Softbank, the single largest investor in Didi Chuxing in China, Ola in India and Grab in Southeast Asia, has backed local players for growth over Uber in each of these markets

Written By Karan Choudhury & Alnoor Peermohamed

A comment made by Rajeev Misra, a board member of Softbank and about to join the Uber board, triggered a strong buzz on Friday that the Travis Kalanick-founded ride hailing firm may step off the pedal in India. Talks of a possible merger between Ola and Uber, with Softbank as the common investor, also did the rounds.

With the formal closing of the $9.3-billion investment, Japanese tech conglomerate Softbank has become the largest shareholder of Uber.

Misra told the Financial Times that Uber would have a faster path to profitability if it returned to its core markets such as the US, Europe, Latin America and Australia. ‘’This is a growth company, this is not just about them cutting their losses,” he said. “Who cares if they lost a billion more or half a billion less?”

Softbank is the single largest investor in Didi Chuxing in China, Ola in India and Grab in Southeast Asia. In each of these markets, Softbank has backed local players for growth over Uber. In fact, Softbank is learnt to be in talks to buy Tiger Global’s stake in Ola.

An Uber India spokesperson dismissed any talk of a merger between Ola and Uber as a baseless speculation. “Our business in India is stronger than ever and we are 100 per cent committed to serving our riders and driver partners in India”, the spokesperson said in a statement. Ola refused to comment on competition.

Uber’s shift to its main markets is likely to reduce the fight with Ola in India that has seen billions of dollars thrown on incentives and discounts to woo drivers and customers on to their respective platforms.

However, over the last one year, both firms have tactically cut incentives and discounts. Yet they are still burning cash.

Bhavish Agarwal, co-founder of Ola, is expected to raise big-ticket funds, estimated around $1 billion more, for expansion as well as newer growth initiatives such as electric vehicles, autos and bicycles.

Ola has projected 2019 as the year to turn profitable. It’s targeting to generate cash profits of over $1 billion by 2021.

It is still not clear whether Softbank would pursue a merger between Ola and Uber, similar to how the dominant Didi Chuxing acquired local stake of Uber in China with a minority stake to the US company. If there is a merger, it could also attract the attention of the Competition Commission of India.

Ola claims market leadership with presence in over 110 cities, covering around two million rides a day, while Uber with presence in 25 cities does around one million daily rides, according to estimates.

Analysts say that India’s taxi sector is seeing a pusback from traditional operators. With lower yields in India, it makes sense for Uber to focus on its higher revenue market, they say.

“To improve financial metrics, it makes sense for Uber to focus on Europe and the US, where the revenue per trip is higher. There is resistance from fleet taxis which believe that Ola and Uber are eating into their business. Those operators are demanding that the ride hailing business should also be included in the regulation,” says Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of Third Eyesight, a consultancy.

“If ride hailing services need to undertake the same level of compliances that fleet taxis do, Uber will find it difficult to make money in a competitive market where yields are low,” he said.

Karnataka, which is among the largest ride hailing markets in India, has brought in a regulation that has fixed minimum and maximum ride hailing fares based on the value of the vehicle, to ensure that drivers are adequately compensated and does not disrupt the traditional taxi market.

Source: business-standard

More to leverage consumers’ spending abilities, existing dealer network

A sanitaryware company is now selling kitchen cooktops and chimneys.

A water purifier brand has launched noodle maker, juicer and bread-making appliances.

Source: thehindubusinessline

Agriculture: Twenty Years from Now…

Following is a summary of my remarks in an “Agri Panel” at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit earlier today, in response to the question, “What do you think will be game-changing about how we think about agriculture, twenty years from now?”

Soon after the panel moderator sent me this very interesting question a couple of days ago, the first thing I did was to post this question on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to crowdsource thoughts from my friends. There were nearly two hundred unique responses! They added up to twenty pages of text, without counting the number of pages in the links I received. Overwhelming, isn’t it?

