Startup Facts | Top successful startups and their owners | Factsaver

A startup is a young company founded by one or more entrepreneurs to develop a unique product or service and bring it to market. By its nature, the typical startup tends to be a shoestring operation, with initial funding from the founders or their friends and families.

Here we have some unknown facts about the well known startups.

Prabhkiran Singh Co-founder & Director of Bewakoof spearheads the Business and Product verticals. An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Prabhkiran started his first business venture in his college days with a lassi cafe before co-founding Bewakoof.com in the year 2012. Founded in 2012 with a brand promise of quirky and cool fashion, the Mumbai-based company is making high-street fashion economical, accessible and affordable for Indian fashionistas. Through its unrivalled digital connect and cool, funky approach across social media platforms, the company has made itself the online shopping behaviour of the up-and-coming young Indian consumers. With over 3000+ style trends, 4 million followers on Facebook and 10 Bollywood movies merchandise, Bewakoof.com is a name to watch out for in the fast fashion realm!

Falguni Nayar founded Nykaa in 2012 with the vision of building a multi-brand omni channel beauty-focused retail business. By empowering customer choices and enabling brands to reach the breadth and depth of the country, Nykaa has emerged as India’s leading beauty retailer playing a critical role in developing the beauty market in India.

Today, heading a team of over 1600 Nykaa-ites, Falguni has built a beauty and lifestyle retail empire with a portfolio of 1500+ brands, including its own private label, available online and across 68 stores in India. Nykaa’s revenue exceeded Rs. 1200 crores in revenue in FY19 and is on track to exceed Rs. 2000 crores in FY20. Nykaa has ventured into new verticals like Nykaa Fashion - a fashion first, style led curated fashion platform.

After graduating from IIM Ahmedabad, Falguni started her career in consulting with A.F. Ferguson & Co. She then spent 18 years at the Kotak Mahindra Bank, helming several businesses and was the Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Investment Bank, and was director at Kotak Securities – the bank’s institutional equities division.

Falguni has received many accolades throughout her career. She was awarded the ‘Woman Ahead’ award at the Economic Times Startup Awards 2017. In the last year alone, recognizing her contribution to the Indian beauty industry, Falguni was awarded the Businesswoman of the Year at the Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence 2019. She was also listed as one of Asia's Power Businesswomen 2019 by Forbes Asia and named Businessperson of the Year 2019 by Vogue India. Most recently, she was awarded EY Entrepreneur of The Year 2019 – Start-up Award by Ernst and Young. She is on the board of several companies, including ACC, Dabur, Endurance Group and Tata Technologies.

Gulati first opened a spice shop in Karol Bagh. In 1953, he rented a second shop in Chandni Chowk. In 1959, Gulati purchased land in Kirti Nagar, New Delhi to set up the manufacturing unit of Mahashian Di Hatti.

As in 2017, Gulati was the highest paid fast moving consumer goods CEO in India. He took home over Rs 21 crore as salary last fiscal.

In 2019, the Government of India honoured Gulati with Padma Bhusan, India's third highest civilian award.

Gulati donates nearly 90% of his salary to charity under the banner of the Mahashay Chunni Lal Charitable Trust. The Trust operates a 250-bed hospital in Delhi, along with a mobile hospital for slum dwellers and four schools.

Wow! Momo is an Indian chain of fast food restaurants headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, specializing in momos,  dumpling popular in Nepal, Tibet and India. It was established in 2008 by Sagar Daryani and Binod Homagai, alumni of St. Xavier's College, in Kolkata.

The company is headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal. In 2019, after Tiger Global Management's investment of ₹130cr, the company was valued at over ₹860 crore.

The company was founded by Sagar Jagdish Daryani and Binod Kumar Homagai, who started selling steamed momos from their 6 by 6 kiosk in Springdale Spencer. The initial stores were kiosks inside hypermarkets of Big Bazaar and Spencer's in Kolkata, which paved a way of opening food outlets in malls, tech parks and other commercial locations.

