Parentree named one of India’s 25 Hot Web 2.0 startups, by …

Parentree named one of India's 25 Hot Web 2.0 startups, by ...India PRwire (press release), IndiaParentree (www.parentree.in) today announced that it has been named to Dataquest magazine's India's 25 Hot Web 2.0 Startups list. Dataquest magazine's editorial team and Indianweb2.com, a startup focusing on the Indian startups market created the list ...

Laundry list of reforms. What’s yours?

Everybody has their own agenda for reforms. It ranges from subsidies to tax cuts and eventually to stimulus packages. In India people are confused between tax cuts and stimulus packages. What we have seen so far are tax cuts not stimulus packages. Now, everybody is talking about Reforms 3.0. Can you blame them? It has been [...]

Who Owns Rang7.com?

Rang7.com is the latest online travel portal to hit the Indian market. The website has attracted a lot of attention in the last few days as a leading newspaper reported the portal was owned by India’s three major domestic airlines - Kingfisher Airlines, IndiGo Airlines and SpiceJet. And that the venture was floated by airlines to checkmate other independent OTAs who survive largely on commission payouts by airline companies. Even though the ownership of the travel portal is still being speculated, VCCircle digs for more information on the people behind the OTA, which is reportedly trying to become an Orbitz in India, a US based travel portal owned by airline operators. VCCircle learns that Rang7 is founded by V. Ram Seethepalli, who was a former Managing Director and Group Vice President of Cendant Group, which had bought Orbitz (for $1.2 billion in 2004) and later ebookers for $190 million. Cendant exited the entire travel distribution services business (called Travelport) in 2006 by selling it off to Blackstone Group-led PE consortium for $4.3 billion. Seethepalli, who was looking after M&A at the company, had worked in their New York and Hong Kong offices. Sources say that Seethepalli has been primarily backed by Rahul Bhatia, the founder of travel technology solutions provider InterGlobe Technologies and IndiGo Airlines. InterGlobe is the India distributor of travel distribution platform Galileo, which was owned by Seethepalli's former employer Cendant Group. VCCircle could not reach both Seethepalli and Bhatia for confirmation. When contacted, Kingfisher Airlines’ spokesperson denied that the report of its backing Rang7 as a "complete rumour". SpiceJet’s interest in the company could also not be confirmed. Sources say that Seethepalli and Bhatia could be in the process of cobbling up other investors. The Economic Times had reported a venture capital firm had invested $3 million in the company, however, this information could not be verified. A VCCircle email to Rang7 to understand more about the company, the founders, and investors elicited a standard email reply from an unidentified spokesperson of the company. It said: "Rang7.com is currently in Beta launch stage and as part of this exercise, we are currently fine tuning our technology platform & processes, and identifying how we can improve our services, before we undertake a public launch. This beta launch was initiated in December 2008, and is likely to go on for another couple of months." When asked about the reports of airlines backing Rang7, the company said: "We are not at the liberty to comment at this stage. The concept of an airline partnership has successfully been rolled out across the world (Orbitz.com in the US, Opodo.com in Europe). Such a partnership successfully delivers cost savings to airlines including GDS costs and commission costs." This means Rang7 is indeed following the Orbitz model. Orbitz was founded in 1999 with the partnership of major airlines such as Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, United Airlines and American Airlines, who invested a combined $145 million in the company. The travel company was formed by the airlines in response to the threat of the growing online travel agents (OTAs). After a successful IPO in 2003, Orbitz was acquired by the New York-based Cendant Corporation in 2004. It remains to be seen if an Orbitz model can work in India. A leading travel portal CEO said it's easier said than done to build a consumer brand. The leading OTAs in India are MakeMyTrip.com, Yatra.com and Cleartrip.com, besides TravelGuru and others. They have been around for years now and have plonked large investments for building brand awareness and marketshare. Moreover, airline operators have their own websites hawking tickets and there is likely to be a conflict. And lastly, the ownership structure could throw up problems of commitment as single owner is unlikely to own more than 10% in the company.   Aloke Bajpai, CEO and Founder, Ixigo, an OTA which aggregates sales leads for airline companies, said: “The Orbitz model cannot be successful in India as Orbitz innovated on the product and technology which has now been adopted by various OTAs in India. Also, at the time when Orbitz was launched, the Global Distribution System (GDS) fee was very high, which has now come down considerably, leaving a business model like the Orbitz with very low saving options.” He also feels that in the times to come, the ‘zero commission’ pattern will prevail, making transaction fee the only source of income for the OTAs, hence making the Orbitz model unsustainable in India. In any case, consumers can rejoice as they can hope to get more sops and enticements.

