ADIF opposes the exploitation of Indian App Economy by Apple and Google.

We strongly feel that the walled gardens created by Apple and Google hamper the ability of Indian startups to innovate. These global giants wield the power to put Indian digital companies – both big and small – out of business without due notice or a fair grievance redressal mechanism.

If their abusive practices are left unchecked, it could gravely harm our startup ecosystem.

We thus wrote to the Minister for Electronics and Information Technology expressing our concerns.

Read the full letter here.

ADIF urges reducing GST compliance burden on small online sellers.

As an industry body with the objective of promoting India's digital startup ecosystem, we understand many small sellers want to start exploring online sales. However, the mandatory GST registration for doing online sales acts as an inhibitor for these sellers whose current incomes are small and well below the GST limits.

We thus wrote to the Union Finance Minister and Chairman of GST Council urging a reduction in the GST compliance burden on small online sellers.

Read the full letter here.

ADIF lauds South Korea for setting an example in curbing abuse of dominance by Apple and Google.

The country has taken a leading step to curtail the monopolistic practices of both Apple and Google – mainly mandating their own payment systems that charge commissions of up to 30% to publish apps on their marketplace.

Further, we believe that Google’s move to allow select app developers to offer other payment methods – instead of mandatorily enforcing Google Play Billing – is a clear admission of guilt that the existing policy is unfair and discriminatory.

User choice billing should be made a rule for all developers and not an exception for a select company. Extending this to only a few companies without much clarity on the terms & commission rates reeks of preferential treatment – again unfair & discriminatory. 

Concerned about the impact of the Data Protection Bill on your business?

The upcoming Data Protection Bill is likely to significantly change the way data is collected and processed in India. It will impact businesses not only from a data privacy and protection perspective but also from an operations perspective.

ADIF has collaborated with The Quantum Hub (TQH) for a study to understand the concerns of the startup community about the likely impact of the Bill. We will use the learnings from this exercise in our representations to the government.

To understand the key proposals currently under consideration by the government, please see a short explainer on the Data Protection Bill here.

The survey is very brief and will take about 3 minutes to complete.

You can take the survey here.

Our alliance is growing bigger and stronger

ADIF’s alliance is now 497-members strong and we are eager to have each and everyone who is vested in the success of the Indian startup ecosystem as a part of our alliance.

Find out more about our newest members here.

Latest from our blog

Decoding the Draft India Data Accessibility & Use Policy, 2022.

If India wants to fulfil its ambition of achieving a $5 trillion economy, it has to hone its ability to harness the value of data.

Read the full post here.

Doing Business in India: What Helps, What Hinders.

A holistic approach to developing entrepreneurship can bring major changes to the socio-economic landscape of India.

Read the full post here.

Cryptocurrency in India: Regulations and the lack thereof.

India should take a holistic view of the market that balances the pros and cons of the technology to ensure the benefits outweigh the costs.

Read the full post here.

That’s all for this week, thank you for reading!

We look forward to your feedback to improve this newsletter and make it more relevant to you. You can e-mail me at amanat@adif.in.

Regards,
Amanat Khullar
Content & Editorial, ADIF

Thrive Now

Co-founders: Karan Chechani and Krishi Fagwani

Thrive is an all-in-one restaurant ordering suite for table ordering, pickup, and delivery with marketing in-built.

Koo (Bombinate Technologies)

Co-founders: Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka

The Koo App was launched in March 2020 as a multi-lingual, micro-blogging platform to enable Indians to express themselves online in their mother tongue. The Koo App's smart features are currently available in 10 languages-Tamil, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Telugu, Assamese, Bengali and English.

Koo App also won Aatmanirbhar App challenge Award given by the Government of India and was awarded best essential app of 2020 by Google Playstore. Koo App has also become the first private sector App to be hosted on mSeva, Indigenously developed the government App store with a very wide reach amongst the people.

New Individual Alliance Members

1. Mohamed Nazim, Engineer at Broadcom Inc.

2. Nithin Scaria, Director at Webdura Technologies

Have concerns about the impact of the Data Protection Bill on your business? Tell us in this quick survey. The upcoming Data Protection Bill is likely to significantly change the way data is collected and processed in India. It will impact businesses not only from a data privacy and protection perspective, but also from an operations perspective.

ADIF has collaborated with The Quantum Hub (TQH) for a study to understand the concerns of the startup community about the likely impact of the Bill. We will use the learnings from this exercise in our representations to the government.

To understand the key proposals currently under consideration by the government, please see a short explainer on the Data Protection Bill here.

The survey is very brief and will take about 3 minutes to complete.

You can take the survey here.

Legislation for in-app purchases is extremely critical for growing the start-up ecosystem in India. This was the key point of discussion during the joint roundtable by ADIF and the Coalition for App Fairness (CAF) with industry experts on 'Regulating App Stores in India.' The panel was of the opinion that the lack of competition in the market as well as the app stores’ practice of bundling of services like app review, content moderation and transaction processing, makes it difficult to determine the ‘fair’ charges for these services.

Additionally, app store policies that prevent the developer from offering alternative payment systems (also known as anti-steering policies) were noted as being anti-competitive as they reduced developer choice and prevented the developer from using payment systems that offer better services/ terms of engagement.

You can read a discussion summary of the roundtable here.

A study on mobile application ecosystem in India. As you must be aware, we at ADIF have taken a strong stand against anti-competitive and restrictive policies by the gatekeepers of the app economy. These unfair policies and gatekeeper taxes could deplete the ability of a large number of Indian digital startups/companies to innovate and grow.

To assess the impact of policies of Big Tech on the digital goods/services companies, Alvarez and Marsal (a global Consulting Firm) (A&M) is carrying out an independent study regarding the mobile application ecosystem in India. We believe that the topics being covered by A&M are extremely relevant and important for all digital goods companies in India. 

You can participate in the survey here.

Welcome our newest alliance members

ADIF’s alliance is now 486-members strong and we are eager to have each and everyone who is vested in the success of the Indian startup ecosystem as a part of our alliance.

Find out more about our newest members here.

