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Actively exploited 0-days in Ivanti VPN are letting hackers backdoor networks

ArstechnicaArstechnica · 1y ago
Actively exploited 0-days in Ivanti VPN are letting hackers backdoor networks
Medial

Multiple zero-day vulnerabilities have been identified in Ivanti Connect Secure, a widely used virtual private network (VPN) appliance, allowing threat actors to bypass two-factor authentication and execute malicious code within targeted networks. Tracked as CVE-2023-846805 and CVE-2024-21887, these vulnerabilities have been actively exploited by unidentified threat actors. The compromised appliance was used to steal configuration data, modify files, download remote files, and gain unauthorized access to internal systems. Researchers suspect that a Chinese nation-state-level threat actor is behind the attacks. Mitigation measures are advised, as there is potential for widespread exploitation if the vulnerabilities are not addressed promptly.

D2C Insider hosts first Super Angels Founders Day in Gurugram

EntrackrEntrackr · 7m ago
D2C Insider hosts first Super Angels Founders Day in Gurugram
Medial

D2C Insider, a community for direct-to-consumer (D2C) startups, held its first Super Angels Founders Day at UrbanWrk, Gurugram. The event brought together founders of portfolio companies, investors from the Super Angels Fund, and others from the D2C ecosystem. The event focused on the progress of Super Angels Fund I, a Rs 25 crore fund launched in the previous year. Founders from companies such as Assembly, Basil, Business on Bot, Crest, Divine Hindu, Futwork, GoOat, Pikndel, Snackible, Samosa Party, Solved Skin, and Steam Pro shared business updates and engaged with their early-stage investors. Among the investors who attended were Rohit Bansal (Snapdeal), Hitesh Dhingra (The Man Company), Sumit Baid (KeraGain), Atul Bhakta (One World Group), Mohit Garg (Assembly), along with others. A session titled “The Operator Capital Revolution” featured Rohit Bansal and Hitesh Dhingra in conversation with Abhishek Shah of D2C Insider. They discussed communication between founders and investors and the role of experienced founders in supporting newer ones. Another discussion, “From Guts to Graphs,” brought together both investors and founders to examine startup evaluation and the fundraising experience from both perspectives. D2C Insider provides funding and support to early-stage D2C startups and has a network of over 10,000 founders. The Super Angels Fund, introduced in October last year, focuses on investments in consumer-focused startups.

Return Prime aims to make return management seamless for brands

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
Return Prime aims to make return management seamless for brands
Medial

Bengaluru-based Return Prime provides a customer return platform which includes a business dashboard for managing returns. The company aims to make it easier for brands, specially smaller ones, to use its services through a plug-and-play model. Beyond basic returns, brands can use the Return Prime platform for automating return logistics, refunds, replacements, and more. We spoke to founder and CEO Shashwat Swaroop to learn more about Return Prime, what distinguishes it from the competition and the roadmap ahead. Here are the edited excerpts: How did you come up with this idea? I have always been extremely passionate about creating something and solving problems, building my brand which helped other people solve their challenges was always something that I intended to do. Once an eCommerce brand came to me with their return management nightmare. They were doing everything manually and it was too cumbersome. It was not only time-consuming but was impacting their customer experience too. Customers were used to a certain speed, standards, and experience, and to ensure their shoppers wouldn’t leave them, they needed a solution to cater to this. But building a whole software program was just out of reach – both financially and in terms of time! I then began researching, and my study confirmed what I suspected – there was a massive gap in the market for managing returns. Existing solutions were few and far between, and mostly focused on the US. We saw a chance to empower brands worldwide to make return management extremely seamless, one that ensures their GMV losses are minimized while customer experience is maximized, that’s what led to the birth of Return Prime. Please help understand how you generate revenues. The pricing models are quite fair and simple. This was one of the most important things for us to simplify. When we started building Return Prime, we were simplifying the complicated experience of returns for both brands and their customers so keeping everything around Return Prime simple was important. The pricing model is just based on the scale of business which is how many returns they do in a given month. One can start with the Free Forever plan if they are a small brand and pay nothing forever. They only have to choose a paid plan when they start to grow. As you grow, you can choose one of our Grow plans which starts at $9.99 a month. What are the key challenges in the industry that have not been addressed yet? And how do you plan to address this? We are working to solve the way businesses see returns. The correct solution is not to focus on reducing the returns but on figuring out how you can turn your returns into a revenue-making opportunity. Returns are simply inevitable so the merit is not in reducing it by another few per cent but in converting the majority of it into additional revenue. We are constantly working on it and on average, our brands see an ROI of 183%+ with Return Prime, which is on the cost they pay for Return Prime every month. This is going up constantly with our focused effort to turn returns into revenue. How has your startup performed since its inception? Please share statistics. We have been growing from day 1, completely bootstrapped. We grew 150% YoY in the last 3 years and this is not just India, across the globe. We serve merchants in 100+ countries today and our market share across these countries continues to increase every year. In the last 3 years, we have processed over 12 million returns for brands and customers globally. What are your short-term and long-term goals in terms of product and business expansion and diversification? From a product expansion point of view, we are focused on increasing the ROI for our brands as we believe in keeping strong fundamentals. While we do this, we will continue to increase our market share across other regions as well along with India. As consumer behaviour evolves, we are also trying to help brands offer Omnichannel returns experiences to their customers making it super easy and delightful for them. This not only helps the customer but also increases the repeat purchase and LTV for brands as this customer will trust them even more. On the other hand, we are also trying to help bigger brands solve more complex operational problems and policies which now with Return Prime is just a matter of click. We will continue to simplify complexities as we grow along with brands. In terms of geographical expansion, we will go deeper into some of the regions and increase our market share while we continue to turn returns into revenue for the rest of the world.

