Global IndianstoryUppma Virdi: The 30-year-old Indian-origin lawyer who made Australia fall in love with chai

Entrepreneurship

Uppma Virdi: The 30-year-old Indian-origin lawyer who made Australia fall in love with chai

Written by: Global Indian

(November 3, 2021) Who would have thought that a cup of tea could propel a 20-something Indian Australian into the country’s big league? But that’s exactly what happened with Uppma Virdi, a Sydney-based lawyer, who shot to fame with her venture Chai Walli. So much so, that in 2016 Virdi was selected as Businesswoman of the Year at the 2016 Indian Australian Business and Community Awards (IABCA).

Quite the accidental entrepreneur, Virdi chanced upon the idea for Chai Walli when she was working as a commercial lawyer. Despite a full-fledged legal career ahead of her, advising some of the fastest growing tech startups and a growing portfolio of employment, IP, and commercial clients, this Global Indian decided to set up a new venture on the side. She founded Chai Walli, a tea business focused on introducing to Australia authentic Indian and Ayurvedic teas. The venture took off and soon Virdi was included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

Check out my latest article: Chai Walli Winner of the Micro Business of the Year Award 2021 at the IABCA Gala Night! https://t.co/iF70QBdGpw.

— Uppma Virdi (@UppmaV) May 18, 2021

The girl from Chandigarh

Born in Chandigarh in 1990, Virdi was raised in Melbourne where her family moved when she was one-year-old. She did her Bachelors of Law and Commerce from Deakin University and a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice from The College of Law. Throughout her student years, Virdi worked actively; sometimes as a customer sales representative and sometimes as a seasonal clerk. She also worked as a paralegal towards workers compensation and also completed her secondment with Toyota Motors in Australia.

Through it all, her love for tea remained a constant. Always the go-to person to make tea for family gatherings and friends, she once made as many as a thousand cups of tea during her brother’s wedding. In an interview with SBS she said, “In the Indian culture people come together through tea. Whether it’s a happy occasion or a difficult moment, tea is all pervasive. I tried, but couldn’t find many good tea places in Australia.”

Global Indian entrepreneur Uppma Virdi

Brewing mantra

Virdi launched Chai Walli in 2014 while still doing her day job at a law firm. Her introduction to tea, she says, was courtesy her grandfather, who was an Ayurvedic doctor. He was the one who taught her how to make a cup of good herbal tea. It was these lessons that she channeled into her startup and began offering Australians a good cup of chai. Her chai business began as a side project while she continued in her day job as a lawyer. She would spend evenings and the weekends blending chai with a pestle, which she would then take to the markets to brew fresh masala chai for the customers. Her tea began gaining popularity and soon Chai Walli was a phenomenon in its own right.

Initially though, her family had quite a few misgivings about this lawyer plunging headlong into the chai business. “My parents were against my decision. They wondered why I wanted to be a tea-seller of all things. That’s when I had to convince them that chaiwallas too can do something worthwhile,” she said in an interview.

Road to success

In a country where coffee was the norm, Virdi made inroads with her steaming cups of Indian chai and its various variants. She began her journey of popularising tea with seminars on The Art of Chai with the aim to educate Australians on the nutritive benefits of Ayurvedic tea. Her workshops did the rounds of social media and she began selling her tea in small stores in Australian markets. She tied up with poor tea farmers in India and imported their produce to Australia. For Virdi, this was an opportunity to familiarise Australians with Indian culture and what it meant to be a first-generation Indian migrant.

Today, Virdi’s online store sells a variety of teas and related products such as candles, pots, kettles, strainers and tea flavoured goodies. The original Chai Walli blend is made with 11 fresh spices, with the warm and cool spices being tempered as per the season to enhance the chai experience. Her workshops where she coaches people on how to brew the perfect cup of chai is quite the rage with tea enthusiasts.

Global Indian entrepreneur Uppma Virdi

Chai Walli won the best chai award at the Royal Hobart Fine Food Awards in 2017 and was the finalist at the Best Health Food and Beverage Awards. In all, the brand offers 15 Ayurvedic blends and teas with the tea being sourced from organic farms in India. For now, the lawyer-turned-entrepreneur, who was featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 is on a mission: to rid the world of bad chai.

Follow Uppma Virdi on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.

