Rail safety to managing hotels: How Indian businessmen are creating unique cloud computing models
Every time a train runs on the vast network of tracks laid by the Indian Railways, its safe passage is in some part due to the efforts of a small technology start-up in Bangalore.
The company, Apna Technologies & Solutions, has installed sensors on the side of railway tracks to detect any defective wheels and axles that can cause track fatigue, fractures, derailments and accidents. This data is transmitted to cloudbased servers for storage and analysis with instant reports on defects transmitted to the Railways within seconds.
Apna's founder Baskar Ceri is just one among several Indian entrepreneurs who now use cloud-based servers to deliver complex engineering technology to a host of new users. From increasing safety in railways, addressing inefficiencies in food supply chain, to managing the operations of hotels, Indian entrepreneurs are coming up with unique models that use cloud computing.
In cloud computing, the information is stored and processed on computers 'in the cloud' or the web instead of local servers. This data can then be remotely accessed through a personal computer, cellphone or any other device. "Cloud computing is a gamechanging model.
This is creating opportunities across the entire spectrum of infrastructure, platform, mobile and social media spaces for Indian entrepreneurs," said Naren Gupta, co-founder and MD of Nexus Venture Partners, who has invested in over six cloud computing start-ups in India.
This includes storage company Gluster and Aryaka with a total of around $60 million invested in this sector till date. The global cloud computing market is expected to reach $241 billion in 2020 compared to $40.7 billion in 2010, according to Forrester Research.
Back in India, the current total cloud market of $400 million will grow over 10 times, reaching a market value of $ 4.5 billion, by 2015, according to Zinnov-EMC India Study released in July this year.
Cloudbased services would cost just half of what traditional services would, prompting entrepreneurs across telecom and networking, facilities and fabric, hardware, software, internal labour and external IT services to change track.
"The cloud platform has levelled the playing field for startups and entrepreneurs around the world," said Shane Owenby, managing director, Asia Pacific Amazon Web Services.
On track:
Ceri, who founded Apna in 2004, began with contracts to integrate IT systems in industries such as automotive, defence and engineering services. Apna, which earned Rs 20 crore last year, switched to become a product company nine months ago and turned its focus only on Indian Railways.
The company, Apna Technologies & Solutions, has installed sensors on the side of railway tracks to detect any defective wheels and axles that can cause track fatigue, fractures, derailments and accidents. This data is transmitted to cloudbased servers for storage and analysis with instant reports on defects transmitted to the Railways within seconds.
Apna's founder Baskar Ceri is just one among several Indian entrepreneurs who now use cloud-based servers to deliver complex engineering technology to a host of new users. From increasing safety in railways, addressing inefficiencies in food supply chain, to managing the operations of hotels, Indian entrepreneurs are coming up with unique models that use cloud computing.
In cloud computing, the information is stored and processed on computers 'in the cloud' or the web instead of local servers. This data can then be remotely accessed through a personal computer, cellphone or any other device. "Cloud computing is a gamechanging model.
This is creating opportunities across the entire spectrum of infrastructure, platform, mobile and social media spaces for Indian entrepreneurs," said Naren Gupta, co-founder and MD of Nexus Venture Partners, who has invested in over six cloud computing start-ups in India.
This includes storage company Gluster and Aryaka with a total of around $60 million invested in this sector till date. The global cloud computing market is expected to reach $241 billion in 2020 compared to $40.7 billion in 2010, according to Forrester Research.
Back in India, the current total cloud market of $400 million will grow over 10 times, reaching a market value of $ 4.5 billion, by 2015, according to Zinnov-EMC India Study released in July this year.
Cloudbased services would cost just half of what traditional services would, prompting entrepreneurs across telecom and networking, facilities and fabric, hardware, software, internal labour and external IT services to change track.
"The cloud platform has levelled the playing field for startups and entrepreneurs around the world," said Shane Owenby, managing director, Asia Pacific Amazon Web Services.