Oziva records flat growth under Hindustan Unilever in FY24

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
Oziva records flat growth under Hindustan Unilever in FY24
Medial

D2C nutrition brand Oziva, which was acquired by FMCG giant Hindustan Unilever (HUL) in 2022, posted a flat scale during the fiscal year ending March 2024. Following a 20% decline in sales during FY23, the D2C nutrition brand posted a flat scale with a modest 4% increase to Rs 104 crore in FY24, the annual report of its parent company HUL shows. HUL said that Oziva recorded Rs 44 crore loss in the last fiscal year. In FY23, the firm registered a net profit of Rs 58.8 crore due to one-time gain of Rs 95.5 crore. However, if we exclude that other income, its losses stood at Rs 45.8 crore in FY23. This implies, Oziva’s scale and loss remained flat in the last financial year (FY24). It’s worth noting that it is the first full fiscal year for Oziva under Hindustan Unilever. The six-year-old D2C firm sells plant-based nutrition products for health, skin, hair, and general wellness. The sale of health and nutrition products was the sole revenue driver for the company. The company has raised around $17 million to date with the backing of Matrix Partners, Eight Road Ventures, and Stride Ventures. In December 2022, HUL acquired 51% stake in Oziva with the first tranche at a cash consideration of Rs 264.28 crore ($32 million). As per the annual report, Oziva was valued at Rs 361 crore ($43.5 million) using the multi-period excess earnings method. At the same time, HUL also acquired 19.8% of the stake in Wellbeing Nutrition for a cash consideration of Rs 70 crore. Founded by Avnish Chhabria, Wellbeing Nutrition is a whole-food nutrition company that uses plant-based ingredients to deliver wellness to individuals. The company is yet to disclose its FY24 results.

Indian cricketer Rinku Singh invests Rs 1.9 Cr in BeastLife at 120 Cr Valuation

EntrackrEntrackr · 8m ago
Indian cricketer Rinku Singh invests Rs 1.9 Cr in BeastLife at 120 Cr Valuation
Medial

