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MAKING INDIAN 3 million ARR.
SMEs COUNT
B2B Payment Company
Rupifi builds payments and credit offerings for “We kept working on dif-
business to business transaction use cases, with a ferent ideas, we realised
that if we have to solve for
significant focus on the Indian SMEs the long tail of SMEs, we
need to solve in an embed-
ANUBHAV ded way, powering their
JAIN day-to-day transactions,”
adds Jain.
Co-founder &
CEO This initiative will
Rupifi reduce the cost of acquisi-
Age: 37 years tion and provide data for
Sector: Fintech underwriting.

S can be deeply fulfilling. learned many things, some Hence Rupifi was
A brand that realises the the hard way,” reminisces formed as a B2B payment
MALL AND MEDIUM Jain. and credit company, with
enterprises (SMEs) form potential these enterprises their first product being a
the backbone of the coun- hold is Rupifi, co-founded Till date, Rupifi has B2B BNPL, focusing on
try, as they produce sub- by Anubhav Jain, who is raised over $30 million, solving purchase financing
stantial output and gener- also the CEO. from Bessemer Venture needs of SMEs on B2B
ate a chunk of employ- Partners, Tiger Global, marketplaces.
ment. “I have had the urge to Quona Capital, Ankur
solve large problems and Capital and some of the top Gaining from his previ-
A Profitable Business have done a couple of start- angels including Kunal ous startup experience,
Helping these businesses is ups before. Shah, Binny Bansal, Gokul Rupifi decided to use
not just a profitable busi- Rajaram and Ramakant advanced product and
ness, but also one which Rupifi happened after Sharma. technology frameworks
my exit from Qbera which from its inception to solve
was acquired by Incred, In terms of revenues, even the smallest SME
and during these 12 years they are currently at over $ needs without worrying
of experience, I have about CAC, ticket size or
monetisation.

Long-term Plans
Talking about his long
term plans, Jain says, “As
we move forward in the
long run, we will continue
to build payments and
credit offerings for B2B
transaction use cases,
focusing on SMEs and
solving their problems.”

By Urvi Shrivastav

12 March 2022 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 51

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REIMAGINING ELECTIVE revolves around big hos-
SURGERIES pitals like Apollo, Max,
Fortis, Medanta, etc.
Glamyo Health seeks to disrupt the large However, these hospitals
unorganised elective surgeries market in India and make up just around
make them more affordable in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities 400 out of 44,000 hos-
pitals in the private
T domain. Moreover, they
are restricted to metros,
HE ELECTIVE SURGERY which leaves many
market in India is worth Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities
$30 billion. However, 90 without the right kind of
per cent of this market is hospitals and surgeons.
unorganised, which
means the hospitals, Glamyo Health, a
doctors and insurance multi-specialty health-
players are not con- care provider, is deliver-
nected in a single inter- ing elective surgeries
face. The 10 per cent and attempts to bridge
organised market this disparity between
metros and Tier-2 and
ARCHIT Tier-3 cities by working
GARG with individual hospitals
in these cities to provide
Co-founder quality elective surger-
Glamyo Health ies. Glamyo Health is
Age: 37 years reimagining India’s elec-
Sector: tive surgery space by
Healthtech using the underutilised
infrastructure capacity
of both hospitals and
surgeons. It handholds
the patient throughout
their journey, right from
discovery to discharge
and the post-operative
follow up.

Archit Garg,
Co-founder, Glamyo
Health, says, “As a plat-
form, our primary role is
to handhold the patient
throughout their journey
when it comes to elective
surgeries. Affordability is
another aspect. We don’t
compromise on the qual-
ity of the surgeon, but we
are able to work with a
distributed infrastruc-
ture due to which we are
able to reduce the cost by
25-30 per cent.”

52 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022

Business in His Blood as an investment banker it was clear to him that
with a bulge bracket the long-term moat in
Coming from a business investment bank. He any healthcare service
family, Garg always then donned the role of a delivery business can
aspired to be a business private equity / venture come only from excellent
owner. After graduating capital investor for nearly clinical outcomes.
from Oxford, he worked ten years which helped
with organisations like him understand the From the beginning,
Deutsche Bank, nuances of healthcare in according to Thakur, they
Milestone Religare and India from very close started building the busi-
Rabo Equity, where he quarters. ness with the patients
invested in seven firms. and clinical outcomes. “It
Out of these seven firms, Come mid-2019, was slow, tough and
four became market Thakur started actively costly to do, but it has
leaders in their respec- exploring ideas and helped us stand out both
tive segments. With options for his entrepre- in net promoter score
experience in building neurial venture as the (70) and clinical out-
various companies at the realisation that private comes – better than some
board level, he decided equity funds are materi- larger hospitals. This has
to start his business in alised in a ten-year cycle helped Glamyo Health
create a solid foundation
PREET PAL as we scale faster to touch
THAKUR one million lives,” says
Thakur.
Co-founder
The company has
Glamyo Health raised $6 million to date
and works on a fixed rev-
Age: 39 years enue share model with
the hospitals and sur-
Sector: geons, and earns money
on every surgery it does.
Healthtech Garg describes finding
the right set of employees
the healthcare domain. kicked in. “I thought that as a challenge. “Today, we
He conceptualised one successful startup have a team of 80-plus
Glamyo Health to can create disproportion- medical coordinators but
address the issues ate impact for all the finding the right set of
revolving around India’s stakeholders, and that’s trained employees was a
extensive elective sur- how Glamyo Health came challenge for us,” says
geries market. up,” he states. Garg.

On the other hand, Clinical Outcomes Key Glamyo is now looking
Glamyo Health’s other Thakur states that being to increase its presence in
co-founder, Preet Pal closely associated with nearly 50 cities and
Thakur, was a practising the healthcare ecosystem, expand its hospital net-
clinician. He then worked work to more than 1,000
hospitals and over 500
surgeons.

By Arjun Yadav

12 March 2022 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 53

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STRIVING FOR dren and partners with the begin at an early age to
LARGER SOCIAL Union Ministries of ensure a strong foundation
Education and Women for growth and develop-
IMPACT and Child Development, ment. The team aims to
along with the five state influence behaviour
Rocket Learning is a new age social governments of change in ‘Bharat’, through
enterprise, revolutionising essential Maharashtra, Uttar new models of ECE to
foundational education in the country. Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana impact users who are new
The Edtech organisation has had over ten and Chandigarh and the to online education.
Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty
million content views Action Lab (JPAL) of the The most fundamental
Massachusetts Institute of challenge for early child-
Technology (MIT) to cre- hood EdTech is to demon-
ate, measure and scale strate and build a product
impact. that is market fit and can
also grow to scale at speed.
Rocket Learning was From a design angle, the
inspired by the belief that structure balances person-
quality education needs to alisation within group-

R UTSAV
KHERIA
OCKET LEARNING com-
menced operations just Co-Founder
when the pandemic was Rocket Learning
setting in. Co-Founders, Age: 36 years
Azeez Gupta and Utsav Sector: Education
Kheria believed it was time & Social Impact
to focus on early childhood
education (ECE) of the
part of India that has been
left behind. Already, the
non-profit organisation
leads in catalysing early
childhood education and
community engagement.

Rocket Learning links
the government school and
Anganwadi system with
parents, using technology,
media and social influence
techniques. It impacts
more than eight lakh chil-

54 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022

learning models. AZEEZ ents support one another
The structure also GUPTA in the learning of children
and help them build ‘AIM’
ensures institutionalisa- Co-Founder – Awareness, Information,
tion and sustainability Rocket Learning and Motivation – to gain
within the government Age: 31 years access to quality education
school system.Azeez Sector: in the early years.
Gupta, an alumnus of IIT Education &
Delhi and Harvard Social Impact Funding & Growth
Business School, was a In 2021-22, Rocket
management consultant at build a scalable high-qual- India cannot access quality Learning’s investors
McKinsey before doing a ity education model acces- early childhoold educa- included the Central
stint in senior leadership at sible to millions of chil- tion. As a result, under- Square Foundation, ACT
Pratham, a leading a $12 dren,” says Kheria. privileged Indian children Grants, the Harvard
million revenue and 1,200 fall behind their higher- University Impact
employee NGO. “I’ve Early Education income peers by the age of Fellowship Fund, MIT
always had an intrinsic Over 85 per cent of brain six. Solve, the World Economic
belief in education as the development occurs before Forum, Google.org,
most effective route to the age of eight. However, Rocket Learning creates Microsoft, Hewlett
empowerment, and in the over 50 million children of vibrant digital communi- Packard, Deloitte,
power of partnership low-income groups in ties of parents and teach- Amazon, Capgemini, the
between governments, ers, where a million par- Godrej Foundation, The
civil societies, the private Yuj Foundation, Eight
sector and people,” says Roads Ventures, Accel
Gupta. As a social entre- Partners, N/Core, Fast
preneur, Gupta’s vision Forward and the DRK
and mission are to Foundation. Rocket
empower those who lack Learning currently holds
privilege at birth. $2 million in revenue.

Utsav Kheria, an alum- The EdTech further
nus of IIM Ahmedabad plans to monetise through
and St. Xavier’s College, a mixture of payments,
was head of operations of consisting of 35 per cent
EduBridge, a vocational payment through govern-
training organisation for ments, 15 per cent through
unemployed youth. He private institutions and 50
helped scale the organisa- per cent through grants.
tion to over a 100 centres, Rocket Learning aims to
training over two lakh catalyse a systemic shift in
youth. Kheria was inspired the early childhood care
by people from low-income and education (ECCE)
backgrounds who over- space, as an expert resource
came their hurdles through and technology organiza-
opportunity to pursue tion, supporting govern-
quality education. ments to create aspira-
tional school systems.
“I was keen to combine
education, the power of By Vasudha Mukherjee
communities, and the
access of governments to

12 March 2022 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 55

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RECESSION-PROOF
BUSINESS

Banking on the peer-to-peer
lending model, LenDenClub aims
to disburse Rs 7,500 crore worth of

loans through its platform

T BHAVIN Patel says the stress is on
PATEL leveraging technology
HE NBFCS AND banks while adapting creatively
have grappled with many Co-founder & CEO to an ever-evolving finan-
issues in recent times due LenDenClub cial services marketplace.
to rising cases of nonpay- “We believe we are a tech-
ment. Moreover, the per Age: 37 years nology product company
capita debt also did not Sector: Fintech and should be called
increase beyond a limit in ‘TechFin’ as we have been
India. Bhavin Patel decided strong community of 4 ness model,” says Patel. inventing products for
to resolve issues revolving million users. lenders as well as borrow-
around credit availability Healthy Loan disbursal ers on our platform.”
and saw the peer-to-peer “In 2020, when most It has so far disbursed LenDenClub is now build-
(P2P) lending model as a lending companies more than Rs 2,500 crore ing products for the next
solution. His venture stopped lending to their worth of loans to nearly 5 phase of growth. It is add-
LenDenClub works on this customers during the first lakh individuals helping ing three loan investment
model to amass idle capital countrywide lockdown, we them reach their financial products for its investors.
from individuals and give were still disbursing the goals. LenDenClub has It is innovating and
credit to needy people. loans at a regular interest raised close to Rs 90 crore upgrading the proprietary
rate and kept registering across three funding tech-stack platform to aid
LenDenClub allows huge growth month over rounds, the most recent and upkeep the growth in
individuals to maximise month. We grew almost being a Series A round of the customer base while
their investment returns ten times during that Rs 75 crore. It presently supporting all kinds of
by investing the funds in financial year against the offers three products, two banking operations con-
borrowers. With consist- overall unsecured loan for borrowers and one for ducted on its platform.
ently enabling its lenders market growing negative. lenders backed by power-
to earn high returns of That shows the strength of ful AI-based algorithms. By Arjun Yadav
between 10 per cent and 12 our recession-proof busi-
per cent over the last six
years, it has become a

56 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022



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A PREMIER Kartheek Rebba, the ease out the accounting
PLATFORM FOR genesis of Trell can be process for his family
traced back to the singu- business,” says Pulkit
CONTENT lar realisation by the Agrawal, Co-founder
CREATORS founders on the dearth of and CEO, Trell.
meaningful content, and
Trell is on a mission to build a trusted discovery being a chal- An engineering gradu-
ecosystem where millions of Indians can lenge in the age of click- ate from IIT Bombay,
become micro-entrepreneurs and earn a bait content on the inter- Agrawal was one of the
net. first thousand app devel-
sustainable source of income opers in the country at
“My love for technol- the time of the smart-
ogy and coding started phone revolution.
when I was 8 years old. I
began gaming and creat- At Trell, he spearheads
ing what would resemble the company’s vision,
bookkeeping apps in strategic course, techno-
today’s world, using lan- logical initiatives, and
guages such as C++ to business development.