Ajay Bijli is chairman of PVR Ltd and the owner of PVR Cinemas chain in India. Since 2013 Bijli has been a managing director for CineMAX India and a director for iPic Entertainment Inc.

Bijli completed his BCom from Hindu College of University of Delhi. After graduating, he joined his family’s transportation business and his father’s Priya Theater in Delhi. After the death of his father and a fire at the company’s warehouse Bijli decided to focus on the cinema business. In 1995, a Hollywood producer introduced Bijli to an Australian production house “Village Roadshow” which expand in India further and lead to start of PVR-Priya Village Roadshow.

Bijli founded PVR in 1995 India’s first multiplex cinema at Saket (Delhi) after reconstruct the Anupam Cinema. After his Australian partner left Village Roadshow from Indian market, Bijili decided to expand his business worth Rs. 100 crore. In 2012 Ajay became the managing director for the Karnataka-based Cinemax and also taking over DT cinemas in the year 2016. In 2017, the American cinema player iPic Entertainment appointed Bijli on a board position, from which he resigned in July, 2018.

Awards and recognition:
- International Exhibitor of the Year at CineAsia Awards 2017, Hong Kong.
- Asia Innovator of the Year at India Business Leader awards by CNBC TV18 in 2016.
- Business Icon of the Year at International Film Business Awards by Indywood Film Market and ALIIFF.
- Most Admired Multiplex Professional of the year in CMO Asia’s Multiplex Excellence Awards.

Grofers is an Indian online grocery delivery service. It was founded in December 2013 and is based out of Gurugram. As of 2018, the company has raised about $535.5 million from investors including Softbank, Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital

The name Grofers is a portmenteau of "grocery gophers". Customers of the company use a mobile application to order groceries online. Grofers employees then secure the items from their warehouse and deliver the items to the consumer. The delivery may be scheduled for any time of the day.[10]

Grofers currently operates in 28 cities namely Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Jaipur, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Aligarh, Agra, Ahmedabad, Gurugram, Noida, Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Faridabad, Meerut, Rohtak, Bhiwadi, Moradabad, Sonipat, Guwahati, Panipat, Durgapur, Vadodara, Allahabad, Modinagar

During the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Grofers along with Amazon India and Big Basket were among the few online grocery platforms that continued to operate in India.

Building Bundle previously only helped stoke my passion for solving logistics problems, and we ended up building an on-demand delivery solution that delivers food from restaurants in the neighbourhood within 45 minutes guaranteed, as per the owner of the company.

Today, Swiggy aims to 'change the way India eats' by offering Indian consumers a plethora of food service offerings beyond the world of on-demand restaurant delivery to solve for each and every meal in the month.

Josh Talks initial business model was that of an event management company. The company organised offline events where talks were delivered by inspiring individuals to a live audience that bought tickets to the show. Anshu Gupta, Founder of Goonj; Vicky Roy, a ragpicker who became a celebrity photographer; Soniya, an acid attack survivor; Akkai Padmashali, a transgender activist; Boman Irani, who went from being a waiter to an actor; Ankur Warikoo, CEO, Groupon India; and Arunima Sinha, the first female amputee in the world to climb Mount Everest – these were some of the most popular speakers at Josh Talks events during the first two years.

In 2016, the company launched its YouTube channel and started putting their offline content there. “It was just to see if there was an active audience for it,” she says. Soon, it became the major distribution channel for the startup’s content. Today, Josh Talks gets around 30 million views a month on YouTube. The startup’s content is now present across 40 different online distribution platforms, including YouTube, TikTok, Ola Play, Jio, and Dainik Bhaskar. It has a total of six million subscribers across all the channels. The startup also produces podcasts available on platforms such as Apple’s iTunes, Saavn, and Gaana. Josh Talks has its own studio in Gurugram, where all shoots are recorded. It “barely” does any events now, unless it is running a campaign with a partner that wants offline outreach. The startup has partnered with several prominent entities such as Facebook, UNDP, UN Women, Edelweiss, and ITC for various campaigns and CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiatives. .

