Every budding entrepreneur in India was awaited for the disclosure of ‘Action Plan’ of Start Up India. And it was unveiled on Saturday at Vigyan Bhawan auditorium.

This action plan indeed has lot of concessions an programs that will encourage Indians to start their enterprise.

“We have millions of problems. There is no denying that. But we also have a billion minds. And these billion minds will easily find the solutions to the millions of problems,” Modi said during the event.

Below are the key points from the action plan that will promote a culture of entrepreneurship in our country.

1. Rs. 10,000 crore fund allotted for startups

Total Corpus of Rs.10,000 crore for over four years will be drawn by various entities for the investments of start ups. The credit guarantee fund for start-up companies would help flow of venture debt from the banking system to start-ups by standing guarantee against risks. Also  National Credit Guarantee Trust Company/SIDBI will be rolled out with a budgetary corpus of Rs 500 cr per year for the next four years.

2. Tax Exemptions

To boost profit and productivity of start ups, government is providing tax exemptions for three years as well as on there will be tax Exemption on Capital Gains and on Investment above Fair Market Value.

3. Mobile App for registration

The government will start a mobile app as well as online portal on April 1, 2016 which will be single point for all entrepreneurs to register their company as well as for clearance, approval , application under the scheme.

4.  Atal Innovation Mission

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) is established  for promotion of research and development which will give further impetus to the start up owners. This mission will  include 500 tinkering labs, 35 public-private sector incubators, 31 innovation centers at national institutes, 7 new research parks, 5 new bio-clusters.

5. Start Up Hub- Single Point for the ecosystem

The hub will act as epicenter of the plan where central and state governments, Indian and foreign VCs, angel networks, financial institutes, incubators, legal partners, consultants, universities and R&D institutions will be there to assist start ups.

6. Easy Set Up And  Exit

Start up will self-certify their compliance with nine labor and environmental laws without being inspected, and would receive faster approvals. Plus no regulatory inspection for three years.

7. Faster Exits

The government provided a vital provision for fast-tracking closure of businesses have been included in ‘The insolvency and Bankruptcy Bill 2015’ in order to make  startups to exit easier and faster. Startups which will have simple debt structures will be able to wound up within a period of 90 days.

8. Easier Patent process

Patenting one’s product is one of the major problems for start ups. So to tackle it, government stated in the action plan that there will 80 per cent rebate on filing patent applications by startups. Panel of facilitators to provide legal support and fees for assisting in filing of patent application will be borne by government.

9. Research parks

Research parks which are modeled on research parks in Madras will be set up. Out of seven, six will be set in IITs and one in IISc. These parks will aid start up companies with a research and other facilities.

10. Others

Apart from the above key points, the action plan also included following things

• Relaxed norms of public-procurement for start-ups. No requirement of turnover or experience, but no relaxation in quality.
• Promoting Start-ups in the Biotechnology Sector
• Innovation programs for school students and best ideas will showcased at an Annual Festival of Innovations.

You can check out entire report here.

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Ideas are born in our minds, every day!

It’s how, when and how we bring those ideas to surface, and what matters the most is, who has the will and conviction to bring them to the surface!

This is the story of one such guy who happens to be a 23 years old entrepreneur with a hefty tag of CEO to DataWallet to his name. Yes, I am talking about German-born Serafin Lion Engel, the founder of a pathbreaking digital idea called DataWallet!

No matter how less we are aware of it, but digital companies collect our data from various devices that we use for daily activities every day. Be it browsing the net, signing for newsletters, filling forms for ecommerce sites, or simply signing up for social media. Every bit of data is useful to people looking to build businesses out in the whole wide world.

Serafin, with the brilliant brain that he has, came with the idea to give the data control to the users, while very interestingly putting money back in their pockets too! And guess what, he got a billionaire to invest in his this brilliantly stimulating project.

The Idea

Serafin discovered the idea for his start-up after he dropped out of college to follow his entrepreneurial pursuits. He was lucky enough to catch the attention of billionaire Tim Draper, who asked him to get enrolled to Draper University, which is a popular business school for entrepreneurs, run by entrepreneurs. Serafin was awarded scholarship to attend this university. Some lad he is!

What Is So Different With The Draper University

Serafin, gives credit to Draper for many good reasons. The curriculum at Draper differed from that of a traditional learning institution. Students are taught how to be comfortable outside of their comfort zones and told to go big or go home. In college, students are expected to get everything right, but at Draper, students are rewarded points for failing dramatically. Can you imagine that? Don’t you think we need such schools in India too?

