Astrolife.com Bought From People Group By Business Head Raj Rao

MediaNama had learned from reliable sources that Raj Rao, the business head of Astrolife.com has led a management buyout of the portal from the People Group (Shaadi). Astrolife is a website focused on Astrology, and offers both free and paid Astrology related services. Raj Rao confirmed the development to MediaNama, saying that he had started the [...]

Accel Partners India Invests in Payment Solution Provider enStage

Early stage venture capital firm Accel Partners (India) has invested in enStage, Inc., a California based provider of payment solutions. enStage specializes in serving the payment industry in emerging markets such as India and is a provider of authentication and payment solutions in prepaid, online, and mobile payments. The company also provides hosting and processing services, which include payment products and security solutions. enStage payment products include the electronic card used by HDFC Bank under the name of NetSafe, as well as the Verified by Visa solution launched by several financial institutions. Its other clients include ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Andhra Bank, Axis Bank, among others. enStage's product portfolio includes solutions for payment gateways, mobile payments, IVR payments, and eCommerce authentication. Its founders are Govind Setlur, who is also the CEO and Veena Mistry, who is the CTO. "enStage has not only developed unique payment products, but has also established itself as a market leader in India; it is rapidly becoming a leading provider of infrastructure services in electronic payments," he added," said Subrata Mitra, Partner of Accel India. A number of mobile and electronic payment firms have attracted venture capital funding in India. In one of the biggest deals recently in this space, world's largest mobile maker Nokia invested $70 million in Obopay. The company, which is looking to expand in India and China, has earlier raised $69 million from other investors. Other VC-backed firms, focusing on India, in this space are Paymate (KPCB, Sherpalo and Mayfield), mCheck (DFJ), JiGrahak (Helion), Prizm Payments (Sequoia Capital India), among others. Mobile payments especially offers a compelling picture to investors given India's fast growing telecom market, which adds 8-10 million mobile users every month. While mobile users in India recently reached a tally of 400 million, the subscriber base is expected to zoom to 893 million by 2012 according to Cellular Operators Association of India. Mobile payments also provide banking solutions to the portion of the population that don’t have bank accounts.

Consumerization of Enterprise

The notion of enterprise customers as large monolithic technology purchasing entities is on a decline. This perhaps was first visible in sales people popping out their credit cards to buy subscription to salesforce.com. However, the trend is expanding with more and more of social web principles being applied to enterprise software. For some time now, [...]

Mobile Jockey

Jan 22, 2009 Watch Mobile Jockey videos, video clips & video blogs on Mobile Jockey' MySpace Video Channel. You are about to add Mauj Mobile Jockey to your MySpace account. Developed by: Banashri Creative Softwares. ...

Industry Moves: Urban Eye Founder Rishi Khiani Steps Down As Coo …

By Sruthijith KK - contentSutra.com Thirty four-year-old Rishi Khiani, who sold his Urban Eye Media to Network18 Media and Investments Ltd in 2006, has stepped down as chief operating officer at Web18. The Internet arm of Network18 has another COO in ...

Web18 COO Rishi Khiani Puts In His Papers

Web18 COO Rishi Khiani has put in his papers, reports ContentSutra. MediaNama has also confirmed the development independently from Khiani , who said that he hasn’t quite decided his future course of action: “My stint at Network18 has helped me grow both personally and professionally. Time is right for me to take next step, but [...]

Industry Moves: Urban Eye Founder Rishi Khiani Steps Down As COO At Web18

Thirty four-year-old Rishi Khiani, who sold his Urban Eye Media to Network18 Media and Investments Ltd in 2006, has stepped down as chief operating officer at Web18. The Internet arm of Network18 has another COO in Joyson Thomas. "Rishi has decided to move on after completing his three-year contract. He has done a fantastic job of integrating Urban Eye into Web18. We appreciate his contribution," said Surya Mantha, CEO, Web18. Khiani confirmed the development, but did not say what his next move was. "I have a couple of offers. I have to decide between a VC firm and an Indian Internet company," he said. There was speculation earlier that Khiani was joining Times Internet Ltd as CEO, replacing Dinesh Wadhawan, who left that company in March. Khiani denied he was joining TIL. "At Network18, I always had the freedom to go after the ideas that I thought were worthwhile. Through the Urban Eye acquisition, I could come in at the ground level and then be part of the core team that helped shape a leading Internet company in India," he said.  Urban Eye is widely regarded as a wise investment by Network18. The company gave a design edge to Web18's portfolio, which has been adding properties at a fast pace since then. In February, Web18's chief technology officer Varun Singh left to start his own venture. In January, Web18 said it has filed for an IPO on Nasdaq.

Professor Rajeev Motwani: computer scientist, investor and business …

One of the many factors that has made Silicon Valley in California the pre-eminent location for technology companies is the close relationship between businesses, sources of venture capital and nearby universities. This linkage is exemplified in the ...

iPhone Turn By Turn Directions By Tom Tom

Peter-Frans Pauwels, TomTom’s co-founder and CTO, demonstrated TomTom’s navigation software in combination with a specially designed car kit on the iPhone- during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on June 8th, 2009.The TomTom solution combines two new TomTom products to provide users with state of the art in-car navigation on their iPhone 3G: The TomTom navigation application for iPhone and the TomTom car kit for iPhone. 

News Roundup: 3G; Airtel-5M Delhi; BSNL Tunisia, NSN; Google Content, Blackberry; Infratel; Honda Ads

3G Auction Price Doubled In Delhi, Mumbai Cities India’s Department of Telecom has doubled the reserve price for 3G spectrum auction - to Rs. 3540 crores in Delhi and Mumbai, reports CXO Today. MediaNama has been unable to locate the relevant order at the DoT’s website, so we don’t know the exact details yet. There’s been [...]