Innovative Start-ups – Dutch Uncles

India’s SaaS Industry Could Reach $1 Trillion in Value By 2030

Aakash Sharma — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 08:35:10 +0000

With rapid digitisation during the COVID-19 pandemic, India’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry has been one of the biggest frontrunners in topping the growth charts. According to a recent report by SaaSBooMi, McKinsey and SaaS NASSCOM, the industry in India can reach a $1 trillion valuation and create about 5 lakh new jobs by 2030. About 1,000 SaaS-based companies in India, including ten unicorns, generate about $2-3 billion in total revenues and employ nearly 40,000 people.

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The SaaSBooMi, McKinsey and SaaS NASSCOM study found that the global SaaS market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 18-20% with a turnover of over $ 500 billion by 2025.

Indian SaaS Industry Insights

Last year, Indian SaaS companies took advantage of the favourable digital wave due to COVID and saw $1.5 billion invested in them. The sector also added six new unicorns, including Postman, Highradius, Chargebee Zenoti, Browserstack, and Innovacer.

SaaS contributes to approximately 50% of a company’s digital value in today’s time, even though a business typically spends only about 20% of its total technology budget on SaaS. This indicates its potential for value. The ability of Indian product companies to sell to global enterprises from India remotely is the SaaS industry’s biggest strength.

Growth Drivers and Inhibitors for SaaS Start-ups and SMEs

Most SaaS companies, especially B2B SaaS start-ups, choose to hold companies in the US or Singapore to get rid of strict Indian rules. As a result of this, the sector’s employment occurs here, yet most of the value creation takes place outside India. The Reserve Bank of India’s regulations for two-factor authentication are helpful for security, but they hinder start-ups’ ease of functioning. These rules do not allow SaaS companies to regularly bill global customers, which is a key reason they look outside India for listing.

Still, industry leaders are actively working with the government and NASSCOM to address SaaS value creation in India. These regulations will take time, but the government is very open to solving this issue, as per recent public records.

The Job Market – Creating half a million jobs by 2030

While the recent report shows that India’s SaaS sector could reach $1 trillion in value over the next nine years, it also indicates that it could create half a million new jobs. There are currently over 1,000 SaaS compliant companies and over ten unicorns in the Indian market employing around 40,000 people per year.

The Indian ecosystem supports the development and growth of SaaS. This is due to the country’s strong commitment to software implementation like customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), collaborative applications, real-world monitoring tools and a better understanding of requirements.

High profile entrepreneurs back Indian SaaS start-ups – the $85 million fund

Top Indian entrepreneurs have set up a fund with an initial budget of $85 million to support SaaS start-ups in India. ‘The Together Fund‘ is set up by Girish Mathrubootham of Freshworks Inc., Manav Garg of Eka Corporation, and Shubham Gupta, who heads the SaaS investments at VC Matrix Capital.

In addition to the fund, more than 150 innovators and developers from India and Silicon Valley, including product/engineering heads and designers, have pledged to help start-up entrepreneurs focus on building and selling SaaS businesses worldwide.

Suggested ‘Plan of Action’ for the SaaS industry and aspiring entrepreneurs

For new entrepreneurs in this space, things might get a bit smoother with support from existing players and VCs, and a possible ease up in regulations. Most SaaS start-ups face significant challenges in the earlier stages of growth regarding talent development for scalability. These challenges will be eased up with the new initiatives and support by the business community.

As new entrepreneurs explore the industry and its change-making revolutionary aspects, it is expected that they might have cohesive support from industry associations, government, corporates and investors going forward.

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Machbee Innovations, Ventilators Designed to Meet the COVID-19 Crisis

Aakash Sharma — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 05:35:04 +0000

Machbee Innovations Private Limited is an Indian tech-based company that uses the latest technologies such as artificial intelligence, embedded systems, Internet of things (IoT) and blockchain to create innovative solutions for easing everyday problems. Founded in 2018, Machbee offers a wide range of hardware and software products for the healthcare, consumer electronics and biomedical industries.

The start-up has come at the forefront in providing aid for battling the COVID crisis in India. Due to the virus, more and more COVID-19 patients need respiratory assistance and intensive care. So Machbee Innovations has begun commercial production of its small and affordable COVID-focused emergency ventilation equipment- the Jeeva Vaayu Series (JV-50) Emergency Ventilators.