Indian cricketer Rinku Singh invests Rs 1.9 Cr in BeastLife at 120 Cr Valuation Nutrition brand BeastLife has raised Rs 1.9 crore at the valuation of 120 crore from Indian cricketer Rinku Singh. Rinku chose to actively support its growth by investing in the company and using its platform to raise awareness about the importance of clean, reliable, and effective supplements within the athlete community, BeastLife said in a press release. The startup had previously raised $479K in an angel round. Co-founded in 2024 by Gaurav Taneja and Raj Vikram Gupta, BeastLife is an Indian fitness brand that operates as an online platform selling sports nutrition and bodybuilding supplements. The company aims to empower individuals to achieve their fitness goals and break boundaries. Its products include protein supplements, BCAA, creatine, and multi-vitamins. The Gurugram-based company also offers a roti protein mix to boost protein intake in everyday meals. The company's products are designed to provide a noticeable difference in absorption and results. Its other products, including the Pro Concentrate Whey Protein with Ultrasorb Tech, are built to support muscle recovery and overall performance, using carefully selected ingredients that meet the needs of modern athletes. BeastLife stands for something bigger than just supplements. It’s about creating the finest products with top-quality ingredients, backed by science and integrity. “What really drew me in was the brand’s vision to make world-class sports nutrition accessible in India. That’s something I believe in deeply and am proud to support,” said Rinku Singh. The brand's equity split includes Gaurav Taneja holding a 40% stake, Raj Gupta holding 15%, Varun Alagh, co-founder of Mamaearth, holding 30%, and 15% ESOP. The company faces competition from other fitness brands like MuscleBlaze, Optimum Nutrition, GNC, and The Whole Truth. In just over a year, the brand claims that it has achieved Rs 50 crore GMV with positive EBITDA and is currently tracking an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of ₹80 crore GMV while maintaining performance marketing costs at just 15%.

Qila aims to lead the charge for blockchain-as-a-service industry

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
Qila aims to lead the charge for blockchain-as-a-service industry
Medial

In India, the adoption of blockchain technology is steadily growing across various sectors, including finance, supply chain management, healthcare, and government services. As the Indian blockchain ecosystem continues to evolve, Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) is expected to play a significant role in driving innovation and digital transformation across various sectors. Qila, founded by Sid Ugrankar and Vishal Malhotra, aims to provide secure identity storage to enterprises using blockchain technology. They believe that their solutions could be a game-changer for enterprises. In a chat with CEO Ugrankar with Entrackr, he talks about the growth of BaaS in India, the challenges in implementation of the technology and the outlook of the industry. Here are some edited excerpts from the conversation. Please simplify what blockchain-as-a-service means. Please help us understand with an example of its application. A blockchain network is a group of machines that are able to communicate with each other using cryptography while storing the data in the form of a chain or ledger. The information is then distributed on different nodes within this network. It is very complicated to set up and manage a dedicated blockchain network as it takes a lot of effort to ensure that all the data is preserved. Blockchain as a service is where the platform is set up and managed by 1 single entity and being accessed by multiple users without the users having to set up their own blockchain network. This is similar to Email As A Service like Gmail or Infrastructure as a service like Amazon Web Services or Software as a service like Salesforce. What are the key services you provide? Our platform allows enterprises to integrate features of blockchain such as Smart Contracts and NFTs by buying a monthly subscription. The customer can buy a subscription for a shared service which is called Ark. With this subscription, the customer is provided with a dedicated channel but on a shared network setup. We also offer a dedicated network setup called Ark+. Here the customer is able to store their data on a dedicated network setup and is not sharing any resources with any other customer.vData is Smart Contracts, NFT tokens and their associated digital asset. Blockchain has been around for a while. Why has the technology not become mainstream yet? What do you think are the challenges in terms of its implementation? Blockchain came into prominence because of the explosive rise of Crypto and namely Bitcoin. But after the volatility of Crypto and NFTs, enterprises started to shy away from Cryptocurrency and blockchain was an unintended casualty. In addition to this, the recent scam of FTX and the Sam Bankman Fried controversy has worsened the sentiment towards blockchain. Blockchain association with Crypto has been the single most reason for not becoming mainstream. Blockchain is not an easy technology to set up and manage as well. Especially for the enterprise which is why they have to use a lot of Public networks such as Binance and Ethereum to implement their use cases. Using public networks is expensive as the cost of storing data on them, also known as gas fees, is very high. Private blockchain services, where a company sets up their own network, requires a lot of planning and is a software development approach where the effort outweighs the benefit. What is your outlook for the blockchain industry, especially in markets like India? My outlook for blockchain in India is not very good. This has a lot to do with the government’s stance on blockchain as a whole and its relationship with crypto currency. After applying a 30% blanket tax on crypto along with making crypto trading illegal, the government has been regressive by introducing regulations for new market opportunities such as real estate fractionalisation. This is the reason that many companies related to this field have moved to crypto friendly countries such as the UAE. What are your long-term and short-term plans in terms of business growth and product diversification? We want to make Qila.io the ubiquitous cloud offering for enterprise blockchain. To put this into perspective, we want to become the AWS for layer 3 blockchain. We are focusing on markets such as Europe middle and Africa and soon will venture into the east markets namely Singapore Thailand and Indonesia. By offering our out-of-the box tokenization solution PrivaSea, we want to drive blockchain adoption for real world use cases. We believe that blockchain will anchor the data world by providing privacy and provenance of data and will be the funnel for technologies such as AI. User consent will be the key driver for the internet of tomorrow. Qila Blockchain runs on the Qila Private Cloud and not AWS, Azure or GCP. We are busy extending this cloud in other markets as well so that data and information can be localized as per local laws.

