Tag Archives: moneymatters

Rdio acquires Pune’s Dhingana to Enter India Market

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MediaNama is reporting that international streaming music startup Rdio has acquired Dhingana in a bid to enter the India market.

This is really less of an “acquisition” and more of a “fire sale” (or an aquihire):

Sources also told MediaNama that the amount being offered to Dhingana is lower than the amount of funding they had raised. Dhingana had shut down its operations in February 2014 a couple of months after the biggest music label in India, T-Series, decided not to renew its contract with the company. In December, after reports that Dhingana might shut down, [CEO] Bhatia had told MediaNama that the company was in the process of restructuring its operations. He had at that point had declined to comment on the possibility of a shut-down.

Dhingana was backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, but had also raised funding from Helion Ventures and Inventus Capital prior to this.

The founder of Dhingana will join Rdio team:

founders Snehal Shinde and Swapnil Shinde will be joining the Rdio team, where they will be responsible for Rdio’s expansion efforts in India as well as other emerging markets. Rdio India will be launching later this year.

Rdio provides ad-supported and ad-free online music streaming services in 35 countries:

Created by Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis in 2010, it last raised funding in 2011, when it then received $17.5 million from Mangrove Capital Partners, along with earlier investors Skype, Atomico Ventures and Friis himself through some of his investment entities.

One interesting aspect of this acquisition for PuneTech readers is the technology aspect of it. There will, hopefully, soon be APIs for us:

Open for developers in India? Rdio has an API that can be used by developers to create music oriented apps. Internationally Shazam uses these APIs, but the company has a tie-up with Saavn in India for music recognition services. It’s not clear what will happen to that deal once the acquisition is completed. Gaana had also launched a similar API last month and had invited developers to submit app ideas on its website.

Read the full article

Pune’s 2011-2012 Budget Analysis by Janwani and Parisar

Pune City, ,

Pune is one of the few cities in the country that regularly and promptly publishes its annual budget on its website. Pune NGOs Janwani and Parisar have analysed the budget and published the analysis so that everybody can get a better idea of where our tax money is being spent.

You can download Janwani’s PMC Budget Booklet Edition here. (If you have trouble downloading from that link, try this page and you should see a link to the budget document somewhere on the page.)

You can also check out Parisar’s analysis of the budget.

Overall, while Pune gets good marks for making the budget available to the public, apparently, the budget is not easy to understand, and making sense of it requires a significant amount of further processing. Parisar has done exactly that.

Now the next step is to convince the authorities to publicize how the money is actually spent (as opposed to how they had planned on spending it).

Will Pubmatic be Pune’s First Software Product Company IPO?

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Online ad optimization platform maker, PubMatic, which is developed wholly out of Pune, has just hired Steve Pantelick, a CFO who specializes in preparing companies for an IPO, reports VC Circle.

Earlier, Business Insider ran a story claiming that Pubmatic had gotten an offer of $300 million from Amazon, but turned it down in favor of going for an IPO.

Pubmatic is doing extremely well, as seen in this excerpt from the VC Circle article:

PubMatic acquired ReviNet, a US-based advertising optimisation company in May this year. It recently expanded to Europe and launched more data management and mobile products. Its GAAP revenue has risen 33 times in the past two years and by 51 per cent between the second and the third quarter of this fiscal year.

While Pubmatic is technically US-based, it has two co-founders who are in Pune (Mukul Kumar and Anand Das), and all of its development happens in Pune (with the exception of the ReviNet acquisition).

If Pubmatic does indeed go for an IPO, it will the first mostly-Pune-based software product company to do so. While last year’s Persistent IPO was many years in the making, Pubmatic is just 5 years old, and will be a great source for inspiration for technology startups in Pune.

Pubmatic has been one of PuneTech’s favorite Pune startup companies, and we’ve been covering it (see here and here) since our first month of operation in 2008. We wish it good look, and hope that this is just a first in the series of Pune IPOs

Update: Reader V. Krishna points out Kale Consultants was probably Pune’s first software product IPO. Kale Consultants provides solutions to the airline and travel industry, and has a mix of products and services, so it is indeed, arguably, Pune’s first Software Product Company IPO.)

Pune’s Ayojak integrates Cash-On-Delivery payment option in its ticketing service

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Ayojak, a Pune-based company that offers a suite of technology solutions & services for online event ticket selling, conference registrations, payment processing, event promotion, and event logistics, has become one of the first such services to integrate COD (cash-on-delivery) as a payment option for their online event ticket sales service.

As anybody familiar with the ecommerce situation in India is aware, COD is one of the most important forms of payment in Indian ecommerce, since Indians are still not very comfortable with using credit cards online. Thus, offering a COD option almost becomes a must-have for any product or service that is being sold online. Inspite of the fact that COD is an expensive option in general (often with charges of up to Rs. 100 per delivery), it is still the most common form of payment for many ecommerce vendors in India.