Bimal Kartheek

V directly from their app
called the ‘Trell Shop’.
IDEO CONTENT creation
is at an all-time high, Dearth of Good Content
while consumption is Launched in August
increasing given the 2017 by IIT Bombay
work from home sce- alumni Arun Lodhi,
nario. Pulkit Agrawal, and
NITIE alumnus Bimal
A premier platform
that is helping content BIMAL K.
creators communicate to REBBA
their audience effec-
tively, and in 12 Indian COO & Co-founder
languages is Trell. Trell Experiences

It is a platform where Age: 34 years
users share their experi- Sector: Media &
ences in lifestyle catego- Social Commerce
ries like personal care,
food, technology, movie
reviews, etc.

After acquiring the
requisite information,
the user can purchase

58 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022

Rebba, the Co-founder guages and people in the of course, how to manage
and COO of Trell is country, prompting him finances.”
driven by his fascination to think deeply about
for content in all forms, regional languages and However, these initial
as he says, “Ever since I the need to make infor- hiccups were overcome
was a child, I have been mation accessible. and Trell has successfully
passionate about con- raised three rounds of
tent. He has travelled a lot funding, taking the total
into the interiors of India funding to $62 million at
I constantly consumed to gain knowledge about present.
content in different for- diverse cultures and lan-
mats such as films, guages. A Key Matchmaker
shows, books, music and Today, Trell has become a
now on-the-move con- He is extremely for- key matchmaker
tent that we see on our ward-looking and work- between brands, KOLs,
smartphones.” ing towards the next big and users, and is on a
thing through Trell, mission to build a trusted
Having worked with which has drastically ecosystem where mil-
big corporate companies evolved over the last few lions of Indians can
as lead consultancies years from a food and become micro-entrepre-
such as ITC, GE and travel blog to a full- neurs and earn a sustain-
fledged mobile app. able source of income on
the internet and has
PULKIT onboarded over 600 per-
AGARWAL sonal care and beauty
brands, with the most
CEO & Co-founder recent addition of
Maybelline, L’Oréal and
Trell Experiences Garnier.

Age: 28 years Growing exponentially
since its inception, Trell
Sector: Media & has also recorded 10x-
15x year-on-year growth
Social Commerce and 30 per cent month-
on-month growth on its
Infosys, he has devel- However, the founders transactions.
oped leadership skills did face some challenges
that not only motivate which were conventional It aims to create more
the entire team but also to other startups, as than 40 million micro-
inspire innovation. Agrawal notes, “Other entrepreneurs while
than that, some of the aiming to cross 100 mil-
In Regional Languages challenges we faced lion monthly active
The seeds of Trell were when we started Trell users.
sown long ago when was how to build an agile
Rebba moved to Mumbai team that would take By Urvi Shrivastav
for college and he real- Trell to great heights,
ised the diversity of lan- how to solve for problem
statements at scale and

12 March 2022 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 59

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HEARING THE CHIRAG problems in the D2C
CONSUMER TANEJA space.” To date, the com-
pany has raised upwards of
OUT CEO $50 million from global
investors such as Sequoia,
GoKwik combines technology, data and GoKwik Matrix, RTP Global. It is
user experience and solves hard-hitting also backed by marquee
Age: 39 years angels such as Revant
problems in the direct to consumer Bhate, Jiten Gupta, Utsav
(D2C) space Sector: Somani, Dhyanesh Shah,
Nitin Gupta, Amit
C OMING FROM A business family, one would Technology Lakhotia, Manish Vij, Sid
be expected to carry the legacy forward. Puri, Ramakant, Anurag.
However, Chirag Taneja, CEO, GoKwik, took “GoKwik began in the
the plunge and decided to start from the middle of the pandemic. Brands as Customers
ground up and build his enterprise. This is It’s a tech data science layer GoKwik has a success-ori-
how GoKwik, a platform for solving online for the NANF world. It ented pricing model which
shopping experiences took shape. “My journey of becom- looked to address some is based on take rate. It
ing an entrepreneur has been very exciting and uplifting. major problems that D2C works with more than 250
GoKwik is the third startup for me after almost a decade of brands and the e-com- brands ranging across
entrepreneurial experience across fintech, consumer, merce industry, in general, D2C, offline players and
e-commerce journeys, and extensive experience across 3Cs were facing. We also knew marketplaces and pro-
— content, community, commerce,” Taneja says. that D2C brands were cesses GMV of more than
becoming customer-pre- $500 million.
ferred brands so enhancing
customer experience However, the company
became imperative,” he has faced many challenges
adds. which range from starting
a company during a pan-
Elaborating on his busi- demic to solving a very
ness model, Taneja says, hard data-driven problem
“We decided to combine which begins with ensur-
tech, data and user experi- ing the availability of valid
ence and solve hard-hitting data. Not only this, finding
product-market fit is rare
and is always a challenge in
the startup world.

Talking about his jour-
ney, Taneja says, “Our mis-
sion is to make shopping
and D2C synonyms of each
other. We want to be a reli-
ant e-commerce enabler
that helps merchants pro-
vide better shopping expe-
rience across the funnel –
discovery, selection, con-
version and retention.”

By Urvi Shrivastav

60 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022

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THE GO-TO says Agarwal. the product, love it, rebuy,
YOUTH BRAND and spread the word. They
Bootstrapped & Big are the de facto campus
Campus Sutra is the only Indian fashion The story of Campus Sutra brand in India.
brand to be present in 22 countries, and is a mirror image of his life
the first online fashion brand to be present where Agarwal has chal- The Differentiators
lenged the status quo of the “Campus Sutra has created
in 500 offline locations in India industry and made a mark. a differentiated back end
They have created the big- which is the backbone of
S first who could converse in gest bootstrapped fashion our entire supply chain
English there. My life in brand in the country — which sets us apart from
OME PEOPLE START from some way has been about Campus Sutra today is a others in the industry.
nothing and then boom to challenging the status quo 200-crore brand that has
become an inspiration for and achieving in a con- many firsts to its name. Another factor that sets
everyone. One such indi- strained environment. them apart is that we have
vidual is Dhiraj Agarwal, Succeeding despite resist- They are the only Indian been able to achieve this
Co-founder and CEO, ance and limited resources fashion brand to be present scale with less than 10 per
Campus Sutra Retail. “I and continuing to do so,” in 22 countries, and the cent of what other brands
was born in a small village first online fashion brand spend to reach the scale,”
with a population of 2,000 to be present in 500 offline says Agarwal.
people, I was one of the locations of the top five
department stores of India. This is a seminal feat
because they were compet-
Campus Sutra is a digi- ing with brands that spend
tally vertically native brand 10 to 12 times the amount
built with a shoestring they do.
budget. The brand was
built based on usage, where Campus Sutra is now a
the customer used to buy house of D2C brands with
Campus Sutra, Instafab,
DHIRAJ Sohi, Wallopedia, Water
AGARWAL Theory, Via Tokyo under
its umbrella. With this,
Co-founder & they are trying to leverage
the engine that Campus
CEO Sutra has built.

Campus Sutra Talking about his plans
henceforth, Agarwal notes,
Retail “We plan to reach out to a
much larger base across
Age: 38 years the world and continue
delighting the shoppers
Sector: Lifestyle with our offerings.
International expansion is
& Fashion one of our top priorities.”

By Urvi Shrivastav

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THE BACKBONE to explore leadership roles,” earning ‘margin of mar-
OF MSMEs Bahl says. “The genesis of gins’ in the payment pro-
BharatPe has been the lack cessing model.”
BharatPe has focused on democratising of focus on the country’s
access to capital for merchants – in turn, MSME backbone — the Marquee Investors
empowering them with the power to grow small business and shop Today, BharatPe has raised
owners. Almost all other over $500 million in equity
their ‘dhandha’ fintech players were from marquee investors
focused on building a con- such as Sequoia, Ribbit
B HARATPE HAS GAINED traction in recent sumer offering and cus- Capital, Insight Partners,
times as India’s first credit cum debit card. tomer base, however mov- Coatue, Steadview, and
This application is particularly popular with ing away from this satu- Tiger Global, to name a
merchants and local grocery stores, as it few. Also, the company has
offers a range of fintech products. While the DHRUV raised another $100+ mn
brand is interesting, the journey of the minds DHANRAJ in institutional debt from
behind it is even more so. This is evident in the experience BAHL the likes of ICICI,
of Dhruv Dhanraj Bahl, who is the Chief Operating Officer Axis,Northern Arc,
at BharatPe. “My early years working at Fortis Healthcare, COO Innoven Capital and
is a great example of ‘baptism by fire’. An MBA from BharatPe Trifecta Capital. In FY22,
INSEAD and a transformative stint at Bain & Company Age: 36 years BharatPe revenues are up
helped me grow beyond my comfort zone. The accelera- Sector: Fintech/ three times from FY21,
tion of the digital-first mindset in recent times allowed me Financial backed by a strong push
Services across lending and
(Intrapreneur) payments.

rated space we focused on “By using payment as a
the merchants who source of data rather than
received these payments by revenue, we pioneered
enabling them with India’s velocity-based underwrit-
first interoperable QR ing in India. By automat-
code. We focused on ing traditional credit
democratising access to checks, we reduced the
capital for these merchants cost of processing a loan
— in turn, empowering application by over 80 per
them with the power to cent, compared to peers.
grow their ‘dhandha’,” says By introducing contextual
Bahl, adding, “This was a chatbots on WhatsApp, we
conscious departure from transitioned from app-first
to conversational-com-
merce and service,” notes
Bahl while describing the
brand’s USP.

