largest online grocery supermarket in India. The legal name of the name is Supermarket Grocery Supplies Private Limited.

Bigbasket comes with the promise of lowest rates and prompt delivery services. It was launched in 2011,when people where just gaining awareness about e-commerce. Hari Menon is the CEO of Bigbasket. V S Sudhakar is a cofounder and deals with senior management decisions at the organizational level. Vipul Parekh heads the Finance & Marketing department. Abhinay Choudhari heads the new initiatives at Bigbasket. V S Ramesh heads logistics and supply chain at Bigbasket. Bigbasket is headquartered in Bengaluru and delivers to various cities in India.

Bigbasket currently offers more than 18,000 products across various

HISTORY- Though the company was launched in 2011, in 1999 the founders of Bigbasket first started with an online retail store known as Fabmart. The business did really well and later it opened physical retail stores known as Fabmalls in south India. The business was then sold to the Aditya Birla Group and now it is known popularly as 'More' retail chain.

However the founders wanted to start something new and hence came up with the idea of Bigbasket. Bigbasket currently has revenue of around $3.2 million and approximately 4,000 employees. The company is valued at $2.28 billion.

FUNDINGS OF THE COMPANY Bigbasket has received funding worth around $526 million. The investors include March 31, 2018, BigBasket's revenue went up 35% to Rs 1,605 crore, while losses narrowed by 60% to Rs 272 crore,Alibaba Group, Abraaj Group, Ascent Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Brand Capital, Helion Venture Partners, ICICI Venture, IFC Venture Capital Group, LionRock Capital, Paytm Mall, Sands Capital Management, Sands Capital Ventures, Trifecta Capital and Zodius Capital. It recently also raised $150 million(around Rs 1,000 crore) in a fresh funding round of debt financing with a 140% jump in its valuation.

ACQUISITIONS AND MERGERS

Bigbasket acquired Delyver in June 2015 for an undisclosed amount.

Delyver was also an online grocery store and its specialty was using local stores to deliver groceries to people.

Now, all business assets of Delyver have been merged with Bigbasket.

BigBasket has merged two core businesses - on-demand 90-minute delivery and planned next day orders to supply a larger selection of items to its customers in less than 4 hours. The on-demand delivery offered less products than planned next day orders. This move was made so that it could compete with Amazon who had introduced ‘Amazon Fresh’ and Flipkart who had also introduced an online grocery store on its website.

COMPETITORS Bigbasket competes with various other start-ups in the online grocery segment. Competitors include Grofers, Zopnow, Peppertap, Naturesbasket, etc. Various city-specific online retail stores have also come up, which are giving tough competition to Bigbasket.

Even bigger e-commerce players such as Amazon India and Snapdeal have also started selling groceries online, which is creating new challenges for Bigbasket.

Though Bigbasket has many competitors it has managed to crossrs.3200 crore in sales by growing over 60% from previous year. The company uses its partnership the Chinese e-commerce online stores to improve delivery and logistics. So as per recent news Bigbasket is still the most preferred online grocery store.

FUTURE OF BIGBASKET According to the source ( Economic Times) the future of BigBasket is very bright. The main competitors of the company- Amazon and Flip-kart will atleast take a year to build the supply

chain capabilities to sell groceries and fresh food online The Indian government has also sidestepped intense opposition to foreign investment in multi-brand retail in 2016 to create a food retailing segment, and has asked ecommerce firms to keep its food-only retailing venture different from their flagship marketplace business, by maintaining separate boards, staff, bank accounts and inventories.

KEY TO SUCCESS The company handles over 35000 orders per day across the country.

What is their key to success? Let’s find out. Densely populated cities and unregulated traffic have proved attractive for web grocers in Asia as they offer doorstep delivery of groceries at affordable prices. Over the past few months the company has entered into new markets and introduced “express delivery” which means delivery of the basic goods in 60 minutes, in comparison to Grofers that offers an express delivery of 90 minutes.

The startup also raised a fund of $150 million from UAE- based company named Abraaj Group. The company manages these huge orders while other companies stumble because there employees view themselves as grocery people gone online instead of

technicians who have to sell grocery.

In addition the founders of the company have made connections in this sector as they have more experience than their rivals. While that is consistent with industry norms, the startup gets an opportunity to make better margins because it sells a higher percentage of fruits and vegetables under its own label. Those command margins of around 35

percent. The company is non tech heavy. The system can be easily understood by an individual.

So far the startup has done really well and hence become an unicorn company. Bigbasket has Online food and grocery retail, with only 0.2% penetration, but is expected to grow 55% to reach 1.2% of the overall market in 2023 and amount to $10.5 billion.

THE RISE OF INDIA’S BILLION-DOLLAR CLUB: BYJU’S -Preethika Sampath MISSION: To help children fall in love with learning.

VISION: Complete learning experience

The newest billionaire of Indian startup ecosystem, Byju Raveendran, the founder of largest educationaltechnology company Byju’s has quietly entered into India’s rarefied unicorn club crossing US $1 billion (INR 6,505 Crore) as of March 2019. Byju’s was founded in 2011 and it is co-funded by Chan Zuckerberg initiative, Sequoia Capital, Sofina, Lightspeed Ventures, and TIL.

Entrepreneur by chance and Teacher by choice Raveendran, 37, grown up in Azhikode in Kannur district of Kerala, studied in a Malayalam-medium school, after earning a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in Kerala, took a job in 2001 as a globetrotting engineer at a shipping company. In 2005, he quit his job and returned to India to teach Business school applicants full-time, what helped him was his affinity towards Mathematics

and Science. By 2009, he started broadcasting lessons via satellites. In 2011, the company was officially registered as Think and Learn Pvt Ltd. The company tried out tablet-based format but it had a huge success after launching a mobile application in 2015, which contains videos lessons and content. Since then, it attracted investments from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s foundation and Chinese internet giant Tencent, among others.

Currently as many as 3 Crore people have registered Byju’s and about 20 lakh people have subscribed annually.

The teacher turned entrepreneur shifted from packed classroom to auditoriums and eventually to large indoor stadiums where he would be tutoring 25,000 students at once.

Byju’s shifted its teaching from examtaking classes (10+,12+, CAT, etc) to teaching students across age groups which was integral to brand’s evolution. The app is now for k-12 education also. By not having an IIT or IIM tag, Byju’s has become the rage among students across India, enrolling around 35 million to its math and science tutorial app. In December 2016, Byju’s was among the “best selfimprovement” apps in Google play India rating. Its products are about breaking the vicious cycle of memorizing, replicating and forgetting soon after the exam while Byju wanted students to compete with themselves to do better.

Byju’s Revenue Growth Byju’s has tripled its revenue to ₹1430 crore on March 31, 2019. It faced a loss of ₹29 crore on revenues of ₹490 crore during financial year 2018. The company said that growth came by penetrating deeper into Indian market and growing its paid user to 2.4 million from 1.26 million in June 2018. The startup today, is one of the few Indian companies has witnessed 100% growth in three consecutive years.

