Yahoo buys out Bangalore startup Bookpad

After Facebook and Google acquired Little Eye Labs and Impermium respectively, here comes yet another acquisition of an Indian startup by a global technology major, underlining the growing innovativeness of the country's startup ecosystem.

Yahoo has bought Bangalore-based Bookpad, a startup that's barely a year old and founded by three youngsters who passed out of IIT-Guwahati over the past three years. The precise value of the deal could not be ascertained, but sources said it's a little under $15 million (Rs 90 crore).

Bookpad's enterprise software product, DocsPad, allows users to view any document (like PDF, Word, Powerpoint), as also edit and annotate it, within a website or app. It works across devices, and does not require downloading of plug-ins or desktop software. For Yahoo, a content provider, the technology can potentially be embedded in many of its services. IT industry body Nasscom's 10,000 Startups programme had identified Bookpad as a promising idea and the venture was incubated at the Startup Warehouse established by Nasscom and the Karnataka government in Bangalore. It was later part of the Microsoft Accelerator programme in the city. 

Rajan Anandan, Google India MD and who has been a key figure in the Nasscom 10,000 Startups programme, said Bookpad is a very focused product that has got good traction with virtually no money raised. "The acquisition by a global technology firm is a big validation for India's product ecosystem. Over the next few years, we will have many $1-billion product companies as India's capability to build product companies become prevalent and proven," he said.

Yahoo had not responded to TOI's request for a comment till the time of going to print.

Bookpad's founders include Aditya Bandi, 25, Niketh Sabbineni, 24, and Ashwik Battu, 23. Bandi graduated with a degree in design from IIT-Guwahati in 2011 and had brief stints at Microsoft, Cognizant and Symantec. Sabbineni graduated in computer science in 2012, and worked briefly in Amazon. The youngest, Battu, graduated as a chemical engineer just this year.

They wanted to solve a pain point they faced as students. They used to upload various document formats to the cloud, but they couldn't edit or annotate them in real time.

Bookpad's big break came when they participated in Nasscom's Innotrek, a trip to Silicon Valley earlier this year that was designed to help Indian startups to meet US technology giants and familiarize them with the startup environment there. During the trip, they met M&A consultant Rob Schram, who later helped broker the deal between Yahoo and Bookpad.

Ravi Gururaj, head of Nasscom's product council, said, "Our nurturing process is clearly working. Mynoticeperiod (another startup that's part of the Startup Warehouse) received funding from IDG, and now this. We will take this template forward."

Srivatsa Krishna, IT secretary in the Karnataka government, said, "Bookpad has done us proud by being acquired by Yahoo. It is disruptive technology at its best. Bangalore is inching its way up to becoming the startup capital of the world." All the six full-time Bookpad employees, including the three founders, will join Yahoo's engineering team in Bangalore. The deal includes cash, earnouts and stock options.

Currently, Bookpad supports 15 different document formats. The potential is huge considering that 2.5 billion people browse the internet and 53 billion documents are on the cloud today and the number is expected to touch 200 billion within the next two years. (Source: TOI)

KBC gets its first Rs 7 crore winner in two brothers

MUMBAI: The Narula brothers, Achin and Sarthak, became the first ever contestants to win the highest prize of Rs 7 crore in reality game show 'Kaun Banega Crorepati', hosted by Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan.

The Narula brothers, who hail from Delhi, emerged victorious after answering all the 14 questions correctly with the help of four lifelines.

Achin is a marketing manager and Sarthak is a student. Achin has been trying to be a part of the iconic show for the last 10 years but always fell short of being selected for the fastest finger first contest.

Bachchan, 71, hinted about the big win on his official blog and Twitter handle while posting his pictures from the show.

He wrote, "It is a topsy turvy world tonight and KBC is the one that needs to be blamed!! What incredible moments, what brilliance and what an incredible play ...! That is all I am permitted to say."

"The beauty and the excitement of KBC at its very maximum! Just an incredible moment," Bachchan tweeted, followed by a photograph from the sets of the show featuring the winners.

"Bazuumbaaa," the actor posted along with the snap adorned with the Rupee symbol.

Bachchan, who has been hosting the show for 14 years, was reportedly speechless as the brothers made it to the top prize.

Siddhartha Basu, who is the producer of the show, said the jackpot win was a moment to cherish.

"We have been waiting for a moment like this since the inception of this show. It is a pleasure to see bright brains like Achin and Sarthak battle it out for the Maha Jackpot."