By Urvi Shrivastav

62 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022

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AUTOMATING modules by 2019. Since long term, has the vision
SUPPLY CHAINS then, the company has to make it the most prom-
expanded to more than ising global supply chain
O4S merges advanced technologies ten countries with over management platform.
like IoT and ML with core supply chain 50 enterprise customers.
operations to build futuristic global supply Kumar states that
It has raised more than understanding the prin-
chain networks $10 million, including $7 ciples of managing a bril-
million in their Series A liant team is a challeng-
D become a multi-module round and is backed by ing and rewarding expe-
SaaS platform support- prominent venture capi- rience, and once that art
IVAY KUMAR believes ing large enterprises with tal firms like Think is mastered, companies
that nobody usually their critical supply chain Investments and Venture begin to work like clock-
grows up thinking that operations. O4S is an IoT Highway. The business work. “A company is the
they’ll become an entre- and ML integrated SaaS model is based on mone- reflection of everyone
preneur someday. He platform that helps man- tisation via monthly who has built it.
states that being one is a ufacturing enterprises to recurring licenses for Interpersonal relations
huge responsibility, and digitise and automate the customers, which are are the most basic yet
executing the idea takes a supply chain. manufacturing enter- most essential part of
lot of strength and an prises. running a business,” says
exceptional team. “The Expanding Footprint Kumar.
more enriching part of OS4 was incepted in 2017 In the short term,
the journey is sustaining with an initial seed Kumar says that O4S By Arjun Yadav
the dream and leading it investment of $500,000 aspires to provide flaw-
towards growth,” says and took various itera- less service to their exist-
Kumar. tions and improvisations ing customers but, in the
to commercialise the
With these thoughts,
O4S, for Kumar, began as DIVAY
a tiny spark in his head KUMAR
that today has grown to
Co-founder & CEO

O4S

Age: 31 years

Sector:

Technology

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G GAURAV deep technology integra-
KUMAR tions with each of the top
AURAV KUMAR, founder ten banks in India that
and CEO of CredAvenue, Founder & CEO form the core of the finan-
which won him the cial services establishment
Businessworld Young CredAvenue in the country.
Entrepreneur Award
2020, had the vision to Age: 39 years Not the least,
address several issues in CredAvenue is creating a
the Indian corporate debt Sector: Fintech rush lane for disruption in
market during a 15-year the Indian corporate debt
career. An MBA from Asset-Backed market and plans to take
Institute of Rural Securitisation (ABS) to the business up to a GTV of
Management, Kumar microfinance -- led him to more than $100 billion and
served as the chief business launch CredAvenue. It has revenue of close to $350
officer of Northern Arc evolved into India’s most million in the next five
Capital as well as the chief extensive debt product years.
executive officer of suite and marketplace with
Northern Arc Investment more than 2,300 institu- Future Plans
Adviser Services, prior to tional borrowers, 2,000- The next few months
co-founding Vivriti plus retail HNIs, institu- would see investment in
Capital. tional lending touchpoints, data science, machine
and more than 2 million learning, and artificial
His long experience in end retail borrowers par- intelligence to significantly
the Indian debt market ticipating on the platform. improve and expand prod-
combined with his passion uct offerings across each
for transforming this busi- Combining deep tech- platform.
ness – like opening Indian nology innovation with
expertise in financial prod- Team CredAvenue today
DEBT TO uct design, CredAvenue is comprises more than 700
PROSPERITY one of the very few Indian people across different ver-
fintech platforms to have ticals, whose strength has
CredAvenue is one of India’s few fintech seen a significant jump
during the pandemic, with
platforms that have deep technology more than 150 people join-
ing in the last 12 months.
integrations with each of the top ten banks Significant investments are
being made for a new office
in the country in Bengaluru, primarily as
a centre dedicated to tech-
nology. Bengaluru is a pri-
ority centre launched in
October 2021 since it is a
significant source of talent
in cutting-edge new-age
technology such as data
science, core data engi-
neering, ML, etc.

By Sneha Patro

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HOW TO TACKLE
THAT SWEET

TOOTH

BeatO is India’s largest app-based
platform to prevent, control and

reverse diabetes

I I started BeatO in 2015 GAUTAM
with my Co-founder Yash CHOPRA
NDIA HOLDS THE dubi- Sehgal to become India’s
ous distinction as the largest app-based plat- CEO & Co-founder
diabetes capital of the form to prevent, control BeatO Health Arx
world. While there are and reverse diabetes, Technologies
many avenues to visit a with over 1 million mem- Age: 38 years
doctor and consult a spe- bers.” Sector:
cialist, BeatO is one such Healthtech
platform that focuses Initial Journey
exclusively on diabetes BeatO started as an app heavily. was to build our product
prevention, manage- to log sugar levels, health BeatO has raised its by being close to our
ment, and reversal. stats, food and exercise. customers. We did this
It has evolved into a full- pre-series B funding by meeting hundreds of
Describing how the stack digital app-based round with W health people with diabetes,
platform came into platform that provides ventures, Blume and deeply understand-
being, Gautam Chopra, clinically proven, com- Ventures, Orios and Leo ing their pain points.
CEO and Co-founder, prehensive diabetes care capital as its major inves-
BeatO Health Arx programmes to help pre- tors. “Secondly, whilst we
Technologies says, “In vent, control and reverse had a great product, we
2015, I left my comforta- the condition under the Today it has 1 million needed to get it into
ble job as Head of guidance of experts. app users, 3,50,000 paid lakhs of homes,” stresses
Business Development members with a 60 per Chopra.
and Sales Steering with The results of these cent Y1 retention, and
Lufthansa in Europe to programmes have been clocking $12 million in By Urvi Shrivastav
embark on my entrepre- published in top medical annualised revenue
neurial journey. institutions such as the run-rate.
American Diabetes
Association, APCON and
AATD. The investors saw
potential in this app and
subsequently invested

Learnings
“A big learning for me

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SUPERCHARGING ther.
BRANDS
Step by Step
Eyeing $1 billion in revenue within the U After spending two years
next five years, UpScalio emphasises in his first job at Ernst &
profitability by enabling even small PSCALIO RUNS ON AN Young, London, Gautam
Kshatriya decided to
businesses to become successful e-commerce roll-up return to India to start
model wherein the com- MoneyVidya.com in
pany partners and 2008, seeing an opportu-
acquires high potential nity to help regular
brands that sell on mar- equity market investors.
ketplaces such as
Amazon and Flipkart. It He then moved on to
scales its revenue by co-found Kshatriya
5-10X instead of building Ventures, a seed-stage
them from scratch. VC fund. After business
school at Chicago Booth,
In the roll-up model, he joined McKinsey &
the company invests in Co. and helped global
various ecommerce companies grow revenue
brands, infuses working for five years.
capital, brings on an
expert team and pro- When Kshatriya
vides consistent support moved back to India, he
in operations in order to was clear on the business
scale the business fur- model he wanted to
attempt. With no capital,
GAUTAM no colleagues, not even a
KSHATRIYA pitch deck, UpScalio was
born on March 16, 2021.
Co-founder &
CEO Co-founders Nitin
UpScalio Agarwal and Saaim Khan
Age: 38 years quickly joined the ven-
Sector: ture, given their shared
Ecommerce values and an opportu-
nity to build a large
business.

“UpScalio is an oppor-
tunity for me to help
scale not just one, but
multiple great brands
and I can’t think of any-
thing more exciting,”
Kshatriya emphasises.

Riding the Wave
The idea of acquiring
stakes in multiple com-
panies has been around
for a while. Private equity

66 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022

of marketing. offices, the company
Just after completing saves on operational
expenses.
his stint with Purplle, he
came across the e-com- Growth Plans
merce roll-up model, The enterprise aims to
which struck a chord partner with 35 to 50
leading Agarwal to join brands over the next few
the company as its co- years. Each brand the
founder and chief growth company ties up with
officer. keeps a target to take rev-
enues five times in two to
“My focus is to help three years.
entrepreneurs win these
customers and scale The levers for growth
businesses multifold. I include digital market-
am sure it will unleash a ing, channel expansion
new wave of entrepre- with going global on the
neurs who more confi- agenda. As far as the cap-
dently start their jour- ital raising is concerned,
neys from the word go,” the company has bagged
he says. a total of $42.5 million
over two rounds.
firms have been doing NITIN
this since the 1940s. AGARWAL Leading investors
What led the trio to pur- include Presight Capital
sue the model was the Co-founder & and an undisclosed
immense potential in the Chief Growth hedge fund. Heliad
e-commerce ecosystem Officer Equity Partners, MPGI,
in India. E-commerce UpScalio 468 Capital and
has been and continues Age: 37 years Whiteboard Capital also
to be a fast-evolving and Sector: participated in the fund-
dynamic business ecosys- Ecommerce ing round.
tem in India.
and personal care Within a few months of The country is witness-
The first phase saw the segments. its launch, UpScalio has ing an e-retail boom, and
emergence of market- already acquired seven a lot of promising brands
places, followed by the Agarwal has worked category-leading brands are leveraging industry
second phase of digital- with ShopClues for four across utility categories giants like Amazon and
native brands emerging years as the head of mar- and has clocked gross Flipkart to sell. UpScalio
in fashion, consumer keting and fuelled the merchandise value would provide a substan-
electronics and more growth from pre-Series A annual run-rate of Rs tial fillip to these brands
recently, in the beauty to the eighth unicorn in 310 crore. by creating wealth and
India. growth prospects while
Since there is no need also bolstering the larger
Moving on to Hotstar, for multiple accounting e-commerce segment in
he spent the next three teams, IT platforms and India.
years as its vice president
By Resham Suhail

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H years or so, predomi- was certain from the start now shifting their focus
nantly as a home-based that these are the pillars on direct to consumer as
ARINI SIVAKUMAR setup, she decided to on which I would want a channel.
scale it up and that was my brand to stand.”
decided to turn her crisis the culminating point for They see the primary
into an opportunity and Earth Rhythm. They have seen a 400 market as skintellectuals
showcased personal and per cent increase in reve- — the customers that
professional fortitude. Sustainable Products nue YoY, and a 500 per know their skin concerns
Describing her journey, Talking about her ven- cent increase in orders well, want to invest in
she says “My elder son ture, Sivakumar says, per month, along with products targeting their
was born with Down’s “The biggest task was to three times increase in concerns specifically and
Syndrome. While the create products that are website visits. have knowledge of incul-
major trigger of doing natural, fragrance-free,
that was more due to a and sustainable, but I
specific skin condition for
my older child, it was HARINI
more of a hobby versus a SIVAKUMAR
passion back then. It was
only after doing that for a Founder & CEO
year or two, I decided to Earth Rhythm
convert it into more of a Age: 35 years
mainstream business and Sector: Beauty &
it became my passion.”
Lifestyle
After running this
entity for a couple of

CREATING “We have an interesting cating active ingredients
SUSTAINABLE pipeline of new product in their skincare routines.
launches planned and
OPTIONS according to our internal Digital awareness and
research, they are poten- online shopping have also
A homegrown brand that promises smart tial game changers, and gone up in the past two
and safe skincare, Earth Rhythm invests we are betting big on years, with online adop-
in clinical trials and R&D to offer products them,” adds Sivakumar. tion rapidly increasing
due to Covid.
that are good for skin as well as earth Purely D2C for Now
The business model cur- Additionally, they do
rently is 100 per cent have long-term plans to
D2C focused. The key go offline and in retail.
assumptions here have The investors have shown
been that the penetration faith in Earth Rhythm,
of the online market will with its Series A round of
go up with a lot of brands funding underway.

