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Context is everything.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
The mostly bootstrapped startup based in Udupi quietly ignored the IT services playbook and managed to get a perfect exit for the founder and investors
Editor's note: Rohith Bhat moved back to India in 1996, a few years after liberalization, or the opening up of the economy that marked a radical turning point for the country. Bhat had been working at a software company in Japan called Recosoft for about three years at that point. Spotting an opportunity in building software for Apple’s Mac platform, he decided to start his own business, called Robosoft, back in his home town of Udupi, Karnataka. A couple of weeks ago, Robosoft Technologies announced that it was being acquired by a Japanese conglomerate—TechnoPro Holdings—for Rs 805 crore, or around $108 million. Bhat’s 25-year-old software company had only raised about $16 million in external funding in total. The news sent ripples through India’s startup ecosystem and IT sector. How had a little-known app maker tucked out of the way in Udupi, a city known more for temples than for industry, managed close to $25 million in annual revenue and delivered an exit that any venture capital fund would kill for? In the wake of the acquisition, the company’s success has broadly been …
Stagnant wages and job growth are straining the economy. The government’s hyped tax breaks can do little to fix what is fundamentally wrong with demand.
The country’s largest private sector bank has received brickbats from consumers and the regulator for its clunky and outdated systems. It seems to have learnt a lesson.
A proposed central telecoms subscriber database and an alternative caller ID service that uses KYC data with telcos will end up creating more issues than they hope to resolve.
