IntroductionManaging time for self-development amidst a hectic work schedule is a big concern and challenge for most working professionals. Soft-Skills are the need of the hour and a person who is better in communication and has a better personality trait, tends to do better in their career. Busy day-to-day schedules restrict early &amp; mid-career professionals &amp; students from pursuing a course that would help them develop their self-hood. This is a common scenario today which needs to change. Due to the fixed learning schedule followed in most physical institutes and the self-paced courses that are notoriously famous for a terrible completion rate, people are sceptical about joining a course even though it brings much more value to them.&nbsp;When it comes to language learning, it is a known fact that the more you practice, the better you become. Most online language training organizations follow one trainer-one student approach where the classes are either taken in a batch or one-to-one between the trainer &amp; the student. In both types, the students are forced to follow the schedule of the trainers, which defeats the purpose of flexibility via online medium.&nbsp;Inzpira has absorbed the benefits of a physical institute and merged it with the pros of an online platform. Inzpira is an online soft-skills training company that offers various courses for communicative English Skills Development, Personality Development, Public Speaking &amp; Interview Skills preparation. Their AI-enabled platform lets students instantly connect with a trainer who shares a similar interest, hobby, profession, region, or language and start learning any time as per the students’ convenience.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-plwjz_2z2s0/YKQUEobgybI/AAAAAAAAATc/y1hwZNNQRbguQKp97FkmZ1cpM6HjwNwSgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h314/1.png"></figure>The founding team at Inzpira consists of Rohith Namboothiri and Sruthy Ramesh. Rohith, a business administration graduate from Madurai Kamaraj University and a second time entrepreneur handles technology, marketing and business expansion at the company. Sruthy is a B.Tech Computer Science Graduate and now handles the Sales/Operations and Administrative Functions at Inzpira.Market OpportunityThe English language learning market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.2% from 2020 to 2027 to reach $54.92 billion by 2027. English language learning nowadays has become a necessity in order to sustain in a competitive world. Vendors are focusing on offering solutions that can provide easy and effective communication. Factors such as penetration of artificial intelligence in e-learning, the rising importance of the English language for business and professional reasons, increased investments in English language learning start-ups and small companies, and affordable English language learning applications are driving the growth of this market.Impact of COVID-19: Amidst this pandemic, business leaders are compelled to protect their employees and reduce the spread. The major goal of companies is to suspend operations and eliminate non-critical business travel during the outbreak. Also, most of the companies have allowed work-from-home, which is inevitable in the current situation. Due to this, there has been a surge in interest among professionals to learn the English language, thereby expanding the ELL market.Inzpira is the first company to enter the Indian Market which provides AI powered instant trainers connect with centralized lesson plans and structures and where non-native speakers can undergo training, get certified and thus qualify to provide further training.100X ThesisInzpira  has developed a unique, proven and innovative methodology to help people learn a language just like how a person learns their mother tongue.  At  Inzpira, they consider English  Language  as a ‘Letter Island,’ a small island country located somewhere in the North Atlantic ocean, 70 kms West of England. The total population of this beautiful island is just 26. The only predominant political party here is known as Alphabets. The entire language is taught through the conversations, problems and situations these 26 people face in their small Letter Island.&nbsp;100X.VC believes there is a strong market for creating a focussed location for learning English from qualified western teachers for India audiences. Inzpira will be a global education technology company that connects users with the world’s best teachers for real-time online English immersion learning. Also, apart from the strong market, their Uber for language concept, where a centralized training approach where all their trainers are hand-picked and trained by them, thus maintaining consistent quality across the platform. The students get to interact with multiple trainers, thus instilling confidence and an opportunity to practice language and get detailed individual feedback from them directly. Furthermore, the way Inzpira operates and the way they collect and preserve data, it has the ability to launch a lot of similar products in the future and thus expand their market share.<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6_CxaYjtVQk/YKQUK7uMCwI/AAAAAAAAATg/mlcSGGAfI5wqJeI_7HTNPkOxr_t0wEGBQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h304/2.png"></figure>Conclusion“Inzpira is not a business, but a platform for the world to master an art that can be used to learn any spoken language. One day, we hope schools and colleges, around the world teach their students, the Inzpira way”&nbsp; – Rohith NamboothiriRohith and Sruthy, both driven by common interests and the idea of helping people who faced a similar situation to theirs, had been working on the idea for countless days and developing a remarkable product, when they approached us for funding. Inzpira is on its way to becoming one of the biggest players in its respective market with the growth they have shown since inception. With many more exciting ideas in their pipeline, 100X.VC believes in the founders passion and potential and wishes them a path of exponential growth &nbsp;

Inzpira is an AI enabled, personalized soft skills training, simulator and measuring platform with an Edtech front. Inzpira’s learning platform lets users get live on demand soft skills training anytime, from anywhere by instantly matching learners with coaches.

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Inzpira: 100X Investment Thesis

A decade ago, few bothered about the agriculture sector. It was the era of consumer facing businesses like Flipkart - fueled by a hyper-active consumer base equipped with the latest tech, deep pockets, and fickle purchasing power. VCs focused their attention on the top 20% of the Indian population, creating opportunities and amenities for them. How food ended up on one’s table night after night was a mystery to just about everyone.&nbsp;Of course, there were other reasons for the agritech sector being nascent. Back then, sustainable business models did not exist. Much of rural India was disconnected due to archaic communication technology. The sector was highly fragmented, prey to opaque and anti-competitive practices, regulated heavily by the government, and risky for investment due to the seasonal nature of crop yields.&nbsp;Over the last few years, however, the story of the agricultural sector has changed almost entirely. From being avoided by investors, it is now seen as a massive, largely untapped market that can be transformed with the right interventions and funding. Further, with strong COVID-19 induced tailwinds, the agritech sector is poised to create radical change in the years to come. One such startup disrupting the agritech sector in India is <a href="https://agrigator.co/">AgriGator</a>, funded by <a href="https://www.100x.vc/">100X.VC</a> as part of its&nbsp; Class 01.&nbsp;Read on to know more about how <a href="https://agrigator.co/">AgriGator </a>is revolutionizing the way food reaches your home.&nbsp;<h3>Market Opportunity&nbsp;</h3>55% of the Indian population relies on agriculture as their primary source of income. The sector contributes 18% to the national GDP. The agricultural exports market stands at a whopping USD 38.54 billion. Between 2000-19, according to DPIIT, the agricultural sector witnessed an FDI influx to the tune of USD 9.08 billion. These numbers indicate a massive market opportunity that agritech offers enterprising founders and investors.&nbsp;The agriculture sector is populated by multiple stakeholders that together make up a complex ecosystem. On one end of the supply chain are India’s 130 crore farmers, and the other end are the millions of consumers, both in India and abroad. In the middle lie the processors, retailers, traders, and wholesalers that comprise different parts of the agricultural supply chain. The crop grown in the field changes many hands before it reaches the consumer’s plate.&nbsp;Owing to the non-formalized nature of the sector, there are many inefficiencies across the supply chain. The farmers often are unaware of prevalent market conditions and are highly susceptible to not only fluctuating weather conditions, but also corrupt practices that reduce their margins to mere slivers. The supply chain itself is marred with inefficient practices, leading to loss of grain, contamination, price fluctuations, and imbalanced supply. On the consumer side, there is very little knowledge of where the food comes from, its quality and efficacy. Across the spectrum, there are numerous challenges due to a fundamental lack of transparency in the supply chain - a problem that has bred decades of losses for every stakeholder involved. And that’s where <a href="https://agrigator.co/">AgriGator </a>comes into the picture.&nbsp;<h3>The AgriGator Thesis&nbsp;</h3>AgriGator’s USP lies in its high fulfillment rate for on-spot truck requirement. The start-up aggregates all the stakeholders of the agri-supply chain and charges a commission fee against their services. They also integrate banks and NBFCs into their ecosystem to reduce the working capital requirement for its users. The result is a highly-dependable, complex network of trucking that can be relied upon to transfer grain from farm to table.&nbsp;Till date, <a href="https://agrigator.co/">AgriGator </a>has witnessed 30% MoM growth, with 1200 on-boarded traders and 1800 carrier providers. They have a presence in over 40 micro markets in Bhopal and have completed 1000 trips as of August 2020.&nbsp;COVID-19’s mega-tailwinds propelled AgriGator’s steep growth curve. While the lockdown initially hampered communication channels and travel routes, it caused a rapid shift toward online payment - a change long overdue in the agriculture industry. As the lockdown slowly eased up, they began ramping up operations once again. During the lockdown period, they shipped over 5000 metric tonnes of grain pan-India. Pre-COVID, they primarily dealt with rice and wheat. Post-COVID, they have expanded to commodities like soybean, masoor, and gram. Further, they also expanded their reach to 30 mandis and on-boarded some more industry partners too.&nbsp;Charu Chaturvedi and Udit Sangwan, co-founders at <a href="https://agrigator.co/">AgriGator</a>, hail from IIM-A and have relentlessly pursued their vision since day 01. Their vision of streamlining the agricultural supply chain resonated deeply with the <a href="https://www.100x.vc/team">100X.VC team</a>. So did their subject-matter expertise and sound growth plan. The decision of <a href="https://www.100x.vc/">100X.VC</a> to invest in <a href="https://agrigator.co/">AgriGator </a>was borne off of these decisions - to enable Charu and Udit as they went headfirst into an industry ripe for disruption.&nbsp;<h3>Conclusion&nbsp;</h3>The months and years to come have fundamentally changed on account of COVID-19. As our economy continues to slump further, everybody is looking at the agriculture industry to help it stay afloat. It took a pandemic for us to care about where our food comes from. Good luck Charu and Udit, as you build <a href="https://agrigator.co/">AgriGator </a>and pursue your dream!&nbsp;

AgriGator is a digital platform where traders, millers and processors can buy & sell grain commodities with guaranteed on-spot logistics.

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Why We Invested in AgriGator

Introduction:&nbsp;Roopya is a ‘Specified User Fintech’ which is the first regulated fintech startup that provides a SaaS-based platform for lenders to consume data, insights, and analytics as a service. Roopya is empowering more than 1000 NBFCs, MFIs, RRBs, cooperatives, and fintech through the platform, impacting the credit needs of over 300 million retail customers in India. Roopya enables these 1000+ lenders to reduce their cost of acquisition and the cost of underwriting.&nbsp;Roopya's market opportunity lies in the asymmetric growth in the digital lending space, where few large lenders are working to digitize underwriting and onboarding processes, but 1000+ lenders still don’t have access to analytics and underwriting models. India primarily has been a debit-led economy with below-par credit penetration in formal households. This is evident from the fact that just 3.3 percent of urban Indians avail of home loans Banks and NBFCs find it difficult to service this unserved market due to various factors such as the absence of credit history, informal business setup, high customer acquisition costs and high cost involved in servicing low ticket size loans.&nbsp;Roopya’s proprietary algorithm makes use of Alternative data covering 25 different data points and runs it through their data analytics model to provide effective leads and underwriting capabilities. Roopya's platform provides various propensity models for loan origination, underwriting model, and early warning models. These data and analytical models are delivered on a SaaS platform making it more accessible and efficient for lenders of all sizes to undertake their digital lending operations at scale.&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:47.42%;"><img src="https://100x-strapi-bucket.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Copy_of_roopya_webphoto_1_977625d0f5.png"></figure>Its Lender's customer acquisition process includes self-sign-up, adding users and defining roles, customizing the policies as per need, and creating business rules enabling lenders to scale their operations faster and more efficiently. Roopya aims to drastically reduce customer acquisition costs for financial institutions by improving their conversion rates.&nbsp;Roopya's value proposition lies in being the only fintech startup in India that has a Specified User status as per CICRA Act (<a href="https://bit.ly/3Jl21n4">https://bit.ly/3Jl21n4</a>). By virtue of this, Roopya is the 1st Fintech in India to have access to credit data and do underwriting on behalf of Lenders. Roopya is a regulated entity that uses this to provide a best-in-class customer analytics platform to lenders. Roopya has already established partnerships with over 15+ banks and NBFCs, and its platform has been live for over three years, experiencing 10x year-over-year growth in revenue and customer acquisition. As the lending industry in India continues to expand and digitalize, Roopya is well-positioned to capture significant market share by providing a platform for lenders to access customers and use a regulated and best-in-class customer analytics platform.Roopya's founders come from a rich background in Digital Lending, Corporate Banking, Lending Regulations, and Credit Bureau. Raman Vig Co-Founder Manages the Business he has worked with reputed financial institutions like Tata Capital, Deutsche Bank, and CRIF.&nbsp; Co-Founder, Sudipta Ghosh is heading technology and engineering at Roopya. He was part of Tata Administrative Services and led lending businesses at Tata Capital. Both the co-founders bring complementary competency to the table and their deep network and understanding of the market gives them a deep competitive edge.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:65.12%;"><img src="https://100x-strapi-bucket.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Copy_of_Roopya_OCEN_9f783710f8.png"></figure>Market Opportunity:Roopya operates in the lending analytics as a service space in India, which has seen exponential growth with lenders working to digitize underwriting/onboarding, while the distribution network remains largely untapped. In India, 2Bn loan transactions were processed in FY22 by 1000+ NBFCs/RRBs/Cooperative Banks/MFIs. 95% of these lenders originated 40% of retail loan applications, but they don’t have access to the latest analytics tools or platforms. Roopya's platform offers a platform and analytics as a service to these lenders, through a SaaS-based lending infrastructure, empowering these NBFCs, MFIs, RRBs, cooperatives, and fintech companies to provide credit to over 400 million retail customers. The Global Digital Banking platform market is valued at $3.95B in 2019 and is expected to grow to $10.8B by 2027.100X.VC Thesis:Raman &amp; Sudipta are domain experts in the banking industry and understand the loan acquisition and processing market. They are revenue-generating and beyond MVP and we believe it will scale rapidly with mentoring and capital.Conclusion:Roopya is a promising fintech startup in India with a scalable business model, strong execution ability, and a significant market opportunity. With its analytics-driven lending infrastructure platform and lending-as-a-service, Roopya has the potential to transform the lending ecosystem in India and empower millions of retail customers to access credit easily and efficiently. The co-founding team exhibits a strong founder-market fit and a relentless focus on sustainable growth. We are at 100X.VC is excited to be a part of its growth journey and support them on its mission to disrupt the digital lending space in India.

Read why 100X invested in Roopya which is India’s First ‘Specified User Fintech’ Powering Lenders with Analytics

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Roopya: 100X.VC Investment Thesis

IntroductionIn the business world, there is always scope for improvement. Enterprises are constantly searching for ways to advance performance levels and gain an edge over the competition.Businesses worldwide resort to robotic process automation as a key strategy to stay ahead in the game. When we talk about automation, we usually envision robots and machines replacing human resources in an organization and thus many small enterprises think that automation is only for the bigger fish in the sea since it is "such an expensive affair."However, these are all just myths. The truth is; automation simplifies human activities and reduces operational costs in the long run. A business of any size and nature can automate its processes and improve performance significantly. Some of the key areas where automation software and tools are being used widely are customer support, marketing, social media engagement, administrative activities, sales and analytics. In technical terms, these software automation tools are called “bots.”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Cp1ksVSPvUk/YKNhZuV5PFI/AAAAAAAAASY/eeB5QTcP3acLoMHFJBlstPT5Kixa8PFpQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/1.png"></figure>Unfortunately, most of these bots - which work wonders once integrated into your daily operations - require a hefty initial investment. Industry-wide stance is that bots are technical and highly complex to configure &amp; deploy, and thus require us to hire the right developers. This is a task in itself! Hiring the right developer for a project is expensive, time-consuming and the said developer takes weeks to deliver. What’s more: complicated tasks require customised bots and an enterprise has to go through the same process all over again - costing them both time and money.Spending over 2 years in the automation industry and working with 50+ clients to deliver 100+ automation projects, Abhishek and Shikha were forced to ideate a better solution. The team spent over 6 months perfecting the product - iterating on a constant loop of customer feedback - DataKund was made live in September 2020, and has grown to over 3000 users in a few months.DataKund is a next-generation, no-code intelligent browser automation tool. Tested across multiple use cases, most no-code web browser automation tools fail to perform even the most basic tasks. DataKund is a web browser automation tool that simply works better than its competitors, has more features and is easier to use.Abhishek Chaudhary, a Computer Science engineering graduate from IIT Mandi and a second-time entrepreneur, brings software development experience from his stint at Samsung and is in charge of the overall development and operations of DataKund. Shikha, a core team member and the core developer, handles all the backend functionalities for DataKund.Market OpportunityThe automation tools and platforms automate GUI connection, registration forms, login forms, and database corrections to save costs, increasing their market opportunity. The adoption of DevOps in software development is projected to drive the automation demand in the years to come owing to the increasing penetration of cloud technologies such as containerization and microservices.&nbsp;Market players are continuously integrating cloud technologies into their automation platforms to achieve a high level of automation and deliver an optimized digital experience. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the automation market trends toward e-retail, online banking, and various mobile applications for entertainment, healthcare, among others to achieve faster delivery time and improved customer experience. It has also influenced several enterprises to adopt online and digital platforms in their business models to maintain continuity in services.The global Robotic Process Automation (RPA) market is expected to reach $23 Billion by 2026 and the global Testing Automation market size is expected to surpass $28 Billion by 2024 growing at a CAGR of 18%.100X.VC ThesisDataKund is a no-code automation tool, which means anyone can make bots and they don’t need any technical expertise to do so. DataKund records user actions and works on a point-and-click method which makes the interface easy to use, configure, and deploy. The bots adapt to website changes, and so once built they can run forever with zero downtime and maintenance cost.<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LSQ5yO-U2iE/YKNhOxJPRpI/AAAAAAAAASU/XQDKmAkOXtsIRjCtuB6n_8zn0irEWhZJACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h406/2.png"></figure> &nbsp;DataKund is also extremely pocket friendly and reliable. Operating on a freemium model, it offers two plans to its users. The basic plan is forever free, whereas the paid plan offers additional features such as Auto Captcha solve and Proxies among many others, against fixed cloud credits. These cloud credits can be purchased additionally.Adopting a new DevOps culture that prioritizes concepts that support continuous delivery is a need of the hour for Indian companies. The next-generation browser tool being built by DataKund has the potential to address this need by significantly automating tasks and replacing existing tools and being part of the third wave of offerings in the space.&nbsp;ConclusionThe founder has a clear vision and is building to scale. 100X.VC is confident in their GTM and adaptability of the product built over multiple iterations. We are excited to be a part of their journey! &nbsp;

DataKund is a no-code, intelligent browser automation tool that allows everyone to build software robots to automate their repetitive work on the web without any programming.