By Urvi Shrivastav

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BLENDING NEW is a French multinational luxury portfolio of wines
WITH OLD luxury goods conglomer- and spirits like Moët et
ate, headquartered in Chandon, Dom Perignon,
Moët Hennessy India not just imports France. In India, the com- Glenmorangie, Hennessy
and markets its French parent’s luxury pany is involved in and Belvedere among
portfolio of wines and spirits but also import, sales and market- others.
ing of Moët Hennessy’s
runs its winery in Nashik luxury portfolio of wines Uptick in Revenue
and spirits, besides oper- With her pivotal role in
ating the Chandon winery the company, she has
in Nashik. pushed up the revenue
per unit by about 33 per
Its source of revenue is cent in 2021 in compari-
through sales and distri- son to 2019, thus surpass-
bution of Moët Hennessy’s ing their profit margin to
the pre-pandemic level.
T IPSITA DAS All this has been driven
on the back of premiumi-
HERE ARE PEOPLE who Managing Director sation, innovation, and
start brands from the Moët Hennessy fuelled by the higher dis-
ground up and give them India posable income of con-
their best shot, and there (Intrapreneur) sumers.
are fewer who join exist- Age: 35 years
ing brands and take them Sector: AlcoBev However, Das did face
to new heights. Ipsita her set of challenges, as
Das, the Managing she describes, “I was
Director of Moët appointed as the
Hennessy India (Moët Managing Director of
Hennessy Louis Vuitton – Moët Hennessy in the
LVMH) falls in the latter middle of the pandemic
category. in 2020. This meant, we
had to innovate not just
“As a physics graduate with our products but
from St. Stephens, I am also with our way of offer-
attracted to solving com- ing a consumer experi-
plex problems. In 2019, I ence. We used the crisis as
joined Moët Hennessy an opportunity.”
and it gave me the unique
opportunity to marry the In the long run, they
heritage and the new-age envision leading the lux-
with brands that are cen- ury wines and spirits
turies old but have an market in India, through
ongoing quest for innova- sustainable innovation,
tion to cater to the evolv- while keeping the con-
ing luxury consumer in sumer and community at
mind,” says Das. the centre.

LVMH Moët Hennessy By Urvi Shrivastav

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AUTOMATING
USER

CONVERSATIONS

With Yellow.AI, Jaya Kishore
Reddy was looking at tapping the
opportunities that AI could bring to

customer relationships

I footprints across the JAYA KISHORE
Middle East, South East REDDY
N 2015, WHEN the hype of Asia and the enterprise tar-
messaging over WhatsApp gets to expand to the US Founder & CTO
was growing rapidly across and Europe aggressively. Yellow.AI
the globe, everyone, defy- An IIT Hyderabad alum- Age: 34 years
ing all demographic barri- nus, Reddy was passionate Sector:
ers, was adopting chat and keen to find a feasible Technology
applications. Despite this, solution in the area of user-
even as large companies enterprise conversation. service) products. Yellow.AI has raised funds
spent $3 trillion on cus- As brainstorming with Acknowledging the from Series A, B, and C
tomer support every year, family and friends picked which make a total of over
only 3 per cent of custom- up, Reddy met Raghu scope of learning, Reddy $105 million from leading
ers were satisfied with the Ravinutala, who is a co- said there were always ref- venture firms which
support provided. founder for the company, erence-able products to include Lightspeed
and eventually started look up to while building Ventures (India and US),
“At the time of incep- working on the same day. them as he worked with Salesforce Ventures, West
tion, conversational AI enterprise-tech and Bridge Capital and
itself was in its early stages In his previous role at e-commerce as a part of his Sapphire Ventures. Going
with an unclear definition. Myntra, Reddy had worked initial professional jour- forward, the company has
And that allowed us to on scaling multiple tech ney. plans to tap the potential in
define the horizon and to systems to support the focusing on product-led
build the product,” recol- company’s large scale port- Today, Yellow.AI is sus- growth motion for small
lects Jaya Kishore Reddy, folios such as tainable in terms of finan- and medium businesses.
the Founder and Chief EndOfReasonSales and cial performance and is
Technology Officer of Big Billion Days sale. generating contracted By Resham Suhail
Yellow.AI. Before this, he worked on annual recurring revenue
an enterprise cloud plat- of $30 million. Aiming to
Global Play form that converts legacy grow triple-fold this year,
At present, Yellow.AI has applications to multi-ten-
anted SaaS (software as a

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BEAUTY ECOMMERCE cent y-o-y and aims to
GOES SKYWARD reach a gross merchandise
value of Rs 1,400 crore in
Manish Taneja’s vision married two FY22. It follows a tw0-fold
elements – the beauty sector and the monetisation model where
ecommerce platform that opened this it collects commission
from brands that sell on the
sector to newer market segments platform and earns reve-
nue from advertising
I assumptions about the because Purplle.com today because of the scale of visi-
freshly-baked business is among the leading tors and consumers on the
T ALL BEGAN with a dis- model. beauty e-commerce plat- platform.
cussion Manish Taneja had forms and has recorded
with his flatmate in Promising Growth “unmatchable growth”, The Business Model
Mumbai. It could be called The business model must making beauty accessible Purplle is a large inde-
the meeting of the like- have resonated with more to people across the coun- pendent marketplace for
minded because both try. Calling itself the most beauty brands and is fully
Taneja and Rahul Dash, capital efficient brand, it aided with tech and recom-
who are both co-founders has raised $160 million in mendation engines to ena-
of Purplle.com, were primary capital and a ble brands to target the
inclined towards entrepre- major of this is still in the right consumers. “My jour-
neurship. In 2011, the bank. The company is cur- ney is a mixture of very
internet took off in India rently growing at 100 per high highs and deep lows,”
again and monthly active says Taneja, adding,
users increased remark- MANISH “Starting from our early
ably. This was the time TANEJA days, where our colleagues
when the two were invested through the
clear that the ‘inter- CEO & friends and family round to
net would be core’ to Co-founder today where investors
their business. Purplle Purplle.com including, Verlinvest,
was born on December Age: 37 years Kedaara, Sequoia Capital
26, 2011, after the primary Sector: India, Goldman Sachs,
due diligence, visits to Ecommerce Blume Ventures, IvyCap
beauty product stores and Ventures and Premji invest
believing their initial in Purplle.”

Purplle is focused to
deliver six to eight times
growth over the next five
years, to place it among the
largest Indian beauty com-
panies. The brand cur-
rently employs 2,400 peo-
ple and aims to generate
10,000 jobs over the next
few years.

By Resham Suhail

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EMPLOYEE INCENTIVES mance, increase employee
REIMAGINED engagement, and build
brand loyalty and reten-
Xoxoday’s mission is to “bring simplicity and tion with their customers
continuity to a complex, everyday problem of and employees.

human motivation, using technology” A Growing Platform
Xoxoday has raised a
MANOJ multi-million dollar fund
AGARWAL recently that is yet to be
announced next month.
Co-founder
Xoxoday.com In Giftxoxo, a seed round
Age: 39 years of Rs 3 crore was raised.
Sector: However, Xoxoday has
Technology been bootstrapped making
annual recurring revenue
H Yahoo and Flipkart. In Kozhikode alumnus piv- of $9 million (2021-22)
2012, he along with three oted into Xoxoday which is and is a profitable venture.
AILING FROM A business co-founders started a SaaS platform that pro-
community, Manoj Giftxoxo as an experiences vides technology infra- Today, Xoxoday has a
Agarwal believes entrepre- and activities marketplace. structure to enable busi- suite of three products
neurship is part of his The team gradually real- nesses to automate including Plum, a horizon-
DNA. The scale of technol- ised though that the busi- rewards, incentives and tal platform for rewards,
ogy products and deep ness was ahead of its time payouts processes across incentives, and payouts;
regard for human capital as both supply and demand the value chain. Empuls, a vertical platform
were two major dimen- were fragmented in India. that enables holistic
sions added to his entre- “Our mission is to bring The company today employee engagement;
preneurial mindset owing simplicity and continuity employs 300 people and and Compass, a platform to
to his professional stints at to a complex, everyday works with over 2,000 turbocharge sales channels
problem of human motiva- enterprises globally. through gamification and
tion, using technology,” Customer companies use real-time commissions.
asserts Xoxoday’s Agarwal. Xoxoday products to
improve their channel per- Creating a brand name
In 2017, the IIM formance, sales perfor- for Xoxoday that was digit-
ising a space primarily
served by legacy systems
and manual processes, was
challenging. “Breaking
through the barrier of
being unknown and creat-
ing trust in this high mon-
etary transaction business
was very critical and
d e m a n d i n g ,” s h a r e s
Agarwal.

By Resham Suhail

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I Sixth Sense Ventures,
Exfinity Ventures and mar-
N 2013, A BASIC personal quee investors like Patni
need drove Neha Motwani, family office, Taparia fam-
the Co-founder and CEO ily office, Salgaocar family
of Fitternity, to organise office and Anjali Bansal.
and digitise India’s Motwani, along with her
unstructured fitness eco- co-founder Jayam Vora,
system. An MBA from spearheaded four rounds
Welingkar Institute of of funding from 2014 to
Management and 2020.
Research, she worked
actively for more than five NEHA A Long Road Ahead
years with Aon Hewitt in MOTWANI Fitternity today is a mar-
human resources and risk ketplace for fitness with
consulting. Co-founder & over 15 million consumers
and a network of over
A Growth Sector CEO 12,000 partnered fitness
The opportunity was evi- centres pan-India across
dent in a data point. Google Fitternity more than 17 workout
Search for fitness activities forms. In 2021, Cult.fit
and centres, despite being Age: 36 years acquired the company, and
high in 2013-2014, was post-acquisition raised
met with a dead end as 14 Sector: capital at a $1.5 billion val-
million users searched for uation. The Fitternity web-
fitness centres on Google Health & Fitness site was the first offering
in India. This was due to that enabled users to dis-
the lack of online presence of fitness centres and gyms. cover fitness centres, gyms
Fitness as a category con- and studios near them,
THE FITNESS tinues to grow exponen- then evolved to a transac-
FACILITATOR tially, especially after the tional set-up and launched
impact of the pandemic. the Fitternity app.
Pioneering the digitisation of fitness While in India it is still nas-
cent, the fitness penetra- Fitternity remained
outlets, Fitternity has been able to tion is gradually increas- aligned to keep learning
ing. “We’re currently living from consumers to provide
create revenue streams that helped in the decade of health, this better service. Successfully
decade will witness a mas- pioneering the digitisation
over 12,000 gyms, studios to scale up sive surge not just in fitness of fitness outlets, the enter-
penetration levels, but also prise has been able to cre-
in innovation and an ate revenue streams that
increase in the number of helped over 12,000 gyms
users,” notes Motwani. and studios to scale up.
Fitternity has raised over
$7.5 million from blue- By Resham Suhail
chip VC funds such as

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QUALITY foundation and various tutes. He continued there
EDUCATION Olympiads. The institute for six months before he
currently has 51 centres launched his venture and
As the pandemic hit, there was a lack of across the nation and named it Motion
resources to reach every student. To solve aims to expand and estab- Education, which grew
this issue, Motion Education extended free lish 100 centres across year on year to its current
India by year-end. success.
lectures online
Hailing from a humble The foundation of the
M background, Nitin Vijay, company was laid with
the Co-founder and the establishment of
OTION EDUCATION is a Managing Director of the Motion IIT-JEE in Dec
self-funded premier edtech platform decided 2007.
coaching institute provid- that his aim was to
ing online and offline become a successful Vijay recalls that within
classroom, distance learn- teacher. two days of the launch,
ing coaching for pre-engi- there was a shortage of
neering, pre-medical, Powered by the will to seating space in the class-
teach, Vijay used to travel room. Thereafter, Motion
60 km to teach a batch of IIT-JEE grew success-
students in Banaras dur- fully and reached its cur-
ing his first year of engi- rent avatar.
neering.
The platform’s major
In his second year, stu- business offering includes
dents’ response to his School Integrated
teaching methods moti- Program (SIP), Franchise
vated him to set up his Centers, Classroom
institute, Kota Point, in Program, Distance
Varanasi for physics. Learning Program (DLP).

