Channel M Receives Investment from Intel Capital

Out-of-Home Video Advertising Market Estimated to Reach $2.25B by 20111

Channel M, a leading out-of-home video advertising company, today announced it has completed Series C financing from Intel Capital. Funding will be used to expand Channel M’s digital content distribution network, as well as expand the sales and marketing infrastructure.

“Retailers and advertisers are continually searching for better ways to connect with and influence consumers while they are shopping and Channel M’s out-of-home network of branded original content satisfies this demand,” said David Teichner, CEO of Channel M. “One of our national retailing clients has seen an average of 79 percent ad recall and brand recognition, leading to a 20 percent sales increase in stores that have adopted a Channel M network. With Intel Capital’s investment in Channel M, we will be able to enhance and expand our networks through digital distribution to help us continue to develop the most effective in-store programming for our retail clients and advertisers.”

“The out-of-home video industry has developed into a unique media category with growth potential,” said Gustavo Aray, senior investment manager, Intel Capital. “Intel Capital’s investment in Channel M will drive ongoing development of its digital distribution network as well as support program content development.”

Channel M is the nation’s largest in-store media company, working with more than 20,000 locations in the United States. Channel M’s national ad supported retail networks reach more than 100 million consumers each month, serving as key vehicles for retail branding as well as third party advertising to highly targeted demographics at more than 7,500 points of purchase around the country. The Company’s clients include national retailers such as Macy’s, Ashley Furniture and Blockbuster. Channel M pioneered out-of-home narrowcasting with its unique mix of custom-developed content and advertising that educates consumers, impacts sales, enhances the store environment and drives incremental revenue for retail partners.

1According to market analysts eMarketer and PQ Media, the out-of-home video industry is expected to grow to $2.25 billion and $3.22 billion, respectively, by 2011. To capitalize on the growth potential of the market, Channel M will use the Intel Capital funding to migrate its distribution network to a digital platform. Through digital distribution of its programming, Channel M will be able to offer advertisers the ability to customize delivery of ad content to localize ads or service campaigns nationwide. Digital delivery will also enhance metrics information for Channel M networks, helping to move the industry towards universal reporting standards.

Intel Capital leads Series A investment in 123Greetings.com

Here'sthe link to the press release

New York, USA & Mumbai, India – 17 January 2008 - Intel Capital and 123Greetings, a leading provider of online e-card services, today announced the first closing of a Series A investment in IntraSoft Technologies Ltd, the owner of 123Greetings, led by Intel Capital. The proceeds from the investment are intended to support future product launches, sales and marketing, infrastructure and expansion both in India and internationally.

"Online greeting cards have become a standard form of modern socialization around the world,” said Arvind Sodhani, president, Intel Capital. "Intel Capital looks forward to working with 123Greetings as they advance to the next stage of their growth and expansion."

"We are pleased to receive this support from Intel Capital," said Arvind Kajaria, founder, 123Greetings.com. "Their investment provides us with the opportunity to further our strong position in the online expressions space and take full advantage of growth opportunities."

"Our investment in Intrasoft/123Greetings highlights Intel Capital's interest in India’s technology industry," said Sudheer Kuppam, Intel Capital's managing director for India, Japan, Australasia and South-East Asia. "123Greetings is well established in this market segment. This, combined with their strong content development team, attracted our attention."

Intel Capital's investment comes from the US$250M Intel Capital India Technology Fund which was founded in December 2005. This fund invests in Indian technology companies to help stimulate local technological innovation and the continued growth of India's Information Technology industry. Intel Capital has invested in more than 40 companies across eight cities in India since 1998.

About Intel Capital
Intel Capital, Intel's global investment organization, makes equity investments in innovative technology start-ups and companies worldwide. Intel Capital invests in a broad range of companies offering hardware, software and services targeting enterprise, home, mobility, health, consumer Internet, semiconductor manufacturing, and cleantech. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested more than US$6 billion in approximately 1,000 companies in more than 40 countries. In that timeframe, about 157 portfolio companies have gone public on various exchanges around the world and another 187 have been acquired by other companies. In 2007, Intel Capital invested about US$639 million in 166 deals with approximately 37 percent of funds invested outside the United States. For more information on Intel Capital and its differentiated advantages, visit www.intel.com/capital.

