7�WWW.ECONOMICTIMES.COM

Disruption: Startups & Tech

Genpact, one of the biggest back-

office outsourcing names in India,

says the work done out of India

serves a majority of its markets

and industry verticals across the

world. The company continues to

work closely with GE, from which

it was spun off in 2005, handling

businesses across the core indust-

rial GE businesses as well as its

capital markets, CEO NV “Tiger”

Tyagarajan, tells Neha Alawadhi.

Edited excerpts:

How is the India Genpact

business doing?

We don’t measure the business as

the India Genpact business. We

run our business by industry

verticals. India has a very big

delivery centre. A material 60%

plus of the population of the

company and the work gets

delivered from India. It is still a

large component of our delivery

but geography for us is markets.

What are your main markets?

US, UK, Australia, Japan, Continen-

tal Europe, Nordics — those are the

markets we’re focused on.

What kind of work gets done

from India?

India continues to be a very

significant delivery centre for all

businesses. India serves two types

of capabilities — India has the

deepest English language capabili-

ties and it has 45,000 plus (pe-

ople). The other capability it has

is if the work gets very complex

— highly analytical work, heavy

CPA and chartered accountant

dependent work, heavy science,

and scientists and PhDs, and data

scientist dependent work, high

end digital and technology driven

work — then again India is the

place to be delivering from.

What percentage of the

business is voice services?

We do very little voice. Of our total

business, less than 10% is voice.

Are you looking at entering new

markets?

No. My fundamental philosophy in

life is focus, I think you achieve big

things in life only when you

focus.

What about the

Headstrong acquisition?

How did it help

Genpact?

The Headstrong ac-

quisition allowed us to set up a

new vertical, which is capital

markets. Capital markets vertical

is one of our nine verticals now.

Off late, the capital markets

business itself has undergone

significant change. All the capital

market players have restructured,

continue to restructure.

How do you interact with GE?

Our business with GE has remained

broadly up 2-3%, down 2-3%, eve-

ry year for the last 2-3 years. That

is because we’re highly penetra-

ted. Our growth is driven by GE’s

own growth. In the recent year and

a half, GE has divested a number of

GE capital businesses, and we en-

tered new contracts with new buy-

ers of those GE businesses. The co-

re industrial businesses of GE are

doing well. But it is still 1-2%

growth because we are deeply pe-

netrated. The type of work we do

continues to change as the older

work gets digitised, automated.

Do you work with startups?

Between the digital teams in Beng-

aluru and Palo Alto, we work with a

lot of startups which are innova-

ting in the technology spaces that

align with our services. We acqui-

red Endeavour Software (2015)

where the business was basically

started by four IIT Kanpur engine-

ers in the early 2000s, was focused

on mobile technologies and servi-

ces. We also acquired PNMsoft, he-

adquartered in Tel Aviv Israel, and

does dynamic workflow. So we do

acquisitions, we do partnerships.

When Going getsTough, GenpactRings India Hub

We Never Let Go90% of Indian IT decision makers admit to hoarding data and digital files, according to Data Hoarders research study released by Veritas Technologies. This included personal data like job applications to other organisations that could potentially be harmful to their careers. 98% of respondents admitthat they save unnecessary personal data

55%of all data is saved

68% don’t trust a data hoarder to turn in a project on time

48% would rather work weekends than get rid of digital files

96% feel the amount of data the company stores will increase the time it takes to respond to a data breach

94% ITDMs and 87% of office professionals admit to retaining data that could be detrimental to their employer or their own career prospects

(company secrets, job applications,

embarrassing employee

correspondence)

SECURITY CONCERNS

98%admit to saving personal files at work

49% are not sure if they’ll need to refer to it again

BALAJI RAO,MD, Veritas Technologies, India

Digital data hoarding is one of the biggest IT concerns for businesses across India and globally. As India moves towards a digitally empowered so-ciety, the ability to effectively manage data and draw insights from their information will offer en-terprises a competitive edge

(The study was conducted by Wakefield Research across 400 IT decision makers (ITDMs) and office professionals)

Biswarup.Gooptu@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Chennai-based onlinepharmacy Netmeds is in late-stagediscussions to acquire on-demandmedicine and healthcare productsdelivery service Pluss in an all-stock deal, with the merged entitylooking to potentially take on themarket leader 1mg.

The transaction, which could clo-

se in the next two weeks, is expectedto see Gurgaon-based Pluss’ exis-ting backers, a list that includes IDGVentures India, Singapore-basedM&S Partners and PowerhouseVentures, pick up stakes in Net-meds, according to two sources withknowledge of the deal.