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DataKund: 100X Investment Thesis

<h3>Pocketly - Your New Bestie</h3>Imagine being a college student with a head full of dreams and pockets full of “nada” (nothing in your pocket). College years are probably the best years of your life and are also the years during which you are not entirely financially independent. What if a student is in a financial crunch but wants to register for an online course, register for an exam, go to the movies or do anything else? What can a student do other than call his or her parents, relatives, or friends for some money? For a student with no credit score, it is difficult to approach banks or traditional lenders to solve one's financial struggles as they generally lend only to salaried individuals.Trust and ease play critical roles when money changes hands. With the advent of sketchy lenders and malicious websites, it has become very risky for a student to find loans. So a convenient app that offers micro loans and can help you keep track of your lending seems like a safer bet. “<a href="https://www.pocketly.in/">Pocketly </a>is a micro lending app for college students that provides them with credit whenever they need it instantly” says Aarav, the co-founder of <a href="https://www.pocketly.in/">Pocketly</a>.<h3>Market Opportunity</h3>The total number of microfinance loan accounts stood at Rs. 92.70 million in April-June quarter of the fiscal year 2019-20, as compared to Rs. 66.80 million accounts in April-June quarter of the fiscal year 2018-19, as disclosed by MFIN, an RBI recognized self-regulatory organization. This drastic increase makes it evident that the market grew by 42.9 percent in the first quarter of 2019-20 over the corresponding period last year.The market for student micro-lending is lesser compared to the one for blue collar workers. But recently, with the change in lifestyle, this market is opening doors for tremendous growth. And with 750 universities and more than 35,000 affiliated colleges enrolling more than 35 million students, India offers an enormous opportunity to platforms like <a href="https://www.pocketly.in/">Pocketly </a>for targeting students.<h3>History</h3>Aarav and Navdeesh both started their journey as roommates at VIT University. During their second year, they realized that their fellow tech-savvy millennial students did not have a penchant for the old way of communication. They soon decided to come up with an app,&nbsp; VITgo, that could keep their peers updated on the college timetables and notices and would help them navigate their day easily. In just two days of launching the app, they had around 10,000 plus users and in about a month they had reached the 30,000 daily active visitors mark.<h3>Thesis</h3>Aarav and Navdeesh stumbled upon another problem in their college years. They realized that just like salaried professionals, college students also faced the month-end financial crunch. And Aarav and Navdeesh founded <a href="https://www.pocketly.in/">Pocketly </a>with a simple business model. They wish to lend a helping hand to college students who need urgent cash. Their app allows a user to create a profile, be authenticated, and loan money in just a few taps. <a href="https://www.pocketly.in/">Pocketly </a>provides small ticket size loans ranging from Rs. 500-10,000 for a tenure of 30 days.&nbsp;“It’s basically a virtual credit card that is with them for their needs during the month-end” says Aarav.Their history with the successful development of an app, inclination towards and experience in the fintech sector, and problem-solving attitude turned out to be their most significant advantages. They launched the app on 23rd Oct 2019, and within just two days, they had over 1000 downloads. They were only 20 days old when they approached <a href="https://www.100x.vc/">100X.VC</a> but their success story and zest was enough to convince us to take the risk.&nbsp;<h3>Current scenario</h3>Just like the rest of the lending sector, <a href="https://www.pocketly.in/">Pocketly </a>was impacted by COVID-19, but due to their small ticket size and their strong community, the impact was marginal.&nbsp;Within less than a year of operations, <a href="https://www.pocketly.in/">Pocketly </a>is affiliated with 1500 colleges across India. They have over 6000 active users and have sanctioned over 16000 loans amounting to over Rs. 10 million. They are now looking at their next phase of rapid growth.

Pocketly is a microlending platform that focuses on college students and building a financial ecosystem around them.

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Why we Invested in Pocketly

Introduction&nbsp;“If energy costs are important to your business, then Powerbot helps you prioritise where and how to improve.” Co-Founder Powerbot&nbsp;A study on Indian industries shows that industries and commercial buildings spend around $80 billion just on electricity. Many industries like processing, metal, casting etc. are highly energy-intensive. With over 25% of their operational costs being from energy bills there is a significant white space in this domain to use advanced technologies to conserve and optimize the usage of electricity. Powerbot provides an energy analytics solution that&nbsp; enables an enterprise to address energy cost (not just energy consumption) like any other direct expense associated with the process of making, moving or storing the products or services. The analytics take into account the factors affecting energy cost to the enterprise. It understands how much energy and power an enterprise uses, when it’s used and where it’s used and provides a solid solution to tackle the issues.It is founded by Anand Teke and Hemant Shinde. Powerbot is a culmination of their combined experience of 25 years in the domains of energy efficiency, electronics, software, and data analysis. Anand has experience of more than ten years in the fields of power plant engineering, energy efficiency, and electronics. He has helped more than 100 industries to become more energy efficient. He is a certified Energy Auditor and has graduated from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands and College of Engineering, Pune. Hemant has worked for more than a decade across leading technology companies. His core expertise is Solution Architecture for building scalable software services. He graduated from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2008.By automatically processing the electricity bills and precisely predicting on ways that can help a company&nbsp; reduce its effective charges their product rightly addresses the gap in the industry.<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vdfZLGRAM0w/YKQMlgzURuI/AAAAAAAAASs/aoiQQzBBB98B7EVd6mPii9pYPuO-IdTpACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/premuim.png"></figure>Market sizeThe current market size being&nbsp; $2.0 billion is expected to&nbsp; grow to $4.3 billion by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 16.3% during the forecast period. The major growth factor of the Energy and Utilities Analytics Market is the mounting adoption of smart meters for enabling two–way communication between companies and customers. The prioritization of power generation planning and the need for accurate forecasting, and the investments in digital channels to improve customer processes, experience, and perceived customer value are also expected to drive the market growth.The Energy and Utilities Analytics Market by vertical is segmented into two categories: energy and utilities. The energy vertical is expected to grow at a higher CAGR during the forecast period.&nbsp; The growth can be attributed to the increasing volume of customer data, changing customer needs, and growing need for efficient supply chain management. These factors have created the need for energy and utilities analytics solutions and services.<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qycB5vQ-dgU/YKQNKJRk4eI/AAAAAAAAAS0/RAPPlTjN-X0JL8hJYRQzsAcBwRops_LZgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h312/pasted%2Bimage%2B0.png"></figure>Investment Thesis &nbsp;Electricity bills anywhere in India are complicated to say the least. Very few consumers can spare time to dig beyond the total amount and units consumed. There are more heads of charges than that make sense. There are more than fifty categories of consumers in Maharashtra alone. Some pay fixed demand charges while others pay as per their use. The per unit charges also vary by up to 90% within various subcategories of commercial consumers alone. Choosing the right tariff for your needs can pay huge returns without investing a penny. Powerbot clearly analyses the electricity usage over the year and recommends a tariff category that best suits the customer.We believe there can be a symbiotic relationship between energy management and predictive maintenance. Over a period of time we believe Powerbot rather than just saying we are saving your energy bill, which the customer might not find tangible outcome for, instead will give actionable insights like assembly line is working for so long but due to some factors its shuts down which will improve the predictive uptime of your assembly line therefore improving overall productivity. Powerbot which collects critical data to understand electricity consumption patterns in the factory or building could over a period of time and with enough standardized datasets would have created a sustainable moat which only becomes better as function of more data over a period of time. What truly sets them apart is instead of just&nbsp; bombarding the customers with numbers and jargon, Powerbot automatically processes the data and sends critical alerts which can directly be acted upon. Alerts also reach the right people with an electrical person being alerted in case of a drop in power factor while a commercial person will be alerted when the electricity bill is due thus making the entire process highly effective and result oriented from day one. With an end to end solution Powerbot is a complete energy management solution including energy meters, wireless data collectors, and a web application that generates actionable insights by providing specific insights at the right time to help companies become more energy efficient and optimize their cost of electricity. Currently they have a subscription based model with phenomenal early traction from companies like Tata Power, Kalyani and STCE to name a few.ConclusionWe believe that the founders have the right combination of passion and experience to scale the business in the industrial business segment and not just in India but across the globe eventually. The solution offered by Powerbot could benefit manufacturing industries greatly as&nbsp; energy cost, efficiency and environmental implications have top priority all over the world today particularly for heavy energy consumer industries which are looking for better tools to optimize their energy costs and increase their bottom-line. &nbsp;

Powerbot offers an energy analytics service that helps industries and commercial buildings to optimize their use of electricity by analyzing their electricity usage in real-time to identify saving opportunities.

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Powerbot: 100X Investment Thesis 

The previous decade was marked by the rise of the gig economy. Companies like Uber, Lyft, Etsy, TaskRabbit, and of course, Amazon, created flexible work opportunities that previously did not exist. Instead of punching a clock and counting the years in a single organization, the gig economy offered workers freedom and choice. These workers had the choice of driving a cab, delivering packages, fixing leaky pipes, or managing logistics.&nbsp; Freed from the shackles of the dreaded 9-to-5 job, they represented the future of work.&nbsp;It is now 2020 and that future looks challenging. The downside of the freedom afforded by flexible work opportunity could be underpayment, lack of job security, fluctuating incomes, and minimal incentives and benefits, most of which were painfully realized when COVID-19 came knocking. The one-size-fits-all model of the gig economy homogenizes workers, making it all too easy to hire-and-fire, choke prices, and influence supply. Individuality, contrary to being an asset, could be considered a problem.&nbsp;Of late, the passion economy has been on the rise. Similar to its counterpart, it offers workers freedom of choice and flexible time management. Further, it allows workers to express their skill sets and personalities through their work. Instead of positioning workers as an anonymous, random, and dispensable enabler of a service, the worker is positioned as a crucial component in the creation of digital products or customized services. The quality of the output is directly correlated to the competence of the worker.&nbsp;Add to this, the COVID-19 pandemic has given great impetus to the edtech sector in the country. A sector already on the rise pre-pandemic, the edtech sector has been booming, and is expected to balloon, over the next several years. Put together, the rapid emergence of passion economy jobs, and the boom in the edtech sector, have created unprecedented opportunities for entrepreneurs. This is where Knorish comes into the picture.&nbsp;Knorish is an edtech platform that enables hobbyists, professionals and niche experts to build, launch, market, and sell online courses powered by their own brand and as an extension to their own brand. The young startup, founded by Kinner and Rakhi in 2016, has raised two rounds of funding so far - the first cheque from 100X.VC in November 2019, and the second round from a clutch of angel investors and family offices soon after. The platform offers opportunities for a varied set of experts - from 10th grade physics teachers to chefs specializing in Italian cuisine to ballet dancers. Riding the twin waves of edtech and the passion economy, it is enabling hundreds of self-starting entrepreneurs and experts looking to monetize their craft.&nbsp;Market Opportunity&nbsp;The edtech market in India is poised to grow to $3.5 billion by 2022, according to a RedSeers report. Further, the global market size for online learning will be $300 billion by 2025. COVID-19 caused the entire country to go digital in a matter of weeks. Millions of students across age and subject categories became potential users, having no choice but to opt for online education. While market incumbents like BYJU’s and Unacademy certainly gained a lot of traction due to these tailwinds, it also greatly benefited smaller competitors in scaling their businesses.&nbsp;While the scope of the edtech sector increased in absolute terms, it also broadened qualitatively. An increasing number of people have readily monetized their skillset on platforms like Knorish, especially post lockdown. Gym instructors have taken to teaching yoga, many women have begun teaching cooking, musicians have begun taking guitar lessons online. A hobby or an interest have turned into a monetizable activity. Further, with job and salary cuts felt across the board, many have turned to platforms like Knorish in order to supplement their incomes.&nbsp;On the other end of the platform, many users have also readily availed themselves of the content created by publishers. Traditional education courses have always been a mainstay of any edtech platform, with students accessing this content&nbsp; to gain additional insights and for specialized mentoring. Post lockdown, however, interest in other course offerings has also spiked. Upskilling is no longer only about academic training; people are looking to learn new skills, hone existing ones, or explore dormant interests they never had the time for. In that sense, COVID-19 has acted as the great equalizer of opportunities. Skills and art forms once available only to the affording and elite can now be accessed at highly competitive rates with the click of a button. Knorish is one such emerging platform.&nbsp;The Knorish Investment Thesis&nbsp;100X.VC’s interest and enthusiasm around Knorish stemmed from the founder’s ability and passion for the platform they were building. They were operating in a fast growing market and competing with a clear view on the solutions they were creating for the market. 100X.VC invests first and foremost in founders with a clear idea; Kinner and Rakhi convinced us that they had what it takes.&nbsp;Knorish’s competitive advantage was that they were unwilling to compromise on quality. They created a powerful and aesthetically pleasing website. They offer publishers hundreds of templates and designs to choose from. Further, their regimented onboarding process and strict content guidelines ensures that all the material on Knorish is of the highest quality.&nbsp;Knorish’s paid platform was launched in March 2018. When they were funded by 100X.VC, they had made Rs. 30 lac in revenues. With over a 100 publishers and 10,000 users, their platform had certainly shown a great deal of promise. Over the past several months, they have grown manifolds. With an additional round of funding recently, they are on their way to raising a series A round soon. Their journey is upward and onward.&nbsp;Conclusion&nbsp;Knorish is a strong platform with a plethora of opportunities for publishers and users. The 100X.VC team will continue to support them in their endeavors to come!&nbsp;

Knorish is a platform to create and sell online courses, webinars and memberships for coaches, influencers, experts and organizations of the Creator Economy. With Knorish Sales Funnels on their own white-labelled apps and website, they achieve their dream income and traffic.

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Why We Invested in Knorish

Market research is of primary importance for all businesses -- a&nbsp; new business wanting to start operations and an existing business wanting to keep growing. In a country like India, supply is usually not sufficient to meet the demand in many places. The problem lies with the access to resources rather than shortage of stock. <a href="https://www.datasutram.com/">DataSutram</a>’s Location Intelligence platform helps organisations solve the supply chain problem.&nbsp; It helps E-commerce, Brick and Mortar retailers, pharmacies and other businesses with location-based intelligence solutions to identify the most efficient and cost effective approach to reach and understand the target customers.With the power of location intelligence, <a href="https://www.datasutram.com/">DataSutram</a> offers a simple solution to analyse demand patterns, reach out to the target market and plan resource supplies accordingly. External data points are studied to make internal business decisions. Rapid growth of micro-targeting through social media drives technology and connects brands with the people better than ever. Intelligent marketing revolutionizes the way brands communicate with both existing and potential customers. The AI backbone provides characteristic features and trends of customers in each and every granular location, combining varying insights from a population by Big Data analytics and geotagging customer, store or brand information. This enables the user to reach the right people with the right content at the right time.&nbsp;<h3 style="text-align:justify;">Market Opportunity</h3>Current global Location Intelligence market size is $10.6 Bn and is expected to grow to $22.8 Bn by 2024. <a href="https://www.datasutram.com/">DataSutram’</a>s AI platform KHOJ converts data into actionable insights for Retailers and businesses in E-commerce, Pharma, Banking &amp; Finance, EV charging, Real Estate and others. Optimisation of resources and micro-targeting through tech-based solutions has become the latest trend for businesses to acquire the target market.&nbsp;Brands and companies struggle with finding the right place, keeping the right product portfolio and identifying the right effective marketing strategy due to lack of location intelligence. <a href="https://www.datasutram.com/">DataSutram’s </a>model successfully provides the solution to optimise operational efficiencies.&nbsp;<h3 style="text-align:justify;">Where it all began</h3>College friends Rajit, Ankit and Aisik founded DataSutram in their final year of engineering. They identified how external data points can be used as a key indicator for making business decisions. From a college assignment with the Government of West Bengal to make agricultural decisions using satellite data, to making a location-based AI solution for businesses, these spirited engineers have come a long way. They spent a year working with companies to understand the product market fit, market trends and identified challenges faced. KHOJ helps businesses by providing data-driven solutions which assess their economic potential, product demand, site evaluation of a store and understands the source of traffic.&nbsp;&nbsp;<h3 style="text-align:justify;">Thesis</h3>DataSutram provides a unique solution for an ever-growing Indian market with disposable incomes. Location intelligence was, is and will always be critical for companies to push their brands – most of them lagging behind due to the lack of it. There is a strong potential for a niche player like Datasutram to capture the market as there are no existing domestic competitors providing location-based intelligence to businesses.<a href="https://www.100x.vc/">100X.VC</a> believes in the potential of these founders and in their creation. Rajit, Ankit and Aisik are motivated individuals and have&nbsp; a perfect understanding of the product market fit. They have strategically taken advantage of the COVID situation by helping businesses optimise their resources and reach target customers. The algorithm has captured data points all over India and the next step for them would be to capture the global market.

Data Sutram is an AI-backed platform that gathers intel from external data to provide location-based data intelligence.