The crux of the matter is, that at Draper Universi are motivated to try out outrageous things and move out of their comfort zones. Which in self is a big lesson for life. And adapting this lesson in life, makes one strive to go as big as possible. Such schools work on changing the personalities, the minds, and the thought processes of the students, and not just the academic qualification status.

Serafin’s Course of Action That Lead Him To Success

Serafin was a regular college going student until he realised he was made for something different. He was pursuing his degree in business administration at the Rotterdam College of Management in the Netherlands, when he decided to take a deviation. He then set off to follow his entrepreneurial dreams at a very young age of less than 21.

On this he has a word of wisdom to share with his young counterparts from the entire world over. He says

“To be honest, I think a lot of people are seriously over-estimating the benefit of dropping out of college. I think you need to have a very, very clear case why you should; dropping out of college is no predetermined way to success. You need to have a very real contingent and super realistic opportunity. Unless you do, I would highly recommend not doing it.”

The Target and The Difficult Road To It

Serafin was quite confident that entrepreneurial road is for him to walk, but he was not having any map to it. Neither the skills, the required knowledge or any support system per se, which an inevitable part of many entrepreneurs. As Serafin puts it, he did not know the meaning of the word “entrepreneur” until he was 20. He sold strawberries on the road, which he plucked from his backyard garden. He did not know at that time that he was setting up a business. He was smart enough to know the reasons behind low sales, that the sign that he had put up is not legible to people, because he could not write properly. Entrepreneur was in him at the age of 4.

“I honestly did not know the term ‘entrepreneur’ until I was 20. It came to me intuitively. It started with small things. When I was 4, I started selling strawberries from the back of our yard on the street. I would get super upset when nobody would buy them, only to come figure out that no one could read the sign. I could not even write properly yet.

Today, as the DataWallet Founder and CEO reveals, he conceived this bigshot idea just five days before he enrolled for a program at Draper.

His girlfriend at that time was studying fashion and she and her friends were the epitome of trendsetters. They would always try to figure out what was trending amongst kids: what are they doing, what are they buying, what are they talking about. At the same time, those kids were constantly broke. I thought to myself, how could you potentially fix this? It occurred to him that all this consumption is in their data — whatever they talk about on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, etc. If brands could look at the data and see what they are talking about and what they are consuming and those kids could get paid for that type of insight.

And there was THE IDEA!

Serafin then pitched this big idea to a panel of 40 venture capitalists and won first place in the Pitch Day competition! That’s what you call a clean sweep!

Having The Billionaire Tim Draper As Project Investor

Serafin identifies with Draper as a very close mentor and guide. He gives him all the credit for his handy business advices, introductions in the business world. Serafin says, “Tim is one those guys who is really able to look ahead of the curve. I’m constantly surprised by how much he is able to say about the product; I’m trying to break it down for him and not go too far into the vision and he actually takes it further; he is truly incredible.” We need more such visionaries in our country too, who are able to identify the real talent and don’t think twice before invesing in them.

One of the reasons he ended up believing in Serafin and his project was because he failed with a startup before. Yet, he still remained at it and constantly tried to push and not give up. This is definitely one of the qualities that Tim saw and which garnered his interest further, in Serafin. He knew that the lad was able to go through the struggle.

This is where I think most young entrepreneurs start flaking when they see things falling apart.

Serafin reckons, that he had literally put all of my savings from the last 20 years into my company and paid every employee out of his pocket. It was an incredibly rough time and he believes that Tim saw that and also knew that that would help him to grow as a mature businessman.

What is DataWallet?

DataWallet is a huge and potential application platform that makes the owner of his own data, and its seller too. The data that we create online, automatically allows the companies to use it. Data is a huge market as individuals create roughly 5GB of data everyday from sites and apps like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Uber and Spotify.

In 2012, the Senate Committee on Commerce and Transportation estimated the global revenue of the data market to exceed $150 billion per year. Serafin and his team estimate that number to be around $340 billion per year in 2015. He explains that companies are already taking advantage of our data and selling it without us knowing who is sourcing the data, what they sell, who they sell it to and for what purpose. On top of that, we’re not getting paid for the data we generate.