It plans to introduce content in regional languages, moving beyond just English and Hindi and they also witnessed a significant growth in the number of students learning from Byju’s and nearly 60% of the students were from outside the top 10 cities in India. The company claims that it’s on a target to touch revenues of nearly ₹3000 crore in the current financial year. Byju’s structured as a revenueshare model with media giant, it plans to expand into new regions such as United States, UK and Australia on the back of Disney’s universal appeal.

Recently, Byju’s also signed up with Disney for creating a primary school

educational content targeting the K-3 segment and it also said that it plans to double its workforce by adding 30003500 new employees. The company has appointed Abhishek Maheshwari (Country head of Walt Disney in India), as a president of Byju’s international business. Abhishek helps the company to strategize, build and lead the global expansion of brand Byju’s. According to the entrepreneur, sports help sharpen employee instincts and improve the team spirit. He was quoted saying, “Team sports like football or cricket are great teachers of teamwork. They sharpen your instincts and make you aware of the tangible benefits of team spirit and working together… Sportsmen like Lionel Messi, Roger Federer and Brian Lara are a real inspiration (for employees) because they have redefined the game itself and with every passing year, they only play better and set new benchmarks.”

How Byju’s raised its fund?

Byju’s, part of a small but growing number of tech start-ups have rapidly grown their business and consistently attracted the blue-chip investors. In 2013, it received seed funding from Aarin Capital. In July 2017, Byju’s raised about $40 million from Tencent Holdings Ltd, after raising $30 million from Verlinvest. Byju’s was the 1 st company in Asia to receive investment from Chan- Zuckerberg. The company has announced that it received investment around $150 million by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and also from Owl Ventures, a leading investor in educational technology

which aims at boosting innovation in tech-enabled learning.

languages such as Gujarati, Marathi and Tamil.

As of 2019, Byju’s has secured nearly $785 million in funding investors including Tencent, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), Sequoia Capital India, Sofina Lightspeed Venture Partners, Brussels-based family office Verlinvest, development finance institution IFC, Naspers Ventures, CPPIB and General Atlantic among others. Byju’s valuation has surged to over Rs.37,000 crore, or around $5.4 billion after a fresh funding of $25 million from General Atlantic, making it the 4 th most-valued private internet company in India.

Byju’s Competitors

This fresh tranche will push the value of promoter group led by Byju Raveendran’s 36% shareholding in the company to Rs.13,267 crore or 1.9 billion.

The company has generated bulk of its revenue through sales, which stood at Rs.471.1 crore, which helped in reducing losses despite expenses shooting up to 73% to Rs.537 crore.

Advertising continued to be the largest expense which grew 77% year by year to Rs. 188 crores, while its second largest expense was employee benefits, which grew 40% to Rs.106.2 crore.

Byju’s, one of the few large internet companies in India which have a capital efficient business model. Byju’s has announced to utilize raised funds in introducing more innovative technology solutions to its platforms, foray into international ed-tech markets, personalize its learning experience to users, including vernacular contents in regional

Byju’s is now the 4th most highly valued start-ups in India, after mobile payments and e-commerce firms Paytm, hotel operator OYO, ride hailing app OLA.

(Source-Times of India)

Raveendran hopes to stay ahead of the competitors by broadening his product offering and expanding into new markets. Byju’s plans to add English and Social Science to its curriculum. It’s competitors include Khan Academy, that offers free YouTube videos; Toppr, that primarily focuses on test prep for elite engineering and medical schools; Cuemath, which teaches math and Vedantu, which offers live online tutoring. Byju’s distinguishes itself by making lessons interesting and engaging. There is no such product like Byju’s learning app, which can reach out to large number of students and create great engagement at the same time.

This product will revolutionize students learning across world today, making students fall in

love with learning. As India moves rapidly towards digitalization, traditional education remains significantly backward in terms of equipping students with required skills.

On the other hand, the lack of awareness of ed-tech products remain a challenge resulting in a slow adoption rate. India could do more with ed-tech startups such as Byju’s to help transform its educational sector.

DELHIVERY: THE UNICORN DISTRUPTING LOGISTICS -Vikram Leo Singh cities and across more than 17,500 pin codes, offering a full range of supply chain services. Delhivery today works with over 10,000 direct customers, which includes large and small ecommerce participants, SMEs, and over 350 leading enterprises and brands. It has increased its team size from 150 members in 2011 to 40000+ members in 2019.

Delhivery is disrupting India’s logistics industry through its proprietary network design, infrastructure, partnerships, and engineering & technology capabilities. Delhivery was founded in 2011 by Mohit Tandon, Sahil Barua, Bhavesh Manglani, Kapil Bharati, and Suraj Saharan with a vision, to become the operating system for ecommerce in India, through a combination of world-class infrastructure, logistics operations of the highest quality and cutting-edge engineering and technology capabilities. It provides products and services to build trust and improve the lives of consumers, small businesses, enterprises some of its logistics services are such as express parcel transportation, LTL (Less Truckload shipping) and FTL (Full Truckload Logistics) freight, reverse logistics, cross-border, B2B & B2C warehousing and technology services. It is the thirdparty logistics provider. Delhivery currently operates in more than 2,000

The logistics start-up made headlines earlier this year when it secured $748.6 million from investors and joined the unicorn club, it received $413 million in funding by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank. SoftBank increased its stake in Delhivery to 25.73%. SoftBank also plans to become the largest shareholder in Delhivery by acquiring a 37.97% stake Vision Fund. It is disrupting India’s logistics industry through its proprietary network design, infrastructure, partnerships, and engineering and technology capabilities. Tech-enabled logistics start-up’s that have been trying to disrupt the sector have emerged as the jewel of investors. Transport and logistics start-ups alone raised $1.79 billion in the last 9 months, which is increased by 3.1X over the last year.

India’s e-commerce story has flourished with billions of dollars being invested in the market only on the back of the logistics industry, without which online shoppers would not get

orders in a jiffy. As a result, with the ecommerce giants, the logistics sector has seen some unicorns as well such as Delhivery.

The company works on its mission to become the operating system for commerce in India, through a combination of world-class infrastructure, logistics operations of the highest quality and cutting-edge engineering and technology capabilities. The Indian Start-up Ecosystem states that India had over 900 logistics start-ups but in this high intense competition situation Delhivery has found a different strategy by targeting the booming e-commerce industry and what sets it apart is the truly full-stack is a web of value-added services like channel inventory and courier management demand analytics and forecasting. The company has an excellent data science team which forecasts the demand and make the services available for each area as per the future demands. Delhivery follows the distributed model and e-commerce methods offering business-to-business (B2B) services where every branch can operate as a hub. As a fastgrowing start-up, it is following its mission by using new technology like

Drones and EVs as a part of the company’s plans for the next phase of growth. The company believes that rolling out EVs for delivery is a very scalable option and as far as the drone’s plan is concerned, Delhivery believes that inclusion of drones will cut the cost of deliveries by 45%, as that is the amount that is paid to the drivers.