Following a Dream “We take pride in being
Vijay got the job opportu- the most tech-enabled
nity in two leading com- teaching centre in Kota.
panies through college Motion has India’s finest
placement but his passion mentoring team with a
brought him back to Kota combination of vast
and he started teaching knowledge and extensive
physics in one of the insti- academic experience,”
claims Vijay.
NITIN VIJAY
The company’s motto is
Co-founder to provide quality teach-
& Managing ing and pocket-friendly
Director education to every house-
Motion hold.
Education
Age: 38 years Its latest project,
Sector: Edtech MyBizKid, is a business
leadership program that
helps students of the age
group 8-15 years become
future leaders.

By Resham Suhail

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S per the American Child sumer brand building pro- were on a maternity break
Product Safety Standards. fessional, Utagi donned the and sought certain flexibil-
UPERBOTTOMS IS A sus- entrepreneurial hat and ity at work. This move also
tainable mom and baby The First Steps launched SuperBottoms worked as channel part-
essentials brand that “My entrepreneurial jour- after lots of testing, trials ners, as it ensured that
claims to offer high-perfor- ney began when my baby and research. Initially, add- word-of-mouth remained
mance, skin-friendly, sus- got his first diaper rash. ing well-qualified mem- the dominant marketing
tainable and cost-efficient That got me searching for a bers to the team proved to tool. The company today
cloth diapers in India. It is diaper that would be gentle be a challenging task for a has a team of over100, with
a digital-first brand, a new on the skin and also on the bootstrapped company. 80 per cent mothers and a
concept in a space domi- planet, yet be convenient,”
nated by large players. The says Pallavi Utagi. With a
primary selling channel desire to address the gap,
remains the brand website, the marketing and con-
adopting a direct to con-
sumer business model. A PALLAVI
three-year-old VC funded UTAGI
startup, SuperBottoms
raised a Series A round and Founder & CEO
has a stable revenue SuperBottoms (Navashya
growth. The quality of its
products was endorsed Consumer Products)
when it was safety tested as Age: 37 years

Sector: Babycare

A SUSTAINABLE With limited resources on community of over 1 lakh
BRAND hand, introducing a new parents that actively take
concept to more parents cloth diapering to more
The journey that began with a baby and educating them was parents in India. The
diaper rash has placed Pallavi Utagi’s another big challenge to brand faces the challenge
SuperBottoms as a company to watch overcome. The brand of getting copied easily as a
focused deeply on develop- product, and therefore it
out for ing and improving product had to build non-replicable
basis customer feedback. competitive advantages.
“We invested a lot of effort
The Wider Call in the central pillars, prod-
As the company grew, the uct improvisations, cus-
idea to ask some of the tomer support and service,
mom-customers across and community to combat
India to join the team for a this,” says Utagi.
few hours was born. These
were qualified people, who By Resham Suhail

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SIMPLIFYING “Coming from a humble Africa and with team size
PAYMENTS background, quitting a of 500-plus across six loca-
lucrative job at a leading IT tions in India and UAE. A
Chennai-based M2P Fintech is Asia’s company was a bold deci- few key markets apart
fastest growing API platform that has sion and having no safety from India include the
made life easier for people through access net was a bet at the time UAE, Australia, New
that was both exciting and Zealand, Nepal, the
to financial technology challenging. Having Philippines, Bahrain and
worked with leading IT Egypt. The company plans
S TARTING UP A business may not be everyone’s companies for almost a to expand to Indonesia,
cup of tea but the idea behind it can certainly decade and half, the norm Bangladesh, Vietnam, and
be seeded over cups of tea. That’s exactly how was to find an onsite across the MENA region.
three friends, Prabhu Rangarajan along with opportunity to move to the
Muthukumar Ayyakkannu and Madhusudhan US or other countries,” says Overcoming failures and
Rangarajan, came to imagine M2P Fintech. M2P Co-founder Prabhu hindrances, M2P has now
What started as a casual conversation between friends Rangarajan. emerged as Asia’s biggest
over a cup of tea evolved into M2P, Asia’s largest payments API infrastructure. Today,
API platform. M2P offers a cloud-native digital-first eco- Global Presence M2P Fintech is valued
system that encompasses a triangulation of commerce, Headquartered in more than $605 million.
finance technology. Simplifying complexities and compli- Chennai, M2P operates in
ance, M2P is the building blocks that allow customers to more than 20 markets Over the last year, M2P
co-create solutions that deliver tailored financial products. across Asia and North Fintech has managed to
raise more than $100 mil-
PRABHU lion in funding from
RANGARAJAN marque investors includ-
ing Insight Partners, Tiger
Co-founder Global, Better Capital and
M2P Fintech Omidyar network. M2P
Age: 39 years Fintech has grown to pro-
Sector: Fintech cess over $6 billion in
transactions, having issued

over 12 million cards.
Not just that,
Rangarajan has the
vision to provide a
launch pad for
future entrepre-
neurs through
M2P Fintech,
where they can
learn from peers
and industry lead-
ers.

By Sneha Patro

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MAKING A RAHUL ness and prosperity for
POSITIVE GUPTA our lives and drive sus-
IMPACT tainability for genera-
Head - Financial tions to come.”
In his own words, Rahul Gupta is a
capitalist in the brain and a socialist Sponsors Australian captain,
by heart, an economics student, and a Steve Waugh’s autobiog-
Coverage raphy ‘Out of My Comfort
business professional Zone’ has been a source of
Axis Bank inspiration for him and
I N A PROFESSION that is considered to be inac- encouraged him to strive
cessible for the visually impaired, the organisa- Age: 38 years and thrive. Testimony to
tion always stood strong and tall with Rahul this being the niche busi-
Gupta, living up to the ethos of diversity, equity, Sector: BFSI nesses in which he got an
inclusion and meritocracy. Recruited by one of opportunity to front-lead
India’s top private banks, as a young manage- (Intrapreneur) for the Axis Bank across
ment trainee after completing his education from two the 16 years of his diverse
of India’s most prestigious colleges, St Stephen’s College lenges and ideas to corporate banking career,
(2001-04) and Delhi School of Economics (2004-06), deliver new solutions, both in India and in the
Gupta had a better than usual start to his professional new opportunities for UK.
journey. This only got richer each year with new chal- their conversion to main-
stream revenues. Newer Frontiers
At Axis Bank, currently,
Challenges Galore besides scaling up the
In spite of his severe vis- core business he is steer-
ual limitations, he went ing some growth poten-
toe-to-toe with his peers tial projects that stand to
across educational and deliver measurable devel-
corporate life, competing opmental and ESG (envi-
hard yet fair. A capitalist ronment, social, govern-
in the brain and a social- ance) impact in some of
ist by heart, an economics the key economic sectors
student, and a business of the country.
professional, Gupta
believes, “A balanced Dovetailing profes-
blend will deliver happi- sional experience with
social consciousness,
Gupta stayed committed
to continuing working
towards making a posi-
tive impact on stakehold-
ers. He has always been
grateful to the visionary
leadership, empowering
managers, motivated
team and collaborating
colleagues, all terrains
and turns became easy to
manoeuvre for him.

By Resham Suhail

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E SANDEEP LightSpeed Venture
GUDIBANDA Partners, Kalaari Capital,
STABLISHED IN 2014, Chiratae Ventures and
HealthPlix is the only doc- CEO JSW Ventures are backing
tor-first healthcare SaaS- HealthPlix the venture. The compa-
based company with a Technologies ny’s business model is
vision and passion to Age: 40 years largely based on subscrip-
reshape healthcare deliv- Sector: tions and licensing, regis-
ery in India. HealthPlix Healthtech tering a $2.85 million
delivers digital healthcare annual recurring revenue
not only by providing soft- for 2021.
ware for doctors for con-
sultations but also by ena- The driving force for
bling them to set up a vir- Gudibanda has always
tual clinic with ‘zero physi- been about solving prob-
cal infrastructure’. They lems for ‘Bharat’. In the
can do this even in the face of the pandemic, his
remotest parts of the company realised that
country. growing economies such as
India require a stronger
“India is our priority digital push. As a result,
market, and our aim is to HealthPlix launched a
build a digital healthcare mobile version of its EMR
stack that will power the for doctors to instantly
end-to-end clinic and start their practice from
patient management for any corner of their home.
the doctors,” says the com-
pany’s CEO Sandeep A Big Impact Future Fit
Gudibanda. On receiving heavy
Being on the path to revo- demand from tier-2 and
RESHAPING lutionise healthcare tech- tier-3 cities, the enterprise
HEALTHCARE nology in the country, over plans to expand. Given the
DELIVERY 16 million patients have challenge of the unstable
been treated using internet infrastructure, it is
HealthPlix delivers digital healthcare HealthPlix’s electronic focused to enhance mobile
medical records (EMR). product capabilities to
not only by providing software for Deeply rooted and local- allow doctors in these
ised with support in 14 lan- regions to adopt digital
doctors for consultations but also by guages, the platform has solutions. The company is
over 5,000 clinics in 23 scaling up teams to meet
enabling them to set up a virtual clinic states growing at 10 per the rising demand for the
cent month-on-month. In adoption of digital tools,
terms of traction, 1.5 per especially post-Covid.
cent of India’s population,
over 35 years in age, is on By Resham Suhail
the HealthPlix platform.
Marquee investors such as

80 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022

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I N 2015, SPECIALITY coffee as a segment was chain, right from farm crore and a positive
just introduced in India, and there was a lack of interventions and scoring EBITDA, with the busi-
knowledge and awareness around socialising to profile roasting, pack- ness growing at ~85 per
over a good cup of coffee. Moreover, the coffee aging, and selling directly cent CAGR (compound
market in India was primarily dominated by to consumers through annual growth rate) in
commodity coffee, even in the retail space, mak- different D2C and B2B the last six years. It has
ing it more difficult for speciality coffee players to make channels, including cafés also stepped into the
a mark. However, these challenges didn’t stop Shivam and retail, online and international market,
Shahi from popularising the speciality coffee segment modern trade, amongst with Japan as its first
through his venture Blue Tokai and taking Indian con- others. international home.
sumers’ experience a notch higher.
Brewing Success Shahi believes that every
Launched in 2013 as a roastery, Blue Tokai’s vision is In the initial years, it was hurdle can be cracked with
to make great quality Indian coffee more accessible self-funded, but later it deep analysis, and with the
across formats. It has become India’s largest speciality received seed funding correct numbers, one can
coffee brand with a presence across the entire value from Snow Leopard always arrive at logical
Technology Ventures and conclusions, especially
REVOLUTIONISING Bold Ventures in 2016, while working on strategic
COFFEE CULTURE which helped the team growth plans. “With this
led by Shahi to scale the approach, I started devis-
Blue Tokai aspires to take India’s finest business. At present, Blue ing expansion strategies
quality coffee to the world and popularise Tokai has an annual run with a vision to make spe-
rate (ARR) of Rs 100 ciality coffee more accessi-
the speciality coffee segment ble and convenient. All our
cafes are unit economics
SHIVAM positive and achieving
SHAHI operational efficiency with
operational expenditures
Co-founder & COO well under control,” says
Blue Tokai Coffee Shahi.