Highlights From HT Media Concall: Internet Business, Burda JV, Mint

Here are some highlights from the HT Media post result conference call this morning. Call was attended by HT Media CEO Rajiv Verma, Fever 104 FM business head Keertivasan and chief financial strategist Vinay Mittal. Radio business: The merger of Fever 104 FM into the company contributed Rs7.4 crore to the topline. Management is pleased with the performance of the radio business, with the station topping the ratings in Mumbai and Bangalore. The company is now ready to scale up and will look at both participating in the FM Phase 3 license auctions (as and when it happens) and also look at acquisitions. Radio business had revenues of Rs30 crore for the fiscal and also Ebitda losses of Rs30 crore. The operation would have achieved break even during the last quarter but for the fact that some revenue had to be deferred and shown in the next quarter. Operating costs are expected to come down next fiscal as the marketing and brand building costs incurred this fiscal will not be repeated. Print business: Hindi business is registering strong growth. Circulation revenue grew about 5%. Pagination has been cut across the board. The company consumed 147,000 tonnes of newsprint during the last fiscal at an average rate of Rs35,000 per tonne. Cheaper newsprint will kick in this year. Mint made losses of Rs39 crore during the fiscal. According to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation, Hindustan had a circulation of 16.5 lakhs, Hindustan Times had 15 lakhs and Mint, 1.1 lakhs. Mint will launch in Kolkata within the next one month and in Chennai, with two months, as we had reported earlier.  Internet business: Shine.com has crossed 2.2 million registered users. The downturn in the job market also affected Shine, but the situation is slowly improving. The Internet business posted Ebitda losses of Rs48 crore. This is expected to come down to Rs35 crore next year. "If it doesn't perform, the business will certainly be reviewed," Mittal said at one point, adding, "there may be a change in strategy." CEO Rajiv Verma, however, defended the business throughout. "Online business is certainly the future for any media company. We all know what is happening in the West. Media companies are under pressure because the consumer has migrated online and they did not have a profitable model in place in time. We do not want our company to come under the same pressures in the future," Verma said. At another stage, he said: "Those who are not making investments online now may find—and this may happen sooner than latter—that consumer habits have shifted online." Responding to a question if HT will expand also into other classified verticals such as matrimonials and real estate, Verma said not until the existing business gained enough traction. "This is a new domain for us. It takes time for any company to build competencies in a new domain and we'd like to see Shine gaining traction in the market just like Fever and Mint has. We remain committed to this business and we thing it is a good investment that the company has made." When asked how the company was planning to monetize the online business, Verma said while he admitted that companies worldwide have found it difficult to make money online, "now there is a huge paradigm shift happening in terms of monetizing content online". Participation in growth programme: The company invested about Rs200 crore in the participation in growth programme (ads for equity) and it yielded revenues of Rs19 crore in Q4. Capex for next fiscal: The company will invest Rs40 crore in capex and Rs40 crore in a joint venture with Germany's Hubert Burda Media to set up what was described as a "media BPO" (business process outsourcing) unit. The joint venture has captive business in the form of Burda's existing business in the Asia Pacific region that will be transferred to the JV and is expected to break even in the first year of operation. Cost optimization, revenues and consolidated figures: A range of cost optimization initiatives have been undertaken across the board, including manpower, raw material and operational overheards such as travel. The gains from these will kick in starting this fiscal. Ad revenue growth has been under strain with clients deferring ad spends or cutting them, but the company expects it to pick up gradually. Ad yields are as good if not better than competition in all markets. The drop in consolidated net profit was due to the absorption of losses as follows: Rs 30 crore from the radio business, Rs48 crore from the Internet business, Rs16 crore from the Metro Now JV with Bennett, Coleman, and Rs5 crore spends on the Burda JV. Related HT Media Q4 Net Profit Down 44% On Newsprint, Slowing Ad Revenue Growth Must Attend Event: EconSM: Social Meets Mobile, May 14th in San Francisco. Speakers include Seth Sternberg, (CEO and Co-Founder, Meebo), Kevin Thau, (Director, Mobile Business Development, Twitter), and George Linardos, (VP, Product Management, Media, Nokia) among many more. See full list and register at www.econsm.com. Get 10% off the the early registration fee by using code "EconSM0910"

Aricent and Cavium Networks Collaborate to Provide Advanced LTE eNodeB Solutions

Joint effort will combine Aricent LTE eNodeB Framework (eNBF) and Cavium's OCTEON Multi-core MIPS64 Processor Family designed to provide optimized solutions for LTE eNodeB Equipment Manufacturers PALO ALTO, Calif., May 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Aricent, a global innovation, technology and services company focused exclusively on communications, and Cavium Networks (Nasdaq: CAVM), a leading provider of ...

Airlines To Back Online Flight Booking Site Rang7, Travel Portal MyIndia

(By Nikhil Pahwa and Preethi J) Under the aegis of Federation of Indian Airlines, three airlines - Spicejet, IndiGo and Kingfisher - are going to back a site for booking airline tickets and planning holidays called Rang7. Rang7 and its travel subsite MyIndia directly compete with online travel agents (OTAs) Cleartrip, Yatra and Makemytrip. By the looks of [...]

Proto.in Pune – Check out the Bootcamp!

Proto.in has just announced its Pune event on 25th July. Its a one day event, with the first part featuring prominent speakers such as the likes of Bharat Goenka of Tally and Pravin Gandhi of SeedFund. The second part has promised to be an “Oscar like event” showcasing 20 “mindblowing” technology startups. What got me excited [...]

Digitoons #24

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Should the government reduce dilute stake in Navratnas?

What a revelation this has been? Few months back the question was Does the government has the will to reduce stake in Navratnas? Now, that question is out of the window as there is a clear majority and a crystal clear answer. We can now dare to ask a question like this. We might as [...]

Mhada Site Crashed For Lottery Results?

Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority arranged a housing lottery for dream-scheme.. offering subsidised flats in the economically weaker, low, middle and high income category. Total 4.33 lakh applicants bid for total of 3,863 apartments.Today was the big day for Mumbaikars as results of the much-awaited Maharashtra Housing and Area DevelopmentAuthority (Mhada) housing lottery announced at 9am at the Rangsharda Auditorium in Bandra today. Looks like the crazy traffic crashed the drupal powered MHADA website. I tried to open the site and it gives me a message The site is currently not available due to technical problems. Please try again later. Thank you for your understanding. ...Oops! Click the link to read more