Both Pradeep Dadha, chief execu-tive of Netmeds, and Atit Jain, chiefexecutive of Pluss, did not respondto email questionnaires sent by ETat the time of writing this article.

ET could not verify the exact valueof the deal, or the stake that could beacquired by the Pluss managementand its backers, post the buyout.

Pluss, which was founded in 2015by Jain, Madhulika Pandey and Ta-run Lawadia, had raised about $1million from IDG Ventures andother investors in November.

Prior to that, it had reportedly rai-sed about $200,000 in seed fundingfrom a number of notable angel in-vestors, including Snapdeal foun-

ders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal,as well as Anand Chandrasekaran,the new head of platform and part-nerships for Facebook Messenger.

The startup has tied up with andaggregated a number of licensed lo-cal pharmacies under one service.

Through its app, users can uploada photo of their prescription, andplace their orders. Once confirmed,the startup’s delivery men purcha-se the medicines and delivers it tothe customer’s address.

This Delivery Service will be a Real Pluss for Netmeds

Q&AANIRBAN BORA

NV “Tiger” Tyagarajan

$300 millionEstimated worth of products sold on Flipkart over the entire five-day sale in 2015

5xIncrease in traffic registered since the sales began

Bestsellers

Flipkart is offering 40 million products while Amazon has 80 million on offer

Amazon started prep-arations from October 17-18 of last year

For comprehensive and insightful stories about all things startups and technology, log on to www.ettech.com

A heartbeat cable is an ethernet cable used be-tween multiple servers. The connection is used to determine if the server is sending con-tinuous signal.

Heartbeat Cable

Jargon Buster

Science fiction is shaping science fact by inspiring roboti-cists and shaping public expectations and fears as well

JOHN HAGEL@jhagel

Tweet OF THE DAY

WhatsApp has intro-duced new ways to cus-tomise photos and vide-os you share with friends and family around the world. With WhatsApp’s new cam-era features, people can now write or draw on photos and videos as well as add emojis to ex-press themselves. “Now, when you capture a new photo or video or share one which is already on your phone, you will au-tomatically see new ed-iting tools,” WhatsApp said in a post. —IANS

Tech Buzz

WhatsApp Adds Camera Features Now

Quick Byte ANIRBAN BORA

153%Increase in ShopClues app downloads from Tier-III cities, says co

Microsoft Kills Fitness Band Trackers Now

Microsoft is breaking up the Band. ZDNet reports that Microsoft has re-moved all of the Band fit-ness trackers from its on-line store, as well as the Band’s software develop-ment kit. And the compa-ny tells Foley that Micro-soft has no plans to make another Band device. Mi-crosoft had received many complains about the Band’s obtuse inter-face, short battery life, and uncomfortable form factor. – Business Insider

Madhav.Chanchani@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru: Myntra founder Mukesh Bansal has joinedthe boards of food-delivery company Swiggy and logis-tics firm Rivigo, marking a rare instance of Indian star-tups hiring independent directors.

Bansal, who quit Myntra parent Flipkart in March tocofound healthcare technology venture CureFit, saidhe met a number of mid-growth-stage startups beforezeroing in on these companies. Other directors on theSwiggy and Rivigo boards are either founders or in-vestors’ representatives.

“Besides building CureFit I wanted to work with a fewentrepreneurs who are building large business that couldbe billion-dollar companies in a few years,” said Bansal.He has committed to spending half-a-day on average eve-ry month with these ventures, advising them on productand growth strategy, organisation building and fundrai-sing. More details weren’t available. Typically, consumerinternet and technology companies have tended to seekout experts to join their boards only after reaching highgrowth phase, requiring independent guidance on busi-ness strategy and handling tougher competition.

In 2014, Flipkart roped in storage giant Dropbox’s vice-president Aditya Agarwal as an independent director,and Snapdeal onboarded Bharti Group’s Akhil Gupta.Mobile commerce and payments firm Paytm’s board hasRuchi Sanghvi, the first woman engineer at Facebook,WhatsApp global business head Neeraj Arora, and InMo-

bi founder Naveen Tewari as independentdirectors.

That smaller companies like Swiggy andRivigo are also onboarding independentmembers to their boards is a reflection oftheir rapid growth, requiring experts whohave run the course to help steer them.

“Swiggy is the fastest company in India toscale to 50,000 orders a day, which demonstra-tes its ability to execute really fast,” said Ban-sal. The former head of Flipkart’s commerceplatform said he does not plan to join the bo-ards of other startups at least foranother year.

