Daily News Roundup: DataRPM, Quikr, Vodafone and More…

Big data analytics startup DataRPM raises Rs 31 Cr

Big data analytics startup DataRPM has raised Rs 31 Cr  in a funding round led by US-based venture capital firm InterWest Partners along with US-based CIT GAP Funds also participating in the round. The company has plans to expand its operations in the overseas market and also to hire talent.

DataRPM was founded in 2012. “This investment definitely gives us a boost in our endeavor to grow our research and development centre in Bangalore,” said Gautam Shyamantak, CTO of DataRPM, who co-founded the firm with Ruban Phukan and Sundeep Sanghavi.

DataRPM is a Natural Language BI & Analytics platform with global presence. It is into developing disruptive technology which aims to help customers make decisions using simple analytics solution that they actually like.

The company currently has over 17 customers in markets like financial services, telecommunications, media, and even software developers, and 25 employees.

Quikr raises $90 Mn from Swedish PE Firm Kinnevik & Others

Online classified firm, Quikr has raised $ 90 Mn in a funding round led by Swedish investment firm Kinnevik. According to the ET this investment was spread across two rounds, i.e. existing investor Warburg Pincus providing the initial investment in September last year. The latest funding round values Quikr at over $250 Mn.

Kapsica Media raises angel funding 

A Pune based startup Kapsica Media Inc that provides paid ads management services to enterprises has raised an undisclosed funding from Vishwas Mahajan and Sunil Nikhar. The capital will be utilized to augment the delivery capabilities and expand the sales presence of the company and to develop its technology.

Kapsica was founded in 2011 By Shrikanth K and was later joined by Abhijit Gogoi who were former employees of Google. The original objective of the company was to support advertisers struggling with ROI on AdWords spend. It later extended the services to more paid ad platforms like mobile, Yahoo, Bing and other social media. It banks on multiple revenue models depending on a clients size, targets and duration of the contract. It charges target based fee in addition to the small fixed base fee.

In terms of competition for the firm, are quite a few digital agencies in India, some that were acquired by global firms. The company has currently employed more than 15 people and is looking to ramp up the team to more than 50 by end of the year as it aims to expand its markets to the US and the UK.

Mumbai based Prime Focus to acquire US-based cloud Service Provider DAX

Prime Focus Ltd, the Mumbai-based visual entertainment services company has signed an agreement for $9.1 Mn with US based DAX LLC. Prime Focus Technologies will acquire all the assets of DAX for an upfront payment of Rs 4.8 Cr and put Rs 8 Cr towards working capital. The amount will be paid over three years using the cash generated from its North American operations.

The deal is expected to help the city-based technology company’s strategic expansion into North America. This will give PFT ownership of DAX’s patented technology and products including Digital Dailies Solution. DAX’s marquee customers include Warner Bros, Television Studios, and CBS Television Studies etc.

Post acquisition, Patrick Macdonald-King, CEO of DAX, will assume the role of president and be part of Prime Focus Technologies’ executive leadership team responsible for North America.

The DAX platform is a web-based application used by major studios and television networks for collaboration and distribution managements of content during the production process and for marketing and distributing the final product.

After Tata Teleservices, MTNL, Now Vodafone India To Set Up WiFi Hotspots In Metros

Vodafone will soon set up WiFi hotspots in metropolitan cities in the country, reports ET. This initiative is part of the company’s Project Spring initiative to improve its data coverage and capacity in emerging markets like India.

Vodafone India is currently in the process of setting up and testing out hi-speed Wi-Fi hotspots in Metro cities where the internet usage is quite dense. Their aim is to have their customers latch on to Wi-Fi airwaves in these areas without having to key in usernames and passwords. “We’re trialing that in several metros including Mumbai. Wi-Fi off-load is a developing technology and more functionalities are coming out which will make it more seamless. We’re trying to make the authentication seamless,” said Vishant Vora, director, technology, Vodafone India.

Through this, Vodafone seeks to offload users to WiFi networks, reducing network congestion and address the growing data consumption on its network. This would be much simpler than the existing system of asking users to connect by authenticating a code sent to their mobile phones, which has shown to be unreliable. However, it remains to see how Vodafone will be managing security concerns related to people using this WiFi service.Vodafone is yet to decide whether to charge users for this service or keep it free.

Recently, there have been many free WiFi announcements from various companies, thanks to the tremendous demand for mobile internet across the country. The growth of data has put pressure on Telco’s existing network infrastructure. WiFi Hotspots will help  take care of their data needs without user traffic blocking the network. Tata Teleservices had recently announced plans to setup 4000 WiFi Hotspots in 9 cities across India. Reliance Jio and MTNL have both announced plans of setting up WiFi networks in Mumbai and Delhi. Last year, Idea Cellular had soft launched their Wi-Fi services in 5 cities across India including  Pune, Ahmedabad, Cochin, Hyderabad, and Vizag.

Different State Governments are also working on similar initiatives of providing free WiFi zones, such as Karnataka, Bihar, Gujarat and so on. Nitish Kumar unveiled world’s longest stretch of free Wi-Fi zone in Patna. Bangalore had become the first city in India to have free Wi-Fi zones with their implementation of project called “Namma WiFi”. Gujarat Government is also currently in process of setting up Wi-Fi zones across the state in collaboration with Reliance Jio.