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The body behind the world's internet domains want to create something entirely new — and not for what you'd think

TechradarTechradar · 1y ago
The body behind the world's internet domains want to create something entirely new — and not for what you'd think
Medial

ICANN has proposed the creation of a new top-level domain (TLD) called .internal for private use within enterprises and device vendors. The move aims to enhance the security and stability of the global domain name system (DNS). ICANN, however, acknowledges that the .internal TLD might be confused for .int, a TLD reserved for intergovernmental treaty organizations. The organization is seeking community feedback before approving the creation of .internal. Operators using private namespaces like .internal should also consider the associated costs. The controlled TLDs could provide more controlled spaces for internal communication, services, and resources.

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Build for customers, not VCs

YcombinatorYcombinator · 3m ago
Build for customers, not VCs
Medial

It’s easy to analyze your way out of taking the first step. It’s something YC sees a lot, particularly when founders try to choose what to build based on what they think VCs will like. These founders will find a great problem that they could solve, only to convince themselves it’s not “venture scale.” Before they’ve written a line of code or even talked to a single person about it, they’re trying to predict market opportunities and exit strategies a decade down the road. That’s just not how early stage startups work. In this one, they talk about the risks of “thinking like a VC”, how to know when you’re stuck in this mindset, and how to unlearn it (spoiler: stop reading so much about who’s raising what.) They’ll also cover a short list of things that we’ve found actually matter when starting a company — it’s simpler than a lot of people think.

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.

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
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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.

SanchiConnect and YourNest invest in 8 startups under VAP

EntrackrEntrackr · 6m ago
SanchiConnect and YourNest invest in 8 startups under VAP
Medial

SanchiConnect, a deep-tech enablement network in partnership with YourNest Venture Capital, has invested Rs 48 crore (about $6 million) in eight transformative startups under its Velocity Accelerator Program. The program aims to nurture groundbreaking ideas and drive economic growth in the country’s startup ecosystem, SanchiConnect said in a press release. The seven-month-long program claims to have received 1,280 applications from 23 states and six union territories and eight startups were selected for their disruptive potential across various sectors such as manufacturing, logistics, agriculture, healthcare, enterprise solutions, and artificial intelligence. The eight selected startups such as Induz which leverages AI tools to automate and unify large-scale enterprise data, while LeanWorx offers cloud-based productivity monitoring systems for the manufacturing sector. Think Metal has developed a compact, cost-effective 3D metal printer that delivers 10x faster production at half the cost. Presage Insights uses advanced AI for predictive analytics to improve decision-making across industries. Superfone is an app-based business phone number platform for SMBs, integrating telephony with business software. CargoFL employs AI-powered logistics solutions to optimize supply chains and improve operational efficiency. Finally, a couple of other startups complete this exceptional cohort. The Velocity Accelerator Program offers startups a comprehensive growth platform. In addition to financial support, the program provides expert mentorship, go-to-market strategies, and access to industry leaders. The program equips startups with the necessary tools and insights to overcome challenges, scale effectively, and seize global opportunities. Founded in 2022, SanchiConnect aims to empower startups by focusing on key areas such as investor outreach, mentorship, and corporate networking. Its deep-tech community platform now features over 3,000 startups, investors, mentors, and corporates, all engaging in networking and learning through an interface. Launched in 2011, YourNest Venture Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm, specializing in deep-tech and enterprise-oriented startups. The firm focuses on identifying and nurturing disruptive technologies in domains such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Robotics, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, and cloud-based digital solutions.

POP helps D2C startups tackle customer acquisition and retention hurdles

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
POP helps D2C startups tackle customer acquisition and retention hurdles
Medial

