StoreMore: The anything and everything store

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(StoreMore runs on the premise…)

During the early days of StoreMore, the founders ran an advertisement campaign on a popular online classified advertisement site, saying - 'Why sell when you can store?' The cheeky campaign was a success as India's first storage service caught the people's fancy.

The idea for storage services first came to co-founder Pooja Kothari after she read articles by Norm Brodsky in the US edition of the magazine she was to launch in India. "Norm Brodsky runs a document management business in Manhattan and he was trying to sell that business and was penning his experience of selling for the magazine," says Kothari.

Kothari's husband Anil Wilson, who was in the investment banking sector, loved the idea of storage service and decided to try it out. "The idea for StoreMore came from a magazine column and we started exploring and looking around to see if it would work in India," says Kothari. The duo roped in Nitin Dhawan, a former colleague of Kothari, as the third co-founder of the company.

After due diligence, it was decided that in its first avatar a service that would allow anyone and everyone to store in a warehouse would not make sense since the Indian market was not ready for a service like this. "Corporates are easier to find, get convinced and get hold of," says Kothari. The trio decided to merely operate in the records management business for corporates and Star Records Management Pvt. Ltd was born in May 2010.

For the Record:

"We studied the self-storage model in the US and found that it was more of a 'do it yourself' model where you took a space in a warehouse, arranged your own transport to transfer your goods to the warehouse, lock it up once done and at the end of it pay a rent to use the warehouse. In India it was clear that the do it yourself concept will not work," says Dhawan.

Dhawan adds that for starters not anyone can drive a commercial vehicle in India. "In the US anyone can hire and then drive a truck to move goods. The storage companies at times rent out trucks to move goods. In India you need to have a commercial vehicle license to drive such a vehicle," says Dhawan.

Dhawan says for this simple reason they decided to start the document management company in a small 3500 square feet warehouse that could hold 8000-10000 boxes. "The first box for storage came in October 2010 and then we started getting requests from the heads at these originations to store their personal belongings for some time," says Kothari.

For the first couple of such storage, the startup did not charge anything and was more an extension of the corporate relationship that existed. "A friend's house was getting renovated and he requested us to store his household products at our store house. His belongings stayed at our warehouse for about six months and that is when we realized we could launch such a service on a chargeable basis," says Kothari.

  The Leap:

After a year Star Records Management launched its paid individual storage services in the name of StoreMore in September 2011, but did not actively market it till January 2013. "Last 12 months is when we have earnestly worked on this concept. With a startup there is always so much to do and we did not have the resources to speed things up," says Kothari.

Started at an initial investment of Rs 30 lakh from personal savings, the company has since then invested heavily in setting up the warehouse, inventory management software, transportation vehicle and manpower. "We sometimes hire people on a temporary basis to load goods," says Dhawan.

Kothari says people in this business are generally the packers and movers who treat this as an incidental service. "StoreMore on the other hand knows what it means to store and protect documents and household goods. Even before StoreMore we were sure that we are not merely a document storage company, but a document management firm," says Kothari. In March of 2012, the startup got a shot in the arm as the Burman's of Dabur invested an undisclosed amount in the business. "We are currently looking to raise our second round of funding," says Kotahri.

Stock up:
StoreMore runs on the premise that you can store any item of any shape and of any size. Of the things that get very frequently stored with StoreMore are the summer and winter clothes, heaters, quilts, suitcases, entire household items when people are temporarily relocating cities or renovating homes and items for kids. "There are individuals who have chosen to store individual items like a treadmill and in one instance a 100-year-old piano," says Kothari.

Kothari says there is also a set of discerning individuals who do not like clutter in their house and love spaces in their homes. "They have a lot of possessions, but do not like all of it to be at home," says Kothari.

StoreMore charges on a per item basis and not on an individual product. StoreMore does not store liquor, valuables (silver coins, currencies), animals, plants, arms and ammunition and jewellery.

For up to five boxes it would cost Rs 100 per month, up to 20 boxes Rs 360 per month, 35 boxes Rs 595 per month and 50 boxes Rs 800 per month. Each additional box will cost Rs 30 per box and additional item is charged Rs 99 per month. Each of this boxes can take about 25-30 sweaters, 40 novels or 2000 A4 sized papers. "We see a lot of people opting for the 20 boxes and the 50 boxes plan. Our pricing is still on the lower side, but this is primarily to get more customers interested in our services," says Kothari.

