5 Innovative Apps & Digital Platforms to Watch Out

Technology is rapidly evolving, offering new innovations every year. Innovation fuels competitive ideas and helps creative people thrive and the Indian startup ecosystem is a testament. What’s more, not every innovation bettering our future has to be complicated. Some are simple yet extremely effective, making us optimistic about the future of India's startup ecosystem which has emerged as a major growth engine for the country. More and more Indian startups are emerging as disruptors of traditional sectors. Here we have compiled a list of 5 such companies that are leading the digital revolution in their respective industries with their innovative concepts.

CASTLER

Founded by Vineet Singh in 2020, Castler is a pioneer in the field of Digital Escrow in India. The company's endeavour is to build a transaction banking-focused escrow banking solution for enterprises for both domestic and cross-border transactions. It also wants to democratise the escrow product for mass adoption amongst consumers and MSMEs to eliminate fraud.

Castler offers a unique Escrow Management TSP solution for enterprises and banks. Operational since April 2021, Currently, the company is the trusted escrow solution for over 150+ enterprises and processes over INR 1000+ crores in transactions every month. The new-age startup has recorded over 6500% growth in GTV in just one year.

Castler's proprietary Digital Escrow Banking Suite provides its clients with a unique 'Open, Own & Operate' escrow solution that ensures trust and transparency in every transaction.

ELOELO

Founded by Saurabh Pandey in 2020, Eloelo is a hub for creators and influencers with a knack for socialising with their fans who can connect directly with their target audience. This app offers some unique features that sets it apart from other apps. Eloelo combines live streaming with Indian social games such as Tambola, Tol Mol Ke Bol, Dumb charades, Antakshari, etc. A TV-like experience is recreated digitally for fans and followers in local Indian languages through live sessions in the app. Creators host from the comfort of their homes.

Eloelo believes that the future of entertainment is 'Live' & 'Interactive' and indigenous entertainment combined with gaming is a great way for creators to connect with the audiences of Bharat.

The app hosts more than 2 lakh live streams monthly, with a daily engagement time of 34 mins per user. The app recently crossed 5 million users making the homegrown app one of the most popular among Indian youth.

PANKHURI

Pankhuri is a platform where women can learn through live streams and micro-courses while networking in cohorts. Pankhuri aims to break down barriers faced by millions of Indian women, improving their digital literacy and liberating them from censorship. Through live streaming and short videos, Pankhuri offers Indian women a meaningful platform to socialise, upskill, and discover more about their interests.

During live sessions led by experts, Pankhuri facilitates an inclusive online community of women-only users, in which women can learn about topics and ask specific questions tailored to their needs. There is either no charge for these courses or a small fee. Furthermore, they offer live sessions where experts in various fields host games or teach our users their skills in beauty and lifestyle.

Pankhuri has successfully extended its network to tier-2 and tier-3 cities of India. So far, Pankhuri has registered over 12L masterclasses for 8L women, consuming over 100 mn minutes of live video. Pankhuri is one of the most active online female communities. It is not uncommon for users to spend an hour or more on the platform, and some cohorts have retention rates of up to 65% MOM. In addition to reaching out to a relevant audience, the platform also enables d2c brands to interact live with shoppers through honest video reviews and live brand workshops.

YELLOW

A Wharton, Stanford and Carnegie Mellon alumni-led venture, Yellow aims to usher in the future of digital succession & estate planning in India. Yellow is on a mission to help every Indian family to secure their legacy with a quick, easy and stress-free way to create and manage their Will online. Designed by estate planning experts with 50+ years of experience, protecting over Rs 42,000 crores of assets for Indian families and digitally enabled, a Yellow Will is valid in India once signed. Yellow was co-founded by Niranjan Vemulkar (CEO), Nikhil Varghese (CDO) and Niranjan Salimath( CTO) in September 2021.

Every person wants to secure their family's future, but due to a lack of information and financial resources, very few are able to take the necessary legal steps. Furthermore, it is estimated that nearly 1.5 lakh crores lie in unclaimed accounts in India due to incomplete financial planning, including lack of a Will, families being unaware of the deceased's assets, and non-updation of nominees. To address these challenges, Yellow has developed a first-of-its-kind digital Will-making solution not just for those with access to expensive lawyers and wealth management firms but for every Indian across the nation.

OPENOFFERS

Launched in 2022 by Ayushi Rungta, Vishal Chaudhari and Vashistha Aggarwal, OpenOffers is a Commitment Intelligence Platform, where more than 310 Indian enterprises have signed up to address the problem of candidates backing out from their commitments last minute.

Recently, there has been a public outcry over moonlighting, candidates backing out at the last minute from their commitment to join, and candidates absconding. OpenOffers, addresses this problem. The platform is the hiring equivalent of the CIBIL score, which is widely used for processing loans in India.

OpenOffers tracks a candidate's journey, computes the ghosting score and gathers all the conflicting commitment signals on a single timeline anonymously from the day they accept a job offer until either they back out or join the company and after that for at least three months. In addition, OpenOffers is building a network of enterprises so that they can share these commitment signals anonymously with each other. So far, 2000+ candidate commitments have been mapped on this consent-based platform by companies that have signed up for OpenOffers.