Machbee Innovations: ‘Jeeva Vaayu’ Giving Oxygen to the Nation

The Jeeva Vaayu Series (JV-50) ventilator manufactured by Machbee is an emergency respirator specifically designed to deal with COVID-19 cases. The device is based on the automatic Ambu bag (manual or self-inflating bag) model. It is portable, compact and easy to use.

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After focusing on biomedical products during the first wave of the pandemic, the start-up has developed three versions of the Jeeva Vaayu ventilator, each an improved version of the previous one.

The latest version of the Jeeva Vaayu ventilator is more compact and portable and weighs only 6-7 kg, much less than the previous models. Furthermore, the start-up redesigned the ventilators’ mechanical system to facilitate operation with only three control systems: breaths per minute, inhalation/exhalation ratio and tidal volume. In addition, the Ambu automatic bag allows the patient to breathe independently using a gas mask, and the system can be connected to an oxygen cylinder if required.

Machbee Innovations Ventilators are Multi-beneficial

The main USP of the Jeeva Vaayu ventilators is the capped price of Rs. 50,000, which is much lesser than the purchase price of other high-quality ventilators ranging between Rs. 7 lakh and Rs. 14 lakh. Machbee’s product has received positive feedback and has even been donated to volunteer organisations and primary health centres of the Government General Hospital in Ernakulam.

While the ventilator is defined as COVID-specific equipment, a model of it has also been developed that allows clinicians to modify it as paediatric ventilators and for respiratory diseases associated with sleep apnea. The automated Ambu bag makes it compatible with ambulances and even in households with specific purposes.

India’s Current Ventilators Need

COVID-19 has exposed the many gaps in health systems across the world. In India, the COVID 19 pandemic has brought attention to a stark lack of medical infrastructure, especially oxygen plants and ventilators. According to industry figures, before the outbreak in India, there were eight ventilator manufacturers with an annual production capacity of 3,360 ventilators. During the COVID crisis, nine more players joined the league, projecting India’s annual production capacity to 396,260 ventilators.

Ventilator’s requirement has never been more than during the pandemic. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 5% of COVID-19 patients require ventilators. On 18 May 2021, during the second wave’s peak, India’s active caseload increased to 3.21 million. This would have required about 0.2 million ventilators, going by WHO’s estimate.

On May 1, last year, the Union Ministry of Health and Welfare estimated that India would need 75,000 respirators by June 2020. There is, however, no official data available in the public domain about the additions made since.

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What Principles Does Elon Musk Live by For Growth and Self-Improvement?

Richa Bansal — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 00:35:05 +0000

The derring-do to think out of the box, nay boxes. To chart the uncharted even in the face of skid-offs. To simplify the toughest issue at hand applying an Aristotelian principle – these are just some of the rules that have perhaps helped the most influential serial entrepreneur of this century to up and emend his game, project after project. Read how.

How does one write of a man one has only read about, only on the World-Wide Net? How does one sift and sort through all those thousands of clicks that talk about the man, his businesses, his principles, his life story, his maverick play to venture where no man has gone before ever since he was 12, and what makes him one of the most influential entrepreneurs of the 21st century.

I am talking about Elon Musk, who with an estimated net worth at $200+bn is counted among the richest in the world. No silver spoon at birth, this self-confessed self-learner, self-made man must have thought through and thoroughly each project and done many things right (along with the many skid-offs) to chart the uncharted. There was a time, I glean, when this then millionaire was all set to move into his wife’s parents’ basement as he was almost going broke!

What could be the principles that govern his life that make him so successful through all the ups, downs and downs, and then up and up? Let’s try and sneak a peek into his mind through his quotable quotes (!) on his mantras for growth and self-improvement.

With interests and business straddling the worlds of automotive (Tesla), aerospace (SpaceX), satellite (Starlink), solar energy (SolarCity), ultra-fast ground transportation (The Boring Company), energy storage (MegaPack), neurotech (Neuralink), artificial general intelligence (OpenAI) and perhaps a few more, Pretoria-born Elon Reeve Musk once famously said – “If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. Otherwise, it’s not… There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing.’

The first mantra to growth is to find a purpose, a dream that you can dream, and the gumption to work towards that dream. Be an innovator. Look for the blank spaces. Think out of the box, nay boxes! Elon Musk gives the example of Henry Ford. “When Ford made cheap, reliable cars, people said, ‘Nah, what’s wrong with a horse?’ That was a huge bet he made, and it worked.”

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A dream to dream that dream and then go chase it to the beyond to make it come true! But before it all, gain all the knowledge you can.