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Why we Invested in Data Sutram

IntroductionNew research has found evidence that informed traders and investors’ information asymmetry is driving the huge price swings in cryptocurrencies.&nbsp;There’s an old meme that, on the internet no one knows you are a dog. Since search became prevalent on the internet, the question of who you are has been answered through available data. This is the problem with social media. It presents a few short data points without much substance. If the source is credible or supposedly believable, and the sound bite is good, it can become viral. This unverified sound bite then pervades more information feeds to more people. If this sound bite is repeated enough, it becomes reality.&nbsp;Bitcoin markets are constantly influenced by new information. They are actively traded 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and traders are heterogenous and need to adapt to ever-changing market conditions. While asset pricing theory states that all market participants act on the basis of the same information, in reality information is not equally distributed. Traders receive information at different times or interpret events and information differently.This is an information asymmetry and a stack overload problem for investors. There is too much information overloading their circuits. This overload pervades the decisions they make.Aman was one of the key people behind CoinDCX’s learning platform, and has managed crypto funds and crypto communities. He possesses deep knowledge on crypto investing and set out to solve this contradictory problem of information overload leading to information asymmetry.In early 2021, they ideated Moving - Twitter for next 100 million crypto investors - a home base for new-age investors. Moving makes this possible with bite-sized access to news, insights, and verified knowledge, and a social feed to share real time advice with friends and expert investors.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yxSvo9CGgRQ/YKdlanHvVZI/AAAAAAAAAUM/qdG87k6nKvkiilNEXNCYWY0mtirmYfpeQCLcBGAsYHQ/w318-h640/1.png"></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uEcH7ZszGDI/YKdla3czJUI/AAAAAAAAAUQ/eV4WIeiI5JU91z6QrA3X1Kk0t1TT52_sQCLcBGAsYHQ/w318-h640/2.png"></figure> &nbsp;Aman Sanduja, an engineer by chance and a 3rd-time entrepreneur, brings in-depth knowledge on crypto and is in charge of the overall operations of Moving. Praveen, the core developer, handles all the product and backend functionalities for Moving.&nbsp;Market OpportunityThe global cryptocurrency trading market stood at USD 754.0 million in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 1.7 billion by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 11.2% during the forecast period. The total market capitalization of cryptocurrency stands at USD 2 trillion.High growth in venture capital investment is one of the key factors due to which the market is anticipated to rev up during the forecast years. Moreover, transparency and immutability of the distributed ledger technology is positively impacting the growth of the market during the forecast period.Increasing digitization across industries represents one of the key factors driving the growth of the market. In line with this, easy accessibility to and rising penetration of high-speed internet connectivity in daily activities is also creating a positive outlook for the market. Furthermore, legalisation and approval of purchase, sale or trade of virtual currencies in various developed countries are also driving&nbsp; the market growth.&nbsp;100X.VC ThesisMoving is a go-to platform for crypto news, insights, and verified knowledge. Moving is personalised, simple and insightful which offers bite-sized informative content with zero clutter - removing intimidating information online.Moving is the first to market in India, with a few indirect competitors globally. With an exceptional founding team which brings domain expertise, they are best suited to build and scale Moving. Moving is also extremely pocket friendly and reliable. Operating on a freemium model, it offers two plans to its users. The basic plan is forever free, whereas the paid plan offers premium features.<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FgYNShCSnrA/YKdpEWjjipI/AAAAAAAAAVY/tXV21ZjKvXMPmFl4Z_FNeTavtmeoM_CkwCLcBGAsYHQ/w318-h640/3.png"></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sRU8M53KB08/YKdpEeK3d3I/AAAAAAAAAVU/Rpt0ArYxaE8jIvfw5B23AGfWXNL3ab4XgCLcBGAsYHQ/w318-h640/4.png"></figure> &nbsp;People’s interest in Cryptocurrencies is growing exponentially in India and across the world. Moving fills the dire need for a reliable and understandable source of crypto news for the masses.&nbsp;ConclusionThis team comes with the right background of tech, UX, and consumer growth to be able to build Moving. They are applying AI to news aggregation. The founder has a clear vision and is building to scale. 100X.VC is confident in their GTM and adaptability of the product built over multiple iterations. We are excited to be a part of their journey!&nbsp; &nbsp;

A Twitter for crypto, Moving is a go-to platform for crypto news, insights, and verified knowledge, where you find amazing investors and friends to follow and learn from.

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Moving: 100X Investment Thesis

Introduction:Mukhwas holds its origins as a customary Indian post-meal delicacy and breath refresher. Traditionally presented after dining to facilitate digestion and refresh the mouth, it is derived from Sanskrit: "mukh" (mouth) and "vaas" (to remain/to preserve). Hence, mukhwas denotes constituents designed to maintain oral freshness. The mouth freshener market in India is a lucrative market opportunity, with an ingrained cultural tradition.In the context of India's largely unstructured mukhwas market, a notable void exists, as most of the brands currently do not offer quality, health-conscious and wholesome alternatives to conventional mukhwas infused with sugars, preservatives, and artificial flavours. Furthermore, local stores presently dispense these products in regular plastic packaging, devoid of any information about the brand, manufacturer, or ingredients. Recognizing this gap, JOYSPOON has seized the opportunity and is prepared to take the lead in the industry, capitalising on the prevailing quality, health-conscious trend and global emphasis on nutritious food choices.Given its origin in India and its widespread consumption across age groups, JOYSPOON is well positioned to provide consumers with a diverse range of high-quality and flavorful offerings that also address concerns like acidity, digestion, obesity, and constipation. Being the pioneer in this domain, JOYSPOON is set to introduce targeted functionalities within the mukhwas category.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://100x-strapi-bucket.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/joy_6478ba1c62.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;JOYSPOON is led by an innovative team that brings a rich reservoir of tradition and entrepreneurship. Yash Mehta, a Chartered Accountant, possesses a forward-looking aspiration to establish distinctive and healthy food alternatives. His expedition as an entrepreneur in the mukhwas sector has been distinguished by passion for quality food and an intricate grasp of market trends due to his experience in D2C for almost 4 years. Additionally, Vaishali Mehta holds a master's degree in brand management and boasts extensive proficiency in curation of products with her mother &amp; sister-in- law who is a chef for more than a decade. Together with her extensive interest in food &amp; knowledge of working in retail brands in Mumbai, she looks after product development &amp; also the online marketing vertical in the company.&nbsp;Market Opportunities:Indian Mukhwas Market is an opportunity upwards of ₹10,000 Cr.&nbsp; According to Skyquest, the global Mouth freshener market will reach 15 Billion 2022 and 22.5 Billion by 2030. The sector is not just capitalising on the trend of breath freshening but is also aligning with the increasing preference for health-centric products by integrating beneficial ingredients that promote oral health. This evolution not only broadens the market share but also opens avenues for innovative developments, making it an attractive prospect for investors targeting health-conscious trends.&nbsp;100X Thesis:Mukhwas (Mouth fresheners) as a category, especially in India, is a big opportunity with very few meaningful players. Founders have built a tasty and healthy product and have seen good initial traction, mostly through their own website.&nbsp; This has led to initial brand association which can extend to e-commerce marketplaces. We believe that this segment has enough room for a good player to step in and capture the market.&nbsp;Conclusion:JOYSPOON embodies an unparallel prospect within the disorganised landscape of the Indian mouth fresheners market. JOYSPOON stands itself as an appealing investment opportunity because of its strong competitive advantages and the founders capabilities. The company is well-positioned to capitalise on the momentum of the expanding Indian mouth freshener market and establish itself as the industry leader globally. The company has the potential to reach high altitudes and develop into a well-established brand within the industry.

Read why 100X invested in JOYSPOON which is a digital first D2C brand for a range of tasty and quality Indian Mouth Freshners

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JOYSPOON: 100X.VC Investment Thesis

Dialysis, one of the early revolutions in medicine, is said to increase a patient's life suffering from chronic kidney failure by 10-20 years. And yet, the availability and quality of this treatment in India is inadequate. Statistics suggest that in India, around 2,00,000 new patients suffer from chronic kidney failure every year. A large number of these patients for not have the resources to get access to a dialysis center. The ones who do, have to travel many kilometres once every 2-3 days for their treatment.&nbsp;Market OpportunityThe current estimated number of diabetic Indians is around 72 million, which is supposed to double by 2025. If we compare this demand with the current supply of 0.4 dialysis centers and 1.3 nephrologists per million Indians, it is undeniable that this gap is too huge. Furthermore, the dialysis facilities are primarily concentrated in large cities and most of them have 6-9 beds. These centers are farther from the residential areas, thereby adding to the patient's troubles by making them commute for around 50 km once every 2-3 days. And, the lack of dialysis centers in the rural areas has deprived the rural population a chance at extended life.The StoryMr. Shashank Moddhia, postgraduate with a master's degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas was the quality manager for the Asia-Pacific region for a kidney healthcare products company. During the course of his job, the increasing market gap in the dialysis sector was very evident to him. Soon after this realization, he left his cushy job in the US and returned to India with a hope of making a difference. Even in their early stage, <a href="https://www.therenalproject.com/">The Renal Project</a> could corroborate its existence. With a unique modus operandi of leasing dialysis machines, <a href="https://www.therenalproject.com/">The Renal Project</a> was keen on being the more affordable and effortless solution for millions.When <a href="https://www.100x.vc/">100X.VC</a> first met Shashank, the team was instantly drawn to his idea of revolutionizing the industry. With his concept of micro-centers, it was evident that he would be successful in achieving greater penetration and drastically improve the accessibility of dialysis therapy for masses.What happened next?Since its establishment in May 2019, <a href="https://www.therenalproject.com/">The Renal Project</a> has successfully opened six dialysis centers across Mumbai and Pune. They want to become an institution where patients will be able to get good quality dialysis at extremely affordable rates. Shashank believes that the opening of these centers is the first step towards building a chain of dialysis centers where the ailing and aging patients can come to with ease. Their initiative aims to reach the remotest areas by opening micro-dialysis centers on the outskirts of Tier-I and Tier-II cities.&nbsp;&nbsp;"The motive is not profits but service, because that is what the sector demands and is all about. We plan to open around 100 such centers in small pockets of districts such as Palghar, Dahanu, Buldhana, Canacona (in Goa), among others across the country. The goal is to reach the maximum number of people in need with the treatment at minimum rates," says the visionary.&nbsp;Since the inception of this partnership, <a href="https://www.100x.vc/">100x.vc</a> is proud of the achievements of Shashank and team. Kudos!

The Renal Project is a healthcare startup that operates a chain of dialysis micro-centres.

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Why We Invested in The Renal Project

Introduction:Buckmint is a ReFi (Regenerative Finance) startup, working at the intersection of ClimateTech, Fintech and Web3.0 to build decentralised solutions for Climate Infrastructure. Beginning with carbon trading, Buckmint uses blockchain technology to make carbon credits more accessible and efficient. They do this by tokenizing carbon credits, which means turning them into digital assets that can be traded on a blockchain network. This makes it easier for companies and individuals to buy and sell carbon credits, and it also helps to create a more liquid market for carbon credits. Leveraging blockchain technology, Buckmint is paving the way for global credit sellers to access broader markets.Traditional carbon credits have faced issues such as illiquidity, the absence of price benchmarks, and concerns about double spending or counting, particularly impacting investors. To combat these problems, Buckmint has introduced a novel approach by tokenizing carbon credits on energy-efficient blockchains, thereby enabling anyone to participate in carbon credit trading.In the system created by Buckmint, ownership of carbon credits is securely transferred to a third-party Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), functioning much like an escrow account. This strategic move effectively eliminates the risk of double counting, providing clarity and trust in the market. Buckmint is currently working with prominent carbon registry VERRA. They also have plans to inculcate American Carbon Registry and Gold Standard Carbon credits in their ecosystem soon.Buckmint has taken the initiative to tokenize carbon credits in real-time, ensuring that credits remain unretired and verified throughout the process. This innovative approach is facilitated on the blockchain network, enhancing efficiency and reducing environmental impact.There is a lot of untapped capital that is yet to be channelized towards green and renewable projects. For this, they are also building a decentralised exchange for buyers and sellers to transact tokenized carbon credits directly with each other. This will not only involve buyers and sellers of carbon credits but also increase the participation of traders, particularly retail and institutional investors, in the carbon markets.It's important to note that Buckmint has launched the tokenization aspect along with the marketplace, with buying and selling activities occurring on this marketplace. Soon they will open the trading for retail and institutional investors on their decentralised exchange (DEX). However, Buckmint plays a crucial role in the end-to-end process. When a buyer decides to retire specific carbon credits, Buckmint initiates communication with the carbon registry, ultimately releasing the tokens from the escrow account. Importantly, there is regulatory oversight to ensure that only active, non-retired carbon credits are tokenized, preventing the tokenization of retired credits.&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:100%;"><img src="https://100x-strapi-bucket.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Buckmint_1_0198c1b311.png"></figure> &nbsp;Shaurya Chauhan, Mayank Chauhan, and Ram Verma possess the requisite expertise and acumen to effectively tackle the challenges confronting the Carbon Credits Industry. Shaurya Chauhan is an Computer Science &amp; Engineering (CSE) graduate who worked as a Data Scientist. He has deep expertise in Product Development, Strategy &amp; Finances. Mayank Chauhan is a business graduate, specialised in Marketing &amp; Research.&nbsp; He brings substantial experience in operations and business development. Before Buckmint, Mayank and Shaurya together founded Glyde, a platform dedicated to Micro-Mobility, as their previous stint. Ram Verma has pursued Computer Science and Engineering. His expertise predominantly centers around technology, with a notable track record in blockchain. Having crafted numerous web 3.0 solutions in the past, Ram is currently leading the technology at Buckmint.Their collaborative effort blends technological prowess with a deep commitment to sustainability, building decentralised solutions for climate infrastructure.&nbsp;Market Opportunity:The Institute of International Finance (IIF) with knowledge support from McKinsey, estimates that demand for carbon credits could increase by a factor of 15 or more by 2030 and by a factor of up to 100 by 2050. Overall, the market for carbon credits could be worth upward of $50 billion in 2030. The voluntary carbon market continues to play a critical role in that transition by helping to channel funding into projects that reduce carbon emissions or remove carbon from the atmosphere. The growth of the market is being driven by factors like increasing demand for carbon credits from industries for compliance purposes that are looking to reduce their emissions.&nbsp;100X.VC Thesis:The Carbon Credits market is expanding rapidly, with heavy demand for purchase of credits. However matchmaking demand and supply, at the right price is a very inefficient process. Buckmint is tapping into this massive opportunity and streamlining the process by market-making on chains. By building this on the blockchain, they open up global markets for credit buyers, sellers and traders. The team is driven, technical and knowledgeable in the space. 100X.VC believes this is an opportunity to create the biggest carbon credit exchange.&nbsp;Conclusion:Buckmint's approach to tokenizing carbon credits on an energy-efficient blockchain, and creating a dedicated decentralised exchange for trading carbon credits in conjunction with strategic partnerships and robust regulatory compliance, addresses pressing issues in the carbon credits market, offering a promising solution for both investors and the environment. Overall, the market is bound to grow with the increasing needs by organisations to offset carbon emissions. Shaurya, Ram and Mayank are a great team to execute the revolution in carbon credits space &nbsp;

Read why 100x invested in Buckmint, a decentralized exchange for carbon credit trading.

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Buckmint: 100X.VC Investment Thesis

Just earlier this year, for most of us, getting to work largely meant hitting the road, and not the cloud. While some welcome this transition to working from home, no one will deny that they miss the road. The economy certainly does.&nbsp;The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating. The Pandemic has interrupted this freedom like the egregious, nasty and nearly bottomless pothole that not too long ago interrupted the daily Indian commute. If only we could see it coming, you say? Not sure of the pandemic, but the pothole- we definitely can!The Indian RoadThe Indian Road Network at 5.9Mn kilometre is the second largest in the world. Highway construction in India increased at 21.44% CAGR between FY16-FY19 and has been a major sector that propels the development of the Indian Economy. In May 2020, the Government of India set a target of constructing roads worth Rs 15 lakh crore over the next two years. With robust demand, higher investments and attractive policy support the development of road infrastructure in India is witnessing great momentum.&nbsp;With a focus on adhering to international quality standards, some of the major challenges posed include adoption of energy- efficient technologies, auditing, maintenance and enforcement of those standards. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in an effort to bench-mark the quality has laid out three broad metrics of assessment- efficiency, safety and user-services. It plans to design interventions and enhancements according to the outcome of this survey which also includes studying the availability of Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS), functionality of structures, provision for grade separated intersections, cleanliness, plantation, wayside amenities and customer satisfaction.Such road mapping and quality audit is usually done manually through extensive fleets managed by independent contractors which is highly inefficient, resource intensive and takes years to complete. The dire lack of major infrastructure players with the tech and who can assure the pace, accuracy and cost-effectiveness is a looming threat to the country’s ambitions.Capturing <a href="https://www.roadmetrics.in/">RoadMetrics</a> on a smartphoneWhile the government was busy charting new road development and maintenance strategies with a larger economic outlook, two Computer Engineering graduates at Sarvajanik College of Engineering &amp; Technology- Dipen Babariya and Mishal Jariwala, were busily engaged in adopting emerging technologies to solve for this future. The duo was soon joined by Nikhil Prasad Maroli in Bengaluru, an Postgraduate Industrial Engineer from Texas A&amp;M University with experience in working with Electric Vehicles at Tesla and LiDar Technologies at Velodyne LiDar. <a href="https://www.roadmetrics.in/">RoadMetrics</a> was set up as a provider of an accurate, efficient &amp; portable solution to measure road conditions. and improve public safety by aiding accelerated road maintenance.&nbsp;Series A-funded <a href="https://www.roadbotics.com/">RoadBotics</a> (based in the UK), Seed-funded Streetscan (based in the US) &amp; Grant-funded <a href="https://www.cyface.de/">Cyface </a>(based in Germany) have validated a similar implementation in their corresponding geographies. <a href="https://www.roadmetrics.in/">RoadMetrics</a> with their patented road monitoring system is well poised to define this space in the larger, Indian market.RoadMetrics is powered by their proprietary AI algorithms which have a 95% real-time accuracy in detecting road defects. It incorporates a standard smartphone camera, attached to a vehicle, to collect roadway image data. This data is uploaded onto their platform where deep learning-based image processing is applied to identify road and pavement features. Based on the defects identified such as potholes, linear cracks, alligator cracks, asphalt raveling, rutting etc, the roads are classified into 4 different quality levels.They offer an enterprise dashboard application for road infrastructure firms to detect road conditions- charged on a per kilometre basis- with added capabilities for budget allocation and maintenance prioritization. Furthermore, targeting the 300M Google Maps users in India they offer a first-of-its-kind route navigation app with features of accessibility and road condition alerting.Armed with their proprietary deep-tech algorithms, a smartphone and tie-ups with local cab aggregators they have successfully mapped out 200km of roads in Surat and over 1000km in Bangalore. This year they are set to follow through most major cities in the country. <a href="https://www.100x.vc/">100X.VC</a> values companies having a core deep-tech IP and <a href="https://www.roadmetrics.in/">RoadMetrics</a> currently stands unchallenged. The immense portability, speed, rich analytics along with the first movers advantage has positioned them well to capture the major market share.&nbsp;Assisting Autonomous Vehicles with Indian Road IntelligenceThe superior city road intelligence continuously acquired by their AI models will prove to be an ace up their sleeve when autonomous vehicles arrive on Indian roads. With the upcoming deployment of LiDar Sensors they will have a more precise understanding (upto 1cm) of the depth and distance of objects in view. With this, their product is well set to aid the autonomous vehicles which are bound to struggle on Indian roads notorious for the unmarked lanes, narrow neighborhood roads, unforeseen roadblocks and non-uniform pavement dimensions.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.roadmetrics.in/">RoadMetrics</a> will ultimately accelerate the autonomous vehicle adoption on Indian roads. In the meantime, they promise us an India with better roads, something that we will all deeply cherish in the post-covid world.