XOBOX aims to tackle residential last-mile delivery hurdles

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
XOBOX aims to tackle residential last-mile delivery hurdles
Medial

Last-mile delivery hasn’t been perfect. Not that the likes of Dunzos of this world haven’t tried to address this. Recently, we saw Zomato experimenting with last-mile delivery through a unique concept of ‘walkers’ for corporate parks. Bengaluru-based XOBOX is one of the few startups that is trying to fix the last-mile delivery challenges especially for people living in urban areas. The company handles packages for residents in apartment complexes. Some of the features are securing the packages in smart lockers and dropping them to customers’ doorstep when they are back to their homes, and home delivery of essential items. We spoke to XOBOX founder and CEO Kiran Shivappa about his startup, what distinguishes it from the competition and the roadmap ahead. Here are the edited excerpts: How did you come up with this idea? I live in an apartment complex and even before the Covid deliveries were left scattered in front of the door and stray cats use to destroy especially milk packet which cause everyone to talk about it hours in community Whatsapp group, this made me think to find/adopt a solution to secure the deliveries when residents not able to receive it or may be they are not around. How does the platform work? Please help simplify the process. When we started the service, we started taking the request from residents to handle their packages and we coordinated with delivery guys to take the package, pay them if it is a COD [Cash on Delivery], and secure them in the locker until they come back, then we deliver it to their doorstep. We went one step ahead and made a contract with 3PL [Third-party logistics] and ecommerce companies to take every delivery coming to the society and our dedicated resources would hand them over to the residents, if the resident is not available then secure the package in the locker and hand it over once they come back. What are the key challenges in the industry that have not been addressed yet? And how do you plan to address them? Ecommerce companies have tried many solutions to optimize the last leg of the delivery process and achieved the Kirana model also, but they never got a chance to be inside the society exclusively and take care of the deliveries and achieve the customer delight to bring the most convenience to them in their package receiving time. We have dedicated resources inside each society to carefully handle the package and interact with residents and elderly people and become familiar to them so they feel comfortable to receive us at the doorstep at any time and feel secured as well. Industry major players tried to introduce the lockers but these lockers operate as a complete unmanned and fully automated, for this reason the adaptation was a big challenge and education was also a challenge. We adopted a 70/30 model where, way the lockers were built, operated and how people would feel easy to adopt this because the “30” percentage is the resources we introduced along with “70” percentage technology, our dedicated resource will work with all stake holders in the gated community to educate and make every one understand how to use the service. What are your short-term and long term goals in terms of product and business expansion and diversification? In the short term, we are looking to expand the service to 35 more gated communities in Bengaluru in 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2024 and then go to other cities. As far as long-term plans go, we are going to sign contracts with major ecommerce and 3PL companies to increase the volume in each society and serve the needs of elderly population in the community. We would want to reach 700-1000 gated communities and generate 150-180 cr annually.

No hurry to sell, indefinite horizon on Zomato holding: Sanjeev Bikhchandani

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
No hurry to sell, indefinite horizon on Zomato holding: Sanjeev Bikhchandani
Medial