A  successful Entrepreneur, Karan Bedi has made a strong presence in the entertainment industry of India through his diverse experience in the digital world. He along with his team has transformed a utility video app into India’s second-largest OTT in a record eight months of launch. Bedi is the young CEO of MX Player, a popular video streaming platform. Graduate from Stanford University with Bachelors in Economics, Bedi has also earlier led Eros as a COO which is now India’s largest streaming servicing a diaspora of audiences. Also worked as a strategic adviser to all digital businesses in Eros International, he has always focussed on creating innovative and engaging content experiences in infotainment and education for worldwide clients.

MX Player is the world’s best video player, and now it’s one of India’s largest streaming platforms. Watch your favourite TV Shows, MX Original Series, Web Shows, Movies, Sports, Music Videos, Live TV Channels, International Shows and much more for free. Enjoy everything in entertainment now in one app.

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A lifelong Manchester United, Mumbai Indians and Indian Cricket Team fan, Harsh completed his engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from Columbia Business School. Bringing together his love for sports, gaming and technology, Harsh pioneered freemium single-match fantasy sports in India in 2012 and is focused on evolving every single Indian Sports fan to a Fantasy Sports user on Dream11. He has been the Chairman of Indian Fantasy Sports and also the Co-founder of Red Digital.

Dream11 is India’s Biggest Sports Gaming platform with 5 Crore+ users playing Fantasy Cricket, Football, Kabaddi, Basketball & Hockey. It is a Game of Skill that offers Indian sports fans a platform to showcase their sports knowledge. Fans can create their own team made up of real-life players from upcoming matches, score points based on their on-field performance and compete with other fans. Dream11 helps sports fans increase their engagement and connect deeper with the sport they love by being a team owner, not just a spectator.

Dream11 is the Official Fantasy Game partner of the VIVO Indian Premier League (VIVO IPL), International Council of Cricket (ICC), VIVO Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), Hero Indian Super League (ISL), National Basketball Association (NBA), Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL), International Hockey Federation (FIH) and Big Bash League (BBL). A Series D funded company, Dream11 was founded in 2008 by Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth and has been ranked #9 among India's Great Mid-Size Workplaces in 2018. Dream11 was recognised as one of the top 10 innovative companies in India by Fast Company in 2019. Kalaari Capital, Think Investments, Multiples Equity and Tencent are the marquee investors in Dream11.

Quora co-founder and CEO Adam D'Angelo got his start at Facebook, where he served as Chief Technology Officer. Quora, which is valued by investors at $900 million, aims to make information sharing easier. D'Angelo founded his question-and-answer site in 2009 with former Facebook employee Charlie Cheever.

Quora reached 100 million monthly visitors in March 2016 and launched Quora en espanol ( "in Spanish") in October. D'Angelo befriended Mark Zuckerberg at elite boarding school Philips Exeter Academy, then joined Facebook in 2004 as the company moved from Harvard to Palo Alto, California.

Brain Facts

Daniel first foray into the business world began at age 13 when he started a business making websites for clients from his home. He charged the first client $100, but then charged the next client who asked $200. Eventually, he started charging $5,000 per website. To help expand the business, Ek recruited students from his class to work on the websites from the school computer lab by bribing them with video games. His earnings eventually reached $50,000 per month and by age 18 he was managing a team of 25. Ek's parents started to notice his earnings once he started bringing home large TVs.

Ek later served in a senior role at Nordic auction company Traders which was acquired by eBay in 2006. Ek also served as the CTO of browser based game and fashion community Stardoll. Ek later started another company Advertigo, an online advertising company. Advertigo sold to Trade Doubler in 2006. After selling Advertigo, Ek briefly became the CEO of μTorrent, working with μTorrent founder Ludvig Strigeus. This ended when μTorrent was sold to BitTorrent on December 7 of 2006. Strigeus would later join Ek as a Spotify developer.