But even as you dream remember to ask questions. He tells how as a kid he would “question things… It would infuriate my parents… That I wouldn’t just believe them when they said something because I’d ask them why. And then I’d consider whether that response made sense given everything else I knew.” Cross-question yourself, look for the quintessential devil’s advocate to warn you of the pits and falls. He stresses on the “feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better… constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.”

Build on your knowledge. But before that it is “important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree – make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e., the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there’s nothing for them to hang on to… The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur.” The serial entrepreneur counsels and exhorts: Make books your best friend. “Imagine – if you read 25 pages every day, it is 750 pages /month (2-4 books), it’s 9000 /year (30-40 books) … And it makes a difference.” Don’t sell yourself short, says he who graduated from the Wharton School with a Bachelor of Science (BS) in economics and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in physics, and dropped out of his PhD course at Stanford University in only two days to chase his entrepreneurial dreams. He was all of 24 years and the Internet had just about begun to explode, and Silicon Valley was roaring ahead.

Your ‘I-Can’ is more important than your IQ. Go innovate!

Elon Musk was just 12 when he sold his first innovation – a computer game for a handsome $500, and thereafter years down the line he co-founded PayPal and the rest. What set him apart was his derring-do in taking risks and pursuing what he had set his mind to, relentlessly.

“Your ‘I-Can’ is more important than your IQ. When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favour…Take risks and do something bold. You won’t regret it. Constantly think about how you could be doing things. Keep questioning yourself… Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is a disaster. Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to… I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary… No results? Keep working! Bad results? Keep working! Great results? Keep working. Consistency is key.”

While not all can be an Elon Musk, innovation can be the only game-changer. “Banks don’t like Bitcoin, taxis don’t like Uber, hotels don’t like Airbnb, bookstores don’t like Amazon, cinemas don’t like Netflix, 9-5s don’t like remote work. Innovation is not always liked… If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic – being able to talk to people over long distances, transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago… If you’re trying to create a company, it’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion… Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive and determination of the people behind it as the product they sell… A failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough… Going from Paypal, I thought, well, ‘What are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity?’ Not from the perspective, ‘What’s the best way to make money?’ which is ok, but it was really, ‘What do I think is going to most affect the future of humanity”.

Complicated and aiming literally for the stars? Yes! But then that’s what had the Ted Talks chief guy describe Elon Musk as the “world’s most remarkable living entrepreneur”. And while talking about innovation in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Elon Musk said: it (innovation) is “absolutely learnable… It is not some mysterious thing. It’s basically being just an absolute perfectionist about the product or service that you make. Just make your product better. This is the thing that really matters.” Get out of the conference room, the mercurial Musk warns, and he speaks with firm conviction. “When I spend too much time in conference rooms, that’s generally when things have gone awry. And when I go spend time on the factory floor, or really using the cars, or thinking about the rockets, that’s when things have gone better.”

He adds: “If you find yourself spending a lot of time getting presentations and reviewing spreadsheets, you’re barking up the wrong tree. That’s the effect, not the cause. So just get out there on the factory floor. Get out there in stores and talk to customers. Being on the factory floor makes for more employee engagement.” And watch how you improve, how business grooves.

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Elon Musk, who with an estimated net worth at $200+bn, is counted among the richest in the world. No silver spoon at birth, this self-confessed self-learner, self-made man must have thought through and thoroughly each project and done many things right (along with the many skid-offs) to chart the uncharted.

Simplify! Simplify! Simplify! Apply ‘first principles’, says Elon Musk

Simplify! Simplify! Simplify! Is yet another golden rule that the genius innovator swears by. “First-principles” – a decision-making strategy which goes back to more than 2,000 years, propounded as it was by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. The first principles method can perhaps be applied across all streams of life – from the personal to the professional which includes entrepreneurial growth and improvement!

Musk explains: “I do think there’s a good framework for thinking. It is in physics. You know, the sort of first principles reasoning. Generally, I think there are — what I mean by that is, boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there, as opposed to reasoning by analogy. Through most of our life, we get through life by reasoning by analogy, which essentially means copying what other people do with slight variations. And you have to do that. Otherwise, mentally, you wouldn’t be able to get through the day. But when you want to do something new, you have to apply the physics approach. Physics is really figuring out how to discover new things that are counterintuitive, like quantum mechanics. It’s really counterintuitive. So, I think that’s an important thing to do, and then also to really pay attention to negative feedback, and solicit it, particularly from friends. This may sound like simple advice, but hardly anyone does that, and it’s incredibly helpful”.