Policy updates

We have started a weekly column to keep you updated about all things policy in the Indus Valley Ecosystem and beyond. This week, we’ve covered data protection, Big Tech’s data localisation row, and cryptocurrency.

Read the full column here.

Latest from our blog

Why the draft e-commerce rules need a rethink. Organisations speaking for small businesses as well as those on the side of consumers have asked for the rules to be reconsidered, claiming they place too much of a regulatory burden on small businesses on the one hand, while also depriving the consumer of choice. 

Read the full blog post here.

That’s all for this week, thank you for reading!

We look forward to your feedback to improve this newsletter and make it more relevant to you. You can e-mail me at amanat@adif.in.

Regards,
Amanat Khullar
Content & Editorial, ADIF

Doosra (Ten20 Infomedia Private Limited)

Founder: Aditya Vuchi

A secondary number that stops spammers in their tracks by giving you control over who calls you and who goes straight to. Outsmart spammers, fraudulent callers, and even stalkers with a Doosra - A virtual number that does not require an additional SIM card.

New Individual Alliance Members

1. Farzan F A, Co-Founder at EdgyHack

Medafinance

Founder: Pradeep Aich

MeDaFin is a Health Financing and Risk Assessment platform driven by Data Intelligence (DI) with best-in-class smart tools which enable the affordability of Healthcare which creates a value proposition to patient, payer and provider (3Ps).

New Individual Alliance Members

1. Kshitij Kasliwal, Director Of Engineering at NCR

2. Harsh Suman

3. Sharmadha Srinivasan, Senior Associate at IDFC Institute

4. Dhruv Suri, Partner at PSA

5. Shivesh Singh, Software engineer at Dell Technologies

We joined hands with MPAI to write to the RBI about the lack of industry preparedness on card-on-file tokenization… The Merchant Payments Alliance of India and ADIF sought a phased implementation of the new mandate and a minimum time frame of 6 months to comply post readiness of banks, card networks, and payment aggregators/ payment gateways.

According to Sijo Kuruvilla George, Executive Director, Alliance of Digital India Foundation:

“In the scenario that banks are lax on preparedness, the brunt of that will be borne by merchants in the form of loss of revenue – we are looking at revenues losses of anywhere between 20-40% at the minimum should that be the case. It’s also important to note that it’s only after the readiness of bank, card networks and API’s are made available that merchants are even able to take effective measures on their part to comply.”

Read the full press release here.

…and soon after, the RBI extended the card tokenization deadline by 6 months. We at ADIF welcomed the move and further urged the Central Bank to ensure readiness across all banks in a timely manner.

ADIF further stressed that unless banks are compliant, merchants will not be able to successfully process tokenised transactions and have consumer-ready solutions.  

Read the full statement here.

Google moved the Karnataka HC against CCI probe. The internet giant filed a writ petition in the Karnataka High Court seeking more time to respond to the Competition Commission of India's questions into its Play store rules.

ADIF termed this challenge yet another delay tactic. Reluctance on the part of Google to comply with the requirements of the antitrust proceedings in a timely and upfront manner is at odds with the public posturing the company has adopted alongside their policy revision announcements that the company is making every effort in the interest of the Indian startup ecosystem and fair resolution.

According to Sijo Kuruvilla George:

“This legal challenge by Google is yet another delay tactic and an attempt to frustrate the antitrust process. It also calls into question their good faith. The only commitments that has been consistent on the part of Google throughout this entire antitrust process has been their commitment to a) delay the process in every way possible and b) protecting their super profits from the app economy abusing its dominance. We exhort Google to comply with the antitrust process in good faith and as per the directives of the CCI.”

Read the full statement here.

ADIF in the news

Debangana Ghosh, a reporter at the Hindu Business Line, wrote about how India’s digital economy boomed in 2021, and how it is likely to accelerate further in 2022 even as regulations kick in.

Sijo Kuruvilla George was quoted as saying:

“With more liquidity in hands, founders are making more aggressive bets in terms of acquisitions. The ambitions and beliefs of the new crop of founders are way bolder and more global.”

Our stance on RBI’s tokenization policy also made the news.

Our alliance is growing bigger and stronger

ADIF’s alliance is now over 470-members strong and we are eager to have each and everyone who is vested in the success of the Indian startup ecosystem as a part of our alliance.

Find out more about our newest members here.

Follow us

We’d like to invite you to be a part of our social media network to stay up to date on our progress and the digital startup ecosystem. You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

We’d also love for you to help amplify our voice by engaging with our posts and liking/re-tweeting them. 

That’s all for this time, thank you for reading!

We look forward to your feedback to improve this newsletter and make it more relevant to you. You can e-mail me at amanat@adif.in.

Regards,
Amanat Khullar
Content & Editorial, ADIF

GreenPepper Consulting India Private Limited

Co-Founder: Krishna Kumar

GreenPepper is helping technology companies build better teams - an industry where human capital is the only driver of performance.

New Individual Alliance Members

1. Pauneet Nanda,Ex Sr Manager at LoadShare Networks Pvt Ltd

2. Himankit Arya, Electronics and communication engineer

We partnered with Favcy. ADIF joined hands with the venture building platform Favcy to help strengthen the Indian startup ecosystem.⁠

Welcome our newest alliance members

ADIF’s alliance is now over 460-members strong and we are eager to have each and everyone who is vested in the success of the Indian startup ecosystem as a part of our alliance.

Here are some of the most recent additions.

Find out more about our newest alliance members here.

Should you have any suggestions on who can join our network, feel free to reach out to Jibin, who oversees Startup Relations at ADIF, at jj@adif.in.

Updates from the ecosystem

MapmyIndia sets IPO price band at Rs 1,000-1,033 per share
Edtech unicorn upGrad to acquire Talentedge
Indian SaaS sector sees 170% jump in investments in one year
RateGain IPO: Travel tech startup raises Rs599 Cr from anchor investors

Follow us

We’d like to invite you to be a part of our social media network to stay up to date on our progress and the digital startup ecosystem. You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

We’d also love for you to help amplify our voice by engaging with our posts and liking/re-tweeting them. 

That’s all for this time, thank you for reading!

We look forward to your feedback to improve this newsletter and make it more relevant to you. You can e-mail me at amanat@adif.in.

