Tag: AI

An innovative HR Tech startup announced USD 5.7 million of funding.

Let us talk about funding. The process of funding is the way through which outside investors can make investments in an organization. Budget is essential as it allows a business or a startup to scale up its operations and expand. Investors invest in a business because they get equity or a share of the startup in return for the cash they invest. There are many terms related to the funding and the startups that an investor, a venture capitalist, and everyone associated with the funding process should have an idea of.

Some of the terms are explained below-

Ideation is generating ideas and solutions through various rounds of brainstorming, sketching, and whatnot. This process aims to come up with many different ideas, which then a team can narrow down.

Target Market– The target market refers to the group of customers to which the product or service is aimed. It is essential to have a clear image of the target market, as marketing and sales are directed.

Startup Capital refers to the money required to start a new company or a business. The startup can also use the funds to cover up the expenses related to establishing a business-like- a piece of equipment, licenses, inventory, and product development.

Key Performance Indicator– It is a process to measure the progress when a business or a startup is working towards an objective. The method of KPIs consists of setting up targets, the desired level of performance, and then tracking the progress against the target.

Churn Rate– Churn Rate is the rate at which a business loses the customers after the acquisition stage when in a subscription-based model.

There are many terms related to the startup and the funding which need to be understood.

About the involvement of technology in HR

HR Technology is a significant term that consists of software and associated hardware used for automating the process of Human Resources. This field used technology for digitalizing the tedious task of HRs, which are-

Filing

Phone Services

Talent Acquisition

Talent Management

Compensation Management

Benefits Administration

Performance Management

Data Storage, organization, and analysis

Technology has reduced the burden of HRs by taking care of the regular work, thus allowing them to focus their attention and time on hiring quality employees, engaging and retaining them, and helping them to boost and increase their productivity. It ensures that a healthy culture is maintained as the employees are motivated to solve their problems and solutions.

About the funding of HR Tech startup

The HR Tech startup, FloCareer, has raised USD 5.7 million, as announced on October 18, 2021. The round of funding was the Series A round of funding and was led by Data Point Capital. The other participants of the game of funding were Uncorrelated Ventures and Oreos Ventures Partners.

The startup plans to use the funds raised to strengthen its position as a leader in gig-workers-powered video interview platforms in the US and India. The startup also plans to use the funds in the sales and business development sector in the United States and will continue growing and expanding in India. It also has plans to continue innovating and bridging change in the new people-focused solutions with the help of cutting-edge technology.

About the newly funded startup

Founded in 2018 by Mehul Bhatt and Mohit Jain, FloCareer helps organizations succeed by finding their prospective “happy” employee by assisting them by matching skills by the job requirement. The solutions provided by the startup are –

Automated bot-based interview– This is the on-demand service that is engaged in helping the candidates take the discussions at the time preferred by them without being dependent on interpersonal communication.

You Source, You Interview– The startup also thinks about both the interviewer and the candidate. It offers its online platform to the business team to conduct as many interviews as required in a more centralized and systematic manner.

Interview Structuring– The startup passes on the interview structure to the business according to the requirement of the job. The company can further use analytics and insights to decide on the questions’ difficulty and proficiency level.

The products offered by the startup are as follows-

Live Interview Platform- It is a top-notch platform with a rich set of features specifically designed to support the entire interview life cycle.

JD to CV Match- It is a machine learning-driven product for pre-screening and shortlisting candidates based on their skill matrix alongside the job criteria.

On-demand Interviews- This product is available any time, anywhere, and on any device. It helps arrange an interview and lets the platform lead the conversation with the candidate in a gamified manner.

Applicant Tracking System- It helps track the progress of the candidate and manage interactions with the stakeholders.

The reasons why FloCareer should be chosen are-

High-Quality Interviews– The startup conducts high-quality interviews by providing customizable interview structuring

Hassle-free interviews– The startup provides flexible scheduling options to the interviewers and the candidates.

Auto-Schedule Interview– The startup provides candidate-focused auto-scheduling for interviews

Video Resumes– The startup has the feature of providing video resumes of each candidate to make sure that higher precision and validity in the process

Custom Branding– The startup ensures that consistent brand messaging is done of a company so that the true potential of the concerned company

Features that help– The features of the platform of FloCareer help startups, enterprises, recruiting agencies, and many more.

According to the claims made, the interview standardization has helped more than 150 companies conduct more than 1.5 lakh interviews with more than 7.5 million video interview minutes on the platform with the help of freelance industry experts in the last three years. The key customers of the startup are- BigBasket, Mindtree, PayU, Wipro, Levis, Quess, CRISIL, CHUBB, and many more.

About the founders of the startup

Mehul Bhatt is the co-founder and the CEO of the startup, FloCareer. After 15 years of journey in the technology domain and having various responsibilities from startups to MNCs, he has experience in networking, visualization, highly scalable, distributed system designs, which has helped the startup. FloCareer gathers immense scalability within a short period.

Mohit Jain is the co-founder and the COO of the startup, FloCareer. He is a Global IT leader and a seasoned professional with 20 years of experience in the IT industry and an expert in delivery management, product, and platform engineering. Mohit has successfully delivered multiple business solutions, technical implementations of several products on eCommerce, online platforms, multi-tiered and SOA-based architecture, and core business services. He has worked closely with products and services and startup companies like Xerox, Infosys, 4Media, Citi, Ford, and Dell.com.

What has been said about the deal?

The Managing Partner of Orios Venture Partners, Rajeev Suri, has said that the post-pandemic environment has opened up gates for innovation and change. He further noted that the AI-led creation of the startup is creating better hiring outcomes, resulting in hyper-growth and a market-dominating position.

The startup is bringing a change in the traditional HR domain, and we wish the startup a stroke of good luck and a bright and prosperous future.

Article Proof Read & Edited By Shreedatri Banerjee

October 20, 2021
Funding Alert: Exotel announced a new funding round

Let us talk about funding. For that, first of all, we need to know what is the process of funding? Funding refers to the process of pouring in the money and the cash in order to start and run a business. It is a sort of financial investment in a company that can be used for various purposes like- product development, manufacturing, expansion, sales, and marketing, office space, and inventory.

Many of the businesses do not go for funding from third parties and go for funding by the founders only, in order to prevent debt and equity dilution. But the majority of the startups do raise funding especially at the time when they grow larger and scale their operations.

Now, let us discuss the stages of startups and the sources of funding.

Step 1- Ideation– It is the idea stage of the startup, where an entrepreneur is bringing an idea to life. The amount of funding required at this stage is usually small, and there are informal ways of raising money during this time.
The options available at this time are- Bootstrapping, which is self-financing, Friends and Family, Pitching events.

Step 2- Validation– This is the stage where the prototype is ready and validation needs to be done of the potential demand of the product or the service of the startup. This step comes before the big market launch of the startup.
The options available at this time are- Incubators, Angel Investors, Crowd Funding, Government Loan Schemes.

Step 3- Early Traction– In this stage, the products and the services of the startup have been launched in the market and key performance indicators like customer base, revenue, app downloads are important.
The options available at this time are- Venture Capital Funds, Venture Debt Funds, Banks, Non-Banking Financial Companies

Step 4- Scaling– This is the stage of the fast rate of market growth and increasing revenues.
The options available at this time are-Venture Capital Funds, Private Equity, and Investment Firms. This is the time when different series of funding, like Series B, Series C, Series D take place.

Step 5- Exit Options– This is the stage when startups want to exit the market.
The options available at this time are- mergers and Acquisitions, Initial Public Offerings, Selling Shares, Buybacks.

