Consumers are becoming aware of their wellness needs. They understand that no single product or brand is the sure shot answer to their grooming needs. The tech revolution is sweeping across the beauty industry. With the pandemic having driven everyone indoors, beauty and wellness have drastically changed in skincare and cosmetic product requirements. For instance, an entire market has been created for ‘Maskne’ (mask acne) with companies coming up with new products and solutions to tackle this. 

1. Virtual Try-On:

The virtual try-on tech trend leverages the Augmented Reality technology for make-up and hair colour in the professional beauty sector. Through this technology, customers can try on dozens of shades of make-up and hair colour. The virtual try-on technology uses an advanced face tracker algorithm that detects where customers’ lips, eyes, cheeks, hair, etc., are and applies virtual cosmetics on this zone to give them a real-time, true-to-life view of the products. Loreal India invested in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) by acquiring ModiFace to enhance their product and customer experience.

2. Webcam consultation

Webcam consultations are the latest consumer trends in the professional beauty sector which enhances the online shopping experience for customers through e-consultations and individualised skincare consultations. Kiehl’s India, a beauty and skincare brand rolled out one-on-one skin video consultations where skin experts interact with customers and give them insights on choosing the products that are the right fit for them. 

3. Store Management

Modern beauty salons, skincare clinics, and even cosmetic stores are adopting store and salon management tech that are customised for beauty brands and businesses. Salon and store management technology encompasses accounting, payroll and financial reporting, inventory control, scheduling, and CRM (customer relationship management) software. Beauty businesses are tapping into these technologies to streamline workflows, manage clientele, and attract modern clients. 

4. Skin Diagnostics

Skin Diagnostics is a tech trend in the beauty world which brands are leveraging for expert skin analysis. It’s an online tool based on AI driven by dermatologists that evaluates customer’s skin profile through a phone or computer camera. Skin diagnostics tech is built on massive volumes of data and developed on clinical atlases which can deliver tailor-made skincare routines for beauty customers. Indian personal beauty brand Skincraft performs skin analysis for customers by matching the answers received on a detailed questionnaire to regimen kits. This system relies on a data repository which creates a suite of ‘skin profiles’ for their algorithm. These skin profiles are then matched to appropriate products. 

5. Interactive retail  experience

MAC cosmetics had opened its first ever ‘phygital’ experience centre in Shanghai. Aimed at understanding GenZ’s make-up purchase behaviour, the retail store was equipped with technology like cognitive walkthroughs, virtual makeup mirrors, and infrared touchscreens. Although this concept store trend was first kicked off by MAC in Shanghai, it will surely catch on and eventually seep into the small business sector in India in the near future.

Who is BlackBuck?

BlackBuck is India’s largest trucking platform. Founded in 2015, it aims to organise and simplify the trucking industry for both, shipper and trucker. The platform has been a pioneer in bringing the offline operations of trucking online.

The platform also aims to reshape the infrastructure around trucking to facilitate insurance, payments and financial services. With just one click, truckers can book a load and move at capacity. Along with this, shippers can book a truck of their choice, of any size, at the right time and at a right price.

By keeping the application minimal for the not so literate people, the app operates through Google maps. The drivers and truckers can accept work and navigate in a seamless manner. For the clients, they can install the similar app to make their respective bookings and BlackBuck matches the demand with available trucks and drivers in the area. Just like Uber, BlackBuck connects shippers with trucks.

Inefficiency Problems in India’s Truck System

India’s Trucking Industry is the most marginalised, unorganised and inefficient sector and is critical for the country’s economy. This problem is dragging India’s economy down as this contributes around 14.4% to India’s GDP. This sector is also the highest employment generator as 85% of the transportation community is constituted by small operators.

Being a major choke-point in the supply chain, the trucking industry functions on uncoordinated set-pieces causing all the inefficiencies and disparity in their operation. The reason behind this are:

• Highway and Roads conditions that can hardly be termed comfortable for driving. This causes delays and is also responsible for breakdowns of trucks and heavy loaded vehicles.
• The poor vehicle maintenance is another reason for the inefficiency in the trucking industry. In order to transport maximum freight with minimum costs, truck owners neglect the efficiency of their vehicles which in return cause miserable conditions.
• There’s no standardisation of remuneration as different transport companies’ offer diversified paychecks.
• Sometimes there’s problems with authority at several checkpoints. Drivers mostly being not very literate end up in a situation where they’re caught up in state laws and have to face delays.

EdTech Market

The study by venture capital firm Blinc Invest shows that the early childhood care and education sector is booming slowly. It has shown a CAGR of 17% over the last 10 years. With the increase in the usage of gadgets and electronics in our day-to-day lives, the teaching-learning process has taken a modern route.

The Indian education system was estimated at $91.7 billion in 2018. According to KPMG and Google reports, the Indian EdTech market will touch $1.96 billion by 2021. As the K-12 segment continues to grow with innovative start-ups, new companies are emerging in the early learning and childhood education sector as well.

List of EdTech Apps for Kids and What are they Providing?

The EdTech start-ups are covering a wide range of academic as well as social and emotional learning for kids. As childhood, between the ages of 5 and 12, is an active phase of the growth cycle among the kids. The start-ups therefore focus on the overall development and focus on the playful learning model.

DragonBox:

A math learning platform for kids between age 4 to 9 and above. With a gamified learning approach, the app ensures that the kids are engaged throughout their learning process. The app offers different games explaining other topics and making it easier for kids to learn the numbers and linear equations.

Emotix:

Founded by IIT post-graduates, the app created an artificial intelligence-based companion robot- Miko. This robot is capable of educating, entertaining, and engaging children in a playful learning environment. The speciality of this app is that using this robotic technology, it imparts knowledge based on curriculum and talks about interesting facts about the world.

Since last year, the pandemic has put a screeching halt to coaching centres, and private tuitions. The prolonged closure of tuition has become a matter of concern for the traditional private tutors as the revenue streams have tightened. Besides low income, another worry for tutors is how the current situation is compelling the entire offline learning landscape to turn online, which is alien for them. 

As the infections continue to rise, there is no certainty regarding the reopening of private tuitions, till then online seems to be the only medium for them to sustain. 

To bridge this gap between online teaching and traditional private tutors, Teachmint -a SaaS-based mobile and video-first teaching platform founded in 2020 is digitising the private tutoring industry in India with its live tutoring app. 

Within a short span of its launch, the startup has been able to amass over 1 million teachers from over 5,000 Indian cities with its usage growing more than 100 percent each month. The success of its innovative virtual learning solutions is attracting investors for its expansion interests. 

Teachmint’s Plan of Expansion with the Recently Raised Funds 

Recently, Teachmint has raised $20 million in a pre-Series B round led by Learn Capital with participation from CM Ventures, right after receiving Series-A fundraise in May worth $16.5 million.  

The freshly infused funds by Teachmint will be utilised to expand its product offerings, hire talent and tap the international markets. 

To cater to educational institutes Teachmint has launched its new product Teachmint for Institute that will empower educational institutes to conduct and monitor all their online classes and institute activities. The platform will enable educational institutes to collect fees, record and store lectures, automatically take attendance, and have a look at the performance assessments.

What is Sutradhar Startup all about?

Sutradhar, first of its kind platform dedicated for stories from ancient Indian literature, is a Gurugram-based media content startup. It brings the Indian mythological stories to the smartphone users in the form of short videos and clips, without losing the essence of the story.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, there was a surge in the demand for Indian epics in vernacular media. With Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Shri Krishna series being aired, it topped TRP charts. This is when the startup came into being in 2020, founded by Satish Meena and Gaurav Tiwari. The startup aims to bridge the gaps between how these Indian mythological stories are delivered on a smartphone.

What’s the Purpose of Starting this Startup?

The ancient mythological stories never lose their essence whenever there is a shift in the technology, be it any platform, these stories are remade accordingly. But nothing substantial has been created for the smartphone category. Smartphone users are a distinct category of users who want precise and engaging content in a short video format. Sutradhar app offers short videos of about 2 to 10 minutes where the content is purely based on ancient Indian mythological stories.

In the era of Gen Z and Millennial, there is a huge market of smartphone users. Sutradhar aims to target this 500 million user base by providing content in various languages. The major purpose of creating this application is that there are millions of stories and myths that shape our day-to-day activities. Starting from celebrating festivals to the languages we use; these stories are rooted within Indian minds. These stories being key to our heritage, our culture, it is important to bring them on a platform where it can be easily accessible to the people.

Who is Pedagogy?

A hybrid e-learning platform, Pedagogy is an Ahmedabad-based edtech startup, easing the way of utilising books and resources for competitive entrances and various other examinations. Founded by Archin Shah, Abhilash Sonwane and Ritesh P. Gandhi in 2016, the startup is changing the perspective of preparation for entrances like JEE and NEET examinations by providing study materials from trusted publishers and coaching.

What does Pedagogy do?

Pedagogy is amplifying the resources’ part required for clearing any competitive exam. It is enabling the students with an affordable platform where they can get books and study materials from renowned publishers, authors and coaching institutes at a very low rate. Not only for the students but this startup is also taking care of the publishers and the coaching institutes by providing them with a platform to sell their books in a smartbook format for publishers and authors and for institutes, it has a ready to use platform for live sessions with personalised apps at zero cost.

Services and Products Provided by Pedagogy

This edtech startup is the hot star of education bringing trusted and mainstream content from publishers like MTG Learning Media, Universal Books, Trueman Book Company, Disha Publications, Dhanpat Rai Publication, etc. It also gathers information from teachers and authors and brings it under a single and cost-effective platform.

Tarraki, an Ahmedabad-based wealth management App, launched by Fintech startup Plutonomic Savtech Pvt. Ltd. Aims to make the world of financial investment easy and accessible even for those who have never tried it before. The app has informative and engaging tutorials and blogs that familiarize the aspiring investors on how to make their wealth grow without investing in mutual funds only.

The Founder Saumya Shah mixed up his passions for business and investment and came up with this wealth-tech application realising the need of hand-holding experience for the beginners in the investment world. The platform provides a calculated investment experience in mutual funds, gives equity advisory, peer-to-peer lending and digital gold services in a hassle-free manner. It aims to help people invest smartly by providing them with various investment options alongside unbiased advice regarding the same. It also helps the masses to keep a tab on their investments and provide them with advice and ways to enhance their individual portfolios.

Tarraki, Helping Indian Masses in The Path of ‘Tarraki’

The major chunk of Indian population is covered by the middle-class, general people who are not well versed with the entire process of investments. With the Tarraki app, the entire process of investment is hassle-free and paperless. The app is built in a straightforward way and in the layman’s language which is simple enough that even a first-timer can use it smoothly. Because of this seamless experience and investment options for as low as Rs. 100, the app is engaging the general masses to participate in investment. What makes the app more interesting is that it provides a subscription-based investment advisory package for mutual funds and equities with plans starting at just Rs 275 a month. It earns most of its revenue from the equity advisory offering. Tarraki’s stack incorporates different products that help it to democratize putting resources into India. The platform offers few knowledgeable contents for the customers to go through the investment world, like:

• Tarraki Zyaada: In association with Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management, it enables the investors, without locking in their money, safely depositing it in Reliance Liquid Mutual Fund with higher return values than their normal saving bank accounts and Fixed Deposits. It provides Investment options as low as Rs 100. The major benefit of this product is that it lets people keep their money invested with some liquidity in emergency cases.
• Tarraki Mutual Fund Assistance: Providing recommendations and advice as to when and where to invest their money to get better returns. It also sends the investors information about the mutual funds selling rates.
• Equity Advisory: This product provides the subscribers with the information as to when, what and how much to buy or sell including well-researched individual model portfolios for personal tracking of their investments.
• Peer-to-Peer Lending: In order to let users diversify their investment offerings, Tarraki offers its customers to invest in P2P lending.

2020 was a muddled year where a deadly contagion caused unprecedented devastation across the globe. India ,amidst an already sliding economy, subsequent lockdowns, loss of lives, and livelihoods, the announcement of vaccine circulation became a beacon of hope in times of adversity. However, the reception of vaccines in India was welcomed with scepticism as it left people wondering that how within a year of its production the vaccine can be effective to shield against the deadly virus. A lack of conviction existed at the back of people’s minds that made them think if the vaccine can have any counter effects on our body.

With the government rolling out vaccination plans, a major challenge that lies ahead for them is to disseminate effectively the correct information about the vaccines to the masses. The information disseminated to the masses about homegrown vaccines should instill confidence, transparency, trust, educate, and alleviate apprehensions about the vaccine’s effectiveness.