Regards,
Amanat Khullar
Content & Editorial, ADIF

Sudokucapital

Founder: Vijay Singh

Sudoku Capital is an investment-oriented company that allows investors to invest in real estate, art and scarce and valuable assets with minimum capital. Through the digitalisation of real-world assets into smaller pieces called tokens, Sudoku Capital opens up illiquid markets, traditionally only available to institutional investors, to everyone in the world.

Pumpkin Kart

Co-Founders: Philip Vadley Edward Correya , Visal Varghese & Sanila Sebastian

Pumpkin Kart is on a journey to remove the long-distance barrier in getting your favorite food and grocery delivered to doorsteps. In Canada, the food is just as diverse as the people in it. Through Pumpkin Kart, they connect people to the flavors of their culture.

New Individual Alliance Members

1. Navin Oswal, Manager - Accounts and Finance at Rohan Builders

2. Jyothish Jayan, Product Marketing Lead at Icertis

3. Girinath Pillai, Research Scientist at Nyro Research India

We partnered with the Coalition for App Fairness to support a free and fair app marketplace for all developers. The partnership has come on the heels of a conference on app ecosystem fairness held in South Korea where the discussion centered around the need for regulating the application ecosystem.

Several industry leaders and developers stressed the importance of joint efforts to take on the duopoly of Apple and Google – which is the aim behind joining forces with CAF, an independent global non-profit organization formed to protect consumer choice, foster competition, and create a level playing field for all app and game developers worldwide.

As part of the partnership, we will collaborate to create joint advocacy positions and amplify events, content, and efforts.

Read more about the partnership here.

ADIF is an ecosystem partner at Huddle Global. The Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) is organising a networking conference for entrepreneurs on December 8-9 to help them get connected with the best stakeholders in the startup ecosystem.

Read more about the event and book your tickets here.

How can startups survive in a monopolistic market? This will be a key point of discussion at SOT(Startups of Tomorrow): An Entrepreneurship Expo by AKCSSC, where Sijo Kuruvilla George, the Executive Director of ADIF, will be among the panelists.

ADIF has collaborated with IEEE PIE and Kerala Startup Mission for the innovation expo where startups are invited to showcase their products or services.

You can registration till November 24 here.

Latest from our blog

How India and other countries are challenging the monopolistic practices of Apple and Google. Here we listed some of the actions countries and companies are taking.

What are RBI's norms on card data storage and tokenization? We broke down tokenization, RBI's rule on card data storage, and ADIF's recommendations.

Updates from the ecosystem

How Falguni Nayar built Nykaa to stand out from the crowd.
The IPO bonanza of November.
Mensa Brands turned unicorn in 6 months.
VC investments in Indian start-ups hit a record high in Sept quarter.
Zomato may put $500 million more into Grofers' cart.

That’s all for this week, thank you for reading!

We look forward to your feedback to improve this newsletter and make it more relevant to you. You can e-mail me at amanat@adif.in.

Regards,
Amanat Khullar
Content & Editorial, ADIF

Our stand on Amazon’s playbook of copying, rigging and killing Indian brands. A recent Reuters investigation brought to light Amazon’s blatant disregard for competition laws, intellectual property rights and disgraceful predatory practices. The manner in which the e-commerce giant has targeted the Indian market and leading brands in the country is highly deplorable and has brought into question the credibility of the company as a good faith operator in the Indian startup ecosystem. 

Read our full statement here.

What we had to say about Google reducing the Play Store fee. The big tech giant recently announced that it is lowering its app store fees for all subscription-based services to 15% from the existing 30% from January 1, 2022.

ADIF believes that this move is a deflect and distract tactic, and does nothing to address the issues and challenges of scores of developers who stand to be affected by the earlier announcement by Google of forced adoption of their billing system by March 2022.

Read our full statement here.

Apple too announced a change in its AppStore policy. Soon after Google’s change in policy, Apple announced that it would permit developers to communicate with their customers about other payment methods available outside their app. This change is in line with a recent US court hearing.

ADIF is of the view that the development comes as an additional strain on Google’s dogged efforts towards implementing their stated policy of enforcing their own in-app billing system.

Read our full statement here.

What South Korea’s decision to limit Apple and Google control over app store payments means for India. ADIF’s Executive Director, Sijo Kuruvilla George wrote about how the legislation has opened the way for app developers to themselves choose their payment option as well as for other payment providers to compete in the app economy.

Until now, the conversation was limited to advocacy – bringing attention to the policies of Apple and Google and how they affect large segments of app store beneficiaries. It has now sharply shifted towards legislation.

Read the full op-ed here.

Our alliance is growing bigger and stronger

ADIF’s alliance is now over 450-members strong and we are eager to have each and everyone who is vested in the success of the Indian startup ecosystem as a part of our alliance.

Here are some of the most recent additions.

Find out more about our newest alliance members here.

Should you have any suggestions on who can join our network, feel free to reach out to Jibin, who oversees Startup Relations at ADIF, at jj@adif.in.

Celebrating our alliance members

Want your wins to be featured on ADIF’s social media? Share them with Amanat at amanat@adif.in.

Updates from the ecosystem

Logistics startup Delhivery filed DRHP with SEBI for Rs 7,460 crore issue
Policybazaar parent's IPO was fully subscribed on Day 2
Nykaa IPO saw strong interest; subscribed 82x
Paytm will raise $1.1 bn from anchor investors
Valued at $1.1 bn, Acko turned unicorn

That’s all for this week, thank you for reading!

We look forward to your feedback to improve this newsletter and make it more relevant to you. You can e-mail me at amanat@adif.in.

Regards,
Amanat Khullar
Content & Editorial, ADIF

Addedutech learning private limited

Co-Founders: Smridhi Gambhir and Ambeecka K Malhotra

Add-EduTech Learning Pvt. Ltd envisions to fill the gap in the education system by providing quality enrichment programs to children.

Harappa Education

Founder: Shreyasi Singh

Harappa is a learner-centred institution of the future focused on accelerating the personal growth of our learners, to help them confidently navigate their most crucial career cusps.