Some of the key features of the startup which investors look into before investing are-
a) Objective and Problem Solving
b) Management and Team
c) Market Landscape
d) Scalability and Sustainability
e) Customers and Suppliers
f) Competitive Analysis
g) Sales and Marketing
h) Financial Assessment
i) Exit Avenues

Funding of Exotel Techcom Private Ltd.

The startup Exotel Techcom Private Ltd. has raised funds worth USD 35 million, as announced on September 29, 2021. This round of funding was the Series C round of funding from various investors like- IIFL AMC, Sistema Asia Fund, CX Partners, Singularity Growth, and Opportunities Fund. This round of funding also saw the entry of the former CEO of Vodafone, Arun Sarin, as the angel investor and the mentor. Existing investors Blume Ventures and A91 Partners also took part in this round of funding. The investment bank of Bengaluru, IndigoEdge, was the exclusive banker for the whole transaction.

The startup plans to utilize the funds raised to boost the product offered by the startup.

About the newly funded startup

Exotel is one of the largest could telephony companies in Southeast Asia. The aim of the startup is to help large businesses streamline and bring efficiency to their voice communication. The startup is engaged in taking away some of the biggest points of traditional systems like EPABX and PBX and allow businesses to use world-class APIs to build a reliable communication system.

The Bengaluru-based startup builds in best-in-class communication products that power the companies of today and tomorrow. The values which the startup follows are-
Commitment– An individual needs to be committed to the team, manager, and the customers
Stay True- The startup asks the team members to do the right thing even when no one is around and watching
Trust sings both ways– The employees are explained and taught to trust others to do their jobs and making sure that the employees do their even
Find your doosra– The startup asks the employees to nurture innovative ideas regardless of the outcome
Settle for excellence– The startup teaches the employees to aim for a balance between “perfect” and “done”

The history of the 2011 founded startup is as follows-
In March 2012, the startup raised USD 500,000 funding from Mumbai Angels and Blume Ventures
By June 2013, the annual revenue of the startup has crossed INR 10 million, where it had served more than 350 clients
In February 2015, Exotel acquired Croak.it, which is a social media startup. This was done to strengthen the line of products in the voice of Exotel.
In March 2016, a research division was set up by the startup, called Exotel Labs. This was done to increase the innovation in voice space
In 2016, the revenue reported by the startup was INR 450,000,000.

The startup, Exotel, has recently announced its merger with Ameyo. Both enterprises together will focus on building a full-stack customer engagement platform in the emerging markets to increase and accelerate the communication to the cloud. They will also provide AI with the capabilities of conversation so that the customer experience can be improved.

The startup currently handles more than 5 million calls every day and has more than 18,000 companies registered on its site and has over 45,000 users. The largest competitor to the startup in the year 2014 was Textmagic, Textlocal and In the year 2018, it was Tecoser. The startup is currently growing on a 70% year-on-year basis. The startup is planning to reach an ARR of USD 200 million in the next 5 years and is planning to increase the headcount by more than 200 in the coming year.

About the leadership team of the startup

The startup, Exotel, was founded by Shivakumar Ganesan. He is also the CEO of the startup. Before this, the other venture of Shivakumar Ganesan was Roopit, which needed a simple automated call center solution, for which an in-house product was built. It then became a standalone company in the form of Exotel. The COO of the startup is Ishwar, Chief Revenue Officer is Karthikeyan Krishnamurthy, and the Chief Product Officer is Sanjeeth Kumar.

What has been said about the deal?

Shivakumar Ganesan, who is the founder and the CEO of the startup made a statement saying that the desire of the startup is to enable enterprises with the best in customer engagement. He further said that they are building a cloud-based full-stack engagement suite which will be the first of its kind, by bringing in the capabilities of Ameyo. He said that the platform will give an easy way for businesses to communicate with customers over voice, chat, SMS, Whatsapp, and video, without the context being loosen.

Sumit Jain, who is a Senior Partner at Sistema Asia Fund, said that CPaaS is a USD 6 billion market in India and one of the fastest-growing technology areas in the country. He further appreciated Exotel by saying that it has emerged as the CPaaS platform of choice in India, through a comprehensive product suite and market best reliability. He further expressed his happiness in partnering with the startup and expects that the startup will become a global name in the coming years.

Chief Executive Officer at Ameyo, Sachin Bhatia, remarked that this is the right step that gives the startup an opportunity to invest further in order to bring uninterrupted customer engagement on the cloud to upcoming geographies. When customer data and conversational AI capabilities come together, it will result in enterprises monitoring conversations, building smarter bots, and assisting the customer service teams in real time.

The startup is really doing good and we wish it nothing but good luck and a bright future.

Edited by Sanjana Simlai.

October 1, 2021
Funding Alert: MEDdelivery announced a new funding round-2021

Today we will be discussing the funding of the Pharmatech startup announced by MEDdelivery. The advancement of technology, AI, blockchain, cloud computing, and the internet of things are leaving a major impact on the healthcare system.

So, because of this, the pharmaceutical and biotech companies are taking the help of these innovative technologies to ensure that they provide solutions at various different steps throughout the product life cycle, which starts from discovery and clinical trials to regulatory approvals, pharmacovigilance and usually end at market access. Pharmatech refers to the trend of applying and using technology to the various R &D processes.

Out of the top 20 pharma companies, 13 have made a public announcement that they are engaging themselves in some kind of collaborative work on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Research and Development phase, which they are doing through either AI vendors or initiatives of AI which have been taken within their own companies, with a motive to transform the existing Research and Development models.

How Pharmaceutical industry is innovating?

The pharma industry is seeing a lot of innovation on various levels-

Screening and Diagnoses– The industry is using machine learning to take out valuable information from the already existing data, like MRI and mammograms

Biomarkers– The industry is engaged in generating biomarkers that are based on physiological monitoring data

Therapeutics– It is the process in which drugs are paired with “companion” technologies that help in adjusting drug dosage according to the treatment progress of the patient

Real World Evidence-It is the process of analyzing the data on post-market safety, usage, comorbidities, and other features and attributes which were not captured during clinical trials

About the Pharma industry of the country

India is claimed to be the largest producer of generic drugs across the globe. The Indian pharmaceutical sector supplies more than 50% of the demand of the world for various vaccines, 40% of the generic demand of the United States, and 25% of all the medicine of the United Kingdom.

India in terms of pharmaceutical products in the world, is of the rank 3rd and of the rank 14th in terms of value. The domestic pharmaceutical industry has a network of around 3,000 companies of drugs and around 10,500 manufacturing units.

A survey was done by the Indian Economic Survey of the year 2021, it has been expected that the domestic market of the pharmaceutical will grow by 3 times in the next 10 years and the domestic pharmaceutical market of the country in the year 2021 is estimated to be around USD 65 billion and will be reaching USD 120-130 billion by the year 2030. The Indian medical devices market was at USD 10.36 billion in the FY20 and the market is expected to reach at a CAGR of 37% from the year 2020 to the year 2025, where it will reach USD 50 billion.

The Indian pharmaceutical industry is also seeing a big change with the introduction of technology in it. The top 5 AI companies in India that are engaged in creating the solutions for the Pharma Sector are-
Indegene
Intuition Systems
Innoplexus
RxPrism
Tricog Health

With the coming of AI in this sector, it will for sure speed up the diagnosis and give assistance and help to the medical officials in understanding the disease better and faster. AI is also engaged in the consolidation of research scientists which will prove to be a blessing to the scientists as it will reduce the time constraints and help them come up with safe and effective drugs.