Road Metrics provides a way to monitor road conditions real-time and navigates users to the most time-saving and safe route possible.

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Why We Invested in Road Metrics

Introduction&nbsp;As Jeff Bezos says “If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful’. Today, in this internet world, influencers play a huge role in being the word of mouth. But, who is an influencer? It can be any person who influences another, whether influencing one person or thousands of people.<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iF3FFzF_vNs/YKIAWZJyRWI/AAAAAAAAAQU/IPYNdlLTgPAQ-PKM-JaFxP-0HdSDZ3TJgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h357/Website%2Bpic%2B1.png"></figure>&nbsp;CRE CLUB is India’s first ever social media loyalty platform that allows brands to connect with real, everyday users, while letting the users earn exclusive rewards based on their social influence. Whether we like it or not, all of us are influencers. Every time we post a picture on social media or answer a product query, we are influencing people’s purchasing decisions. Until now, these small amounts of influence have been difficult to track and we have done this out of our kindness. But, in return we get nothing but social capital which until now was useless.&nbsp;CRE CLUB founded by Abhas, Rupesh and Parth, IIT Bombay alumni, is here to help us put that social capital to use! There is tremendous potential in bringing influencer marketing downstream to the users who have small amounts of powerful social capital that they have not been able to exercise.&nbsp;The founders have known each other since 2014, from being in the same college as well as hostel and eventually being flatmates and co-founders. Apart from curriculars, they’ve spent an enormous amount of time in college organising fests, extracurricular activities like stand up comedy, theatre, etc. and hence are experienced in dealing with artists and influencers. That’s where the idea of capitalising on the social capital struck to them at the end of 2020. They left their jobs to work on their idea and built CRE CLUB in 2021. Abhas has experience in business intelligence, Parth in Business development and consulting, and Rupesh has management consulting experience.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J9jMK6ZQKF4/YKIAfb2JG7I/AAAAAAAAAQY/i1ye4mwV9gsYUewn9rpzUoFrGvRX-BAZACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h333/Website%2Bpic%2B2.png"></figure>Market Opportunity&nbsp;More than the majority of e-commerce shoppers would agree that they like products/services that another user has posted about, and ask them about it. It would be easy for these shoppers if those posts would have been tagged by the user giving them ease of shopping online. E-commerce is a huge market and influencer marketing is targeting it beautifully. India currently has 572M internet users, 500M are present on social media, but only 105M transact online. This non transacting gap can be filled by alternative payment methods that enable users to pay via social posts. Retailers will love the product as they can increase conversion at checkout, acquire new shoppers, while generating margin on first sale, and drive stickiness by working with shoppers. It allows brands to reward their loyal customers as opposed to spending dollars on discount hunters.The target market essentially are the brands that have the shoppers most likely to share content in exchange for discounts. The D2C market in India was $39B in 2020 which is expected to grow by 38% CAGR to $200 B by 2025. &nbsp;In India alone there are more than 80,000 retailers/sellers registered on e-commerce enablers like Shopify and WooCommerce. Apart from this, there is also an opportunity to provide marketing solutions to 43M + MSMEs.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A8EH4aFnRDE/YKIAmeaCYiI/AAAAAAAAAQg/8pzbXkBkReU1O7AgkuYOa910u1Wi_-ruQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h365/Website%2Bpic%2B5.png"></figure>&nbsp;100X ThesisThe product is really simple - shoppers shop like normal and when they reach the checkout page, they will be presented with the CRE CLUB button. By clicking that button, they will be prompted to enter their Instagram handle and based on a score generated, they will be offered a discount + cashback. The discount is applied automatically and the user then has 30 days to post about the purchase on social media and share the link with CRE CLUB. After the post verification, cashback will be credited. It is a tool for both users and brands and they make sure that it’s a win-win for both parties.The idea as well as the approach has the advantage of being the first to market that will keep them apart from newcomers. Along with this, the founders are well versed with working together and have a good rapport which is essential to building a scalable business. Keeping in mind the current social media hype and the way the Indian economy is leaning towards ecommerce and the like, CRE CLUB has an opportunity to create a niche for themselves and gain traction by appealing to the trends of the current scenario in terms of D2C as well as Social media capitalization.<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IsEUUVtkoEs/YKIAtp0DVyI/AAAAAAAAAQk/0oVcu39bwIcP0kgsa01LRr4dFGWnwCweACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h366/Website%2Bpic%2B4.png"></figure>ConclusionCRE CLUB is a very new idea currently not existing in India and SEA to combine the E-commerce market with Social bragging and pay via post concept. The team has done their research and are pretty confident that this is the future of marketing and shopping!100X.VC believes that with this team, their ability and approach, it is the right mix to gain success in their pursuit! &nbsp;

Cre Club is now Jelly. Jelly is a creator focused fintech company which allows them to pay with social media posts and videos for their purchases.

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Cre Club: 100X Investment Thesis

IntroductionClose to 5 million SME Freight businesses in the United States do not have an efficient platform to find truck providers and manage freight bookings for their&nbsp; recurring business requirements. In India, Europe, Middle East and other marketstoo, small and medium freight businesses face multiple challenges to&nbsp; manage their recurring orders efficiently. Coupled with logistical issues, business owners also encounter difficulties in simultaneous communication and monetary activities like financing and advancing. These inefficiencies subsequently result in hampering overall operations of the truck providers as well as the businesses seeking these services.&nbsp;Today, these problems have led to the existence of numerous truck loading solutions e.g. load boards who are doing their bit to solve some of the major issues. But there is a catch, most of these services are functioning as independent service providers, so the customer has to juggle between platforms for different activities. On the other end, business owners rely on their network of truck providers to find trucks for their regular needs. Only when they fail within their network do they use external platforms for each of their loads. It takes at least two weeks to a few months to create a network of truckers sufficient for their business. Existing load boards help truckers and businesses to get matched only for live orders, so one ends up with a new trucker most of the time and again the cycle repeats. This leaves a lot of room for errors and disturbances in a process which should be otherwise seamless.&nbsp;With his seasoned experience in the logistics business and a clear vision to unify these processes for truckers, Poorna Reddy co-founded WayFr with Abhiram Deshpande. WayFr is a mobile application that instantly enables shippers and freight brokers to create their personalized load-board (load posting platform) that they can use to receive price quotes and book trucks within their network of carriers. Brokers and shippers can additionally leverage WayFr registered carrier networks and social media groups to find trucks from outside of their own network. It provides a networking platform for SME Shippers &amp; Freight Brokers to instantly connect, communicate and manage freight booking with truckers.&nbsp;While working in Amazon’s truck bidding business and from being one of Blackbuck’s initial employees, Poorna figured out that unifying these services on a single platform along with additional facilities like financing was the key to bridge the gap between small-time truckers and SMEs. Today, WayFr successfully matches carriers and customers on a recurring basis in the US. WayFr matches people on preferences along with a communication portal, sharing of documents, proofs, payment, and updates.&nbsp;WayFr, therefore, positions itself as a LinkedIn for these SMEs and trucking businesses, It is giving them a platform to communicate, share documents and proofs, make payments and stay updated with their entire freight operations. It is bringing convenience and efficiency to the existing chaos.&nbsp;Small businesses use different platforms for different tools, paying upto $4000-5000 p.a., but with WayFr they end up paying only around $1000-2000 p.a. In addition to freight management, the team at WayFr is working towards making financing an extremely viable option for these businesses. At present, borrowing rates end up close to around 24% p.a. WayFr is in the plans to identify good credit worthy businesses on their portal which will be&nbsp; recommended for borrowing at normal bank lending rates. In terms of advances too, it is working towards helping customers to dodge high transaction fees (~2.7-4%)/ transaction by creating an in-house wallet system. Currently, the team includes 5 members inclusive of a product head, full time developers and a UI/UX personnel, all based out Hyderabad, India &nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/xXqIUqWqfmiqh8tXEoI_BqUZA7UFqd4xynIUXYaveeKTPVhxJOWwNTxkqkrlvolVvShst23OCCNNjlCdDq0XT06EcOyWa3p_6AO2kbn4j_YJTWA3LjgsKtdNYC5fStAdBNm0YYVdrI_0sjNZWZvAkwHaktzNXkh-i8LjEdnC0EBpPkM0SB3qwvA"></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/fmrPDCTt4CGtF26YC48tLEdy0h2_cPvSkuSmOE0kBXBeqRTG4i8dhmBTq09mgReSBv7pCyEbzC78y28C1BmyVpxt9_TEB5xzocj2J9yqpCmt5Yk0TCA4tWzbTJLWzP2pFxaiEqkzpu96OdEqp0UGlt7otd_YH3H5UdSpcuOv30p4wvEDN9KGN5I"></figure> &nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2X7fV_PF6n7c87VQPaSRAzBM7dNsYw7YQtkyzdS2iOhQgqBcQeES3xOYk9u0LB0sLREVA0PaJqQ7iLin4R6OtxJaATJT66pDAp2Q1eiA3VJejiULUNMCHjsum18p8_Bp-araYc0V7oRcyf4AjIanVKKoodA9zB7Sm91aDbq_aCDSIF2-c_IRl2M"></figure>Market OpportunityTransportation costs sum up to 5-15% of a country’s GDP in general. This, on a broader level, includes various avenues in the transport industry, spot market (‘on the spot’ freight services) being one. There are close to 3 million shippers in the United States with 75,000 brokers. With this and another 1.75 million truckers, WayFr is met with a potential user base larger than 5 million users in the States. In monetary terms, this industry is valued at $250 billion, growing at a 5% CAGR. In India too, the next stop for WayFr, the spot market makes up to 30% of the transportation business.The inherent problems of the freight industry are common across multiple countries. With customization for local demographics, WayFr aims to provide a global solution. The team is, thus, looking to geographically expand in the Indian market in the immediate future and then approach Europe and LATAM.100X.VC ThesisWayFr provides an alternative to the black box like freight booking apps like UberFreight which are unable to provide much control, flexibility or choice regarding who the business or the transporters can partner with. Today, it has developed into a unified platform with automations for SME freight businesses to manage their daily operations 10x more efficiently at 10x lower cost.&nbsp;The founder has single-handedly scaled a business previously in the American logistics space. And with his experience from giants like Amazon and Blackbuck, his understanding of the logistics ecosystem is immense and gives us, at 100X.VC, confidence in his ability to execute. 100X.VC believes with Poorna’s domain expertise and network, this can be a third player between manual booking of freight, and automated options like UberFreight.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/XjSSU6qg1o4xwvMg_rA1i_v4zBFP_EAkW43_LZ4XHL6mmNrmxGqNBLdIiPps9yEthpuwFvxum_us-5sO1RwO2_cT5ASvszX-_6B14rwQrtWr5K_6Q49soIyDM6qfs430YhrQutoBoGrPI9MgZmbqO1aQP63mLGbbz2kRI3Ib6YHALATQYiSJxSo"></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wZyZNXSvB1gHlh7k7Ssp4snY1n9gBjseBNmF6te_q19FxM2u-MoEEE48UqdX5A4kLh1AEGTg14qLmiaO8v-npIdgzzeHFdComnSLNZnphbybHlDJ8MW0k-75qIYmRLB8ePgI51wZilbLasvu15Yoe4MSl-RPgxTScUyokVawJDYNUBTTxa7Q9Xg"></figure>Conclusion&nbsp;With the right mix of seasoned experience and identification of a huge gap to fill in the industry, therefore providing a massive opportunity, we believe that the WayFr team is on the right track to leave a remarkable mark in the freight management industry. We wish them all the luck and are excited for the journey ahead!

Carrier Connects is a SaaS platform for 5 million+ freight businesses in the USA.

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WayFr: 100X.VC Investment Thesis

IntroductionWith digitisation, the use of customer authentication has grown exponentially. Various methods are being adopted by numerous entities for such authentication. Password and knowledge-based authentication is losing sheen day by day due to difficulty of remembering them. 2 Factor Authentication which as an improved version over the above also forces the user to keep his mobile handy and is also prone to spoofing attacks.&nbsp;Face Recognition has come a long way. It’s a great biometric, all thanks to the level of accuracy it has achieved in the last few years. Face Biometric can eliminate high-friction authentication methods like OTPs, CAPTCHAs easily. However, Face Recognition algorithms face a major problem of Face Spoofing.&nbsp;Face Spoofing is an attack where a fraudster uses a photograph of a target person - printed on high quality paper, 3D Silicone Mask or shown using a digital screen and tricks the recognition system. In order to be a reliable mode of authentication, a Face Biometric system should be able to distinguish between a genuine face and a fraud spoofing attack i.e a replica of a face.Kartikeya, an ML engineer graduated in 2020 and took a job at a fintech company however, realised that it wasn’t his calling. On the other hand, he saw his father working for Indian Railways, where due to Covid, fingerprint scanner was difficult to use as an attendance system. That’s when Kartikeya thought that he had a solution to this. He tried making a Face Recognition Biometric system which his father found beneficial and decided to deploy it at work. This made him realise that it could be a feasible solution and therefore, resigned from his job to polish the product further. Soon, after deployment he saw someone marking attendance using a photograph, which gave him a new direction to create “SpoofSense” - an algorithm to recognise whether the face is genuine&nbsp; or a Spoof Attack.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/RNPuv3s3s2K-YWBK2xGB4TBd-wEbSHsiCdG5Zv4NKfCNR0TlfDXPqwoLZaeD-JQ0msWAZQ5yZDOW7WpHlu7S5u1rkuQ5RRc4_qhwCyU5CijOzpWiRA1rTyidg-fr7TfLhILPbe_kVqdYCD-BQhwRj1CeWTFuJeoc-pDtesntB0VPTdS_5z5rIvk"></figure>&nbsp;Market OpportunityThe Mobile Biometrics market is growing at a CAGR of 26% and will be valued at $74.5B by 2026. The Face authentication market will be valued at $17.5B by the same time.&nbsp;There are two types of Liveness checks, Active and Passive. Active check requires the user to blink eyes, turn head sideways, smile, etc which is being currently used at many places. Whereas, a Passive check requires no participation from the end-user other than clicking a selfie/short video. The outlook is bright for such Passive Face Liveness algorithms in India as well as overseas. With growing stress on digitalization in Asia, a huge market is coming up for Face Biometric Authentication in Banks, Fintech, Online Portals, Mobile Apps etc.&nbsp;100X ThesisSpoofSense easily performs Face Liveness Check with just an API call. Images sent to the API are classified as either Live or Spoof. It is a plug and play integration where each face gets analysed by Multiple Deep Neural Nets and the liveness score is calculated based on a single frame passively.&nbsp; It has a monthly/yearly subscription based Pricing Model.&nbsp;The product is a point solution with many use cases such as Remote customer onboarding, Video-KYC, Face Recognition Based Attendance/Access, Face Logins and verifying Digital profiles. 100X believes that this will be a critical part of any application in the future, as we make biometric/ face authentication a key part of any workflow/ app. Kartikeya has demonstrated the ability to build a differentiated product with an IP. 100X believes that SpoofSense has the opportunity to create a true deep tech cybersecurity company from India.&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/K9q0iHwWx4zrkJ0v05Ur32WDPYsmQWa8kuR5ClfRCMum3GErtG21HukJNpp_UeDn28ZESd4j6NM-T3W_Dzw0nbZWusVad7JM3JTxoQ6FvJ6tYGWj409AU7V0owup9uB26ZL66Ah46EIYVaPpL375k4lPRi50ea8OS7x6XG2bZ3hf1Jyk42hxL6k"></figure><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/BH_PaSFiTJH8rnc6cJCbV7YJ6_RnY8oHtmxt3V6pp5z4fHxJAZeCoJvsRL9pZpvjIktfRLANEWXwmPRSqTsEAtQUGaLaVVUYDaiRiU3Rpx4egGd0H-SyjmpZfiBs2y-76VMvNlpTTjTjOXdegYae7uHF0UjMziIyq1zXaEqSZvo6IqRMCmWK2h8"></figure>ConclusionSpoof attacks are increasing day by day due to various techniques being innovated by fraudsters. Fraudsters are now using Deep Fakes to authenticate genuine accounts. Hence, AI &amp; Deep tech based systems which can identify such fraudsters and their spoof attacks are the need of the hour. Businesses are fighting hard to protect the interests of their customers. Password &amp; Knowledge based authentication are going to be obsolete very soon and SpoofSense is here to fill the gap because of its unique nature to identify the spoof attacks behind the screen in a secret manner. Ultimately, one’s Face only will authenticate the Rightness and Realness of one’s identity. Face is going to be our ultimate identity in the future!&nbsp; &nbsp;

SpoofSense is a Deep learning SaaS that enables businesses to detect face spoofing attacks

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SpoofSense: 100X.VC Investment Thesis

For a country with abundant diversity, India indeed is limited by the lack of inclusion of the vernaculars. The usage of most of the platforms available for any service is heavily dependent on the user's knowledge of English, a language that isn't easily comprehended by the Indian masses belonging to humbler backgrounds. So when someone from a lower socioeconomic status has to look for a basic necessity like a job, they have to go on a tedious hunt or settle for less. Out of the numerous aspects of job hunting, resume building is something that most of them find very daunting. And when such a requirement arises, the "aam aadmi" chooses to ask around.&nbsp;Market Opportunity&nbsp;Before this pandemic shook things up, technological literacy in India was on a steady growth path. Vernacular and Voice were the next big wave for Digital India, and the use of smartphones in the lower socioeconomic section was on the rise with a whopping 88% of non-English speaking users. With the predicted increase in smartphone usage and the need for voice assistance and AI, this opportunity paved a viable path for Dhiyo.Things seemed a little bleak when the pandemic hit, but it became evident that the need for an HRTech platform that can be operated by blue-collar workers is now more than ever. With the pandemic impacting the lives of more than 555 million workers in India, our unemployment rate has reached an all-time high of 27.1 per cent. Being the majorly affected demographic, workers in the blue-collar industry have flooded to seek help from job portals that would require them to have basic English literacy. Thus getting access to a multilingual conversational AI platform to create one's profile and apply for jobs using the power of conversation feels like a dream.ThesisAround 2018 the founder, Santosh SS, understood that AI-enabled enterprise chat, especially voice-activated chat, was on the verge of becoming the next big thing. He then decided to solve job market inefficiencies for the blue-collar sector with the help of a vernacular conversational AI platform.Dhiyo.ai offers a platform that caters to not only the English-speaking crowd but is also inclusive of those that aren't. The users can create their profile and their resume just by a series of voice commands in their native language. Dhiyo utilises state-of-the-art AI and Machine Learning technology to provide employers access to properly vetted profiles without any dependency on mediators or job agencies.&nbsp;We were introduced to Dhiyo almost a year ago when they were at a very early stage. It took us just a couple of discussions to understand the value proposition behind this idea. The market gap that Dhiyo was trying to fill was very evident, and something just clicked.Current scenario&nbsp;Dhiyo was affected by the adverse effects of COVID-19 like any other business. Facing a stand-still in the first couple of months of inception is unnerving for any startup. But it was the founder's resilience that they now have a growth of almost 270%. Since June 2020, they have worked with the likes of conglomerates such as Amazon and Swiggy. With around 60,000 users and more than 250 employers registered on their portal, Dhiyo still has a long way to go. In a few months, they are about to launch an updated version of their app, adept with eight major Indian languages for both android and iOS users.&nbsp;Dhiyo, till now, has shown a testament to their resilience. We are proud of the work done by Dhiyo, and we are fortunate to work with such an inspiring team! &nbsp;

Dhiyo.ai is an HRTech platform that relies on multilingual conversational AI-powered technology to employ the blue-collar workforce.