Aurofood private limited

Founder: Nilesh Patel

Auro Food Pvt Ltd is a manufacturer and exporter of biscuits, wafers, pasta from Pondicherry. The company is engaged in the production of Macaroni Pasta, Chocolate Cookies, Veg Pasta, Potato Wafers and Chocolates, Biscuits & Cookies

Unique World Robotics LLC

Co-founder: Bansan Thomas George

Unique World Robotics LLC is one of the finest corporations in the Middle East offering end to end robotic solutions. Unique World Education lays a strong foundation of STEM and Robotics among young schoolers and professionals through its Robotics Division.

CodeNicely

Co-founders: Ujjwal Agrawal & Meghal Agrawal

CodeNicely helps startups in building world-class software products or B2B, B2C segments across multiple domains.

MINDIA Media Pvt. Ltd.

Founder: Ganesh

MINDIA is a digital online channel started by a team of filmmakers to present unknown, untold, unique, and positive stories of India and Indians.

Lilorosh

Founder: Lilia Jose

LiloRosh is a small husband-wife team that creates handmade fun and functional fabric tool bags for artists.

Ourea

Co-founder: Anooja Bashir

Ourea is a branding & web development company in Kochi, Kerala, which is a corporate wing of the parent company Oureansoul Pvt Ltd. Ourea focuses on branding & designing, strategic marketing, web development solutions along with world-class corporate solutions in HR & Corporate Training.

Alyve Health

Co-founder: Vineet Mehta

Alyve Health is your health and lifestyle ally. We bring care to insurance, fun to habits and a single gateway to health.

New Individual Alliance Members

1. Ravindra Deshmukh, Principal Consultant at Infosys

2. Disha Kothari, Software Engineer at Google

3. Shrikant Shenoy, Principal Consultant at Infosys

4. Rohit, System Engineer at Infosys

5. Pranav Obhrai, Strategy and Business Planning in Triller

6. Mathew George

7. Akhil James

8. Loveleen Yadav, System Engineer at Infosys

9. Mathew Paramban, Marketing Executive, Talent Aquisitions

10. Akshay Malpani, Managing Partner at M R O & Associates

11. Deepa Tojan, HR Consultant

12. Raj Munde, Regional Manager at HROne

13. Sudhir Deshmukh, Vice President - Consumer and Community Banking

14. Ravi Bhardwaj, Head - Community Management Business, MyGate

Our petition to the Competition Commission of India against Google. Through our lawyers at Sarvada Legal, we have sought interim relief from Google’s new PlayStore policy which goes into effect from March 2022.

The relief has been sought on behalf of app developers as Google’s new policy will mandate certain categories of apps – fitness, education, SaaS, OTT, gaming and others – to use only the Google Billing System (GBS) for accepting payments.

Read the full release here.

Breaking down ADIF's petition to the CCI against Google. ADIF’s petition has stated that the 30% commission charged by Google is extremely high and unfair.
However, the core issue is the mandatory imposition of the Google Play Billing system and the exclusion of other methods of payment.

Read the full explainer here.

Before we move on, it would be great if you could help spread the work on our petition by retweeting this and this.

'Seed rounds tend to be the toughest as investors are essentially backing your vision': The first ADIF Chatroom on ‘Fundraising Stories’ was held on Twitter Spaces on September 23 and focused on the investing ecosystem. During the session, founders talked about the various funding rounds, how the ecosystem has changed over the years, how to decide between bootstrapping vs fundraising, and much more.

Listen to the full discussion here.

Apple is abusing its market power in the app economy: Dutch antitrust authority. The decision by the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) is a clear indictment of the abuse of dominance by Apple in the app economy and the first instance of an antitrust regulator calling out Apple for its anti-competitive AppStore practices. 

ADIF hailed the move and anticipates cascading effects in antitrust challenges against tech giants. 

India’s unique opportunity to act as a modern-day peacekeeper after South Korea’s action of Apple and Google. ADIF’s Executive Director, Sijo Kuruvilla George wrote an op-ed on how given the size and significance of the Indian market, any legislative action will significantly influence and determine the rules governing the global app economy. If Google were to roll out a set of policies in India, say as a result of legislative action, given the global nature of app stores, it would be prudent for the company to release the same terms and benefits to all their developers and customers across the globe.

In the long run, it is not ex post facto fines but proactive and progressive legislative efforts that will nurture and nourish a healthy, innovative and competitive ecosystem. 

Read the full op-ed here.

Our alliance is growing bigger and stronger

ADIF’s alliance is now over 400-member strong and we are eager to have each and everyone who is vested in the success of the Indian startup ecosystem as a part of our alliance.

Find out more about our org members here.

Find out more about our individual members here.

Should you have any suggestions on who can join our network, feel free to reach out to Jibin, who oversees Startup Relations at ADIF, at jj@adif.in.

ADIF in the news

Nishant Arora, the technology editor at IANS wrote a comprehensive feature story on our work in the anti-trust space and the need for proactive enabling legislation for protecting our tech firms.

Our stance on SEBI’s move to ease differential voting rights also made the news.

Follow us

We’d like to invite you to be a part of our social media network to stay up to date on our progress and the digital startup ecosystem. You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

We’d also love for you to help amplify our voice by engaging with our posts and liking/re-tweeting them. 

That’s all for this time, thank you for reading!

We look forward to your feedback to improve this newsletter and make it more relevant to you. You can e-mail me at amanat@adif.in.

Regards,
Amanat Khullar
Content & Editorial, ADIF

Stunntech Innovations Pvt Ltd.

Co-founder: Sasank Thaliyil

Stunntech helps startups & entrepreneurs build digital products, strategies and technology solutions.

Workie

Founder: Sawan S Laddha

Workie is a structure that goes beyond the commonly understood coworking i.e., the meeting place for professional interests in which not just the individuals but also the companies grow and develop.

Sutradhar

Co-founders: Satish Meena and Gaurav Tiwari

Sutradhar aims to become the largest user curated platform allowing millions of people to showcase their talent via audio and video modes.

NprodaX Technologies

Founder: Madala Bharath Kumar

NprodaX Technologies encompasses software development, Technical support and custom application development, project consulting services, software product sales & marketing in various areas.

