India first 3D-printed Humanoid Robot

World is moving forward rapidly in technology. Recently in Techfest at IIT Bombay, India saw its first 3D-Printed Humanoid Robot. A humanoid robot is defined as one that is shaped to resemble a human. Manav is two feet tall and looks like an oversized toy. Built with 21 sensors, two cameras in its eye sockets and two mikes on either side of its head, Manav is India’s first 3D printed humanoid robot.

Weighing 2kg, Manav which means man in Sanskrit, has built in vision and sound processing capability, allowing it to talk and act exactly like a human. Manav built in processor and pre-programmed sensors allow it to perform tasks such as walking, talking, and dancing without the help of a laptop. It also has two degrees of freedom in its head and neck, allowing it to move its head sideways and up and down. Diwakar Vaish designs it.

Manav outer frame is made of plastic and it was 3D printed from Buildkart Retail Pvt Ltd. It uses an open soured code so that it can also be taught to learn and respond like a human child. It also has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, and has a rechargeable lithium polymer battery that can work for an hour with a single full charge. It is priced between Rs. 1.5-2 Lakh. It is primarily meant for research purposes.

Vaish team is also working on smart home-automated solution using robotic technology that can sense human feelings and perform tasks without being told like opening doors, turning on the air conditioning sensing an increase in body temperature, and switching on the TV to a channel of choice. They are also working on a wearable mind sensor headset that can track a person attention span and concentration levels, can also read brainwaves. He has been recognized by former presidents Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil, and won the award for the “Best Innovative Researcher 2012.”

The government incentives to the manufacturing industry to “Make in India”, similar to its incentives to the hardware industry, could boost the use of robotics in India, to bridge the gap between the technological progress in robotics in India and the rest of the world.

XCOR ties up with Fortpoint

XCOR Aerospace is an American private rocket engine and spaceflight development company based on the Mojave Spaceport in Mojave, California. XCOR was formed members of the Rotary Rocket Engine development team in September, 1999. XCOR is headed by Jeff Greason.

XCOR Aerospace is developing the tourist rocket plane, has tied up with Mumbai based Fortpoint Automotive to woo more Indians to take its space tours, expected to take off next year. A few Indians have booked their tickets in a passenger spacecraft that will blast them into space, 100 km beyond earth’s gravity, to a spot from where one can see the curvature of our planet, shelling out about Rs 62 Lakh or $100,000.

The idea of space tourism took off in 2004 when British entrepreneur Richard Branson launched Virgin Galactic to start a space travel programme. About 800 people including Stephen Hawking, Tom Hanks, Angelina Jolie, and Kerala based businessman Santosh George Kulangara have already booked their ticket to board Virgin Galactic SpaceShip Two, which costs $250,000, which is about Rs 1.55 crore.

According to Virgin Galactic, many Indians have shown interest in its space tour. But it is not clear who will start commercial operations first, particularly after a SpaceShip Two crashed in November last during a test flight, bringing a lot of latent apprehensions to the fore. As part of XCOR move to woo Indians for its space tour programme, a full scale model of its spacecraft, the Lynx, will be displayed at the Luxury Festival, organized by Quintessentially Lifestyle Services India in Delhi in April. 

Mylan acquired Famy Care Business

Mylan Inc. is a global generic and specialty pharmaceuticals company headquartered in Pennsylvania. In 2007, Mylan acquired a controlling interest in India based Matrix Laboratories Limited, a top producer of generic drugs, and the generic business of Germany based Merck KGaA. Through these acquisitions, Mylan has grown from the third largest generic company in United States to the second largest generic and Pharmaceuticals Company in the world.

Recently, Indian subsidiary Mylan Laboratories Limited, signed a definitive agreement to acquire certain female health care businesses from Famy Care Limited, a specialty women’s health care company with global leadership in generic oral contraceptive products for $750 Million in cash plus additional contingent payments of up to $50 Million. The acquisition will build on Mylan existing partnerships with Famy care in North America, Europe, and Australia.

Famy Care, headquartered in Mumbai, India, offers a comprehensive range of women’s health products including oral and injectable contraceptives, intra-uterine devices (IUDs), tubal rings, and hormone replacement therapy products. More than 15% of the world women using oral contraceptive pills today use a Famy Care product. It is the world largest producer of generic OCPs, with four high quality-manufacturing facilities in India, two of which have been approved by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Union.