All I am doing now is to simply synthesize those inputs and share with you J

The future of any system is shaped the current aspirations of the key stakeholders. Let’s take a look at the aspirations of the consumers, producers and the society at large…

Consumers want sufficient quantity of food (because we would be nearly nine billion by then, and on average richer than today), that is tasty (although, a friend did say in lighter vein, “since we will have nano-bots in our blood streams, and since our memories could be uploaded on to cloud, maybe we don’t need food and therefore no agriculture; we probably just need some electricity, or batteries, or just a few hours of exposure to sun ;-), is safe (you are all consumers here, don’t you agree that harmful chemicals in food is your topmost concern?), nutritious (scientists say that most of the world is suffering from invisible hunger), and all of these at reasonable prices!

Farmers want higher incomes (as you know, per capita income of farmers around the world, especially in emerging economies, is far lower than the general per capita) with lower risk (weather and disease related production risks, price volatility). Their labour deserves more dignity (as it is, hardly any youth from the next generation wants to be a farmer) and they deserve better quality life (as in, the conveniences and comforts that are common in urban settings).

Society at large would like agriculture to conserve natural resources (water and top soil, for example) and where possible, actually renew them. Agriculture needs to be resilient to climate change (the summer rains and warm winters, extreme climate episodes like heavy downpours on one hand and droughts on the other, etc), and again, where possible, positively impact climate change (sequester carbon, minimize greenhouse gas emissions etc).

An interplay of these different – at times conflicting – aspirations gives rise to three distinct scenarios, all of which will co-exist in twenty years. Let me label them: Farms as Factories, Homes as Farms, and Back to Basics!

Farms as Factories: By using the metaphor of factories, all I am saying is that the consistent quality of output will be produced, crop after crop, by leveraging the evolving technologies – both farming (like seed, nutrients, farm-equipment, agronomy practices etc) and digital (IoT, block chain, hyper-spectral imaging, GPS / GIS etc). A friend called them, “hardware, software, and liveware”). Another friend went to the extent of visualising a self-managing seed! These seeds will analyse the experienced conditions like soil, weather, water etc and invoke the necessary embedded features that would maximize the yield and quality. This may sound like fantasy today, but those of you who are familiar with experiments on seeds with multiple layers of coating in the past may very well say this could be a reality in twenty years!

Homes as Farms: I am sure, you have heard of vertical farming, balcony farming, kitchen gardens and such other names. Once supply chains are established to supply DIY-type mini production units, seeds, nutrients etc to the households, this phenomenon will expand more rapidly. This food is safe without any doubt in the consumer mind, and zero carbon miles! Business Models are also in the works for another kind of service. If you are not adventurous enough to grow crops in your backyard yourself, you can simply let out the space to Service Providers who can grow crops on a BOO model. Besides experts growing the crops in this model, a colony-level kitchen garden is more optimal than a household level garden. And a third model, which is not a ‘home-as-farm’ strictly speaking, is a partnership between a group of, say, five thousand, consumers and a community of, say, five hundred farmers. I know of several such partnerships across cities, built as WhatsApp Groups integrating even the e-commerce functionality.

Back to Basics: Much of today’s ills of agriculture are due to chemical-intensive mono-cropping paradigm. A more sustainable future scenario would be an integrated farming system consisting of polyculture, permaculture, organic compost, bee-keeping, animal husbandry, renewable energy. In fact, I already see some farms where solar energy brings larger revenue than the conventional crops.

As the panel went forward, there were other questions, but for now I am wrapping up this post without covering them.

