Archive: November 3, 2022

Tier 2 cities emerging as Real Estate Growth Engines reveals Magicbricks Report

New Delhi/Noida, 03 November 2022: 

Magicbricks’ latest report titled, “India’s Tier 2 Cities: Emerging Real Estate Growth Engines” reveals that tier  2 cities Nagpur, Coimbatore, Bhubaneshwar, Indore and Jaipur are emerging as Real Estate Growth Engines.

Mapping property-related trends across these five tier 2 cities, the report highlights that Nagpur (49%), Coimbatore (27%), Bhubaneswar (12%) observed the highest YoY growth for residential demand and     Nagpur (84%), Coimbatore (30%), and Indore (6%) exhibited the highest YoY growth for rental demand (searches). 

Elaborating on the trends, Sudhir Pai, CEO, of Magicbricks, said, “Covid-19 was a watershed moment for real estate, especially for tier 2 cities that have emerged as real estate growth engines. Additionally, government initiatives like AMRUT and the Smart Cities Mission have helped these cities evolve into new economic hubs. With an uptick in economic activity and employment opportunities, we expect tier 2 cities to gain more momentum as prime residential markets in the coming months.”

The report also observes that Indian MNCs such as Infosys and TCS are present in 80% of these cities while foreign MNCs such as IBM are present in almost 60% of these cities, with further expansion plans. 

Market-specific takeaways from Magicbricks’ Emerging Cities Report Q2, 2022:

1. In Bhubaneswar, the residential demand increased 5% QoQ and 12% YoY, while the rental demand declined 15% QoQ. 37.7% of the customers preferred homes between 1000-1500 sf.

2. Residential demand in Coimbatore grew 12% QoQ and 27% YoY, while rental demand increased 11% QoQ and 30% YoY. As per the report, 43% of homebuyers prefer the 2 BHK configuration, 39% of homebuyers are searching for properties priced between INR 25-50 lakh, followed by 23% in the INR 50-75 lakh range.

3.In Jaipur, the aggregate demand for residential properties increased 5% YoY while the rental demand grew 17% YoY. The demand for 3 BHK configurations constituted 57% and the majority (35%) of the homebuyers preferred units in the 1,000-1,500 sf bracket.

4. Residential demand in Nagpur grew 25% QoQ and 49% YoY,  while rental demand increased 84% YoY. There was a preference for 2 BHKs, constituting 44% of the total residential demand and 45% of the homebuyers preferred properties in the size bracket of 1,000-1,500  sf. 

5. Residential demand in Indore increased 12% QoQ and 2% YoY, while rental demand increased 6% YoY. The report observed that 42.5% of homebuyers preferred 3 BHK units and 22% of homebuyers keen to opt for units in the size range of 1,000-1,500 sf.

Pega Announces Winners of Global Software Hackathon

Bangalore, November 3, 2022 – Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGA), the low-code platform provider that builds agility into the world’s leading organizations, today announced the winners of the third annual Pega Community Hackathon. The six-week event attracted more than 1,100 registrants of all skill levels sharing the ultimate goal of building meaningful apps that help solve real-world business and social problems that continue to emerge.

Participants used Pega’s visual and intuitive low-code development environment to build their solutions that help enable businesses adapt to rapid changes in an increasingly complex world. This year’s Hackathon had the most registrations to date with a 70 percent increase from the previous year.

A team of developers from IQZ Systems LLC received the Best in Show award for their Heal & Hale entry, a solution to improve employee mental health leveraging Pega’s chatbot, natural language processing, next-best action, and Pega Process AI™ capabilities. The easy-to-use offering helps users express their emotional state and guides them with intelligence-based recommendations on how they can prioritize their wellness.

Other prize category winners include:

The Runner Up Award to the Blue Rose Technologies team for creating their TravelGreen solution, which calculates, tracks, and manages the carbon footprint of employee travel.

The Top Student Award to the Chennai Institute of Technology team for their Pre-Cure solution that provides suggestions on medicinal treatment based on the disease and description of medication, as well as enables the purchase and delivery of medication.