Famy Care is the first generics company to have received prequalification from the WHO for hormonal contraceptives. This manufacturing base represents one of the lowest cost and largest dedicated to OCPs globally, and brings Mylan Strong capabilities in OCP cycles, injectable, IUDs, and tubal rings. Famy Care has a strong presence in the private, institutional, and non-governmental organization sectors and markets its products in more than 90 countries around the world.

Snapdeal buys Exclusively.com

Snapdeal aims to strengthen its fashion business, looking to touch $2 Billion in gross merchandise value in the fashion category this year. Online marketplace, Snapdeal acquired Exclusively.com, an online portal for premium and luxury fashion, for an undisclosed amount. Luxury products and services are a $14 Billion market in India, growing at 30% year on year. More than 70% consumers want to shop for luxury products in India.

The acquisition of Exclusively is similar to that of domestic e-commerce firm and Snapdeal rival, Flipkart acquiring online fashion retailer Myntra for an estimated Rs 2,000 crore deal in May last year, making it the biggest consolidation in the e-commerce space in India. The company has brought Exclusively.com to provide its over 40 Million users access to widest range of aspirational, high-end products and services.

Under this partnership, Exclusively.com will complement Snapdeal existing ecosystem and will provide a consolidated offering for the luxury and lifestyle shopper, making it India’s first online luxury mall. Luxury and premium fashion brands across the world can now open stores in Exclusively.com online luxury mall. Exclusively.com will continue to function as an independent site and all aspects of Exclusively.com online shopping experience will remain intact, with new collection and service augmentations in the pipeline.

The firm expects the luxury products portal to reach a GMV of USD 100 Million by 2015 end and USD 1 Billion in next three years. Exclusively.com today retails hundreds of India’s leading designers on its site, including Manish Malhotra, Tarun Tahiliani, Manish Arora, Ritu Kumar, and Varun Bahl. This year, Exclusively.com plans to launch leading international luxury brands and designers on the site. Snapdeal has so far risen over USD 1.5 Billion from a clutch of investors that include Japan Softbank and Ratan Tata.

Infosys Buys Panaya

Infosys is an Indian Multinational corporation that provides business consulting, information technology, software engineering, and outsourcing services. It is headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. Panaya is American software as a Service (SaaS) company that provides cloud based quality management services for enterprise applications worldwide. Its services run on the Amazon Product Advertising API.

Infosys announced that it would buy automation technology company Panaya Inc, at an enterprise value of about $200 Million, as the third largest IT Company in the world looks to boost competitiveness and margins. Panaya Technology would help it to bring automation to several service lines through software as a service model, reducing risks, costs, and the time taken to bring services in the market.

For $8.25 Billion turnover Infosys, which has a cash reserve of $5.4 Billion, this is the second largest acquisition after the September 2012 buyout of Switzerland based SAP services company Loadstone Management Consultancy for $345 Million. Infosys is acquiring Panaya at a time when IT services companies are laying greater emphasis on automation as workforce optimization holds key to profitability for the industry which is primarily driven by human resource.

Infosys and its peers TCS, Wipro, and HCL have been deploying automation to enhance delivery to their clients. Infosys has been traditionally shy of acquisition making less than half a dozen buyouts in its existence of over 33 years most of which were small with deal size below $50 Million. Infosys has been making big bets on automation and other new technology like artificial intelligence and cloud based services as the company tries to regain some lost ground from rivals like Tata Consultancy Services.

Expedia Buys Orbitz

Expedia Inc is the American based parent company to several global online travel brands including Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Trivago etc. Expedia Inc companies operate more than 100 branded points of sale in more than 60 countries. Expedia also power travel bookings for over 10,000 partners such as airlines and hotels, consumer brands, and high traffic websites.

Orbitz Worldwide Inc is a company that operates a web site used to research, plan, and book travel. Recently, Expedia Inc bought Orbitz for about $1.6 Billion in cash to bring on the rival programmers and widen its consumer base. Expedia will be buying both Orbitz portal plus many other brands that it owns. The deal speaks to ongoing consolidation in the market, but also Expedia bigger competitive threat in the form of Priceline, which owns Kayak and other large travel properties, and the fact that perhaps Orbitz saw the consolidation written on the wall itself.

With the Orbitz Acquisition, Expedia would become the biggest player in the travel retail area with a market share of more than 6%, just ahead of Priceline nearly 5% share. That could be bad news for airlines and hotels that will likely lose leverage in negotiations with the sites. Hotels will be under pressure to list their rooms on the sites because of their reach. Expedia in 2014 saw the number of bookings rise 28 percent to 50 Million, and reported a profit of $398 Million. 