Artham Law Chambers

Founder: Bhupendar Singh

EZEmp Consultants Pvt Ltd

Co-founder and CEO: Vidya Lakshmi

ORNAMAAS by Ojasvita

Founder: Ojasvita Ajay Mahenddru

ORNAMAAS is a luxury art & costume jewellery label which has been selected as one of the TOP 30 COOLEST DESIGNER LABELS by Cosmopolitan India '19.

Legalo Explore LLP

Founder: MOHD FAIZAN SIDDIQI

Emstell

Founder : Ayoob Kalathingal

Emstell is a Technology Consulting organization specializing in IT Solutions for Education, Small and Medium Enterprise Business Solutions and in Enterprise level Quality Assurance services focusing the Middle East Market.

Webcoffee Innovations Private Limited

Directors : Muhammed Irfan Ali C T and MohammedAjmal

WebCoffee strives to provide you a perfect online platform for all your online and business needs. Webcoffee is a perfect online platform for all your e-commerce, e learning, branding, designing, marketing and many other needs.

H'Barletto Design

Business Head : Rishabh Rsj

H'Barletto Design is a unique concept to provide the decor, rugs, furniture and furnishings to the Indian market as well as export globally.

Merabt Technologies Private Limited

Director : Harsha D

Merabt Technologies is a full-service Web Design & Development firm.They provide E-commerce solutions, Web Design, Mobile & Digital Marketing and SEO services.

Ayasya Digital Solutions LLP

Founder : Niket Goel

Ayasya is a dynamic company, operating as a programming and IT solutions provider.They attend to complete customer needs, right from understanding their requirements to developing exceptional IT solutions that best suit their client’s requirement.

Who VR

Founder and CEO : Ajit Padmanabh

Who VR is a unique startup at the cusp of Heritage-Tourism-Culture-Wellness-Technology-Neurosciences.

Elyt

Co-Founder : Yash Patel

iZooto

Founder : Vivek Khandelwal and Shrikant Kale

Founder and CTO : Sachin Grover

CEO : Neel Kothari

Tuttifrutti Interactive

CEO : Ajish G Habib

Tuttifrutti Interactive is an award-winning premium Game Developing Studio, and has a multi-talented 23 member in-house team with a combined industry expertise of over 180 years.

KOCO Games

Founder : Mohammed Aboobacker

Koco Games Inc, is an Independent game production studio with over 10 million players across Android and iOS. Headquartered in Claymont, Delaware USA.

Digital Economy Foundation

Founder : Anurag Saxena

The Digital Economy Foundation (DEF) is an independent not-for-profit organization. They converge and collaborate to facilitate meaningful engagement of diverse actors in the social sector, bringing in the relevant expertise related to the digital transformation of a country.

CustomElements Pvt Ltd

Co-founder & CEO : Arbaaz Sha Muzawer

Co-founder & COO : Wasim Shaikh

Custom Elements is an idea brought to life by two friends Arbaaz Sha Muzawer and Wasim Shaikh to help motorcycling enthusiasts build their lifestyles around their passion and are currently operating from Bengaluru, India.

Addedutech learning private limited

Co-Founder : Smridhi Gambhir and Ambeecka K Malhotra

Tech Divinity

Founder : Praveen Kumar

Senior Managing Director : Manish Bhagat

Divinity India Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. is dedicatedly involved in Service Providing, Trading and Supplying of superior quality range of Programming Languages Training, Live Projects Training, Web Designing Services, SEO Services, ERP Solutions ,etc.

Lafabrica Craft Pvt Ltd

Founder : Sachin Gangadharan

Director : Sonja Coates

Lafabrica Craft Pvt Ltd is a biodegradable packaging & product consultancy firm. Also design and craft innovative organic packaging and eco-friendly product solutions with the aim of reducing the dependency on plastic.

Steel Zest Engineers

Founder : Somaksh Gauns Dessai

Steel Zest Engineers is a one-stop solution for all your fabrication needs. Objective is to lead the industry by providing our customers with the highest quality work in the market while maintaining fair and competitive prices.

ACTNOW GLOBAL BUSINESS SOLUTIONS PRIVATE LIMITED

Founder : Krishna Prasad Narendran

Actnow gbs is an organization created with an intention to provide accounting support services to business entities irrespective of their size and capital.

Creative HR Solutions

Founder : Sangeeta Dalvi

Co-founder : Seeya Dalvi

Creative HR Solutions is a premier staffing solution company with the ability and passion to deliver the suitable and desired profile at the lowest Turn Around Time , with higher quality & with the keen interest to improve the overall productivity of customers by sourcing the right candidate through our extensive search process and verifying the reliability, potentiality and credentials of the candidate.

SabkaMandi (Decimi Technologies Pvt Ltd)

Co-Founder and CEO : Navin Prajapati

Co-Founder & CTO : Sourav Lahoti

Sabka Mandi is one of its kind startup that is working very closely with the traditional distribution system by creating speed and agility in the existing network by digitization.

Centrric

CEO : Ejas Muhammed and Althaf K Shaphy

CTO : Sahad Pareed

Centrric is a leading company in next gen digital services, product development and consulting.

Letcetra Agritech Pvt Ltd

Co-founder & CTO : Harish Usgaonker

Founder : Ajay Naik

Letcetra Agritech began in late 2016, when three engineers with diverse backgrounds, united by their love for healthy growing and food, invested time, effort and money in understanding the nuances of hydroponics, and concentrated on getting the best available knowledge, to ensure food production remains easy and accessible for everyone.

Code Relix

Founder : Haroon Sayed

Code Relix is a global technology and services firm that helps clients transform and realize their digital strategies.

Ulavan Agritech Services OPC Pvt Ltd

Founder : Tarun Krishnakumar

Ulavan Agritech Services – A smart precision drone service provider for all types of agricultural crops. We currently focus on providing agricultural spraying services for “tree based farms like cashew and arecanut ” and “terrain based crops like sugarcane, paddy, and tea”.