The benefits of Serafins Datawallet

Serafin’s DataWallet app gives 100% of the payouts to the users against their data, as it does not keep any cut. The platform makes the process transparent and gives users control over monetizing an asset they already own. The data will also help companies create, build and tailor products around the needs of the people.

Competitors that DataWallet is up against are established multi-billion-dollar data companies that include Axiom, Epsilon and Equifax. Whereas DataWallet’s edge and its primary emphasis is on the users’ experience. While other companies focus on business to business cross-sharing data, DataWallet puts users first and that is what makes it an instant hit.

Serafin also adds on to the uses when he says that the company is determined to bring in more incentives and payoffs for most active users, something like a travel trip, the DataWallet lifestyle — going to Miami and riding water Jetpacks, going on a safari or going on a helicopter tour over Miami. We will have a really awesome trip planned so they will really know what the DataWallet experience is all about.

The Journey and The looking Back

Even with such incredible resources and support from billionaire Tim Draper, Draper University’s founder, Serafin did not realize his success until he experienced failures and defeats.

It takes a lot of courage and will to look at the learning aspect of failures and make good use of it. One has to maintain a positive approach and a “no failure is a failure if it gets you learning” attitude!

Serafin’s word for all the young and roaring entrepreneurs out there “Without a doubt, you need to be a little bit delusional. All entrepreneurs are a bit delusional; it is the premise for founding a company when all the odds are stacked against you big time.”

So, here’s the story of success for you, of a 23 year old young business mogul, who runs a profitable company today.

Inspired?

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Seems that the procedure of growth of global giants from technical start-ups to globally acknowledged tech giants, has caught the attention of Indian government.

The subject has made the government plan an electronics development fund worth 10,000 crore, to support ambitious start-ups in achieving success.

The government feels that it’s high time India starts incubating start-ups from its soil, like they do it in the West. The country has a fast-growing mass of internet users and possesses a rich list of highly skilled programmers.

The foundation of the procedure has already been laid by the government.

The electronic development fund mentioned by the government is excluding the amount announced in Budget 2014-15 for start-ups in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). However, the government has not planned to make the investment directly. It will rather raise the fund through venture capitals that are focused on the electronics hardware and IT start-ups.

The government while announcing the news, also admitted that Indian has missed out a lot in terms of creating technology giants, both is software and electronics hardware sector.

Domestic and foreign venture capital funds will be targeted by the government to route its investments.

“Innovations are not happening in our country, products are not being made in our country. We are, at best, a labour market. Our highly qualified boys and girls are doing research in Bangalore and other labs, but they are essentially creating intellectual property products for foreign companies. Why can’t we have our own products where we have our own intellectual property rights,” said a government official in the Ministry of Information Technology.

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Recently in news for the big-billion-day-sale controversy, the Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart has switched the attention of consumers to the growing trend of wearable technology.

Dedicated to Android devices, the company has launched a smartwatch app compatible with Android OS.

The app, they say is designed to support viewing Flipkart wish lists on the wearable gear. It will also support push notifications from Flipkart on the device. The users can update the app to enable push notifications to be viewed via the gear.

Apart from that, the app will also support basic features like notifications on personalized offers, price drops, and order status.

To install the app on a Android smartwatch, all a user needs to do is to update the Flipkart app to the latest version.

Releasing an official statement, Flipkart stated that smartwatches that are exclusively sold on their website, like Moto 360, Garmin and Martian, will all be available preloaded with the app. Only a few days back, the ecommerce giant faced acute criticism for their big-billion-sale offer.

Asking them to call off the sale, the Enforcement Directorate issued a notice to the company, questioning them over their recent billion-day sale. The company used social media to apologize for the inconvenience caused to the customers and promised to refund the money in cases of money deduction without confirmation.

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In a recent report released today by the World Bank, which ranked 189 countries on the subject of “ease of doing business”, India was listed on the 142^nd position, two places below the position it was, on the previous report.

The fall in the ranking from last year, is more because other nations performed much better.

In the previous report released in May 2014, India had 52.78 points, whereas in the latest report it had 53.97 points. The ranking, however, does not take into account the latest measures taken by the Central government to make India a destination for business investments.

Promoting the #MakeInIndia initiative in an attempt to encourage companies to start-up in India, the government is working on cutting down the registration period for a business from 25 days to one day. Appreciating the steps taken by the new government the World Bank officials, however, affirmed that it is highly likely that India could jump the ladder by a good amount, in ease of doing businesses.