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Why We Invested in Dhiyo

Managing a pool of commercial vehicles can be a challenge at the best of times. And if you add to this the external influences that a fleet manager faces and has little control over such as car market uncertainty and spiralling costs, the task can become overwhelming. The relevant software can play an enormous part in coordinating fleet management activities. So, what is the purpose of fleet management, what role does fleet management software have to play and how does it support the role of the fleet manager?&nbsp; Any organization that incorporates vehicles for use within the business requires some form of professional fleet management, which will help them control the entire lifecycle of commercial vehicles, reduce associated risk, improve efficiency, increase productivity and ensure compliance with legislation. Private vehicles used for work purposes, known as the grey fleet, will also require such management."The broad vision is to foster the adoption of electric mobility. We are currently doing that in the commercial and the fleet vehicle space. People who use electric vehicles and fleets face operational challenges such as finding the right place to recharge, vehicles can break down but you cannot take the vehicle to a mechanic as he might not know how to operate it, so the product that BatteryPool builds helps to address those operational issues for the fleet operators” Ashwin Shankar, Founder of Batterypool. BatteryPool is a Saas product that gives one platform for managing all aspects for one’s EV fleet operations and they also have some key hardware products that the EV fleet operators manage the fleet better.&nbsp;The Co Founders, Ashwin and Neil have been friends since the past 12 years, known each other from their undergraduate days. Ashwin Shankar is the founder/CEO of BatteryPool. He&nbsp; holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He has experience in hardware development for space environments at Stanford University (in collaboration with NASA) and the energy industry at Schlumberger Corporation in Houston, TX. He also has experience in building a non-profit in India that works on technology policy in the Indian ecosystem. Neil Nevgi is the co-founder and head of operations at BatteryPool. He obtained his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University. He has 5+ years of experience in the automotive industry working at Daimler/Mercedes Benz in India and Germany where he was managing operations in the quality team.&nbsp;After completing his graduation in Electrical Engineering. Ashwin went for his masters, completed that and thought of starting his own company in Pune. “Since both of us were here in Pune we started talking about Electrical space, the industry and various other aspects that could help, and as Neil was from the automotive industry he knew this space very well.” Ashwin added. BatteryPool was formed in 2018 with a vision of fostering mass adoption of electric mobility in India. They are building and deploying technology driven SaaS and hardware solutions that are crafted to meet the needs of EV fleet operators.&nbsp;Market OpportunityFleet Management Market size is expected to reach $34,629 million by 2022, from $7,755 million in 2015, growing at a CAGR of 24.5% from 2016 to 2022. Fleet management enables enterprises to track and maintain their vehicles in a cost-effective, quick, and accessible way. It involves functions such as vehicle tracking &amp; diagnostics, financing, driver management, and others. It helps business organizations that depend greatly on transportation to lower or completely eliminate the risks associated with staff cost, operations, and others. Reduced fuel &amp; overall running costs, enhanced safety, and optimized fleet operations, with real-time fleet tracking and monitoring are the benefits offered by fleet management.&nbsp;Electric Mobility in the world is getting too much traction, not only in India but globally. Government is trying to incentivize the adoption of Electric mobility, but at the same time the prices of the battery is also falling to much extent and that makes the economic use case of electric vehicles more viable. Growth in adoption of wireless technology, obligatory incorporation of ELD, need of operational competency in fleet management, and increase in international trades are the major factors that fuel the growth of the fleet management market.&nbsp;The impact of adoption of wireless technology in fleet management is expected to be high in the near future, owing to its advantages such as quick access &amp; response, wide-area coverage, and cost reduction, which help the vendors to increase their productivity, efficiency, and ROI. Furthermore, cost sensitivity among local players is expected to decrease, as the average selling prices of fleet management software &amp; communication technology are expected to decline during the analysis period.&nbsp;&nbsp;The BatteryPool ThesisBatteryPool Co Founders had applied for the Class 01 batch, at that point of time still they were operating their fleet in Pune, as they were in their early stage that time, so for class 02, 100x.vc once again reached out to them and since Aswin and Neil fulfilled the checklist 100x.vc thought that they would be fit for Class 02. 100x.vc had already been interested in this space but they were looking for a right time for this to invest. Battery Pool's unique SaaS play is a unique offering for the EV mobility space and their current pipeline engagements in India and Africa have been very promising. The team is sound and brings the capability of execution, and know this space very well.BatteryPool operates on a B2B model. Their business model is split into two broad segments - EV Telematics (Hardware sale at $150/unit) and Charging Telematics (Hardware sale at $150/unit). For managing both, the accompanying software application is $10/unit/month.&nbsp;They bought a fleet of 20 electric vehicles knowing that initial adoption would happen in the fleet use case, they wanted to understand the fleet operators space, and then they gave these vehicles to the delivery boys and small business in Pune, after that they saw what problems are they facing, what kind of solutions they can come up with, all the products that they build the platform, the hardware was specifically built or their own operations, it was basically to solve their own problems they were facing.&nbsp;Then after this they started marketing their products , and now they have a global customer base. Their initial revenue for 2018-2019 was 60k and it slowly and gradually moved to a higher side and became 6 lakhs and after 100x.vc investment the revenue is 10lakhs and growing. So initially they had 3 delivery boys and 20 vehicles, now they have moved from hardware to software 4 Enterprise with them.Powerhive is a large mini grid company operating out of Kenya. They have a fleet of 2W and 3W EVs being rented out to the local community. Traditional fleet management systems were not suitable to run EV fleet ops as they had no information on aspects such as the charging points, battery health and electric vehicle maintenance. Further, they were also looking to deploy battery swapping stations plugged into their mini grids so their customers can access fully charged batteries instantly.The BatteryPool solutions provided a full stack (S/W platform + Battery Swapping Stations) that allowed Powerhive to manage all aspects of their EV fleet ops. The solution allowed them to deploy and manage their EVs right away without having to build and integrate the entire tech stackConclusionBattery Pool is a platform which can add more value and can uplift the fleet industry. “ After the investment of 100x.vc things have really accelerated for us both on the fundraising side as well as on the business side as well,” Ashwin mentioned. They have also seen a good amount of traction in the COVID situation. BatteryPool comes with both mission and vision and a vast amount of opportunities seen in the upcoming years.

BatteryPool provides hardware and software solutions to fleets that enable them to deploy and manage EVs with minimal operational downtime and maximum utilization.

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Why We Invested in BatteryPool

IntroductionWe live in a world dominated by technology, where social media has taken up a considerable chunk of our time and minds. An average user spent 2 hours and 24 minutes daily on social media in 2020 (We are Social) and by 2023 there will be 5.3 billion total internet users consuming media (cisco). Audiovisual content on the internet has also surged exponentially since digital marketing and communications are replacing the traditional means. It is estimated that by 2022, 82% of all the consumer web traffic will be video (cisco). Generation of synthetic audiovisual content via artificial intelligence is another trend on rise and this generated media is popularly referred to as deepfakes.The listed staggering figures alludes to the progression and accessibility of information to masses. Now let’s consider for a moment what if most of the video content that we will come across becomes synthetic and is generated with such sophistication that we can no longer differentiate between real and synthetic content. This scenario is not far fetched and the future of online media is majorly synthetic. There are serious concerns that arise with this technological advancement, such as fake news, the spread of disinformation via deepfakes to name a few. Viewers retain 95% of a message through audiovisual content (insivia). What we see and hear build our perception and thus it becomes imperative to know if the content that is being consumed is genuine or not.&nbsp;Deepfakes can depict someone saying or doing something, which they may not have said or done in real life. Deepfakes hold enormous power to spread misinformation affecting companies and individuals involved with social media, political parties, celebrities, PR agencies, media houses, law firms, cybersecurity firms, and government agencies. During the recent US Presidential elections, it became a significant variable and corporations like Facebook and Twitter came under the government’s purview, where political parties accused the other of promoting such deep fakes on social media to leverage votes. The FBI has recently warned private business to be cautious of potential harm, which may come through deepfakes.To counter this problem, Kroop AI has the perfect solution. Kroop AI offers a state-of-the-art explainable deepfakes detector for audio and video data. It is an Indian DeepTech AI startup at the forefront of fighting disinformation using AI. Kroop AI's powerful multimodal deep learning based platform detects and analyzes deepfakes in detail across different platforms and information mediums. The solution also provides detection of subtle manipulations and a rich analytics interface to the user.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Kgzh3Gh2GJ8/YKNcnuDSxRI/AAAAAAAAAR8/lN9XVMkYZ9QM_84iU_GWZ9kNpF0Fb0_QACLcBGAsYHQ/w306-h640/1.jpg"></figure>&nbsp; &nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iCDSxnmPlcg/YKNcnk7hBrI/AAAAAAAAASA/UCoY_huQAQIxpPkgDpZA7Z4NaYnVtP1cQCLcBGAsYHQ/w306-h640/2.jpg"></figure> &nbsp;Where it all beganAfter over a decade in academia research, Jyoti was contemplating how her research could have a broader impact. Jyoti and Abhinav came across a high quality deepfake of a state premiere and realised the potential havoc which misinformation could cause. Abhinav introduced Jyoti to Sarthak and Milan, two extremely talented deep learning engineers, whom he knew from IIT Ropar. Together the team narrowed down the problem of deepfakes detection as a service.&nbsp;People have been using deepfakes with malicious intent to spread disinformation and there are very few companies/solutions that help detect these deep fakes. That’s when they realized that this is a gap to be addressed with a lot of potential to grow across different sectors.Market Opportunity&nbsp;In India, this sector is interwoven with cybersecurity. The Indian Antivirus Software market is projected to reach INR 14,782 crores by 2024. Deepfake technology falls under this market and is emerging as something that will be crucial to society in the coming days. A study estimates that the market in India for cyber security products will grow at a higher rate than that for services, as organisations invest more in products powered by specialized technologies.Kroop AI has four different products to cater to different stakeholders:<ol><li style="text-align:justify;">API integration that helps any video streaming platform to check for deep fakes and authenticity of the video by AI.</li><li style="text-align:justify;">A web app that gives a detailed analysis of a video or an audio for its authenticity. It’s a low cost developer free solution helpful to media houses and law firms.</li><li style="text-align:justify;">A web scraper tool, that crawls through the web, based on the information like keywords and geographic location to search for such videos and audios before it gets viral. It will be useful for all the political parties and government agencies to take down such content before it spreads.</li><li style="text-align:justify;">Lastly, a mobile app to give offline analysis on the go. All these four different products will cater to a huge market and help most of the stakeholders involved on a very large scale.</li></ol><figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xv-Kl2fNDT4/YKNcGoB_hlI/AAAAAAAAARs/881tSw9UwHACsn-7B9fzJLiZtx9QSGRewCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h210/3.png"></figure> &nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X8Rzmrypldc/YKNcI7HgmeI/AAAAAAAAARw/veWxcz4Y_tgrofiXqgi9AZJEcRWhTV-SQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h206/4.png"></figure> &nbsp;100X.VC Thesis&nbsp;Considering how rapidly deep-fakes are going to increase in the current market, it is a real problem that needs to be addressed before the situation gets out of control. Kroop AI solves this problem brilliantly by catering to all the stakeholders with their four products. Using the deep AI technology and recognizing the patterns, the company keeps on improving their algorithm to catch such deep fakes and the subtle inconsistencies.&nbsp;We believe that the company solves a very critical problem with great IP of the founders who hold the State of the Art in Deep Learning. Taking into account how deep-fakes leverage powerful techniques from machine learning and artificial intelligence to manipulate or generate visual and audio content; to counter such deep tech, the right knowledge and tech is required. The founders with their academic background and entrepreneurial bent, are the&nbsp; right ones to create a Deep Tech IP driven company solving a problem of the future.ConclusionWith the first mover’s advantage in Asia pacific, Kroop AI can acquire a majority of the market share. We believe the founding team is well versed with the technology and is full of potential. We are excited for their launch and journey ahead and wish them luck!&nbsp; &nbsp;

Kroop AI is a deeptech SAAS startup focusing on aspects of AI generated synthetic data.

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Kroop AI: 100X Investment Thesis

Introduction"If you think of audio as the way you think of, say, film, like we're still in the black-and-white period.What's the colour going to look like? What's 3-D going to look like?"- "Today, Explained" host Sean Rameswaram on Recode DecodeThe term podcasting was invented in early 2004. The audio wave was still not on the horizon. However, players like Apple had already integrated this rising content medium with their products. Soon started the hot trend of listening and creating audio content that we see today across platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Typically, the time frame for an audio episode is about 30-70 minutes. Most of these hour-long episodes are content-heavy, therefore posing a challenge for listeners to test their undivided attention and time. Since 2004 and the decade that followed, people have realised their limited time and attention capacity; owing to these constraints, they look for shorter, crisper, and to the point content. This shift in consumer behaviour is one of the elements which formed the basis of support for the short audio content market in general.Besides, it has been seen that people prefer consuming audio content for certain topics over a visual representation of the same. Audio saves time as there is no need to pay more attention; the audio proves to be enough. Consuming information via audio is liberating and gives users the flexibility to pursue other tasks.The discovery &amp; distribution of information via the current audio ecosystem is broken. The audio category is still waiting for its TikTok moment. Going viral in the audio space, unless it is a song, is unheard of yet. But, the possibility is not ruled out completely. Short audio content houses are working towards making quality content ubiquitous. Nooble is one such company.A little on NoobleNooble is a social audio platform where people create, discover and share information via short audio clips of fewer than 3 minutes. Nooble began as a place to consume open source university courses via audio. Today, they have moved on to build a platform for short-form audio content. It leverages the power of online communities and easy creation tools to deliver the next-gen social audio experience. Users create audio newsletters on nooble and share them with their followers. Listeners discover exciting content via a curated self-playing discovery feed. Nooble is also building tools to gamify the entire experience of audio consumption and creation.Nooble is built by a team of auditory learners. Harsh Aggarwal, Shantanu Garg and Vikranth Kumar together have experience building several consumer-tech, audio-tech &amp; deep-tech products in the past.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/os6yHPgoy5EihxATR0u7tShADAvnDlLKIywEMpYwlvoU_g6qrhYS31vg-Q2NN0bDPAAIOVM-OlaWbhxuK1RSn-EXDOBpJdXPZrfIT9ZUfsSVRoxJBg00E3OkRv4nYFfCstbgCQuYZDwNiBgJcbY6ydT-fA0wJfhGlAtU1k8m76c8r4c9fQtlsp8"></figure><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/bHx_u19eBRiKWiEeewhDnZdMZJhmAgNhmFx6UtkV87ETkwYGOdAOUtKHtRBiJ79WMMpe9C9oACewaAXH_1dy2TNlOdV2ZeBIQ5SRJo70daSgnnsajXvFkxnnTj4WQIjzP_hzSrTGOnUHoISe-3Q6VB2xV1rUl3DC03gbmahca2DNKrW_fa09rP0"></figure> &nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/u033BolrRcH64rXvZ5ivVHqoZTxkcpx3Uz1QL5sfgBPasJauuMStegOktgdSIbYe-NW7N3l9zYxqirxDx9hGMG8AiGiB3vtTL1scWf7xJfvITRhpLILmADFPNYXAj4kj0UvPH1R78EalL-CHWiermv6eH6ZZuwZvboSKLBN50NrhmFaAc3xh0e0"></figure> Market OpportunityThe audio ecosystem could be divided by the length of content(short, long) and the content delivery nature(live, asynchronous). Nooble is positioned in the short form asynchronous audio content quadrant.The global podcasting market was valued at $ 9.28 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 27.5% from 2020 to 2027.There are approximately a little over a billion people who have heard a podcast at least once. There are around 800 million people within this pool who listen to podcasts every week, out of which 40% drop out within the first 7 minutes, summing up to $3.1 billion. South Asian countries like India, China, Indonesia, and the Philippines seem to be key growth areas in geographies. Nooble's current user base is based out of the APAC region. In the future, they plan to expand to the Western audience.100X.VC ThesisWe have seen consumer behaviour shifting from long-form to shorter forms already play out for text and video. We expect Nooble to achieve the same feat with audio.Micro-casting is a concentrated shot of niche-specific information, and Nooble will give listeners exactly what they want in a few minutes. The rise of the creator economy will also speed up this change. More people will be able to start sharing their knowledge and build an audience using their voice. Nooble, with a great team and a great product, is helping these creators by making the barriers to entry to create and get discovered super low. Over the last five years, dedicated audio apps in China have been growing - online audio market users grew by over 22% in China in 2018, faster than mobile video or reading. Looking at China, we can further illustrate potential business models — partly through adopting an audio-centric approach rather than adhering to a strict definition of podcasting and levering the concept of community building. India serves as a huge market and 100X.VC believes this team will be a category creator. It's a chance to build a very engaged audience of daily listeners before the general population has caught on and the market gets crowded.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_mmGF6Jdi2xglzpkHjqdnvbqdlhaPc0Bd38noDzcd-99pXCPqYDwOKNJsE1-zXzDVHSHNaswbPWPiXavLPmz8dW3nAknKbjgO8Q_7KvRvIUEwjBfmZGUhSVcyeVyEut11oNdL_HPr-cj3NJax5MHCfiAFWhTTeGWANFH5d2xIUo915MsUCQhuwQ"></figure><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/rUEx7MgiVKoiTof86XRHIj4e6_S-8sulNR8ENp2qnoejZbp4gf1A9UQAF3AknpLhQKi3UuFSF85E2taINAMOltxGOQsL9-0BLlhjKfZVlqTtwi_5m-jtlIDK7LoZzL2gea2aIZckqNMQrNqVHP9A1qLwITB6aFEPb_rnC84ax9-l0jIv1IhQoOE"></figure>ConclusionNooble is attempting to hit a sweet spot for audio content consumers. The space seems very interesting and does promise users a good change in content consumption. 100X.VC wishes team Nooble a successful journey ahead.