"The storage industry in the US is a multi-billion dollar sector. Europe, too, has witnessed huge growth over the last decade, resulting in a multi-billion Euro industry. We at the Burman family office have successfully invested in, or founded businesses that can be at the forefront of new industries developing in India. We believe the storage industry in India is set to develop rapidly, and have spent a great deal of time understanding and researching the industry," says Gaurav Burman, co-promoter and investor, StoreMore, and a member of the family that owns Dabur India.

Burman says it was during this research that he chanced on the team at StoreMore. "We were extremely impressed by their knowledge of the industry and their passion and liked the fact that they want to build the best in this sector by adopting the best practices and latest technology possible," says Burman.

The Challenge:

StoreMore currently suffers from low brand recall. "It is also a matter of remembering StoreMore when the need arises. StoreMore is never an impulse buy and at every step it suffers from an individual's habit of procrastination. Cleaning your house and getting things in order is sometimes the last thing in your agenda," says Kothari.

Dhawan says the current focus is to ramp up marketing efforts and infrastructure so that the startup can offer multiple services and store just about everything. "Market has driven us where we are today. The storage industry does not exist in India, but we feel we have to get to a stage where in future if you have storage need you must think of StoreMore," says Dhawan.

Dhawan says the company wants to be in all the metros by the end of this year and the next city to be operational would be Mumbai, followed by Bangalore. Surprisingly, Dhawan says, there has been a lot of interest from cities like Surat, Jamnagar, Ludhiana and Meerut.

Burman says the team has chosen to take a long-term view on the business—they want to become the leader and pioneer of the industry in India. "I have no doubt in my mind that they will be highly successful and create great value over the long term by providing a pleasurable and worry-free service for their consumers, of which I am pleased to say, I am one," says Burman.

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Indian startup offers pay-per-use storage service

For the first time in India, a Noida-based start-up - named StoreMore - has begun providing storage services in the Delhi NCR region.

StoreMore, a company set up by Nitin Dhawan and Pooja Kothari, offers secure storage facilities to businesses and households across 10 locations in Delhi NCR offering a total storage area of over 1 lakh square feet.

The service includes an option for the customer to choose space at one or multiple locations through the StoreMore website using an option called space estimator -- more like booking a hotel room. As part of the service, the company's team will also pack the goods and transport them for safe storage to the facility of the company.

"Our technology platform is the first of its kind in the country. It allows users to book space across multiple locations, and provides cloud-based access to inventory of stored goods for easy re-delivery," StoreMore managing director Kothari told IANS.

It will also, if required by the customer, deliver the goods back to where the customer wants it though the service will be chargeable. The service is charged at a monthly rate of Rs.30 per sq ft, with slight variation for location of the warehouse.

"StoreMore's USP is its flexible, pay-per-use model which has never been applied to warehousing before in India. It does not require any long-term commitments of time, or any security deposits. There are no complicated leases to sign either. Customers pay monthly rent for the amount of space their goods use in a facility," Kothari explained.

Interestingly, the startup does not believe in maintaining its own logistics service.

"We don't want to maintain our own logistics as it kills the efficiency in the system and will burden us with maintenance costs. We have tied up with another startup for the service while just having two delivery trucks in our stable," Kothari said.

The company offers two types of solutions for storage: box storage and pallet storage. The first type offers corrugated boxes for storage of files, documents and small-sized items.

"Each box can hold up to 15 kg to 18 kg of goods. The second type of storage offer space on pallets that can be used to store large-sized items, such as chairs, tables, inventory of goods," Dhawan said.

"We are especially relevant to e-commerce businesses that can store their goods across multiple locations and move closer to their customers, thereby reducing delivery times. What's better, they achieve this without any headaches of managing security or management of inventory," he added.

Consumers can also check a cloud-based inventory of stored goods which makes access and retrieval easier.

StoreMore claims that its facilities are run on systems and processes. Access to storage areas is controlled using a biometric/card-based system along with CCTV cameras monitoring all entry and exit into the area.

"Pest control services every 15 days ensure protection against rodents and pests. These facilities are also protected against fire and elements of nature," Kothari said.