The company claims that it works with over 10,000 direct customers, which includes large and small e-commerce participants, SMEs and over 350 leading enterprises and brands. While the losses grew over 2.5 times, revenue has increased only by 58.2% to Rs 1694.97 crore in FY19. The firm had a revenue of Rs 1073.64 crore in FY18. Delhivery’s revenue grew 57% in FY19. But simultaneously, on the other hand, the company is losing money heavily Delhivery reported a loss of INR 1772.77 Cr on a consolidated level in FY19. Ecommerce and payments companies in India have continued to post staggering losses and so are the enablers such as supply chain and logistics companies. The case in point is Delhivery.

Its losses surged by 160%. To this note, we noticed that while the company’s standalone operational revenue is INR 1653.83 Cr, on a consolidated level, the company’s operating income is INR 1653.9 Cr. That made the total expenses rise to Rs 3,466 crore, almost double that of the Rs 1,765 crore expenses incurred in the previous year.

The gap in revenue and losses clearly shows that even though the logistics Unicorn’s revenue grew steadily during

the year, the spike in its losses and expenses is relatively high. The expenses of the SoftBank-backed company have also doubled to Rs 3,463.3 crore in a year from Rs 1,756.74 crore in FY18.

have driven it into losses. Although the company hasn’t detailed any expenses on advertising, marketing or promotional activities. Or has the company sustained growth without spending on marketing?

With SoftBank sneaking in when the company was planning for a public listing, there will be a lot of pressure to prove profitability in the long run.

Delhivery still has to generate enough revenue to justify its cash burn for growth to maintain its position in the Unicorn club.

It’s worth noting that the company also expanded operations in a few offshore markets including China. This might

VOYAGE TO THE BILLION DOLLAR CLUB: DREAM11 -Puja Bhowmick “Dimaag se Dhoni” does it ring a bell?

Yes, you are right, this is about the First Gaming Unicorn- Dream11.

Vision: “To make fantasy sports a part of every sports fan's life.”

The great accomplishments of Dream11 have blazed a trail for entrepreneurs who want to dip into the fantasy gaming industry. About 560 million Internet users in India have boosted the Fantasy sports which can also be termed as esports industry enormously. The valuation of this industry has reached to INR 43.8 billion already and is predicted to be growing at a CAGR of 28 percent to touch $1.2 billion by 2022.

Anecdote of Dream11 Dream11 with the valuation of $1 billion or more has enrolled itself to the Billion Dollar Club in April 2019. The Company that has established itself as the market leader was co-founded by Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth. The

Manchester United fans, Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth, were both Engineers and MBAs. Inspired by US fantasy games, they came up with the unique idea of setting up a fantasy sports platform for Indian sports fans and boom, in 2008 Dream11 was founded. The process of funding was a big challenge for them. They reached out to 40 different venture capital firms and had around 100 meetings to raise the fund since it was hard for them to show growth and profit.

In April 2019, Dream11 was announced as the first gaming unicorn in India. Investors such as Kalaari Capital, Multiples Equity, Tencent, and Steadview Capital Management and the brand ambassador Mr. M.S. Dhoni also had the founders' back. Its user base has grown drastically over the last three years. Currently, it has over 50+ million users and is targeting to double the size by the end of 2019.

Dream11, a game of skill, provides Indian fans a platform to showcase their knowledge of sports such as cricket, kabaddi, and football.

The official partners of the company include the International Cricket Council (ICC), the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA). The game is about creating one's team of real-life players from upcoming matches, accumulate points based on their on-field performance and

compete with others. Indian Premier League (IPL) launched in 2008 was a great push for the company to take off.

Though the primary attraction was cricket, the platform has also expanded its reach to football, kabaddi, basketball, and hockey.Dream11 has grabbed the Indian sports fans' full attention by allowing them to own their Dream Team. It's been found that the Indian audience is more engaged and connected than ever because now, they are not just a mere spectator. In 2012, they launched freemium service for sports lovers. In 2014, the registered users were reported to be 1 million by the company, which grew to 2 million in 2016 and extended to 45 million in 2018. The digital product company has around 220 employees with the most efficient business model.

Some of the biggest competitors are – FanFight which generates $9 million less revenue than Dream11, DFC which is $5.6 million less and Cricnwin which generates 20% of Dream11's revenue.

point's scorer contestant can also be awarded prize money.

Business Model The first business model followed by Dream11 was an ad-based sports app and free for all users. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. The company then introduced a freemium model where free features were made available to users to a point and after which the services will become chargeable. They just provide a platform where users can transact with other users. This business model works like a magic for Dream11 which has attracted not only gamers in India but also top investors around the world. The platform hosts almost 3,000 games a year and the entire revenue of the company only depends on the platform fee. The company focus as a product company based on the user's experience.

Dream11 also signed a contract of a four-year partnership with the BCCI in March 2019.

Format of Playing Dream11 Dream11 is an internet dominant game where users compose a virtual team of real-life players and earn points depending on the performances of those players in real matches. The registered users first select a match on which he or she wants to contest. The users also have the option to choose a captain and vice-captain which maximizes their points gained. The users are offered to play either paid or unpaid contests. The user who gains the highest points procures the top rank on the leader-board. The highest

(Source-Bloomberg)

Apart from IPL, ICC and NBA it is also associated with the Pro Kabaddi League, Indian Super League, Caribbean Premier League,

International Hockey Federation, and Big Bash League.Dream11 also invests intensely in advertisement campaigns and on referrals. Dream11 has a 90% market share of the Fantasy Sports market even with 70 other competitors which are providing similar services.

Long Live Dream11 "One thing about our country that is constant is CRICKET" as rightly said

by Mahindra Singh Dhoni is being justified by Dream11. It was not an easy path for the company to join the elite club of Unicorn. They had to face a legal hurdle in 2017 where the company was accused of influencing people to gamble. The court ruled out the allegation and declared that fantasy gaming is not gambling as it requires skills and good analysis to choose a team based on the players' form and performances. The company has formed a self-regulation body and over 50 gaming platforms are a part of this body. Dream11 had made the most of digital ecosystem to capture Indian sentiments for cricket. Internet penetration in mass has played a big role in triggering Fantasy games in India. The market for the Fantasy games is estimated to touch $5 billion in the next two years and Dream11 made no mistake to choose the right pulse. They have targeted to increase 4 corer users to 20 corer users by 2020. According to Harsh Jain, Persistence is the soul "mantra" for their success.

ZOMATO - EATING THEIR WAY TO SUCCESS -Neha Thampi Discover great places to eat around you Mission- To ensure that nobody has a bad meal Vision- To be the global platform when someone is looking for food locally

Zomato or Foodiebay as it was initially known, is one of the main players in the food-tech industry. Established in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddda, the start-up was initially a food directory for just the Delhi NCR region and evolved over the years, adding on more services and building a global presence. In 2018 the foodtech firm attained the coveted unicorn company status with a valuation of $1.3 billion adding a new page to its success story.