DAVE Foundation

Founder : Ritvik Dave

DAVE Foundation invests in exposing the innovations and technologies to village students in disconnected communities to elevate aspirations of young kids. committed to serve the community through various programs for healthcare, environment and education.

Capcee Technologies

CEO : Arunghosh Thankachan

Capcee Technologies is an easy accessible hub for information technology services and solutions. They have expert IT professionals with experience in providing and maintaining high quality IT services for business firms and corporate entities.

LeverageAxiom Consulting (OPC) Private Limited

Founder : Gowri Sukumar

LeverageAxiom’s experience packaged as ‘Ready-to-use’ tools. We believe these address some tiny but time consuming problems and at the same time pave way for value adding supplemental solutions.

1. Abhishek Mody, Vice President at M2P Finetech

2. Devi Veena Sreekumar, Digital Analytics Intern at Whirlpool corporation

3. Parul Setia , Founder & CEO at Pravik Digital

4. M Fasil , Incubator Manager at Kerala Startup Mission

5. Majomon Mathew , Senior Software Engineer at mFilterIt

6. Sujith S , Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Engineer at Zackriya Solutions

7. Rahul Singh , Deal Flow Manager at Microsoft

8. Aneesh Ashruf, E-commerce Associate at Al Madina Group

9. Kiran Johns , Product & Growth at IBM Quantum and Qiskit

10. SUJITH BALAN ,

11. Together We Fight, Together We Fight

12. Aswani Nambarambath ,

13. Dr Zahid Zoebbhai Kalolwala,Senior Director and Digital Adviser

14. Nischaiy Pradhan , Founding Partner at Favcy

15. Manishi Pande,

16. Ajmal Sali , Senior Software Engineer - Pfizer at Modus Create

17. Akash Santhosh ,Community manager at EdgyHack

18. Punit Agarwal,

19. Ridhwik Vinod , CO and Cofounder at Cosmic Wealth

20. Ankur Singh Chauhan ,

21. Jacob Mani ,Growth Marketing at InstaShift.io

22. Anju Joseph ,

23. Kunjbihari Daga ,Associate Partner at MSC

24. Deepika Sharma,Business Development Manager at Amazon Internet Services Private Limited (AISPL

25. Utkarsh Tripathi , Venture analyst and scout at Favcy Venture Builders.

26. Mourya H B

27. Vishal Maru , Senior Vice President at Worldline Global

Our recommendations to the RBI on the storage of card data. For quite some time now, merchants and payment aggregators have been saving customer’s card credentials (encrypted card number and expiry) in order to offer a seamless online payment experience to their users. Keeping in mind the security concerns, we made a submission to India’s Central bank regarding the solution for storing user's card details.

Read our recommendations here.

Digitisation and democratisation: hallmarks of the startup sector. ADIF’s Executive Director, Sijo Kuruvilla George wrote an op-ed on the opportunities as well as the unique challenges that lie ahead for the Indian startup ecosystem. At about 10-15 years, the startup sector is still nascent and policies are yet to catch up. It is the choices that we make as a market and as a country that will set the stage for the course forward, and will also end up serving as a blueprint for nations around the world as everyone transitions into a digital-first economy and society.

Read the full op-ed here.

Our comments on the US verdict directing Apple to change its tightly controlled rules. Sijo Kuruvilla George was quoted in The Telegraph on the Apple App Store ruling.

Another institutional partnership. ADIF and FiiRE Goa have entered into an institutional partnership to help strengthen the Indian startup ecosystem.

ADIF in the news

Over the last two weeks, we’ve received significant media coverage on our stand on Google and Apple’s antitrust practices and their abuse of dominant position.

We were featured twice on the front page of the Economic Times, as well as in The Telegraph and The Hindu Business Line.

Read about all of our media coverage here.

Latest from our blog

Why you should care about the Google 30% tax. We broke down the Google commission issue and explained why the company is charging this as well as who gets affected by the Google tax.

The key issues with Google's new Play Store policy. We looked at the main issues that arise out of the imposition and enforcement of Google’s native billing system and the 30% Google commission, including monopolistic practices and the impact on end-user.

Updates from the ecosystem

Two-year-old Apna becomes one of the fastest Indian unicorns.
Pine Labs raised $315 million.
PharmEasy acquired healthcare supply chain start-up Aknamed.
Byju’s acquired coding site Tynker for $200 million.

That’s all for this week, thank you for reading!

We look forward to your feedback to improve this newsletter and make it more relevant to you. You can e-mail me at amanat@adif.in.

Regards,
Amanat Khullar
Content & Editorial, ADIF

Join the Alliance of Digital India to become a part of our journey to transform India’s startup ecosystem into the best in the world.

1. Krishna Radhakrishnan, Customer Success Lead at Appmaker.xyz

2. Varsha Das, Program Associate at Upekkha

3. Renjith Joseph, Head of Sales - Middle East, Centelon

4. Jithin Raj, Founder at Volcano Social Private Limited

5. Akshay Gunteti, Head of partnerships at Green Worms

6. Alan P Aby, Student

7. Kavya Chaturvedi, System Engineer at Infosys

8. Abhinav Gupta, Vice President at INDmoney

9. Ahmed Bisharath Kb

10. Srikar YV, Director, Government Relations at redBus

11. Midhun Jo Antony, Operations@HabitStrong

12. Joel Saji Chacko, Product Design Intern at Factors.AI

13. Ajit Yohannan

14. Lalesh M M, Chief Financial Officer at Nahda Modern Company LLC

15. Nasif NM, Community Lead at Kerala Startup mission

16. Varun K

17. Raoof Naushad, Artificial Intelligence Engineer at Accubits Technologies

18. Athulya R

19. Dr KCC Nair, Startup Mentor at wadwani Foundation, Director at Acutro Technologies

20. Mekha Anil, Founder @ WOW

21. Adv.Ripple Hamza, National General Secretary democratic party of india

22. Aswathy Mohan, Director, Jay's Academy

23. Nikhil Kumar

24. Amala, Jude, Project Coordinator at ClaySys Technologies

25. Jitender Singh, Solutions Architect at Segment

26. Deeksha Bhargava, Startup Marketing at Freshworks

Guardians of Dreams

Co-founder: Gloria Benny

Guardians of Dreams  is a social sector organization working to ensure quality life outcomes for children living in orphanages and shelter homes.