StoreMore Storage Solutions is co-promoted by the family office of Burmans, who own Dabur. Bedrock Ventures is also an investor in the company.
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The Business of Storing

by Anirvan Ghosh

As offices and homes get smaller, Storemore cashes in by offering storage space

Image: Amit Verma

Amit Wilson, Founder, Storemore Amit Wilson was working in a venture capital (VC) firm when he came across a story in a business magazine. The story was about the storage of office records and personal items being big business in the US, worth several billion dollars. Wilson could see there was no such company in India, at a time when the digitisation process is slow and office spaces are overflowing with files, and when homes are becoming smaller. Thirty-six-year-old Wilson started Reliable Records in early 2010 to store office documents. Along with that he started Storemore, which stores anything in homes that people have no use for, but want to keep anyway. “I’m banking on that sentimental value,” says Wilson, a graduate from IIM Bangalore. The venture took shape when Wilson met Nitin Dhawan, a chartered accountant who worked with Wilson’s wife Pooja Kothari at Mindworks, and they decided to work together. While figures for India are not available, the US industry for storing records has 46,000 storage facilities, covering 2.21 billion square feet. Gross revenues for 2009 were around $22 billion. In just one year of operations, Storemore has managed to break-even, proving there is no shortage of people who are short of space. Today, Storemore has a 7,000 square feet warehouse in Greater Noida, which has a capacity for 20,000 boxes. Each box measures 12x10x15 inches and can store 15 kg of goods. The warehouse can be opened only through fingerprint recognition. It is fitted with sprinklers that spray fire retardant chemicals (a powder) instead of water (as water will soak through the cardboard boxes) in case of a fire. Each box has a bar code that is read by a machine. “This system enables finding anything in an instant,” says Wilson. The company charges Rs. 30 per month per box. The minimum order for companies is 200 boxes. For extra storage, charges are levied per box. There is a fee for delivering the stored content to its owners and for bringing it back to the warehouse. In case the items to be stored do not fit in a box, the company charges Rs. 30 per cubic foot of space. Shruti Tulli, a resident of Mayur Vihar in eastern Delhi, keeps old documents at Storemore and says it gives her peace of mind and the freedom to use the extra space in her apartment. “They used to take up so much space and I would worry about termites destroying the cartons as they lay unused. They would also accumulate dust. Now, when I need them, Storemore delivers them to me on the same day. So, that’s cool,” says Tulli, who has taken a three-year plan for 15 boxes. Currently, Storemore allows customers to store documents, books and toys. By next year, the company plans to accommodate bigger items that might not necessarily fit in a standard box. Wilson, Kothari and Dhawan had raised initial capital to get the company going, and the money came from their own savings and some family members. The company has plans to expand to a space that can store 50,000 boxes. For that, they plan to start talks with venture capitalists and private equity firms by the end of November. This article appeared in the Forbes India magazine issue of 02 December, 2011

Source: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com; http://www.startuptimes.in; http://indiatoday.intoday.in; Anirvan Ghosh; http://forbesindia.com

Israel's startup Windward can detect any ship sailing in any ocean

Whenever a ship sails in any ocean of the world, Windward, a Tel Aviv-based startup, detects its location, speed and behaviour. In an office tucked away in a lane opposite the city's Great Synagogue, Windward looks at global vessel traffic drawn from commercial satellites as well as maritime data. It then automatically alerts its customers, mostly government authorities across the world, about illegal fishing or oil vessels and ships that engage in smuggling and other suspicious behaviour.

"Satellites until five years ago were like magic, only the United States had them," said Ami Daniel, 29-year-old cofounder and chief executive of Windward. "Satellite data stopped being the secret sauce of the government and started being commercialised, only recently."

A former naval officer, Daniel cofounded the company in 2010 along with colleague Matan Peled. MarInt, Windward's proprietary satellite-based maritime analytics system, maps global maritime activity based on data collected from various sources, including commercial satellites, open-source data bases and other sensors.

Fishing fleets annually lose $50 billion (about Rs3.1 lakh crore) due to depleted stocks, poor fishery management and little supervision.

The cumulative global loss of wealth over the past three decades is estimated at $2.2 trillion, according to World Bank report. Windward's technology said Daniel "allows its customers to focus on the small number of suspicious vessels, while ignoring the large number of wellbehaved vessels".