How did it all start Most great ideas arise out of necessity and Foodiebay was no different.

Founders Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chadda were employees at Bain & Co in New Delhi. They noticed the long queues during lunch hours at their workplace just to see the lunch menu

and that’s how Foodiebay came to be.

Initially, it was started as a website for just their office but after seeing the response they expanded and made the site available to everyone. After their success in New Delhi, they extended their services were extended to Mumbai, Kolkata and gradually the rest of the country. In 2010 they changed the name to Zomato to make it more intriguing and avoid mix-ups with eBay. Keeping with the trends, in 2011 they launched the Zomato app which boosted its popularity and attractiveness. Today Zomato is present in 24 countries and over 10,000 cities across the globe.

Funding 2010 was the year when Zomato really took off both in terms of expansion and investments. Between 2010 to 2013, Zomato raised approximately US$ 16.7 million from Info Edge India making it the largest stakeholder during the period. Between 2013 to 2015 Zomato raised several rounds of funds from US firms Sequioa Capital and Vy capital. In 2018, they raised over $400 million from Alibaba in two rounds- $200 million from the investment arm Ant Financials and $210 from their digital payments subsidiary Alipay. With this Alibaba became the largest stakeholder in Zomato overtaking Info Edge. This large investment came at a price; Ant Financials acquired rights to the

operations and strategy formulation which includes -A say in the future partnerships and expansion plans particularly strategic areas like e-commerce and payments.

provide their members with extra benefits. Piggybank is a reward point program wherein 10 percent of the order placed via Zomato will be credited as back as Z coins which are redeemable on future orders.

-Affirmative rights in Zomato i.e.

Zomato will have to seek approval from Ant Financials for the above matters. Zomato also cannot enter a market that does not have the Ant Ecosystem wallet which is a mobile money business wherein Ant Financials has a 15 % stake.

Business Model Canvas  Customers Zomato platform is specifically designed for users to locate restaurants based on their cuisines and location. They also provide home delivery services for customers.  Just as their vision says, Zomato helps local restaurants better reach their target audience by widening their reach.  Content distributors- These refer to their active reviewers who review local restaurants and businesses.  Value-proposition Zomato is uniquely designed to help users sift through the large variety of restaurants based on their specifications like location, seating, buffets and even lists petfriendly places; essentially covering aspects that users could want.

Restaurants are listed with menus as well as ratings and reviews of other users which help users decide.

They also have loyalty programs like Zomato Gold and Piggybank to

Acquisitions play a major role in Zomato’s global success. Zomato follows the strategy of acquiring the market leader thereby attaining market leadership themselves. In 2013 Zomato acquired Gastronauci in Poland, MenuMania in New Zealand and Cibando in Italy.

Cibando was one of Italy’s largest restaurant services and listed about 82,000 restaurants which provided Zomato a boost for its launch in the country. Another major acquisition was the NexTable that gave Zomato the edge it needed to capture the US market.

Besides these strategic local leader acquisitions, Zomato also acquired companies that provide them with new technology that help improve its services like the Delhi based MapleGraph, the company behind MaplePOS a cloud-based point of sales product for restaurants. In 2018 they acquired TechEagle Innovations a Lucknow based start-up that works

with drones and will help introduce drone delivery in India. 



Customer engagement- Zomato has partnered with restaurants to create events under categories like literature, music and dance, nightlife and workshops as a part of its image reconstruction to identify as a lifestyle brand.

Support- Zomato ensures that their customer support service is reliable and efficient to date reviews and ratings- Transparency of ratings assures users of the authenticity of the quality and services of all the restaurants and pubs.

Revenue Generation Zomato has grown from a food directory to a food aggregator to having its own delivery system. As per the yearly report for the FY19 their revenue has increased by 3 times to $206 billion as compared to the previous year. As per the financials, the following are their main sources of revenue: Delivery Revenue for FY19 from the delivery service is $155million as compared to $38m in FY18 and currently contributes to 75% of the total revenue.

Dining Out Zomato Gold is Zomato’s membership program wherein they have partnered with over 10,000 restaurants to offer benefits like 1+1 on food, 2+2 on

beverages to the members for an annual membership fee. The program has over 1 million subscribers and continues to increase.

Sustainability In 2018, Zomato introduced Hyperpure- an online platform to provide fresh and clean food ingredients to restaurants. Restaurants who bought ingredients from Hyperpure were given the tag of ‘Hyperpure Inside’. The tag assured the customers of the quality and reliability of the ingredients used.

What lies ahead Zomato’s growth thus far has not been easy and they have faced their share of problems like the ‘Logout Movement’ wherein several of their partner restaurants pulled out of the Zomato Gold due to the aggressive discounts and predatory pricing.

Zomato also had to withdraw the Infinity Dining programme due to lack of support from their restaurant partners. At the same time Zomato has expanded its presence in India with Leh being the 500th city in July 2019.

Their distribution network is expanding with services being offered to previously excluded tier 3 and tier 4 cities in addition to the already established metro cities. Zomato is also working on developing the cloud kitchen model to further their reach given the increasing popularity of online ordering platforms.

OYO – THE FACE OF INDIAN START-UPS -Harshada Mahindrakar “It is extremely important to build something that 100 people love using rather than make something that 1000 people would just. Kind of. Like” - Ritesh Agarwal

Ritesh Agarwal is a young Indian entrepreneur and founder of the largest and fastest-growing hotel chain company OYO HOTELS AND HOMES. A 26-year-old, college dropout has transformed his start-up into the world’s top ten hotel chains within only 8 years and still exponentially growing to become the world’s no.1 hotel chain by 2023. OYO is the company which believes in offering quality living spaces at an affordable cost value while ensuring end-to-end control over the experience of the guest.

How it all started? Ritesh Agarwal, the brilliant mind was born in a business family in Rayagada district of odisha., while growing up he gained a keen interest in software. He started coding when he was just 8. In 2011, he moved to Delhi with a dream to start

something of his own, while traveling he felt that the budget hotels in India didn’t even meet the very basic needs of a budget traveler. Hence capitalizing on this opportunity, he started his first venture in 2012 & called it “Oravel Stays”. It was an aggregator of bed & break for stays across India. In a matter of no time, he received funding of Rs.30 lakhs from Venture Nursery, an accelerator firm that brought together a bunch of investors to nurture startups.

With his hands in his pocket, he started working towards his new craze.

Eventually, he presented his idea to Thiel Fellowship, a global contest for students under the age of 22. This 25 years old protégé of Peter Thiel ( the co-founder of Paypal & an early investor in Facebook) is India's only Thiel fellow till date. He managed to reach among the top 10 winners & received a sum of $100000 from Peter Thiel.