Roasters In the past year, Blue
Age: 31 years Tokai opened 21 new
Sector: Food & cafés taking the overall
cafe count to more than
Beverages 50 and entered newer
markets beyond the
Tier-1 cities. It also for-
ayed in the FMGC seg-
ment and projects pres-
ence in 20 new cities and
more than 2,000 retail
stores by the end of the
year.

By Arjun Yadav

12 March 2022 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 81

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POWERING MICRO tem to scale their busi-
BUSINESSES nesses.

ARTH aims to provide inclusive and equitable financial services ARTH has also devel-
to micro enterprises of India to help them scale their businesses oped a social welfare pro-
gramme for self-
the segment and geogra- employed women with a
phies,” says Aprameya. database of 250-plus gov-
ernment welfare schemes.
The MSME space faces a This programme has ben-
$380 billion credit gap, efited more than 1,500
which, according to underserved households.
Aprameya, limits the It has disbursed more
income and scope of than 5 lakh loans to date
growth for these firms. to over 3.5 lakh MSMEs
ARTH targets new-to- across India.
credit (NTC) nano- and
micro-entrepreneurs who Interest as Income
borrow from informal ARTH earns revenues
sources to get credit facili- from interest income from
ties. It strives to include the loans and a one-time
these enterprises under a processing fee for manag-
formal borrowing ecosys- ing the end-to-end process
for the customers. The
T HE JAN DHAN-Aadhar-Mobile (JAM) trinity SHWETA company makes money
is often credited with boosting the pace of APRAMEYA from the interest spread
financial inclusion in India. It has led to the earned between the inter-
opening of nearly one billion bank accounts Founder & CEO est charged and the cost of
in India. However, even with these initiatives, ARTH funds through debt and
access to credit continues to be limited for Age: 39 years equity.
micro-enterprises and businesses. Sector:
Financial Aprameya identifies
As founder & CEO, Shweta Aprameya-led ARTH aims Services penetrating Tier-3 cities as
to provide inclusive and equitable financial services to a big challenge. Moreover,
micro-enterprises of India. “Our vision is to become the there is also a lack of struc-
first specialised category micro MSME bank in the country. tured data regarding pay-
By 2023 we will touch 1 million micro-enterprises across ment, lending and insur-
ance. “As a firm, we had to
design products that are
easy to understand by our
target group and also have
flexibility in terms of docu-
mentation and processes,”
says Aprameya.

ARTH plans to tap the
financial planning, insur-
ance and account manage-
ment tools market to help
its customers in powering
and improving micro-busi-
ness outcomes.

By Arjun Yadav

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I SIDDHARTH ied the successes of reputed
MEHRA global energy conglomer-
N 2017, THE wind industry ates. With more than a dec-
was undergoing a transi- Founder ade’s learning in the renew-
tion from feed-in tariffs to ables space, he decided to
reverse auction bidding, Viviid start ViViid Renewables to
which drove down the pric- provide renewable energy
ing and margins across the Renewables investors with a reliable
value chain for the wind partner to develop large
power sector. This led the Age: 40 years green field projects. Today,
OEMs (turbine manufac- it is among the few devel-
turers) to re-evaluate their Sector: opers in India who have
core competencies and built the capability and
risks associated with pro- Renewable capacity to do a complete
viding turnkey wind pro- packaged wind and solar
ject development. They Energy project development.
started reducing their
scope of works for the ViViid Renewables Mehra recalls getting the
investors (independent stepped in to fill the need. first order and the right tal-
power producers) concern- ent as challenges for his
ing land, project construc- ViViid Renewables oper- venture in its early days.
tion, turbine logistics and ates as a developer of util- But today, he is confident
even installation. This cre- ity-scale renewable energy that ViViid Renewables
ated a need for a reliable projects, offering its ser- has bridged the gap it
developer who could take vices to international inves- intended to. “We bring in a
the role of a windfarm tors, wind turbine manu- unique set of technical
developer. This is where facturers and IIPs in India. expertise like no other
Siddharth Mehra-led It has become the largest company, and thus we are
wind farm developer in the today one of the fastest-
CLEANING INDIA’S country and has forayed in growing companies in the
GRIDS the development of solar renewable energy space,”
parks as well. says Mehra.
ViViid Renewables is among
On the expansion front,
the few developers in India to do ViViid Renewables plans
to conceptualise wind-
complete packaged wind and solar solar hybrid projects and
create two new verticals to
project development cater to the opportunities
within the sector in terms
of operating and mainte-
nance of renewable energy
projects as well as creation,
validation and trading of
carbon credits.

Renewables Developer By Arjun Yadav
Mehra was a keen observer
of the renewable energy
business in India and stud-

12 March 2022 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 83

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TRADITION AND details, and the designs
CONTEMPORANEITY add elegance, boldness
and grace. Suta or
Suta focuses on creating a range of attire with a thread, the basis of the
blend of tradition and contemporaneity and aspires to brand’s inspiration, is a
reminder of the craft tra-
popularise India’s craft traditions ditions of India.

into every creation. The Bootstrapped
weavers used to inspire It is a bootstrapped com-
her, and she was clear pany with a Rs 50 crore
that this industry had a business and sells mostly
calling for her. In 2015, through its website and
Suta was born, and it third-party platforms
now works with more like Myntra, Nykaa
than 16,000 weavers and Fashion and Ogaan. It
artisans. also has a store in
Mumbai.
Suta is a fresh design
house that centres on Biswas states that
creating a range of attire being from a non-textile
with a blend of tradition background, she got
and contemporaneity. cheated a few times in
Suta’s crafted inspira- the initial days of the
tions pay attention to venture but soon came
across people who were
F OR SUJATA BISWAS, her childhood was SUJATA equally passionate about
full of entrepreneurial dreams and games. BISWAS their work. “Constant
Her love for handloom and art steered her learning, meeting like-
to take a steady step towards entrepre- Co -founder minded people helped us
neurship after her engineering and corpo- SUTA a lot in terms of growth,”
rate career journey. Age: 35 years says Biswas.
She describes that it wasn’t unhappiness that drove Sector: Textiles
her to quit but her persistent desire to find meaning, On the expansion
creating an impact and making a tangible difference. front, Suta plans to
increase the number of
She recalls travelling back to Kolkata, where she physical stores, employ
would meet weavers in the villages and how mesmer- more weavers, and have
ised she was by the simplicity and love they poured new teams.

The company also
aims to reach farther
corners of India and
learn about exquisite
art forms and incorpo-
rate them in their prod-
ucts.

By Arjun Yadav

84 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022



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SWAGATA consumer brand and the
SARANGI digital media space, he
started feeling very pas-
Co-founder sionate about solving the
Smytten problem of physical prod-
uct experience in the digi-
Age: 38 years tal age to help consumers
Sector: decide better. He found
his co-founder
Consumer Siddhartha, a senior and
Technology experienced hand in the
FMCG space who was
TRYING BEFORE equally passionate about
BUYING the problem. Both decided
to quit their jobs to launch
Smytten offers a unique try-buy-try model and focuses Smytten, which began
on the pre-purchase experience of online shoppers Sarangi’s entrepreneur-
ship journey.
A S SHOPPING ONLINE gains momentum because they are more
in India, we often feel how good it would focused on selling all the Smytten has raised fund-
have been if we got the ability to try cer- time. Users don’t have the ing of $10 million in two
tain products before buying. This thought means to try any new institutional venture capi-
usually comes when we shop apparel, brands and trends they tal and angel rounds. The
beauty or grooming products and even come across online. annualised revenue run
food and beverages. Smytten, led by Swagata Sarangi, Smytten focuses on the rate surpassed Rs 100
addresses this problem by offering a unique try-buy-try trial and discovery of prod- crore in 2021. Revenue
model by curating for consumers the best brands and ucts through its try-buy- comes from a nominal
products across categories and delivering free miniature try model,” says Sarangi. amount from the brands
trial packs of products of their interest. and consumers for the tri-
Solving a Problem als’ delivery at home. They
Unlike other online commerce platforms, Smytten Sarangi had nurtured the have also monetised the
focuses more on the pre-purchase experience of online idea of being an entrepre- business side by providing
shoppers to help them try the product first at their homes neur since his graduation. brands with access to real-
at a very minimal or no cost. “The spirit of trial and discov- Having worked in the time data and consumer
ery is inhibited on traditional e-commerce platforms insights.

Sarangi describes hir-
ing the right people as a
significant challenge and
has plans to expand the
user base to 100 million in
India and take Smytten to
South East Asia and the
Middle East.

by Arjun Yadav

86 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022

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COMMUNITY FOR ing Seniority, India’s larg- the senior community to
COMMUNICATION est e-commerce destina- participate in various
tion for the elderly. After a interactive and informa-
Evergreen Club is an unique platform few months of experi- tive sessions and activi-
where one can connect with anyone ments with various ver- ties. Here, users can
across the globe and engage in various sions of the business engage with the mentors,
proposition, he realised fellow members and learn
interactive sessions that the biggest issue and pick up new skills or
faced by this segment was rekindle their old hobbies
W that of loneliness and and participate in activi-
social isolation. To solve ties that are both fun and
ELL, AS LEE Brown said, this, he launched productive.
“Communication is the Evergreen Club.
key to success in any busi- Platform for Seniors Currently, the company
ness,” Tapan Mishra has Evergreen Club is an conducts 1,000-plus ses-
successfully made com- online platform that helps sions in a month across
munication a key to busi- various categories. Soon
ness. With the changing TAPAN it will launch a social net-
times and to propitiate MISHRA working platform where
our struggles, he has users are free to speak
brought out a perfect Founder & CEO their mind, share their
example for digital India; Evergreen Club difficulties with fellow
it is called Evergreen members, discuss takea-
Club. Age: 38 years ways from the various
Sector: Lifestyle & sessions conducted,
Coming from an entre- engage with the mentors
preneurial family back- Technology and much more.
ground along with an
understanding of busi- The level of product
ness practices from an curation and efforts
early age, Tapan was keen Evergreen Club puts in to
to take the plunge. With ensure that seniors can
the knowledge that the find everything they
older adult community is would probably need for
a heavily underserved an independent lifestyle,
market in India, he began has helped the company
the journey of co-found- gain their trust over the
last five years.