About 123Greetings.com
123Greetings is the world's leading online destination for human expressions reaching over 200 million people annually. Drawing from its tag line "Giving Life to your Expressions" the service inculcates a sense of personalization that relates to the users on an emotional level. Its offering of over 20,000 greeting cards covers a mix of 2,500 special events and everyday celebrations. Its applications & widgets for social networks & blogs allow users ubiquitous access across multiple devices and platforms. For more information on the company, visit www.123greetings.com/info/.

ICICI Bank Launches Mobile Banking Application - ContentSutra

Click here to read the original story at ContentSutra

ICICI Bank has introduced iMobile, a mobile application that allows customers to use it in a manner similar to the Internet banking transactions, including transferring funds to ICICI and non ICICI Bank accounts, pay utility bills and apply for insurance premiums. The facility is being offered free of charge, and covers Savings accounts, Demat, Credit Card and Loan accounts. This is a significant move, coming from India’s largest private sector bank (and second largest, overall, after State Bank of India). ET adds that 22 percent of the bank’s transactions last year were via the Internet, up from 2 percent five years ago. The application can be downloaded by SMSing iMobile to 56767661,or via their website. There’s a flash based demo that you can try.

I just installed the application: it required GPRS for downloading, or will need transferred via the PC - that might limit usage, and ICICI would do well to tie up with a handset manufacturer. The application can use both SMS and GPRS. I received a security code for activation of the service. The activation process took around 5 minutes, over GPRS. The service identified my bank account based on my mobile number on its own. Some features - like checking for the last 5 transactions, did not work. I wasn’t able to figure out how to activate the bill payment, though. The application has been developed by c-sam, promoted by telecom veteran Sam Pitroda. For starters, it’s likely that the bank will try to get its Internet banking customers to use mobile application (their website now has a prominent iMobile banner and link). The bank to bank funds transfer can be used as a payment system. If banks start launching their own mobile payment services, I wonder what will become of independent third party application services?

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Deal Radar 2008: Kayak Consolidates Travel

Are 'Anywhere' Applications Getting Somewhere?


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IIT Kharagpur alumnus develops an online food ordering service for web surfers in India

Hats off to Priyanka!!! Here's a link to an article covered by Economic Times India on her venture - www.hungrybangalore.com

An online food ordering service for web surfers
19 Dec, 2007, 0223 hrs IST,Anjana Alex, TNN

In 2006, when Priyanka, a senior software engineer at Ketera, approached a venture capitalist for some help with a business plan, discouragement was what she got. He told her it was best if professionals start their own business when they are 30+. The young generation, according to him, was not mature enough to take business decisions.

If Priyanka had paid heed, then this tech town would have had to wait for a few more years for hungrybangalore.com.

A premier online restaurant ordering service for the hungry web surfer, it allows you to place orders or make reservations online at participating restaurants for free. Your order is then immediately sent to the restaurant where it is prepared accurately and made available to you at the time and date you specify. You may choose to pick up your order for carry out, have it delivered at your place, or have it ready at your specified time to dine in depending on your preference and the services of the restaurant.

“We always felt a need for an online food ordering system when we worked late at office or on weekends. And with traffic conditions worsening day by day, people prefer to eat at home. It’s also difficult to find tables at peak time if one lands up at the restaurant without any reservation,” says Priyanka.

Thus, hungrybangalore was to serve as an interface between restaurants and their customers and also to ease the ordering process. With menus, reviews and maps available online, it becomes very simple to order food for home deliveries or for just booking a table. And as Priyanka points out, ordering or booking through the internet cuts out any chance of miscommunication between the user and the person who receives the order at the restaurant.