While traveling he realized, the biggest pain for a traveler was to find affordable and available hotels to stay in. this motivated him to create an online social community, to bring information about all good places together on one platform. As a result, in 2013 he relaunched Oravel as OYO Rooms. The name OYO means “On Your Own”. It was nothing but an idea to create India's largest chain of efficient, young and standardized budget rooms.

Since then, OYO Room has gone on to become India's first technologydriven network to give standardized budget hotels in all major cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, etc.

How OYO became a face of Indian start-ups – The year 2014-15 was changing for OYO. It received funding of a whopping amount of $25 million from its investors namely Lightspeed India, sequoia & others. OYO also launched an app. This mobile app was a catalyst in writing the success story of this hotel chain start-up that was to follow.

The year 2015 turned out to be a financially fulfilling year for OYO. It bagged $100 million in series C round of funding from Japanese investor SoftBank. It got the backing of one of the most prominent & powerful investors in the world. By the end of 2015, it expanded the business so successfully where more than 2000 hotels, 20000 rooms & 100 cities in India were working under a brand name called OYO & was spreading at a massive pace. In 2016-2017 OYO started conquering the Asian Territory & stepping into the International market.

Years 2018-19 marked the establishment of the OYO empire in Asia-Pacific and kick-started international proliferation by establishing operations in the UK, UAE, Dubai, China, Singapore, and Indonesia. It also became a unicorn in September when it raised funding of $800 million from SoftBank and already had raised $200 million from

its existing investors. With the backing of Greenoaks, Sequoia India, Lightspeed India, Hero Enterprise and china lodging group as its solid group of investors, Oyo is not far from becoming a global success story, perhaps to some extent it has. Today it has more than 330000 rooms in 500 cities globally and the CEO Ritesh Agarwal is still young who aims to make it the world’s largest oldest chain by 2023.

How OYO works?

Initially, OYO used to follow the hotel aggregator model. It just didn’t focus on the discoverability of the partners among the users but also the standardized quality of the services provided. The customers used the buy the services from the brand OYO and didn’t care who the partner was. It provided rooms with standardized quality and reasonable price.

This model was a mix of aggregator business model and franchise business model. But as time passed,

the company built its brand equity and founders decided to shift its model to a pure franchise business model. It's just the company that doesn’t lease the hotel rooms any more, but ask hotel owners to operate them as a franchise.

Currently, 90% of its revenue comes from hotels under the franchise model.

SERVICES OFFERED BY OYO ; Hotel rooms and OYO flagship – OYO used lease some rooms from hotel owners, to maintain it as per the quality standards and hold it captive exclusively for OYO customers at profits. Other rooms were available for hotel owners. The only thing that has changed is rooms are now not leased but operated as OYO rooms franchises. Since the place owners and the hotels act as a franchise they are bound to operate as per the predetermined standards. Earlier the partners used to book their hotel rooms which are leased to OYO when they used to see less prices on the OYO’s platform and this became malpractice benefiting the partners while burning holes in OYO’s pocket.

To curb this, and expand the business, OYO started leasing the whole hotel instead of some rooms where it has full control over the day-to-day operations of these establishments. All the activities started operating through the OYO app which increased the speed and brought transparency in work.

OYO TownhouseThe company recently launched the OYO townhouse considering the need of the millennial traveler. They have-

•Smarter rooms which have specially designed beds, showers, sockets & internet. Even TV with Netflix installed •Smarter spaces where some spaces are designed to have meetings. Free printers, business services, magazines, coffee, and tea are also offered with it.

Studio staysOYO also provides fully furnished rooms and flats for long stays like internships, corporate stays, etc. the rooms/flats can be rented on a single occupancy or twin sharing basis as well where rent is paid monthly and commission is charged from owners.

Events & other long staysJust like studio stays. OYO also provides rooms for different family functions like weddings, parties and as well as corporate functions like seminars, meetings, and parties.

Commercial spacesOyo has expanded its domain in commercial spaces as well. Now customers can even book office spaces on OYO as well.

OYO wizardIt is a subscription model where subscribers get exclusive discounts, deals and cashback offers.

How OYO generates its revenue – Earlier under the aggregator model, it used to lease hotel rooms at a predetermined price and offered them to the users at a take-up rate. This has been changed to a commission-based model as it has shifted to the franchise

model. OYO rooms charge commission between 20%-25%

a

What will be the future of OYO Rooms?

As we can see OYO is growing substantially every year. Though this growth is at a cost, it will be worth it afterward. It has delivered an 8.7x annual growth with 458296 fully controlled leased and franchised keys in 2018.

Final Word OYO has set its name as the highquality budget hotel network, which might change in the near future as the prices might increase. But since OYO has come up with a new franchise model. There are chances that the prices might be kept as they are now.

PAYTM:A REVOLUTION FOR DIGITAL PAYMENTS -Utkarsh With the increase of digital payments in India, the advertisement campaign “Paytm Karo� became quite perennial.

India has witnessed a humungous growth in the field of digital payments and with this has increased the number of mobile payment apps. From a cash driven society to a digitally enriched ecosystem, India has witnessed huge transformation. Paytm is one such company which has created a huge presence in the minds of Indian consumer whose daily expenses are relied on digital payments. Paytm app has become the most downloaded payment app on Google play store with more than 100million plus downloads.

The man behind the success of this organization is Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

A company which is valued in billions was founded in August 2010. It was founded as a unit of One97 Communications with an initial investment of 2million $ in Noida.

One97 Communications is the parent company of Paytm.

One97 communications was founded in 2001 and initially was providing people search facility. This facility allowed the users to call and search for numbers which were unknown to users. Over the years Paytm has achieved a lot and has diversified its business. The company kick started its business with mobile and DTH recharges service and later extended its service to

landline bill payments also. Paytm went on to climb the ladders of success and launched its Paytm wallet facility in the year 2014. Indian Railways and Uber were quick enough to add this to its option of payment.

Later by 2016, the company further broadened its horizons and entered into movies, events and amusement park ticketing facility.

The year 2017 witnessed by Paytm was again a landmark success as it crossed 100 million app downloads.

The same year it not only got Paytm Gold where it allowed its users to buy as little as 1Re. pure gold online but also got clearance from Reserve Bank of India to Kick start its Payment Bank facility. Paytm has also partnered with Citibank to launch its credit cards by May 2019. The major breakthrough came after implementation of Demonetization by Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The sudden rise in the number of users and merchants increased after digital payments took a revolution by the end of 2016. It was a huge and bold decision of Paytm directors and its marketing team to go for front page advertisement campaign having the photograph of Prime Minister Narendra

Modi and congratulating him on his move. This later had political ramifications however the company became the largest beneficiary of demonetization. The company’s user database increased from 140million in October 2016 to 270 million in November 2017. Not only there was a phenomenal increase in number of users but also Paytm managed to raise a massive funding of 1.4billion$.

The company’s merchant base had expanded to 5 million from 800000 within a year with an additional edge of four times increase in transaction base compared to previous year. Although the company had performed exceedingly well in a short span of time however the effects of demonetization gave Paytm an additional opportunity which it utilized to become market leader in digital payments ecosystem.