Singapore topped the list with 88.27 points, followed by New Zealand, Hong Kong, Denmark, and South Korea.

Though a raft of measures have been taken to promote the Make In India initiative, and other things required to start a business, there’s a lot we can do on a personal level to help the country rise on the list.

The world economy is rising every single hour, and is affecting our economy is every way. We need to make sure that we improve faster and in a better way as compared to others. Make business begin at home. 

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Bangalore-based ecommerce retailer Myntra.com is in process of setting up an office in London and is all set to expand business internationally.

The company, which was recently acquired by Flipkart for a whopping $370 million, is setting up an office in London to lead its partnerships with brands in UK and Europe and expands its business operations to New York in about an year.

The London office will be headed by Mark Sebba, the ex-CEO of Neha-Porter, an online fashion group based in UK. Mark is known for successfully turning a magazine- style fashion e-trailer start-up, Richemont, into a company worth $850 million.

In the past five years online shopping in India and abroad has emerged rapidly and growth of e-commerce ventures has been rapid. Online fashion stores have moved their in-stock products to warehouses, as they prefer joining hands with designers who have inventories and other products to attract more customers.

Earlier this year, Myntra had teamed up with the Italian designer Vanni Lenci, introducing the Roadster brand of fashion apparels to India. Apart from that, the e-commerce giant has also sealed deals with UK based women fashion brands like Paper Dolls, Little Mistresses, Girls on Film etc.

Myntra’s biggest contemporary in the market, Jabong has already started setting up a design and branding office in London, focused on private brands like Lara Karen and Sangria.

With international brands hitting the Indian market through these e-commerce ventures, a great boost can be seen to the e-commerce sector in India.

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By facilitating easy interaction between budding entrepreneurs, mentors and angel investors, IIT Mumbai’s Entrepreneurship Cell (E-Cell) has served as an incubation centre for many entrepreneurial ventures.

Popularly known as Eureka, the Cell Business plan competition by hosted by IIT Bombay, will provide a platform to potential ideas and early stage start-ups.

Eureka aims to bridge the gap between ideas and the realization of an enterprise. Also recognized as Asia’s largest Business Plan Competition by CNN and Thomson Reuters, Eureka is supported by organizations like Mumbai Angels, IAN, TiE etc., that makes it a networking hub for aspiring entrepreneurs, mentors, and investors.

Eureka! was launched in 1999, when the word entrepreneurship was still a term unheard of. Over the past decade, the entrepreneurship industry has seen an exponential change, as big as people (qualified or not) opting for entrepreneurship, instead of a nine to five corporate job.

Last year the E-cell at IIT Bombay received 6000 entries and for the first time in fourteen years had international teams participating. “As the competition aims to bridge gap between ideas and the realization of an enterprise, early stage start-ups will be able to evaluate their business plan in the risk-free environment of a competition,” quoted Sagar Sheth, Media manager, E-cell, IIT Bombay.

The competition is divided into two tracks, namely, business and social. The winners will be awarded a cash prize of Rs 5 lakhs, and Rs 1 lakh respectively. There are also other prizes to encourage entrepreneurs to take part in the competition, such as, Technology and Sustainable Development award, with a cash prize of Rs 3 lakhs, the Eureka Youth award of Rs 1 lakh etc.

The event can be considered as a great booster for entrepreneurship industry in India. As ideas are easier said than done, the process of realizing an idea and working on it, needs a deeper understanding of the industry concerned, and a proper training to cope with failures.

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Not a long time from now, when the political face of the country was experiencing a change, India’s ranking in ease of doing business went down a few more points.

In May 2014, India was ranked 134 of 189 countries in the ‘ease of doing business’ survey conducted by the World Bank.

In an attempt to make India a better destination for business investments, the government has taken measures concerning registration, tax systems, and permit requirements to attract more companies in the country.

Promoting the Make in India initiative, in an attempt to encourage companies to start-up in India, the government is now working on cutting down registration period for companies from 25 days to one day.

Also, a raft of measures like reduction in number of permits required, ease in property registration, quick electricity connection, are among a few measures that are expected to make the country a friendlier investment destination.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has been made the nodal agency for pushing these procedural reforms. The DIPP has also set a time period of 3-6 months for implementing the changes in the system. The department has also requested all ministers to come on board and work to reform the regulatory structure and mend the business climate in India.