In this context, we believe that this announcement by Ayojak would be welcomed by many event organizers and potential customers of Ayojak.

In an article on YourStory.in, Santosh Panda, Founder & CEO of Ayojak explains the thought process behind this announcement:

“We see that close to 45-55% of our users have trouble in booking tickets online through Net banking, Credit cards or Debit cards, sometimes the payment gateway is too busy to respond or the connection is very slow and the browser times out. Because of these various reasons most of the users or frustrated with the online ticket booking experience and prefer the offline mode. Even from our in-house research and analysis and from consumer surveys – we see that the demand for CoD is very high in India, as a major chunk of our population still do not have access to Debit or Credit cards and not to forget the large community of students as well.”

Here are more details of the exact service offered:

Ayojak have integrated their event ticketing & registration e-commerce engine with several logistics solution provider like – FedEx (AFL), GharPay, and Santa Claus Couriers. This tie up will enable Event Organisers to reach the last miles of customer’s convenience and enables users to buy event tickets from the comforts of their home, office or other various locations from across 3000 cities/town in India. For all CoD delivered using Ayojak’s integrated solution, event organizers will be provided with a detailed CoD tracking system and easy, timely and assured delivery of orders. Ayojak has already been privately serving few selected customers to deliver thousands of CoD across India.

PuneTech caught up with Santosh Panda to get a few more details about this new service in particular, and about Ayojak in general.

Are there any other online event/ticketing providers that providers that provide an integrated COD solution? If yes, how is Ayojak’s solution different?

Santosh: There are likes of BookMyShow.com who do this for bigger events only. However with Ayojak, any event (whether big or small) now can avail the COD solution and plan to reach much larger segment of event ticket buyers to pay via cash. Our other competitors don’t have this solution.

What are the extra charges for COD tickets?

Santosh: We are charging 100 rs for delivery less than 1700 rs. For delivery amount from 1701 Rs onward, we charge 6%. The rates may sound higher but if we compare average online charge which is 5%, this is reasonable. Also COD has several complexities such as genuine buyers vs. not, insurance by logistics provider whether money is lost/stolen, support for COD tracking, many such issues. Also COD is designed as part of payment solution suite.

Can you give a quick overview of Ayojak? How is it different from the competition?

Santosh: Ayojak’s mission is to solve 360 degree aspect of an event management. Hence while competitors are focusing on online registration only, we are solving customer’s following pain such as :

  • Payment via online-cash-retail payment solution : Helping event organizer to avail all payment channel and sell it out
  • Promote: Ayojak promotes event heavily in various channels and we consider this as our job. Whereas our competitors don’t provide this as a service or spend time in helping an event get promoted. Ayojak provides promotions like ‘digital marketing, social media contest/content oriented promotion, advertisement on Google Ad/LinkedIn’. We intend to bring more ‘conversion’ oriented solution in coming days.
  • Support: Ayojak provides huge support during an event such as answering event attendee queries, event setup related help if needed, tracking each payment and reaching buyer to help them to select other options, many such. Our customers are very happy with Ayojak support.
  • Product : While our competitors looking event as one type, Ayojak is designed to treat each event type differently. For example a ‘Sonu Nigam Event’ is different from ‘Indian Medical Conference’. Therefore we have developed different apps such as ticketing app, conference app to solve the process flow needed in each type.

Also Ayojak apps are designed keeping the 360 degree principle : Create, Promote, Sell, Support.

Where is Ayojak located. Specifically we’re interested in what part of Ayojak is in Pune, and what exactly does the Pune team do.

Santosh: Ayojak’s Pune team is the prime team, most of our biz/tech decisions/development happens from Pune. Also our key sales & marketing team in pune, although we have freelancers and employees located in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad/Visakhapatnam.

For more information, check out Ayojak.com

Early-stage investment up to Rs. 25L available from Venture Center, Pune

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The Venture Center, a Pune-based Government of India Initiative that helps technology innovators and startups, has instituted a Rs. 1 crore seed fund that they plan on investing in early stage technology startups (or even innovators with just a science & technology idea).

Investment proposals are being accepted upto 30 November 2011.

Here are more details from the Venture Center website:

The Entrepreneurship Development Center (‘Venture Center’ ) recently received approval under the scheme “Seed Support System for Start-ups in Incubators” of the Technology Development Board, Department of Science & Technology to host a seed fund with a corpus of Rs 1 crore.

The purpose of the seed fund is to provide a technology driven startup with the much-needed early stage financial support for deserving ideas/technologies requiring up-scaling and related work.

Incubatees of Venture Center are encouraged to contact Venture Center for further information.

Quantum of financial assistance to the incubated entrepreneur

  • Minimum: Rs. 1 lakh
  • Maximum: Rs. 25 lakhs

The disbursement is normally linked to benchmarks / milestones. Broad Areas to be covered under the financial assistance include:

  • Product development
  • Testing and trials
  • Test Marketing
  • Mentoring
  • Professional consultancy to engage Professors / experts with small firms
  • Filing of Indian/International patents
  • Man power for day to day operations
  • Any other area as deemed necessary and recommended by the Management Committee.