Another landmark achievement of Paytm was establishment of Paytm Payment Bank and Paytm Mall. After receiving a license from Reserve Bank of India Paytm officially launched its payment bank in November 2017. The bank has shown eminent signs of success as it posted a profit of 19 Crores for the financial year 2018-19.

Not only has this had the company to generate deposits of 500Crores in its savings bank account but also the company has claims to process 3LakhCrore digital transactions annually. In addition to this Paytm Mall which was another initiative allowed more than 1.4 Lakh registered users to sell their products via Paytm

warehouses directly to consumers based on B2C business model.

Paytm has managed to develop 17 fulfilment centres across India. Paytm Mall has posted a revenue of 774 Crores for the financial year 2018.

Although there has been a decline of market share from 5.7% to 3% in the year 2018. Paytm has achieved these milestones not in a single day but its founder and directors have put in lot of effort to generate funding for the company. Usually it is the insight of a businessman to analyze the prospects of business and how successful it would be in the near future which drives them towards investment in the company.

Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma never thought in his life that some of the great conglomerates would plan to invest in Paytm.

In March 2015 Alibaba Group along with Ant Financial Services Group entered into strategic agreement and acquired more than 40% stake in Paytm. In May 2017 Paytm received highest single investor stake in

company marking its valuation to 10billion$. Apart from this one of the world’s leading conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway has also invested in Paytm. In November 2019 further raised 1billion$ through fresh set of investments marking its valuation to 16billion$. Although Paytm has come a long way in a short span of time yet its owner and an inspiration Mr. Vijay Shekhar Sharma believes that Paytm

has a long way to go. With the trend setters like Paytm, India will be in a position to further strengthen its stand in this global competitive world.

MAKE MY TRIP: CAPTURING SKIES -Simi Gopalakrishnan “There is no greater joy than building something from scratch “as stated by Deep Kalra who is the tycoon of the Indian Startup Ecosystem. Travelling has evolved as a gateway from all the hustle and bustle of the real world. It has transformed the way of life and has become the thing of survival.

Gone are the days where one had to stand hours in long queue for booking air and train tickets or pre book hotel rooms through phone. This fuelled the idea of travelling with convenience coupled with hassle free and making it a memorable experience. Many companies have tried to enter this business but failed miserably due to the cut throat competition. The company which emerged as a market leader in this business segment is none other than Make My Trip. This company was founded by Deep Kalra in the year 2000. Deep is the founder, Group Chairman and Group CEO of this travel giant.

How did this company nurture?

The idea of empowering the traveller caught the mind of Deep Kalra. He conceived the idea of one step solution for all their needs while trying to sell his wife’s car online. He realised that the invention of internet could cut down the role of middleman and thereby building a strong customer relationship model. There existed a platform for buying and selling travel products / services Prompted by this thought he founded make my trip in 2000. The company is headquartered at Gurugram, Harayana. The company started its operations in USA , mostly to cater the needs of NRI’s residing there by providing them reasonable and feasible travel solutions. As we move towards India Deep always knew how hard it was to travel in India .

Back then the use of ecommerce in India was still thought as an alien subject as people were reluctant to use their credit cards online and did not trust the non-established brands.

Eventually it entered the Indian markets in the year 2005.

It restricted its services to online flight services but with the Indian community and their increasing appetite and zeal to expedite and discover new places within the country ,the company saw it as a much bigger business opening.

This was also the time when low cost carrier had made air travel cheaper.

MMT recorded the sales of Rs.1000

crores and break even in 2008. The MMT website attracts over 1 Million unique visitors every month.

Deep Kalra – Chairman and Group CEO Born in Hyderabad , Deep Kalra holds Bachelors degree in Economics from St. Stephen College ,Delhi . Later he decided to pursue MBA from IIM Ahmedabad . He then took up a job in ABN AMRO bank . he wasn’t too happy about this job and after 3 years he decided to quit the job . Later in 1995 he joined AMF Bowling which is an American company hoping to enter into Indian Markets .He decided to quit this job to take up a job in GE Capitals . Later after working 1 year with GE and some money saved in his bank , he with his entrepreneurial skills decided to form Make My Trip . He also serverd as a President of TIE Delhi Chapter and an active member of Nasscom’ s Internet Council .He also maintains close ties with leading industry bodies like CII and FICCI as part of the travel & tourism sub committees Services offered      



International and domestic air tickets Holiday packages and hotels Domestic bus and rail tickets Private cars and taxi rentals MICE ( Meetings, Incentives, Conferences & Exhibitions) B2B & Affiliate services ( MMT launched B2B site offering Indian hotels & tour packages for international agents ) Value added services (free drop and pickup cab for its clients)



Provides Matrix Sim Cards for International Travelers to stay connected.

Main source of income 1) Airline Commission 2) Service/Convenience Fee 3) Service Fee while cancelling a ticket 4) Good profit margins on Holiday Packages 5) Service booking

fee

on

Car/Bus/Train

6) Commission in travel insurance and International Sim Card 7) Ancillary revenue channels like Ads n website, revenue from franchisee , commission on currency selling etc Commissions and Advertising are the primary source of income. Apart from the these , the company books hotel in advance in bulk from the owners which reduces their cost. Also low cost carriers offers huge discounts when bought in bulk.

Business Model The main objective of this business model is to consolidate all the unorganised model under its common brand . They act as a medium between the service provider and end customer.

The company maintains a strong relationship with the suppliers .They developed proprietory technology which links all the suppliers sites and compare the inventory and prices quoted by them .Make My Trip is powered by the software Amadeus.

Competition & Challenges There are many competitive firms like Yatra.com , Cleartrip.com firms trying to overpower their market share. The biggest challenge faced by make my trip was the meltdown of dotcom , the

exit of the venture capital from India.

They found it extremely difficult to bring on board the investors . This was the time when the company cut down on the employees . The top management team too worked without salary for 18 months. Make my trip makes money on cancellations. In this cut throat competitive era they might find themselves losing out on customers as other players who try to enter into market may turn this point into their advantage. The other big challenge faced by the company is there exists suppliers who provides the services separately like OYO, UBER, OLA. This might lead to drifting away of customers if they do not offer attractive packages.

PHONEPE: DIGITIZING WALLETS -Sandra Maria Babu The growth of technology has made humans not even carry a wallet. This has given rise to an app that has become the 1st Android App for UPI based user services, PhonePe has nailed a milestone in its history in August 2016. It is a Banglore based digital wallet company founded by Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari in December 2015. In April 2019 it crossed 2 billion transactions and in June 2018 it crossed 100 million customers.

WHAT IS PHONEPE? It is a consumer-facing payment container that ensures that the transaction is done smoothly with the customer's choice of spending through wallet, card, etc. depending on the nature and size of transaction which gives them immense confidence to whomsoever the money is sent to or whatever you spend.