One of the major focus areas are reforms of the tax system. It has been suggested that the number of taxes be reduced and online payment of taxes allowed. There is a concrete emphasis to expeditiously implement the Direct Tax Code (DTC) and Goods and Service Tax (GST). The DIPP has also set individual time frames for individual departments to bring about the changes.

The world economy is rising every single hour and in every way is affecting the Indian economy. We hope the new government stands by their approach of economic development of the country.

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In a move that would help encourage the growth of entrepreneurship industry in India, the government said that it is taking various steps to help start-ups acquire easy loans and open about 500 incubation centres in the country.

The incubation centres would focus on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector companies.

“We have decided to run 500 incubation centres in the country. At present there are only 84 centres. I request the corporate sector to encourage people to open these centres. It will help in providing skills and employment to youth,”  MSME minister Kalraj Mishra said at a CII function.

AN incubation centre promotes and gives another edge to creativity of individual innovators and assists them to become technology-based entrepreneurs. Apart from that, an incubation centre also brings together a number of start-ups, with the idea that they can help each other grow, using networking and foraging of linkages with other constituents of the innovation chain.

The government is looking forward to amend public procurement policy to incorporate provisions against PSUs who fail to meet the mandatory least 20 percent procurement by April 2015. Also, it will revise the definition of MSMEs to provide for a high capital funding.

MSME sector contributes to about 8 percent of India’s GDP and accounts for around 40 percent of the total exports and 45 percent of the manufacturing output.

Apart from the decision made by the government, a number of corporate companies have also contributed towards the encouragement of entrepreneurship. Reliance and Microsoft have signed a three-year partnership to help start-ups grow with seed capital, mentorship and technology.

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Russia’s largest technology hub, Skolkovo Innovation Centre, plans to incubate the start-up industry in India.  Founded in 2010 and led by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Skolkovo Foundation aims to develop and commercialize advanced technologies.

Starting with areas like big data analytics, biomedical devices, and Internet of Things (a hub where devices communicate with each other intelligently) Skolkovo is also looking forward to incubate in areas like energy management and space technologies.

“We are trying to support the core technologies, especially in the space where venture capitalists are not interested”, quoted Igor V Bogachev,vice president, Skolkovo Foundation. The company is based in Moscow and spread over 400 hectares. Over the last few years, Skolkovo has incubated companies that have yielded $600 million in revenue and created more than 15,000 jobs.

According to researchers, India has become the topmost destination for overseas accelerators and incubators to provide counselling and access to capital. Firms that deal in businesses ranging from personal healthcare to networking services are joining the list of incubators in Indian start-up industry.

With the growth of start-up industry in India, it comes as no surprise that companies from over abroad are willing to invest and set up incubators in India.

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Long before Facebook gained popularity for social networking, another networking giant was a monopoly in the market.

Announced three months back, Google today shut down the world’s first experience into social networking, Orkut.com.

Orkut was launched ten years back in the year 2004, the same year Facebook was founded.

While Orkut marked the dawn of social networking bringing about a revolution in the usage of internet, especially for the young generation, it did not hold onto the monopoly for a long time.

Facebook overtook Orkut as the best social networking website in July 2010, with a whopping 20.9 million visitors in July as compared to Orkut’s 19.9 million visitors. The concept of friend list, writing scraps and testimonials that anybody in your list had access to was first witnessed on orkut.

That was the time when special characters could be a part of your profile name, conversations were held through scraps, and it was easier to be friends with someone you had a crush on. Well, that definitely led to some of the most interesting love stories and relationships you get to hear in today’s date.

The first-ever social media platform used to be a favourite among users from India and Brazil, but lost its sheen as rivals came up with things, which appealed more to the young generation. “Over the past decade, YouTube, Blogger and Google+ have taken off with communities springing up in every corner of the world. Because of growth of these communities has outpaced Orkut’s growth, we have decided to bid orkut farewell”, Google said in a blog post.

The communities will be preserved by Google and an archive will be available for the users from the 30^th of September. Users can also export their data from the website using Google Takeout.

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Not long after ecommerce giant Snapdeal announced to launch its own mobile focused incubator and seed fund to encourage ecommerce and m-commerce start-ups in India, MakeMyTrip announced an institution of USD 15 million, to support early stage start-ups in travel space, in the country.

The travel space fund will focus on start-ups in Travel technology with a special focus on mobile and IP based companies. One of the first travel portals in India, MakeMyTrip was founded in the year 2000, and presently holds a 47% market share (as per a study conducted in 2013) in the online travel industry in India.