Source: shivsthirdeye

Written By Brent Jaswinski

We go inside the Indian company’s English development facility

Thomas R. “Big Tom” Callahan, Jr., an auto parts salesman from Sandusky, Ohio, once said, “You can get a good look at a T-bone by sticking your head up a bull’s ass, but wouldn’t you rather take a butcher’s word for it?” When it comes to steak, we at MO would be inclined to heed the butcher’s advice, but when it comes to motorcycles, we’d prefer to take that “deeper” look to see for ourselves…

Royal Enfield invited us to take a comprehensive behind-the-scenes look into its UK Technology Center in Leicestershire, England. There, with the collaboration from the Chennai, India factory, they have designed, engineered and tested two all-new from-the-ground-up models that both feature the new 650 parallel-Twin motor. These new models include the Interceptor INT 650 and the Continental GT 650. While there, we were able to speak with several of Royal Enfield’s reps, including all the top dogs, and gain further insight into the company and its new products.

Royal Enfield may not be the household name in America like it is in many other parts of the world. So, to give a little background on the company, Royal Enfield is not only the oldest motorcycle manufacturer in continuous production since 1901, but it’s also the fastest-growing motorcycle brand in the world, as well. Royal Enfield has grown 16-fold in the last eight years. The company has gone from building 50,000 units in 2010 to more than 800,000 by the end of this year and is aiming to produce 950,000 units next year. Royal Enfield’s sales are equivalent to the global sales of Harley-Davidson, KTM, BMW, Triumph, and Ducati, combined. Let that sink in for a second.

What’s most interesting and unique about Royal Enfield is the approach it has taken to become this global heavyweight motorcycle manufacturer. It’s important to make clear what Royal Enfield is, and what it isn’t. Siddhartha Lal, Royal Enfield’s CEO, explicitly states that the company isn’t interested in making high-performance sport bikes or big-displacement cruisers. But rather, it’s chasing after the middleweight market, specifically the 250-750cc segment. For years now, Royal Enfield has been making 350 and 500cc variants of its Classic, Bullet and Thunderbird models, along with the 535cc Continental GT café racer. However, there hasn’t been a larger-displacement bike to upgrade to since 1970, when Royal Enfield stopped making its 736cc Interceptor.

Enter the all-new 650 Twin. It’s a 648cc air/oil cooled parallel-Twin with a single overhead cam and four valves per cylinder. These features combined with a 9.5:1 compression ratio yield a claimed 47 horsepower at 7100 rpm, with about 39 ft.-lbs. of torque waiting at just 4000 rpm. These output numbers won’t make you the king of your local drag strip, but that’s not what Royal Enfield is about.

“Royal Enfield aims to lead and expand the middleweight segment globally,” Lal told us about why RE chose to make the 650 Twin. “While the new 650 Twins will be a compelling upgrade for our large customer base in India, we believe they will attract customers from other developing markets in Southeast Asia and Latin America to graduate to the middleweight segment as well.”

Unlike here in the United States, where many believe there’s no replacement for displacement, developing markets in the rest of the world don’t have a need for such big-bore bikes. In many cases, the roads just simply don’t allow for it. On top of that, certain countries’ governments either restrict engine size or make it very difficult to own large-displacement bikes by implementing steep import tariffs or luxury taxes. For example, learners in Australia are restricted to a motorcycle with a motor no bigger than 660cc for their first two years. In Indonesia, some provinces have import taxes on large-displacement motors starting at 30-40%, and tariffs in Malaysia can be hiked all the way up to 125%.

Royal Enfield reps say they’re out to capture the consumer, not the competition. They’re here to grow the market, not steal other manufacturer’s customers, although that might end up being the case. At the core of Royal Enfield’s goals, more than anything else is to provide motorcycles that are versatile, fun, agile and yet unintimidating and accessible – the key words here being, fun and accessible because that’s what CEO Siddhartha Lal and RE President, Rudratej (Rudy) Singh believe motorcycling is all about.

Now, before all you middle-aged guys holding onto your 15-year-old R1s (who, mind you, aren’t buying new motorcycles anymore) start typing away in the comments section writing off Royal Enfield by complaining that these new bikes are ugly and grossly underpowered, understand this: These bikes aren’t designed for you. Instead, young, urban riders – many of whom are women – are the key demographic to motorcycle growth right now. More and more young people are flocking to cities, where not only is the cost of living higher, but also navigating the urban sprawl is becoming exceedingly difficult and time-consuming. This is where a fun and affordable motorcycle begins to become attractive to a learning rider. This is a big segment of the market that Royal Enfield is after.

