Tag Archives: pune-shining

MasterCard acquires Pune-based Electra Card Services

Money Matters,

Credit Card company Mastercard has acquires Pune-based Electra Card Services, (owned by Pune’s Opus Software Solutions), reports the Times of India.

Excerpt:

ECS […] provides software products and processing services for electronic payments. Its customer base includes financial institutions, retailers and telcos in over 25 countries. ECS’ suite of products enables customers to issue and manage all types of payment cards and electronically process card transactions across multiple channels such as ATM, point of sales, internet and mobile.

More information:

Pune based @Clogeny Technologies acquired by US based MSys Technologies

Money Matters, ,

(Sorry, this news is being posted here a little late; I was on vacation when this news broke, and decided that a late update is better than no update at all.)

According to a press release:

MSys Technologies, a Georgia, US-based company that provides technology and product engineering services in storage, cloud computing, embedded systems, telecommunications, quality assurance, test automation, and technical support, has announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Clogeny Technologies, based in Pune, specializing in storage, big data, cloud computing, and DevOps

Here are further relevant excerpts from the press release:

About MSys Technologies

MSys was founded in 2007 in Chennai, India by CEO, Sanjay Sehgal. After gradually progressing through technology projects for several clients, mostly from the United States, the company established two additional locations: one in Johns Creek, Georgia and the second one in Bangalore, India.

MSys has close to 300 employees with exceptional technical expertise in all the industry verticals they serve. With several directors of engineering, senior managers, and technology managers, the company has a proven delivery team most suited for undertaking high-level technical projects. Since its inception in 2007, MSys has shown remarkable financial growth. MSys has had several clients from both the United States and Europe. The decision to acquire Clogeny came up as part of an expansion plan for MSys through which it could serve a larger client base with varied requirements.

About Clogeny Technologies

Clogeny Technologies was established in 2009 as a private company headquartered in Pune, Maharashtra, India. The company was established by CEO, Kalpak Shah, and CTO, Chirag Jog. Clogeny is an outsourced product development and software services company with expertise in DevOps, storage, cloud computing and Big Data. Since its inception, Clogeny has served 35+ customers and has created a differentiated set of offerings in cloud, storage, and DevOps domains.

See full press release.

Pune’s Cuelogic acquires California based mobile apps development company

News, , ,

Pune based services company Cuelogic Technologies has just acquired the services arm of California based company Evolutionate, Inc. Excerpts from their press release:

The acquisition came out through a prior strategic partnership between the two companies in which Cuelogic offered Evolutionate and its customers, mobile application development services, cloud computing services and advanced testing services for their customers in enterprise and consumer software domain. Also, Cuelogic helped Evolutionate and its customers boost their internal team’s capacity and capabilities by providing them iOS and Android developers and designers for temporary and long-term assignments.

Last year, Cuelogic also acquired AU Software Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a mobile and web based game development company to boost and add game development services to the portfolio offerings.

Read the full press release

Pune based enterprise security firm Uniken raises investment from Nexus Venture Partners

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Pune-based enterprise security software company, Uniken, has just raised a round of funding from Nexus Venture Partners, reports the Economic Times. The amount of funding has not been disclosed, but the internet is claiming that it is around $4.8 million. This is Nexus’ second major investment

Uniken’s main product is the REL-ID platform which allows enterprise software to be accessed from remote clients (i.e. mobiles, laptops, or home computers of customers or employees) in a secure way, in spite of the fact that the client is connecting to the server via an untrusted internet connection.

Imagine a bank, which is able to give its customers a “secure” mobile app that connects to the bank servers over the internet, but then uses REL-ID’s “private communication circuts” to establish a secure connection between the app and the server. Similarly, imagine an the sales database of a company being accessed by one of the salespersons on the road using a laptop. REL-ID PCC can be used to secure the connection between the laptop and the enterprise app without requiring laptop to be on the company network, and without requiring a VPN.

So, how is Uniken’s solution different from using an SSL or IPSEC based VPN?

According to the company’s website, REL-ID PCC is based on the concept of App-to-App tunneling. VPN’s on the other hand are based on TCP/IP Tunneling technology. VPN’s are installed as virtual network adapters and need administrative rights on the client machine in order to install them. VPN’s do not come with in-built mutual authentication and encryption technologies, for that one has to additionally invest in 2-way SSL or IPSEC technologies, increasing the total cost and complexity of the solution. These solutions are not viable when it comes to roll-out to large number of users.

More information about the product is here and here.

The Economic Times reports:

The firm has filed three patents and expects to file 12 patents in next one year. “Uniken is disrupting the digital security space with this platform that provides military grade security with rich digital experience,” said Sandeep Singhal, managing director at Nexus.