The startup, which has a team of 12, has received a total of $7 million (about Rs43 crore) in venture funding, including the latest round by venture capital firm Aleph announced this week. "In Windward, we see bright, blue ocean markets," said Eden Shochat, a general partner at Aleph.

Daniel believes the company's innovative technology will be able to provide a clear indication of crude oil origins and prevent oil thefts as well as help in search and rescue missions. Last December, it found a Russian fishing vessel drifting in the Sea of Japan, reportedly due to engine failure. The Japanese coast guard commenced a search and rescue mission and towed it to safety.

Windward processes over two million ship transmissions daily. The company expects to close this year with "multiple millions of US dollars in revenues" and post profits as well.

Source : By Peerzada Abrar, ET Bureau

Shalini Ahuja Agarwal's Safe Baby: India's first professional child safety company

Woman entrepreneur Shalini Ahuja Agarwal talks about her company, Safe Baby, the concept of baby-proofing, work-life balance and her supportive ecosystem.

Shalini Ahuja Agarwal talks about her company, Safe Baby, the concept of baby-proofing, work-life balance and her supportive ecosystem.

To sell the idea of professional baby-proofing the child's surrounding enviorns is indeed no cakewalk. But ask Shalini Ahuja Agarwal, who set up India's first professional child safety company, about her biggest challenge and her answer is: Work-life balance. "This is true for most womenentrepreneurs," Agarwal says.

Safe Baby was started by Agarwal and her husband Sachin Agarwal upon their return from the US to Mumbai in 2011. The company offers baby-proofing audits where the duo identifies probably risks of accidents in a child's room, a play or preparatory school. "We have safety equipment such as door guards, cabinet locks, safety gates, cord shorteners and many others which are installed on the spot to reduce risks instantly. We also offer workshops on preventing accidents, first-aid and CPR," says Agarwal. Audits and workshops are on offer for parents, day-cares and playschools.

Coming to her biggest challenge, Agarwal says she is always amazed by women professional who can manage both work and profession with ease. "Being a mother is a full-time job in itself. Fortunately for me, I have a supportive ecosystem - spouse, in-laws, parents, friends, neighbours. So many people have helped me balance my professional and personal commitments," she says. If it were not for them, she adds, either the business would have suppered or she had got guilt pangs.

The Agarwals claim that the response to their workshops on preventing accidents and first-aid has been phenomenal. However, since it is a relatively new business idea, it is difficult to estimate the market size, she adds. The idea to start such a service emerged from the idea that Indians have begun to spend a lot of money on their children. "We feel that if even a tiny share of that is spent on their safety, it is a worthwhile investment. We have received support from paediatricians, parents, day-cares and schools. We are confident that with time and greater awareness and acceptance, we will see exponential growth," says Agarwal.

In addition to customized audits, the company offers workshops for nannies, teachers, architects and other interested people. These workshops can be held in group or a suitable venue of the client. "Sometimes a carpenter is required to make certain changes. In such cases, we work with the carpenters or architects for making the product or place safe for a baby."

Currently, the Agarwals are looking for partners to help them grow business in metros other than Mumbai. They have the expertise and they are willing to share it for expansion of their business plan. "At present we are focused on parents, daycares and playschools. We are also interested in offering workshops for new mothers at hospitals and clinics." However, the challenges are many. "Since it is a new concept, we have had to invest in raising awareness not just about us, but also about baby proofing.

Source : By Ashwini Nair, ET Bureau 

Venture capital company Canaan plays catalyst for investor, startup interface

StartupCatalyst.in will be open to all users interested in starting a new venture and will focus primarily on the technology sector.

In a first-of-its-kind initiative by a global venture capital firm, Canaan Partners has launched a portal to link investors with entrepreneurs across India's growing ecosystem for early-stage companies .

StartupCatalyst.in will be open to all users interested in starting a new venture and will focus primarily on the technology sector in keeping with the investment focus of Canaan. It will offer additional features such as industry insider events, virtual office hours, online hangouts and industry data.

"For an entrepreneur, all funds kind of smell the same and look the same. This venture allows us to differentiate ourselves a little bit," said Rahul Khanna, managing director , Canaan India. The portal has been designed to be "by the community and for the community" and reflects the investor point-of-view , according to Khanna. A lot of the other initiatives tend to be just practitionercentric , he said.

