Founders Unfiltered

Last fortnight, Nepal became the first country outside India to adopt UPI, hot on the heels of the announcement of a digital heavy budget.    More details - https://ajuniorvc.com/india-stack-fintech-unicorn-upi-aadhar-explained-case-study-global/ AJVC: https://ajuniorvc.com/ 

Brought to you by the Founders Unfiltered podcast by A Junior VC - Unscripted conversations with Indian founders about their story and the process of building a company. Hosted by Aviral and Mazin. Join us as we talk to Nitin and Vasant, two of the co-founder of OfBusiness about their story. Asish’s desire to leave a crater of impact in the world, coupled with his “hands-on” nature of getting into the mud made him realise that his calling was in entrepreneurship. Even though he and his cofounders - Ruchi Kalra, Bhuvan Gupta - were in their late thirties, they decided to take the plunge. Convincing Ruchi to join OfBusiness was probably harder for Asish. Ruchi was not only Asish’s wife but was also a partner at the consulting firm they worked together. Bhuvan, back then head of Tech at Snapdeal, was a friend of Asish’s, and both of them were discussing starting up for quite some time. Asish was discussing the problem of finding a tech co-founder with Bhuvan, and he joined as a co-founder. Nitin Jain, an IIT Delhi Silver medallist and investment banker, and Vasant Sridhar joined the journey a month into the journey. They brought in skill sets that were complementary, but necessary for the success of the venture. You need to stand on the shoulders of a giant to look further. Asish did that just, by assembling a great team with complementary skill-sets. In 2015, OfBusiness v1.0 was born. About OfBusiness:  While commerce contributes 55% of its total net revenue, lending and SaaS have a pie of 43% and 2%, respectively. In terms of profits, lending is its biggest contributor followed by commerce. With these two pillars, Ofbusiness serves over 9,000 businesses. But perhaps more importantly it laid the foundation for unique digital services that allows SMEs to tap the global market. Bidassist gives their customers access to government and private tenders across the globe from North America to Russia to the Philippines. Over 6 lakhs business had used bidassist for government and global tenders. OfBusiness has issued loans of 10,000 Cr+, supports more than 5,000 clients and 2,000 suppliers across their suite of products. They have built a profitable business with a large and engaged user base that they are uniquely positioned to serve better than any other bank, fintech or e-commerce platform can stand alone. For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

Last fortnight, DeHaat posted a 2x jump in revenue, growing to 350Cr, hot on the heels of the largest fundraise announcement for an Indian agritech. For more details visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/dehaat-agritech-india-startup-case-study-business-model-unicorn/

Brought to you by the Founders Unfiltered podcast by A Junior VC - Unscripted conversations with Indian founders about their story and the process of building a company. Hosted by Aviral and Mazin. Join us as we talk to Akhil Gupta, the co-founder and CTO of NoBroker about their story. Mr. Akhil Gupta started his career with Oracle after he graduated form college. Over the years, he watched IRCTC, MakeMyTrip, and BookMyShow launch and emerge as big players in their respective fields. He soon realized that physical intermediation is being disrupted by technology. This, combined with a few bad and expensive experiences he had while house-hunting in a new city, led to the idea of NoBroker, a real-estate search site. About Nobroker: NoBroker is a Bangalore based real estate search portal that connects flat owners and tenants directly with each other. Today, the unicorn has operates in several major Indian cities and has more than 7.5 million properties listed on its platform and over 16 million people have used its services. For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

Last fortnight, DarwinBox raised $72M and became a unicorn, continuing the momentum of unicorns in 2021 and becoming the first pure-play Indian HR tech company to do so. Link to full article here: https://ajuniorvc.com/darwinbox-hr-saas-unicorn-india-startup-sap-oracle-hrm-case-study/

Brought to you by the Founders Unfiltered podcast by A Junior VC - Unscripted conversations with Indian founders about their story and the process of building a company. Hosted by Aviral and Mazin.   Join us as we talk to Amit Ramani, the founder of Awfis about their story.   Mr.Amit Ramani was born in a family of engineers and took up architecture. He went on to pursue a master's at Kansas State. He became a first-generation entrepreneur after buying the Nelsen India business. He has talked about scaling up a co-working business from scratch & shared about his mistakes.   About Awfis: Awfis is an Indian company that offers co-working spaces to the startups, freelancers and entrepreneurial communities. It was founded in 2015 and has more than 35,000 seats in 67 centers across India.   For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

Last fortnight, Ather Energy raised $60M in its newest round, as Tesla got courted by Indian states to set up a manufacturing plant   Article Link: https://ajuniorvc.com/electric-vehicles-future-ather-ola-bajaj-india-startup-tech-tesla/ More info on: https://ajuniorvc.com/

Last fortnight, MapMyIndia had a blockbuster IPO, becoming a $1Bn company as it listed after 3 decades.   For more details Visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/mapmyindia-story-india-startup-ipo/

Banks, across geographies, have been slow to catch up with technology. Customers who are exposed to new age, high quality services are often frustrated when left to deal with complex, irrelevant communication and poor consumer experience. Virender Bisht, who interacted closely with banks for payment solutions, was shocked to see the pace of technology adoption. He started looking for ways to disrupt the traditional approach.   Virender developed a fascination for computers and software during his mechanical engineering days. This continued as he worked at TCS on some transformational technology projects across large and small clients. Along the way, he discovered that he enjoyed working with smaller teams and transitioned to the startup world.   The idea to disrupt banking came when he led the technology vertical at Makemytrip. He was introduced to Vinay Bagri in 2015, when the duo set out to build disruptive financial products under the name Niyo.   Virender talks to us about their journey of building products ranging from employee benefit solutions to full-fledged banking services in an over-arching effort to simplify finance with technology. As always, don’t miss out on the gems of unfiltered advice at the end! For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

For more details visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/2022-predictions-2021-recap-ipo-d2c-fintech-indian-startup/