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Published on 03, Nov 2021

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5 Indian Americans helming some of Silicon Valley’s most successful ventures

In the cut-throat world of Silicon Valley where startups bloom ever so often, the race to the top is fierce. But several Indian-Americans are ahead of the curve in shepherding some of the US' most innovative ventures, some that have gone on to become unicorns and even publicly-listed companies According to Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends of 2018, startups founded or co-founded by Indian-origin entrepreneurs were among the most highly valued private tech companies in the US. Over the years, several Indian-Americans have shot to the big league in Silicon Valley, the hotbed of global innovation. Global Indian traces the journeys of contemporary Indian-American entrepreneurs who are making waves, especially during the pandemic. Baiju Bhatt, Robinhood [caption id="attachment_4024" align="aligncenter" width="483"] Baiju Bhatt[/caption] The eight-year-old no-brokerage stock trading app has over 13 million users and is valued at more than $40 billion. The company, which is planning to go public later this year, was founded by Baiju Bhatt and his friend from Stanford University, Vladimir Tenev. The app lets users invest in top stocks of major companies gained immense popularity with millennials who earlier might have felt intimidated at the prospect of investing in the stock market. The COVID-19 pandemic, especially, saw

-year-old no-brokerage stock trading app has over 13 million users and is valued at more than $40 billion. The company, which is planning to go public later this year, was founded by Baiju Bhatt and his friend from Stanford University, Vladimir Tenev. The app lets users invest in top stocks of major companies gained immense popularity with millennials who earlier might have felt intimidated at the prospect of investing in the stock market.

The COVID-19 pandemic, especially, saw the app gain 3 million users and a 250% increase in revenue since 2019. 37-year-old Bhatt who grew up in eastern Virginia was born to immigrant parents from Gujarat. His parents moved to the US in 1984, when his father Praful Bhatt enrolled for a Ph.D. program in theoretical physics at the University of Huntsville in Alabama. The family eventually moved to Poquoson where Bhatt completed his high school and relocated to the West Coast for his under graduation in physics at Standford University. He stayed on at Stanford to earn his Master’s in Mathematics and it was here that he and Tenev became roommates and friends. The duo had earlier launched two companies in New York before striking gold with Robinhood.

Bhatt’s idea for Robinhood stemmed from the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests; offering no brokerage stock trading, the app cuts out the high fees charged by stockbrokers, which otherwise makes investing in stocks feel like an intimidating experience for those with low funds. In 2020, Bhatt stepped down as the company’s CEO to focus on product development, stated a report in Forbes.

Rohan Seth, Clubhouse

[caption id="attachment_4027" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Indian-American CEOs at the helm of Silicon Valley's most successful startups Rohan Seth and his daughter Lydia[/caption]

Launched in 2019, Clubhouse was founded by Indian American Rohan Seth and Paul Davidson. The invitation-only social media app gained traction early on in the pandemic when people realized the need for human interaction like never before. Some of its most noted users include the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Within a year of raising funding, Clubhouse went on to become a unicorn and now has more than 8 million downloads.

The founders met when they were studying in Stanford University and after a string of failed businesses decided to give Clubhouse one last try. The app clicked and the two are on their path to success. Incidentally, Seth a New Delhi boy, who did his early schooling in India’s capital city, first worked with tech giant Google for six years before trying his hand at entrepreneurship. He met Davidson when he was looking for funding for Lydian Accelerator, an open-source platform that aims to customize genetic treatments for children born with severe genetic mutations. Seth and his wife Jennifer named the Accelerator after their daughter Lydia, who was born with a rare genetic mutation that causes mental and physical impairments. On his Medium page, he wrote, “We were told her disease was too rare, and there was no treatment, but neither is true.” His daughter is now undergoing gene-silencing treatments.

Apoorva Mehta, Instacart

[caption id="attachment_4029" align="aligncenter" width="341"] Indian-American CEOs at the helm of Silicon Valley's most successful startups Apoorva Mehta[/caption]

Backed by marquee investors such as Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures, grocery delivery and pick-up startup Instacart came as a godsend for many American users during the pandemic. The company recently signed pacts with grocery majors such as Loblaws, Alberstons, Kroger, Costco and CVS and reached a valuation of $39 billion in March 2021. Founded in 2012 by Apoorva Mehta, Max Mullen, and Brandon Leonardo, Instacart saw a drastic increase in profits during the pandemic when social distancing and lockdowns forced a change in lifestyles.