Nooble is a next-gen social audio app to share your thoughts in 3 min audio-shorts

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Nooble: 100X.VC Investment Thesis

Introduction&nbsp;2020 was the year of HR’s total Digital Transformation. The pandemic forced every organisation to digitize overnight and put employees at the centre of all decision making. Definitions of work and productivity evolved. Work from home, and remote working became the new normal. And it’s here to stay. 73% of teams will have a majority of remote workers by 2028.While prioritising safety and well being, there is one glaring challenge that companies are being forced to deal with. It is the lack of human touch, lack of access to critical information and the feeling of being left out that employees are experiencing. An issue that’s costing&nbsp; companies $110B annually!Access to employee Tacit Knowledge is the game changer here. Tacit or Tribal knowledge is employee wisdom, best practises, observations, hacks and know-how which is stored in the brains and diaries of employees. These are the conversations around water coolers that spark new ideas, solve problems in an instant, and give employees a feeling of being involved. If managed and diffused effectively, this can help enhance employee productivity by 35%.&nbsp;Co-founders Ketaki, Omkar and Vihang experienced this problem early on in their jobs, where in spite of being in leading companies, information was siloed, which visibly impacted employee productivity and morale. They realised the need for a solution where knowledge is seamlessly available, and collaborative learning experiences can be built.&nbsp;They toyed with the idea with a pilot in 2018, and even though they got limited success, it encouraged them to come together and build this vision of a product. The need only got aggravated in 2020, as Work From Home became a norm for more people around them.&nbsp;Finally, with more research, market study and deep understanding of employee needs, they came up with BHyve. Inspired from “Hive Intelligence” of bees, BHyve enables employees to document and diffuse their tacit knowledge and engage in peer learning within their workplaces. BHyve today, is a web and mobile application that uses Artificial Intelligence to build collaborative learning bridges and ensure employees are engaged, productive and happy!&nbsp;Ketaki is in charge of Product Development, having 5 years of experience in product marketing and strategy. Omkar is in charge of Business Development and Fundraising having 6 years of experience in enterprise innovation, organisation psychology and startups. Vihang, who considers coding as his passion, looks after Technology Development and has 4 years of experience from top companies in Silicon Valley.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VzOd1GIZkIQ/YKQRHI-JJFI/AAAAAAAAATE/KKbG9eWQacc8UOveQib-rTHMsCkirkdRwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/Login%2BScreen.png"></figure> &nbsp;Market Opportunity &nbsp;Covid 19 made the idea of Remote Working, from a concept to a ground reality. Overnight companies had to mobilise employees to be able to work effectively, communicate seamlessly and deliver success, in spite of not being physically together.&nbsp;Sustaining employee engagement and productivity has become the top concern of business leaders. However, this presents a tremendous opportunity for employee workforce engagement platforms, as informal learning and knowledge sharing is more effective and engaging that traditional learning routes.&nbsp;The Learning Experience Market is in its early adopter stage and is growing by leaps and bounds. Peer Learning as a method is very well suited in the future of work.Currently, the Corporate Learning Market is $50 B with a CAGR of 15%. Within that,&nbsp; learning experience platforms are currently valued over $ 500 M with 200% growth rate. By 2023, over 70% of the organisations globally will shift to a remote learning and engagement platform like BHyve.&nbsp;BHyve is the first Workforce Engagement Platform to enter the Indian market; a tough market for global competitors to crack.100X Thesis &nbsp;BHyve provides learning insights, analytics and sociograms to increase employee engagement, reduce knowledge management costs and foster a positive work environment. The features include creating personalised skill profiles, learning from recommended peers and content, a knowledge chatbot to document wisdom and peer recognition and rewards.&nbsp;The pricing starts at $1 per employee per month; but follows a slab-based pricing for organisations with larger workforce. It has a competitive advantage of being the first in the Indian market. It’s proprietary machine learning algorithms go beyond standard mapping to take employee development plans, learning goals and clusters to measure employee compatibility. Its Buzzbox offers just-in-time problem solving, to cut repetition of work, and time lost in searching for information.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WY9Tmw1iDDc/YKQRhIpm7sI/AAAAAAAAATM/V1eqy24tqRIdvFCHDrjNMZ08IL9CGB33QCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h606/Buzzbox.png"></figure>We believe that <a href="https://www.bhyve.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">BHyve</a> is the right product to fill the gap of remote workforce learning and engagement requirements and could become a leader in global SaaS offering from India. They have a vibrant team with complementary skills. We validated it from a few HR heads &amp; leaders in the industry who found it to be something that motivates and energizes the workforce by fostering a culture of learning. It enables social sharing between peers and managers to quickly disperse knowledge within the organization. Their strong sales pipeline indicates their deep understanding of the market. Their technology is highly integrable, and easily moulds into the HR, communication and process platforms of organisations.&nbsp;ConclusionWith combined experience and expertise in organisational psychology, product management and technology, we are confident that they create a perfect recipe for an HR Tech Company to succeed!&nbsp;Their commitment and enthusiasm will definitely make the workplace more approachable, interactive and efficient for everyone! With their promising product, customer pipeline, and the right timing, 100X.VC believes this is a space whose time has come!

The future of work is remote, collaborative and social. Access to tacit knowledge, is the edge companies need to flourish in this environment. Our vision with BHyve is to facilitate an approachable culture that encourages free knowledge sharing and celebrates altruism at workplace.

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BHyve: 100X Investment Thesis 

Introduction&nbsp;For catering to online buyers, establishing an efficient e-commerce channel has emerged as a necessity for businesses. This has led to a rapid increase in the number of traditional as well as modern businesses setting up an online shop. This introduction of virtual shops, undoubtedly, along with facilitating a wider reach to businesses, has simplified the purchase journey for their customers. However, when certain subliminal touchpoints, like the entries in the search bar, are not intelligently developed it can lead to a surprising portion of revenue loss.43% of the visitors on the store go directly to the search bar in order to find directly what they are looking for.&nbsp; That means, roughly half of the people visiting the online portal come with a preset mind and head straight to the search bar. Once the search is entered, it is on the website to produce relevant results. 72% of the ecommerce stores completely fail in finding relevant products. This has an impact on their revenue as online stores lose 35% or more of their sales.&nbsp;Wizzy, founded by Alok and Aenik, is an intelligent ecommerce site search that understands what shoppers are looking for and surfaces the most relevant set of products with 90% accuracy. Ecommerce websites can integrate Wizzy with 0 lines of code, personalise it, and set it up within just 2 hours. Stores can personalise elements from search result pages, advance filter option, autocomplete, mobile experience, and more. Both of them have been serial entrepreneurs and have been working with each other for the past 7 years. Their technical dexterity and a successful exit from their previous startup makes Alok and Aenik a perfect fit as founders of a company like Wizzy.&nbsp;At present, Wizzy is present on ecommerce sites of 10 stores across India, Brazil and Portugal. They are handling approximately 1.2 million search queries monthly and thus helping stores generate an average of $250,000 worth of revenue through search.&nbsp; &nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/W5ElLq6jDLvGiHw3zTSUc3C0AR2Gy-arLcCCRzyVO36gTnx5fXVhhbmHGsQ5rSwTuFt8FwOaMTXTMhLJ92p2vMe_rhnBLtrwEay_4vAAHkdQedXB8abGwXguwrZMiNu9Bi6UJybwZWn8mHxjmP-FtS6te2dRnPg8636BMRc3tJkFTfZP6f-sFTg"></figure> Market OpportunityFrom a larger perspective there are more than twenty million ecommerce sites worldwide. For Wizzy, prime facie, all fit into the category of being their potential customers. However, currently Wizzy is targeting 2.5 million fashion stores which are built on Magento, Shopify and BigCommerce. With an average of $99 monthly subscription, their beachhead revenue opportunity becomes $2.9 billion.Furthermore, diving deeper into Wizzy, it provides an AI semantic search, smart &amp; adaptive autocomplete, 360° search analytics and a dynamic data mapper. They also equip businesses with efficient product recommendations and merchandising, all of this with a very high speed. These features allow Wizzy to have the potential to help businesses in various sectors. In the future, they plan to expand into other categories like home &amp; decor, beauty and cosmetics, which leads to an overall revenue opportunity of ~$14 billion.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/q40l51_rlokk0QhLaYxXx76YqLMsiSjVeI8W56VuBBJcL3W9CszLRh84oAA7kTIxVOtHGHlVxWWVlRIlCFZ3tPcARz0nS8dWuWQzdNyCwljBVoKxs1XHdpDfKGkovDQlvxW_v98c1hbGBffNsEizs3C15ooOHA9E19aXPqjyaY6CUdRE3CCkOwQ"></figure>100X.VC ThesisD2C brands and E-commerce marketplaces take into account a number of parameters before making an apt product recommendation to a shopper and the opportunity in India is huge for the same. AI-driven personal recommendations are helping e-commerce marketplaces engage their customers better. 100X believes this opportunity to tap into the large non consumption market and providing discoverability of products will pave the way for the wizzy team. The founders have built the product and with initial POCs, they are projected to grow quickly within the next 90 days.Conclusion&nbsp;Wizzy is building something which is highly relevant in today’s retail space. Smart integrations such as Wizzy seem like a very interesting space. We wish all the luck to the team!

Wizzy.ai is intelligent site search for eCommerce Stores

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Wizzy: 100X.VC Investment Thesis

Introduction<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--56zR8y7yMY/YC96xdaM3dI/AAAAAAAAAMI/gD9PdOeko8UrrySV-AsmSmcDRGvZjwR5QCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/WhatsApp%2BImage%2B2021-01-27%2Bat%2B4.08.54%2BPM.jpeg"></figure>During the pandemic, globally there was a realization that traditional ways of operating models are unsustainable. Even if pandemic ends, risk of emergence of a similar virus exists. All major companies are already working on implementation of a hybrid working model. Hybrid working models will be the new normal but the basic human need to engage, meet and interact with humans is deep rooted. Thus with the advent of pandemic, video based solutions are fast becoming the normal way to communicate, whether it’s a business meeting, chatting with friends and family, or attending classes. But can it actually be used to give a boost to existing business, replace wide spread chatbots, and fill the gap for personal touch ? The answer to all those needs is Salesassist.ai founded by Deep, Ashish and Chetan.&nbsp;&nbsp;Deep Malik is the CEO and co-founder of the company who was the Group Project manager at Infosys for 12 years responsible for delivery of multiple Fortune 500 financial banks engagements . Ashish Nanotkar is the CTO who holds 13 years of experience and a proven track record as a DevOps Specialist and Transformation consultant for various companies like Seagate technology . Chetan Jangir is the COO &nbsp;who has worked in IT Industry for 9+ years in organizations like GlobalLogic and Publicis Sapient .Thus these 3 experienced individuals came together to create SalesAssist which was born &nbsp;to solve the problem of pre-fed chatbots and falling e-commerce business by engaging website visitor over 1:1 live video chat with customer success team and giving retail store like interactive &amp; personalized shopping experience. Thus in an era where personalization became the need of the hour this unique solution to engage the customer could truly become a game changer in the industry .&nbsp;Market Size<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bWUyJKXTSY8/YC97Fi8CwuI/AAAAAAAAAMU/szlOevToQ8050dBHfQNMORbQFpWwFTLkgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/unnamed-8.jpg"></figure>Global Conversational AI Market was valued at $3.89 Billion in 2019 and is projected to reach $18.02 Billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 21.02%. While the overall Indian e-commerce is expected to grow to $99 Billion by 2024 growing at over 27% CAGR . But across the globe last year, e-commerce businesses have lost $750 bn in sales because of poor personalization experience and average conversion ratio was at all time low of &nbsp;2%. There are multiple billion dollar e-commerce businesses which require hi-touch service support , consultative discussion &amp; visualization case in point Real Estate, Tour &amp; Travel ,Luxury fashion but only 21% of customer service interactions are actually personalized and discussions contextualized. Thus a market filled with players having insignificant online presence with low level of personalization being the challenge, &nbsp;provides a huge market opportunity .Investment Thesis&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q2SukW99nkY/YC97M1UEt_I/AAAAAAAAAMc/_91qxEdTvjQcNFlVEkG8GrIbAuklwNrqACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/unnamed-9.jpg"></figure>Today, we live in an age of live video conversations but current client engagement on e-commerce sites happens over phone, chat or email interfaces which are less interactive and engaging . Ecommerce sites are trying to solve the problem by adapting Chatbots . But mostly all Chatbots act as Support helpdesk and respond with pre-fed answers and secondly, customers need to type manually to get their queries answered . When we came across SalesAssist.ai we realized that their product offers a unique balance between conversational bot and live human interaction along with tools such as video messages, nudges etc at extremely affordable prices. They had B2B subscription revenue model which had 3 modules Limited, Basic and Pro .Limited module was free per agent per month mainly used as a promotional strategy but was limited to only 20 lead capture form submissions .Basic module was Rs.499 per agent/month which covered 200 lead capture forms with Realtime video/audio/text message capture along with call waiting and exit intents with video call schedules .Pro mode &nbsp;was Rs.999 per agent/month and offered all the features in previous modules but also offered Co browsing ,file transfer, Queue visibility ,Auto recording etc. Now having a multi-tiered pricing model right at such an early stage convinced us of its ability to upsell,cross sell to existing customers and also target not just a niche set of customers but the wider range of players across the industries thus having the potential to form a horizontal leadership &nbsp;. &nbsp;They had made the platform very secure by providing client facial recognition. Additionally, the app-less and API based functionality made this product convenient in terms of accessibility as well. Having the flexibility via their API based functionality was the key to target sectors where integration still remains an issue &nbsp;. They currently have great traction with over 10 major B2B clients already onboarded and multiple large e commerce clients like Shopify in their pipeline .Their new product which offers live commerce is about to be launched which we believe will truly be a game changer in the indian shopping space signs of which are already seen in other major Asian markets like China and Indonesia . But the most important part was this exceptional team showed &nbsp;immense understanding of the market and capabilities . They had embed “Video driven Experience“ in every step of an online shopper’s journey thus providing an AI-based multi-channel live customer engagement solution for businesses.Conclusion&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3fSr0ApkztM/YC97Sx0ql4I/AAAAAAAAAMg/5yfV5uCPmzkx0zQ49FDLrKsHNJR4EGvtwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/unnamed-10.jpg"></figure>An experienced team with huge organic traction in the first year of working indicates the true need of the hour that is filled by this product. As Sanjay Mehta famously says ideas are of two kinds &nbsp;pain killers and vitamins. We at 100X.VC feel that SalesAssist.ai could be the ultimate pain killer bringing the human touch into shopping.<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hrRXxBgXm30/YC97ig9bTpI/AAAAAAAAAMw/9faXprQmEf0dYOoPVbtkrzvZunXRct0xwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/unnamed-11.jpg"></figure>

SaleAssist is an AI-powered Live Video Commerce solution offering the best of both worlds by delivering the convenience of online shopping & retail store-like assistance by engaging site visitors over 1:1 Live Video calls & giving retail store interactive & personalized experience

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SaleAssist: 100X Investment Thesis

IntroductionIn the past decade, the world has undergone a paradigm shift with digitization becoming a way of life. The segment of healthcare that specifically concerns doctors and their practices has for long been on the cusp of digital transformation with the need for alternate media to connect doctors with their patients looming large, but to little avail. Moreover, the accomplishment of greater accessibility, inclusivity and transparency figures in the same line of reasoning making pushing the frontiers of the intersection of medicine and technology more imperative than ever.In India, medicine is a trust-based enterprise especially in Tier 2 and 3 cities where people are usually uncomfortable with using aggregators for healthcare services, and that brings to the fore another enfeeblement of the current healthcare system underscoring the need for a doctor’s personal brand and identity. According to the ‘think with google-digital journey to wellness’ survey, 77% of patients look for doctors and book appointments using search engines indicating that the importance of social selling in the profession cannot be emphasized enough, but the status quo points only to stagnant practices as almost all of the doctors lack the means to capitalize on this significant change in patient-behaviour. Moreover, existing digital solutions list doctors with their competitors and constrain their patient engagement within their own app or ecosystem.In order to overcome all these challenges, which have become more pronounced in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and make medical practice easier than ever, Paperplane emerges as a one-stop solution to enable doctors to connect with care-seekers seamlessly while also carving an extensive brand for them in order to better their reach. Their product suite empowers brick and mortar medical clinics to build a powerful online presence, manage their day-to-day engagements, and provide a personalised experience to their end patients without the need of downloading any new application. In short Paperplane is building a Shopify for Healthcare. From one-click appointment booking and hassle-free payments to helping doctors build their brand and deliver prescriptions effortlessly, they take care of all the workflows so the doctors can focus on what they are best at - their practice. &nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/3QrDdEwboCr9BHTWypppScRTiGcOnfb6q7uIkDEs6fJghRY8nIF2nNGjxYHZ7OfvbP1vcVlsgEF1nuuNxSYP6BI559f0Ncih907Ujsj77_Ktin8Zn4FRfDX4e7wWm9OhNkKnfdvso1hZRlTFy4BoaE6_k1RIKVnJB3i-Ou1K1bgQJyZJozVkEvU"></figure>Market opportunityIndia currently has 900,000 doctors practising independently and the number is projected to reach around 1.1 million by 2025. This makes their TAM worth 3.5 billion USD just inside India and 36 billion USD worldwide.&nbsp;Around 1/3rd of India’s population is using Whatsapp- the rise of start-ups like bikayi and digital showroom shows that consumer behaviour has changed with the active usage of WhatsApp as an e-commerce platform thriving as a ramification. People are already selling products online, it’s just a matter of time they start selling their skills too.Paperplane offers a range of unique features with the needs and comfort of the doctors and the care-seekers meticulously weaved into them. Now doctors can interact with their patients without having them download any new application. Our “Apps inside Whatsapp” model along with vernacular language support effectively brings down the drop-off rate to zero and provides the next billion users of this country the perfect healthcare experience. Engaging with new patients has never been easier- our platform empowers doctors to start digital marketing with zero effort and improve their brand recall monumentally.&nbsp;&nbsp;We have made Prescription writing and medical record maintenance a fluid experience with our AI-powered consultations which are almost 3 times faster and better than any other player in the market.By reducing the cost of starting a medical practice to zero, Paperplane is all set to take the market by storm, and with more optimised operations, doctors can now save a day every week, leading to a 20% increase in revenue.100X.VC&nbsp; ThesisThe Founders Devansh, Dhruv, Aryan and Varun met in their undergraduate college and have known each other since then. Having worked on multiple projects together and won accolades across various international competitions, the group started up Paperplane in July 2021 in the Healthtech sector.&nbsp; The co-founders have a history of working in early-stage and growth-stage startups like Frontrow and Upraised across the development and product roles. Paperplane team are solving efficiently and additionally a space which has been tracked by 100X over the last one year. Their approach to go after Doctors is the right one and we are confident of the space scaling. &nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/UqSLk5lIQSqHpzEIW8ntsx7xBFkivJbzX-nqXCrdej9vCXDqtYJSRER2A1DTh7QuagNv9fxCrc0_jxCU-HkkRBFNZrdLnr66s6lnImLKYHFfKNU9KtoeKC240VUKfzgxPoesMFpWSvGoIGFXMl8af2HoqphhZ7sp5_HruESurhtBuZJYSAfpfKc"></figure>Conclusion“People lived in villages, then people lived in cities, now people live on the internet, through social selling, people have already started selling products online, it's about time they start selling skills too!". 100X.VC believes that Paperplane has the potential to fly high and reach great heights. The ongoing pandemic has seen a boom in the healthcare industry and made people realize its real importance. Paperplane comes with both a mission and a vision and a vast amount of opportunities seen in the upcoming years and we wish the founders best of luck.