About the funding of MEDdelivery

The Pharma-tech startup, MEDdelivery, as announced on September 27, 2021, has raised funds worth USD 1 million. This round of funding saw the participation of the investors, whose names are- Auxano Entrepreneur Trust, Lets venture, Kisho Capital, Venture Garage, and Marquee Angels.

The startup plans to expand itself and reach more than 100 non-metro cities in the next 18-24 months.

About the newly funded startup

Headquartered in Jaipur, MEDdelivery is a B2B pharma tech startup, which was founded by Aastha Dusad, Rahul Gautam, and Rohit Bafna in the year 2019. The startup is engaged in acting as a single value chain between the pharma companies, stockists, and medical shops.

It provides help to the local medical shops in procuring supplies from hyperlocal wholesale markets. It is reorganized by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP, Government of India) and StartupIndia.gov.in. It is incubated by iStart Nest Incubator, Rajasthan Government.

The vision of the startup is to penetrate as a single essence amongst all the channels of Indian Pharmaceutical Supply Chain as the Smart Logistics and Technology Solutions shaping the future of the Indian Pharmaceutical Supply Chain.

The startup has a catalog of more than 1 million SKUs from more than 10,000 various pharmaceutical brands. It has achieved an annual Gross Merchandise Volume of more than INR 48 crore by serving small pharmacies in Jaipur, with an average order size on a daily basis range between INR 5,000 to INR 15,000. The startup has a strong repeat rate of more than 70%, thus showing its strong and firm hold in the market.

The startup currently has its operations in more than 8 cities having more than 3,000 retail pharmacies using the platform of the startup.

About the founders of the startup

Aastha Dusad is the co-founder of the startup, MEDdelivery. She holds a Diploma in Economics from the Indian School of Business and Finance, and Masters in Business and Managerial Economics from SS Jain Subodh PG College, Jaipur. She has strong team management and strategy skills.

Rohit Bafna is the co-founder and the financial analyst of the startup, MEDdelivery. He is a CA Final candidate and holds an MBA in Finance and Financial Management Services, from the International School of Management and Research, Pune. He has very strong financial analysis and negotiation skills.

Rahul Gautam is the co-founder and the Chief Product and Technology Officer of the startup MEDdelivery. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer programming from University Maharaja’s college, Jaipur, and a Master’s degree in Computer Science. He has been a technology analyst and technical lead at Metacube Software Pvt Ltd. He has very strong problem-solving and strategic planning skills.

What has been said about the deal?

Aastha Dusad, the co-founder of the startup made a statement saying that the aim of the startup is to increase accessibility, availability, and affordability of the medicines especially in non-metro markets which are basically dominated by pharma companies that are locally run.

Rahul Gautam, the co-founder of the startup, commented that in today’s time, the local medical stores have a very important and vital role to play as they are providing priority healthcare to more than 10 million people every day. He further said that the startup has made sure that there is no hassle and disturbance caused to these local medical stores while ordering stocks and making sure that the supply chain is running efficiently.

Rohit Bafna, the co-founder of the startup, said that the startup has a unique design and has community-driven data which makes sure that there is 100% fulfillment of all the products to the customers of the startup. He further stated that they work towards achieving efficiency for all the stakeholders who are present in the pharma supply chain by increasing accessibility, availability, and affordability of the medicines.

The startup is working towards something which has become the need of the day. We wish the startup good luck and a bright future.

Edited by Sanjana Simlai.

September 29, 2021
Most Promising Tools Apps in India 2021

Here is a list of the most promising tools apps on the Google Play Store in India in 2021.

1. ShareMe – India’s best file transfer app
2. Google Translate
3. InShare – Share Apps & File Transfer Tool
4. Google Find My Device
5. Google Family Link
6. Samsung Smart Switch Mobile
7. Google Indic Keyboard
8. Naver Papago – AI Translator

1. ShareMe – India’s best file transfer app

ShareMe – An ad-free P2P file transfer tool that works without connecting to the internet. Transfer data from old device to new device quickly. More than 390 million users making it the number one data sharing app in the world.
Main features

• Transfer & share all kinds of files
Quickly share images, videos, music, apps, and files between mobile devices anytime and anywhere you want, you can shareit all.
• Share files without the Internet
Transfer files without using mobile data or connecting to the network at all. Free of network connection. Free of internet. Free of mobile data.
• Lightning fast speed
ShareMe transfers files really fast, 200 times faster than Bluetooth.
• Transfer files between all Android devices
All Android devices are supported! Use the preinstalled version of ShareMe on Mi Devices or simply download the app from Google Play.
• Intuitive and friendly UI
ShareMe has simple, clean, and user-friendly transfer files interface. All files are sorted into categories(e.g., Music, Apps, Images) which makes them easy to find and share.
• Resume interrupted transfers
No worries if your transfer got interrupted due to a sudden error. You can resume it with a simple tap without starting over.
• The only Ad-Free file transfer tool in market
The only Ad-Free file transfer tool in market. Simply UI makes you feel comfortable.
• Send large files without limitation
Sharing photos, music, videos, apps, documents and any other file types of unlimited file size.

2. Google Translate

• Text translation: Translate between 108 languages by typing
• Tap to Translate: Copy text in any app and tap the Google Translate icon to translate (all languages)
• Offline: Translate with no internet connection (59 languages)
• Instant camera translation: Translate text in images instantly by just pointing your camera (94 languages)
• Photos: Take or import photos for higher quality translations (90 languages)
• Conversations: Translate bilingual conversations on the fly (70 languages)
• Handwriting: Draw text characters instead of typing (96 languages)
• Phrasebook: Star and save translated words and phrases for future reference (all languages)
• Cross-device syncing: Login to sync phrasebook between app and desktop
• Transcribe: Continuously translate someone speaking a different language in near real-time (8 languages)

3. InShare – Share Apps & File Transfer Tool

inShare – Share All Apps & File Transfer satisfies all your transfer needs perfectly. Just select videos, party photos, music, apps & e-book, pdf files or anything, it will stably transfer them to your friends at a lightning speed, even without the network. Download inShare – Share All Apps & File Transfer to share unlimited joy now!
• Send files with flash speed
– 200 times faster than Bluetooth
– Up to 40Mb/s, share videos (1G) less than 30 seconds
– Reconnect if the transmission interrupt
• Share All types of files supported
– Photos, videos, music, APK or any other files
– Infinite large files transfer supported
– Send multiple files or folders at ONE TIME
• Share Files Offline
– Share all games, videos & Transfer files anytime and anywhere
– No mobile data, no network connection needed

KEY FEATURES
+ Support all Android devices
+ Smart replication: transfer data from old phone to a new one
+ One tap to send files or receive up to 40Mb/s
+ User-friendly design with opening, installing, viewing options
+ Powerful file manager with file sorting/searching
+ Share music, share videos, share apps and all types of file
+ Free of network connection
+ Over 30 languages supported
+ Cross-platform file transfer: Share to Android, iOS, Jio Phone, Mac, Windows

4. Google Find My Device

Find My Device helps you locate your lost Android and lock it until you get it back.
Features
– See your phone, tablet or watch on a map. If current location isn’t available, you’ll see the last known location.
– Use indoor maps to help you to find your device in airports, malls, or other large buildings
– Navigate to your device with Google Maps by tapping the device location and then the Maps icon
– Play a sound at full volume, even if your device is on silent
– Erase the device or lock it with a custom message and contact number on lock screen
– See network and battery status
– See hardware details

5. Google Family Link

With Family Link parental controls, you can:

– Guide them to good content
• View their app activity – Not all screen time is the same. Help your child make healthy decisions about what they do on their Android device, with activity reports showing how much time they’re spending on their favorite apps. You can see daily, weekly, or monthly reports.
• Manage their apps – Handy notifications let you approve or block apps your child wants to download from the Google Play Store. You can also manage in-app purchases, and hide specific apps on their device, all remotely from your own device.
• Feed their curiosity – It can be hard to figure out what apps are right for your child, so Family Link shows you teacher-recommended apps on Android that you can add directly to their device.
– Keep an eye on screen time
• Set limits – It’s up to you to decide the right amount of screen time for your child. Family Link lets you set time limits and a bedtime for their supervised devices, so you can help them find a good balance.
• Lock their device – Whether it’s time to go play outside, have dinner, or just spend time together, you can remotely lock a supervised device whenever it’s time to take a break.
– See where they are
• It’s helpful to be able to find your child when they’re on the go. You can use Family Link to help locate them as long as they’re carrying their Android devices.