Musk has spoken about first principles many times over the years. He explained it once while talking about the early days at SpaceX, and the physics graduate reiterated on physics: “Physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. So, I said, okay, let’s look at the first principles. What is a rocket made of? Aerospace-grade aluminium alloys, plus some titanium, copper, and carbon fibre. Then I asked, what is the value of those materials on the commodity market? It turned out that the materials cost of a rocket was around two per cent of the typical price… It’s very hard to do,” he said on another occasion, adding “You can’t think that way about everything. It takes a lot of effort, but if you’re trying to do something new, it’s the best way to think. It’s really a powerful, powerful way of thinking.”

Thus, he dwells not on the riff-raff, instead of cutting straight and into the chase. His daily schedule smacks of that as he slices out minutes in each day to ensure he gives equal attention to all his projects – even his 5 boys — one set of twins and another triplet!

Work like hell, he encourages. “I mean you just have to put in 80-to-100-hour weeks every week. (This) improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40-hour workweeks and you’re putting in 100-hour workweeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing, you know that you will achieve in four months what it takes them a year to achieve.”

Mantras that speak to the heart and the brain. Go follow!

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Will 2021 Be The Year of Innovation for The Traditionally Slow Pharma Industry?

Preeti Verma — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 10:35:04 +0000

As the pandemic spread, India was put under strict lockdown for the first time. Out-patient departments as well as doctors’ clinics suspended their services in order to avoid becoming the virus hotspots. Subsequently, patients with chronic ailments, minor diseases, and those in post-surgery or injury rehab stage were left without any medical support as hospitals catered to critical patients or serious Covid-19 cases.

The coronavirus epidemic not only placed a mammoth strain on the global health care sector’s workforce, but also on infrastructure, and supply chain. On the same side, it also exposed social inequities in health and care. The Covid-19 also accelerated the changes across the pharma industry and forced many public and private health systems to adapt and innovate in a short span.

A number of foundational shifts are happening from and being exacerbated due to the spread of the coronavirus. The consumers are increasing their involvement in health care decision making. Then, there is a rapid adoption of virtual health and other digital innovations. Similarly, there is a push for interoperable data and data analytics use. In the same way, unprecedented public-private collaborations in vaccine and therapeutics development are also taking place in a big way. Amid these changing dynamics, governments, health care providers, payers, and other stakeholders around the globe are being defied to quickly pivot, adapt, and innovate.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been proving a transformational moment for the pharma industry. It has pushed many pharma companies to re-examine themselves at various levels; the way they used to do businesses. Many of those changes are likely to prove difficult to reverse. The race for developing a coronavirus vaccine has stimulated innovation across the industry. However, the sector has been building this thrust for years.

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The Covid-19 pandemic has been proving a transformational moment for the pharmaceutical industry.

The rapidly increasing investments, the robust growth of technology startups, and the expiry of several key patents, as well as surging inter-organisational collaborations and a favorable regulatory environment, are stimulating innovation in the pharma industry.

Amongst the most significant trends that is expected to drive the pharma industry in 2021 is the consumer behaviour. With all the changes that the world witnessed since the start of the pandemic, the consumer behaviour are significantly hastening towards digital consultations through live video calls between doctors and patients. Then the changes like online purchases of medicines just by uploading doctor’s digital prescriptions, collection of blood samples and conducting important tests at home.

At the same time, the combined power of the Internet, data science, connected devices and artificial intelligence (AI) have accelerated the speed of digital transformation in pharma companies to improve the quality and productivity. Skilled manpower in artificial intelligence, machine learning (ML), cloud computing, robotic process automation (RPA), and other technological areas are helping speed up drug repurposing and development of biomarkers.

Remote Monitoring, Virtual Consultations & PHRs

The country’s healthcare ecosystem is on the cusp of a paradigm shift. After remaining impervious to reform for the longest period, the sector has now opened to innovation and digital technology-driven medical assistance that became a necessity and reality amid the pandemic. The more the viral variants curbed people to their homes, the more virtual care became a reality.
In this tough time, technology has been proving its advantages in aiding patients to get the same level of care at home as in an outpatient clinic. This became more evident in the cases of minor health queries and routine check-ups. A variety of technologies enable doctors or health care teams to monitor patients’ health remotely. The Covid-19 will be the inflexion point leading to 30 per adoption to teleconsultation, which has a huge potential to grow in the long run.