Mehta, a former Amazon employee, was born in India and moved with his family to Canada in 2000. He studied engineering at the University of Waterloo in Ontario from where he graduated in 2008. He also worked with companies such as Blackberry and Qualcomm, before branching off on his own. Before he struck gold with Instacart, Mehta had launched over 20 startups ranging from an ad network for social gaming companies to a social network specifically for lawyers. In 2013, he was featured in the Forbes 30-under-30 list. In 2016, he made to America’s Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 list and in 2021 he was included in the TIME100 Next. Interestingly, Mehta had quit his job at Amazon after he found the work environment to be “slow and bureaucratic”. Today, Amazon has become one of Instacart's biggest competitors.

Jay Chaudhry, Zscaler

[caption id="attachment_4031" align="aligncenter" width="426"] Indian-American CEOs at the helm of Silicon Valley's most successful startups Jay Chaudhry[/caption]

Cybersecurity firm Zscaler was co-founded by 62-year-old Jay Chaudhry in 2007 and its two most popular products Zscaler Private Access and Zscaler Internet Access help provide secure access to locally hosted apps and external apps. It had an initial public offering in 2018 where it raised $192 million; in 2020 it purchased cloud security management startup Cloudneeti. Today, the company is listed on NASDAQ and is worth $28 billion.

Chaudhry, who owns 45% stake in the company, grew up in Panoh in Himachal Pradesh. As a child, he had no access to electricity and would study under the trees. In an interview with The Tribune, he said that would walk nearly 4 kilometers each day to attend school in the neighboring village. He went on to study at IIT-Varanasi before moving to the US for his MBA from the University of Cincinnati. Chaudhry then worked in sales and marketing at companies such as IBM, Unisys, and IQ Software for 25 years, before launching his own company. Today, Zscaler is the leader in cloud security, developing the world’s largest cloud-native security platform. Chaudhry’s estimate net worth of $13 billion has made him the ninth richest Indian in the world.

KR Sridhar, Bloom Energy

[caption id="attachment_4034" align="aligncenter" width="422"] Indian-American CEOs at the helm of Silicon Valley's most successful startups KR Sridhar[/caption]

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Born in Tamil Nadu, Sridhar graduated in mechanical engineering from NIT, Tiruchirapalli 39 years back before moving to the US for his MS in nuclear engineering and PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He founded Bloom with the aim to make clean, reliable energy affordable for everyone. He initially led a project to build a device for NASA using solar power and water from Mars to produce oxygen. When it was canceled, he worked on reversing the process to use oxygen and hydrogen to produce electricity instead. On his website, Sridhar writes, “The growing demand for essential electricity and the knowledge that the climate cannot sustain the status quo requires that we rethink how to shape this transforming global marketplace.”

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Rajeeb Dey: The British-Indian entrepreneur who became the WEF’s youngest Young Global Leader

(November 16, 2021) Landing a job or an internship where you aren’t just fetching coffee is no mean feat. Being able to find the right contacts, get your resume noticed, land an interview and eventually an internship or a job can be quite a long winded and complicated procedure. That’s where Rajeeb Dey, a British-Indian entrepreneur steps in. The founder of Enternships has been supporting entrepreneurs and fresh talent in the UK for more than a decade now. Dey, who began his entrepreneurial journey as a student at age 17, has three successful ventures so far: Enternships, StartUp Britain, and Learnerbly. The entrepreneur has a tendency to help others through different platforms and associations and in recognition of his services, he was awarded an MBE at the age of 31; one of the youngest to receive the honour. Dey was also the winner of the O2 X Young Entrerpreneur of the Year Award and was named as the world’s youngest Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2012. [embed]https://twitter.com/rajdey/status/1447861833268879360?s=20[/embed] Starting young Born in December 1985, Dey graduated with first class honours from Jesus College, University of Oxford, where he studied Economics and Management. Incidentally, Dey launched his first venture Student Voice at age 17 as a

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Starting young

Born in December 1985, Dey graduated with first class honours from Jesus College, University of Oxford, where he studied Economics and Management. Incidentally, Dey launched his first venture Student Voice at age 17 as a first-year student at Oxford, for he felt that the voices of students between the ages of 11 and 19 weren’t heard. In his second year, he became the president of Oxford Entrepreneurs Society, a student society for entrepreneurs on campus. He went on to become its longest-serving president; it was around this time that he saw the opportunity for a new organisation that could bridge the gap between startups and interns. As president, Dey would receive a large number of requests from startups wanting to access his talent pool. That is when he came up with the idea of creating a simple listing page to match students and startups. This eventually grew to become Enternships, a thriving business in the UK today.