Paperplane is Building Digital Clinics on Whatsapp

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Paperplane: 100X.VC Investment Thesis

IntroductionAs lockdowns became the new normal, businesses and consumers increasingly “went digital”, providing and purchasing more goods and services online. The opportunity came with a lot of hurdles for small businesses in terms of lack of clarity on how to set up a shop online, or revamping an already existing business on social media handles such as Instagram. Millions of businesses operating on Instagram face similar challenges while handling everything from taking orders to collecting payment. The hurdles include lack of automation due to which the whole process becomes time consuming, unsalable and monotonous. Sellers trying to market their products through influencers may get demand for their products, however they lack capabilities to cater to that demand. Timely response from a seller to the potential customer is also a major problem as delays lead to missed opportunities.&nbsp;When Supriya wanted to start up last year, she began her journey by researching on Instagram to look for products other businesses were dealing in. She came across many business accounts having up to 500k followers and observed that the owners and team were manually handling the process of fulfilling orders without any storefront or automations. These sellers were in dire need of Instagram specific solutions to serve their customers effectively. Surpriya roped in Abhishek to work on this gap.&nbsp; This is how the idea of Instasell was born.&nbsp;Instasell is a mobile first e-commerce website builder for Instagram businesses and is building solutions specific to Instagram in the short term for automated conversions, post scheduling, content analytics, marketing automations etc. In the long term, it aims to grow into a tool that can be used by sellers globally to manage and grow their businesses on all social media platforms like Instagram, Tiktok, Pinterest etc. Instasell lets its users convert their Instagram business page into an online e-commerce website in 2 minutes. All in all, it makes the process seamless by automating order taking, payments and logistics. Additionally, it helps in collecting user data which can be analyzed to get business insights. The objective is to make selling on Instagram a lot more simpler with three broad steps. The seller/trader just has to upload products from Instagram, followed by sharing an e-commerce website link. Henceforth, sellers can collect orders, payments and ship the products seamlessly.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8p1s5xyE_KS5sN8ZiP3eJyDJxxGl7yQm6BxHIfR-GV7pOPULszM3R0j1gddF30Js6Dq4zwe6XvTWkRkzgV6RsVdYPKSI59scJmNIV_EY48dZqma5CCPwsoUDx9LVYD5W0JZxjzb37gtvPFnHyLqVYmWX6qhvFlsGiq3sN1P_gHkQ-ZRkN8fBBEMsq=s320"></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEixEXQVA80mw5Y_Dw494IQTL9cbuzWF-JV-Ju9inNiHBQlswiN-dBFUetNCzwM43JSylSTLwLMy6r3C-1aSAtkqFkYKAyGjibp4hzJRE278NMktJmrX4pZDQvMWlEPmkfBy_5OBmhenBgxkRmkJh-6UGEud0Uy74yzcKcrvjpPiSfePKTULMWBhjaxg=s320"></figure> &nbsp;&nbsp;Market OpportunityThe social commerce market size stands at 600 Billion USD and is growing at the compounded rate of 30%. Out of 100 mn Active Instagram business accounts, Instasell is currently targeting 10mn businesses getting more than 100 orders every month. The annual subscription charge is around 200 USD while they also charge 2-3% transaction charge per order which makes this revenue opportunity worth 7 Billion USD.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifad5qggUt6fP29RbCwKf9ty-zfuKSBY_UOo6RVH-nQ_kleonCxuAy37TCkSvJTSZLwgcqoFZZ1va0__XfQXAUu-IStp1_1FkB5PgtWmTVquwWTtKcLZrQE4YBrVeLcxNhwQiTLT2u65eW-09eCIO1pg_0jGWwRUz7ZkIkMzTfTzrvH-vIHS7Es7hs=s320"></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxPtOk5kYe7HCjm5Uxl3uRy-1HaUqCP5E5X_zJwZ3rmzjqeymQ0eTL-fPGD10HApfaZtWVvmg-OUUA-RMZ1e6CeqQqqtbFyPHqLGrAfSqICxo_5n-HkXgJxata-ru-cT65DUq4AS85glH5czsWvupO1qB-Z9pmH0b812gO0lSVsZ8oKUL5x-xTnp1U=s320"></figure>&nbsp;100X.VC Thesis&nbsp;Instagram and other social media handles are witnessing a lot of traffic all over the world when it comes to people selling and buying. The founding team is experienced in both e-commerce as well as the technical background to build this out. Abhishek had run an e-commerce business on Instagram and scaled it to about $300k&nbsp; in revenue and Supriya had experience building tech for commerce at Amazon. Both the founders are capable of scaling the business in this new wave of social commerce.&nbsp;&nbsp;ConclusionThe severity of problems which businesses face while selling their products on Instagram or any other social media handles suggests that Instasell is working on a relevant solution. We wish the team luck!

Instasell is the Shopify for Instagram businesses

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InstaSell: 100X.VC Investment Thesis

Introduction&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xb4hi3oQRk0/YDYWd9wqqxI/AAAAAAAAANA/NKmS4B6JCqkIQfwbbtMb_2qVY89nmMUYQCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h400/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-02-23%2Bat%2B6.23.14%2BPM.png"></figure>Joseph Pilates &nbsp;famously said “Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness yet very few people are able to focus on it over long periods of time”, this quote holds true now more than ever in an era as the awareness on fitness and healthcare in general has skyrocketed post the pandemic. But there are major challenges in this segment where good trainers don’t have the bandwidth to serve more clients &nbsp;and even the best solutions are restricted to video calls. Every single year, millions try to get fit. Despite having so many options such as Gyms, video streaming and hundreds of fitness apps, a small fraction of them continue to work out for more than a few months.BurnCal which consists of Chetan, Kunal, Vichar and Anik had an answer to this massive challenge.Chetan is the cofounder and Head of Sales at BurnCal has over 4 years of experience in Business Development and Sales activities in his previous start-up Drone Nation. Kunal is another co-founder and head of technology development at BurnCal he did his Computer Science Engineering from IIT Bombay. Vichar who is another cofounder and the head of product has over 4+ years of experience in UAV/Drone Industry. Vichar and Chetan together co-founded Drone Nation, a drone based image processing company which later got acquired. Anik who heads their marketing and operations has more than 6 years of experience working in startups, SMEs and enterprise.&nbsp;After their first start-up Vichar and Chetan realized the stress associated with running a young start-up had taken a toll on their body, this motivated Chetan to focus the next few months on his health right from the exercises to the science behind food intake leading to him lose over 30 kilos in a span of few months. This further motivated him to get certified as a trainer and help others who faced similar issues. Anik and Kunal having regularly followed a workout regime for the past few years were truly fascinated &nbsp;by the overall effects physical fitness had on one’s productivity and well-being. When the entire group sat together during the time when pandemic was at its peak they realized it was the right time to turn their mutual passion into a great product that could truly help a lot of people struggling with their fitness but along with their passion what truly set them apart was their mutual experience in the Computer Vision Technology which combined with fitness could unlock the next big wave of opportunity in this domain.Market Opportunity<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-05f3GKu11E0/YDYW_YgtINI/AAAAAAAAANM/TZgfI1A_CPQ1kWD9sOYBpfaF847ozGZpwCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h400/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-02-23%2Bat%2B6.22.35%2BPM.png"></figure>According to the Valuates Report, the Global Fitness App Market size is expected to grow from $3.3 Billion in 2019 to $13.2 Billion by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 25.61%, while the Indian markets alone is expected to cross $1 Billion by the end of 2021. According to a latest study conducted by a top fitness magazine Healthy &amp; Fit predicts that over 60% of all current offline fitness medium’s will shift to a complete online medium by 2022 as over 70% of all customers are shifting to home based online fitness applications. These are huge trends that hints towards an existence of blue ocean in the domain.Investment ThesisBased on our extensive market research we found there were gaps in the online fitness space and realised that the key issue was people desired a one to one training regime that would custom cater to their specific fitness goals but currently the entire market was just flooded with marketplaces or aggregators which just provided a platform to connect or played pre-recorded videos with little to no personalisation. &nbsp;Another major issue was serious lack of motivation combined with the scare of pandemic that had led to a plunging gym market. With most customers focusing on home fitness, the trainers now had to look for ways to keep their existing clients hooked while utilising their time properly to maximise the revenues.Thus when <a href="https://www.burncal.fit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">BurnCal</a> connected with us we found that they had a proprietary computer vision based technology that could track 20 key joints of human body using a camera based device to understand the way a user moves during a workout, thus constantly providing a corrective posture feedback, count the user’s repetition and provide an immersive experience like having a human trainer next to the user. They currently charge their consumers $30 a month. United by a common passion for fitness, Burncal is founded by a team of serial entrepreneurs who are alumni of BITS Pilani, IIT Bombay and University of Rochester, NY. Burncal augments the expertise of a personal trainer using technology to provide a personalized fitness experience at scale like no one else. The proprietary computer vision technology of Burncal automatically checks the form, counts the reps and holds the user accountable while they workout. Instant feedback helps one improve their form, avoid injuries and get the results they deserve.The past 12 months have seen most of the fitness routines completely transformed. Accelerated by COVID-19, the entire fitness industry is moving online and growing rapidly at 30% CAGR. For many people, however, once the secrets of home fitness have been unlocked, they may never want to visit the gym again. They have the potential to disrupt the global $100 bill fitness industry, starting here in India.ConclusionExceptional team with solid experience in the domain coupled with huge market potential with the possible creation of a blue ocean makes 100X.VC excited to be a part of their growth story. We at 100X.VC believe that the founders have truly created an application that is poised to become the next breakthrough story of the Indian ecosystem.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mz59TAz0gO0/YDYXPw0-4PI/AAAAAAAAANU/6SdOfEXx6_QW9-SDt-_4-g1EXEq4p4pfACLcBGAsYHQ/w201-h400/unnamed-6.png"></figure>

Digital Workplace wellness solution that keeps a check on every employee along with customized daily workouts and nutrition guidance.

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BurnCal: 100X Investment Thesis

Introduction&nbsp;The rise of ed-tech was in the making way before the pandemic aided its massive boost. Indian students and independent learners have found a gold mine in the form of this new learning method enabled by the diverse range and full stack products made available by domestic as well as international technology companies. Furthermore, the pandemic has made users well-acquainted with the idea of distance and flexible learning.&nbsp;However, with the increasing acceptance of the new learning methods, ed-techs too, have started to account for the growing popularity in their revenue models. Today, the average cost of a course on any e-learning platform in India is around Rs.41,000.&nbsp; So, if a student ends up purchasing multiple of such courses, or even a single one, it turns out to be tremendously expensive. Thus, creating an obstacle for students to adapt to such a widely accepted and accessible learning method. On the other hand, a majority of the Gen-Z learners prefer the online courses as a part of their education. Therefore, this clearly translates to a huge gap, the size of which will only increase in the future, to be filled.&nbsp;Rohan has been an education entrepreneur, leading over a hundred institutional partnerships and has worked with around 4500 students in his journey. Priyes, was a founding member at WhiteHat Jr. and has built systems that have scaled to handle over millions of students in the present day. Rohan and Priyes, together, are building Super Scholar, a managed marketplace of ed-tech scholarships. Super Scholar partners with ed-techs to create and fund a large pool of exclusive scholarships. These scholarships make up to 20-100%&nbsp; of the course fees. With Super Scholar, the applicant can apply for multiple scholarships and repeat the same via an all online process with immediate results. At present, the company has tie-ups with ed-techs like Vedantu, UpGrad, Skill-Lync and Edukemy.&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/nQ0BD3-mJmY29E3mYEPoKuuoZ3zNtBju47jbOYgTwjqrr6rn4DBxYHJblNzcHCoiZ2idN660duEx6RQ8JJXKMZFeltQc4eTLvt9Xw0gHLexogmMFDryOxnjqPy_vS8cl_nWfbQ17joWQja2Vtjyn9skVjJMdq77B5XXAVPGlca4Uwv6QYaSuobk"></figure>Market OpportunityThe market seems to have a promising future with ed-techs alone clocking in a revenue of $3.5 billion in FY21. The growing accessibility of internet has pumped the number of connected users within the nation including remote areas. Students across cities and towns have expressed their desire to go beyond the necessary and formal education. India’s ed-tech student population is expected to reach 190 million by 2023.&nbsp; This makes the journey for ed-techs quite exciting. In addition to this, the development of features in accordance to native demand has enabled companies to reach a larger audience. Thus, a development in the favour of this space is a good signal for Super Scholar.&nbsp; &nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Sj954iPskleDPIir1JfkWb8X0E0w89zGeW-EfWSZd7E1wrAjzWgrVpbiK2IwtwtDC0fqSN1GOxHFPpxE4UD7JdRQdhHjTgZYDLqYpPqYDTOd4NN0Z2XK3m6OOTfuhPWRAjiIu4_CZCr9kts7k3qnGLQigGKFbwj1zdhkUfCCH6MgfRWsIJPZdcw"></figure>100X.VC ThesisStudents do not have a great way to fund their learning outside of debt or parental support today - this includes not just college fees, but also tuition fees, funds for any textbooks, tools, fees for online courses. Super Scholar provides a unique solution to this by providing micro scholarships.With this unique model, and the right team to execute it, 100X believes Super Scholar has the opportunity to change the face of education finance in India.ConclusionThe space appears to be extremely exciting and with a product like theirs, we are confident that the team will have an even more exciting journey. We wish them all the very best!

Super Scholar is the go-to place for Gen-Z students to win EdTech scholarships

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Super Scholar:  100X.VC Investment Thesis

IntroductionPet-parents are looking for healthier &amp; tastier food options for their pets given the rising concerns regarding health &amp; palatability issues associated with commercial dry food (kibble). As of today, parents must make the hard choice between convenience vs healthy in form of kibble and home cooked food respectively. This task is further complicated since pets cannot speak for themselves and parents must do in-depth research for finding the right diet. Failure to do so results in parents switching food options in a 3 months interval. Overall, finding and sticking to the correct diet for pets is a complex and tedious task.Healthy Barks aims to help pets lead a healthier &amp; longer life by providing high quality food options while simplifying the end to end feeding process for parents. Healthy Barks leverages leading nutrition science in recipe design for ensuring complete &amp; balanced nutrition and all recipes are tested extensively for taste and safety. The food is prepared in-house, pre-portioned, blast frozen for freshness and finally delivered to customer’s doorsteps in weekly batches.Pet-parents looking for healthier and tastier food options can either buy directly from the website our connect with our nutrition experts for understanding their pet’s unique dietary needs. Parents can choose from amongst our 9 subscription plans as per their needs and have free access to our pet-expert team for any food related issue.Where it all startedIn Jan 2020, founders adopted 2 “fur babies” and started their own pet parent journey. Along the way, they observed mealtime tantrums and health issues which pointed towards poor quality and palatability. Founders were not able to find the appropriate product out in the market and had to start from scratch for building a healthy &amp; tasty diet at home. The entire process took more than 6 months of research and took 90 minutes daily in cooking time. In order to ensure that other pet-parents don’t have to face the same uphill battle Chinmay &amp; Saurabh started this venture. Healthy Barks understands that pet parenting is a full-time job and therefore wants to provide end to end coverage for food related products and guidance under one roof, so that customers can focus on the most important part of being a parent, spending time with their “fur babies”.&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/51beBPxafF8ipQF9UlPUdVCLDrtFaLDFM9_8p4qX19oO_1wxSlBddYuTtKoNMSsa9tgH_5W12BAxcMHwxABlaMgX2ZepPvkS8SV3KvmNlImEyrsqaQpdCsr0hhBd9hROG5aVxx5m8LF3IVlYyGw_fMXC8I-Z6d1HxDnCJPdguuhBAC6U7OkExP4"></figure>Market opportunityPet owners are striving to provide healthy &amp; nutritious meals for their dogs. Because it is difficult for them to grasp what is good and what is not, the pets may not have a proper diet. Furthermore, the process of locating nutritious meals takes time and effort. The food available today is overprocessed and laced with toxins. Home cooked cuisine is unbalanced and difficult to handle. Healthy Barks provides balanced cooked dog food for which is healthy and available by an effortless process. There will be 25 million pets in India by 2021, which will increase to 60 million by 2026 as more people are opening up to the idea of adopting pets. By 2026, the TAM will be $59 billion.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Yybz-DAf80ivwmToFiNS83rDBOD9_Jb2-dDelSCNOoddvOhvHCs7dig_-fCAEGXpkt2m7MNy3WMXXsetGk_vO63BCC5I3i1XqYrqeve2IXEPCPJduslptz3h3QjhZ5oz5iQavaV_GkJf6lfthlz-Zk9wTkHZnU9Zj8VKOh13jiRnQIStOVttHGo"></figure>&nbsp;100X.VC ThesisPetcare remains a big possibility for India, and the emergence of nuclear families is seeing an increase in pet adoption, therefore petcare is becoming more customised to each type of animal. The creators have solved the issue of supplying balanced nutritional food to family pets based on their needs. The founders are capable of making a scalable business out of this, therefore generating a brand. 100X.vc believes in the space and in the entrepreneurs' potential to build.Conclusion100X.VC feels that Healthy Barks has what it takes to build a differentiated product &amp; brand offering in the existing fragmented Pet food industry, with a great combination of expertise, knowledge, passion for dogs, and drive to make a difference in the world. Based on their emphasis of improving the existing state of pet food and pet parenting, this growth will be born slowly but steadily, and with Chinmay, Saurabh, Ruby, and Shubham's leadership, we firmly believe in their aim and wish them good luck!

