Decentro tries to address one of the archaic problems of the Indian banking system, its antique and outdated technology that never allows faster rolling out of retail products into the market. Taneja’s latest startup seeks to redefine the way banks and financial institutions launch their products, bringing an unprecedented efficiency in this traditionally sluggish process.

Decentro has already made a good headway in this daunting quest. From getting a backing from the world’s most popular accelerator program Y Combinator, its recent seed funding round to snaping up strategic partnership with leading banks including ICICI Bank.

Techpluto caught up with Decentro’s Co-founder and CEO Rohit Taneja in an exclusive interview. In this exclusive interview, Taneja bares all the important facts about Decentro – inception of the idea, early days, recent fundraising, impact of COVID-19 and the road ahead.

Q) How would you like to sum up Decentro’s journey, right from inception to its recent seed funding round?

I co-founded Mypoolin in 2015, and it was the country’s first social payments platform, similar to Venmo from the US. After raising two rounds of funding, the company was acquired by a California-based global payments player Wibmo in 2017, which in turn was acquired by Naspers-backed PayU in 2019.

As part of this journey, I experienced first-hand how painfully long and intricate working with a bank can be, both for a small start-up as well as a huge corporation with a workforce of 1000+. In 2017-2019, when I was working with Wibmo and PayU as the Director of Payments, I encountered the exact same hurdles while leading the India and SEA markets in terms of their financial and banking integrations. These experiences got me thinking and inspired me to build a venture to address this problem. The market for it was wide, and the solution seemed intuitive to me, having the relevant expertise in the field. And, that’s how Decentro came to life.

Q) From a layman’s perspective, how would you like to define Decentro and its long-term

Decentro is a full-stack API banking platform where any company can come, select their desired modules, integrate into the sandbox, and launch a product with just a few lines of code, and in a couple of weeks. Not only that, but we also take care of all fixes, iterations, and updates without breaking any flow.

With us, businesses save valuable man-months and capital spent in integrating with legacy infrastructure & broken API documentations of the banks. The improvement is more than 10X in terms of saving both time and money. Ultimately, our platform enables experimentation and financial innovation at an unprecedented scale for fintechs, enterprises as well as big marketplaces.

Q) What are some of the fundamental pain-points that Decentro’s API platform is seeking to address as it engages in improving the product cycle of banks and other financial institutions?

You would agree on how fast the world has changed in terms of technology. From bulky desktop devices with floppy & CD drives to the thinnest tablets enabling powerful personal computing. From snail-like network speeds to the blazingly fast protocols allowing multiplayer high-definition gaming across different parts of the globe. Overall, it would be fair enough to say that this does feel like the 21st century in the true sense.

Now, let’s take the same lens and try to see the world of financial services and banking. We are moving from cash to cheques to digital banking across a span of decades (not a few years) and many of us have not moved at all! Also, most of us would recall that our experience whether in account opening, availing credit, or even simple money transfers, is still almost the same as a decade ago.

The revolution and democratisation that cloud infrastructure like AWS has brought to the world of the internet, is going to come to the world of financial services. However, with one major change- this time it will be via multiple platforms since the world of money is much more complex. Ultimately, these platforms will enable experimentation of financial innovation at an unprecedented scale from the obvious fin-techs to the existing enterprises and big marketplaces.

We at Decentro, aspire to be one of those platforms and do our bit for the world! The ultimate beneficiaries will, of course, be the billions of consumers and millions of companies all around.

Q) Can you briefly explain why today API assumes such a great importance for India’s banking system?

APIs act as connectors between banks and fintechs so that both parties can benefit from each other and offer modern solutions to their customers. For banks, API solutions can help older financial institutions find the right fintech partners to offer innovative solutions for their customers. For FinTechs, APIs can get these startups working more effectively with banks’ legacy systems instead of building new systems on their own.

They act like a glue to bring together any business with their partner ecosystem. It helps in eliminating barriers between businesses and banks as all of them have access to the same data. Ultimately, this helps in the overall growth of the financial industry, along with improving the quality of services available.

Q) Compared to other countries, where does India’s banking industry really stand when it comes to digitization?

The banking ecosystem of India has seen some interesting changes in terms of the availability of digital channels in the last few years. Embedding banking services on SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) based accounting platforms is a good example of how the availability of APIs and digital channels is potentially benefiting the entire ecosystem.