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Sameer Nigam is the Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer at PhonePe. Before starting PhonePe, Sameer along with PhonePe co-founder Rahul Chari started digital content distribution platform, Mime360, in 2009. Mime360 was acquired by Flipkart in October 2011, and the 12-member team got absorbed by Indian ecommerce giant, Flipkart.

A Wharton School-alumni, Sameer overlooked multiple functions including Business Development, Digital distribution and Marketing during his stint at Flipkart. In his last role, he left Flipkart as the Senior Vice President of Engineering.

PhonePe Private Limited or PhonePe is an Indian e-commerce payment system and digital wallet company headquartered in Bangalore, India. It was founded in December 2015, by Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari. PhonePe app went live in August 2016 and was the first payment app built on Unified Payments Interface.

Justdial was established by Venkatachalam Sthanu Subramani Mani aka V.S.S. Mani who performs the role of the Managing Director and CEO of the company. The company began providing local search assistance over the phone in 1996. Under the Just Dial brand and started their Internet and mobile Internet services in 2007. Yes! You read it right, after 11 long years they came to the worldwide web.
Just Dial is a matter of getting it right the second time around. Not giving up even after wind up Ask Me, VSS has taken his phone-based business marketing model to print, online and SMS. He is now busy executing a global rollout.
In 1989, Mani, with some like-minded people began a company called Ask Me. This was before the telecom growth. Only a few people owned telephones those days. The idea was good, well understood, and they tried to improve as fast as possible. But with the downward turn in the marketplace, they were easy victims. Also, since it was a new plan with three different partners working on it, there were three separate ideas. In early 1992, Mani left the company and walked out; it was not going in any direction.
Fifty-odd thousand rupees was all the capital that Mani had. He had to find a residence and an office space and had to support a family of four. There was some relief which came from his cousin, who gave him about a lakh, and that did help him later. Apart from that, there was effectively no other help. Just Dial was, you could say, pretty much built on Rs 50,000.

Launched in early 2015, Milkbasket is India’s first and largest daily micro-delivery service. Built on the unique Indian habit of getting fresh milk delivered at home every morning, Milkbasket (accessible on milkbasket.com, iOS and Android) is today fulfiling the entire grocery needs of a household everyday before 7:00 a.m . To enable frequent and friction- less buying, Milkbasket has innovated flexi ordering and contactless delivery - both a first in the ecommerce industry - and favourites of Milkbasket customers.

This story is an inspiring story of a middle-class Indian guy called Mr. Praful Billore, who, like any other ambitious teen, wanted to pursue an MBA. He appeared in CAT Entrance Exam, for three years and failed every time. He was a sincere student and would study for 8 to 10 hours a day to compete for the CAT exam. His parents had a lot of hopes from him and would encourage him to study hard to get into the right MBA college. On his repetitive failure, he got too depressed and quit his CAT preparations for a while. He roamed around entire India to look for solace. When after a few weeks of traveling, he landed in Ahmedabad, he felt like home. He was not sure of what he wanted to do next, as his plans of pursuing an MBA from top B-school had utterly shattered. So, he joined McDonald’s as housekeeping staff. He kept getting promoted to become a kitchen staff who would take orders, make burgers, and serve the customers.

He had this innate desire to get an identity of his own. He kept thinking of starting a venture of his own. He went around to look for a place to start a cafe’ but the minimum investment needed was Rs. 15,00,000. He did not have any money to invest. So, he finally dropped the idea and kept thinking of some idea of his own. He finally decided to start a tea stall of his own but lacked the courage to do so. Soon after, he set up the stall, but the journey wasn’t easy. He went to a hospital owner and asked him to rent his space to him for putting up a tea-stall. He happily rented it out for Rs. 10,000. And, Praful was back to business with full zeal. He reinvented the strategy of selling tea to his customers. He made a corner in his shop where job seekers can leave their names, numbers, and qualification to help them connect to job providers. The job providers would often come for having tea and would pick up the numbers of suitable candidates.

These are some famous startups by these common men, may their story inspire you.

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