Bansal belongs to an early crop offounders who have built and soldtheir business over the past deca-de, which gives him a uniquering-side perspective on India’semerging businesses ecosys-tem. Bansal founded fashionportal Myntra in 2007 and sold itto Flipkart for over $300 millionin 2014.

Kunal Shah, founder of Free-Charge that was acquired bySnapdeal, has become an inves-tor and adviser to startups evenas he continues as the pay-ments business’ chairman.

“When companies like Flip-kart and Myntra were being bu-ilt there were not many people inthe ecosystem who had seen themovie play once,” said DeepakGarg, chief executive of Rivigo.“(People like Bansal) can help us notmake mistakes they might have andhelp with broader decision-making.”

Myntra founder has agreed tospend half-a-day on average every month with these startups

Tailor-made

MUKESH BANSAL

A BILLION WAYS

Besides building CureFit, I wanted to work with a

few entrepreneurs who are building large business

that could be billion-dollar

companies in a few

years

He will advise the companies on product

and growth strategy,

organisa-tion building and

fundraising

Swiggy & Rivigo Look for a WinningMyntra with Mukesh Bansal on Board

Madhav.Chanchani@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru: Early-stage venturecapital investment in Indian star-tups dropped to a two-year low inthe July-September quarter, accor-ding to data from research firmVenture Intelligence.

In the first nine months of 2016,the number of early-stage VC invest-ments fell 24% from a year ago to 290deals while the total capital investedplunged by a third to $1billion,according to data from research firmVenture Intelligence.

However, data also shows signs ofrecovery in mid-stage financingfor digital and technology compa-nies, indicating that investors areslowly opening their purse stringsfor companies emerging as marketleaders in their categories even asthey remain cautious about ma-king new early-stage bets.

giant Alibaba’s IPO in the US, asinvestors bet aggressively acrosssectors — from hyperlocal to on-line classifieds — hoping thatIndia will mirror the growth seenin Chinese digital businesses.

Late-stage financing rounds ofover $50 million, which fuelledgrowth of startups, have beenmissing since the start of 2016. Nodeals over $200 million have beenclosed since the beginning of theyear. In comparison, over half adozen such deals were closed infirst nine months of 2015.

But mid- to late-stage fundingrounds of $20-50 million havepicked up in the latest quarter,according to data compiled byinvestment bank Avendus Capital.The number of such deals haverecovered to 2015 levels, with 10deals in the July-September quar-ter. In the first two quarters of 2016,there were 10 deals combined atthis stage.

team and idea,” Reddy said.The previous low in early-stage

VC investment was in the April-June quarter of 2014 when only 63deals were closed. Frenzy of capi-tal in Indian digital companies byglobal investors started from July2014, when India’s largest onlineretailer Flipkart raised $1billionin a funding round that gave it a$7-billion valuation.

The funding for Flipkart cameahead of Chinese ecommerce

According to some experts, thiscomes as the milestones thatstartups need to demonstrate toraise Series-A — the first majorinstitutional round of fundingafter a seed or angel round — haveincreased significantly. VCs conti-nue to actively evaluate new early-stage ideas and are taking moretime to decide on where to invest,even as valuation expectationsbecome more realistic.

“The bar for Series-A has in-creased so much that nearly every-one is forced to raise anotherround of funding (before Series-A). Traction for the product requi-red is much more,” said KarthikReddy, managing partner at seed-stage investment firm BlumeVentures. His firm is currentlyclosing three-four such seed plusor pre-Series-A rounds among itsportfolio companies.

“But they are also willing to cutbigger cheques if they like the

It’s True, Fewer Investors are Venturing Out Here This YearEarly-stage venture capital investment in Indian startups dropped to a two-year low in the July-September quarter: Venture Intelligence data

IN FIRST NINE MONTHS OF 2016

Number of early-stage VC investments fell by 24%

There were 290 deals as compared to 381 in the same period in 2015

Previous low for number of VC investments in quarter was in April-June quarter in 2014, when only 63 investments were closed

No deals over $200 million have been closed since start of 2016

Late-stagefinancing rounds of over$50 m have been missing

The frenzy of capital in Indian digital cos by global investors started from July 2014

A Funding Drought Sets in

Total capital invested was$1 billion

ED

WA

RD

HO

PP

ER

, Sunlight

On

Brownstone

s

6 �THE ECONOMIC TIMES | BENGALURU | WEDNESDAY | 5 OCTOBER 2016Disruption: Startups & Tech

Our Bureau

Bengaluru | Mumbai: AmbigaSubramanian has agreed to sellher stake in Mu Sigma to her for-mer husband Dhiraj Rajaram, gi-ving him majority ownership inthe data analytics company once adeal is finalised. Rajaram will takeover as the CEO from Subramani-an, who will stay on the board as adirector during the pendency ofthe transaction.