HOW IT WORKS? Since the launch of UPI, PhonePe has been using Yes Bank PSP SDK for providing UPI- based payments. Once

the user downloads the PhonePe app it can directly link to the registered mobile number and the user receives UPI ID which allows the user to do transactions. This app can be used for recharge and pay bills, split the bill with friend and transfer of funds using QR code. Third-party audit firms conduct independent application security and server vulnerability test of every transaction through the certification process of NPCI (National Payment Corporation of India). There were scalability and performance bar for every transaction which are done through user group tests. PhonePe which has gone through these tests and on validation of the results NPCI allows the release of an application.

API- based collect call model enabled phonepe to connect through UPIbased payment on Flipkart and Myntra. To complete the MPIN entry the users have to open up their preferred UPI-enabled app. This is a less standard quality where the users had to change their app context to complete the payment. To stay within the Flipkart Android app and to improve the customer experience PhonePe launched a new solution called "embedded-SDK".

PhonePe was acquired by Flipkart in 2016 which is their 3rd acquisition after NGpay and FXmart in 2014. The Phonepe even though they have joined hands with Flipkart it stills

functions as an independent unit. UPI is a government initiative with technologies known as Indian Stack which helps in reduction of offline authentication cost and provide services for anyone legally approved whom having a mobile phone. In March 2018 of Singapore based Flipkart payments, Private Ltd was allocated 24,56,066 of PhonePe shares of Rs. 2,110 each.

Recently there has been news on PhonePe that will be separate from its parent company Flipkart. It is done with the idea of infusing more capital for the growth of PhonePe and even the shareholders have made approval for this separation. If it raises 1 billion, it can get3-4 years capital runaway.

The strategic plan is to get to bigger than Flipkart through the distribution because payments are the base for everything and phonepe can be used in many places like the case of WhatsApp which has a larger base than phonepe because messaging is of greater use than payments. Their long term vision is to build mini-apps on various partners platform where it can help online shopping platforms like Myntra and Flipkart which lead to PhonePe for business. To the merchants, they should be able to talk with other dealers on the same platform like Zomato, Swiggy or Dunzo through the platform of PhonePe and provide value-added services. Walmart Inc. is trying to lay its foot on India's digital platform directly as a plan to demerge PhonePe and Flipkart so that the US retail giant will be having direct ownership. This plan can finally help with the plan of PhonePe to raise

capital of a billion-dollar. The plan to vertically demerge Flipkart by Walmart which was acquired an 82% stake by paying 16-17 billion dollars will help the existing investors in the secondary sale.

ALLEGATIONS AGAINST PHONEPE The situation started when ICICI bank blocked all its customers from using phonepe products. There were many allegations like security concerns, restrictive trade practices and violations of the guidelines of UPI against phonepe raised by ICICI and NPCI. PhonePe against NPCI alleges that they have no direct link with NPCI and still they have interfered in the matter of the allegations of PhonePe. Phonepe is YES bank's client and Flipkart is a client of Phonepe.

Because of these restrictions, phonepe had a loss of 2,00,000 transactions which cost them around Rs.5 crore.

Phonepe is not the only who have faced such allegation, Paytm which is having 150 million users were blocked

by State Bank of India where customers were blocked from recharging their wallet through internet banking. The problem ICICI bank states that Phonepe violates the interoperability rule with the creation of a @yb1 virtual payment address.

REVENUE MODEL In 2018 Phonepe has partnered with Ola which is an in-app strategy that allows the customers to book a cab from the Phonepe app. Even it has partnered with redBus for booking bus tickets. As an aim without high

acquisition cost, it wanted to create an open platform for small and medium businesses in digital space. They implemented this strategy of tying up with in-app partners as a stepwise building of its model where it first built the payment platform and reached a sizable user base. Their strategy also includes connecting with local establishments.

In the financial year, 2017-18 phonepe incurred losses. It increased its market and transaction volume by spending Rs.70 crore to raise about Rs.3.56 crore. In FY18 the revenue grew to Rs.3.02 crore to Rs.42.79 crore but met with losses of Rs.791.03 crore which was higher than in FY17 which was having a loss of Rs. 129.01. The real competition is between phonepe and Paytm. Recently Paytm is coming up with a fundraising strategy like which phonepe once had done. This might pave a new path and phonepe to come up with new strategies.

QUIKR HUNTS -Nithin Abraham Quikr! Yes, as the name suggests it brings out exactly the same meaning that has popped out in your mind right now. Let’s stick to the usage of simple words rather than getting into the Shakespearean phrases to understand it. It refers to being quick or else facilitating an activity quicker than it would have been usually. If thought in such a perspective then Mr. Pranay Chulet, the founder of Quikr has provided cent percent justice to the nomenclature of one of the best unicorn level companies in India. Wait, what was that about Unicorn? Is it anyway related to the mythical creature we have read about? For a deeper understanding lets sink into the deepness of this topic.

In today’s world it’s not special to walk upon a startup company and few of these startups are referred to as Unicorns. But why a few from the lot?

Those startup companies which started after 2003 and has a current valuation of more than 1 billion is referred to as unicorn companies. Now that narrows down the list to a handful firms in our country. But still why the term Unicorn! Just as in the myth the probability of finding a unicorn is very rare and the same applies here. In a world filled with

huge number of startups the chance of finding a unicorn company is very less.

In fact, in India the number in 2018 was just 18 and she expects it to reach 54 by 2024. When the ratio is this low, the emergence of a company from zero level to a billion-dollar level calls for serious level of appreciation and that’s exactly how Quikr played its role in the market.

Quikr is an online classified advertising platform with headquarters in Bengaluru. The men behind the foundation of Quikr was Mr. Pranay Chulet and Mr. Jiby Thomas in 2008.

The primary function that Quikr focused was to connect the buyers and sellers online. A time when online classifieds were booming globally with Craigslist in US and Trademe in NZ, it didn’t take much time for Mr. Pranay Chulet to understand the widespread potential of this in the Indian subcontinent. Using this service, users can simply post their advertisements in order to sell any items of their choice.

The buyers interested may contact the sellers with the contact information provided. And all this comes totally free of cost which pulled millions to this service.

PAID LISTING GENERATION

AND

LEAD

So the obvious question would be where does it generate the revenue from then? Quikr generates its revenue within the bounds of digital marketing via paid listing and lead

generation. Paid listing also known as Pay per click is a digital marketing strategy in search engine advertising.

It’s the easy method to generate clicks to your website rather than waiting for the user to find out about the website on their own. If still confused let’s put it into simple practical definition. You would have seen the sponsored ads that often pops when using Google which is in turn a search engine. This is a pay per click system. Every time the user clicks that ad which takes them to that respective company’s website, the company pays certain amount to Google. If that particular click leads to a sale of a significant amount, then obviously such an investment wouldn’t be a mistake right.

Now the same applies for our search engine too. At present Quikr has around 1 million paid listings.

The other source is lead generation.