Google Acquires Odysee

Google may be soon adding more offline and private sharing features to its Google+ Photos service. It had acquired Odysee, an iOS and Android app that let users automatically back up photos and videos taken on their cameras or tablets to their home computers. It also let users set up private, automatic sharing with other people, and it had an API for integrating the service with other apps.

Google might launch Photos as a standalone service, independent of Google+. Adding in options to save photos offline, and more features to better control how you share pictures, are logical additions that would give Google Photos service a more rounded offering, and help differentiate it more from other competing photo services. Others in the crowded space of online photo services include Facebook/Instagram, Yahoo Flickr, Dropbox and many more.

Odysee, which let people log in with Facebook or by creating an account, was an app created by Nimbuz, co-founded by Raghavan Menon and Shiva Javalagi. Both founders have background in Networking, Algorithms, Caching, and Embedded Software. Menon previously co-founded chip designer Ingot Systems, which was acquired by Virage Logic, later acquired by Synopsys.

Odysee keeps copies of recently accessed photos and videos online at high quality. Odysee keeps copies of photos and videos that are unlikely to access online at lower quality similar to that on Instagram or Facebook. It had its own “follower and following network” that was based around the idea of adding a small group of close family and friends who would also be on the app, with the option of sharing more pictures to “non-Odysee users” by way of URL links rather than embeds. It was build around a freemium model free for the first year, and the $5/year thereafter.

Olacabs to acquire TaxiForSure

Taxi aggregators are readying themselves to take on the global giant Uber, once the regulatory issues are cleared in India. Olacabs, the Indian startup supported by Japan Softbank’s is buying its rival TaxiForSure, signaling consolidation in the nascent taxi app market. Key investors in TaxiForSure include Accel partners and Qualcomm.

The deal, which is estimated to be worth around $200-250 Million, will be second largest deal in the customer internet space after Flipkart $370 Million acquisition of Myntra. It will make Olacabs the leader in taxi aggregator business in India valued at $2 Billion. Ola is likely to pay cash and also offer stock to acquire TaxiForSure. Apart from taking on the $40 billion Uber, the move is also aimed at lowering the cost.

Globally too taxi aggregators are in talks to form an international alliance against Uber, potentially linking up regional players including Olacabs, Singapore Grab Taxi, and San Francisco based Flywheel. Though, none of the Indian Taxi aggregator companies have started making profit yet, TaxiForSure, run by Bangalore based Senrendipity Infolabs, seems to be in urgent need for financial support.

Olacabs, cofounded by IIT Bombay alumnus Bhavish Aggarwal and his college mate Ankit Bhati, received $210 million in funding led by Japanese communications conglomerate Softbank in October. TaxiForSure had snagged $30 Million from Accel and Qualcomm, but Olacabs fundraising demonstrated that momentum had swung its way. IIM Ahmedabad graduates Raghunandan G and Aprameya Radhakrishna found TaxiForSure.

Foodpanda Acquires JustEat

Online food delivery market place Foodpanda.in had acquired food-ordering portal Just Eat India in all stock deal. Just Eat Plc., the largest shareholder in Achindra Online Marketing Pvt. Ltd that runs Just Eat India, will receive a minority stake in Foodpanda.in as part of the deal. This is seventh food startups Foodpanda bought across Asia.

UK based JustEat will acquire undisclosed stake in combined entity, which will be India’s largest food-ordering provider with a presence in more than 200 cities across 12,000 restaurants. The online food services market is valued at over $14 Billion in India and $371 Billion globally. Zomato, which is expected to leverage its listings of about 50,000 restaurants in India by building its own ordering platform globally, is likely to pose the biggest challenge to Rocket Internet, backed Foodpanda.

The purchase is second in four months by the company, which in November acquired food delivery business TastyKhana.in for an undisclosed amount. The latest deal comes in at a time when restaurant search portal Zomato is looking to enter the online food ordering space in India. Just Eat Plc., was launched in Denmark in 2001 and was traded publicly on the London Stock Exchange. It entered India by acquiring a majority stake in Hungry in Bengaluru in 2011. Hungry was launched in 2006. Today, the company collaborates with more than 2000 restaurants.