Moreover, the user is provided with a single platform to order across different restaurants in the city.
So why did this IIT Kharagpur alumnus and software veteran quit her cushy job for this plunge? “The young IT crowd is much more confident of themselves than ever before. The media has played a very important role in highlighting the success stories of young entrepreneurs and this inspires a lot of individuals to take risks and start their own firms. This, together with the IT boom and the disposable income that acts as savings in the initial stages of a start-up, has added to a lot of IT professionals choosing to become entrepreneurs,” she says.

Started off with 15 restaurants in July 2006, hungrybangalore today has tie-ups with 150 eating joints across town and the website gets around 1,500-2,000 hits everyday. The website also offers several other interesting features such as recipe videos, dabba services, diet tips and special offers. And if you still have second thoughts about ordering online, a scroll down the testimonial section will definitely change your mind.Thinking back about that venture capitalist’s advice amuses Priyanka. “At this stage, after a year, when we have been growing steadily and when there are so many young entrepreneurs around running successful businesses, it seems funny if we would have really given even a second thought to what he said.”

So the next time you want to entertain a dozen friends or want to reserve a place for business lunch, or just want to be sure that the restaurant doesn’t mix up your order, you know where to go. www.hungrybangalore.com - any restaurant, any time!

IIT Kharagpur alum develops travel site for Indian masses -- provides ability to search both flights and trains

I personally checked the site (http://www.90di.com/travel/), and it was awesome! Planning my travel to places with no direct airplane connectivity was horrible. But now, 90di allows users to plan either train journey, or an airplane journey, or a combination of both. Moreover, they direct you to the website of the original carrier for final booking, much like kayak.com in US.

Here's the background of Mr. Khusnood Naqvi:
Co-founder/ Programmer/ Director

Khushnood is a computer programmer and aspires to develop useful Internet applications in his, this new, avatar of an Entrepreneur. In the past he has developed and architected lots of applications and products in various areas. Some of these are in the area of: BPM/Workflow Engine; Telecom monitoring tools and applications; Insurance domain applications; PKI based security products; Credit card processing systems; and also contributed to the design of some Internet applications in the Web 1.0 days! His prior work experience has been with Infosys, which exposed him to all the diverse domains (mentioned above) and also various generations of technologies. Over the last 2 years of his stay there, he had been playing the role of a Principal Architect. Khushnood holds a Bachelors of Technology degree in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering from IIT Kharagpur.



Here's a past article on the site

Bangalore: The explosion in the private airline business and the emergence of many budget carriers has opened India’s skies to thousands of its citizens.

But there are lakhs for whom this is still unaffordable — or who can think of an air trip only when combined with a journey by a cheaper mode. So far they have been denied the advantages of an Internet -based service.

Now three engineers in Bangalore, have come together to close this gap: Khushnood Naqvi, Kiran M.S., and Abhinit Kumar, all formerly employed at Infosys, recently launched a company, Ninety Degree Internet Software. Their flagship offering is an India-specific travel search engine — www.90di.com — which aggregates information from Indian Railways as well as all airlines in India. Most usefully , it allows travellers to create an itinerary based exclusively on train or air — or a combination of the two. The data base covers over 4000 Indian places — and the strength of the search facility lies in its ability to suggest all possible ways to get from here to there. Users can view various option, even call up a map to trace the rout. They can then ‘mix and match’ rail and air links and work out a combination that fits their purse.

In many respects the rail search facility is an improvement over anything offered by the Railways themselves and a few trials searches by this correspondent threw up many alternatives that would have been difficult to track down by reading the time tables. The site is also very useful if air services connect only part of the proposed trip: For example it will suggest the fastest connection from Delhi to Kottayam: by air to Kochi and then the best rail connection from there.

Mr. Naqvi, Ninety Degree’s Director, told The Hindu that the web resource does not do the booking — it lets the user finalise the itinerary and then provides links to the online booking facilities of the individual airlines. For train bookings the link leads to the IRCTC page which is India’s busiest e-commerce site. 90DI is a starkly simple-looking but feature-rich resource that will ease the hassles of travel planning for many of us.