Big data analytics to become $16 billion industry by 2025

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The sector is expected to reach USD 16 billion by 2025 and register CAGR of 26 per cent over next five years.

Big data analytics sector in India is expected to witness eight-fold growth to reach $16 billion by 2025 from the current $2 billion, industry experts said here.

The sector is expected to reach $16 billion by 2025 and register CAGR of 26 per cent over next five years, they said.

According to these experts, India is currently among top 10 big data analytics markets in the world and Nasscom has set a target of making the country one among the top three markets in the next three years.

“The government, industry and academia can collaborate to build an ecosystem to generate sustainable solutions by harnessing the power of big data and digital innovation,” said WNS Global Services Group CEO Keshav Murugesh said.

“The combined power of harnessing big data and digital solutions can drive tremendous results in improving the citizen experience, implementation efficiency and boosting the nation’s economy,” added Murugesh.

Speaking at the ‘Emerging Worlds Conference’ workshop organised by Indian School of Design and Innovation (ISDI) in collaboration with MIT Media Labs, Murugesh said, “India is a diversified country with a wide array of challenges, and it is pertinent that we as citizens of this country, innovate to find effective solutions that can make a difference to the billion lives that live here.”

“If big data can be put to cutting-edge use for our corporations and clients, it can very well be a catalyst for the economy and the country,” he added.

The workshop brought together industry leaders, technical experts, data scientists, innovators, academic institutions, implementation collaborators and progressive corporate collaborators to source national challenges and potential solutions.

India will be home to 10,500 start-ups by 2020: Report

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India continues to harbour the third largest start-up base, marginally behind the U.K., according to a Nasscom-Zinnov start-up report.

The report, titled “Indian Start-up Ecosystem Maturing – 2016,” says that the ecosystem is poised to grow by an impressive 2.2X to reach more than 10,500 start-ups by the year 2020 despite the popular belief that the Indian start-up ecosystem is slowing down.

There is an increased interest from student entrepreneurs this year, according to the report. A remarkable growth of 25 per cent has been witnessed in 2016 with over 350 ventures founded by young students. The median age of start-up founders has reduced marginally from 32 years in 2015 to 31 years in 2016.

“Technology start-ups are creating a new identity for India and its technological prowess,” said R. Chandrashekhar, President of the IT industry body Nasscom, in a statement. “They are defining the way the world operates making life better and easier for people and businesses alike.”

Some of the notable findings of the report include; continued growth in the number of start-ups in 2016, with Bengaluru, the National Capital Region, and Mumbai continuing to lead as major start-up hubs for the nation.

In terms of vertical growth, investors are looking at the domains like health-tech, fin-tech, and edu-tech. With a total funding of approximately $4 billion, close to 650 young firms were funded signifying an aware and healthy growth of the ecosystem, according to the report.
The number of technology firms in India is expected to grow by 10-12 per cent to over 4,750 start-ups by the end of 2016, according to the report. Interestingly over 1400 new ventures have emerged in 2016 denoting that the ecosystem is becoming prudent with both investors and start-up founders focusing on profitability and optimising the overall spend.

With this impetus, India will become home to over 10,500 start-ups by 2020, employing over 210,000 people reveals the report.

“Today, India is brimming with new ideas which need the right guidance and funding to be scalable for the market,” said C.P. Gurnani, Chairman, Nasscom, in a statement.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/india-will-be-home-to-10500-startups-by-2020-report/article9272293.ece

Cisco steps up India investments

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Global networking major Cisco, which has set aside a corpus of $280 million for funding early stage start-ups in India, has invested in Kolkata-based Videonetics Technology Pvt Ltd, a video surveillance firm that designs, develops and provides ultra-modern surveillance products integrated with video analytics software.

While the amount invested remains undisclosed, Cisco typically acquires an 18-20 per cent stake in every start-up that it invests in. In an earlier interaction with BusinessLine, Joydeep Bose, Managing Director of Cisco Investments – Asia Pacific Japan (APJ), had said the company typically makes investments ranging from $800,000 to $15 million in a start-up.

Confirming the investment in Videonetics, Alok Bardiya, Country Head (Investments and M&A), Cisco Systems India , told BusinessLine that a second investment has also been closed in a start-up that works on IoT (Internet of Things) solutions for Smart Cities, an area that Cisco is heavily focused on to grow its India revenues.

Revenue milestone

Last year, the company crossed the $1-billion milestone in India revenue and is aiming to achieve $2 billion by FY 2018.

Without disclosing the name of the start-up, Bardiya said: “There are two more investments in the pipeline that we should close soon.” This takes Cisco’s investments in Indian start-ups to a total of six over the last 18 months, and with two more in the pipeline, it will take the total tally of investments to eight by the end of the year.

The $49-billion networking giant has already invested in four Indian start-ups over the last two years, namely, Covacsis, Mobstac, Ineda and MobiKwik.