A group of former Flipkart employees, led by Bhargav Errangi, is working to fix a big hurdle faced by D2C startups – acquiring new customers. Through their platform POP, the Bengaluru-based startup aims to build a vast pool of customers, who are preferably ecommerce savvy and drive sales through a reward currency. Conveniently called POPcoins, the reward currency is driven by the group’s learnings with Flipkart’s popular Supercoins. We spoke to the company founder and CEO Errangi to learn how the platform works, what makes it different from the competition, and future roadmap. Here are the edited excerpts: How does the platform work? Please help simplify the process. POP intends to create a network of e-commerce users which constitutes genZ and late millennials on the back of POPcoins. Brands participating in the POP network will get access to this network and can acquire and retain customers much more efficiently than the current modes of customer acquisition. Moreover, we have a SaaS product that is already being used by 120+ D2C brands. It is a simple Shopify plug-in that can be integrated within the brand website, which enables the brand to issue POPcoins and let customers redeem POPcoins on their purchases. Apart from that, POP will be launching a D2C e-marketplace which will house 500+ D2C brands and also its own UPI handle where users can earn 2% back in POPcoins on every transaction. Both these businesses will be launched within the same app platform, which is ready to be launched in May’24 What makes your platform unique? What sets us apart is the ability to merge two distinct worlds—bottom-up loyalty solutions and top-down co-branded credit cards. POP understands that to attract anchor brands to our network, we must offer a product that they genuinely value. The co-branded credit card approach not only differentiates us from competitors but also creates a symbiotic relationship between banks, anchor brands, and POP. How is it different from the likes of MagicPin? Also, please explain your fintech features. Very different, POP is focused on the D2C market. The redemption options of POPcoins will be focused on D2C brands. Within the world of D2C, POP aims to incentivise customers who are avid shoppers of D2C brands. These are users who think beyond the mainstream brands and want to stand out of the crowd with their lifestyle choices. Whereas Magicpin is a discounted voucher platform where a user can buy vouchers of any brand- offline or online at discounted rates We will have two fintech offerings- UPI and a co-branded credit card. On every UPI transaction, a user gets 2% value back on POPcoins. On every online transaction made on our credit card, the user earns 10% value back on POPcoins Please help us understand the regulatory compliances required for your fintech features, such as co-branded cards. A ‘TPAP’ license is needed to become a UPI payments player, like PhonePe, Gpay, etc. We have obtained one recently. A partnership with a bank is required to launch a co-branded credit card. Our first partnership with a large bank will be rolling out soon. Are you planning to raise fresh funds in the near future? We have already raised a seed round last year. We have enough funds in the bank for now, and we are focusing on the launches right now. Sometime later this year, we plan to raise our series A.

Google delists select Indian apps over violations of Play Store policies

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
Google delists select Indian apps over violations of Play Store policies
Medial

Google has delisted several popular Indian apps, including Kuku FM, TrulyMadly, QuackQuack, and Altt, from the Play Store. Reports indicate that apps from Shaadi and Matrimony.com, as well as InfoEdge’s job portal Naukri and real-estate platform 99 acres, have also been removed. The move comes shortly after Google published a blog post outlining its stance on apps that fail to comply with its new app store policies. In the post, Google warned of potential consequences such as ‘delisting’. The company specifically called out specific 10 companies, including many well-established ones, for non-compliance. Though it did not disclose their names. “While we always try to work with developers to help them through our policies and find feasible solutions, allowing this small group of developers to get differential treatment from the vast majority of developers who are paying their fair share creates an uneven playing field across the ecosystem and puts all other apps and games at a competitive disadvantage,” Google had said. It may be recalled that the apex court last month declined a plea by a few companies to restrain Google from delisting their apps. The court then listed the case for the next hearing on March 19. It also pointed out that the company had granted developers more than three years to prepare for the new regime, including three weeks after the Supreme Court’s order. The company disclosed that over 200,000 Indian developers using Google Play adhere to its policies. Moreover, less than 60 developers on Google Play are subjected to fees above 15% as per its new tiered pricing programs. The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), an not-for-profit body that represents several Indian startups, confirmed that at least four of its members have received notices from Google. The body said it has advised Google not to delist any apps from the app store. Meanwhile, InfoEdge founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani said in a tweet, “Indian companies will comply – for now. But what India needs is an App Store / Play Store that is a part of Digital Public Infrastructure – like UPI and ONDC. The response needs to be strategic…” Just last week, Indian fintech company PhonePe launched a desi app store, Indus AppStore. Touted as a ‘Made in India’ app store, the app store will be supporting 12 languages.