So, in the last few days, we’ve made two additions to the list of Pune companies that have raised funding in recent times (and that is even without counting the 3rd round of funding for FirstCry, because that was already on the list.) Is any company missing from our list? Please let us know.

Baby products e-commerce retailer, Pune’s FirstCry.com raises Rs. 82cr funding

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Pune’s FirstCry.com, a baby-products online retail store, has just raised Rs. 82 cr from Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, and existing investors IDG Ventures, and Saif Partners, reports the Economic Times. This is FirstCry’s third round of funding. Previously FirstCry had raised $4 million in 2011, and $14 million in 2012.

Excerpts:

FirstCry, which has tied up with 500 brands, offers over 70,000 products including diapers, toys, toiletries, strollers, apparel and footwear as well as books and toys for children up to the age of 15 years. It also has 50 branded franchisee stores across 45 cities and expects to grow this network to 100 stores. It gets 20% of its revenue from mobile-based transactions.

First Cry was founded by Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha in December 2010. Before that, Supam was one of the founders of Pune based e-learning company Brainvisa Technologies, which was acquired by Indecomm Global Services for about $25 million in 2007. Amitava was a senior vice president at BrainVisa and had been there since 2003.

Pune’s @SuhasKelkar, Pradeep Kulkarni, @Amdocs, @Allscripts win awards at Confluence 2013

Miscellaneous,

Pune had a strong showing at the excellence awards given out at the recently held globalization conference, Confluence 2013, held in Bangalore by Zinnov (a globalization and market expansion advisory firm), with Punekars winning 2 individual awards (3 if you look closely), and 4 company awards.

At the conference – whose theme this year was “Unlocking India’s Innovation Potential,” Zinnov recognized individuals and companies in 7 different categories. There were 200+ nominations from 50+ companies (mostly MNCs).

Here is the list of Punekars who won:

  • Pradeep Kulkarni, Distinguished Engineer, Symantec, one of two winners of the “Technical Role Model (Senior Level)” award, for “technology stalwarts and have served by example and inspired individuals both within their organization and beyond to emulate them and follow a technical career path”. Note: the second winner in this category, is Sairam Veeraswamy, of EMC, who is also ex-Veritas, ex-Pune, so Pune can take some credit for him too.

  • Suhas Kelkar, CTO (APAC), BMC Software, one of two winners in the “Thought Leadership” category, for “visionaries or have demonstrated original thinking and contributed ideas and/or to initiatives that have had an impact on the overall technology ecosystem.” This is the second year in a row that Suhas has won this award.

Amongst the company awards, these Pune companies won:

  • Amdocs, one of two winners for “Best in Class Ability to Create Next Generation Leaders”, for “MNC Centers that have created a sustainable leadership engine. The company’s mechanism to create and feed leadership roles (both local and global) in a sustainable manner through programs to identify, train and groom talent was assessed.”
  • Allscripts, one of two winners for “Most Successful Attrition Management (Software/Internet R&D Companies)”, in other words, “MNC Technology centers that have successfully managed attrition within their organizations despite the industry average of ~11% in the last year. The assessment criteria, apart from the attrition numbers, evaluated the proactive measures taken by organizations to understand their employees’ needs as well as the innovative practices introduced to develop and retain people”
  • Honeywell, for “Innovation – Potential to Solve Large Problems”. This recognizes “organizations that have successfully solved or are in the process of solving large problems that has or will have a significant impact on society. These problems being addressed can be planet scale, restricted to developed markets or emerging markets but should have been addressed in the last (12 – 18 months) with the India Center playing a significant role in the initiative.”
  • Mercedes-Benz R&D. Same as above.

Suhas Kelkar, CTO (APAC) of BMC Software, “In general we Punekars had a STRONG presence there, an indication of rising importance of Pune belt in Software Products ecosystem. This is not just my opinion, but a general feeling expressed by various people at the conference.”

Pune Becoming an Innovation Hub – Financial Times

News,

Financial Times thinks that Pune is becoming an innovation hub.

The city’s economy (and real estate market) is now driven by the presence of two large and growing sectors: automotive manufacturing and information technology.

Why is the Pune story so compelling? First is the ecosystem already in place:

Willy Praet, a Belgian expat who moved to Pune nearly five years ago, is managing director of the India operations of Kongsberg Automotive, a Norwegian automotive components manufacturer. He says he found “the perfect supplier base for our products in Pune and the 50km area surrounding it.”

Second is the easy of recruitment, since we have over 40 engineering colleges:

“Also, the presence of engineering colleges makes recruitment easier.”

And, Bombay the financial and commercial capital of the country is very expensive and easily accessible via the expressway. It quotes Samir Patil, founder of http://Styloot.com on this point:

“We chose Pune because the cost of living is low, and the quality of life is high. Mumbai was unviable because the costs of living for the developers would have been too high and we wouldn’t have found the technology talent. And had we been in the US, we would not have been able to create this depth of technology with seed funding.”