Buy Me a Coffee

Co-founder and CEO: Jijo Sunny

Buy Me a Coffee is a simple, meaningful way to fund your creative work.Loved by more than 70,000 Instagrammers, podcasters, YouTubers and other creators.

Oropocket

Co-founder and COO: Tarusha Mittal

OroPocket is 100% asset backed banking without the insidious, hidden charges and time consuming tedium that come with traditional banks.

Vipani technologies

Founder: Sunoop Balaraman

Vipani Technologies delivers Grocery, Food, fresh Fish and Meat. And also shortly offering Farmer's service and Auto hailing service.

Quantic Tech Analysis Private Limited

Founder and Director : Sravani Rao

Quantic Tech Analysis Pvt Limited is working to empower businesses and enhance customer experience by offering digital solutions. They create rapid, high-functioning MVPs and integrate computer vision technologies across multiple platforms to set the future trends.

STAGE

Co-founders : Vinay Singhal, Shashank Vaishnav and Praveen Singhal

STAGE: the Indian language content platform (OTT) for artist led entertainment such as poetry, comedy and storytelling etc.

Edge Digital Education Services

Founder: Pradeep Singh

KinderAct Solutions Pvt Ltd

CEO: Manu Scaria

ClusterDev Technologies Private Limited

Co-founders: Saneem Perinkadakkat, Jaseem Basheer and Ajnas K T

ClusterDev is a technology company with various products under its umbrella. They have built Desh Keyboards, Stickify Store and Sticker Maker. Also apps have over 40M total downloads.

Chatveda

Co-founders: Abid Omar and Nikesh Ghosh

Chatveda is a leading chat marketing agency founded by a team of marketing enthusiasts with over a decade of industry experience.

GraffersID

Founder and CEO: Sidharth Jain

GraffersID is an offshore software product design and development organization, offering Website Development, Mobile App Development, UI/UX, and SEO.

MeetWise

Founder: Krishna Prasad

OpenVitae

Founder: Jubin Shaju  

OpenVitae is a technology platform that connects companies looking to hire talent through external partners with a community of freelance recruiters and boutique recruitment agencies.

Steyp

Co-Founder: Afifa Salim Baker

Steyp is an EdTech company, a beginning of the Digital University for Industry 4.0, where one can find the relevant courses to upgrade skills from the top experts and gear up for Industry 4.0, a company incubated and accelerated by Talrop.

My Gold Bazzar 

Managing Director: Tomy Augustine

mygoldbazzar.com is a cent percent trustable gold loan aggregator and a financial technology startup company. It is making revolutionary steps in the gold loan market place where the customers can avail online digital platforms.

Zoconut

Co-founders: Paras Garg and Manya Madan 

Zoconut is an e-Clinic Platform for Dietitians and Nutritionists. Company vision is to become a World Leader in Technology and a Driving Force for the Health & Nutrition / Fitness Industries with their Intelligent Software Products and Business Solutions. 

Menerva Software Pvt Ltd

Co-founder and CEO: Sony Gabriel

Menerva Software was established in 2016 and has since provided data analytics solutions to multiple startups, SMBs and Enterprises across different industries.

VA Networks

Founder and Chief Operating Officer: Vineetha Beth

VA Networks was established in the year 2018, the team, who are a herd of passion driven customer-oriented tech-worms, aim at reaching out to the marketing and operational needs of MSME businesses, start-ups, MNCs and more, through ITES and mobile convergence solutions.

1Page

Founder: Pooran Prasad Rajanna

Get 1 page aims at Transforming Data Into Actionable Insights To Empower People To Be Informed, Become Productive And it helps users to get  customized summary, a few minutes before every meeting, to sell more confidently.

Beagle Security

Director and founder: Rejah Rehim

Beagle Security is a SaaS-based web application penetration testing tool that helps you to identify vulnerabilities on your website before hackers exploit them.

ClarityBrew

Founder: Reethu George

ClarityBrew is on a mission to transform the lives of women experiencing interpersonal conflict and inner conflict by helping them resolve their conflict and supporting them to respond to conflict more effectively through a 1:1 coaching process.

ShopDoc

Founder and CEO: Shihab Makaniyil

ShopDoc helps hospitals to process patient referrals from primary care more efficiently. Also it enables doctors to practice at multiple hospitals more effectively.

Infintor Solutions

CEO: Jithin J Naduvath

Infintor is a proven and well-established digital transformation consulting firm, providing solutions and services for enterprises as well as  SMEs since 2014.

Go Cohoots

Founder: Disha Parekh

Go Cohoots bringing together HR buyers with vetted HR startups, HR boutique firms, independent HR consultants and freelancers for innovations, projects, strategic initiatives and outsourced HR assignments.

i2space

Founder and CEO: Bhargava Vangapally

i2Space Web Technologies Private Limited is an ISO 9001:2008 Certified leading software solution provider quality solutions in Travel, Finance, Hospitality, Payments and E-commerce Solutions. 

Eatiko

Founder and CEO: Rajil Rahman

Eatiko is a platform that allows users to  search for Food & Freshies and Order Online.

Superblog.ai 

Chief super officer: Sai Krishna

Superblog takes care of optimising your blog for speed, consistent performance, seo, high-quality hosting and design to rank better in search results.

GimBooks

Founder and CEO: Yash Agrawal

Gimbooks is a Cloud based Bookkeeping and Accounting platform geared towards small and micro-sized businesses of India that assist businesses in creating and managing documents like GST compliant invoices, waybills, quotations, Purchase orders, Delivery Challans, etc.

Accubits Technologies Inc

Senior Client Manager: Ajay J Pillai

Accubits Technologies is a full-service software provider offering product development and digital transformation services to Governments, Tech startups, Fortune 1000 companies, and Businesses.

On this Independence Day, we have compiled the latest updates from ADIF, our blog posts this week as well as news from the Indian startup ecosystem all in one place for you. Happy reading!

ADIF’s work and latest activities

Our comments on Google’s new ad platform. Our executive director, Sijo Kuruvilla George, was quoted in the Hindu Business Line on Google’s decision to phase out third-party cookies and replacing them with Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC).