The Social Impact Award to the Accenture team for their Study Assist solution that tracks study progress and provides personalized assistance and guidance for teachers, students, and parents using Pega’s AI-powered decisioning capabilities.

The Best Use of App Studio Award to the Capgemini GmbH team for creating The Crib, a solution that provides practical guidance in the form of detailed advice and resources for new parents as they manage the often confusing and overwhelming world of parenting.

The Best Use of Business Workflow Application Award to the Aaseya IT Service Pvt Ltd team for their AIMF solution that assists government agencies in performing thorough inspections of critical services including health, food, hospitals, security, buildings, roads, environment, industries, and hospitality.

The Community Choice Award to the Citi team for their Delete Pega Application Wizard solution that automates the entire application deletion process seamlessly, reducing significant manual effort, saving time, and improving overall accuracy.

A panel of judges evaluated submissions based on level of innovation, real-world impact, and execution. Entries ranged in developer experience from Pega professionals to students and recent graduates to citizen developers. All apps were built on Pega PlatformTM, Pega’s low-code platform for AI-based decisioning and workflow automation.

Award winners shared $24,500 in prizes and are prominently featured on Pega Community. The Social Impact Award winning Accenture team will have a donation made in their name to a Pega-approved charity of choice.

Quotes & Commentary

“The annual Pega Community Hackathon challenges diverse teams to think differently and solve problems in new ways,” said Stephanie Louis, senior director, digital client experience, Pega. “Submitting more entries than ever before, our ecosystem of partners, clients, and students created innovative apps that tackled some of the biggest challenges businesses face today. We congratulate the winning teams for their hard work and innovation, as well as everyone who submitted entries and took the opportunity to develop skills that will help increase the success of future Pega projects.”

“Supporting employees’ mental health continues to be incredibly important to employers and we wanted to create a solution to address that,” said Saravanan Pillai, COO, IQZ Systems “Pega’s low-code platform offers the right tools to quickly build an intelligent and personalized solution to help employees’ mental health – both for awareness and overall wellness. We are thrilled to receive the Best in Show award in this year’s Pega Community Hackathon and are grateful for the opportunity to participate.”

Betterhalf.ai selected as a 2022 Red Herring Top 100 Global

Bangalore, November 2022: After much consideration, Red Herring – a leading US-based publication has announced Betterhalf.ai among its Top 100 Global Winners today. The list recognizes the leading private companies from North America, Europe, and Asia, celebrating the startups’ innovations and technologies across their respective industries.

Founded in 2016, Betterhalf.ai is India’s first and only matrimony-focused app that focuses on behavioral matching criteria – compatibility matching with the likes, dislikes, and interests of potential partners. Currently, the app has a user base of 750K monthly active users and facilitates over a million matches and a thousand marriages annually. Red Herring selected Betterhalf.ai among the Top 100 Global list based on its disruptive business model and app that combines a modern user interface and has taken the best of western dating apps while reinventing the matrimony experience for single professionals. It also boasts the world’s fastest matching with a single-click technology (US Patent) and features a premium pool of working professionals from more than 25,000 companies in India.

Delighted by the announcement, Pawan Gupta, Co-Founder, and CEO of Betterhalf.ai said, “It is highly inspiring to be included in the Top 100 Global list alongside other well-renowned companies. We put our customers and team first which has helped us develop an affirming product. We have also experienced remarkable growth this year and such recognitions are extremely meaningful in demonstrating our growth trajectory.”

Red Herring’s Top 100 Global list has become a mark of distinction for identifying promising companies and outstanding entrepreneurs. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube, and eBay would change the way we live and work. Betterhalf.ai has joined the league with the world’s most interesting and innovative companies that have graced the Top 100 list over the years.

“Choosing the companies with the strongest potential was by no means a small feat this year,” said Alex Vieux, publisher, and CEO of Red Herring. “After rigorous contemplation and discussion, we narrowed our list down from hundreds of candidates from across the globe to the Top 100 Winners. We believe Betterhalf.ai embodies the vision, drive, and innovation that define a successful entrepreneurial venture. It should be proud of its accomplishment as the competition was very strong.”