The doctors are creating an electronic personal health record system – often called a PHR system – in order to collect the information about the patient’s health that can be controlled and maintained. A PHR app is accessible anytime through a web-enabled device, such as computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone. In case of an emergency, a personal health record can quickly give emergency personnel vital information, such as current diagnoses, medications, drug allergies and the doctor’s contact information.

Around 74 per cent of consumers are ready to get their treatment done through telehealth, according to a global study. The pluses that technology in consultation brings include reduced risk of infections, enabling doctors to attend to more patient consultations, among other things.

This is enabling healthcare facilities to create a space for patients that are requiring critical and emergency care. In places like India, which is densely populated, this has become extremely vital as there is also a short supply of healthcare professionals. It is also possible to undertake procedures such as chemotherapy and dialysis at home. Many home healthcare providers have already started providing these services at home.

This year the remote monitoring is expected to go to the next level through the development of robotic and autonomous healthcare assistants. It is said that they will be able to deliver care right at people’s homes. Recently, the companion robots were introduced into care homes in the UK. The robots have been found to be successful in reducing the likelihood of loneliness and social isolation, this was especially at the time of the pandemic.

Artificial Intelligence in Pharma Industry

Artificial intelligence in the pharma industry refers to the use of automated algorithms to perform tasks that are traditionally dependent on human intelligence. Over the past five years, the use of artificial intelligence in the pharma and biotech industry has transformed how scientists develop new drugs, tackle disease, and many more.

With the growing importance of artificial intelligence in the pharma industry, every business leader is understanding its importance. They are breaking through in the biotech space which are assisted by the deployment of artificial intelligence technologies. In 2019, over 70 per cent of companies believed that artificial intelligence will be vital to their businesses. However, in the same group, only 11 per cent of businesses didn’t consider investing in artificial intelligence technology.

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Around 74 per cent of consumers are ready to get their treatment done through telehealth, according to a global study.

According to Narrative Science, 61 per cent of companies investing in innovative strategies are using artificial intelligence to identify new opportunities that they would have otherwise missed. For pharmaceutical businesses that thrive on innovation, this is an important statistic to understand.

In 2021, flexible artificial intelligence platforms with industry functionality that meets the specific needs of field, brand teams, and medical science liaisons will leapfrog generic solutions. These flexible platforms will apply multi-faceted algorithms and business rules that will compile the unique needs, actions, messages, and strategies of all customer-facing teams. It will provide everyone with the necessary visibility to better organize communications to healthcare professionals.

Self-monitoring through Wearables

The beginning of connected devices, wearables and Internet of things (IoT) have ushered in a new trend in self-monitoring without having to physically visit a clinic or a doctor. They now have the necessary equipment available at their place for most self-monitoring needs. The readings are transmitted to a central console of the monitoring healthcare provider or doctor for their review and analysis. Diagnostic healthcare is racing ahead towards these connected devices, with artificial intelligence and the Internet providing the first level of diagnostics followed by a prediction and final review by an expert doctor before actual prescription. This experience of connecting virtually has empowering both patients and doctors. It has transmuted a whole new system of healthcare integrators and aggregators, bringing experts and patients on a self-monitoring virtual healthcare platform.

On the same side, governments across the world are also realising how such connected healthcare systems are not only flexible but are also extremely efficient. Artificial intelligence-enabled diagnosis and prediction for review by consulting expert doctors has already gained substantial attractions in hospitals and clinics, where the number of patients is high. Connected healthcare is going to be the new big thing in the year 2021.

Rise of Personnel Health Apps and Telehealth

A host of apps have been created to help consumers in better organising their medical information in one secure place. These digital tools are helping people in storing their personal health information. Record their vital signs, and calculating and tracking their caloric intakes. Elderly people, who can’t remember their medicine timings, these personal health apps schedule reminders for taking medicine. Simultaneously, it keeps a check and record of your physical activity, such as your daily step count.

Technology has the potential to improve the quality of healthcare and to make it accessible to more people. Telehealth may provide opportunities to make healthcare more efficient, better coordinated and closer to home.
Research about telehealth is still relatively new, but it is growing. Studies have shown that both telephone-based support and telemonitoring of vital signs of people with heart failure reduced the risk of death and hospitalisation for heart failure and improved quality of life.