And, Pune is also one of the top cities in India if you’re interested in design:

Hrridaysh Deshpande, the director for the DYPDC Centre for Automotive Research and Studies, agrees that Pune is poised to become a hub for innovation. “There are more than 70 design entrepreneurs, several design schools and many clients. We plan to apply for ‘world design capital’ status for Pune, to the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design.”

Obviously, there are challenges, the primary among them being the lack of infrastructure. The traffic, lack of public transport, and the lack of an international airport are cited. But, on this point, the article quotes builder Rohit Gera’s stoic approach to the city’s shortcomings:

“My definition of a developing nation is a place where people live before the infrastructure is in place,” he says, suggesting that it is only a matter of time before the roadblocks to growth are removed.

Read the full article

Tech companies in Pune that have recently raised funding

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Here is a list of technology companies that are fully, or mostly based in Pune, and have raised angel, seed, or venture capital in recent times. If you know of any company missing from this list, please leave a comment below so we can update the list.

Companies that raised Series A or better in recent times:

  • TripHobo – online travel planning portal [Kalaari Cap]
  • Helpshift – Mobile SDK for customer support/service/feedback [Intel Capital, Nexus, True Ventures]
  • Swipe Telecom (Makers of cheap tablet PCs) – [Kalaari Cap, Mantra Ventures]
  • SoftTech Engineers – Civil, Construction and Infrastructure ERP Software Company [Rajasthan Venture Capital]
  • Uniken – Enterprise Security Software Products [Nexus]
  • LinguaNext – Localization Software for the Enterprise Software Products Market [Helion]
  • Vaultize – Enterprise File Sharing and Sync [Tata Capital]
  • TastyKhana – Online Food Ordering Service [Delivery Hero]
  • Dhingana – online Indian music streaming [Lightspeed, Inventus, Helion]
  • Pubmatic – Online Ad Optimization Platform[August Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Nexus, Helion]
  • Druva – Enterprise Backup Software Products [Sequoia]
  • Sapience (Previously Innovize Tech) [SEED Enterprises & IAN]
  • FirstCry – Online Baby Products [IDG Ventures, Saif Partners]
  • Krayon Pictures – Animation (makers of Delhi Safari) [Jhunjhunwala, Maneesh Bhandari]
  • ShopSocially – Shopping Social Network [Valhalla Partners]
  • TrueSparrow [Acquired by Fab.com]
  • Cumulus Systems [Acquired by Hitachi]
  • Ever Sun Enervy [Acquired by Techpro Systems]
  • IRIS Energy [Plexus Capital Ventures]

Companies that raised an angel or seed round in recent times:

  • EZMove – Online packers and movers marketplace [Various HNIs]
  • AdSparx – Video ads platform [IAN, Mumbai Angels, GrowX]
  • Function Space – Online Platform for Social Learning / Science and Maths [Nexus]
  • CarIQ – Connecting cars to the cloud for better decision making [Pose Ventures]
  • Ayojak – Online Ticketing and Event Management [HBS Alumni Angels, Blume, Srijan]
  • ShoppingWish.in – price comparison website (by ex-Dhingana co-founder)
  • Simplibuy (Wicfy) Hyperlocal price search
  • AppSurfer (previously DroidCloud) – Try-before-you-buy solution for mobile apps [Vijay Sharma, Alok Kejriwal]
  • BootstrapToday – App lifecycle management SaaS solution
  • ViralMint – Product to create and analyze smail, facebook, twitter, affiliate marketing campaigns
  • Jombay (previously YourNextLeap) [Nirvana Venture Advisors]
  • Sokrati – Digital Marketing Analytics Solution [Inventus Capital]
  • MindTickle – Gamification of Employee Engagement
  • LifePlot (Sofomo) [Fusion Tech Ventures]
  • MaxiMojo (Hotel Software on Cloud) [Mumbai Angels]
  • Rolocule – Gaming company – [Mumbai Angels / Blume]
  • Shantani Proteome Analytics – Services for studying protein structures [India Innovation Fund / Blume]
  • Shashwat Oorja – Renewable Energy (Biogas)
  • Gram Oorja – Rural electrification / computerization
  • Abgenics – R&D in novel therapies for Animal and Human Health
  • Tridiagonal Solutions – Computational Fluid Dynamics software solutions and services

[Older] Sort-of Established Companies who raised significant funding in the
past, or were acquired a while back:

  • QuickHeal – Antivirus Software
  • Airtight – Wireless Security Software Products
  • SEED Infotech – (Training Institute) [Ashmore Alchemy]
  • Vertex [acquired by NTT Japan]
  • Kenati – Home Networking Products [acquired by 2wire]
  • IdeaS – Airline Inventory Optimization Software [acquired by SAS]
  • PACE – Gaming Software [acquired by nVidia]

