Indian Tea Cafés: Taking Chai Places
Tea or chai – as it is commonly known in India – is probably the most popular drink in the country, estimated to…
Tea or chai – as it is commonly known in India – is probably the most popular drink in the country, estimated to…
Venture Capital isn’t always the easiest form of investment. You take a bet on a small company with uncertain prospects. The company usually operates in a field that hasn’t been ventured into before, and there are few markers to tell you if it’ll succeed. And most don’t. Nearly 90% of startups fail, and Venture Capital firms are never able to recover their investments. But every once in a while, a startup succeeds. And when it does, the results can be astonishing.
On-demand shuttle services had been seen by many as a way to ease India’s growing traffic and pollution problems. By operating on popular routes at peak hours, these services took cars off roads and also provided consumers a cheaper alternative to cab hailing companies. Over the last year, several startups emerged in the area, including ZipGo, RBus, and Shuttl, while cab hailing giant Ola had also thrown its hat into the ring, launching Ola Shuttle.
TinyOwl had closed its offices in Hyderbad, Pune, Gurgaon, Chennai and Hyderabad in dramatic circumstances in October, with a founder being held hostage in the Pune office for over 48 hours by the laid off employees. Now with all the offices lying vacant, TinyOwl’s founder has taken to Facebook to find new owners for them.
E-retail has caught the imagination of the Indian public, and how. “Flipkart” has become the most searched term on Google India, dethroning IRCTC, which had been the most searched term in 2013 and 2014. Interestingly, three other e-retail companies feature in the top 10.
Bangalore based food tech startup Eatlo has not been operating since 15th December 2015. The app has been throwing up an error message when users try to log in. The menu on the homepage has also not been updated since then.
Zomato had revealed the results of its porn marketing campaign with much fanfare. The company had decided to advertise on porn websites to promote its night time deliveries. And the campaign, however unconventional, had worked. Zomato had managed to draw people to its site at record low costs. It had seemed like a perfect startup hack – an insight into consumer behaviour that had demonstrable results. Yet Zomato’s taken the campaign down a day after it was announced.
Prominent angel investor Zishaan Hayath has claimed that Grofers delivery boys are cheating consumers by creating fake bills. In a Facebook post, Hayath said that his mother made a large order from Grofers which included 3 packets of pulses. However the delivery boy only got them 2 packets, but the bill was of the same amount as his order. The store had generated a bill with different prices such that the order totaled to the same amount.
Uber has expanded its operations in India to 4 more cities, bringing up its total count to 26. The new cities added are Ajmer, Jodhpur, Udaipur and Mangalore.