Potential customers aka prospects are referred to as leads. You would have noticed your mail getting filled with various product messages, ads etc of those items you are interested even without you applying for those extra canvassing services. This is a function of lead marketing. At any point of time when you have clicked a sponsored ad you found in a search engine, has shown the company your interest in that particular product or service.

Therefore, in the perspective of the company you are now a prospect and their goal is to convert you from a prospect level to a payable customer.

Therefore, the strategies to connect with you via mail, phone etc just started. Incase if you avail their service or buy the product finally then voila!

The company just generated another ‘lead’ to its market. Thus search engines provide the company a base

to generate the initial lead activity and therefore charges a fee for that. The more established the engine is, the more willing the companies would be to invest in them. In the case of Quikr, its around 30 million users (according to the 2018 stats) which is selfexplanatory for the huge success of this platform in the Indian market.

VERTICALIZATION PUSH When the firms customer base expands its very obvious that the identity they propagated at the initial stage might start undergoing diffusion.

In order to avoid this and also to provide a better target oriented marketing, Quikr implemented verticalization in its platform. Dividing the business into separate domains with accordance to the customer needs and requirements and thereby facilitating better sales for the company is referred to as Verticalization. This gave rise to QuikrCars, QuikrBikes, QuikrHomes, QuikrJobs, QuikrEasy, QuikrBazaar and QuikrAssured. Apart from selling and buying there is an option for rentals as well.

QuikrEasy is the vertical that enables you to acquire the miscellaneous services like carpenter, plumber, electrician, driver and another 200+ services at your doorstep. This has enabled Quikr to position themselves well in the minds of the customer.

QuikrBazaar just as the name suggests serves as a literal online market (bazaar) where you could buy and sell items ranging from electronics, sports equipment’s, toys, kitchen appliances etc. QuikrAssured provides a platform to buy goods with full warranty and replacement guarantee along with doorstep delivery. The functions of other domains are more of self-explanatory with its names.

acquiring Zefo in April 2019, a Bengaluru based online market place.

The acquisitions have enabled Quikr to generate a large customer base effectively in each segments which in turn created more business and as a result had attracted more investment.

To be precise according to the reports, by the end of 2018 Quikr was able to raise an equity funding of around $350 million.

This verticalization has provided them an added advantage in driving revenues and has finally enabled them to become the market leaders in the online classifieds category.

FUTURE OF QUIKR

ACQUISITIONS Along with the verticalization strategy implemented as part of the expansion plan, the next step was the acquisition of other firms in the industry. Quikr has made a total of 15 acquisitions so far.

Majorly in real estate and job provider segment with the latest being in preowned goods and service vertical by

MAJOR COMPETITION The firms that pose major competition in domestic level are OLX, Sulekha.com, Indiamart, ClickIndia etc.

In the international level Craigslist from US, Schibsted from Norway, Trademe from New Zealand tops the list.

The Bengaluru based online classified platform plans to go public by 2021 and is preparing for its Initial Public offering (IPO). Quikr still hasn’t decided where to list as of now and is on the process of selecting either US or India. Spread across 1200 cities in the country, thus Quikr sets a benchmark for the online classified industry and diversity in domainhandling.

THE TALE OF AN EXPEDITIOUS TAKEOFF: UDAAN -Vidushi Bisani Departure - Getting started

The ultimate motive of the founders of Udaan- Vaibhav Gupta, Amod Malviya, and Sujeet Kumar was to make a difference. They started off by laying down three major benchmarks that they didn't know would then shoot Udaan to the sky. It was first, to do something large, something that impacts a huge number of people.

Second, to fully use the role of technology and help it play a disruptive role in Udaan's success and lastly, to do something that has a uniquely Indian flavor. The name Udaan was developed with the idea that every Indian can connect to. It signifies hope and the view that how anything small can become huge. The founders didn't fail to realize that the Indian market is very different compared to other countries in terms of purchasing power and untapped opportunities. They believed in solving problems that is native to core India. With that idea, they founded Udaan, a company that believes B2B is the new B2C. Udaan

business model focuses on eliminating the different channels of business and building a single platform that connects all the traders, wholesalers, retailers and manufacturers at once, making business in India easier, convenient and more efficient. Udaan is a network-centric B2B platform specially designed for small and medium businesses in India. Its biggest categories in business are garments, electronics, footwear, and staples.

With the help of this very simple and unique idea, traders can reach out to buyers and sellers across the country.

Udaan’s takeoff The number of distribution levels involved in doing business in India is a real hassle, and Udaan has very successfully identified this problem and made the lives of many small and medium traders easy. It is safe to say that Udaan has successfully managed to become what it is today by implementing a set of strategies that seems to have worked out for them very well. Not many businesses usually spend and invest in the small business e-commerce segment and likewise, no other players in the market were spending on technology to make the lives of small entrepreneurs easy.

There are about 50 million to 60 million small businesses, and Udaan has tapped those businesses. It has helped them get more return on their capital by adapting to the usage of

technology and understanding that even small ease makes a huge difference to them. Udaan also doesn’t believe in making money through logistics and commission. It has a very smart way to earn money. It is very well known that financing working capital is a huge headache for end retailers. They are usually trapped by local lenders who charge exorbitant interest rates.

results. In today's time, wherever you go, it may be to a Kirana shop or the mall, you can make payments with a simple click on your phones. Digital payments are the future and the threeyear-old startup has successfully realized that. Udaan also very recently launched Udaan Pay in a limited manner for QR code payments for its customers It partnered with Yes Bank to launch the UPI payments service and make its game stronger.

Udaan’s landing With the remarkable and thoughtful plans that the founders have for Udaan, it does not take one by surprise that Udaan, which is only a three-year-old startup has gained the esteemed status of a unicorn company, a privately owned startup valued at $1 billion or more. Udaan has become India’s fastest unicorn company after it raised $225 million by DST Global and Lightspeed Venture Partners and is now valued between $2.5 to $3 billion. It is companies like Udaan that teaches us that with a solid mission and a great vision, the journey towards a brighter future becomes simpler and smoother.

(Source: TOI)

Hence to make that easier as well, Udaan funds working capital to its buyers and charge 15-18 percent on it.

It acts as a working capital 'fund' for them. Since Udaan also knows the financial health of its sellers, it also offers loans and collects them without the usage of much manpower. It has managed to build a first-class system for itself that is fetching them great

FINANCIAL TRIVIA

MONEY FOR THOUGHT : India is the third-largest start-up ecosystem in the world. The number of tech start-ups reached 7,500 in 2018, a growth of 12 to 15 percent from 2017, and in 2019, the total number of tech start-ups in the country has grown to 8,9009,300 with 1,300 start-ups being added this year so far. India also witnessed the addition of seven Unicorns this year till August taking the total tally to 24 - the third highest number of Unicorns (companies with valuation of over $1 billion) in a single country in the world. The start-ups have created an estimated 60,000 direct jobs and 1.3-1.8 lakh indirect jobs, NASSCOM said in a report.

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