Here is a list of make/break criteria for applicants:

  • There must be at-least one dedicated entrepreneur involved in the venture
  • There must be a formal business plan
  • The venture and the team must have high ethical & professional standards
  • The venture must have a strong technology/knowledge component
  • EHS requirements must be met
  • Key Proof-of-Concept must be demonstrated & must be reproducible
  • The venture must be registered as a private limited company, or must be in the process of registration
  • The amount of funding requested must be less than Rs 25 lakh
  • The entrepreneur(s) must be willing to share equity in the venture
  • The seed funds requested must be for activities such as product development, prototyping, scale-up, developing IP portfolio, test marketing, trials, certification, testing

Applications for the seed fund will be reviewed based on criteria such as (but not limited to):

  • Is amount of funding requested enough to reach critical milestone?
  • Does the venture have a clear, potentially significant/singular value proposition
  • How big/fast growing is the potential market?
  • Are target customers clearly identified?
  • How credible is the technology? (Is PoC credible in the opinion of subject-matter experts?)
  • Are there regulatory/certification/policy risks?
  • What are the sources of sustainable competitive advantage (eg. novelty, patentability, etc.)?
  • What is the quality of the business plan (revenue model, product roadmap, market segments, etc.)?

Typical terms for seed funding:

  • Investment mode: Equity ownership in a private limited company
  • Equity stake for seed fund: 10% – 25%
  • Investment amount: Rs 1 lakh – 25 lakh (preferably, Rs 15 lakh – Rs 20 lakh)
  • Investment to be deployed in instalments, tied to significant milestones
  • BoD representation: 1 BoD seat or 1 BoD observer, with special rights
  • Promoter/founder stakes: Vesting requirements
  • Reporting: Bi-annual presentation to seed committee + Quarterly/annual financials

Application forms can be downloaded here

Business plan templates and other details are available at the Venture Center website

For more information, please contact bdm@venturecenter.co.in

Rescheduled: POCC event “Termsheet Basics #2” moved to 12th Feb

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A few hours back we published information about the Pune Open Coffee Club event Termsheet Basics #2: Negotiating with Angel Investors which was supposed to be on 5th Feb. However, a few hours later comes news that this event has been rescheduled to Saturday 12th feb; the venue has shifted to Persistent. So the final details are: Date: Sat, 12th Feb, 4pm, Place = Bhageerath, Persistent Systems, SB Road, Time = 4pm-8pm).

Please check out the updated event.

Termsheet Basics #2: Negotiating with Angel Investors – POCC Event – 12th Feb

Events, , , ,

Update: This event has been re-scheduled for 12th Feb. All other details remain the same

Santosh Dawara writes:

The Pune Open Coffee Club is hosting an informative session on “Term Sheet Basics II: Negotiating with Angel Investors”.

Date: 12th February, 2011, 4pm (Saturday)
Venue: Bhageerath, Persistent, SB Road.

Entrepreneurs who are preparing to raise money from Angels can benefit immensely from a direct one-on-one interaction with attending Angels and experienced Entrepreneurs. The session will cover basic concepts that are unique to Angel investing such as ‘Convertible Debt’, common concepts such as ‘Valuation’, what preparation can help you increase your effectiveness and what to expect when you begin negotiations with an Angel.

This should be an exciting session as Angel Investing has subtle nuances as compared to other forms of institutional finance.

As an entrepreneur – will you prefer an equity round or a convertible note round – which is preferred by whom and why? What does participating preferred mean, and how does the math work in an exit scenario? What kind of anti-dilution protections are there and what are the differences? Do VC’s prefer to offer exits to early Angel Investors?

These and many other questions are encountered by investors and entrepreneurs alike every day. The session will introduce these concepts and considerations in order for you.

Presented by dynamic speakers and active angel investors, with extensive experience in venture creation, this session is a must for those focused on building or investing in new ventures.

The high level agenda will be as follows:

  • 1600 to 1630 Introduction to attending Angels
  • 1630 to 1715 Walk-through an actual term sheet template or memorandum of understanding
  • 1715 to 1730 break for tea / coffee
  • 1730 to 1830 Discussion, QnA between attending entrepreneurs and angel investors
  • 1830 to 1930 Networking

Here are some of the high level topics we can cover:

  • equity types and convertible loans
  • how much should be raised
  • pre-money, post-money, price per share – valuation vs. other incentives, pre and post cap tables
  • liquidation preferences
  • anti dilution provisions
  • protective provisions
  • post funding board composition
  • setting up the option pool
  • some key tips to entrepreneurs and to investors (not necessarily the same tips!)
  • negotiation tips and a mock negotiation if time permits

Note: