It is ironic that the workers who build lavish houses and buildings but get themselves a shanty house to live in. No matter how many MNCs create employment opportunities in India, finding both jobs and affordable housing for migrant labourers is yet a dream. According to the estimates of the World Economic Forum, there are approximately 139 million domestic migrant labourers in India that migrate from rural to urban cities such as Delhi or Mumbai in search of economic opportunities. This migration is what paves the need for housing requirements. The imposition of covid-induced lockdowns has worsened the crisis as loss of jobs forced migrant labourers to leave for their natives due to their inability to pay rent for rooms. 

Generally, an Indian rural dweller makes migration decisions by relying on the opinions of a friend, brother, or relative living in an urban area who can provide them with job referrals or an initial place to stay. Besides, acquaintances, the decision to migrate is influenced by the assurance shown by the labour contractor or job brokers. Even if a seasonal migrant worker manages to secure a stable job, the hurdle of finding habitable affordable housing in urban areas remains unresolved. Several middlemen take undue advantage of this gap by charging exorbitantly high rentals that leave low-income migrants with no choice but to bow down. The condition of houses is unlivable due to which sometimes they are forced to leave jobs midway which further creates problems for the employers. 

Realising this market to be highly fragmented and disorganised, Rushil and Jacob developed a platform Bandhu to solve the plaguing issues to find jobs and affordable housing for low-income migrants. 

What is Bandhu and What does it Intend to Solve? 

Bandhu, founded in 2020, is an employment platform developed using data science, artificial intelligence, and computer science that aims to solve the woes of jobs and affordable housing for low-income migrant workers. It is the brainchild of Rushil Palavajjhala and Jacob Kohn both MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) graduates, who developed this platform with the support of the institute’s robust entrepreneurial ecosystem. 

Rushil observed how the middlemen or job brokers did not serve migrant workers well. Their verbal promises at times could not assure jobs that left the workers helpless in a new city. Another challenge, Rushil found was the nature of jobs that offered no security and the struggle of urban employers to find employers with the required skill set.

Therefore, a supply and demand of workers and jobs were visible but there was no such platform to make it organised. The app ‘Bandhu’ bridged the gap between job seekers and employers through the app. 

The Indian eyewear market whose lion’s share of 80 percent owned by the unorganised market is experiencing an influx of organised eyewear players that are poised to grow at a compound annual rate of more than 15 percent according to a report from Deloitte. 

The constant efforts to look beautiful on platforms like Instagram have transformed the eyewear accessories into fashion statements equalling shoes and handbags from being a mere solution for vision-related issues. Organised eyewear players are targeting youngsters majorly with sleeker and stylish frames of sunglasses and spectacles. 

According to a report of Deloitte, in the total eyewear market pie of $13.6 billion, sunglasses and spectacles are expected to be $2.2 billion and $9.9 billion that will grow at 10.4 percent and 9.1 percent by 2024 respectively. 

Trends in the Eyewear Market 

Influences from Pop-Culture, Actors and Sportsperson

Round framed spectacles worn by Harry Potter soon gained popularity as wearing them showcased an intellectual look like the character. Similarly, cat-eyed sunglasses worn by influencers and aviator sunglasses are made popular by actors of Bollywood and Hollywood. Also, India’s population comprises a larger young population who are conscious about looks and matching the attire with the eyewear. 

Increasing Purchase Power

Consumers earlier bought spectacles that should suffice their basic eyesight needs and never cared about how they look. With an increase in purchasing power and the need to look better in spectacles, people have started investing in sleeker frames and different colours and designs. 

High Margins

Companies are entering the eyewear space owing to the high margins offered as markups over 300% exist between the cost and retail price of certain products. This has lowered the barrier for new entrants that have made eyewear highly affordable and has commoditised it to a greater extent. 

Increased screen time

There has been a significant increase in screen exposure during the pandemic. Work from home and children studying from PCs and laptops has been hurting eyes resulting in the purchase of computer eyeglasses. The blue light emitted from the screens of mobile, laptops, or PCs dries up the retina causing strain in the eyes. These dedicated computer spectacles block or absorb blue light to keep screen time comfortable.

Comfortable Online Buying

With e-commerce shopping being the new norm, eyewear players are offering convenience online eyewear shopping by creating dedicated product pages according to face type -round, triangle, square, oval, etc. Moreover, with facial recognition tools brands are determining the customer’s face type to help them select the right eyewear.

While preventive measures of lockdown and curfews were imposed to contain the virus, its brunt was largely borne by the daily-wage workers as the fear of getting contracted by the virus forced them to head towards their respective hometowns on foot leaving their jobs behind.  With daily wage labourers migrating to their native hometowns the numbers of unemployment touched 11.4 crores in April 2020 in the first wave and within two months of April-May 2021 during the peak of the second covid wave, India lost a total of 2.25 crore jobs out of which the daily wage workers owned a lion’s share of 1.72 crores according to CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy).

The sad state of the daily migrants caused by the lockdowns became more visible when a report from Stranded Workers Action Network revealed that 58 percent of the migrant families were hungry for days. The unprecedented times of the pandemic have thrown the migrant workers in tough dilemmas, where if they choose to go back to their native place their income becomes zero whereas if they chose to stay back in their hometown there are no employment opportunities. This further widens the gap between rich and poor and pushes more people under the below poverty line. 

In such cases, a skill mapping of the migrant workers might seem to be a respite from the shackles of unemployment.

Sense is an HR Tech and Talent Management start-up based in San Francisco, California which has raised $18 M in a Series C funding round. An AI based talent-management company, Anil Dharni is the Indian CEO and co-founder of Sense.

Why Sense is expanding in India

The company is increasingly focused on the Indian market and has received funding from India’s B2B VC fund ‘Avataar Ventures’. Sense believes that the key to expanding their global presence is to strengthen their hold on the Indian market. As part of this vision, the company has onboarded Sanjay Dharmani as Sense India’s Managing Director and Nishant Rao, founder of Avataar Venture Partners. Sense will make India its regional headquarters as part of its Asian expansion. They are hoping that India’s tech talent pool will add to their engineering team. They also want to have a dedicated marketing and customer service team here in India.

The start-up’s ambitious expansion plans

Sense is harboring broad expansion plans in Asia. In terms of global expansion, Sense plans on tapping into India’s ‘rich talent market’ to help with growing their product. Backed by its latest funding round, Sense is all set to expand its technology centre, data sciences, and product teams. The company is keen on doubling its headcount of 57 staff members at its Bengaluru office in the coming 6 months.

Today, wearable items are being promoted and adopted by companies more than ever. And there’s a reason for that. Wearable devices are electronic devices that can be worn on the body and have specific practical applications. Modern wearables can, in fact, replace your smartphone in various instances. The devices are expected to have a major impact on health, fitness, and recreation in the future, and that’s the reason for the big push in the segment.

As per the latest data, smartwatches and fitness bands in electronic wearables recorded the biggest quarter in India in 2020. Retailers sold 15.2 million units, an increase of 198.2% over the previous year. In addition, the country exported 1 million units in the first quarter and 1.3 million units in the subsequent quarter.

Chinese Electronics Giant Xiaomi Leads the Indian Wearables Market

Subsequent new launches are driving the growth for brands like Noise, Realme, Apple, and Amazfit. Chinese electronics company Xiaomi is the largest company in the wearables sector in India with a market share of 48.1% and an annual growth of 54.7%. TATA-owned Titan has mounted a surprise push to emerge in the second spot with a market portion of 14. 5 per cent as its shipments grew 24.1 per cent during 2020.

The Start-Up India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS) is an initiative by the Government of India to spur entrepreneurship across India via an extensive network of home-bred start-ups. With the devastation that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause, the need for Start-up India Seed Fund Scheme is more important today than ever.

India’s entrepreneurial community is formed by a large mix of MSMEs, emerging tech-driven businesses that are easing the traditional ways of doing companies and catalysts for start-ups that guide and aid entrepreneurs – the start-up incubators.

Revenant Esports is one of the most prominent esports companies in the country and has grown into a dominant company in the division since its inception. It is a next-generation sports platform dedicated to working with the best gaming athletes in the world. The company intends to continue to improve the value and experience of esports by multichannel collaboration among athletes, brands, content creators and communities.

Revenant Esports: A Prime Habitat for All Esports Players

The recent funding from investor Sajan Raj Kurup in Revenant Esports has taken the company’s goal one step further. Revenant Esports plans to become a Rs 200 brand in the next 18 months. Kurup, a serial marketer and investor, has invested approximately $1 million in Revenant Esports and has a 40% stake in India’s fastest growing gaming company.

Revenant Esports has more than 25 esports under its ambit, including popular mobile games such as Call of Duty: Mobile, PUBG Mobile, Clash of Clans and FreeFire. The injection of the new funding will allow the company to expand its reach to the gaming community and promote a unique consumer experience.

As people worldwide battle COVID-19, India is struggling to contain the spread of the virus and keep its citizens safe. To deal with this chaotic outbreak, Indian authorities have only approved two vaccines: Covishield by Oxford-AstraZeneca, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin. Other foreign vaccines, such as the Russian Sputnik V, have only recently been approved by the Ministry of Health for use.

The tragedy and travesty caused by the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic did not subside, and India is already facing the second phase of infection and destruction. The resurgence of COVID-19 cases has presented new challenges to the failing health and economic system. 

The economic impact of COVID-19 is extraordinarily troubling on Indian economy. No one has been spared of its unwell effects. Economies regarding a hundred countries are destroyed amongst which few have asked for financial facilitation from the International Monetary Fund. Countries like the USA, Italy and many others are suffering the foremost since their value is extraordinarily high.

Different sports events like IPL and Olympics are delayed. Colleges, universities and schools are closed. The virus has additionally played a role in discontinued functioning of assorted online giants like Amazon. Businesses across the globe particularly amusement, aviation, hospitality, etc. have seen a huge negative impact.

Effects of second wave of Covid-19 on Economic Market

There is an enormous shift within the world economic market and also the share market has witnessed crashes day by day. The outbreak of coronavirus has once again restricted the movement of the people. Citizens weren’t even going outside to purchase the daily necessities and these all were somewhere impacting the economy of the globe as a whole.

Many Factories, Restaurants, Pubs, Markets, Flights, Super Markets, Malls, Universities and offices were cleaned up. Just to give an insight of the disastrous plight, as per reports:

• There has been a down of 30-35% in restaurant business.
• There has been a 20% reduction in domestic travel and about 75% of reduction in international travel bookings.
• Hotel booking rates have also declined from 70% to 20%.

Advances in technology are an integral part for any business to grow, including Direct-to-Consumer (D2C), which has been on a steady rise since past few years. India alone has over 600 D2C brands and the number is witnessing a double-digit growth. Let’s have a look at some technology trends that will shape the industry.

Data-Driven Insights 

Covid-19 was a shot in the arm for digital-only D2C brands. As the competition grows, there is an ever-increasing need to attract interested shoppers, deliver increased revenue and conversions and data will come to the rescue. The D2C players have been moving away from age-old strategies of spending heavily on social media and search ads or running influencer campaigns for customer acquisitions. Instead, a data-driven approach is being embraced to help businesses grow. D2C companies already have a pool of customer data from various sources like behavioural, financial and demographic data. 

All they need is a system that can gather this data, analyse usage patterns, subscriber preferences and financial metrics and provide actionable insights. This would make marketing content more relevant to their target audience.

AI-Powered Technology: Demand for Personalised Shopping 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) will take a strong place among D2C market trends. By adopting the same, platforms will be able to give an immersive experience to the customers and pave a way for customised shopping. Virtual stores and inventory will be in the offing to give a play-on experience to shoppers. Besides, AI-enabled decision making, advanced forecasting and recommendations, localised content and native regional language interfaces will lead the way for D2C growth.

Chatbots and Virtual Reality (VR) will also propel a humanised customer experience by addressing the queries in a conversational fashion. Internet of Things (IoT), Connected Devices, Voice-Based Searches  Voice search is a trend that will continue to grow in 2021, be it directly on the website or through connected devices. D2C businesses who want to grow will have to find a way to  incorporate voice technology into their digital marketing strategies. Hence, players will have to optimise their websites for voice search which will open up new opportunities and expand the customer market.