Talking to Hot Topics about his entrepreneurial journey, this Global Indian said, “My entrepreneurial journey started at the age of 17. At the time, I didn’t even know what the term entrepreneur was, I just felt that I wanted to do something to give school students a voice. I got a grant of £5,000 from a fund for social enterprises called UnLtd and that really kick started my entrepreneurial journey. I realised I liked coming up with an idea, setting something up and seeing it become a reality. That led me to join the Oxford Entreprenuers Society whilst at University, which I became President of in my 2nd year. That was a great experience and also gave me the inspiration for Enternships.”

Global Indian Rajeeb Dey

Having started as a job listing site, it soon became a go-to platform for graduates to find jobs in startups and the venture generated a lot of buzz. The portal has so far connected several students and graduates to roles in over 7,000 fast-growing businesses such as startups, SMEs and intrapreneurial firms across the globe. It was in recognition of his work through Enternships that Dey received the O2 X Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2009. Enternships.com was also one of the top 3 finalists in the Esquire Magazine New Business Challenge and the finalist in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 Life Academy Awards.

The need to upskill

According to Dey, one of the main benefits of working with a startup is the freedom one gets. “In a start up the role is often not so clearly defined, so it’s up to you to define what you are doing and to get stuck into all aspects of the business. You are not necessarily going to get pigeon-holed into doing one particular thing, your role probably pertains to the working of the business, so you have the opportunity to really learn from alongside the founder, or the CEO to find out how business really works, and in many cases you can create your own job,” he told Palatinate in an interview.

Dey spent three years looking at the learning and upskilling industry as well as the recruitment industry to see how he could positively impact candidates’ experiences. The entrepreneur, in fact, has had a large impact on the British startup ecosystem. He co-founded StartUp Britain, a national campaign founded with seven other entrepreneurs to encourage enterprise in the UK. The campaign was launched in 2011 under the David Cameron government.

Global Indian Rajeeb Dey

On an entrepreneurial roll

He then went on to set up his next venture Learnerbly to help companies nurture and develop talent through the program. In an interview with Forbes, he said, “At Learnerbly, we curate the best learning experiences, whether it be courses, coaching, conferences, podcasts, books, articles — the full breadth of professional development, recognising that people learn in many different ways. We want to connect you to the best learning that's right for you in the way you like to learn.”

This he says is to help encourage holistic development of employees and steer them in the direction of possible new roles and career choices within the organisations they work at. Employees are matched to learning opportunities that are curated via peer-to-peer recommendations and insights from industry experts from companies like Google, Airbnb, and Unruly. With the market for professional learning being fragmented, Learnerbly makes it easier for companies to target staff development.

Dey, who calls himself the accidental entrepreneur, has certainly come a long way since his Student Voices days, as he sets about changing the way the UK startup eco-system, hires, retains, and develops talent.

Follow Rajeeb Dey on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Pankaj Agarwal: The Indian entrepreneur changing edtech for rural India

(August 10, 2021; 6.30 pm) That learning will increasingly go digital is a given. Especially, in light of the pandemic that has brought the world to its knees and shut schools and colleges across the globe. 2020, touted to be the year of edtech startups, saw several enterprises step in to provide solutions for a smooth takeover of virtual classrooms. However, there was one glaring gap that couldn’t be bridged — what of rural India with its digital divide? That is when entrepreneur Pankaj Agarwal decided to introduce an app Class Saathi through his startup TagHive. The app works equally well in classrooms with and without computers. The solution does not require internet or electricity to work; only a smartphone for the teacher. The service uses a clicker solution that works alongside a mobile phone app which works well even in the offline mode – making internet connectivity issues redundant. In fact, one of Agarwal’s key focus areas has been to create solutions that will help reduce the dropout rates in India’s schools. His work, got him noticed and the 38-year-old was featured in Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list this year. [embed]https://twitter.com/DoRA_IITK/status/1400290649266552833?s=20[/embed] Agarwal’s mission has been to reduce dropout rates in schools. In an interview with The

n to create solutions that will help reduce the dropout rates in India’s schools. His work, got him noticed and the 38-year-old was featured in Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list this year.

