Startup Street: Sachin Tendulkar-Backed Startup Ties Up With Eros Now

This week on Startup Street, a Sachin Tendulkar-backed IoT startup has bagged an exclusive deal with Eros Now. Lending firm Quiklo has foreyed into educational loans, while content aggregating startup Dekkho also has big expansion plans. Additionally, Swiggy has some new survey data to share. Here's what went down.

Startup Backed By Sachin Tendulkar Ties Up With Eros Now

Smartron, a internet of things startup backed by cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, has signed a strategic partnership with digital entertainment content provider Eros Now to provide exclusive content only to Smatron smartphone users.

Eros Now will be the exclusive digital over-the-top service for entertainment content on all Smartron devices, said a media statement by Eros International Plc.

Eros Now will provide Smartron users access to its digital repository of movies, television shows, originals and regional content.

The Hyderabad-based Smartron made the news headlines when it launched the ‘srt.phone', an Android-powered smartphone that featured the signature of the cricketing legend. Smartron has also built another smartphone, the t.phone, and a hybrid notebook that doubles up as a tablet.

However, its prized possession is the TronX machine learning platform, which is integrated across all its devices.

Content Aggregating Startup Grows 3-Fold Every Month

Dekkho, a startup that aggregates short-format content from production houses for online viewing, has been growing at the rate of 200 percent every month since its launch.

The three-month old website has already reached the one million unique visitors mark, said its co-founder Tannay Desai in an interview to BloombergQuint.

These early milestones have prompted Dekkho to reach out for new ones. The startup – which has already tied up with production houses like All India Bakchod, Culture Machine, East India Comedy, ScoopWhoop and Sony Music – is now looking to co-create content with them in the future.

“We'll start with six to seven basic properties, for example trailer reviews, and then go on to co-creating content with some of our existing clients,” Desai said. The company is already in talks with some of the production houses.

With its expansion plans in place, Dekkho hopes to reach 5 million unique users by the end of the year, with 25,000 hours of content on the ad-driven website. It currently holds 12,000 hours of entertainment.

Quiklo To Now Give Education Loans

Accel Partners and Traxcn Labs-backed micro lending startup Quiklo will now also provide education and test preparation loans.

The startup, launched in late 2015, provided credit to students for purchasing consumer durables on installments. Now it will foray into education finance, and look to serve those students who are not eligible for direct loans from banks, according to a media statement.

Quiklo estimates that loans given for tuition, test prep and hostel fees has a $10 bilion market and it aims to tap into that.

The penetration of education loans is very low, with only 5 percent getting loans for education fees, said Mrigank Shekhar, co-founder of Quiklo.

Accel Partners, which has incubated Quiklo in its office, seem to be happy from the startup's progress. “The team has done an exceptional job of execution and proving the vision they set out to achieve”, said Prayank Swaroop of Accel Partners.

Quiklo boasts of receiving loan requests of almost Rs 5 crore every month, and yet, of keeping non-performing assets to as low as 1.5 percent of the total disbursement, according to the statement.

Swiggy Sees A Surge Of Breakfast Orders

Ordering breakfast on Swiggy is becoming increasingly popular among working professionals, according to a survey conducted by the food delivery platform.

“Swiggy's order analysis over the last three months reveals that the breakfast segment is witnessing faster growth vis-à-vis other categories,” the startup said in a statement. This could possibly be pointing towards a change in trend of eating habits, it added.

The change is being led by working professionals between the age of 25 and 34 who are 40 percent more likely to order breakfast than those between the age of 18 and 24. The cities of Hyderbad, Bengaluru and Pune led the surge in terms of orders while Gurugram, Mumbai and Delhi led growth in terms of value of order.

While the trend of ordering in breakfast is changing, breakfast preferences are not. According to the survey, Indians still prefer traditional breakfast items like idli, dosa, paratha and poha to kick-start their day.

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