“The initiative is an additional prong of our inorganic growth strategy of pursuing M&A opportunities in the travel technology space. We intend to purposefully go out and look for such companies and take early stage positions”, says Deep Kalra, Founder and Group CEP, MakeMyTrip. The MakeMyTrip board has approved the formation of an investment committee to set up funds as per its decision of funding various start-ups and mid size companies in the travel and tourism sector in India.

Of late every major internet company in India is making an attempt to gain complete dominance in their respective sectors, by launching incubators and funding early stage start-ups. Apart from the big three players in the industry- MakeMyTrip.com, Yatra.com, and Cleartrip.com, many new players have been putting up their deals in the travel and tourism sector.  

Though the online travel industry in India has been growing rapidly since the year 2005 (the year when MMT was launched in India), the industry is yet to consolidate and mature.

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In a move that might change the course of sales of the booming Samsung mobile industry in India, Samsung electronics, the country’s largest phone maker, has decided to take the offline retail route while the rest of the world is focusing on online sales.

In a battle of offline versus online, the offline retailers have been suffering because of their online counterparts, since they offer discounts and offers on the purchased products.

What comes as a surprise to the industry is that while its contemporaries choose online methods for product sales, Samsung decided to make the conventional manual shopping experience a compulsion for their consumers.  

A senior executive of Samsung Electronics while addressing a gathering of All India Mobile Retailers Association (AIMRA) confirmed the news. “We have taken action against many rogue distributors, who were dumping their stocks online and beating down the price of our handsets. We are working hard to bring back price hygiene in the market”, quoted a spokesperson of Samsung.

Other players in the industry like Xiaomi and Motorola, are busy selling their products online.

While the first batch of Xiaomi’s Mi3 handsets were sold off within 30 minutes of launching on India’s leading e-commerce website Flipkart, Motorola’s collaboration with Flipkart has proved successful for its comeback in the mobile industry.

Interestingly, India’s leading mobile manufacturer Micromax had teamed up with Snapdeal for the release of its latest product Micromax A1.

If a recent survey is to be belived, Micromax accounted for 16.6 percent of overall market share of the mobile industry between April to June 2014, followed by Samsung at 14.4 percent. Though the South Korean giant has announced the usage of offline methods for sales, all except 48 models in particular will be made available for online purchasing.

Considering the stiff competition between its national and foreign counterparts, and the technology dependent age, what needs to be observed here is if the sales of one of world’s highest selling mobile phone manufacturers will drop down or the company will still make profit.

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After making an investment in the e-commerce giant Snapdeal, Ratan Tata has made a personal investment in Bangalore based, online jewellery retailer Bluestone.com.

The chairman emeritus f Tata Sons, has signed up to fresh shares of the three year old, e-commerce player which sells jewellery online.

The amount of the funding has not been disclosed yet.

With this investment, Tata joins a list of investors and venture capitalist firms, which back the Bangalore based company founded in 2011, by an IIT alumni, Gaurav Singh Kushwaha. “An investment by Ratan Tata who has been at the helm of India’s most successful and respected conglomerate is a validation of our approach in building an innovative brand that is disrupting the jewellery market”, Kushwaha quoted on the occasion of funding.

The company aims to give a new dimension to jewellery shopping, catering to the trendy and evolved Indian consumerism, by providing access to a large variety of carefully prepared designs by jewellery experts fused with excellent artistry.

3 years into the online jewellery retail business, Bluestone has its own manufacturing unit, which allows the company to manufacture the orders placed and, therefore nil inventory costs on the products.

Bluestone targets the modern Indian woman aged between 20 to 50 years, with contemporary designs and a huge selection. If not satisfied, the customer also has the choice of getting a jewellery designed according to her own will.

Bluestone.com is the second most preferred website for online jewellery buying, as there are not many contemporaies in the market as of now, the only one being Caratlane.com.

The investment made by the Tata Group chairman, comes not late after he made an investment in the e-commerce giant Snapdeal.com. His investment in the online jewellery store has grabbed the attention of a number of contemporaries, considering that the Tata group has its own store of jewellery retail, Tanishq.

Looking at the way, Mr. Tata has been investing personally in newly started enterprises, it can be concluded that, he is promoting entrepreneurship in India.