6. Samsung Smart Switch Mobile

Smart Switch gives you the freedom to move your contacts, music, photos, calendar, text messages, device settings and more to your new Galaxy device. Plus, Smart Switch™ helps you find your favorite apps or suggest similar ones on Google Play.

Who can transfer?
• Android™ owners
– Wireless transfer: Android 4.0 or higher
– Wireless transfers from a compatible Android device to Galaxy device: Android 4.0 or higher (Note that non-Samsung devices with Android versions lower than 6.0 can only connect with Galaxy devices that support a mobile AP.)
– Wired transfer: Android 4.3 or higher, charger cable, and a USB connector
• iOS™ owners – use the option that’s best for you:
– Wired transfer from your iOS device to your Galaxy: iOS 5.0 or above, iOS device cable (lightning or 30 pin), and a USB connector
– Import from iCloud™: iOS 4.2.1 or higher and Apple ID
– PC/Mac transfer using iTunes™: Smart Switch PC/Mac software
• Windows™ Mobile owners
– Wireless transfers: Windows OS 10

What can be transferred?
– Contacts, calendar(Device content only), messages, photos, music (DRM free content only, Not supported for iCloud), videos (DRM free content only), call logs, memos, alarms, Wi-Fi, wallpapers, documents, app data (Galaxy devices only), home layouts (Galaxy devices only)
– You can send app data and home layouts by upgrading your Galaxy device to M OS (Galaxy S6 or higher).

7. Google Indic Keyboard

Google Indic Keyboard allows you to type messages, update on social networks or compose emails in your own native language on your Android phone. Currently it includes the following keyboards:
– English keyboard
– Assamese keyboard (অসমীয়া)
– Bengali keyboard (বাংলা)
– Gujarati keyboard (ગુજરાતી)
– Hindi keyboard (हिंदी)
– Kannada keyboard (ಕನ್ನಡ)
– Malayalam keyboard (മലയാളം)
– Marathi keyboard (मराठी)
– Odia keyboard (ଓଡ଼ିଆ)
– Punjabi keyboard (ਪੰਜਾਬੀ)
– Tamil keyboard (தமிழ்)
– Telugu keyboard (తెలుగు)

On your phone, if you can read your language in its native script above, you may install and use Google Indic Keyboard to input your language; otherwise your phone may not support your language.
Google Indic Keyboard supports different modes of input:
– Transliteration mode – Get output in your native language by spelling out the pronunciation using English letters (For example, “namaste“ -> “नमस्ते“.)
– Native keyboard mode – Type directly in native script.
– Handwriting mode (currently available for Hindi only) – Write directly on your phone screen.
– Hinglish mode – If you choose “Hindi” as an input language, the English keyboard will suggest both English and Hinglish terms.

8. Naver Papago – AI Translator

Whenever you need translation during your travels, business trips or while studying a language just bring Papago, a smart parrot who can translate multiple languages for you.
▶ What does ‘Papago’ mean?
In Esperanto, Papago refers to a parrot, a bird with language abilities.
Papago supports 13 languages : Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified/Traditional), Spanish, French, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Russian, German and Italian.
▶ Main features
1) Text Translation
Real-time text translation for phrases and words
2) Image Translation
Automatic recognition and translation of text in the image by taking a picture and pressing the button
3) Voice Translation
Real-time voice translation to both text and audio
4) Offline translation
Can translate even in offline
5) Conversation Translation
Simultaneously speak in each other’s language when talking one-on-one with a foreigner
6) Handwriting Translation
Handwriting translation that finds the correct word and translation when you write using your finger
7) Website Translation
Automatic translation for all content when you include the URL of a foreign website
8) Papago Mini
Automatic in-screen translation by Papago Mini when you copy the text in any application
9) Dictionary
Dictionary information provided to check additional meanings other than initial translation results
10) Global Conversation
Basic expressions available without a network connections
Be confident anytime, anywhere with your translating partner Papago!

September 15, 2021
Razorpay acquires TERA Finlabs, bags third firm in under 3 years

One of the sectors of the economy which could function during the lockdown which was imposed because of the spread of pandemic was the Fintech sector. This sector had been working continuously and many startups like Razorpay, paytm, etc. have been coming up in this area. Currently, there are more than 2,000 fintech companies operating in the country, with 67% of them being introduced in the last five years. It is expected that the fintech industry in India will reach USD 150- USD 160 billion by 2025. The year 2015-2020 has seen tremendous growth in the fintech industry with the introduction and spread of digital payments, lending, and wealth segments.

The 10 leading startups in the Fintech industry of India are- Paytm, Lendingkart, MoneyTap, Razorpay, Policybazaar, Shiksha Finance, Instamojo, Pine Labs, ZestMoney, ePayLater. One of the startups on the list is Razorpay. The startup has turned unicorn on October 12, 2020, after receiving the funding of USD 100 million from GIC, and Sequoia India. The other participants of the round were Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, Y Combinator, and Matrix Partners. These are all the existing investors of the startup. This all led to the value of the startup going a little beyond USD 1 billion and thus, entering the golden unicorn club.

Razorpay:

The startup has come in the news for the acquisition it has made. Razorpay, as announced on July 19, 2021, has acquired TERA Finlabs, which is an AI-based risk technology SaaS platform. The amount for which the acquisition has been made has not been disclosed. This acquisition is the third one made by the company since its attempt into the B2B SME lending space with the launch od Razorpay Capital in 2019.

This acquisition will help the Razorpay to use the technological capabilities of TERA Finlabs, and then help the credit needs of over 10,000 businesses in the country by the next year.

Razorpay is a fintech startup that has the purpose of accepting, distributing, and processing money for small businesses through an online medium. This idea stuck into the minds of the founders when they realised the basic problem faced by the small businessmen, which was to accept the payments online. It was started in 2014 by the alumni of IIT Roorkee, Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar.

The startup has now become the leading startup in the fintech industry which works towards serving as the payment provider for the small business. The Bengaluru based startup had also turned a unicorn in October 2020, and is in severe competition with PayU, which is engaged in working towards accepting payments from various sources like UPU, credit cards, debit cards, and mobile wallets. The big names which come under the client list of Razorpay are- Cred, Oyo, Facebook, Flipkart, Swiggy, Zomato, Yatra, Goibibo, Byjus’, Zilingo, ICICI, and Airtel.

The startup before this acquisition has also acquired an AI company which helps in reducing Return- to Origin Fraud looses in e-commerce, ThirdWatch in 2018, and a payroll management software company, Opfin in 2019. The startup has the aim to process around USD 25 billion transactions for 10 million customers in the year 2021, and has the mission to serve 50 million businesses by 2025.