India has taken some key steps in the right direction by partially standardising and opening certain financial services (using UPI, account aggregators, India Stack, etc.); and with a vibrant fintech ecosystem, we are likely to witness a huge disruption led by open banking.

This availability of APIs is leading to the decoupling of products from distribution in a ‘marketplace’ model where we as customers can choose any non-banking entity to perform financial functions, avail benefits, apply for instruments like credit/cards, etc.

Q) Decentro is a Y Combinator backed startup. How was the experience of participating in Y Combinator’s summer batch?

YCombinator has been incredibly helpful on all the fronts, be it the connections, or the guidance, feedback, fundraising and more. Their network is quite powerful across the world and getting introductions becomes a breeze via their partners, alumni or peer companies.

The summer batch of 2020 was the first fully remote batch that they organised for the first time, and the structure was simply amazing. Not only did we get the chance to be close to our customers in India, but also attended all the sessions and workshops late at night. Needless to say, it was hectic but one of the best experiences for any founder.

Q) Given that most startups struggle to raise funds, how difficult or easy it was for Decentro to raise the latest seed funding round?

  Yes, in our case, the seed round closed fairly quickly in a matter of few weeks. A couple of things helped a lot in the same –

• Being a second time founder with an exit empowered my previous angels to join in.
• Having scaled and built a fin-tech venture previously in India
• YCombinator’s validation and their investor network via demo day
• Our business growth and validation of the BaaS space across.

Q) What has been the impact of COVID-19 on Decentro’s business?

The pandemic has made a few more things abundantly clear. One of them is that remote verification, digital money movement, on-demand financial services, and automated reconciliation as use cases are growing exponentially every day. Another one is that the integration of financial services and instruments inside an existing app or platform creates massive monetization opportunities for both sides.

Except for the downside of fewer people availing credit in 2020 due to loss of income and related reasons, the fintech sector and platform banking space itself have attracted huge tailwinds. Interestingly, as a company, we took birth, were incubated by YCombinator, launched 3 major products, raised angel and seed capital, as well as grew by 40% month over month during the pandemic last year.

I believe the market is opening up much faster than people anticipated when it comes to banking APIs, both in terms of supply and demand. The banks realize that firstly, product and API delivery is not their forte at all, and secondly, it is just so hard for them to change their business processes to fast-track even a single customer.

Q) What is next for Decentro? Where do you see Decentro two or three years from now. Would you like to provide any rough growth or revenue projections for future? 

We plan on focusing on strengthening our partnerships with banks and are on track to increasing our existing customer base by 4 – 5X by the end of 2021 across our existing products, as compared to EOY 2020. And a transactional growth of 20X or more.

Another key aspect is the launch of new products. One of the key products that we are launching is ‘embedded finance’ APIs for enabling credit workflows in a few high-growth consumer and business facing applications. More details will be coming soon.

We are also looking at expanding our team strength during this financial year. While hiring, we consider their hunger, drive, proven contribution, analytical skills, and ability to tackle integration and service issues at a holistic level. Few of the principles that guide us as a team are-

• Radical truth and honesty towards each other, even if it is uncomfortable.
• Empathy towards our customers (companies) and walking in their shoes at all times.
• Execute and manage your task as someone operating a machine, which means both zooming out at the high level as well as zooming in for attention to detail.

Q) You are one of the veterans in India’s startup industry. Your last startup Mypoolin was acquired by Wibmo in 2017 in a cash and stock deal. Personally, how would you like to define your journey as a serial startup entrepreneur?

I am here to solve the most impactful problems that I face personally, and money/fintech happened to be the vertical where I saw the scope and existing challenges at a larger level.

It is still early days but I see Decentro becoming a much larger venture in the country’s ecosystem. Looking forward to building an even bigger moat by solving hard problems and moving fast on the same.

The post Rohit Taneja opens up about Decentro in a Exclusive Interview appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

As a result, Practically decided to take a very novel and unique approach by focusing on Stem learning. There are not many edtech startups in India that focus on STEM education. For all those who are not aware, STEM education is a learning method that particularly focuses on four disciplines – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. These four disciplines, as is well known, play a very critical role in determining the academical fortune of students and therefore they always occupy a place of great primacy.

While Practically’s focus on STEM education sets it apart, its unique proposition or USP doesn’t end here. Guided by soaring ambition, this barely two-year-old startup has casted a web of immersive experience on their STEM education approach. By using cutting-edge technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality and immersive videos, Practically makes tough subjects like Math and Science into a fun and enthralling experience for students.

In other words, Practically has set its feet in a terrain where probably few edtech startups have dared to venture.

To know more about this groundbreaking startup, Techpluto spoke to Practically’s co-founder Charu Noheria. In an exclusive interview, Noheria sheds light on the experience that germinated the idea of Practically, the recent pre-series B funding, the edtech industry and much more.

Q) What really bothered you and other founding partners Subbarao Siddabattula and Ilangovel Thulasimani about India’s education landscape that eventually paved way for the idea of Practically?

When Subbarao Siddabattula, Ilangovel Thulasimani and I were bouncing off ideas to pursue, it became apparent that we were excited about tech-based, non-traditional methods of teaching and learning. We wanted to make dry subjects more interesting, engaging and fun for learners around the world.

I was a part of the competitive rat race for admission to the IITs in India and being extremely stressed during the preparations. I also dropped a year, switched five engineering streams and changed three colleges during the 18 months before choosing the correct stream. Unconsciously, this left a lasting mark on my mind which made me develop an affinity towards unconventional ways of learning.

Practically aims to bring back joy into classrooms. STEM subjects for school students have become dry and educators have few means to increase students’ rate of retention. Students have access to mostly passive and rote learning sources and methods when learning foundational concepts leading to less than 30% rate of retention. This disengagement leads to lack of interest in key subjects. Practically also aims to make everything that a learner needs available on a single app helping the parent pay for a single product containing content, simulations/AR, test prep, analytics/feedback, gamification, doubt resolution, live classes, coding, summer programs etc. in one place.

Q) While edtech has become a hyper-competitive space, do you think that the level of competition is the same when it comes to the niche area of STEM learning?

Science and Math specifically have always been the focus of students and parents in India. Though there have been many edtech products which cover all subject areas there are very few which take on STEM as a specialty and go deep into it. Due to its vast curriculum and broad range of applications, no one has been able to make a name in this particular space. Practically aims to become a pioneer in the area of STEM learning with its practical approach to delivering STEM concepts. STEM is not a niche segment in grades 6-12. Every student sees these subjects as scoring subjects as there is little room for error once you understand the concepts and can apply them. With experiential and interactive learning, STEM becomes a very interesting area to learn as it helps us makes sense of the world around us.

Q) How would you like to describe Practically’s impact on the students’ academic performance? Do you think that Practically’s experimental learning method is proving to be a boon for students?

Practically is an intelligent, interactive and immersive learning app for students of classes 6-12 with a focus on STEM learning. It is the only experiential learning app that brings learning alive through immersive videos, interactive augmented reality and 3D simulations. It has an edge over other learning apps in enhancing conceptual understanding and improving retention of concepts with features like life-like video content, hands-on learning, experiential learning, live classes and AI assistant. The app also has a 24×7 Seek Help feature for doubt resolution, where students can reach out to subject experts on the platform.

Practically uses cutting-edge technologies to deliver experiential learning to students. Our primary objective is to improve the rate of retention for students to more than 90% by using new-age learning methodology and experiential content.

Since our launch, we have received positive appreciation from our consumers and customers regarding our approach, curriculum. Currently we have 3.2 lac students benefitting from Practically and 15,000 teachers in 200+ schools have found the Practically School Solution very helpful.

Q) Can you give us a rough idea about the download numbers of the Practically app and roughly how many students have so far benefited from the app?

So far 320,000 students are registered on the Practically app. This speaks volumes about our curriculum, services and offerings. With our new-age classroom experience, over 15,000 teachers in 200 schools have already started benefiting from the Practically School Solution.

Q) Fundraising usually proves to be an overwhelming affair for most startups. How challenging it was to convince investors to believe and back up your business idea.

Fundraising isn’t easy, it takes patience and critical time of founders who also need to focus on building the business. Balancing the two is like doing two full-time jobs. Even a slight amount of delay in securing funds can be detrimental to the business. Moments like those can demoralize you, as you can see the market opportunity slipping away in front of you and there is nothing you can do. I am sure a lot of entrepreneurs can relate to that feeling.

Luckily for us, we have survived our early battles, gone through many ups and downs, raised multiple rounds of funding and are now in a very good place. Personally for me, fundraising has been a very rewarding experience. I have learnt a lot along the way and added some incredible people in my close network.

Practically’s usage of cutting-edge technology has received tremendous response from schools, administration, faculty, parents and students. Our strong team has leveraged the unique products we have built together to attract and win the trust and confidence of the right investors focused on this sector.

Q) Your comments about the recent $4 Mn pre-series B funding round. How does Practically plan to utilize the latest capital infusion?

With the latest round of funding, we expect to expand our footprint to the rest of the country by the end of 2021. With the positive response that we have received so far from our presence in the Middle East market, we aim to reach out to many more schools there in 2021. We are also looking to move to the US by the end of the year. While we are offering services for grades 6-12, in 2021 we will also enter the K-5 segment. We are also planning to add over 2,000 employees by December 2021 to ramp up our services across the country.

Q) Roughly by when does Practically aim to achieve profitability or break even?  

We estimate in the next 12 months, we will be profitable and can self-sustain the growth we set out to achieve. There is huge demand for our solution both in the domestic market as well as internationally and we are well positioned to capitalize on these opportunities fairly quickly as the product has already been launched and is set up for scale.

Q) Today Practically has an overwhelming presence in Andhra Pradesh and the Telangana region. Any plans to consolidate your position in other markets and regions in the distant future?   

While Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are our home markets where we have focused so far, through our first brand campaign ‘Bring Learning Alive’ we reached out to audiences  pan India as we plan to expand to the rest of the country this year.

We are expecting to establish our footprint globally. We are already present in the UAE and are looking to move to the US by the end of the year. Although the near-term plan is to expand into other English-speaking countries globally, we are also exploring with partners in countries where there is a need for content in other languages since Practically’s immersive animated video content can be easily localised.

Q) Your thoughts on the current scenario as well as the future of India’s edtech industry?

The EdTech sector is witnessing unprecedented growth owing to the increasing adoption of technology during the pandemic. We believe that technology adoption in the education sector is yet to see its peak and the growth trajectory is likely to continue beyond the pandemic years. The lockdown induced by the pandemic has brought an ever-increasing demand for EdTech products in India. Consumers are becoming more aware of the offerings and accessibility thus leading to bring in innovations in learning. With steep competition, players need to modify their offerings to engage consumers constantly.

The sector poses some challenges in terms of infrastructure such as access to devices like laptops, smartphones, availability of internet access for the learners in rural areas. Also, the lack of exposure to high-end technologies is creating disparity amongst the students. Usage of shared devices between children and parents are also making the engagement process challenging. We along with Government need to devise a strategy addressing these concerns on an immediate basis ensuring seamless access to education across geographies.

Q) Lastly, how difficult and challenging it is for a woman to grow & sustain in the male-dominated entrepreneurial world?

Unfortunately in India, women are disproportionately represented in the economic market. While the Indian economy is largely male-dominated, slowly women are making their way up and creating successful revenue streaks. To encourage women participation, we need to change our perception and create a more inclusive environment. To achieve gender equality, we need to create awareness about the role and responsibility of women and educate people on women issues.

Technology is a great enabler and provides a level playing field irrespective of gender. With increased participation of women, the Indian startup ecosystem is being recognized for the growing number of successful women CXOs and VCs. According to a report by Bain & Company and by Google, Indian women entrepreneurs are poised to generate 150–170 million jobs. Keeping this in mind, we need to change our mindset and welcome women in the workforce as leaders. We need to acknowledge their creative potential and develop a supportive ecosystem to help them create successful business ventures.

The post Charu Noheria opens up about Practically’s journey, recent funding & much more appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

GrowFix has initiated this arduous journey on an auspicious note by recently raising $2 Mn in a seed funding round. While funding stories have become all too common in India’s startup ecosystem, but GrowFix’s seed funding was a standout affair. Its seed funding round got the backing of some of the biggest titans of the startup industry including Kunal shah, Payu’s Nitin Gupta, Paytm Money’s former CEO Praveen Jadhav and Zerodha backed fund Rainmatter.

GrowFix’s co-founder Ajinkya Kulkarni joins Techpluto to shed light on the recent high profile seed funding round, debt asset ecosystem & the need to grow awareness about it and much more. This is GrowFix’s first major interview following its recent seed funding round.

Q1) What made GrowFix’s co-founding team to target and go after Securitized Debt Instruments (SDIs)?

We ( Co-founders) faced this problem of low-interest rates in FD and debt mutual funds. We come from the lending background so we knew there existed many assets that are high yield and where risk is mitigated well but are not available for retail investors. We started growfix to retailize such assets.

Q 2) Can you please shed light on some of the factors that necessities the need for improved debt assets?

When we looked around we saw many retail investors including us struggling to find avenues which were less risky than equities but would also earn better returns than a FD (returns of which have been falling through cliff over the years) to park their hard earned money and Debt mutual funds lack much needed clarity, We felt that retail investors need to be treated better, and should no longer be stereotyped by the institutional class of investors. This motivated us to develop easy to understand and easy to invest debt products

Q 3)  GrowFix’s recent seed funding saw participation of quite a few high profile investors including Zerodha backed fund Rainmatter Capital and CRED’s Kunal Shah?  You’re thoughts about the same?

We are glad that such prolific investors believe and are supporting our mission. It feels nice to be supported by people whom we look upto. We are very grateful to all the investors who backed us. But we are also very clear that ultimately what matters is user love so we are focussed on that.

Q 4) How GrowFix plans to leverage the $2 Mn seed funding round to propel its growth?

The funding is going to be used to develop better technology in identifying and underwriting the risks involved and boost the consumer education around debt assets in the country. The retail participation in debt assets has been miniscule till now due to various barriers, But the awareness around fixed income assets among the retail investors is now growing at a faster rate than ever and we want to double down on the opportunity through technology and education.

Q 5) Can you please shed some light on GrowFix’s first asset product ‘GrowFix Gold,’ which was launched in December last year?

Our first offering GrowFix Gold launched in December 2020 is a pool of loans backed by gold and gives 11% pre-tax annual returns repaid on maturity. It’s a market linked debenture (A debt product with equity like taxation, which makes It very exciting). The beauty of it is that it’s a covered bond providing double protection to the investors. If the NBFC gets bankrupt the investors have full ownership over the underlying collateral of the loans.The pool of loans were disbursed by Kanakadurga Finance Limited, a NBFC which finances Vehicle and Gold loans. We have explained the product and the risks involved with it in detail on our website.

Q 6) What are Cover Bonds, which is one of your unique product offerings?

Regular secured bonds or NCDs come with a cover pool of loan receivables as security. However, in case the issuer goes bankrupt, the collections from the security cover pool form part of bankruptcy proceedings and may not go to the NCD investor. This is because the legal ownership of security cover resides with the NBFC. In case of Covered Bond the cover pool is assigned to a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV set up as trust) which in turn provides an unconditional and irrevocable guarantee to the NCDs. This ensures that even if the issuer goes bankrupt the collections from the underlying cover pool will flow to the investors. The structure is as follows:

1. NBFC issues a bond
2. A SPV is set up as a trust with NBFC being residual (junior) beneficiary
3. SPV uses NBFC’s contribution to purchase high-quality security pool
4. SPV provides an unconditional and irrevocable guarantee to the bonds
5. Every month NBFCs replenishes the security cover for any rundown or prepayments as per predefined eligibility criteria

Q 7) How really difficult and challenging it is to democratize the access to debt assets, which is today dominated by ultra-rich investors?

Regulatory problems though difficult are still solvable. Our past experiences of working in NBFCs gives us a significant edge in solving regulatory hurdles. NBFCs are more than happy welcoming retail capital; this insight also eased up the process a bit. The key to success will be how happily our product is accepted by the customers, and that depends on the level of trust they place on us.

Q 8) Can you please tell us which are the NBFCs that you’ve tied up with?

We have tied up with about 20 NBFCs and we are working on bringing their assets on our platforms.

Q 9) Finally, what advice would you like to give to all the startup founders and aspiring entrepreneurs?

I am too humbled to be asked this question but we are very early to provide any real advice.

The post GrowFix’s Ajinkya Kulkarni talks about Debt Investment and latest Seed Funding Round appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

It won’t be wrong to call Karkhana.io a disruptive startup as it is involved in the ambitious quest of digitizing and simplifying the manufacturing sector. The startup essentially envisions the reality of making the hardware development cycle as quick as that of software. It wants to break down barriers to provide access to high-quality manufacturing services that will help in bringing physical products to market quickly.

As challenging as this mission is, Motwani has already proven her mettle by smoothly navigating her startup through the tumultuous period of COVID Lockdown. Investors eventually rewarded her entrepreneurial skills by pumping equity funding worth $1.5Mn in a seed funding round.

In an exclusive interview with Techpluto, Motwani talks about her entrepreneurial journey, karkhana.io’s mission, latest seed funding and much more. This is Motwani’s first interview after karkhana.io’s recent seed funding round.

Q) Women entrepreneurs have always been in minority and more so in manufacturing sector. What really made you to jump in the manufacturing sector?

I finished my bachelor degree from IIT Bombay in Aerospace Engineering in 2013. IIT Bombay gave me the experience of meeting a lot of smart people and working with them on some very cool projects. One of those was building an electric race car from scratch. That was my first encounter with manufacturing. I then started my career with P&G and worked on solving engineering problems across multiple business units. It was during this time that I witnessed some of the challenges underlying in the manufacturing industry in India. The challenges were hard but compelling enough for me to jump in and work on finding solutions and this eventually led to building Karkhana.io

Q) What are some of the major challenges in designing and prototyping manufacturing spare parts & hardware and how karkhana.io aims to resolve these pain points?

If you want to procure a custom part or product, it is extremely tedious and time-consuming to find the right manufacturing supplier. There is no easy way to figure out which manufacturing process to go for, where to manufacture, what is a fair price to pay. Manufacturing is a highly unorganized industry. At Karkhana.io, we are trying to change this.

The thought behind Karkhana.io was to create an online platform that helps businesses of all sizes get custom manufactured parts in a simple, fast, and reliable way.

We manufacture parts for various industries like automotive, robotics, healthcare, consumer goods etc. We do not own any machines at Karkhana.io, we have a network of manufacturing partners located in different geographies who own the machines and help us achieve the speed and quality in the product. We keep our margin on every order that we manufacture with them.

In this aggregation process, we own the responsibility of product quality and timeline and make sure that we only get highly vetted manufacturers onboard who can deliver on our commitments.

Q) Can you please shed light on all the services that karkhana.io offers to its clients?

Karkhana.io simplifies the procurement of customized parts manufactured using different manufacturing technologies like precision machining, casting, fabrication, plastic molding, 3d printing, etc. Instead of finding separate suppliers for each of these processes, our clients use Karkhana.io as a single platform for the end-to-end service ensuring reliability from material procurement to manufacturing project management to quality control to project delivery.

Q) Karkhana.io is reportedly involved in building cutting edge technology – from deep-sea underwater robots to satellite and rocket for outer space to components for electric vehicles, IOT and FMCG industries. Can you please shed some light on these ambitious projects?

Our expert supply network for a range of manufacturing processes enables us to manufacture highly intricate parts as well as large size structures.

Q) Karkhana.io recently raised seed funding of $1.5Mn. How does the company plans to leverage this funding?

To develop our on-demand cloud manufacturing platform and to further strengthen our supply network.

Q) Karkhana.io is involved in the ambitious pursuit of digitizing the manufacturing sector. However, the digital penetration in India’s manufacturing sector is still very low. What do you think will accelerate this process?

The penetration will increase if the digital tools are simple to onboard, without additional infrastructure and enable manufacturing suppliers to manage projects more effectively while ensuring continuous increase in business for them.

Q) Karkhana.io managed to win many clients in 2020 despite the lingering shadow of pandemic. How did the company managed to endure this storm smoothly?

When the pandemic struck in early 2020 and most of the manufacturing activity came to a halt, the team at Karkhana.io responded with agility and figured out how we could use our strength in manufacturing and supply chain to help fight the pandemic. We started working with our supplier network in injection molding, machining, and fabrication to mass-produce PPEs. We also tied up with other healthcare companies and helped with procurement of tools to manufacture masks, swabs for COVID testing, ventilator parts and other products which were in shortage.

In July 2020, we resumed our regular manufacturing projects and added new customers month on month thereafter.

Q) Despite all the hype around women empowerment, women entrepreneurs still make up tiny percentage in the leadership roles. There are very few women CEOs & co-founders. Your thoughts about the same?  

More women IN leadership will pull more women TO leadership.

Q) Your sincere advice to all the women who want to pursue career in entrepreneurship?   

If you have a strong will to pursue entrepreneurship, go ahead with all your might. Surround yourself with the right people who have the skills that you are short on. Network with people who would want you to and help you to succeed.

The post Karkhana.io’s Sonam Motwani talks about recent seed funding, COVID-19 impact & more     appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.