Canaan, which has invested about $150 million in India since 2005, counts ventures like Bharat Matrimony, Equitas Microfinance and Happiest Minds among its portfolio . StartupCatalyst.in offers an opportunity for the fund to get an early look into potential investment opportunities at an early stage.

"It's an early look into a startup idea or a pitch," said Khanna. "We have no plans of monetising it and for the moment it will be an Indiafocused initiative ," he said. The initiative comes at a time when early stage investing dropped by 18% to $482.9 million across 181 transactions in 2012, compared with $588.8 million across 162 deals in 2011, according to research firm Venture Intelligence.

"It is a welcome initiative for the eco-system but the impact will depend on the level of engagement and the amount of traction that the platform manages to create," said Prashanth Prakash, partner at Accel Partners.

Source : ET Bureau , Biswarup Gooptu

RentMyText.in: Vishesh Jayawanth's online book hiring facility helps engineering students save costs

I realised that even if these students make it to good colleges, the cost of the books was daunting: Vishesh Jayawanth

Engineering is an expensive degree, not just in terms of the tuition fee, but also the prohibitive cost of books. Realising how it impacted the students from low socio-economic groups, Bangalore-based Vishesh Jayawanth decided to do something about it. The result? RentMyText.in, India's first online book renting store for engineering students.

The 24-year-old stumbled on the idea while studying at Sri Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain College, Bangalore. Ranga, the social platform he started to get college students to teach soft skills to children in various orphanages in the city, opened his eyes to a sorry state of affairs. "I realised that even if these students make it to good colleges, the cost of the books was daunting. They end up spending thousands of rupees on books that are used only for one semester," says Jayawanth.

After getting a degree in business management (BBM) in 2010, Jayawanth started working with MentorSquare as an entrepreneur-in-residence, where he helped SMEs start and scale up their operations. It was in mid-2011 that he revisited his books-for-rent idea. After a year of calculations, worksheets and power point presentations, he launched his company, Online Guru Educational Services, in September 2012, with three employees. The aim was to make education affordable and accessible by introducing innovative, student-friendly concepts.

To kickstart it, Jayawanth put in a seed capital of Rs 27 lakh, borrowed from his father, a businessman. "It's a loan since I plan to return the money when we break even, which is likely by the end of the year," he says. The money was used to buy books and rent a warehouse at Jayanagar, Bangalore. The firm stocks about 5,000 books on various subjects. Initially, he offered packages that allowed students to rent entire sets listed in the syllabus. However, within a couple of months, Jayawanth noticed a flaw—students did not need all the books in each semester. So he tweaked his model to offer separate books.

Here's how the website works: students can pick any book depending on the semester, pay a refundable deposit, which is the maximum retail price of the book, and have it delivered at their doorstep in 1-5 days for a price. There is no limit on the books that can be rented and there are two payment options: cash on delivery, or transfer money to the company's account. After the semester ends, one needs to return the books in mint condition to have 60-70% of the deposit refunded.

While it results in a saving of up to 60% of the cost of books for students, it also offers a green advantage—saving on paper.

The facility is currently limited to Karnataka, but Jayawanth claims the response is encouraging, with nearly 500 students having signed up so far. Since it is a cyclical business, demand varies and at its peak, they get about 20 orders a day. Jayawanth is now planning to enter the entire south IndianBSE 1.54 % market, a hotbed for engineering colleges, and is considering launching payment gateway options.

The nine-employee company also plans to start renting books for medical and law courses soon. "Medical books are as expensive and we'll be able to help a lot more students," he says.

Source : ET Bureau, Amit Kumar

Power of ideas: Five hottest sectors for startups that may yield healthy returns

Power of ideas: Five hottest sectors for startups that may yield healthy returns

With technology finding new ways to sneak into our lives, it is little wonder that the sector has thrived and has been dishing out healthy returns.

With technology finding new ways to sneak into our lives every single day, it is little wonder that the sector has thrived and has been dishing out healthy returns for investors. This, in turn, has created a robust network of mentors, who are supporting more technology companies, creating a virtuous cycle.

Zinnov, a management consultancy that closely tracks the sector, estimates that between now and 2015, up to 600 new technology ventures will be created every year in India. The gold rush is clearly on. "Across internet services, ecommerce and travel portals at least two to three companies will be billion-dollar bets for certain," says Vani Kola, co-founder of Kalaari Capital, an early stage investment firm.