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The venture investment management arm of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Gennext, and Microsoft ventures have signed a three-year partnership, to help start-ups grow with seed capital, mentorship and technology.

The partnership is a three-year plan now, and is named as GenNext Innovation Hubs.

The memorandum of understanding was signed by RIL board member R A Mashelkar and Microsoft India Chairman Bhaskar Pramanik. The first setup will start operations from next month at Navi Mumbai.

The hub will provide a mentor and initial phase funding to the selected start-up.

Apart from that, the hub will also guide the enterprise to grown into a business by extending the products and services via accessing its business units in India. Microsoft India, operates with the same intention in nine countries including the US, UK, Brazil, France, Germany, Israel, and China.

The Microsoft unit at Bangalore has three units- accelerators, community and fund. While accelerators offer programmes aimed at bringing down the launch programmes for start-ups, a Microsoft team mingles with start-ups to provide technical support and sponsorship in community. Fund unit provides entrepreneur-friendly investments to early stage companies.

GenNext Innovation hub will provide the opportunity to selected group of entrepreneurs to launch or re-strategize their company through a four-month long programme, the schedule of which includes workshops for entrepreneurs, mentor meetings, access to customers and investors, and weekly business reviews.

The move by RIL and Microsoft in favour of expanding start-up industry in India, does not only encourage budding entrepreneurs, but also inspires many who choose to work for themselves. Unlike a number of other programmes, the hub has not been launched to generate profit, but to boost the entrepreneurship industry in India.

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After much speculation from the sources, Snapdeal.com, one of India’s leading e-commerce website confirmed the news of personal funding from Tata Sons’s chairman, Ratan Tata.

The amount of funding remains undisclosed.

While the investment has been made by Rata Tata’s personal fund, it still stands as a testimony to the growth and success of a company that’s just four years old.

Earlier this year, Snapdeal had raised $133 million led by eBay, which had previously invested $50 million in the company.

E-commerce enabling companies are next on the horizon. In a short entrepreneurial journey that began in 2007, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, founders of Snapdeal.com, were running out of funds to pay salary to their employees.

The firm they owned then was a small direct marketing firm known as Jasper Infotech.

Today, Snapdeal has a total capital worth $435.6 million, backed by 14 investors and has made 4 acquisitions till date.

Some of the leading investors include Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital and Saama Capital.

Speaking about the funding, Kunal Bahl, Co-founder of Snapdeal said, “This is a very proud moment for Snapdeal. An investment by a legendary and respected figure like Mr. Tata is an excellent validation of our focused strategy on building a long term enterprise, and marks the start of a very important phase for the company.”

Innovation and flexibility have marked Snapdeal’s rapid growth.

The founders give credit to the employees and Snapdeal team, for having achieved whatever growth and success until now.

The post Ratan Tata Invests In Snapdeal, CEO Kunal Bahl Says Start Of A Very Important Phase appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

There is no denying that today mobiles and tablets have a far more profitable market than desktops and laptops.

With the dawn of smart phone era, both small and established organizations have been developing applications, so as to increase their market according to the advent of technology.

In a country where there are more than 900 million mobile subscribers, it comes as no surprise that m-commerce zone is soon going to be established in a big way.

A few months ago, Flipkart’s CEO Sachin Bansal admitted that the company would within a span of two or three years enter a mobile commerce zone.

In the past five years online shopping in India has emerged rapidly and growth of e-commerce ventures such as Flipkart, Snapdeal, Myntra and Jabong has been rapid.

Talking of the smoothness of e-commerce apps, the proliferation of 3G and 4G networks and improved user experience have been driving users to transact via mobile. Just like they do on desktops, mobile ad services share targeted offers and services, as a result of the product search stored in your phone. Though the payment process is still not very smooth on mobiles, the COD (Cash On Delivery) enables users to buy their favorite items and get it shipped.

Another reason why people use apps for shopping more than PCs could be the freebies and discounts. No matter which industry does it belong to, shopping with an app gives the customer the satisfaction of shopping with discount and offers.

Talking of security, mobile platforms are considered much safer from viruses and other threats as compared to computers and laptops. Even in a case of fraudulent activity, credit tracking by GSM/GPRS is easy and faster.

Also, people generally part with their phones at home. So there is very small chance of misuse of login information that may happen on computers.

Because the tariffs of internet connection on mobiles are way lesser than that used on a PC, it has been recorded that mobile logins are much larger in number as compared to desktop or laptop logins. 

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