Gaurav Seth, senior vice-president marketing, Sony Entertainment Television called the win a "momentous occasion" while congratulating the brothers on their win.

(Source: TOI)

This 8-year-old makes $1.3 million a year via YouTube

What were you up to when you were 8-years-old? Probably something less impressive than Evan.

Evan is the kid behind EvanTubeHD, which is a family-friendly YouTube channel where Evan (and occasionally his sister or mom) reviews toys and video games. And Evan rakes in $1.3 million a year from posting his toy reviews to YouTube.

It started out as a fun project Evan and his dad embarked on together. The pair would make Angry Birds stop-motion videos, and according to a Newsweek interview with Jared, Evan's father, "all of the proceeds from the channel goes into investment and savings accounts for their children."

Tech-savvy and smart. Not a bad combo.

In an interview with Newsweek, we learn a little more about the business behind Evan's viral videos. Jared says they have a dedicated sales team that sells ads and negotiates deals with brands and businesses.

"These include both ads that appear in and around each video as well as products actually featured in our videos. The majority of the revenue is generated by the ads placed on the video itself," he says. "Outside of the networks, YouTube/Google handles all ad placement within the site. Content creators have a few options regarding the format of ads they would like to allow on their videos. But the actual ads are chosen by some higher power."

Take a look at this review, which has over 50 million views. 50 million!

Meet the 19-year-old developer who turned down Apple

Last week, 19-year-old John Meyer dropped out of a prestigious university computer science program to work full-time on his tech startup, Fresco News. His parents weren't happy at first. He was attending NYU where his mom is a professor, he said. But they eventually came around to support him, because they had to admit: Meyer is already a successful independent computer programmer. He's been writing apps since his freshman year in high school, 2008, after teaching himself the programming language Objective C. And he's been making money at it since his sophomore year of high school, he says. "Money-wise, I've been pretty fortunate. I've been able to support myself since just a year after I got started," he said. He's making so much money writing iPhone apps that during his first year of college he could afford to live alone, pay NYU tuition while bootstrapping Fresco, he said. Fresco News is a sort of intersection between Instagram, Twitter and Flipboard that turns photos from ordinary people on the scene of big news events into news stories. We pressed him to reveal his income but promised not to share it. Let's just say it's on par with what software engineers earn at some of the best tech companies. Despite his young age, Meyer's app portfolio is impressive. He's written about 40 apps, mostly through his app company TapMedia, he says. This includes the popular iPhone 4 flashlight app Just Light (which may have been the very first flashlight app). It went nuts, downloaded about 2 million times, he said. Apple now includes a flashlight app with the iPhone. He's just had another huge hit called Perfect Shot, too, released about a year ago for iOS 7. It was downloaded 60,000 times in the first four days and is now at over 1 million, he says. It uses the smile and eye detection features in the iPhone camera for taking the perfect group photo. Hold the phone up and wait. The app takes the shot in the perfect millisecond when everyone is smiling, no one is blinking. A very smart idea. So smart, that Meyer nabbed the attention of Apple. The company asked him to become an intern, he says. That's a dream come true for most students. And it pays. Apple interns can make $5,723 a month. But he turned Apple down. "I get emails from recruiters all the time, and this past summer an offer to intern at Apple," he says. But, he explains, "I am, at heart, an entrepreneur. I won't be happy working for someone else."

   

 Apple's developer conference every year," he says. "I'm in a field where I've done a lot of things already, an expansive portfolio of projects I've worked on." He's actually been attending the developer's conference since he was 16, sneaking in the first time with his dad's help. His dad flew him to San Francisco, registered himself for the conference, and then handed the pass to his son to attend. "I was 16 and anyone under 18 wasn't allowed. It was right after the successful flashlight app. My dad got the ticket from Apple, flew back home and left me in San Francisco," he laughs. Since then, Apple has created a teen program at the conference he says. It's been great for meeting other programmers his age, he says. If all that wasn't impressive enough, Meyer was also a finalist in the Thiel Fellowship, he says. That's a program by billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel in which gifted young people drop out of school to start companies. Only 40 people become finalists, flown to the Valley for mingling. 20 are accepted, and Meyer wasn't one of them. That doesn't bother him at all. He's focused on turning Fresco into a money maker, talking to potential clients for it like New York Times and Wall Street Journal. And he hasn't ruled going back to college someday. But for now, he's writing apps for fun and profit.