Giving budding riders a unique option is not just reserved for young people, although I imagine the new Royal Enfields will pique their interests. The new engine also answers the call of Royal Enfield loyalists who have long yearned for more mid-range torque and top speed from the traditionally styled bikes. In the past, especially in America, the 350, 500 and even top-spec 535cc (29hp) Continental GT models haven’t cranked out enough power to comfortably ride in modern, high-speed traffic conditions (And vibrated to annoying levels…-Ed.), so the new counterbalanced 650cc models will help remedy this situation.

There should be a lot of inherent value built into the new Royal Enfield motorcycles for a variety of reasons: They’re approachable in the sense that they’re unintimidating motorcycles. They’re simple in the sense that if you need to work on them, you can easily do so without the hassle of removing multiple body panels to access whichever components need attention. Their basic engineering makes them authentic in the sense that they’re not a replica, recreation or knock-off of some other style bike that was once popular. Royal Enfield has been around for a long time and it has stayed true to its heritage and has stuck to its guns (pun intended, as RE was once a gun manufacturer). And, finally, they’re affordable. The Interceptor INT 650 will cost about $6,000, according to hints from RE reps, and the Continental GT 650 will only be a few hundred more at around $6,500.

If classic roadster or café racer styling isn’t your cup of tea, Royal Enfield is also offering the Himalayan, a more adventure worthy bike with off-road capability. Some of its features include a single-cylinder, fuel-injected, 411cc air-cooled motor, 21- and 17-inch wheels, almost eight inches of suspension travel front and rear, and plenty of room and mounting points for hard and/or soft luggage. The Himalayan is currently Royal Enfield’s most versatile motorcycle and should take you from the beaten paths of the city, off the grid and into the wild. And at $4,499, it will keep your wallet happy too.

Of course, there are plenty of other, more sophisticated, more powerful bikes out there that will blow the doors off of any Royal Enfield in terms of performance. But, like we mentioned earlier, the company is not out to compete with the high-tech, high-performance machines other manufacturers are making. RE is in the business of selling passion with the mantra less is more.

Above all else, what makes Royal Enfield’s approach to selling motorcycles interesting is that it’s essentially striving to build the Toyota Camry or Honda Civic of motorcycles – relatively simple and cost-effective vehicles that can serve the duties of most buyers. This is in no shape or form an insult of any sort, because there’s one of these cars in just about every other driveway in America…

The new twin-cylinder Royal Enfield models are expected to hit the States and become available to the public sometime in April, about a month after we get to throw a leg over the Interceptor INT and Continental GT 650 during its launch in March. It will be interesting to see how these models stack up against the significantly more expensive Triumph Bonneville lineup of bikes that begin with the $9,100 Street Twin and rise up to $13,000 for a Thruxton. While looks and performance are obviously important, so is price.

We’ll see how this strategy works out for them. If Royal Enfield’s global performance is any indicator, we expect RE’s strategy to make waves Stateside, too.

Source: motorcycle

Written By Sulekha Nair

Getting a celebrity investment in a startup spurs interest from investor/customer interest. At least in the initial days

The most popular way to start up would be to have an idea, funds and then the best heads to run it. Of course not necessarily in that order always. But even if you get the fundamentals right, that will not ensure your startup will be the talked about and known. Having a celebrity to not only endorse but also to put her money in the venture seems to work wonders in the overcrowded startup space.