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Agarwal’s mission has been to reduce dropout rates in schools. In an interview with The Week, he said,

"The dropout rates widen as we go from grade 1 to grade 8. Our focus is to reduce the gap in the early stage."

According to Agarwal, a leading reason for the high dropout rates in India’s government schools is the learning gap that widens as the grade progresses. Class Saathi offers teachers special features to identify and reduce these gaps.

Journey to the top

According to his LinkedIn page, Agarwal knows the value of good education.

“I come from a small village in India which had no good schools. From there, I went on to study in the best of schools across 3 countries. That led me to believe that education is a great equalizer in life and that technology can help improve the quality of education,” he says.

Agarwal did his B.Tech in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from IIT-Kanpur before moving to Seoul for his Masters at Seoul National University as a Samsung GSP Scholar. Upon his graduation, he joined Samsung Electronics in South Korea and worked there for over three years.

His thirst for knowledge though drove him to aspire higher. In 2010, Agarwal became the first international employee to be sponsored by Samsung for an overseas MBA and studied at Harvard Business School. This was followed by four more years at Samsung in South Korea: first as advisor to the CTO and then as Creative Leader at Tag+.

[caption id="attachment_7090" align="aligncenter" width="650"] That is where Pankaj Agarwal’s TagHive stepped in with its app Class Saathi which works equally well in classrooms with and without computers. Pankaj Agarwal[/caption]

Entrepreneurial journey

All along though, Agarwal knew he wanted to do something to give back to his country; especially in the education space. So, in April 2017 he quit his cushy job to dive headlong into entrepreneurship and founded TagHive, a South Korea-headquartered company that was seed funded by Samsung Ventures. Under TagHive, Agarwal launched Class Saathi, a learning solution tailor made for India. Requiring no electricity, internet connectivity, low maintenance and low cost, it is perfect for classrooms across the country; especially in rural India where the digital divide is a glaring chasm of uncertainty.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PxgJBMq7Po[/embed]

Based on the concept of quizzes, Class Saathi provides students with clickers which connect via Bluetooth with the teacher’s smartphone. The startup also ran a pilot project in Uttar Pradesh which found that attendance and learning outcomes of students had gone up significantly within a month. This led the UP government to invite TagHive to deploy its solutions across 200 schools, followed by a project for the Madhya Pradesh government covering 2,000 schools. Agarwal told The Week,

"Class Saathi is a lens that lets us now see things that were not possible earlier. It gives schools and governments tangible data to evaluate and assess the educational system."

When the pandemic struck last year and schools across the country were forced to shut down, Class Saathi began to focus on its at-home learning app with content for Math and Science tailored for classes VI-X based on the NCERT syllabus. The self-learning app can be used by students at home for self-evaluation and to gauge the learning process.

According to data by UNESCO, 1.2 billion children are out of school globally due to the pandemic and the unprecedented toll it has been taking on our education system. This is where an edtech solution such as Class Saathi steps in to ensure that students continue to be able to access education and Agarwal’s unique perspective has been helping the startup offer India unique solutions.

Reading Time: 8 mins

Deepinder Goyal: The resilient entrepreneur ever hungry for bigger challenges

(July 16, 2021; 6:55 pm) What began as an intranet website has now turned into one of the biggest food delivery companies in the country. Zomato, a brand that became a billion-dollar empire in just a decade, has now hit another jackpot with its ₹9,375 crore Initial Public Offering (IPO). Such has been the craze that its IPO subscribed nearly five times on the second day of its issue. A feat not many companies have attained. And, the lion’s share of credit goes to its founder Deepinder Goyal. At the Zomato office pic.twitter.com/0hzeZD9M9g — Sanjeev Bikhchandani (@sbikh) July 14, 2021 Ever since the record-breaking debut at IPO, Goyal has been at the receiving end of immense support and cheer from other entrepreneurs. From co-founder Pankaj Chaddah and Info Edge’s Sanjeev Bikhchandani and Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the laurels keep pouring in. Pankaj Chaddha, the co-founder of Zomato, tweeted, “Congrats @deepigoyal & the entire @zomato team! The IPO is a huge validation of the value created through the years and is a landmark event for the start-up ecosystem. Feeling extremely lucky to have been a part of the journey. Keep showing the way! #ZomatoIPO” Congrats @deepigoyal & the entire @zomato team!