Global Collaborations in Pharma Industry

The Covid-19 has piloted in collaboration, and not competition, amongst the country’s pharmaceutical regulatory bodies. However, the United States government has shown its objections with the World Health Organisation (WHO). Still, this global collaboration in healthcare – both in research and compliance – is going to get deep-rooted in the time to come. Regulatory bodies like the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are going to strengthen the WHO in its ways of working. Automation software for common standards and compliances are going to be universally implemented since it impacts humanity at large.

The world rapidly taking to the expediency of healthcare solutions through these technologies. However, the pharma industry is presented with the challenge to ensure that their workforce is skillful in addressing this demand. Similarly, it can keep up with the speed of adoption by customers. On the same time, the pharma firms need to upskill and train their personnel in the latest developments. Also, the ways of working with customers at various touch points.

Shifting of Data Science

Previously, the pharma industry remained behind compared to other industries in applying advanced data analytics. But it is catching up now quickly. Pharmaceutical companies have started to decentralise data science efforts by opening the door to specialised teams. These teams can focus on developing dedicated solutions that are in-production over time. For the most part, however, life sciences’ data science teams are still smaller than they should be to successfully apply AI across a wide range of problems in different business functions. It is needed in clinical research, product manufacturing, and pharmacovigilance and market research. This is expected to change in 2021.

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How Did Udaan Become One of The Most Innovative Companies in India?

Smruthi Krishnan — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 00:35:05 +0000

The value of an idea lies in the use of it. And all it takes is one person, one idea and the passion and effort to convert that idea into reality. The start-up culture seeped into India a while back in time and today, it has sown its roots deep into the entrepreneurial status quo giving birth to innovations with every passing day.

Young leaders and entrepreneurs today have the opportunity to explore new innovative avenues providing solutions to problems that vex consumers all across the globe. So how did the B2B start-up become Udaan one of the most innovative companies in India?

What is Udaan?

Udaan is a B2B platform that taps on the behind the scene process of a market which essentially involves back-end work in e-commerce websites like Amazon or Flipkart. For instance, merchants selling the product have to go collect the product and deliver it to a Flipkart storehouse. And with increasing orders, the process can become cumbersome and confusing. To ease the process, Udaan came up with its platform to make trading in terms of logistics and sales more convenient and simpler by connecting small and medium retailers across the country. This very basic idea in a disorganized market resulted in Udaan becoming the disruptor in the industry.

How did Udaan come up with the idea?

Outside the scope of the organised sector, several small retailers across the country were unaware of technology, were duped by middlemen, experienced inefficient prices, lacked access to markets, had poor logistics infrastructure and lacked financial transparency. Here enters Udaan as they try to bring together all participants like a wholesaler, distributor, small and big producers within a single platform enabling B2B transaction through an app on the smartphone.

With the proliferation of the internet, e-commerce growth, digital payments, uniform taxation system via GST and advent of technology like artificial intelligence, Udaan had a positive push in becoming the disruptor in the B2B sector. Understanding the inefficiency in the supply chain, Udaan took advantage of these factors and provided a fair platform to connect all participants in the retail industry chain.

The opportunity in front of Udaan is huge. Unlike fast-moving consumer goods companies that focus on a few products, Udaan has a much wider choice in terms of goods available on the platform. A shop owner can get everything from toffee to a 50 kg rice bag and they get to save a larger proportion of their income than before. Sellers also get to reach a larger scale of consumers. According to Udaan, they transact at least 6000 tonnes daily on an average across India, including perishable goods.

What is next for Udaan?

Even without an internet-dependent population, Udaan gained a lot of popularity in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and also in Northeast India. Udaan has already established itself in the market and aims to build a pan-India online network. The Bengaluru-based firm is valued at $7.5 billion as of 2020, making it the fourth most valued start-up in India after Paytm, OYO and Byju’s. By building expertise in every category, they strive to bring a viable solution for producers as well as consumers.

What’s in it for start-ups ?

A major reason behind Udaan’s success is that in the initial period of operations, they provided logistics at subsidized rates of which provided them with ample market exposure. The founding team of experts and people with knowledge as they worked in Flipkart before. As more ex-Flipkart employees joined, Udaan could improve their productivity and tinker with creativity and innovation.

The company provides a unique solution to retailers and wholesalers via a hassle-free online platform. The success of a start-up often depends on the uniqueness of the product or service it provides and how it changes the lives of consumers and producers. In the start-up world, innovations often carve the path for the success of your company.

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