The latest celebrity to invest in a startup is Bollywood star Alia Bhatt who has taken a minority stake in fashion tech startup StyleCracker. There have been several leading names from the film industry who have invested in startups. One of the bright stories would be Amitabh Bachchan’s investment in JustDial. Bachchan invested just Rs 6.27 lakh in JustDial in 2011. His investment at current market price, assuming his shareholding remains at the same level as earlier, is valued at Rs 3.42 crore. That is a whopping 5368 percent increase. And JustDial is not the only startup that he has invested in.

Not just Bachchan, other celebrities who have worn investors’ mantle include Yuvraj Singh, whose YouWeCan Ventures Technology LLP provides seed funding and angel funding capital ranging from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh. Singh is an active investor in the startup sector. Other names that come to mind in the context are Shekhar Kapur and AR Rehman who have invested in Qyuki Digital. Not to mention Sachin Tendulkar, who has invested in several startups.

StyleCracker, in which Bhatt has invested, was founded in 2013 by Dhimaan Shah, a former investment banker and Archana Walavalkar – former fashion editor of Vogue magazine. The startup claims to use advancements in technology to develop The StyleCracker Box – a way to get styled and look great.

So, why are entrepreneurs looking for investment from celebrities?

Firstpost spoke to four startups to find out — Flickstree, in which Sourav Ganguly has invested; Happydemic, in which singer Shaan has a 50 percent stake; Beardo, in which actor Suniel Shetty has invested; and Bag Talk, in which TV star Anita Hassanandani has invested. The co-founders of these startups vouched for the importance a celebrity name lent to their company. Though a celebrity name is not a guarantee of success, there are obvious gains by way of publicity they pointed out.

A celebrity’s name makes the customers more than just curious. It may prompt them to buy the product or service of the startup. They believe successful celebrities don’t lend their name easily to anything unless they are convinced about it.

Paula Mariwala, an alumnus of Stanford University, with over 20 years of entrepreneurial and operational experience with technology companies in the US and in India and is currently partner, Seedfund, says the celebrity angle works initially for a startup provided it is the right fit. For instance, getting Alia Bhatt for a fashion startup or singer Shaan for an entertainment platform.

“The celebrities bring in a value with their association and that opens doors with investors. It works in a glamour-struck country like India irrespective of the celebrity association being financial or adding value as a brand ambassador, for people view these startups differently,” said Mariwala.

In a country like India, where starting up is the new craze (there are 5,200 startups in the country, according to a Nasscom report) and there is a huge crowd vying for investor and customer attention, a celebrity investment is a big bonus for a budding business.

Sourav Ganguly and Flickstree

Sourav Ganguly, cricket legend and former India captain, was piqued in the startup space enough to invest money in a Mumbai-based startup Flickstree, started in 2014. The startup enables people to view films on the go. It also has health and fitness shows, short films — a range of 22 categories at present.

Started by Saurabh Singh, Rahul Jain and Nagender Sangra, the trio approached Ganguly through a common friend and pitched the idea to him. Though it took him six months to be convinced, Ganguly joined the startup as a partner, investor and catalyst. His being associated with the startup led to traffic shooting up 3x to 5x, says Rahul Jain, co-founder. “Visitors to the site know that a celebrity will not lend his name casually to a site. What has worked for us is that in this age of startups where one is launched almost every day, we have been able to differentiate ourselves with Ganguly on our site. It gives credibility to our startup.”

Though the startup has not yet started monetising the venture, it has had investor interest about the business model. “From increasing traffic to even hiring people is not an issue since Ganguly has joined us. Not just that, he attends the monthly board meeting,” says Jain, emphasising Ganguly’s hands-on approach with the startup.

Singer Shaan and Happydemic

In 2016, singer Shaan and his wife, Radhika Mukherjee along with wealth advisor Amar Pandit launched Happydemic, an entertainment platform that connects music lovers and musicians. The platform went live in April 2016.

“I often wonder what happened to the scores of singers who take part in competition, lose out narrowly and have no career in singing to look forward to. Even the winners are remembered for a short period of one season until the next season throws up a new winner,” Radhika Mukherjee, Co-Founder and Chief Executive, Happydemic, had then said while talking about the reasons for entering the startup sector.