Red Herring’s editorial staff evaluated the companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the track records and standing of startups relative to their peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the “hype” and make the list a valuable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising new business models from around the world. Red Herring is dedicated to following Betterhalf.ai’s path to further success and innovation.

MTAR Technologies reports strong top-line and bottom-line growth

Hyderabad, Nov 03, 2022: MTAR Technologies Ltd (“MTAR”), a leading precision engineering solutions company engaged in the manufacturing and development of mission-critical precision-engineered systems catering to Clean Energy – Civil Nuclear Power, Fuel Cells, Hydel & Others, Space, and Defence sectors has announced its financial results for the second quarter and half year ended 30 September 2022. 

YOY Q2 FY 23 vs. Q2 FY 22 

•  Revenue from Operations stood at Rs. 126.2 Cr. in Q2 FY 23  as against Rs. 91.3 Cr. in Q2 FY 22, 38% increase YoY
• EBITDA reported at Rs. 34.9 Cr. in Q2 FY 23  as compared to Rs. 29.4 Cr. in Q2 FY 22, 19% increase YoY
•  Profit Before Tax stands at Rs. 33.0 Cr. in Q2 FY 23  as against Rs. 27.1 Cr. in Q2 FY 22, 22% increase YoY
• Profit After Tax was at Rs. 24.7 Cr. in Q2 FY 23 as against Rs. 19.1 Cr. in Q2 FY 22, 30% increase YoY
•  Diluted EPS stands at Rs. 8.03  for Q2 FY 23 as against Rs. 6.20 for Q2 FY 22.

QOQ Q2 FY 23 vs. Q1 FY 23 

• Revenue from Operations stood at Rs. 126.2 Cr. in Q2 FY 23  as against Rs.  91.0 Cr. in Q1 FY 23, 39 % increase in QoQ
•  EBITDA reported at Rs. 34.9 Cr. in Q2 FY 23  as compared to Rs. 25.0 Cr. in Q1 FY 23, 40% increase in QoQ
• Profit Before Tax stands at Rs. 33.0 Cr. in Q2 FY 23  as against Rs. 22.2 Cr. in Q1 FY 23, 49 % increase in QoQ
•  Profit After Tax was at Rs. 24.7 Cr. in Q2 FY 23  as against Rs. 16.2 Cr. in Q1 FY 23, 52%  increase in QoQ
• Diluted EPS stands at Rs. 8.03 for Q2 FY 23 as against Rs. 5.27 for Q1 FY 23. 

Operational Highlights 

•  Order book as on 30 Sept 2022 stands at Rs. 1,288.8 Cr as on 30 Sept 2022
•  Received Rs. 643.5 Cr of orders in various sectors including Clean Energy – Civil Nuclear Power, Fuel cells, and Hydel in Q2 FY 23

Commenting on the results, Mr. Parvat Srinivas Reddy, Managing Director & Promoter, MTAR Technologies, said, “The company has extended its strong performance into H1 FY 23 by registering the fastest growth in the first half so far. H2 FY 23 is expected to be better than H1 FY 23. We are on track to achieve our full-year guidance of 55%-60% revenue growth with 30% EBITDA margin +/- 100 bps”

Headquartered in India, B2B Sales Arrow plans international expansion

New Delhi: B2B Sales Arrow, a value-driven research-based marketing technology organization, embarks on global expansion plans, paving the way toward its vision of becoming one of the most Admired Integrated Business Solution organizations in the World. 

As B2B Sales Arrow plans international expansion, 60+ passionate professionals fuel its mission, generating enormous value for multi-billion and multi-million-dollar organizations from various sectors, including IT Products & Services, Manufacturing Technology, Professional Services, and Biotech, at global benchmark events worldwide, including non-English speaking geographies, such as Netherlands, Germany, Norway, among others.