However, picking the right bet from an overflowing technology basket is key for a new venture. Despite the advantages of money and a growing market, barely a fifth of the technology ventures set up in the last seven years have raised a second round of funding.

Industry experts reckon picking the wrong business idea can drive the failure rate even higher. "You cannot manufacture cars when there are no roads," says Kola. ET spoke to a cross section of investors and industry experts to pick the Top Five Sectors to launch a technology venture today.

CLOUD COMPUTING

The attractiveness of cloud-based applications across sectors, from hospitality to healthcare, is driven by ease of use and lower cost.
Thi has led to India becoming a hub for young cloud computing companies. Chennai's OrangeScape provides cloud solutions to firms like drugmakerAstra-Zeneca, consumer-goods company Unilever and automaker Ford.

In Bangalore, storage company Datagres, which sells data management products to large enterprises, was founded in 2010 by Srinivasan Viswanathan, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Science.
These young companies, which need less capital, are growing faster and are more profitable compared to traditional enterprise technology ventures.

The high rating for the sector also comes from some of the biggest exits for investors in this segment. He put in Rs 60 lakh as the initial capital to start the firm. Last September, the company recieved first round funding of over Rs 10 crore from Nexus Venture Partners.

In the past 18 months, Mumbai-based Netmagic sold a majority stake to Japan's NTT Communications for Rs 900 crore while Citrix Systems paid over Rs1,000 crore to acquire Cloud. com. Gluster, a cloud computing startup, was bought by Red Hat for about Rs 667 crore.

Seed investment: Rs 50 lakh

SINGLE-BRAND ECOMMERCE
Ecommerce in India, especially in the multi-brand category, has gone from being the new kid on the block to a crowded industry.
However, web-only brands, where a business can create its own brand of products in any category like apparel or jewellery and retail it online, is emerging as the new growth opportunity.

BlueStone launched in August 2011 as a manufacturer and retailer of light precious jewellery like earrings, pendants and rings has raised $5 million (about Rs 27 crore) in funding from Accel Partners, Silicon Valley Bank and serial entrepreneurs Meena and Krishnan Ganesh.

CaratLane, Zovi and Freecultur are some of the other internet-only brands. With 38 million Indians expected to transact online by 2015, according to data from Avendus Capital, the promise of ecommerce will lure many aspiring entrepreneurs. But this is a business best run with a clear goal to build a brand in the long run.

"The online part is incidental, internet is just the channel used for sales," says Gaurav Singh Kushwaha,cofounder and CEO of Bluestone which is targeting sales of Rs 80 crore in fiscal year 2014. "Low-hanging fruit might bring in money but might dilute your brand and confuse customers in the long run."

While BlueStone mainly manufactures its own jewellery, others like fashion brand Zovi outsource their manufacturing. In both models, it is the lower costs associated with building a pure online brand and the quick growth that is attracting entrepreneurs and investors.

MOBILE PAYMENT

With an estimated 900 million mobile users, India is the second biggest mobile market in the world after China. And as with ecommerce that is witnessing a second coming, mobilebased payments that failed to take off nearly five years ago are now being launched in newer and improved versions.

Ezetap Mobile Solutions, a company that processes card payments on mobile phones, has built technology that allows anyone to accept cards—from merchants to cabdrivers, grocers and pizza delivery boys. It allows feature phones, smartphones and tablets to be converted into full-fledged point of sale terminals.

Backed by AngelPrime, an incubator started by serial entrepreneurs, Bala Parthasarathy, Shripati Acharya and Sanjay Swamy, the venture is drawing from the failures of ventures such as mChek in the past.

Ezetap received its first round funding of Rs 19 crore from a group of influential Silicon Valley investors, including Yammer founder David Sacks and Paypal Inc co-founder Peter Thiel, last November.

Top ventures: Ezetap, Gharpay, Mswipe.

ECOMMERCE LOGISTICS

It was a road trip across the hills and along backwaters of Kerala in 2009 that changed the career of Afsal Salu, 31, and two of his IIM batchmates. Quitting a coveted job at Unilever, Salu and his friends launched a logistics business built on a technology backbone,an idea they had presented in their MBA classroom way back in 2003.

