However, Vowelor is not merely a place where book lovers get to dissect & discuss their favorite novels. But it is also a place where they get to interact with some upcoming and popular authors as well. In the process, authors get great opportunity to promote their books in a rapidly growing book community.

As of today, Vowelor has very few parallels as far as the competition goes and therefore it is among country’s first online ecosystem for the diehard book lovers. Two young entrepreneurs Manik Ghawri and Lalit Sharma are behind this unique online ecosystem that aims to create the best possible virtual community for India’s bibliophiles.

This young startup’s ambition has already got a good head-start, after it raised Rs 10 mn in pre-series A round led by angel investor by Mr. Sanjeev Juneja, an eminent FMCG Player.

To know more about this young startup, Techpluto caught up with Vowelor’s co-founders Manik Ghawri and Lalit Sharma for an exclusive interview. In this special interview, both co-founders have shed light on the company’s journey, latest funding, future plans and many other important aspects.

Q) Could you’ve imagined starting a platform like Vowelor if you have not been an avid reader yourself?

No but after we wrote a book soon we realised there’s no platform of readers where we can showcase our book. That’s when we got the idea of starting a Facebook group where readers and writers can interact with each other. As the community grew, we (Mr. Manik Ghawri and Lalit Sharma co-founders) analysed that users were facing a number of problems that are common. Readers struggle to find the next book to read while authors face hurdles in book promotion.

After all the research, we started Vowelor as a one stop platform for readers and writers with the unique concept of ‘Why, Read Alone’.

Q) Can you briefly describe what Vowelor is all about and how do this ecosystem benefit readers and authors?

The Vowelor app connects like-minded book lovers who read similar books. Most importantly, it allows you to discuss books in real-time and help you find what books you should read next.

Vowelor brings innovation into this industry by gathering readers, writers and publishers all under one roof and solving problems that were faced by each of them. India’s publishing industry is in dire need of this evolution and Vowelor has the potential to do it.

Q) Vowelor recently raised Rs 1 Cr in pre-series A round. Can you shed light on how does the company plans to utilize this fund infusion?

While other startups in this domain are into buying and selling books and subscriptions, Vowelor is entirely focusing on the community aspect where user can have meaningful conversations around books in real-time.

Our short term goals include launching the iOS version of Vowelor books app and expanding our reader’s community. Soon, we will also partner with Bookstores and Publishers to take our app to next level.

Q) What is Vowelor’s current revenue model?

Our primary revenue comes from helping and promoting Authors to reach maximum numbers of readers. We do this by utilizing our community and organic reach from our website. And in coming days, we are planning to automate the entire process via Vowelor App.

Moreover, in the near future, Vowelor will collaborate with publishers and book stores opening new revenue streams as well as bringing the much needed change in the books industry in India which is estimated to be worth Rs 739 Billion by 2020.  

Q) Does Vowelor plans to add any new features to make the ecosystem more engaging and exciting?

Yes, definitely. We are first planning to release the iOS app and then we will look forward provide features including the in-app Author Program for book promotion.

Q) Is there any long term plan to cater to non-English and vernacular readers?

On Vowelor app, many readers have added non-English books in their libraries (including Hindi, Bengali and Tamil). As a community, we welcome readers of all languages and interact with those who read books of same language.

Q) Vowelor claims to be India’s first ecosystem of readers and authors but going forward do you see competition heating up in this niche space?

As this industry has a lot of potential, it is definite that more startups as well as biggies are eyeing on the books niche. It is important to solve the problems of readers and writers to be on the top.

Q) Where do you see Vowelor in next 2-3 years in terms of growth?

In the coming years, we plan to turn Vowelor into one of its kind platform for authors, readers, publishers and bookstores and remove the bottlenecks that they currently face.

The post Vowelor is a platform that brings Readers, Writers and Publishers all Under One Roof appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

It has been achieving growth of 30% on year-on year basis for last three years to achieve topline revenues of more than 42 Million USD. It counts high profile telecom companies like Airtel, MTN, Digicel, Orange, Telefonica and many more as its loyal clients. Securing such worthy clients would have been possible without company’s highly successful products like Magic Voice (flagship product), AdCom, TalkApp and @home.

The vision for these highly successful products came from Mr. Rahul Gupta and Mr. Karthik Shankar, the two restless and ambitious entrepreneurs who have been guiding the company since its inception in 2011. The two co-founders have traversed the company through many challenges and have successfully transformed this once humble startup into a highly successful MNC.

