New tech on the block: Cleantech, SaaS, FinTech, brand creation, insuretech

The Tech Panda takes a look at recent business launches.

Cleantech: A greenhouse gas API to track hyperlocal emissions

Ambee, a climate intelligence company that supplies actionable environmental & climate data in real-time, has launched a greenhouse gas API to track emissions at a hyperlocal level. With Ambee’s API, businesses, government bodies, administrators, and ESG stakeholders can readily obtain near real-time data for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in their immediate vicinity.

Chandrashekar D, VP of Engineering, Ambee, said, “Countries across the globe have been reporting emissions data for decades. However, there are still a lot of gaps in terms of access to the right data and the expertise required to quantify emissions. There is a large unmet need for accurate and hyperlocal GHG data on a global scale. Our goal is to address this need through our GHG API.”

The Why

Greenhouse gases have existed in the atmosphere at relatively stable levels for thousands of years until the industrial processes were developed. After industrialization, the levels of greenhouse gases have risen at an unprecedented rate. This sudden rise in GHG concentrations has intensified the greenhouse effect, pushing it beyond its natural limits.

The increase in greenhouse gas emissions traps heat in the atmosphere and alters the climate. Rising temperatures increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, floods, forest fires, etc. The only way to minimize these events is by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. To do so, the first step is to be aware of how much we emit.

Ambee’s greenhouse gas API helps businesses quantify emissions and alert their customers about the level of emissions in their surroundings.

Features

• Global corporations, institutions, and governments can use it to implement domestic policies related to the management of greenhouse gas emissions. The data can be used to set GHG reduction targets in different departments.
• Companies can assess their climate risks and opportunities with GHG data. GHG dataset can help businesses track and compare their internal greenhouse gas emissions, identify opportunities to reduce pollution, decrease energy wastage, and save money.
• Cities can use Ambee’s GHG API to find the high-emitting points in a particular region, compare the insights between similar facilities, and develop unified climate policies.

SaaS: A supplier relationship management app for superior supplier management, sourcing, risk, & performance

On the occasion of completing the milestone of 10 years in the industry, Avaali, a company that provides automation solutions for digital business operations, announced a new release of its flagship product, the Velocious Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) application.

Velocious SRM is a full-featured, scalable solution to automate the lifecycle of supplier processes including sourcing, reverse auctions and procure to pay. With this solution, enterprises are streamlining information about their suppliers by capturing detailed supplier profiles while automatically validating the same for correctness and accuracy. Therefore, businesses can benefit by having accurate and up-to-date supplier information in the system, avoiding duplicate vendor code creation and streamlining the supplier onboarding approval mechanism.

Srividya Kannan, Founder Director, Avaali Solutions, said, “With this new version, Avaali looks forward to assisting customers in maintaining the accuracy and consistency of their supplier information. This updated version complements our full-featured Velocious SRM solution in order to be more relevant for large enterprise requirements to manage their suppliers effectively, gain supplier visibility as well as reduce costs.”

The Why

Over the past couple of years, enterprises have witnessed significant disruptive events. Supply shifts have been cited as the top three disruptions resulting from these events. Availability and visibility to supplier information, collaboratively engaging with them, and ensuring good governance while reducing costs have been top of mind for large enterprises. Velocious SRM enables superior supplier management, sourcing, risk, and performance via its full-featured solution. The solution allows for automation of the procurement process’ complete lifecycle, including sourcing, procurement, and supplier management.

Features

• Enables a full-featured supplier information management wherein suppliers can submit their onboarding data via web-based forms and take advantage of fully automated checks and validation to ensure accuracy.
• Suppliers can use the workflow engine’s configurable features to set up a multi-level review and approval process and an intern-built mechanism for query resolution
• Suppliers can submit their onboarding details via web-based forms, leverage the fully automated checks and validation to ensure correctness, and use the configurable workflow engine for multi-level review and approval process and an in-built query resolution mechanism.

FinTech: AI-powered agent assist platform for banks & financial institutions

Bengaluru-based Convin.ai, an AI-driven platform that reimagines virtual assisted selling for businesses, has launched an AI-powered agent assist platform that helps them better prioritize their collection accounts resulting in a 25% increase in the closure rate.

Its proactive alert mechanism has helped Convin’s BFSI customers improve their CSAT scores by 30%.