On track:
Ceri, who founded Apna in 2004, began with contracts to integrate IT systems in industries such as automotive, defence and engineering services. Apna, which earned Rs 20 crore last year, switched to become a product company nine months ago and turned its focus only on Indian Railways.
The modernisation of the world's fourth largest railway network, which transports more than seven billion people per year, is likely to cost more than Rs 14 lakh crore over the next 10 years, according to industry body Assocham.
Right now, Apna's systems, developed in collaboration with Indian Ministry of Railways' Research Design and Standards Organisation and IIT Kanpur, are planted only in 15 places out of the 260 locations identified under corporate safety plan.
Apna is aiming to clock Rs 100 crore topline in the next three years. "Indian Railways is the first such organisation that is combining such technology with cloud. We have already implemented cloud solutions in shipping industry and are now also in talks with UK Railways to implement systems using cloud model," said Ceri.
Recovery business:
Pune-based start-up Druva Software is selling cloud based automated backups for laptops, other mobile devices and retrieval software to customers, such as US space agency Nasa, French fashion brand Louis Vuitton and Xerox.
Among the firm's marquee customers is the US Marine Corps, which uses Druva's software to secure laptops in conflict zones such as Afghanistan. The start-up founded in 2007 by Jaspreet Singh, Ramani Kothandaraman and Milind Borate now sells its products to over 750 customers across 26 countries.
Delivering these unique solutions helped Druva raise $12 million in a second round of funding in August this year, led by Nexus Venture Partners with participation from existing investor Sequoia Capital.
Farming clouds:
Entrepreneurs such as Krishna Kumar and Kunal Prasad, on the other hand, are betting on agriculture. They are using cloudbased technology to track crops and manage farms using online devices.
Their Bangalore-based start-up CropEx already has bigticket customers such as Bharti-Walmart, OmniActive and Bharti-Delmonte. It aims to reduce the loss of food by nearly a third, using tracking technology.
Another entrepreneur duo Aneesh Reddy and Krishna Mehra are using the cloud to help retailers understand customer purchase behaviour. Their Bangalore-based start-up Capillary Technologies provides mobile-based customer engagement and loyalty referral solutions.
The firm, founded in 2008, has bagged customers such as Raymond, Puma, Levis and Pizza Hut. Elsewhere in Delhi, Hotelogix, co-founded in 2008 by Prabhash Bhatnagar and Aditya Sanghi, provides a cloud-based platform that gives complete information technology infrastructure for hotels.
All that a hotel needs is a basic internet connection and a computer to access the application, which allows the management of its complete operations. Hotelogix, which received an undisclosed investment from Mumbai Angels and Accel Partners in August this year, has customers such as Activity Resort in Atlanta, Superior Bayfront Inn in Wisconsin and Baucis Palermo, Argentina.
For young start-ups, access to capital is not the only attraction. They are now targets for bigticket acquisitions by large companies keen to expand footprint in the booming sector.
In July, Cloud.com, a start-up backed by Nexus Venture, was acquired by technology major Citrix. According to a person with direct knowledge of the transaction, Citrix has paid between $200-$250 million for the cloud computing start-up with revenues of around $10 million.
"The land grab is now in cloud space. All innovation does not happen internally," said Ravi Gururaj, vice president for engineering, data center and cloud division at Citrix. He said they acquired Cloud.com because it had a roster of over 60 marquee customers such as Tata Communications, Zynga, Bechtel and Go-Daddy.com.
Last year, Ravi Gururaj's own start-up VMLogix was acquired by Citrix. The acquisition was for over $20 million, said a person directly involved in the deal. VMLogix, funded by Bain Capital Ventures & Trilogy, then had just $2 million in reveneus.
"We will see additional acquisitions in the short and medium term. Funds that have exposure to leading companies in the cloud space are likely to do well," said Gupta of Nexus who reckons that a company of the importance of Skype, Google or Facbook will come out of India in the next decade. "This is the golden age of Indian entrepreneurs," he said.
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