Here is how Skydo addressing challenges in B2B cross-border payments

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
Here is how Skydo addressing challenges in B2B cross-border payments
Medial

Bengaluru-based fintech firm Skydo aspires to make cross-border B2B payments much more hassle-free and address common challenges such as steep forex charges. Founded in 2022 by former Ola executives Movin Jain and Srivatsan Sridhar, the company aims to tap into the massive market of cross-border payments, which is dominated by global players like PayPal and Stripe. We spoke to cofounder and CEO Sridhar to learn more about Skydo, how it works, and what is the roadmap ahead. Here are the edited excerpts: How did you come up with the idea of Skydo? My co-founder Movin Jain and I used to work together at Ola. This was about six years back and we’ve been good friends since then. I’ve been mostly doing business roles throughout my career. First year at McKinsey, then for several years in startups and in between for about six years I ran my family-owned business. Movin has been an engineering and product guy and most recently before we started up he was actually at Phonepe, leading the payments platform. So given I have been a manufacturing exporter myself, somehow you know making life simple for exports, figuring out the problems that exporters have in terms of the complicated foreign exchange and other things that they have to deal with has been on my mind. But I never kind of thought about it consciously until we started brainstorming about which space we have to build in. Given Movin’s recent stint in payments, he was very excited about payments and the value of technology in improving payments. So since we were brainstorming about payments, some of my experiences studying the payments and wanting to solve for them came to our thinking and then we kind of started deeply digging into whether these problems are real, how can we solve them as a small company, what kind of actual issues do exporters face on a ground level, let’s talk to a few people and understand. And as we did the initial research, we realized that this is actually a real problem and it’s worth solving and this is a large enough market for us to solve it in. So this was largely the genesis of Skydo. What are the key challenges in payments and exports, cross-border payments that have not been addressed yet and how do you plan to address this? Up until 20-30 years ago, inter-entity payments were slow and cumbersome, often involving manual processes like cheque writing. International wire transfers were particularly sluggish and document-heavy. However, the likes of PayPal, business and international payments have transitioned to facilitate online transactions globally. Conventional banking systems have also significantly improved their infrastructure, with the inclusion of faster payment systems within domestic countries. This robust infrastructure, coupled with various payment options, enables companies like us with the right tools to address unsolved customer challenges. Moreover, consumers now expect instant payments, regardless of geography. Though things like compliance pose another hurdle, with varying regulations across countries causing confusion and complexity. Simplifying and standardizing compliance procedures can enable seamless international payments and business transactions. While companies like Skydo are lowering costs, there still remains room to tackle margins through technological solutions. While issues like Forex hedging and treasury management exist, addressing these concerns should be the next frontier in the payment landscape. Can you take us through how Skydo has performed since inception. So we started the company exactly two years back in March of 2022. It took us about seven months to launch the product after our first set of partnerships and approvals came. We launched in November 2022 with a small pilot batch and since January of 2023, we have been gradually and systematically scaling the business. Today, we have onboarded close to 2,500 businesses and currently our rate of acquiring new businesses is almost 500 to 600 businesses every month. So, this number is doubled, the customer base is doubled at the end of March from what it was at the end of December 2023. And I think at this pace of growth, it looks like it is going to sustain for quite a bit of time now. From onboarding, then if I look at the total payments processed, we are currently processing about $50 million of payments. This again is growing quite strongly and I think by the end of next year, that is the March of 2025, we hope to be processing over $750 million of payments annually. That is the kind of scale that we are looking at. What are your goals in terms of product and business expansion? So in the short term, obviously we want to really scale and hold a very large market share for Indian small businesses. I think that will keep us busy for the next couple of years at least. Although we will also follow this with multiple product features that will be required to make this happen from creating more countries where we can have local collections, enabling credit card payments, enabling two-way payments both from India to outward and along with the export payments that today exist and so on. So there’s an entire product roadmap that will support this growth in India. We also have to be looking for multiple licenses throughout the world. We have already applied and are waiting for approval for the payment aggregator license that RBI gives for cross-border companies. But in addition, we will be looking for multiple licensing in other geographies that will allow us to slowly and steadily expand to more corridors beyond India, which is slightly on the longer term plan. Apart from payments, the diversification is primarily into software to start with. Over time, when we have a very large scale, we might diversify into commerce as well as working capital. But that is very long term.

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