With Shaan’s name associated with the startup, traction for artistes from day one has been steady and growing, said Pandit. Shaan is associated with everything to do with the artists — cutting albums or getting them work in the industry. He even houses them in his apartment at times. So far, 800 artistes have signed up and the company expects to break even this year. Last year, revenues were Rs 1.5 crore and it expects to be profitable this year. “We are confident of having revenues of Rs 6 crores this year,” said Pandit.

Suniel Shetty and Beardo

Beardo, a male grooming brand founded in October 2015 by Ashutosh Valani and Priyank Shah, got the backing of actor-turned-entrepreneur Suniel Shetty in 2016. “We were successful earlier,” said Valani, co-founder, but roping in Shetty gave the brand a big boost. In September 2016, the company crossed a GMV of Rs 120 lakh per month, according to a report in the Hindu BusinessLine. “We are growing 60 percent quarter on quarter,” said Valani.

Anita Hassanandani and Bag Talk

In February 2017, television actress Anita Hassanandani co-founded Bag Talk with husband and investment banker Rohit Reddy and Tushar Jain — owner of High Spirit Commercial Ventures Pvt Ltd (HSCV). HSCV has been into manufacturing and retailing of bags for two decades. Jain and Reddy have invested $600,000 in the venture, besides leveraging office and manufacturing from HSCV.

The startup, which claims to be India’s first online marketplace for curated bags, has an exclusive line of bags made for celebrities available on its site. Besides Hassanandani’s line of handbags, it has roped in TV host, anchor and actor Rannvijay Singh for adventure and travel bags and South African cricketer Jhonty Rhodes for sports range of bags. Rhodes line of bags will be out on Bag Talk this month.

Hassanandani is involved right from the ideation of the bags — she is given the sketches by a design team on board which she goes through and at times tweaks to her choice. From approving samples to the manufacture of the product, she is hands-on, says Reddy.

So far Hassanandani has launched the largest number of bags in 14 designs while Rannvijay has 5 designs and Jhonty Rhodes will come out with two this month. Reddy says that the reason for Hassanandani’s bags being lapped up quickly is primarily because women’s fashion does well and the consumers want the latest accessory to match with their apparel. Around 2,000 of her bags have been sold so far. The startup has clocked over 10,000 orders since its launch, says Reddy.

The Bag Talk hopes to break even in a year’s time and come out with a showroom concept – where customers can look at its products offline and buy it online.

Celebrity connection

Clearly, the startup that ropes in a celebrity who is well-known gets traction unlike any other newbie in the field, says Paritosh Shrivastava, associate vice-president at Venture Catalysts who was briefly associated with a Delhi-based diagnostics and wellness healthcare marketplace, Healthians backed by cricketer Yuvraj Singh. When Singh invested in the startup, the orders increased. “Celebrities add a lot of value and startups associated with them usually do well,” said Shrivastava. When a celebrity gives money and an endorsement, the startup has to rev up on the product/service and development because at stake is the celebrity’s name.

Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of Third Eyesight, a consulting firm focused on retail and consumer products sector, says often a startup may already be well-placed and therefore gets interest from a high profile investor – media, film, music artistes, sports, etc. But there have been failures too despite a celebrity investment. These are not talked about, said Dutta.

The celebrity and the startup have to have a connect, else it may raise eyebrows. “If there is a connect with the celebrity by way of her relevance in the product or service, then it is a believable concept that may get just initial traction,” says Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst, founder and CEO of Greyhound Knowledge Group, a global strategy and transformation research, advisory and consulting group.

“But nothing works beyond the initial hype that the startup will generate because of the celebrity endorsement or investment. As a venture capitalist I would look at the expertise of the company. For instance, if it is a Sequoia-backed venture that has huge experience, I would go for it instead of a celebrity-endorsed or invested startup,” Gogia said.

Source: firstpost