Bangalore – Tech Raman

Axis Bank launches Axis Startup Social, an unique networking platform for Startups

Lakshmi Rajan — Thu, 21 Dec 2017 16:50:38 +0000

Axis Bank, India’s third largest private sector bank has been passionately backing up and nurturing start-ups with their innovation lab “Thought Factory” and I been keenly following their pursuit for start-up excellence in the fin-tech space since the inception of the platform. To further boost the start-up ecosystem in India they have conceptualized and brought forward a new networking platform, Axis Startup Social, where start-up entrepreneurs could meet, network and share knowledge. The first of the Axis Start-up Social networking event happened in Bangalore at the vibrant WeWorks, a co-working space which itself bustles with many start-ups and people incubating their ideas there. So naturally, it was a perfect place to host the very first Axis start-up social. Speaking about the initiative, Sidharth Rath, Group Executive, Corporate & Transaction Banking, Axis Bank said, “We are excited to launch Axis Start-up Social, a platform through which we hope to provide the much required, ‘extra edge’ to the start-up community by hand holding them, sharing knowledge and providing the required financial solutions. Today, the Indian ecosystem is flooded with innovative ideas but what is missing is the presence of the right channel and guidance in terms of acceleration, scaling up and funding. Through Axis Start-up Social, we endeavor to create an ecosystem to encourage innovation and the next-level-of-growth opportunities to start-ups that are ready to take that leap.” The evening buzzed with over 100 bright minds among the start-up community, who had gathered not just to network and get to know each other but also got an opportunity to listen and interact with Vivek Gupta, founder of Licious Foods who shared his start-up journey how he waded into uncharted challenges when he chose to enter a business of meat in a supposedly land of vegetarians and made a successful venture in a food space. Also on stage was Amit Rohatgi, whose start-up Divrt, provides smart parking solutions for urban commuters who enthralled the audience with engaging conversation. The event concluded with a befitting corporate comedy by stand-up comedian, Vikram Poddar whose jokes would have resonated with many of the audience who would come across such experiences in their real life in their corporate and start-up life. It’s yet another commendable initiative by Axis bank to bring in like-minded start-up minds and have an engaging evening. It should also be noted that recently the bank also launched its Axis Startup Banking product earlier this year, which is bundled with all key technology enabled products and caters comprehensively to banking needs of startups. With new initiatives and outreach programs, Axis bank is proving themselves to be the pioneers amongst the Indian banks to relentlessly back and support the startup ecosystem in India.]]>

Hello India! Vivo Opens their first 'Experience Center' in Bengaluru

Lakshmi Rajan — Sun, 05 Nov 2017 07:15:11 +0000

Many people like to spend time on a Smartphone before buying it but not all the retail stores offer the handset to explore it, that is where the ‘Experience centers’ comes into picture. They offer a good ambience and people can spend time in leisure and check out the phones before deciding to buy. Vivo has launched their first experience center in India and is located at Brigade Road, one of the most popular high-street retail hub and business district of the city. Incidentally, they also have OnePlus experience center as their neighbour in the same stretch. Spread across 3,600 square feet, the “Experience Center” features retail community zones where prospective buyers can access the entire range of “Y” and “V” series of smartphones. The inauguration also saw Sruthi Hariharan, a popular actress from the Kannada film industry. “The launch of our first ‘Experience Center’ in India is for customers to experience our products before making a purchase decision. We will be launching additional ‘Experience Centers’ across key markets in the country in the coming months,” said Kenny Zeng, Chief Marketing Officer, Vivo India, in a statement. The company currently has 80,000 retail stores across the country, including Vivo exclusive stores. The company currently has 80,000 retail stores across the country, including Vivo exclusive stores.]]>

With this App you can go cashless at restaurants and split the bills with your friends too

Lakshmi Rajan — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 19:03:29 +0000

You are going out to eat with your friends and when its time to make the payment, either you pool in the money by cash or one pays by card and then later you split the bills. Phew! And you know its a hard task either-ways. After couple of pegs and when the bill finally arrives you tend to feel you are over-billed for pegs you never had? The small scribbles of the order you made on the tissues gets messy at the end. You are hesitant to handover your card to the server for making the payment? A Bangalore based startup, Noroc Solutions Pvt. Ltd. wants to make your life easier atleast when you go out for food or drink. Keeping in mind the common scenarios like some that we listed above, they have come up with an app, Binge, available both for Android and iPone, focused on the food and beverage industry to make it cashless plus with many add-on features. Once you install the app, you can see the list of restaurants and pubs that supports this app in their transactions. Currently, the app is restricted to Bangalore but it will be just a matter of time it will be scaled up to cover other cities. When you are at one of the listed places, you can share your Binge id with the server. All the orders you make gets linked to your Binge id and you get real-time notifications as and when you make new orders. (So you know when you ordered that drink!) So how do you pay? In your Binge app you can store up to 4 card details including credit card and debit cards. The card details are encrypted with in the Binge app and the information stored using the information is stored using “Tokenisation”, an advanced security standard. The payment process is similar to the online transactions, the app takes you directly to the payment gateway of the bank via encrypted passway and when completed it returns to the app with the confirmation message. At the same time, the system at the restaurant also gets confirmed of the payment and you can walk away. The app also allows you to split the bills with up to four of your friends, by default it splits the bill equally but it also allows for editing the amount. You can also add tip to the server. It also comes handy at situation where you are at an restaurant and you realize you ran out of steam at your card balance or it throws some error, you can simply call a friend and ask them to complete the bill from their end wherever they are provided they too have the app in their phone. [gallery link="file" columns="4" ids="8979,8980,8981,8982"]

Even though it is early days for the startup, they have tied with over 25 joints in Bangalore including Loveshack,

Skyye, Toscano, Sanchos, Sinkong, Opus, Blimey, Bootlegger etc. Binge plans to enter Delhi and Mumbai by May and cover over a 1000 restaurants in Bangalore by the end of 2015.

This is one app that sounds appetizing right? Go Binge.

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