TERA Finlabs is a Bengaluru based Risk technology company that offers customized credit offerings, in order to make lending more affordable for customers and profitable for lenders. It is the Indian subsidiary of a leading UK digital lender, GAIN Credit.

The CEO and the co-founder of Razorpay made a statement saying that the team at TERA Finlabs has undoubtedly a lot of knowledge in underwriting and risk management. He further said that he and his team has seen exceptional core lending infrastructure capabilities in the team of TERA Finlabs.

The co-founder and CEO of TERA Finlabs said that he is excited that the strengths of both the companies Razorpay and TERA Finlabs will be coming together to make sure that the small businesses are no more burdened by the short term uncertainty. He even said that the platform of the company will help small businesses in making scalable and profitable credit businesses.

The two companies are a big name and now let us wait and watch what wonders they will bring when they start working together.

Edited by Tanish Sachdev

July 21, 2021
The future of AI and ML in India shines bright. Here’s a list of the Top 10 India-based AI startups.

AI and ML

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been used across industries and these techniques are efficiently solving complicated real-world issues. Presently, almost 10% of the enterprises use more than 10 Artificial Intelligence applications which range from a chat-bot, fraud identifier, and cybersecurity among others.

In recent times, the Indian start-up atmosphere has witnessed a huge upheaval. The nation has fought its way and established a position among the top 10 countries worldwide that have received millions of funding for Artificial Intelligence and ML-based start-ups in the previous year itself. These start-ups are stealing the show through their unique innovative ideas and excellent service.

These start-ups owe their success to several factors including hefty funding, out-of-the-box ideas, smooth technology, and a massive home market. Some market reports have pointed out that from 3000 start-ups in 2014, the number has expanded to a remarkable 11000 in just six years! The coronavirus has set new goals for the emerging youth and it has taught us the ‘new normal, a number of start-ups are inclined on developing AI-based medical applications that would come to rescue in the near future.

Data and Artificial Intelligence services are hoped to expand India’s economic growth in a huge way. According to the data served by NASSCOM, Artificial Intelligence and data will be contributing around $500 billion to India’s GDP which is almost 10% of the Government’s dream of a $5 trillion economy. India’s Artificial Intelligence start-up atmosphere has a brilliant future with one-of-its-kind solutions to areas such as smart farming, screening of cancer, and others. With approximately 5,00,000 people working in this sector, the future of AI/ML in India looks promising.

Here’s a list of the top 10 Artificial Intelligence start-ups in India

1. NIRAMAI Health Analytics

Bengaluru-based Software Company is dedicated to detecting breast cancer at an early stage. With 1 out of every 12 women having the risk of breast cancer, NIRAMAI promises to detect the disease at an early stage which is crucial to decrease mortality. Their imaging technique is radiation-free, non-touch, non-painful, and suitable for women of all ages. The company claims that their technology can be used in hospitals for regular check-ups and can also be used in screening breast abnormalities on a large scale in rural and semi-urban areas.

2. Haptik.ai

Mumbai-based Indian enterprise conversational Artificial Intelligence software, Haptik took birth in 2013. It is a software that enables us to converse with technological devices and applications in a free format, natural language, and even through text! This software serves different brands globally and in different industries such as financial, healthcare, insurance, technology, and communications. In 2019, Reliance Industries India limited acquired the company.

3. Discover.ai

The Pune-based start-up is all set to decrease costs, improve revenue, and enhance the ROI of enterprises by using a blend of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) Technology. Discover.ai builds an enterprise-friendly conversational Artificial Intelligence platform that would reduce service calls and enhance the adoption of Apps.

4. Niki.ai

Bengaluru-based Artificial Intelligence Start-up Company, that has produced their Artificial Intelligence-powered personal assistant, named Niki. It presents a chat-based natural language interface that allows people to interact in their natural language and Niki deciphers the language, understands how Indians converse in their language, following which it comes up with a solution or an apt recommendation.

5. Doxper

As claimed by the Mumbai-based Start-up, it is used ‘wherever pen touches the paper in healthcare’. The Artificial Intelligence-based technology allows clinicians to digitize case sheets using a digitized pen and encoded paper. Quality care of patients starts with preserving patient histories carefully, Doxper comes to the rescue in instantly digitizing patient case histories.

6. Cropin

Bengaluru-based Agri-Tech Company is all set to provide holistic solutions to the problems faced by today’s farmers. It provides future-ready solutions to modern problems and thereby maximizes productivity by reducing the cost of operations. Cropin promises to deliver cutting-edge solutions for every stakeholder in the field through their Artificial Intelligence and ML-based technology. The company is driven by its mission to maximize per acre value and to make every farm traceable.

7. Bash.ai All set to rock the corporate world in the field of HR, BASH uses Artificial Intelligence and chat-bot to address the problems faced by the employees. The HR is responsible for addressing queries, replying to emails and notifications manually, and currently, the software or technologies used in the HR facilitate only non-employee-facing activities. This technology can bring a revolution in the Corporate world by improving the employee experience as it facilitates interaction between HR and the employees. They can now just chat and get a solution!

8. Intello Lab

Using AI/ML to automatically analyze the standard of freshness within the produce. It aims to extend transparency within the supply chain and to cut back the chance of wastage.
9. Vernacular.ai

Their product, VIVA helps accelerate engagement strategy and utilizes leading-edge speech recognition and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) technology. It provides the simplest engagement possible. it’s an intelligent, multilingual platform that will help automate up to 80% of center operations. With 100,000+ hours of coaching data, VIVA has been deployed to assist enterprises to boost customer stickiness and loyalty through a deep understanding of the customer’s context and intent.

10. SigTuple

Bengaluru-based Indian start-up, SigTuple combines computer science, robotics, and data science to make smart screening solutions, to create healthcare accurately, accessible, and affordable. SigTuple is building a healthier India with quality healthcare, delivered by empowered providers, to ensure standardization and scalability of cutting-edge innovations in supplying.

June 4, 2021
Millions of Americans Have become unemployed because the pandemic has accelerated the trend to substitute humans with machines

With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic last year, bosses of many have randomly called them one fine morning to tell them not to come to work the next day. Many a time, people have lost their jobs because to protect their health, their job and only source of livelihood has been automated. The technology has taken over their occupation, leaving them unemployed. For instance, in Northern California the positions of about 185 toll collectors were replaced by automation at bridges.
The background
For decades, machines have made workers redundant. Weavers were replaced by spinning jennies, elevator operators were replaced by keys, and travel agents were driven out of operation by the Internet. According to one report, between 1990 and 2007, about 400,000 workers in American factories were lost due to automation. However, as businesses seek to prevent COVID-19 infections in the workplace and keep operating costs down, the trend to substitute humans with machines is accelerating. At the height of the pandemic, the United States lost about 40 million jobs, and although some have now returned, others will never do so. According to one association of analysts, 42 percent of the positions lost are gone forever.
As businesses shift from survival mode to finding out how to survive as the pandemic drags on, the substitution of humans with machines will pick up steam in the coming months. According to a recent paper published by economists at MIT and Boston University, robots could replace up to 2 million more jobs in manufacturing by 2025. According to Daniel Susskind, a fellow in economics at Balliol College, University of Oxford, and author of A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Can React, this pandemic has provided a very strong desire to automate human beings’ work.
Machines do not get sick, do not need to separate themselves to shield their peers, and do not need to take off.
This latest surge of automation, like so much else in the pandemic, would be more difficult for people of color, such as Collins, and low-wage jobs. According to McKinsey, many Black and Latino Americans work as cashiers, food-service workers, and customer-service agents, which are among the 15 occupations most at risk from automation. Well before the pandemic, a major consultancy firm predicted that by 2030, as many as 132,000 black jobs in the United States will be displaced due to technology.