/strong>, the laurels keep pouring in.

Pankaj Chaddha, the co-founder of Zomato, tweeted, “Congrats @deepigoyal & the entire @zomato team! The IPO is a huge validation of the value created through the years and is a landmark event for the start-up ecosystem. Feeling extremely lucky to have been a part of the journey. Keep showing the way! #ZomatoIPO”

Congrats @deepigoyal & the entire @zomato team! The IPO is a huge validation of the value created through the years, and is a landmark event for the start-up ecosystem.

Feeling extremely lucky to have been a part of the journey. Keep showing the way! #ZomatoIPO

— Pankaj Chaddah (@pankajchaddah) July 14, 2021

How it started. How it’s going @zomato @deepigoyal pic.twitter.com/zcNou498UN

— Sanjeev Bikhchandani (@sbikh) July 14, 2021

The humble beginnings

It was while ordering a pizza from his room at IIT-Delhi that an idea of starting a food delivery company struck Goyal. However, it fizzled out soon, and Goyal ventured into the corporate world with Bain & Company. It was here that the idea regerminated when he saw a sea of crowd struggling to place the order at the canteen during mealtimes. With the help from his colleague Pankaj Chaddah, who was also Goyal's junior at IIT-Delhi, the two came up with a creative solution for saving time spent while ordering food. That was the beginning of Foodiebay.com. Scanning the office canteen's menu and those from neighboring restaurants made Foodiebay.com an instant hit at Bain.

With the revenue trickling in, Goyal and Chaddah decided to turn their side hustle into a proper business. They quit Bain in 2009 and decided to start their own company.

The positive response encouraged Foodiebay.com to extend its wings to other metropolitan like Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, and Bengaluru, and in one year, they listed over 8000 restaurants.

The game-changing e-mail

Foodiebay.com was doing well for a start-up, but little did Goyal know that an e-mail from a fan would change their lives forever. It was Sanjeev Bikhchandani, the founder of naukri.com and Info Edge, who reached out to Goyal telling him that he would like to invest in Foodiebay.com. The two signed the deal within few days of the email. Info Edge invested $1 million in 2010 in Foodiebay.com.

How Foodiebay became Zomato

With a million-dollar invested in Foodiebay.com, Goyal decided to change the name to Zomato. The entrepreneur soon realized that there was 'ebay in his brand, and in his words, "one should not build a business on a name which has 5% chance of getting screwed in the future."

Soon Zomato was introduced to the world with a massive marketing and rebranding exercise.

"We decided to keep the idea of food at the center but choose a name that is timeless and encompassing. We decided on the name Zomato. Zomato’s got a zing to it and is originally a play on the word Tomato. Zomato is not restricted to food either," Deepinder Goyal wrote in his blog in 2010.

The Global Indian brand

In two years of the start-up, Zomato went international by launching its service in Dubai and Singapore. The same year, Zomato went social with its new tools asking its 2.5 million active monthly users to review restaurants and share their love for food.

In 2013, Sanjeev Bikhchandani pitched Zomato to venture capital giants Sequoia, and in no time, they jointly invested $37 million in the food delivery company, which then had 600 employees and its existence in 11 countries.

With an appetite for global expansion, Zomato acquired New Zealand's MenuMania, Czech Republic's Lunchtime, Poland's Gastronauci, and America's UrbanSpoon. With its US launch, the food aggregator brand entered the coveted unicorn club with a $50 million fundraiser from Vy Capital and Info Edge.

Trouble in paradise

The food delivery giant started facing trouble in its paradise in 2015 when it had to lay off 300 employees. It even made an exit from 14 countries it was in and reduced its cash burn from $9 million to $1.6 million.

Zomato vs Swiggy

It was towards the end of 2018 that Zomato started to feel the heat from its competitor Swiggy, that was making a big wave in online delivery food. But Goyal wasn't ready to bow down to competition yet and introduced strict timelines for food delivery in 2015. And within one year, Zomato hit 1 million orders.