Advantage Pune Panel Discussion: Opportunities for Pune to become an Innovation Hub

Event Report, , , ,

These are a few quick ‘n dirty notes captured during a Panel Discussion that was held as a part of the “Global Conclave: Advantage Pune” event held in Pune yesterday, organized by Zinnov and Software Exporters Association of Pune (SEAP). The panel discussion was on the topic “Opportunities and Challenges for Pune to become an Innovation Hub”. The panelists were:

  • Bhavani Shankar from Zinnov
  • Akila Krishnakumar head of Sungard India
  • Ashish Deshpande from Google (based in Pune)
  • Kiran Gadi head of Motorola Mobility India
  • Omkar Nimbalkar head of Tivoli Group IBM India
  • Tarun Sharma head of BMC India

Overall, a few themes that most people touched upon were these:

  • Pune isn’t just about software. It has automotive, manufacturing, sciences (for example, NCL), and other things going for it. So it is more rounded than other cities
  • Pune has great climate
  • Pune has lots of educational instiutions
  • Pune is still not as crowded as Bangalore, so growth is still possible in Pune.

Overall, these are the advantages that Pune has for driving innovation.

Here are some additional interesting points made by the panelists:

  • [Akila] Sungard is probably one of the earliest Software Product MNCs to set up in Pune (back in 1993). Pune has 20% of Sungard’s global R&D strength. BFSI is the biggest market for the software sector, and hence a lot of innovation in Pune’s software industry has to happen (will happen) in this space
  • [Kiran] Our Pune center had lower attrition than other cities. This was a huge advantage.
  • [Tarun] 23% of BMC is in Pune. Largest in the world. This gives huge advantages – having many different teams in one location. This is easier to achieve do than in other cities.
  • [Omkar] Pune has an advantage over Bangalore that it still has space to grow. In Bangalore, it is very difficult to find space.
  • [Tarun] Pune definitely has a better perception of quality of life compared to Bangalore. It’s still a small city compared to Bangalore – you can get anywhere in 30 minutes. And the culture and art is great.
  • [Akila] Pune and Germany have had a great relationship, because of the auto industry. Pune has the largest concentration of German companies in India. This is a great opportunity for Pune’s software industry – it needs to leverage this and grow the software market in Europe.
  • [Kiran] The great thing about the Pune Community is that all the different groups (Software Exporters Association of Pune (SEAP), PuneTech, TiE, Pune Open Coffee Club, Head Start, CSI Pune) all talk to each other and co-operate.
  • [Akila] Pune’s demographics are interesting – lower than average age, and higher than average per capita income. It is easier to find early adopters in Pune, and easier to do viral (i.e., cheap) marketing in Pune. For example, it is not a surprise that it is the gaming capital of the country.

Pune’s InnovizeTech receives Rs. 4.5cr funding from Seed Enterprises

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Pune based startup, InnovizeTech software, which makes productivity measurement software, has just announced that it has closed a Series-A investment of Rs. 4.5 crores from Seed Enterprise. Seed Enterprise is a newly established fund focusing on software products in emerging markets. It has been started by Mitesh Bohra, Avinash Sethi, and Siddharth Sethi (previously co-founders of InfoBeans). Innovize had previously received $350k in angel funding from Indian Angel Network.

Innovize Tech has built a software product, called Sapience, that helps companies measure the exact amount of time spent by employees in various work related activities. When Sapience is installed on employee PCs, it automatically figures out what work was done, by whom, for how long, and for what purpose. It produces reports that highlight gaps and deviations from pre-determined goals. The basic idea is to provide managers with data that can be used to drive efficiencies, detect underutilization, and compare with industry metrics. Sapience protects privacy of individual employees by only providing aggregate data and trends for teams > 10 employees in most cases.

Here’s their pitch from the press release:

Sapience’s key USP is that it delivers automated visibility into Enterprise Effort. It is cloud based, though an on-premise option is available for large enterprises. Their client portfolio is expanding rapidly, and currently includes large and medium IT Services firms like Zensar, product ISVs (IDeaS, Bio-Analytical Technologies), KPOs (SG Analytics), and Engineering Services companies such as EnVenture and Excelize.

Innovize has been founded by Shirish Deodhar, Madhukar Bhatia, Swati Deodhar, Hemant Joshi – Each has 25+ years of technology and leadership experience in US and India. They are Serial Entrepreneurs with 2 previous successes (Veritas Software India, and In-Reality (sold to Symphony)) in outsourced product development. Shirish, Madhukar, and Hemant were first together in Veritas Software

Innovize is also one of the companies to get multiple honours in the PuneConnect 2011 event recently held in Pune, (which PuneTech helped organize).

Read the full press release about this funding