Increased used of Robots due to the pandemic
As a result of the coronavirus, robots were quickly deployed. They were washing floors at airports and taking people’s temperatures all of a sudden. Hospitals and colleges used Sally, a salad-making robot developed by the tech firm Chowbotics, to replace dining-hall employees; malls and stadiums purchased Knightscope security-guard robots to police vacant real estate, and businesses that produce in-demand products such as hospital beds and cotton swabs switched to industrial robot provider Yaskawa America to help boost productivity. Companies closed call centers that employed human customer-service agents in favor of chatbots developed by technology company LivePerson or AI network Watson Assistant. “I believe this is a new normal–the pandemic hastened what might have happened anyway,” says Rob Thomas, senior vice president of cloud and data platform at IBM, which uses Watson. Between March and June, about 100 new clients began using the program.
Problem with rising popularity of automation and artificial intelligence
Theoretically, automation and artificial intelligence are supposed to free people from risky or tedious jobs, make businesses more profitable, and raise employee salaries. And automation was used in the past with time to move workers into new positions. Many that have lost employment will be retrained, maybe using discount pay and unemployment insurance to pursue work in a different sector. The transformation this time abruptly took place as employers concerned about COVID-19 and hurried to replace employees with machinery or software. No time for retraining. Companies were concerned that their result would lead them to free jobs and these workers could discover opportunities to master new skills on their own.
In the past, the United States reacted by engaging in education to technological change. When automation transformed agricultural employment radically in the late 1800s and the 1900s, access to public schools was increased. The GI bill, which sent 7.8 million veterans to school from 1944 to 1956, extended access to schools during World War II. But since then, American investment in education has slowed, burdening workers themselves with paying for it. And the notion of school in the United States is all about young employees’ college rather than retraining.
The solutions
Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brooking’s Institution, says the actual automation crisis is not so much a robot catastrophe. It is business as usual for people to retrain and can’t get it in an open, reliable, data-driven, well-educated manner. Since they lack guidance counselors, classrooms, and other features found in offline schools, online learning services may have comparatively affordable upskilling opportunities. However, employers could play a larger role in providing such support systems in the future. Dalporto, who refers to COVID-19’s surge of automation as “our commercial Pearl Harbor,” believes that the government should provide a $2,500 tax refund to businesses who provide retraining. He also advises that $1,500 in retraining credits be included in employer severance payments.
Some businesses are moving to Guild Education, which collaborates with businesses to subsidize upskilling. Guild introduced a scheme in May that allows employers to pay a premium to have Guild help laid-off employees in seeking new employment. According to Rachel Carlson, CEO of Guild, employers see this as a way to build trust among these former workers. She claims that the most thoughtful consumer companies mean, employee for now can be converted into a customer forever.
Staff and employers do not see any value in preparing for positions that may not be open for months or even years when the workforce is 30 million jobs short of what it was before the pandemic. And not every employee is involved in learning about data analytics, cloud computing, or AI.
Therefore, it is of supreme importance for employers to be a little more sensitive towards their employees and not blindly follow the most profitable pathways. On the same note, the youth and job-seekers should constantly focus on keeping themselves up-to-date by regularly working and improving their existing skill sets, learning new ones and match up with the dynamic needs of the business environment.

April 21, 2021
Artificial Intelligence Rounds Up To Take Control Of Our Shopping List As A Survey Suggests This Power Is Subconsciously Alluring Us To Buy More Products

Initially, employing the reliability cards we filter at checkouts, and to an ever-increasing extent, so from our online bins, our shopping propensities are not, at this point a mystery. In any case, presently more retailers are utilizing AI (computerized reasoning) – programming frameworks that can find out on their own – to attempt to consequently anticipate and support our unmistakable inclinations and buys more than ever. Retail expert Daniel Burke, of Blick Rothenberg, calls this “the sacred goal… To develop a profile of clients and propose an item before they understand it is the thing that they needed”. The shopping records we used to jot on the rear of an envelope are progressively definitely known by the general stores we incessant.

So, whenever you run into your neighborhood shop to purchase certain tidbits and a specific wine on a Friday night, maybe you can accuse AI and a PC that has taken in about you, in the choice. Will Broome is the author of Ubamarket, a UK firm that makes a shopping application that permits individuals to pay for things by means of their telephones, make records, and swap items for fixings and allergens. “Our Artificial Intelligence structure tracks people’s very own lead guidelines instead of their purchases, and the more you shop the more the AI ponders what kinds of things you like,” he says. “The Artificial Intelligence module is arranged not only to do the obvious stuff, notwithstanding, it learns as it comes and gets hopeful. It can start to gather a picture of the way that you are so obligated to endeavor a substitute brand, or to buy chocolate on a Saturday.”

Likewise, it can offer what he calls “hyper-modified offers”, as more affordable wine on a Friday night. Ubamarket has endeavored to persuade the UK’s most prominent business sectors to grasp the application, so it has rather done game plans with more unobtrusive convenience shop chains in the UK including Spar, Co-activity, and Budgens, stores not usually associated with hi-tech. Take-up of the application remains low yet it is creating, partly as a result of the Covid pandemic, which has made people more reluctant to contact works or stay in the lines. “With the application, we have found that the typical substance of a bushel is up 20%, and people with the application are on various occasions bound to re-appearance of the shop in that store,” says Mr. Broome.

A Berlin fire up in Germany called SO1 is doing comparable things with its AI framework for retailers. It asserts that multiple times a greater number of individuals purchase AI-proposed merchandise than those offered by customary advancements, in any event, when the limits are 30% less. Getting offers on products that you really should purchase instead of arbitrary coupons is incredible for customers. In any case, Jeni Tennison, who heads up the UK’s Open Data Institute, a body that crusades against the abuse of information, stays careful about the tremendous measures of data on individuals that is being gathered. “Individuals are glad to be suggested items, however, begin to feel more awkward when they are being bumped, or controlled, into specific purchases dependent on an exaggeration of who they are as opposed to the full unpredictability of their character,” she says.

Also, she adds that there are greater cultural inquiries raised by the utilization of AI in retail.

“We have to ask how impartial and moral the information assortment is. Along these lines, for instance, are working-class white ladies being offered cash off new vegetables, yet it isn’t being offered to somebody who could truly profit by it?” Says Ms. Tennison. “What we truly need to comprehend is the thing that sway information assortment and profiling has on various areas of society. Is it profiling individuals dependent on race, social monetary status, sexuality?” Online Goliath Amazon is no more odd to information assortment. It has tremendous measures of data on its clients from their online buys, and by means of its items, for example, Ring doorbells and Echo speakers. It is presently making a move into actual retailing, with blocks, and-mortar shops stuffed brimming with AI-supported PC vision innovation.

It implies that in its Amazon Go markets, at present ready for action at 27 areas in the US, individuals can shop with no collaboration with a human or a till. They basically swipe their cell phones on the scanner when they enter the market, get what they need to purchase, and afterward leave. The AI is watching obviously and sends you a bill toward the end. The main Amazon Go stores were little destinations, as a result of the cost of the sensors and gear required, however, the organization is slowly extending to bigger stores. Amazon is likewise taking a shot at tech for markets that would prefer not to retrofit their stores with such expenditure frameworks. This is the place where its Dash Cart arrives, a general store streetcar that is pressed with sensors to recognize and gather all that you put in.