Techpluto spoke to co-founder Rahul Gupta in an exclusive interview. In this interview, Mr. Rahul Gupta has shed light on various important aspects like blackNgreen’s existing challenges, future projections as well as about the overall VAS industry.

Techpluto: Was it the sheer lack of creativity and innovative products in the value-added service (VAS) industry that eventually propelled you to enter in this industry?

Rahul Gupta: It is partially true. While I was already working on IVR technology, one fine day I just had a brainwave. This brainwave gave birth to Magic Voice, which became our first product. As we continued over years, we found several areas which could be disrupted, and we introduced innovations in Roaming space, Low Balance, Entertainment, Education and Fixed line Spaces. These innovations over the years have helped our telecom partners to scale up and become a global company.

Techpluto: Can you shed light on one big challenge that blackNgreen faced while scaling up the business?

Rahul Gupta: There were many challenges. Since we are a self-funded company, the primary challenge was to manage the finances. Secondly, talent acquisition and then of course lack of experience in working in international markets as well as limited connections in the global telecom market.

Techpluto: How did the idea of your first product Magic Voice came to you?

Rahul Gupta: The incident is very vivid in my memory. I had read the word ‘morphing’ somewhere on the Internet and even googled it to find the word’s precise meaning. Coincidentally, I was already working on IVR technology and all this came together and I had an intuition that this could definitely work and it did.

It took me and may team some time to sharpen the technology, but all the hard work was eventually paid off.

Techpluto: Are there any interesting products & services that blackNgreen plans to launch in the short run?

Rahul Gupta: Our focus is to expand our Gaming portfolio rapidly in coming months, with interesting games on all three platforms (IVR, WAP and APP).

We have recently launched the App version of Magic Voice called Magic APP. It’s already gone Viral in India with 3 Million downloads. We are going to launch it in another 50 countries in 3 months time.

Techpluto: blackNgreen is now aggressively focusing on Latin American market to fuel next phase of growth. Would you like to share some thoughts on the same?

Rahul Gupta: Latin American market was always a huge challenge because of the vast geographical distance and language barriers. It took us some time but we have finally managed to crack up the market and are seeing amazing response for our products already.

With the success achieved in Central America, Caribbean and Mexico, we are now able to roll out our services across Latin America with some of the major Telecom Groups in the region.

Techpluto: Which has been the one market that has been toughest to conquer for blackNgreen?

Rahul Gupta: Like I said, Latin America has been the toughest market. Entering  CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) region is going to be next on our target.

Techpluto: Despite blackNgreen’s impressive growth, the company has so far not raised any external funding?

Rahul Gupta: We have always believed in organic growth to build and learn as we go on expanding. However at this stage when we are looking at having a larger impact on the global scale, we may soon think of raising funds.

Techpluto: India’s telecom sector has gone through major consolidation phase during last few years. It has even led to exit of big players like Rcom and Aircel. Has this in anyway affected your India business?

Rahul Gupta: We are not present in India with Telecom operators. However, I think this consolidation has been extremely beneficial for the end users. It has helped decrease the digital divide, bringing down the entry barriers to smartphones and enabling high-speed Internet.

One of the biggest impacts it has had is that the people in remote areas & also underprivileged section can now get on the digital bandwagon. This will reduce the information and knowledge divide and give people the right tools to make the right decisions for a better life and career.

Techpluto: is there any major difference between India’s VAS industry and international VAS industry?

Rahul Gupta: We have always worked on products which have a Global appeal. So we have not usually faced this challenge. But yes there are different people, different cultures, with different interests, different languages. One has to customize the products to suit to each local market.

Techpluto: Your projection for blackNgreen for next 5 years?

Rahul Gupta: To be among the top 3 product companies, to come up with major innovations that can help us to service over 80% of Global telecom operators with over 2 billion active users on our products. Continue to disrupt the advertising industry, entertainment, gaming, low balance and fixed line segments.

Techpluto: Are there any role models that you personally look up to?

Rahul Gupta: I have always admired Steve Jobs who transformed millions of lives with his relentless commitment to future of cool technology populism. He is the one who single handedly brought computing to masses. First with Apple 2, then with iPhones.

He has single handedly disrupted several industries, like music, entertainment, computing. He created a completely new segment of Apps and App Stores and empowered millions of developers to come out with innovative product ideas.