Speaking at a press conference onTuesday, Rajaram, 41, said he willown a 51.6% stake in Mu Sigma afterthe deal closes. He declined to provi-de details about the purchase price,valuation, or means of funding thetransaction.

Subramanian, whose divorce with

rely on internal accruals. He is ex-pected to consider a private-equitytransaction a year from now.

Rajaram, an alumnus of AnnaUniversity and Booth School ofBusiness, admitted that the perso-nal troubles had taken a toll on thecompany. “It would be incorrect tosay there hasn’t been any impacton business. There have been dis-tractions on the personal frontthat led to impact on the supply si-de of business,” he said.

Some half a dozen senior executi-ves have resigned in recent

months, but Rajaram said that wasof no consequence.

Mu Sigma employs some 3,500 staffand posted revenue of around $250million in 2014-15.

Ravi Gururaj, the head of soft-ware industry grouping Nas-scom’s product council and thefounder of smart-locker serviceprovider QikPod, was of the viewthat Subramanian and Rajaramwill work together for a smoothtransition. “They both have amassive vested interest” in the fu-ture of the company, he said.

internet business but provides dataanalytics solutions to customers in-cluding Microsoft, Pfizer and Mas-tercard. The valuation of the compa-ny, which counts General AtlanticPartners and Sequoia as investors, isnot clear.

A company statement said that Ge-neral Atlantic will stay on as an in-vestor, and Sequoia promised to be“steadfast” in its support of Mu Sig-ma. Subramanian was quoted as say-ing that she was selling her shares toher ex-husband to allow him to “fulfilhis vision.” She denied that she wo-uld set up a competing data analyticsshop.

Sources told ET that the non-com-pete pact with Subramanian is validfor 18 months. To finance the deal, Ra-jaram has lined up financing to thetune of $60 million from IFC and also

Rajaram was made public in May,aims to exit the company completelyand is estimated to own about a 27%stake.

The announcement by Rajaram fol-lows weeks of speculation about thefate of Mu Sigma, a rare Indian uni-corn which is not in the consumer-

Mu Sigma Solves the Domestic VariableSubramanian to sell stake to former-husband Rajaram who will take over as CEO, won’t set up data analytics company

Aditi.Shrivastava1@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru: Ride-hailing company Olahas introduced an ‘offline-booking’ fea-ture on its mobile app, enabling pas-sengers to book cabs without an activeinternet connection, a key competitiveadvantage over smaller rival Uber.

“While connectivity continues to bean infrastructural challenge, we areconstantly building innovative techno-logy that helps fill the gap, and thelaunch of Ola offline feature is a majorstep in that direction,” said chief tech-nology officer Ankit Bhati. The featurewill automatically appear when theuser is offline, allowing him to send hislocation via SMS. The user will receivea text message with details of cabs avai-lable around, along with the steps on

how to make the booking. Once the boo-king is confirmed, he will get anothertext message with the driver details.

Over the past few months, Ola has ag-gressively stepped up the focus on diffe-rentiated India-focussed technology in-novation and launch of multiple catego-ries and consumer experience initiati-ves in a bid to maintain its marketleadership.

According to Ola, only 34% of the po-pulation has access to the internet and amajority of even those who do struggleto get adequate data connectivity at alltimes.

“In India, users are more inclined to-wards prepaid mobile service, makingthem more vulnerable to running out ofdata. Spotty 3G and 4G coverage also ac-counts for a fair amount of data connec-tivity issues, even in tier-I cities,” thecompany said in a statement.

Ola used to offer phone-based cab boo-king until the middle of last year — itwas similar to traditional taxi-bookingservices. In July 2015, Ola went app-only,discontinuing cab bookings on its web-site and on the phone, since it claimedthat it was receiving as much as 99% ofthe bookings through the app. In Au-gust, rival Uber introduced a ‘Dial-an-Uber’ feature allowing users in some ci-ties to book cabs without the app, butstill needing an active mobile internetconnection.

Fret Not! Your Ola Ride isJust a Text Message Away

Aditi Shrivastava, Mugdha Variyar &Payal Ganguly

Bengaluru: Flipkart sold goodsworth .̀1,400 crore on Monday mar-king a new high for retail sales on asingle day as India’s ecommercecompanies wooed customers witha plethora of offers in the ongoingfestive sale season.