Foodpanda.in was launched in India in May 2012, operates in 39 countries across five continents. Together with TastyKhana and JustEat, the brand is present in more than 200 cities and partners over 12,000 restaurants. The company currently gets more than 100,000 unique visitors daily on its platform. In August last year, Foodpanda raised $60 Million in new financing form a group of investors and existing backer Rocket Internet.

Google Buys Impermium

Impermium is a cyber security startup based company in Redwood City, California, which provides anti-spam and account protection services for internet web sites. Mark Risher, Vishwanath Ramarao, and Naveen Jamal, who met while managing the Anti-spam systems for Yahoo Mail, founded the company in 2010. The startup is a security firm that builds products for websites that deals with cyber security.

Impermium had earlier received $9 Million in funding from a host of venture firms including Accel partners, AOL ventures, Charles River Ventures, and Highland Capital Partners. The company says it has 300,000 clients, including CNN, Tumblr, Pinterest, ESPN, Typepad, and Washington Post. This is Google third acquisition at the start of the year with previous deals including smart thermostat maker, Nest and developer of Timely Alarm Clock, Bitspin.

Google was last seen purchasing smart phone startup Nest for $3.2 Billion, the amount which Google had paying completely in cash. The company is best known for its products like Nest Learning Thermostat and Protect Smoke detector. Facebook had recently purchased its very first Indian Startup, Little Eye Labs. The company officially announced it had been taken over earlier this month. Little Eye Labs essentially creates tools to help mobile app developers to optimize their products performance. Whether for the technology or the talent the interest of big Internet giants in Indian startups is great news for the local startup community.

Dentsu Aegis acquires WATConsult

Dentsu Inc. is an International advertising and public relations company whose headquarters are located in the Dentsu Building in the Shiodome district of Minato, Tokyo. The Company origins as a media representative producing the first newspaper advertisements and the first television commercials in Japan. The company now offers a range of services, from traditional and creative marketing to specialty disciplines such as sports marketing, digital contents, PR, and a growing range of communication services.

Dentsu reached an agreement with the principal shareholder of Mumbai based WATConsult, a digital agency, to acquire a 90% stake in the company, which will ultimately be increased in steps to 100%. WATConsult will become part of Isobar, one of the Dentsu Group’s global network brands, and will be referred to as WATConsult linked by Isobar.

WATConsult, founded in 2007 as a Social Media agency, has developed into a digital agency offering services such as digital creative, digital media planning and buying, development of campaigns that utilize social and digital media, production of digital media applications and digital video, and online reputation management. Its clients include Godrej, Tata, Bajaj, Mahindra, SAP, and Nikon. WATConsult employs more than 160 people across the Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, and Kolkata and has annual revenue of nearly Rs. 30 Crore.

A wholly owned subsidiary of Dentsu Inc, the Dentsu India Group comprises three standalone full service-advertising agencies – Dentsu Communications, Dentsu Marcom, and Dentsu Creative Impact as well as Dentsu Media and Dentsu Digital. Tokyo based Dentsu Inc has a presence in 24 countries across five continents. In 2012, it acquired 51 percent stake in Mumbai based advertising agency Taproot India Communication Pvt Ltd for an undisclosed sum.

Zomato acquires Turkey based Mekanist

Online restaurant search service company Zomato continues to be on an acquisition store. The firm, launched in 2008 and valued at $660 Million, announced it had acquired Turkey based Mekanist. However, the company did not disclose the size of the deal, but it is estimated at $35-50 Million. This is Zomato seventh acquisition in last seven months.

A few days earlier, Zomato had acquired Urbanspoon in the US for $52 Million. With the acquisition of Mekanist, the restaurant search company will expand into several cities in Turkey. Its coverage will increase from about 27,500 restaurants in Istanbul and Ankara to about 75,000 across the country, serving users about three million times a month.

Ali Servet Eyuboglu and Eren founded Mekanist eight years ago. Zomato had forayed into Turkey in November 2013, making its website and apps available to users in Turkish and English. Through the next two months, the company will roll out an integrated product in the two languages for users and business owners. Zomato has a team of 27 people in Turkey; most of them who are is based out of Istanbul.

Mekanist has about 190,000 listed establishments such as popular restaurants, cafes, and bars, along with about 500,000 reviews from its 1.5 Million signed up user base on the web and mobile platforms. Mekanist entire traffic and restaurant related content would now move to Zomato, while Mekanist app users will be able to use the Zomato app. In addition, restaurants could benefit from Zomato hyper-local advertising model and target customers. The ‘Zomato for Business’ app suite will help restaurant businesses connect and engage with customers.