If you have any thoughts on Google’s FLoC, please share in the comments section or write to Tom Thomas, who heads Policy and Research at ADIF, at tom@adif.in.

Our support to South Korea's proposed revision to the Telecommunications Business Act. We also extended support to South Korea’s proposed amendment to the Telecommunication Business Act – which has the core of the ban on forced in-app payments. We believe this is a major step to counter app marketplaces from owning all in-app transactions and charging an unfairly high commission on all in-app purchases.

Full text of the letter is available here.

Letter to the Finance Secretary on the abolishment of retrospective tax. We wrote to Shri Dr. T. V. Somanathan IAS in support of the government’s decision to abolish the retrospective taxation provision on indirect transfers of Indian assets. We, ADIF, believe that this move will further strengthen trust between the government and industry.

Full text of the letter is available here.

An Open House with AIC Raise and our first institutional partnership. On August 10, Jibin Jose hosted an open house and AMA in association with startup incubator AIC Raise. It was conducted as part of the MoU signed between ADIC and AIC Raise on an institutional partnership – our very first one!

We had over 20 participants that included both AIC Raise startups and others. 

The partnership is to help strengthen the Indian startup ecosystem. As part of it, ADIF will extend its alliance membership to all the startups that are a part of AIC Raise.

To know more about the partnership, or any other queries about joining the ADIF alliance, please reach out to Jibin Jose, who oversees Startup Relations at ADIF, at jj@adif.in or +91 9633908735 (Whatsapp).

Latest from our blog

How Supersourcing's co-founder secured seed funding from his mentor: Paytm founder VSS. In this interview with Mayank Pratap, we learn how being persistent (and a lot of patience) helped in his journey as a startup founder.

Explainer: FLoC – Google's proposed alternative for third-party cookies. What exactly is FLoC? Why is it being opposed? What are ADIF’s views on it? Find the answers here.

#FundingAlert: Crypto exchange CoinDCX raised $90 million, UpGrad raised $185 million, and more. Learn about the latest funding news here.

Updates from the ecosystem

Ixigo filed for Rs 1,600-crore IPO.
MapmyIndia partnered with Drone Federation of India.
Eruditus turned unicorn after $650 million round.
CoinDCX became India’s first crypto unicorn.
Paytm wants to more than double its ESOP pool.
Fintech startups got $2 billion in first half of 2021.

That’s all for this week, thank you for reading!

We look forward to your feedback to improve this newsletter and make it more relevant to you. You can e-mail me at amanat@adif.in.

Regards,
Amanat Khullar
Content & Editorial, ADIF

Join the Alliance of Digital India to become a part of our journey to transform India’s startup ecosystem into the best in the world.

Dear reader,

Thank you for supporting ADIF and for your belief in the Indian startup ecosystem and its enormous potential.

Several of you reached out last month with fantastic referrals – that has helped our network to grow every day and we’re currently over 100-members strong! 

We would love your continued help to get us connected to more like-minded individuals and organisations that could be a part of ADIF using this short referral form.

📣 Some key announcements

• ADIF is now the Alliance of Digital India Foundation. At the core, we are essentially a network of founders and startups – all of whom are driven towards making India the best startup nation globally. As a group of organisations and individuals who are vested in the success of Digital India, we believe that the term ‘alliance’ represents us better. 

• Sijo Kuruvilla George was appointed as ADIF’s Executive Director to set the strategic roadmap for the organisation. Sijo’s wide-ranging experience encompasses entrepreneurship and management consulting to mentoring, and he is one of the strongest catalysts for today’s youth to transform their ideas into possibilities.

• We officially announced our mission to transform the Indian startup ecosystem to be among the top 3 globally by the year 2030 and Sijo has detailed on our blog ‘Why we formed ADIF.’ “The path we craft here in India,” he wrote, “will become the blueprint for other startup ecosystems all over the world as they also transition into a digital-first economy.” 

• We submitted our recommendations to the Department of Consumer Affairs on the draft e-commerce rules. We recognize the government’s intent to protect small and medium players, but believe that the rules tend to miss the mark on ensuring friendliness for them. Tom Thomas, who oversees Government Relations at ADIF, detailed the recommendations on our blog. 

• Tom is currently working on the Google 30% lagaan issue and the 'real' ease of doing business in India. We are eager to hear your thoughts and perspectives on these. Please share them with Tom at tom@adif.in.

• We are now over 100-members strong and are eager to have each and everyone who is vested in the success of the Indian startup ecosystem as a part of our alliance. Should you have any suggestions on who can join our network, feel free to reach out to Jibin, who oversees Startup Relations at ADIF, at jj@adif.in or +91 9633908735  (Whatsapp).

🎉 Extend a welcome to our newest members

Find out more about our new members here.

📝 Here’s the latest from our blog

The ADIF blog is where we post about the Indian startup ecosystem and more. 

These are some of the latest posts. 

• Nykaa’s initial public offering (IPO) could value the e-commerce unicorn at over $4 billion, and Nium and Droom are the latest entrants to the unicorn club. Read more about what’s happening in Indian's unicorn space.

• ShareChat’s parent company raised $145 million, Swift raised $2.2 million, and Dozee raised $6 million. Learn more about the latest funding rounds.

• The 13-year-old food-tech company Zomato achieved a milestone last month – becoming the first Indian unicorn to go public. Read all about the Gurugram-based startup’s journey from idea to IPO.

• I wrote a profile on Ravi Mittal, the founder and CEO of dating platform QuackQuack – which has over 13 million users in India! – exploring his journey from coming up with the idea over a decade ago to his plans now to take his platform to other countries. Read Ravi’s incredible story here. Should you have any thoughts on who in the startup space you’d like to be interviewed, please reach out to me at amanat@adif.in.

📱Follow us

We’d like to invite you to be a part of our social media network to stay up to date on our progress and the digital startup ecosystem. You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

We’d also love for you to help amplify our voice by engaging with our posts and liking/re-tweeting them. 

Sincerely,
Amanat Khullar
Content & Editorial, ADIF