The company’s innovation strategy in India revolves around four pillars – Invest; Acquire; Co-create with start-ups; Co-develop with partners.

While Cisco made its first India acquisition of Bengaluru-headquartered IT security firm Pawaa for an undisclosed amount last October, it has invested in a total of 25 Indian start-ups, some of which are registered abroad, over the last 10 years.

The company’s first attempt at co-creating with start-ups took wings on Thursday, with the announcement of Cisco LaunchPad, an accelerator programme to co-innovate with early to growth stage start-ups.

Partnerships have been forged with companies like Tech Mahindra, Saankhya Labs and industry body Nasscom to co-develop solutions for Utilities, Internet users and Farmers.

Asked if Cisco had identified any start-up to acquire after Pawaa, Bardiya said: “We continue to look for start-ups that are building disruptive solutions that align with Cisco’s business interests.”

Source: https://www.google.co.in/search?q=Cisco+steps+up+India+investments&client=firefox-b&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjrz66q-dTNAhXDro8KHemgArIQ_AUICigD&biw=1280&bih=676

Govt announces new IPR regime

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The government on Friday unveiled the national intellectual property rights (IPR) policy to create a larger institutional framework to strengthen the IPR regime, with the slogan “Creative India, Innovative India”. While the policy focused on issues like expediting approval processes involving patents or trademarks and consolidating institutional mechanisms to create a robust IPR ecosystem, it refrained from suggesting any change to contentious provisions in the Patents Act, 1970, including Section 3(d) and compulsory licensing, despite concerns expressed by the US and Big Pharma.

Nevertheless, the policy provides for constructive engagement “in the negotiation of international treaties and agreements in consultation with stakeholders” and likely accession to some multilateral treaties that are in India’s interest. It also suggests tax incentives to boost R&D and the creation of a loan guarantee scheme to encourage start-ups and cover the risk of genuine failures in commercialisation based on IPRs as mortgageable assets.

The policy suggests making the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) the nodal point coordinate for IPRs in India, even though the onus of actual implementation of the plans of action will be on the ministries/departments concerned in their sphere of work. So, for instance, the administration of the Copyright Act, 1957 (now under the department of higher education) and the Semiconductor Integrated Circuits Layout-Design Act, 2000 (under the department of electronics and information technology) will be brought under the DIPP.

This, it is believed, will lead “to synergetic linkage between various IP offices under one umbrella”. Interestingly, it seeks to protect traditional knowledge systems like Ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy — be it in oral or in codified form — from misappropriation, and also curb film piracy by suitably amending the Indian Cinematography Act, 1952.

Announcing the approval to the policy by the Cabinet, finance minister Arun Jaitley stressed that India’s IPR policies are WTO-compliant. He added that one must encourage invention of life-saving drugs and at the same time “we must also be conscious of the need to make it available at a reasonable cost so that drug cost does not become prohibitive as has become in some parts of the world”.

Responding to concerns expressed by developed countries like the US on Section 3(D) and compulsory licensing, Jaitley said: “We do believe that the balancing act which India has struck is responsible for lifesaving drugs available at a reasonable cost in India compared to the rest of the world. So, our model seems to be both legal, equitable and WTO-compliant.”

Section 3(d) prevents evergreening of drug patents. Apart from novelty and inventive step, the section provides for improvement in therapeutic efficacy a necessary condition for grant of patents when it comes to incremental inventions. Compulsory licensing allows domestic players to produce cheaper versions of patented drugs. The US and the EU have been pushing India to make appropriate changes to these provisions to boost innovation, R&D and foreign investment. Recently, releasing its annual 301 report, the US retained India on its priority watch list, citing “lack of sufficient measurable improvements” to the IP framework despite robust engagement and positive steps on intellectual property protection and enforcement by the Indian government in the last two years.

The finance minister said by 2017, trademarks can be registered within a month. Currently, in some cases, this process takes even a few years. According to Jaitley, there are seven objectives that guided the policy mechanism, which include IPR public awareness, stimulation of generation of IPRs, need for strong and effective laws and strengthening enforcement and adjudicatory mechanisms to combat infringements.

Hailing the move, industry body Nasscom said the new policy has captured issues, including difficulties that companies face in monetising intangibles like IPR, suitably and the proposal to create a “simple loan guarantee scheme to encourage start-ups” based on IPRs as mortgageable assets; financial support and securitisation of IPRs for commercialisation by enabling valuation of IP rights as intangible assets through of appropriate methodologies and guidelines, and enabling legislative, administrative and market framework are in the right direction.

The policy also puts a premium on enhancing access to healthcare, food security and environmental protection. It is expected to lay the future road map for intellectual property in India, besides putting in place an institutional mechanism for implementation, monitoring and review

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Source: http://www.financialexpress.com/economy/govt-announces-new-ipr-regime/255072/