In the Los Angeles store where it is being tried, it has an exceptionally fast track to look at, without the requirement for a human. Another US retailer, Kroger, is exploring different avenues regarding savvy racks fitted with LCD shows that the shaft contextualized content intended to draw clients towards them. Some presentation offers and customized content by interfacing by means of Bluetooth to dependability applications for telephones. More than 75% of enormous retailers around the globe either have AI frameworks presently set up or plan to introduce them before the year’s end, as per research bunch Gartner. Its expert Sandeep Unni says the worldwide pandemic has quickened this pattern since it has significantly changed customer propensities.

“Individuals alarm purchased, and zeroed in on basic as opposed to trivial merchandise, which thusly encouraged a tremendous flexibly interest irregularity,” he says. “This implied that we saw racks getting unfilled, and request determining was out of nowhere not working.” US firm Afresh makes AI-based gracefully frameworks for general stores to help the best arrangement for what stock levels are required. Once again, originator, Matt Schwartz says that staff needs to show the AI frameworks key functions in the schedule, for example, the ongoing Halloween. “Truly assessing things like occasions [and other events] has been probably the greatest test for AI,” he says. “[And] we can’t completely mechanize away the people. The AI may recommend 20 instances of pumpkins for October, and the people can change that if they have to.”

November 9, 2020
85-Year-Old Heritage Building ‘Strolls’ To A New Location with Robotic Legs In Shanghai As China’s Growing Robotic Technology On The Way To Overtake Human Labors

Now in 2020, we can expect the erratic. So, would you be able to envision gigantic structures strolling around? All things considered, that is excessively far, however, that is the thing that the inhabitants in Shanghai’s eastern Huangpu area saw at the solid beginning of October. In a fantastic utilization of innovation, an 85-year-old school working in China was moved to another area utilizing mechanical ‘legs’. The Lagena Primary School was moved from its area to make space for another business and office complex. The migration was an uncommon sight as it utilized a “mobile machine” innovation. Video of the school building seeming to walk has been shared on the web and it is currently circulating the web.

The Lagena Primary School was underlying in 1935 and it must be moved to make space for new plug development. Yet, the movement didn’t include any damage to the five-story building. So, specialists from a development organization fitted the enormous structure with 198 automated gadgets that worked as its “legs”. They were fitted with wheels which permitted the development of this 7,600-ton building smooth! The structure was effectively moved on October 15. Video of the apparently “strolling” building was shared on the web and it has wondered everybody.

Laborers burrowed around the structure to introduce these backings underneath. It took around 18 days to move the structure to its new area and now remodel take a shot at it is in progress. According to writes about CNN, it is set to turn into a middle for legacy insurance and social schooling. According to reports, this is the first run through such a “mobile machine” method that was utilized in moving a development. It is undoubtedly a work of astonishing designing abilities.

China’s growing robotic technology, which is likely to replace human workers:

As of late, China’s focal organizers have been advancing robotization as an approach to fill the work hole. They have guaranteed liberal appropriations — to be given out by nearby governments — to smooth the path for Chinese organizations both to utilize and manufacture robots. In 2014, President Xi Jinping required a “robot revolution” that would change first China, and afterward the world. “Our nation will be the greatest market for robots,” he said in a discourse of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, “yet can our innovation and assembling limit adapt to the opposition? In addition to the fact that we need to update our robots, yet we likewise need to catch markets in numerous spots.” The walk of the machines, in China as well as around the globe, has been quickened by sharp falls in the cost of mechanical robots and a consistent expansion in their abilities. Boston Consulting Group, an administration consultancy, predicts that the cost of modern robots and their empowering programming will drop by 20% throughout the following decade, while their presence will improve by 5 percent every year.

Liu Hui, a business person in his forties, is benefiting as much as possible from China’s robot blast. In 2001, when he opened his first production line in Foshan, a mechanical city of 7,000,000 individuals in Guangdong, he began making thump offs of electric fans. As his business developed, he moved to real assembling, delivering parts for Chinese home machine brands. At that point, in 2012, recognizing an open door in a developing business sector, he hopped into the rising universe of advanced mechanics. Liu currently imports mechanical arms from providers, for example, the Swedish-Swiss aggregate ABB, and sells them on to Chinese makers, helping them incorporate the machines into their creation lines. It is a profoundly specific business. The vast majority of his clients are segment creators who flexibly engines and different parts of huge Chinese home-apparatus brands, for example, Midea and Galanz, which produce climate control systems, fridges, and then some.

The business has extended so rapidly in the previous year that Liu needs more space in his plant for all the apparatus he is collecting. He needs to store parts intended to help a $23,000 ABB robot under a shoddy shelter outside. “Things are evolving quickly,” he says. “The expense of work is rising each year, and the youngsters would prefer not to deal with the creation line as their folks did, so we need machines to supplant them.” The cliché picture of China’s production lines can even now be found in numerous spots: a huge number of individuals in long queues slouched over sewing machines or opening parts into a printed circuit board. Yet, that method of assembling is beginning to be supplanted by a more blended picture: mostly computerized creation lines, with human laborers scattered at a couple of central issues.

In the interim, China is building up its own robot creators. In September a year ago, Ningbo Techmation, a Shanghai-recorded maker of apparatus for the plastics business, dispatched an auxiliary, E-Deodar, making robots that are 20-30 percent less expensive than those created by global organizations, for example, ABB, Germany’s Kuka, or Japan’s Kawasaki. The E-Deodar processing plant in Foshan, with its bistro, relax zone, and open-plan creation line, looks more like the workplaces of a Silicon Valley tech fire up than a Chinese mechanical workhorse. “Our worldwide adversaries are truly adept at making robots yet their expenses are higher and they are not very great at understanding the necessities of nearby clients,” says Zhang Hong Lei, the organization’s kid, spiky-haired specialized chief.

“The cost of labor is rising and young people don’t want to work on the production line as their parents did” – Liu Hui, a Chinese entrepreneur

China itself isn’t insusceptible to the negative outcomes of mechanization. In excess of 40% of its 1.4 billion population actually live in the open country, numerous in neediness, having profited just possibly from the metropolitan monetary wonder. However, the legislature is wagering that the advantages of advancing front line assembling will exceed the harm from the potential positions lost. The mechanical technique reported by Beijing a year ago — known as Made in China 2025 — is planned not exclusively, to improve the innovative capacity of its production lines yet in addition to help the advancement of Chinese brands universally. Chow, the HSBC expert, says that as Chinese organizations attempt to expand their fares to ease the effect of the homegrown stoppage, they are probably going to zero in additional on the nature of their items: “Frequently some portion of that improvement is a superior creation measure, including advanced mechanics.” Every year, the measure of time it takes for an organization’s interest in a robot to pay off — known as the “recompense period” — is narrowing pointedly, making it more appealing for little Chinese organizations and workshops to put resources into computerization. The restitution period for a welding robot in the Chinese car industry, for example, dropped from 5.3 years to 1.7 years somewhere in the range of 2010 and 2015, as indicated by estimations by examiners at Citi. By 2017, the recompense time frame is a gauge to a therapist to simply 1.3 years.

As China and other mechanical pioneers construct more and better robots, the assignments they can take on will grow. Butchery, for instance, was for quite some time considered such expertise that machines would battle to create, as a result of the requirement for cautious hand-eye co-appointment and the control of non-uniform pieces of meat. However, Sirkin has watched robots eliminated the excess of meat considerably more effectively than people, on account of the utilization of less expensive and more responsive sensors. “It’s getting financially doable to utilize machines to do this since you spare another 3 or 4 percent of the meat — and that is worth very much on a creation line, where you can move rapidly. “There are things that people can show improvement over robots,” he adds. “Yet, they are getting less and less.”