Flipkart, which racked up a bulkof its sales in the smartphone cate-gory, has now surpassed the totalgross sales it registered in previousversions of the so called “Big Bil-lion Day” sale. In 2015, it said goodsworth $300 million (.̀ 2,000 crore)were sold in the entire five-day sale.

“This indeed is a historic mo-ment,” said Binny Bansal, chief ex-ecutive officer of Flipkart whoreckons that millions of new cus-tomers have been drawn to buy-ing online through these sales.His company estimates that it re-gistered five times more trafficthan usual since the sales began onSunday. These annual sales — typi-cally a five-day event that all topecommerce companies lay out forconsumers — is turning out to be abonanza and marks a culminationof months of internal planningand testing.

“We started preparations in effectfrom October 17-18 of last year afterthe festive sale season had ended,”said Manish Tiwary, vice-presidentof category management at Ama-zon India.

At Flipkart, a lot of pre-event tes-ting took place including “loading,traffic, engineering as well as tes-ting the offers,” according to Smrit-hi Ravichandran, director of cate-gory design.

Across town in a west Bengalurusuburb, Amazon too had its ownshare of pre-event huddles. Eachvertical has a designated “war-ro-om” in the office and these are man-ned at all hours by people with spe-cific responsibility. “They can takedecisions on their own in case ofany crisis,” Tiwary said.

Industry experts are of the viewthat the number of people shop-ping online in India has increased,and there have also been more cate-gories on display this year. In addi-tion, high-decibel advertising is al-so seen to have spurred buying be-haviour among consumers.

“This (sales of $200 million) is a ve-ry remarkable figure for a singleday and is definitely the highest forany online of offline player,” saidArvind Singhal, chairman, Tech-nopak, a retail consulting firm.

“If Flipkart and Amazon are ableto register more than 40% of the sa-les from last year, it means that theyhave captured the bulk of the mar-ket,” he said. This year, the onlineretailers are also offering biggerstocks across categories.

The size of Flipkart’s total offe-rings of 40 million products this sa-le season is over two times that oflast year, while at Amazon it isthree-times the selection duringthe festive season in 2015 with over80 million products.

Flipkart MakesOne-day Recordof .̀1.4k cr in Sales

CoinTribe to Raise $15 mPratik.Bhakta

@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:Gurgaon-based finan-cial marketplace CoinTribe isplanning to raise around $15million to strengthen its tech-nology platform as it expands itsassociation with financial in-stitutions to eight from six.

The company is in the process ofdeveloping an integrated score-card for SMEs through its ownvariables, which can help bankstake a call on the applicant’s creditworthiness and it plans to offerthis as a dashboard on the bank’ssystems.

“We raised around $3 millionearly this year as seed fundingfrom Puneet Dalmia and now weare planning to raise another$10-15 million from strategicinvestors and venture capitaliststo strengthen our credit assess-

ment platform,” said Amit Sach-dev, cofounder of CoinTribe.

The startup, which is mainlyaimed at funding small and medi-um business entities with a turno-ver in the range of `̀1-25 crore, istrying to use its algorithms tomake access to credit easier andfaster.

They have integrated theirsystems with banks and other

entities which allowthem to do digital KYC,e-signature verifica-tions, checks with thecredit bureaus and

quick reading of bank accountstatements of these SMEs.

“We do full risk analytics forsmall business entities acrosssome 25 core variables, which areaccepted by banks as well asnon-banking finance companies(NBFCs), which they use todecide the credit worthiness of itsapplicants,” said Sachdev.

ARRIVING IN 10 MINUTES

Ride-hailing company will allow passengers to book cabs without an active internet connection

ANKIT BHATIChief Technology Officer, Ola

While connectivity continu-es to be an infrastructuralchallenge, we are constantlybuilding innovative tech-nology that helps fill the gap

The feature will automatically appear when the user is offline

It will allow the user to send loca-tion via SMS

According to Ola, only 34% of the population has ac-cess to the internet

DHIRAJ RAJARAMCEO, Mu Sigma

There have been distractions on the personal frontthat led to impact on the supply side of business

KARTHIK REDDYManaging Partner, Blume Ventures

The bar for Series-A has increased so muchthat nearly everyone isforced to raise anotherround of funding

Subrama-nian aims toexit thecompanycompletelyand isestimated toown about a27% stake

CO

MP

AN

Y P

HO

TOS