Techpluto: One piece of advice that you would love to give to all the budding entrepreneurs?

Rahul Gupta: Just believe in your idea with full conviction, be flexible to change as more often than not your idea that you start off with initially becomes something completely different and for better. Be ready to put in insane amount of hard work. It’s not going to be easy, but don’t give up.

The post Rahul Gupta: blackNgreen aims to be among top 3 VAS companies in next 5 years appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

Shadowfax made relatively late entry in the last mile delivery space, but this hardly proved to be a deterrent in its path to success. Founded in 2015 by two IIT Delhi alumni – Abhishek Bansal & Vaibhav Khandelwal – Shadowfax has posted stellar growth in short span of time to emerge as one of the most dominant players in India’s online logistic space.

Today Shadowfax fulfills 90,000 unique orders per day and offers delivery services in more than 75 cities.  Some of its high profile clients include Flipkart, Paytm, Zomato, KFC and Domino’s. The Bengaluru headquartered company recently raised $22 Mn in series C round, which once again vindicated that the company’s future prospects are pretty bright. The company is projecting 150% year-on-year growth for the next five years.

Techpluto caught up with both Abhishek Bansal & Vaibhav Khandelwal in a special interview. Both co-founders shed light on growth opportunities and challenges that the company faced over the years. The co-founder also shared their views on technological aspect and India’s online logistic industry.

Techpluto: Looking in hindsight, how do you think Shadowfax has evolved over the last two years? Are you completely satisfied as far as company’s profitability & revenue are concerned?

Abhishek Bansal: The last two years have been extremely fun and challenging at the same time. We’ve had to consistently push our limits daily and solve ‘never tackled before’ problems in the logistics & supply chain industry; but seeing the solutions yield results has been greatly gratifying.

We are happy with the way our revenue & profitability graph continues to read since inception and look forward to its northward run in the future.

Techpluto: Today Shadowfax is getting lot of business from food, grocery and e-commerce segments. Do you feel is there any other promising segment that the company needs to tap into to increase its profitability?

Abhishek Bansal: Yes definitely, pharmaceuticals, courier services, heavy shipments are some of our newer focus areas.

Techpluto: Since today technology is playing such a crucial role in logistic sector, can you shed some light on how Shadowfax is working to stay ahead in the technology curve?

Abhishek Bansal: Shadowfax uses state-of-the-art Routing algorithms clubbed with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, which helps us build efficiencies for our operations.

Apart from this, our in-built systems determine real-time rider allocations for a delivery. This helps us in optimizing the number of deliveries per trip which a rider partner can complete on our platform.

Techpluto: There is lot of hype around artificial intelligence and machine learning, but most analysts claim that these breakthrough technologies are still in nascent stage?

Vaibhav Khandelwal: I don’t quite agree to this view. Although it is true that both these technologies are still evolving, they have already reached maturity stage and have already made meaningful contributions to several industries & sectors.

Techpluto: Shadowfax recently raised $22 Mn in series C round. Are there any plans to pursue another fundraising round in the short-run?

Vaibhav Khandelwal: Currently, we are not planning for another round in the short run.

Techpluto: How has the unprecedented emergence of e-commerce industry changed India’s logistic sector?

Abhishek Bansal: It has opened up a plethora of opportunities for our fellow countrymen. With the introduction of GST and improvement in the infrastructure, things have really changed for the better with customer experience taking the driver’s seat and the quality of services being provided to consumers seeing an overall improvement. Hence, it is right to say that the whole ecosystem has positively benefited through this.

Techpluto: How far behind are India’s logistic companies compared to counterparts in developed countries? Are you personally satisfied with the progress that Indian companies have made over the years or there is still lot of catching up to do?

Abhishek Bansal: India is still lagging in terms of the technology & efficiency when compared to other developed nations. But we are on an acceleration mode; I am confident that we’ll catch up & will soon be leading the way in setting best practice benchmarks.

Vaibhav Khandelwal: I agree with Abhishek’s view. To give an example, express delivery, which is still catching up in India, is quite common in developed countries. This is largely owing to their superior technology and deeper internet penetration.

Techpluto: It is all too well known that 90% of startups fail. What, according to you, are some of the key factors that spell doom for most startups and how does Shadowfax intends to avoid these pitfalls?

Abhishek Bansal: We think the first most important factor for a startup’s success is the team – and at Shadowfax, we invest huge time & resources in building a world class team.

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