They formed Delyver Retail Network, which would deliver food and groceries to homes in Bangalore.

A logistics startup needs to build an IT platform, which typically takes four to six months, besides arranging vehicles for delivery.

"Costs for a city based logistics venture can be controlled by hiring mini vans, which would drop goods in a neighbourhood that can be picked up by delivery boys," says TA Krishnan, founder CEO of E-Com Express, which launched operations in 36 cities in North India this January. The young venture has now set up large warehouses due to increasing demand. Others like Chottu and Delhivery also provide logistics support to ecommerce firms.

Delyver'sSalu fulfilled his first order while on a lunch break from Unilever. "It's a capital intensive business. We started with a seed capital of Rs 3 lakh," he says. His parents, both doctors in Kerala, were alarmed to hear that their son, an IIM graduate, was delivering cakes and food to people's homes.

But the sector is a hot area for new startups as India's overall logistics market is estimated at over $100 billion, growing at a rate of about 20 per cent. The sector employs about 45 million people in the country, according to consulting firm Deloitte.

Top ventures: Delyver Retail Network, Chottu.in, Delhivery, E-Com Express.

BIG DATA ANALYTICS

From crafting strategies for cricket teams to helping scientists develop new drugs, Indian entrepreneurs are building specialised companies. These firms can chew through billions of bits of data, analyse them via self-learning algorithms and package the insights for immediate use.

"Big data is becoming hot, because people are using it to predict the future," says Ravi Gururaj, vice-president for cloud platforms group at Citrix Systems.

He said earlier it took at least Rs5 crore to start a data analytics firm. Now, with so many open source platforms available, an entrepreneur can launch a new venture with just Rs 50 lakh. One such example is Gramener, which converts insights drawn through data analysis into visual graphics.

It was a reunion in Bangalore for six friends that led them to quit their jobs and start Gramener in 2010. "We decided to do something on our own and have fun," says Naveen Gattu, 38, cofounder. In an innovative example of how such technology can be used, Gramener helps poultry company Suguna Foods enhance the longevity for chickens. The firm finds disease patterns, suggests precautions and even makes recommendations about how much sunlight the birds must be exposed to the type of feed.

Gramener, which counts telecom firms, car-parts maker Bosch and many IT and engineering companies as its clients, now earns around Rs 1-2 crore per annum.

(Inputs from: Peerzada Abrar, Harsimran Julka and Radhika P Nair)

Source : ET BUREAU 

Hot Startup : Fresco Retail uses ozone technology to purify vegetables

Hot Startup : Fresco Retail uses ozone technology to purify vegetables

Ozone treatment has been widely used internationally in food processing as ozone removes impurities without leaving any harmful residue.

Until a few years ago, Mumbai-based Karan Gaba, 28, had never been to a vegetable market.

Now as the founder of a one-of-its kind grocery chain in Mumbai, which is targeting Rs 6 crore in turnover next fiscal, the better part of Gaba's day is spent amidst vegetables. Fresco Retail, a venture he launched in November 2011 primarily retails vegetables and fruits that have been treated with ozone to remove pesticides and micro-organisms.

But the journey to becoming a retail entrepreneur began five years back when his mother dragged him to a vegetable market for the first time in his life to buy groceries for a party. "It was an eye opening experience for me as the vegetables were all so dirty and I asked my mother 'is this what we eat?'" says Gaba, who passed out of Mumbai's Thadomal Shahani Engineering College that year.

He began working with his father in his import business but remained keen to begin a new venture in food and honed in on organic farming. But he soon realised that he did not have the skills for it.

"At that time we had bought a water purifier for our home. That is how I thought of developing a machine to purify food," says Gaba, who set up Waltro Technologies and spent two years designing and building an ozone-technology based machine that purifies vegetables and fruits at home.  He began marketing the product in 2010 and in under a year he had sold around 500 units without any large-scale marketing initiatives. Though the company had reached profitability, Gaba realised he would need heavy investments to build the brand and scale it up nationally.
That is when he realised there was an opportunity to sell cleaned vegetables and food directly to customers. The profits from his appliance business, which he shut down, and a loan from his father helped Gaba set up a central purification centre in Santa Cruz and a retail store in Bandra.