Info Edge, India’s largest and most storied recruitment portal, has had a stellar run in the last three years with its portfolio company Zomato’s market cap surging almost 2.3X since its stock exchange debut. The firm’s bet on fintech unicorn Policybazaar is also paying off well. The company has made it clear it is in no hurry to book profits on these investments, even as it continues to nurse its own brands beyond Naukri to profitability. The firm, one of the few to survive the dotcom boom and bust cycle of 2000, has been led by founder and chairman Sanjeev Bikhchandani for a large part of this journey. And today, Bikhchandani has earned the right to be looked up to as the statesman for the sector. Entrackr caught up with Bikhchandani in his Gurugram office and he spoke on a range of topics including Naukri, Info Edge’s investments, serial entrepreneurs and corporate governance. Here are the edited excerpts. As a listed firm that carries a heavy overhang from its investment portfolio, does it worry you that it might impact the valuation of the core Naukri business? Not really. Institutional investors are smart. We give them adequate data so that they analyze Naukri thoroughly before making a conclusion about valuation. We don’t run Naukri for valuation every day or month or quarter. We look at how we create value for our shareholders in the long run. And that’s how we run our businesses. So, this hypothesis about our core or even group business doesn’t stand. Info Edge has been an investor in Zomato for over 14 years and despite the latter’s share price rising nearly 14o% from its listing price, Info Edge didn’t sell its shares. What level of return are you anticipating from Zomato? Actually, we don’t calculate Investment Return Rate (IRR). Info Edge invested in Zomato because of our conviction that it could become a great company. And if you are convinced about your conviction then it will happen. So, IRR is the happy incidental outcome of investing early behind companies that you want to help. That’s my belief. We are not in any hurry to sell and have an indefinite horizon. Every VC firm has a fund cycle and pressure to return capital to their limited partners but that’s not the case with Info Edge as you are investing from your own balance sheet. Could you elaborate on this? That pressure does not make this choice. We have a long term horizon and we call it patient capital. To be a successful early stage investor in India, you have to be quite patient because companies take anywhere between 10-15 years to go to IPO from seed stage. So if you have funds for only 6-10 years, you will not realize the full fruits of your investment. If you have a 20 year fund, you tend to perform better. However, such a horizon could be possible only when you’re investing from your own whole balance sheet. Do you believe that Blinkit could become bigger than Zomato? I think both are large but Blinkit is going to be fairly large. If we look at Zomato’s quarter-on-quarter numbers, online food ordering appears to have stagnated in top 10-15 cities. What’s your take on this? Obviously, there is the base effect. But, we don’t see stagnation. Also, you need to compare year-on-year, not quarter-on-quarter. When YoY numbers are compared, there is growth. I think full fiscal year performance is more important than quarter. We used to commonly hear about Naukri’s recruitment business that it was not the online presence, but your sales force or feet on the street that made the difference. Does that still hold true? Online sales have never been a big part of our strategy. When you want to sell more expensive products, you need face-to-face contact. At Naukri, we have clients whom we bill several crore rupees for annual subscription and such accounts need heavy offline touch. While the product will be consumed online, the stuff around it very often will be offline. Over the years, several players have tried to crack the recruitment business in the blue collar segment but most of them died. What are the challenges in the segment? Blue collar segment has broadly three challenges. First, it’s hyperlocal. The job seekers in this segment don’t move to different cities as they look for opportunities in and around their locality. Second, very often there isn’t a detailed text CV which makes the process slow and inefficient. Third, potential workforce in the segment do not search for jobs on the laptop and use vernacular languages. They are mostly on mobile. So you’ve got to adapt to all these things and still somehow get revenue and profit. We have been trying to get inroads in the blue collar segment for over two years now but we have just started monetizing it. Our future position in the segment depends on monetization. Some of the celebrated entrepreneurs are launching a second or third company without their first startup churning profit. How do you see this trend? I think this isn’t a progressive trend. As an entrepreneur, you need to focus on one thing and do really well. Once you’ve cracked that you can add on a second thing in the same company. Over the past couple of years, we have witnessed corporate governance issues with some startups. Even Info Edge saw serious lapses at 4B Networks. What’s your opinion about this? By and large, my belief is that 95-98% of Indian founders are genuine but there will be a few bad examples. Investors make sure that when something wrong happens in their portfolio, it is highlighted and actions are taken to ensure that such incidents do not repeat. Any governance issue isn’t good for anyone including limited partners, investors, founders and the startup ecosystem. What factors contributed to the lack of success with Info Edge’s e-commerce investments 99labels, MyDala, and Happily Unmarried? Limitation of raising foreign direct investment (FDI) and heavy investment into competition were two major reasons for failure of 99labels while MyDala had a product market fit (PMF) issue. Happily Unmarried is now a part of VLCC and we are still a shareholder there.

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