B2B Sales Arrow prides itself on groundbreaking success while assisting its esteemed global clientele in empowering their global branding and lead generation endeavours with end-to-end Global B2B Event Solutions, such as state-of-the-art Booth Design and Production, Branding, Video Production, Attendee Experience Creation, Onsite Assistance and Event-based Lead Generation at:

• SIBOS (Amsterdam): World’s largest Banking Conference

• Money 20/20 (Las Vegas): World’s Largest Insurance Technology Conference

• Money 20/20 (Amsterdam): Europe’s largest Fintech Conference

• ITC (Las Vegas): World’s largest Insurance Technology Conference

• World Aviation Festival (Amsterdam): One of the World’s largest aviation festivals

• MBA (Washington DC): One of the leading mortgage events

• HLTH (Boston): World’s largest Healthcare Technology Conference

• CPHI (Frankfurt): World’s largest Pharma Manufacturing Conference

• NRF (New York): World’s largest Retail Conference

• Google Next (San Francisco): Google’s largest Technology Conference

In addition, B2B Sales Arrow undertakes a global expansion strategy, reaffirming its commitment to challenging the status quo with an enriched portfolio of cutting-edge and innovative B2B marketing solutions, such as Human Powered Market Intelligence for Account Based Marketing, Corporate Media Production, Social Analytics, and Advanced Digital Solutions. Moreover, B2B Sales Arrow plans to expand its hiring efforts in the US to meet the growing demand.

Commenting on the organization’s expansion plans, Paras Lohani, the Founder and CEO, of B2B Sales Arrow, elaborates, “As a globally trusted event organization, we pride our pioneering success on our core values, a solid commitment to challenging the status quo, a highly-driven team of professionals, and the esteemed global clientele that places their trust in us. We are keen on empowering our global expansion plans while preserving our core values and stimulating the creation of incredible value for our prestigious clients”.

AG&P Pratham signs MOU with Government of Karnataka to Develop City Gas Distribution Network in the State

Bengaluru, November 2022: AG&P Pratham, a leading player in the Indian City Gas Distribution (CGD) industry and the Government of Karnataka signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the development of City Gas Distribution (CGD) networks to supply reliable, economical, and environment-friendly natural gas across fifteen districts of Karnataka. The MoU was signed during the Global Investors Meet 2022 being held in Bangalore from 2nd to 4th November 2022.

Under the MoU, AG&P Pratham will invest INR 8,000 crores over the next eight years to build CGD networks in districts of Kolar, Mysuru, Mandya, Chamrajnagar, Hassan, Chikkamagaluru, Kodagu, Bagalkot, Koppal, Raichur, Kalaburagi, Vijayapura, Shivamogga, Uttara Kannada and Haveri. The area being developed by AG&P accounts for more than 55% of the state’s geographical area and 42% of its population. Over the next 8 years, AG&P plans to build ~ 1000 kms of steel pipelines, ~5000 kms of MDPE pipelines to bring natural gas to 5 million households and several industries & commercial establishments. It also plans to set-up ~600 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations and Liquified Natural Gas stations to service the transport sector.

The Government of Karnataka is committed to providing support to enable the development of the much-awaited CGD infrastructure, which will deliver uninterrupted supply of Piped Natural Gas to households, commercial and industrial customers and CNG/LNG stations.

To date, AG&P Pratham has launched 60 CNG/LNG stations in the state, while several such stations are at various stages of development. The Company has also develop ~200 kms of steel pipeline and has started providing household connections and industrial connections in Mysuru city.

Commenting on the occasion, Mr Abhilesh Gupta, Managing Director & CEO, AG&P Pratham said, “We are honoured to further strengthen our association with the Government of Karnataka to promote clean energy options across the State. This MoU is a testament to our consistent efforts in aligning with the Government’s vision to catapult the industrial growth, providing clean and green fuel to public at large and generate employements.”

With AG&P Pratham’s constant endeavour to create an environmental friendly ecosystem, we are promoting the use of CNG which has several merits over traditional fuels like diesel and petrol. CNG has the strongest safety record and compelling economic benefits to vehicle owners. Natural Gas helps reduce air pollution caused by vehicles and industries and helps the country move towards responsible growth and energy sufficiency.