Ashish Santhalia, Co-founder & CEO, of Convin, said, “Over 70% of customer interaction in the BFSI space in India still happens on calls. Even a delta improvement in the quality of these have a huge impact on business output. Convin is helping the BFSI companies improve their business output on the same lines.”

The Why

As widely known, in the BFSI industry support, collection and sales processes are mainly run by high-volume call centres. With the world resuming normality, most players in the space have already resumed their call centre operations for lead capturing and old loan collections.

Convin with its solution disrupts the old and outdated call centre process and empowers the agents to self-learn from their mistakes with the help of automated call reports and coaching suggestions and provide their end customers with the best experience possible. The platform easily integrates with agents’ calling platforms and other stacks employed by the call centre.

Features

• Automated quality management, which scores the call performance and identifies training opportunities for agents
• Call behaviour analysis which uncovers the behaviour outcome of calls (wins and losses)
• Automated quality coaching based on the above two that completely removes the dependency on archaic coaching methods
• Allows customers to interact at multiple channels in different ways
• Automates conversation analysis
• Assists agents to sell better
• Improves agent productivity
• Enhances end-customer experiences
• Has a proactive alert mechanism and sentiment analysis that triggers a red alert in case of any shouting or abuse during the call so that necessary steps can be taken to tackle such a situation

Brand creation: Landing page creator to help build & grow brands online

Instamojo, an ecommerce platform for independent businesses and D2C brands has launched its latest offering – Smart Pages, the simplest landing page creator to help build and grow brands online. Instamojo Smart Pages addresses the business need for a simple, one-page landing site for businesses instead of the hassle of creating a whole website.

Sampad Swain, CEO & Co-founder, Instamojo said, “As more entrepreneurs and small businesses learn the benefits of selling independently online, the need for having easy, simple yet smart platforms to showcase one’s business is in demand. Merchants nowadays are focusing on a one-page website rather than the whole website. Keeping this in mind, we have introduced Instamojo Smart Pages, the simplest landing page builder for ecommerce. It comes with a variety of features and benefits that will help entrepreneurs create a one page website in under two minutes.”

The Why

A landing page is a one page website that allows the customers or clients to view and book the services. Instamojo Smart Pages will benefit service-based businesses, freelancers, coaches/trainers, donation drives or crowdfunding. This product is built for showcasing services easily and bringing in leads.

Features

• Helps create single-page websites that include testimonials, FAQs, product options and discount coupons
• Are mobile-optimised for ease of access, have a simple user interface and are easily shareable
• Helps in showcasing portfolios, services, sell event tickets, get clients, collect payments via multiple methods, and share information about the brand
• Have inbuilt payments for secure checkouts
• Are fully customizable, easy to set up, free to start and can share the link anywhere
• Less than two minutes to initiate the setup of a landing page
• Advanced features such as custom domain linking, Facebook pixel tracking, theme colour customisations, enquiry forms, and additional features such as Google Analytics integration, reduced transaction fees and more.
• Merchants can opt for the “Do it for Me (DIFM)” feature where Instamojo’s tech experts take charge of building a merchant’s website to provide a hassle free experience.

Insuretech: AI-based vehicle pre-inspection

Kotak Mahindra General Insurance Company Limited (Kotak General Insurance) announced automating vehicle inspections for vehicle insurance renewals with Artificial Intelligence (AI) based technology. It has partnered with Inspektlabs to automate the vehicle inspection process, using AI based technology.

Suresh Sankaranarayanan, Chief Technology Officer, Kotak General Insurance Company Limited said, “The do-it-yourself (DIY) process will help enhance customer experience and reduce turnaround time and frauds. Over the past few years artificial intelligence has become a mainstay for several of our businesses, and we at Kotak General Insurance have also spruced up technology to provide seamless solutions to our customers. We hope to serve our customers better with this new technology addition.”

Features

• During policy renewals, customers can capture photos or videos of their vehicle and upload them on the cloud-based app.
• An automated inspection report covering damages, if any, gets generated within a few seconds of uploading the photos/videos.
• The automated process replaces humans in repetitive work at a very high accuracy level that saves cost and increases customer satisfaction by reducing the time required to renew a car insurance policy.
• The technology helps detect fraud based on the pictures and videos uploaded, thereby aiding the underwriting process.