Healthy Barks is a fresh food and wellness brand for pets

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Healthy Barks: 100X.VC Investment Thesis

Introduction&nbsp;In India, the availability of trustworthy domestic help is definitely a pressing issue&nbsp; in most households. The need for&nbsp; such assistance has further gone up, owing to the pandemic.&nbsp;Families, since years, have been hiring domestic help through referrals from security guards, other helps, neighbours and other local agencies, which prove to be majorly incompetent. The help which is typically hired is not reliable, skilled, or verified. 3,25,000 thefts by house helps are reported annually in India. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that 41% of urban households are not satisfied with their helpers. There is a complete erosion of trust in the ecosystem, after several trials and errors the entire process tends to get exhausting. There is a need for a method which would enable an uninterrupted flow of well-trained and skilled house helpers who can ease the worries of their busy employers.&nbsp;Vaibhav had been switching between jobs, looking to find something that might be the perfect fit for him. Together with Saurav, his friend from Delhi College of Engineering, they started a not-for-profit organization and worked together for the underprivileged. It was here that they first realised how big this entire sector was and also saw a huge business opportunity in organising the blue collar workforce. Niharika had just moved out of her family house and was looking for someone to help her mother out, however had no luck. Sensing a real opportunity from this inconvenience, Niharika and Vaibhav, who were then about to join ISB, changed their plans to start this venture with Saurav. Today, the trio is building Broomees - a data-driven marketplace that connects families to qualified helpers. All of Broomees’ helpers are trusted and upskilled.&nbsp;While booking a help from Broomees, the customer can hire help for cooking, cleaning, elderly-care and baby-care. Employers can select their requirements, interview the candidates, rate their work, keep a track of the salary and attendance, and also make the payments online. On the other hand, the helpers registered with Broomees are all trained and evaluated as per the services offered. For them, the platform is available with an array of features inclusive of multi-vernacular support, audio auto-filling, option to upload documents and other admin related tracking facilities. They undertake a 4 step verification process - including background check, criminal record check, medical check, and past employers check which is automated through their workers’ app. In addition to this, Broomees provides the employers with live location based tracking of the helpers and a much needed Covid19- safe verification. At present, they are serving 1500 subscribers in Delhi with a service which is 80% faster and 25% cheaper as compared to any alternative to hire.&nbsp;On a broader level, other than solving a major hindrance for modern families, Broomees is working towards dignifying the professions of domestic workers, thus simultaneously helping formalise a crucial part of the labour economy consisting of&nbsp; over 90 million domestic workers&nbsp; which&nbsp; are usually unaccounted for.&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/FkCityxpdKxoILNW7lESd97hBvVPQ-6FpQY_UKJVzf-43UsaPucFQWI-Ijq9QXrwCDH3dpkO4Pc52C_QvCLhEkZjdEiyNj8IS6f9QpFveNfduZfZvymPvfMb6sAk_bFMyjxt2-LBOGa16ydrALAtEzqJOVZ0bOmvzcuRaMEt-81Mq4tbBb5yLzo"></figure>Market OpportunityPresently, Broomees is targeting 10 million households with working professionals, having a median income of $13,500 p.a. in tier 1 cities of India. The size of this market sums up to $25Bn. Being termed as one of the fastest growing sectors in the world, the growth trajectory looks promising for Broomees as they plan to launch in Bangalore in the following year.&nbsp;Standardising of skills seems like a potential operational challenge and thus remains a top priority for the team to solve.&nbsp; With online and offline training sessions planned to be launched in December 2021, it seems easier to overcome this hurdle.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/xL5Uij5VE-RzfDZ3T5qGYFl_tQQofpIMy15ZKA262Bsn3ndM8vkMtjtOgysU-JZieice1lYy5qsL-EYbb5E471akRlJlszh7opFTOvTw3GwhFz8PwUMhAsC3kCu_2-PjaksLOsgrKgO_Zuq5Tzfx8mR73OP22ALGPz8Q_7hc_lP-pUjYeGjznZ8"></figure><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/T7vn24QmxYZMaXdUeoLYLECL-tsuzYFcro0BQtwsG_UGkAFBgMpoLhzBzLdZZ8iZSWU8FdIDWenSXGPqepSM9CiABRrIh5sVDxF8QXi5nLd8AYPYMXjAm_MkAvldi4vnhkOvLiTAOAuHhXiIGEPPDgB91OoDIF-RKtpT5LigNQ2yeB9jizwl7sw"></figure>100X.VC ThesisThe founders - young but clear in addressing and solving the problem have actually hit the nail with Broomees. All 3 founders having excellent backgrounds and zeal, have defined their roles clearly and their roadmap is scalable. The problem is universal - tier1 or tier 3. Initial traction is putting them well above their competitors. The way they are going about addressing the problem both from the supply side and demand side gives them a unique vantage point.Conclusion&nbsp;With a genuine gap in the market being identified and an army of skilled Broomees helping households across cities, the team is looking at a great journey ahead to leave a mark. We wish them all the luck!

Broomees is the simplest way to get your life in order with the right domestic help.

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Broomees: 100X.VC Investment Thesis

Today, with even the smallest enterprise potentially serving a global client base, the need to communicate across languages and cultures is growing rapidly. However, cross-context communication is hard and costly. Unless great care is taken, many things can be lost in translation due to translation errors and/or differing interpretations of even correctly translated communications.The costs of translation failures are often more than just financial. Miscommunication can lead to loss of reputation, legal exposure, physical harm, or even industrial disasters. For this reason, clear, accurate and effective communication – between cultures, languages, disciplines, and industries – is an increasing priority.In response, many companies spend significant resources to ensure accurate communication within their networks of diverse trading partners: agents, partners, customers, and government agencies. Translation as a Service (TaaS) echoes of technologies and processes that adapt products and services for use in and by specific countries, regions, or groups. It is often a highly complex and expensive process that includes translating text and audio material, modifying documents and software to reflect localized conventions.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f2zkIORFA1I/YGLzvQkqcJI/AAAAAAAAAO0/bpuJe9gcCiEvnaBZudBlbCmg_xw_ODMLgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h316/Vitra-ai-images-1.png"></figure>Market Opportunity:Language Services have been around for a long period of time, and the providers for these services are companies that offer varying degrees of service: transcription, translation and interpretation, dubbing, language courses, language assessment, language technologies and more. Within language services, Translation and Interpretation services can be defined as the facilitation of communication between uses of different languages, encompassing both spoken as well as signed communication.&nbsp;As more and more companies make their services available through the Internet, the need for the translation of websites and web content has also grown. The growing demand for voice-based content is seen as an important driver for these services. Global market for outsourced translation and interpreting services and technology &nbsp;was valued at USD 46.52 Billion in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 56.28 Billion by 2021, growing at a CAGR of 7.99%.Businesses seek translation services in order to serve their customers and keep up with their demands. With growing customer outreach, the scope of translation services is growing in order to fulfil the needs of the customers based on their preferences of language.Growing engagements of local markets into businesses have also resulted in the growing demand for translation services. BRICS countries, mostly Brazil, India, and China have emerged as economic powerhouses. These emerging countries provide a huge opportunity to international businesses, which has resulted in the growth of several translation service providers here.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0faA5pUn1SM/YGLz20RwNAI/AAAAAAAAAO4/0lb247_SWLQZv6D2AzzCUy9zoaHqjMykwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h317/Vitra-ai-images-2.png"></figure>The Vitra.ai Thesis:Vitra.ai came to exist when Co-Founders Satvik and Akash were toying around with a bunch of different ideas. “Vitra.ai just seemed to check all the boxes,” Satvik reasoned for picking Vitra.ai over all others. Vitra.ai aims to translate videos to 50+ languages in 1-click. Their solution to an ever present, but now growing problem is a simple 2-step solution. Simply upload the video you want to translate and have it ready to go in 5 minutes. Vitra.ai’s &nbsp;proprietary translation software enables context aware translation in 1300+ voices with background music retention, time and pauses synchronization with lip sync manipulation.&nbsp;Vitra.ai is not just the first to market, but it’s also the only player in this potentially ever-growing market. The existing solutions are manual translation services and subtitle addition services which are expensive and extremely time consuming. Vitra.ai undercuts all these said “competitors” by being 100 times faster and 96% cheaper with near 100% accuracy.&nbsp;Charged on a monthly subscription basis, Vitra.ai offers 3 pricing plans, targeting a beachhead market of Ed-Tech companies, Course content creators, TV media companies, Digital media companies, Instagram and YouTube influencers.&nbsp;Reaching the world with your content has never been easier, cheaper and faster.Conclusion:Satvik and Akash, bench-mates since way before college, had been working on the idea for countless days and developing a remarkable product, when they approached us for funding. Vitra.ai is on the way to becoming one of the biggest players with the growth they have shown since inception. With much more exciting products in the pipeline, and some of the most talented and passionate founders, 100X.VC wishes them a path of exponential growth.

Vitra.ai translates Videos to 75+ languages using Artificial Intelligence with just 1-click. BFSI, Media & FMCG/E-commerce are their target customers.

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Vitra.ai: 100X Investment Thesis

Introduction&nbsp;To say that the car wash industry is fragmented is an understatement. In a country like India, with the growing number of vehicles and an array of unorganised cleaners, Car owners have a tough time maintaining their cars clean. Hiring and managing an&nbsp; independent cleaner amounts to an average Rs. 7000 per annum. A problem that looks inessential in the beginning, is a massive pain point for modern day car users and thus, comes with a $12 billion market opportunity.&nbsp;honc, co-founded by Viraji, Niranjan and Rahul, is a doorstep car wash platform which provides verified and standardised services with the help of trained staff. All of this is integrated with end-to-end technology. At honc, Viraji works on building the product, whereas Niranjan takes care of technology and operations. Rahul looks after sales, bringing in a curated set of corporate and gated-community clients. The team, with their defined roles, have much to bring to the table with their extensive experience from their work in marketing, management and entrepreneurial journeys.&nbsp;At present, honc conducts third party background checks and has an intensive training for 2 weeks for the personnel recruited. honc is a doorstep solution which allows car-owners to book car cleaners, track their daily car cleaning progress by a click on the honc app which enables them to be a part of a transparent process. The team has taken an extra step by involving women wash partners in this male-dominated pool.&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/Jx5UeLEq6-C9dm87QAnVF1rOypKlBvVAwMXUomAzT_oe6mk5bi5Zgdwpit7tUf4CQotKXUjaNdeN2zELZE-7AUQuCPWMaJt-bqmMU_dgkQOlDtWFLnkN6mJnsXQYyEe3GVVf8AWGlWFJy2_HduCQI8aPGovosL35Ta8Ge4jXKppYZE6fGT660RU"></figure><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/n0Z4aPnOgikL-t8mvL20DhWcRSPoKJBWKvSzUy_vIaiDk1Mo3TxD5NfZLcc8tR1YT15y9gQJ6Myw2HWWouRZ5eHoIpiLrXv2BwUDvpTbzdQ2_YNUOiNsYoMjVtiR3Qi_Oi8iL1YF-6wyCSJLxmKcbakPEZWIZ7B9GMoymFITpuRFRAExjKBy26c"></figure>Market OpportunityThere are approximately 26 Cr vehicles (2 and 4 wheelers) in India with a $12 Billion opportunity in the car wash space. This presents an untapped blue ocean opportunity for honc.&nbsp;60% of these vehicles are present in Urban India which is the primary target market for honc. honc targets gated communities and business parks to capture the mindshare of the primary target market.With their pre-paid subscription based revenue model, honc is targeting a cosmopolitan market with a dense and co-located demand. Their clients are looking for standard and organised services with a value for the price they are paying. Flooring their service with the above mentioned points, honc, today, has presence in over 60 gated communities with 3000 daily customers with a retention rate of 88%.&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/RRxKoTV-J7lWusLXhaj9s07ptVgwfUKj13OA63TG-daHaFDZc7KQMl4nVKxkW8vNlW2NeJ853jp6h0tXWzVhOjtQ41oVlsjTI49zVlo-l_VkfZGQFxBnaMK4KjQ2bXnz0NS4W2r-HnzHZpkmIAF6pJRc-yqURCHjZDKUh-3HiF8tByFqB_lFUXQ"></figure><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/s31gNoD29wzZ0R984N757R8NR3PqmTW6Vsmh3Xl7smNCIuGOZO7sRne34mi79KedPjMDQVIzu4kIuO5SdCBI1vektLpm9ctY_m4MSbr2MvUd6iidATxbT3blz7z--SLrqfAqYA_Eii06n1ZgCaXIyrSSIEgrwhEbS6RsNusTYcQIlF4beNoBFbk"></figure>100X.VC ThesisWe think that the team’s key strength is execution. They are successful with the proof of concept. It has a potential for being a large category creator in a very fragmented and unorganized market. With growing needs within the Auto segment post covid, honc offers the complete value chain between customers and service partners.&nbsp;100X believes that the founders will build out a scalable business.Conclusion&nbsp;The space seems interesting with a definite gap to be filled. The honc team and their experience makes the execution of this idea a fairly exciting journey. We wish the team all the luck!

Honc is India's reliable car wash partner.

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Honc: 100X.VC Investment Thesis

IntroductionThousands of years back, Romans created the first pension plan for their soldiers which is still used today by many organizations. When we hear about pensions, we feel confused, complicated and ancient. In Last 10 years alone, more than 28 million Indians have entered the retirement phase with zero or insufficient pension. Even today, 87% of India’s workforce is not covered under any government pension or retirement savings scheme.&nbsp;In the next 30 years, 186 million Indians will enter retirement without enough pension savings. With the rise in life expectancy, health expenses and insufficient support from the government, there is a need to re-imagine pensions for the 21st century. PensionBox is building India’s first digital pension app to digitize pensions and empower millions to secure their retirement with the right pension. Users can create their personalised digital pension plan within minutes to track pension savings, contribute and withdraw pension online.&nbsp;Unlike traditional pension plans sold by Insurance companies that lack transparency and flexibility, PensionBox gives its users flexibility to make changes in their plan anytime. It is a cloud-based, AI-enabled technology platform which provides a simple, flexible, transparent, and a secure way of retirement plafnning. Because it is paperless, instant and online, it allows its users to top up or change or pause their saving frequency at any time without any penalties. It is a low-cost subscription-based fee-only model. They have launched a beta product recently with 500 early users.They are building PensionBox at speed with high engagement from the early users community and will reach 1,00,000 users by June 2022.<figure class="image"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiY8BumistILn-qdPoYU_DxbxOmlC1CAByYdIIMW7Hj3y1p3XTwZG9jqcx7-Cb0W8kWlswseuvbORNGOxTRAweifNjetO-9TQojdGSPycO3WzoIuo3DkiCn_eYCbgrDk1o6j4xJUu4femjNQvhAYU5GVlmkvJ2yG-kDr7gbK9q6EX9jUW6QD8lcfjrl=s320"></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgpjXb_Vh3E8yq22Q5xI9yyh4I5R56yYfmH-ZXqDYF4jITvb2o-6Fjt_e93_tUBuN_et8YytHctxhiDYh14lN0yVHjFaDYp6B5eHl8s-oRzjqtuNDCVvlY_SxBVaQ_RhjTGgm57mPAvG0k4AelcAi1E6yV5oHjPvdtYHIzx7OmeaI0s7axIkdTCUsZr=s320"></figure> &nbsp;&nbsp;Where it all startedIn early 2021, When founders Kuldeep and Shivam were planning for their parent’s retirement during the pandemic, they observed there is a gap in the Indian market where it’s difficult to track one’s pension. As they looked deeper, they realized that they were not alone in this, millions of Indians don’t have a retirement or pension plan in place. The entire research process took around 3 months wherein they rolled out a survey to understand the demographics, savings plan, perception about pension to understand the market viability. Post this they realized that the problem is big enough to solve. Kuldeep and Shivam started this venture for millions of Indian workforce who can plan their retirement well in time.&nbsp;Market Opportunity&nbsp;Their target users are 80 million Indian workforce working in the private &amp; freelance sector and ready to contribute an average of 80,000 every year for pension savings. They want to start early with their users to have high lifetime value from the early 30s to the post-retirement phase. Today, India’s total pension savings are at $ 280 billion with annual growth of 32.91% and is expected to hit $ 1 Trillion by 2025.<figure class="image"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgT3c1QXKga50KPO2TDNp-4fW3K4sGP4OeqKxlb9BaKZT_PVGZcXlbuQj33c5ByQva5imnnrQtYr8yCA_PsCHekV91G_pOwrEC7xTGaV7Gmay-AyydCKiyK6CDaRGLoTPvZhDXj2XGV64YVZeBs20gL4RZf3EMiF5U-c5POF9EfabePjt2lr31oKiJC=s320"></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgFvgspURn1YwF9a2IFXdgHFSZgAw3p3V_qU6u644F4g34anFPiTO2Ye6j7op79sBPufrvTRkxpNfvzeeEKjJWCqYvUtll8naUtSaQFKwkdZhAkiBa8-MEX6pE-ejEhNFcHWQVGr9DPDBQLqnDLl9ttdvS7rv3A3qWk-gPyZXqQULCjKe7PkQvzz0DW=s320"></figure>100X.VC ThesisThis sector is totally untapped in India while we have seen businesses address this in other developed economies. The FinTech sector is expected to target the pension market soon.&nbsp; Having had experience in the same, founders have a clear understanding why and how India should and can leverage this offering to create stickiness. Financial planning has evolved and is fast growing in 2021 and PensionBox is offering the next platform for multiple age groups to start preparing for retirement. 100X believes PensionBox can be a category leader.ConclusionThe team has relevant experience to execute their plans and we are confident that the team will scale up the business. We wish them all the best &nbsp;

PensionBox is India's first pension app for the private employed workforce.