Every morning at 4.30 am the produce from the whole sale markets reach the 2,000 square feet purification centre. It is weighed, sorted and graded and then machine washed with water to remove visible dirt. Once the produce is dry it is put for around 10 minutes in the purification machine, in which oxygen is converted into ozone to remove surface pesticides and micro-organisms. The cleaned produce is packed in sealed packets and is ready to be sent to stores by 8.45 am.

Ozone treatment has been widely used internationally in food processing as ozone removes impurities without leaving any harmful residue as it decomposes to become oxygen. However, retailers are yet to offer this to customers.

"Ozone will be the future for ensuring food safety especially for fresh produce," said Brijesh Tiwari, a professor at the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, who has published numerous papers on use of ozone technology in food processing.

Gaba says the technology was the easy part, learning sourcing and stocking was much tougher. "At first I did not stock vegetables that I did not like, wholesalers would sell me 2-kg cauliflowers that no customer would pick up and I would buy too much or too little for a day," It took him a couple of months to iron out these issues.

Fresco has set up a home delivery unit and also started wholesale supplies to two restaurants, a school and a temple.

The company, which has net margins of around 20 per cent, is planning to launch three stores this year. "I want to cover Mumbai first and then I will expand nationally," says Gaba.

Source : RADHIKA P NAIR,ET BUREAU 

A Krazy Mug: Mumbai's handmade decoratives firm eyes up to Rs 50 lakh turnover

A Krazy Mug: Mumbai's handmade decoratives firm eyes up to Rs 50 lakh turnover

The interior designer was doing up a design studio in Kolkata in January 2011 when the clients asked her to include some artwork to brighten up the place.

Most entrepreneurs start their venture after weighing a business idea; others spot an opportunity and capitalise on it. However, 35-year-old Puja Bajpai took the first steps towards 'A Krazy Mug' without realising she had done so. 

The interior designer was doing up a design studio inKolkata in January 2011 when the clients asked her to include some artwork to brighten up the place. Instead of heading to the market, Bajpai decided to put up some of her own work. The client liked it and an idea was born. A year later, her dream became a reality.

Bajpai, who started as a junior designer in 2000, climbed the corporate ladder as she moved from Delhi to Pune, then Kolkata, before settling in Mumbai. "But as you rise, you realise that there are fewer opportunities to explore," says Bajpai.

The stagnation hit her in 2006, when she was working as a senior designer with an architecture firm in Pune. Four years later, she had to shift when her husband, Alok, who works with an oil and gas firm, was transferred to Kolkata.

It was here that she started freelancing, working as an independent designer for various firms. "I also started buying raw material and working on it," says Bajpai. The freelancing proved successful, but in end-2011 she had to move to Mumbai. By now, she was confident of starting her venture.

Over the next year or so, Bajpai and her husband researched and studied how she could make her work more business-friendly. "Alok helped me zero in on quirky art products that I could design and sell via e-commercewebsites," says Bajpai, planning to work from her Powai apartment. Finally, in April 2012, 'A Krazy Mug' was born with a seed capital of Rs 25,000.

A Facebook page was her only attempt at publicity, but she got lucky with favourable customer response. "Within two months, the order list became unmanageable and I had to hire a coordinator. She also employed a few artistes and work started on a bigger scale," she says.

After nine months, Bajpai and her team had earned Rs 30,000 and managed to break even. However, the orders did not abate and work from home became unfeasible. Her resident welfare organisation also objected to commercial activity, so she hired an office space at Sakinaka. Around this time, Bajpai also decided to expand her team. After interviewing nearly 1,000 artistes from across the country, she formed a core team of 20. 

While five of them work on a full-time basis, the rest are freelancers. In the meantime, Alok has also started helping with the day-to-day operations.

What has helped streamline costs is sticking to the third-party e-commerce websites like Shoppo and Its Hand Made instead of having their own payment gateway. "This helps us focus on the product while outsourcing marketing and payments to someone else. Since this has worked fine for us till now, we will continue with it," says Bajpai.

The handmade products, like kettles, mugs and sprinklers, take up to three days to finish and are tested to last longer. Costing Rs 499-5,000, Bajpai's creations are also sold through 7-8 retail outlets in metros. Given the response, the firm is eyeing a revenue of Rs 45-50 lakh in the coming fiscal year.

Source : AMIT KUMAR,ET BUREAU