In 2018, Zomato felt a huge blow when Pankaj Chaddah, the co-founder, quit the company without any explanation. This was also the beginning of restaurants' cold relationship with Zomato. So much so that a Log Out campaign was launched by the restaurants alleging high commissions. However, Zomato had a different story to tell and called the restaurants its partners.

It was in January 2020 that Zomato bite into its competition when it bought Uber Eats in a $350 acquisition.

And now Zomato has come knocking on the people’s doors for delivering its shares. How well would Zomato do as a public company? The whole of India’s startup ecosystem would be watching.

Editor's Take

Deepinder Goyal revolutionized the food industry with Zomato. He literally brought every restaurant to our doorstep with just a swipe on the phone.: A feat that wasn't achieved in the food business until 2008. Zomato’s rise from a bootstrapped venture to a company that is raising a record amount through its IPO augurs well for the Indian startup ecosystem. For the first time, a new-age Indian internet venture - typically not exposed to public scrutiny – will be dissected and analyzed. This will also be a test of whether India’s equity markets are ready to accept fast-growing, but loss-making companies. The Zomato IPO will be a testbed for Indian startups.

Reading Time: 6 mins

CONGLOMERATES: The Indian behind much of Oman’s infrastructure

(Our Contributor, May 6) Entrepreneur-turned-industrialist-turned-philanthropist Dr P Mohamed Ali hardly needs an introduction. Almost 50 years since he set up Galfar, the engineering firm, in Oman, Dr Ali’s business has spread across countries. But at the core of the conglomerate – with deep interest in construction, manufacturing, hospitality, real estate, education et al − is what Dr Ali says, “creating value”. With this vision, Dr Ali began working on a foundation that could inspire youths not only in Oman but also in his hometown Thalikulam in Thrissur, and in Kerala to pursue their dreams. Established in 1988, PM Foundation has been supporting hundreds of economically weaker yet meritorious students across the country through fellowships, scholarships and cash awards. Years before the government came up with educational loan, the foundation began doling out interest-free financial assistance to students. It has also facilitated tuition for civil services and other competitive exams in engineering, medical, chartered accountancy among others. Before leaving India for Dubai, Dr Ali worked with General Reserve Engineering Force, under the Ministry of Defence of Mizohill, now renamed as Mizoram, for three years. Unlike most of the people of his generation, Dr Ali wanted to do something on his

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Before leaving India for Dubai, Dr Ali worked with General Reserve Engineering Force, under the Ministry of Defence of Mizohill, now renamed as Mizoram, for three years. Unlike most of the people of his generation, Dr Ali wanted to do something on his own, and with that dream of entrepreneurship, he set foot in Dubai.

In an interview, Dr Ali, the first recipient of Pravasi Bharatiya Samman of the Government of India, said that he had sought the ethos of India to attain a global height through his initiative of PM International. While on one hand, Galfar constructed roads and modern buildings in an arid land of Oman to reshape its infrastructure, on the other his endeavours back home in India through MFAR created thousands of job opportunities in a wide spectrum from technology park to five-star hotels. In the process, the visionary could come up with India’s first producer of activated carbon and universities and schools, as well.

In early 2001, almost 30 years after Dr Ali began his journey as an entrepreneur, realized the need for empowering youths with proper education to remain relevant in the new millennium. With some like-minded people, he initiated the foundation stone of non-profit trust, Social Advancement Foundation of India (SAFI). It gave birth to SAFI Institute of Advanced Study (SIAS) in Vazhayur near Kozhikode in 2005 with Dr Ali as the current chairman (emeritus) of the board. This institute, in its undergraduate, postgraduate and research courses, reflects the vision of Dr Ali, who feels brilliance in studies can make a person excel in the work life too. If PM Foundation helps students aspire to be global Indian, SIAS takes care of them to turn the thoughts into action for a fruitful future.

Looking at the healthcare infrastructure in Kerala, Dr Ali – arguably the 12th richest Indian now – initiated medical assistance through PM Foundation and partner NGOs who would take care of the needy patients. At heart, Dr Ali is still the modest Indian who dreamed big and did bigger. “If you are fearless and honest in your action, you can conquer the world. You can do it with the attitude to gratitude, the principle of giving back to the society,” signs off Dr Ali.

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