November 3, 2020
Why Amuleek Singh of ChaiPoint is betting big on its SaaS and AI foray

Tea café chain ChaiPoint brewed its success story by focusing on retail outlets and IOT-based vending machines, primarily in tech parks. Launched in 2010, the company claims it sold close to 0.6 million cups of tea a day in 2020 across all its channels (before the COVID-19), including stores, delivery, dispensers, and the direct-to-consumer business.
Founder Amuleek Singh Bijral started his company as a F&B outlet, ventured into delivery, and launched their own brand of tea on ecommerce channels.
In 2016, he entered the vending machine market and scaled to 3,500 dispensers across the country. Over a decade, he built his brand that generates revenues of Rs 190 crore per year, and saw a 37 percent growth in sales in FY20.

But the going hasn’t been easy for the F&B startup in the time of COVID-19. Only 92 of the 175 ChaiPoint outlets across India are open, and revenues are likely to be hammered.

Amuleek now has a new game plan and is taking Chai Point down a new path: SaaS.
Over the last four years, Amuleek and his 1250-member team, 40 of them in technology, have built the company into a technology business with their AI-based platform called Fountain.
The brand has been experimenting with its SaaS platform with three large F&B companies, providing them an operating system to run their business. It handles everything: from billing to supply chain and inventory and frees up the entrepreneur to focus on customer service and the food.
This initiative – a foray into a SaaS business model – is going to be a big bet for Amuleek.

Why the SaaS foray?

Data reveals the need for technological intervention in the F&B industry.
The sector encompasses 2.2 million restaurants, but most are highly unorganised. Only five percent use any form of end-to-end technology from billing to warehouse management and inventory to vendor management.

“The F&B business is complex; it is practically impossible for an entrepreneur to scale up by managing everything along with the product. We realised that with our knowledge of these systems we can work with entrepreneurs to help them build their business,” Amuleek says.

According to Amuleek, there is no beta version of the product that he can deploy at multiple restaurants, adding that he is taking his time because he believes “such a product can help restaurant owners thrive beyond just that one physical channel of sales they operated with”.
On being asked why the F&B operator chose to take this step, he said software companies routinely sell tools to entrepreneurs, who soon realise that technology becomes an impediment to growth as it “does not understand the complexity of the business”.
“With our product, you tap our knowledge to grow your business,” he says.
Amuleek knows what he is talking about.
During the first three months of the COVID-19 it had reduced his overall business by 60 percent. However, as of August 27, Amuleek claims that the business is back to pre-COVID levels.

“Today, an F&B entrepreneur cannot operate with only one channel of sales. We have gone through this journey. We are now a restaurant, a cloud kitchen, we sell on food tech aggregator platforms, we are a brand with our single-origin teas sold on Amazon, we have the vending machine business built on Android, and we encompass all our supply chain experience to serve these functions with our own software,” Amuleek says.

The F&B business is a dynamic one with cuisines and diet preferences evolving rapidly. The operational complexity is daunting because of external factors. Most businesses have multiple partners and reconciliation of payments can become a nightmare.
The future of F&B is in data, and Amuleek believes that the entrepreneur should be able to focus on the product and customer service instead of managing inventory and worrying about rent escalations.
“It has taken us so much time to tie in all our learnings. Now, we need to share what we have learnt with the industry. Entrepreneurs passionate about the F&B business should not have to deal with software needs and demands. They need a partner,” Amuleek says.

ChaiPoint’s different business streams have led to learnings from its proprietary technology, the Fountain operating system (formerly called Shark). This OS was a point-of-sale system built on top of Android in its vending machines. The tech helped in tracking, placing orders, collecting payments, capturing customer information, and managing the supply chain.
It was only logical that ChaiPoint decided to take this technology to the two million restaurants across India and several more across the world. A small team is building this and meeting clients to understand how they can better the product for the F&B business.
ChaiPoint will soon make the product available at a low cost. The business model will be based on a success metric fee-based model, with outlets paying only when they see impact.

The tech journey

The back story to Amuleek’s technology play goes back a decade to when the company was founded.
Before 2016, ChaiPoint used only Excel sheets. Between 2010 and 2014, it ran manual systems – runners went to each outlet and collected bills for reconciliation, which were then manually put on Excel Sheets.
When the company hit the 20-outlet mark, Amuleek realised they had to move beyond Excel Sheets and focus on technology. He could have brought in technology partners but chose not to.

“We did not want to rush into software. I did not want to buy external software that commanded the shots. I studied the process for six years and wanted the business to define the technology strategy. We built each and every process ourselves,” he says.

Often asked to focus on the core business instead of dabbling in technology, he said he was glad he took the route because “it made us take decisions from the ground up rather than lead our strategy with technology”.
“We were able to build billing, sales, inventory, warehousing, supply chain, and delivery modules, and are now a full-stack F&B technology company,” he states.
This approach to building technology streamlined operations and helped ChaiPoint scale – it grew to 175 stores, opened 120 cloud kitchens, and built a D2C business. Today, all its businesses – be it vending machines, which has 3,500 corporate customers, D2C, restaurants, cloud kitchens, delivery, and sourcing of inputs – are based on consumption data.
Over the last 10 years, Amuleek’s business has gone from Rs 88 crore in FY18 to Rs 138 crore in FY19 to Rs 190 crore now, representing a 37 percent growth in the top line. The company is yet to break even.
The tea startup’s technology enables it to plan its next steps based on consumption and carefully match supply.
This is a tough year for every entrepreneur with experts saying that 40 percent of all F&B businesses will shut down.

“The F&B game is changing fast. We were impacted by demonetisation, GST, and now COVID-19. But, each problem was an opportunity to embark on a digital journey. The pandemic will accelerate this process. F&B players need to embrace a multi-channel strategy and focus on contactless. The only way they can do that is to define their business strategy and embrace technology,” Amuleek says.

ChaiPoint’s Saas product gives the business a single view of sales, supply chain, inventory management, and managing purchases.

The move to intelligent systems

The company’s vending machines, called boxC.in, are IoT-enabled and equip tea and coffee dispensers with smart devices connected to the Cloud. The Fountain platform is a machine learning and AI engine that predicts demand and helps in inventory planning and management of the F&B business.

“Today, our vending systems can make customised coffee or tea. All we have to do is recognise the individual at the vending machine, and we can tailor-make coffee or tea with just an update in the software,” Amuleek says.

While this idea is still on the drawing board, ChaiPoint’s current Android-based machines, 3,500 in number, are already intelligent. The idea while entering the vending business two years ago was to disrupt a market used to premixes.
ChaiPoint’s IoT and AI-based machine is built on Android, where the valve, gear, and pump are controlled by a tab inside the machine.

“If I change the recipe I change it over the applications; there is nothing that I do with mechanical systems. We are able to gauge how people enjoyed their tea and coffee. The machine is software-driven and we have integrated the supply chain for this business based on real-time demand,” he says.

This business model is a vending-as-a-service business where the corporate pays based on the weight of tea leaves or coffee they buy, the volume consumed, a combination, or both. The company also pays a security deposit and a monthly maintenance fee. The asset is owned by Chai Point.
However, a bulk of the company’s revenue comes from its F&B business. Its cloud kitchens have been holding ground amid COVID-19.
During the pandemic, Amuleek has worked with the government of Karnataka to create micro entrepreneurs under the Samriddhi Stores scheme. Eight small businesses are now using the intelligent vending machines.
The startup has raised $34 million from Eight Road, DSG, and Saama Capital.

In a world that’s focused on digitalisation, the bet on technology could be the best way ahead for ChaiPoint.

Source: Yourstory

August 31, 2020