Start-up environment buoyant in India

Projjol Banerjea is the co-founder of Zeotap, a data platform for telecom operators, which recently secured $6.4 million funding for its global expansion plans. Banerjea started his career in information technology and decided to make a move into entrepreneurship. After studying for the Oxford MBA at Saïd Business School, he joined a small start-up in London that enabled mobile payments for virtual goods and services. He set up Zeotap in 2014 with the goal to shift the balance of power away from mega platform providers like Google, Facebook and Apple to network providers who hold a rich stream of user data. Here he explains the company's vision and its worldwide strategy and how Digital India is helping create the right incubation space for start-ups in India. What is the broad vision behind the company Zeotap was founded last year as a data platform for telecom operators. We believe telcos are the gatekeepers to a wealth of data that can be leveraged by businesses across a multitude of verticals to take smarter decisions, enhance performance and improve efficiencies. In turn, this translates to superior services and higher quality experiences for consumers. Potential applications include advertising, retail (store positioning, inventory management), financial services (customer identity, fraud prevention), transportation (itinerary planning) and many more. While we've selected advertising as the first use case, we're already contemplating future expansion. What does the new funding mean for Zeotap The investment will be utilised for talent and technology. We're building our global technology centre in Bangalore with a headcount of over 20 people by year-end and a plan to at least double that next year. Consequently, a large part of the funds will be channelled into India. What are some of your India and other global expansion plans Our solution was developed in Germany (market with strictest user privacy regulations) in close alignment with the regulators to ensure we never compromise user privacy. In addition to India, our focus this year is on expanding our footprint in North American and select Western European markets. Our objective for next year is to grow our Asian presence using the example of India as the lodestar. What are your views on the Digital India campaign We believe the Digital India campaign is a revolutionary initiative and has the potential to stimulate prodigious improvement in fundamental areas such as health, education and banking. Especially in a mobile-first market such as India, easy access to connectivity and digital services can transform the lives of millions in the country. Specifically, as a universal data platform for telecom operators, we hope to play a small part in the digital empowerment of Indians. Does India have the right incubation environment for start-ups The current start-up environment in India is amongst the most buoyant in the world. Talent in the country has always been second to none. What's been lacking are some of the other essential elements such as a risk-taking mindset (acceptance of failure), experienced advising/ mentoring and access to capital. Much of this has changed recently, and -- with $3.5 billion in funding in the first half of this year-- Indian startups are ready to take on the world. Of course, one must note that the ecosystem is still in its infancy in many ways, most prominently in the domain of exits. While there has been some M&A activity, including some transaction sizes previously unheard of, it has largely been “big eat small” domestic consolidation and that too involving stock transfers. It will be interesting to see if SEBI's recently announced changes in listing and IPO pricing, expected later this year, can help boost liquidity in the system.