Tapan says the future
pathway would be to
expand the user base in
the international markets
and also cater to the adults
who have not been on
boarded in the digital
journey of India.

By Sneha Patro

12 March 2022 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 87

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COMFORTABLE, challenges. Chhabra
SUSTAINABLE FOOTWEAR found, however, that the
Indian consumer valued
Neeman’s Shoes began with the search for sustainable and comforta-
all-purpose footwear, but ended up being ble footwear. “People have
valued planet-friendly
sustainable as well shoes made from natural
yarns and materials that
N EEMAN’S SHOES does not just make fash- venture and Neeman’s are not harmful to the envi-
ionable footwear. It also strives in its own Shoes was launched ronment,” points out
way, to reduce the carbon footprint, by online. With the ecom- Chhabra.
making footwear from recyclable plastic to merce penetration grow-
contribute toward sustainability. “When I ing and consumers veering Neeman’s Shoes raised
took the leap to form Neeman’s, the goal increasingly toward this $1 million in funding in its
was crystal clear, producing comfortable footwear for all- convenient mode of shop- seed round from Anicut
day wear and making them sustainable,” says Taran ping, the business model Capital in March 2020,
Chhabra, Founder & CEO, Neeman’s Shoes. paid off. and received $2.7 million
(Rs 20 crore) from Sixth
The Direct to Consumer (D2C) route was chosen for the Neeman’s Shoes’ first Sense Ventures during the
challenge was to gain Series A funding round in
attention in one of the August 2021. Over the last
most competitive market- 12 months, the company
places. Introducing sus- has seen a 15 times growth
tainable, environmentally in business.
friendly footwear also
came with the additional The company’s short
challenge of spreading term plans are geared
awareness about it. The towards introducing new
pandemic and subsequent products. Neeman’s Shoes
lockdown were the other new launches include
ReLive Knits, Slippers-
TARAN Eco Flips and Slides and
CHHABRA the latest, ReLive You. It
also aims to increase mar-
Founder & CEO ket share by reaching more
Neeman’s Shoes customers and growing
Age: 37 years Neeman’s offline presence
Sector: Footwear by creating more experien-
tial zones for its product
and customers.

The company’s long
term goals include expand-
ing the product line and
launching new categories.
ReLive You, the latest
product, is made from
recycled PET bottles.
Sustainability and envi-
ronmentally conscious
product design through
comprehensive R&D drive
Neeman’ growth plans.

By Vasudha Mukherjee

88 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022

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CUSTOMER-FIRST 24x7. The platform caters
APPROACH to the unique needs of
businesses, large or small
Tejas Kadakia’s goal is to provide retailers with a and is useful for retailers
digital solution to enable them to connect with looking to start or run
their businesses digitally.
customers 24X7
“We are a pure SaaS
TEJAS model where we charge
KADAKIA brands on revenue and a
retainer for the platform
Co-founder usage,” explains Kadakia.
& Director, The business model
allows the Easyrewardz
Easyrewardz Software Services team to
Software work with brands in
Services tier-2 and tier-3 cities,
helping them compete
Age: 39 years digitally on a global plat-
Sector: CRM form.

E When the pandemic and Netcore, along with In India, the company’s
struck, retailers battled venture capitalists and mission is to build a digi-
ASYREWARDZ Co- with the decision to either marquee angle investors, tal ecosystem in retail
founder, Tejas Kadakia’s wait out the pandemic or including Jiten Gupta, and for small stores to
entrepreneurial journey close shop. Shopster was Ashneer Grover and drive the Digital India
began with the challenge the third option. Subrat Pani, were some of revolution. Globally,
of convincing businesses Kadakia’s first investors. Shopster is expanding in
to adopt a customer-cen- “We had customer data South East Asia and the
tric approach. and partner brands, so we Shopster is a patented Middle East and North
Finding Indian retailers thought why not connect tool that enables commu- Africa (MENA) region.
heavily dependent on the two and enable them nication via video and
products in contrast with to transact digitally,” social channels that allow “I believe in creating
their global counterparts, recalls Kadakia. Flipkart customers access to stores solutions that will help
Easyrewardz launched not only ‘biggies’ in the
the tool, Shopster, to fight business but anyone who
the impending ecom- wants to run their busi-
merce wave. ness digitally should be
able to do it from our
solutions,” says Kadakia.

The intent comes down
to, “Why do we need to
have a global solution for
India when we can build a
Make in India solution?”
he says.The company’s
motto is to drive cus-
tomer experience and
build solutions for retail-
ers in India and globally.
Over the last year many
top brands have adopted
the Shopster solution
globally.

By Vasudha Mukherjee

90 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022

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U UTSAV remain connected with
MALHOTRA consumers and develop
TSAV MALHOTRA joined solutions for them.
the founders of Noise as Chief Operating
Nexxbase Marketing’s The digital-first brand
Chief Operating Officer, Officer has grown 17 times over
with the common vision the last 30 months, with a
and mission to build a Noise (Nexxbase CAGR of 240 per cent.
homegrown Indian life- Scaling to build a distri-
style brand that caters to Marketing) bution across over 8,000
the needs of millennial POS without an external
and Gen Z consumers. Age: 39 years investor, makes the com-
pany one of the most suc-
Targeting the Young Sector: D2C cessful D2C outfits in the
“We endeavour to provide country.
our consumers the best front of all our business
designed, technologically decisions.” Expansion Plans
forward, intuitively sim- “We expand on our geo-
ple and experientially Market Leader graphical presence and
enhanced products, Noise has been the will only further our mis-
desired from consumers’ Number One Smartwatch sion of connecting India
insights at the most befit- Brand and Number Two through Noise connected
t i n g p r i c e s ,” s ay s TWS Brand in the coun- lifestyle devices,” says
Malhotra, adding, “and try for two years now. The Malhotra. He believes
that has been our recipe noisefit app is today that for a business to suc-
for building success – among the top three apps ceed, having the right tal-
putting the consumer in in the country. ent is essential. People
behind the scenes must
HOMEGROWN The company’sD2C be driven and passionate
INDIAN LIFESTYLE (direct to consumer) about the work.
website is one of the larg-
BRAND est of its kind, contribut- “We are the success we
ing to a significant part of are today on the back of
Noise was conceived with the vision its business strategy. The these Noisemakers,” says
company’s vision is to Malhotra. The company
of building a homegrown lifestyle is now looking to expand
into tier-2 and tier-3
brand , designed in India, for India towns, building a larger
footprint of offline pres-
and by India ence. It is now focussed
on finding the means to
reach its products to
India’s Generation Next
in every nook and corner
of the country.

By Vasudha Mukherjee

12 March 2022 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 91

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TASTE OF SUCCESS consists of women. He
not only praises them for
From a humble beginning, Happilo has become a Rs their contribution but
100 crore snacks brand today boasting a distribution also credits them with the
network of more than 10,000 modern trade and self- success of the brand.

service outlets Wide Distribution
Currently, Happilo oper-
Initially, Happilo only ates in collaboration with
carried out its operations more than 26 ecommerce
on marketplaces such as platforms and market-
Amazon and Flipkart. places. To reach out to
However, soon enough more customers, Happilo
the brand made its offer- has launched its own
ings available on modern website to cater to the
trade channels and in B2C segment besides
major cities. developing more than
10,000 modern trade and
Nahar always wanted self-service outlets across
to contribute to make the India. Happilo today is
world a better place, and also present on q-com-
encourage women to merce platforms like
work. Today, 80 per cent Blinkit and all set to come
of Happilo’s workforce soon to Zepto.

B IG THINGS OFTEN have small beginnings.” VIKAS D. Today, Happilo boasts
This phrase aptly describes Vikas D. Nahar, NAHAR of being a Rs 100 crore
the founder of Happilo. Set up with a mea- brand and growing. In
gre loan of Rs 10,000 from his wife, his Founder February 2021, Happilo
Happilo today has grown to be a successful Happilo raised Rs 100 crore in a
venture serving lakhs of buyers. International Series A round for grow-
After completing his graduation in Computer Age: 37 years ing its business. Happilo
Applications, Nahar launched Satvik, a retail store sell- Sector: Food & is set to raise a second
ing premium dry fruits. Nahar faced many challenges Snacks round from Series C
in running this venture, but used the learnings from investors for business
this venture to launch Happilo in September 2016. expansion.

Between May and
September, when the
Taliban attacked and took
over Afghanistan, the
supply of raw materials
from there was disrupted
in a big way and it became
a challenge for the com-
pany to cater to the
demand. Happilo found a
way around it by success-
fully collaborating with
new partners. As to its
future plans, Happilo
seeks to expand its busi-
ness across India.

By Sneha Patro

92 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022

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IN CONVERSATION

“WE
EXPECTHUGE
GROWTH
POTENTIALIN
HOTELS,
HOLIDAY
SEGMENT”

94 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022

IN CONVERSATION

T HEtravelindustry,whichwasadverselyimpactedduetotheCovidpandemic,
is showing signs of recovery. Online travel company EaseMyTrip that got listed
on the BSE last year continues to perform well. It reported an 84 per cent
increase in net profit to Rs 40 crore, YoY, for the quarter ended September
30, 2021 and a 65 per cent jump in its gross booking revenue at Rs 1,293 crore
(YoY).Prashant Pitti,Co-founder,EaseMyTriptalkstoASHISHSINHAabout
the company’s journey, reasons for profitability, travel trends and much more. Excerpts:

How has EaseMyTrip managed to stay profitable in the When we were just a B2B, we did approach a few VCs for
past 13 years, especially during the pandemic period? funding. However, there wasn’t a lot of interest as they
We have a resilient lean structure business model that can did not see potential in B2B business. We did mention
adapt to the changing external environment. This ena- that we will move into the B2C space but many of them
bled us to maintain our growth momentum and financial mentioned that there are already too many players in the
health. We have been doing this for the past 13 years. We market in this space.
know how to maintain and sustain this cost structure.
While we knew that we could efficiently service the
When Covid-19 hit, the tourism industry was among the market, not a lot of VCs believed that we would be able to
hardest-hit. The border restrictions and precautions pre- penetrate this highly competitive space.
vented our customers from travelling, thereby halting a
major part of bookings within this industry. Despite these We slowly grew through the ranks, and, in fact, a lot of
harsh situations, EaseMyTrip still managed to stay profit- VCs who rejected us initially came back to us in 2014 when
able during the two waves of the pandemic. For instance, they saw our exponential growth. But by then we had set
during the pandemic phase, we recorded our highest ever up our model and did not want to repeat the mistake that
profitability in FY2021 by adapting to the situation, in- our competition was making by burning money on mar-
creasing our margins and commissions and reducing our keting and deep discounts. We did not want to fall into
operational expenses. Even during the second wave, we the trap of just taking money for the sake of projecting
witnessed a four-fold jump in profit. high valuations. Additionally, we were growing profitably
right from our first year, so we did not even have the need
For saving costs, we implemented the use of technology to raise funds.
for processes that were human resource-intensive. The
company automated processes like seat booking, meal What led to the decision of launching your IPO during
booking, cancellation, customer service, among others. the peak of the pandemic?
The company, in fact, took this period as an opportunity Launching our IPO in 2021 has been one of the biggest
to streamline its processes and added more people in the milestones for our company, and we are proud to have
technology team. achieved the same. We were the first online travel com-
pany to get listed on the stock exchanges and our entry
The company has always focused on passing on sav- paved the way for several other digital companies to fol-
ings to our customers instead of spending on market- low, across a multitude of sectors.
ing and operational expenses, and this has ensured the
company’s consistent growth. We continue to grow by Even though the pandemic was at its peak during our
word of mouth and goodwill of our customers who act as launch, we believed it was the right time for our company
a media for propagating our “no-convenience fees” to the because of the growth that we had been experiencing. In
target group. December 2020, we witnessed a 76 per cent rise in our
numbers, touching pre-Covid levels, and we realised it
What was the reason behind remaining bootstrapped was a good opportunity to make our stock market debut.
instead of looking for external funding?
When EaseMyTrip was first launched, we operated solely Additionally, our company has been profitable since
as a B2B company and worked alongside travel agents inception, and we felt that it was a good fit for the IPO.
to offer better air ticket rates to their customers. This We knew that launching our IPO would help build trust
mode of operation was implemented for three years be- in the minds of our customers, which is what our entire
fore we decided to move into the B2C space and deliver business is based on.
our services directly to customers through our platform.
Earlier, internet companies used to think of only getting
listed on the NASDAQ. We chose a different path and

12 March 2022 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 95

IN CONVERSATION

listed in India, which led to a lower valuation than what five years to become one of the biggest names in the Indian

we may have got on the NASDAQ, but it helped to build a hospitality sector.

lot of trust for the company in the country. Additionally, we are entering into a definitive agree-

ment subject to closing conditions to acquire the brand

EaseMyTrip does not charge a convenience fee from name, technology, business expertise, data and team of

travellers unlike its peers in the online travel booking Yolo Traveltech, operating under the name of YoloBus. We

space. Why? How has this paid off ? aim to leverage YoloBus’ full-stack technology-enabled

Right from the start, our USP has been to not charge a platform to offer an enhanced and superior bus travel

convenience fee. We wanted to provide our customers experience at affordable prices.

with a service that offered them fair and lower prices as Our patrons will be provided access to a next-generation

compared to other travel mobility platform that

agencies, and wanted to offers safe, clean, com-

stand out as a company fortable and connected

that was able to stay true buses for seamless inter-

to this USP. city travel.

Right from the begin-

ning, our lean business Take us through your

model enabled us to stay expansion plans for

profitable despite not 2022...

charging this conveni- While air travel book-

ence fee. Since we have ings constitute around

never been a marketing 95 per cent of our reve-

focused company, we nues, we are also grow-

focused on the unique ing our non-air travel

zero convenience fee to businesses including

retain customers. This hotels, buses, trains

has enabled us to reach and holidays in double

repeat transaction rate Since we have never been a mar- digits.
keting focused company, we fo-
of 86 per cent, which is cused on zero convenience fee to We believe that there
probably the highest in retain customers. This has ena- is a huge growth poten-
the industry. tial not just in the air

EaseMyTrip acquired bled us to reach repeat transac- segment but also in the
three companies re- tion rate of 86 per cent, probably hotels and holiday seg-
ments, which we plan to

cently. Please expand the highest in the industry leverage this year. Addi-
on this. tionally, with our recent
All these acquisitions— acquisitions in the non-

Spree Hospitality, Tra- air businesses, we aim to
viate Online and Yolo strengthen our footprint

Traveltech—will add a in this segment as well.

new revenue stream and fast-track our growth in the We are also present across UAE, Singapore, UK, Phil-

non-air businesses. With Traviate, we aim to further ippines, Thailand, and the USA. We want to establish our

strengthen our B2B offerings and unlock new ways for air ticketing business in these countries anticipating a

travel partners to increase productivity and efficiency. The huge pent-up travel demand.

aim is to create a more robust and growth driven trajec- This year, we plan to launch localised travel search en-

tory for the company while contributing to the revival of gine in each global subsidiary to strengthen our offerings

the global travel ecosystem. within each country.

With Spree Hospitality, we believe that we are well- We may also look to expand to more viable countries

positioned to unlock the market potential of a recovering if we see a strong performance and value addition from

hospitality sector and quickly scale up the business to our existing global subsidiaries.

meet the evolving needs of the modern traveller. We aim

to enable Spree to expand to 200 properties in the next [email protected]; @Ashish_BW

96 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022



IN CONVERSATION

‘CLOUD
TRANSFORMATION
MUSTBUILDALIVE

ENTERPRISE’

Organisations How has the cloud brought about new digital experiences?
are steadily Cloud has emerged as a key enabler for differentiated digital experiences. The cloud
moving ecosystem provides all the right constituents for digital experience by providing plat-
towards forms for web-scale and mobile-first applications, innovative product offerings, multi-
cloud touchpoint capabilities, social media engagement, AI-led personalisation, payment
adoption. services, and more.
A McKinsey report
indicates a trillion- If you look at it from an industry perspective, retailers can offer enhanced multi-
dollar business value channel customer experience because the cloud can keep cross-channel data in sync and
opportunity in this add a layer of intelligence with AI. Similarly, in the telecom space, service providers can
realm. To understand couple the massive compute and AI capabilities of the cloud with 5G’s faster speed and
how businesses can superior performance to deliver immersive and engaging value-added services.
adopt a successful
cloud-first strategy, Adopting a cloud-first strategy is a big step for any business. What are your views
BW Businessworld on the subject?
caught up with Dinesh Although it is undoubtedly a big step, a cloud-first strategy is indispensable in today’s
Rao, Executive business. It’s extremely important that the cloud-first strategy align with the business
Vice President and strategy of the organisation and aid the achievement of business goals.
Co-Head of Delivery,
Infosys. Excerpts of The strategy needs to balance and harmonise the needs of all the stakeholders across
a conversation with business and IT and enable the continuous evolution of the enterprise towards becoming
Jyotsna Sharma: more data-driven, innovative, and agile. Successful execution requires clear focus, invest-
ments in reskilling workforce, and cloud technology adoption to break down data silos,
thereby enabling superlative experiences, innovation, and competitive differentiation.

How can businesses prepare for a cloud-first approach?
A successful cloud-first transformation needs CXO sponsorship and a clear understand-
ing of its ROI and how it will impact the digital strategy and operational aspects. Or-
ganisations need to chart out a clear cloud-first migration roadmap comprising business
processes, operating models, and data. At the same time, they should invest in building
solutions, architecture patterns, prepare for automation and bring in a culture of data
and AI-driven decisions.

An incremental approach and a fail-fast mindset are essential for adding foundational
capabilities such as integration, API-led approach, DevOps, and security. Cloud transfor-

98 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022

“Security needs
to be seen as a
foundational
capability that
underpins all
cloud initiatives.
For this,
organisations
need to integrate
a well-formulated
cybersecurity
strategy,”

mation must build a ‘live enterprise’, an organisation that side, organisations can achieve real-time visibility and
is learning and adapting continuously at speed. traceability, demand sensing and forecasting, and thereby
build a resilient supply chain network.
What is the scope of cloud service models in HR and
supply chain transformations? What aspects should businesses keep in mind for a
In the HR and supply chain space, a combination of SaaS combination of the cloud-first approach and cyber-
and PaaS models is frequently applied. Most of the well- security?
established ERP vendors have come out with cloud-native Security needs to be seen as a foundational capability that
package offerings as well as migration paths for their es- underpins all cloud initiatives. For this, organisations
tablished customers. need to integrate a well-formulated cybersecurity strategy
as part of Cloud-First and focus on building a culture of
A new generation of cloud-native SaaS operators has “secure-by-design” amongst the workforce.
emerged with HRM and supply chain cloud offerings that
offer compelling capabilities around experience, opera- The integrated strategy ensures security architecture
tions, and analytics-driven transformation. and governance as part of the cloud foundation. While the
hyper scalers are providing solutions to complex security
Enterprises can leverage the best of breed packages requirements, cybersecurity remains a shared responsi-
on the cloud, as well as create differentiating capabilities bility of cloud consumers and cloud providers and hence,
around them by leveraging PaaS for cloud-native applica- enterprises should implement robust security architec-
tions and integration. ture and design choices, access controls, compliance, and
frameworks as part of their cloud-first foundation.
By leveraging these capabilities, on the HR side, or-
ganisations can provide enhanced employee experience, [email protected]; @Jyotsna_Off
better engagement, and a collaborative, inclusive envi-
ronment for multi-locational talent. On the supply chain

12 March 2022 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 99

GUEST COLUMN By Amit Kandpal

Cloud Follow your heart but take your brain with you.”
Security -
The Second W —TupacShakur
E know of the key megatrends be-
Act hind the emergence and acceleration
of cloud security. We also know of
categories like Cloud Access Security
Brokers, Secure Web Gateway, Zero
Trust Network Access, and SaaS Se-
curity Posture Management com-
ing at the problem with different, if
sometimes slightly overlapping, fo-
cus. Before we get into how these categories are merging, it’s use-
ful to think about the factors driving this next phase of evolution:
Convergence of Networking and Security: This is a big one
and the bottom line is that, in the brave new world of data, ap-
plications, and users being out and about, the distinction be-
tween networking and security is increasingly blurred and will
continue down that path. There are some interesting takes on
this phenomenon including Gartner defining new principles
and categories like SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) and SSE
(Security Service Edge). Most major vendors also have varying
points of view influenced by their respective strengths, but no one
is debating the overarching trend.
Context: A key aspect to note is that the next generation security
solutions now need to be aware of the context. To put it simply,
instead of just blocking and allowing certain applications based
on a static list, the decision now is to allow a certain subset of
activities (e.g., upload but not download) based on variables
like user identity, location, the pattern of recent activities, the
sensitivity of the data involved, etc. This is not trivial and certain
technologies lend themselves better to providing the granular
visibility and control required.
Coverage: It’s just the nature of security that your entire security
stack is as strong as the weakest link. Any solution, therefore,
needs to be comprehensive in terms of coverage of different use
cases. The solution also needs to be able to apply the logic or
policies consistently across devices (e.g., mobile and laptops),
locations (office, homes, coffee shop Wi-Fi, etc.), and technolo-
gies (iOS, Android, Windows, Macs, etc.).

100 | BW BUSINESSWORLD | 12 March 2022