disruption: startups & tech make way for angels from … interest in indian startups. at an...
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6 �THE ECONOMIC TIMES | BENGALURU | WEDNESDAY | 1 JUNE 2016Disruption: Startups & Tech
New Delhi: Inflated valuations,precarious business models andhigh cash burn rates of domesticstartups may have put off severalinvestors, but none of that seems tohave diminished the global interestin emerging businesses here.
A fresh breed of investors from Ja-pan, Russia, China, the United Sta-tes and European countries has be-en holding discussions with ventu-re funds operating in the countryon co-investing in domestic busi-nesses. This could potentially ex-pand the investment landscape forstartups at a time when funds aredrying from existing big investorssuch as New York-based hedge fundTiger Global Management and Ja-pan’s SoftBank.
Among the newly interested in-vestors are venture funds, privateequity funds and fund-of-funds thatare scouting for mid to late-stage de-als, including in non-technology
ventures, according to several in-vestment bankers and venture fundexecutives involved in or aware ofthese discussions.
“There are some well-known, mar-quee and well-respected funds fromthe US and China who have come toIndia and have done India roadshows, met 10-15 startups and havegone back after having met most ofthe large (venture capital) fundsand some conversations are live outof that,” said Nitin Bhatia, mana-ging director at investment bankSignal Hill Capital. “One or two ofthem may announce a couple of lar-ge deals in the next few weeks.”
The bankers and venture fund ex-ecutives ET spoke with declined todisclose the names of these inves-tors citing confidentiality agree-ments.
Deepak Gaur, managing directorat SAIF Partners, said the potentialnew investors are a “more diversifi-ed group” seeking to invest in late-stage companies and not necessari-ly in technology startups. “Some of
these investors are talking to ourportfolio companies,” he said.
Vikram Gupta, managing partnerat IvyCap Ventures, too, said a fewof the investment firm’s portfoliocompanies were generating a lot ofinterest from international inves-tors willing to sign large cheques.“We are seeing interest from inves-tors in Japan, some European co-untries, Russia and China,” saidGupta, who was recently in Chinawhere he met about 50 investors at abusiness conference. That said, thenew investors are highly cautiousand are taking much longer for dili-gence cycles. They are also likely tobe very conservative about valua-tions, said existing investors awareof the discussions.
“Many of these investors will leanon the experience of venture fundson the ground here. They are certa-inly not willing to take huge leapsof faith on unit economics gettingsorted out sometime in the future,”said Ashish Bhinde, head, digitaland technology, at Avendus Capital.
“A good six-seven funds will likelywrite their first cheques (in India)in this calendar year. They willstart off with $5-7 million co-invest-ment deals with other venturefunds and when they get more com-fortable, they would be open to lea-ding the (funding) rounds,” he said.
Recently, data protection startupDruva raised money from Japan’sNTT Finance as a strategic invest-ment and Japanese payment gate-way GMO led a funding round inmobile payments company Mobik-wik. Also, Japanese venture capitalfirm GREE Ventures, which is rai-sing a new $37-million fund, hasadded India to its list of primemarkets.
Chinese investors, too, are signa-ling interest in Indian startups. Atan event held in Bengaluru earlyMay, about 15 Chinese firms inclu-ding Pickup Wheat (Shimai) Finan-ce, Harmony Invest, Grand (Dagu-an) Capital, Incapital, and ZhejiaugWenChuang evaluated pitchesfrom domestic startups.
Bengaluru: The tinkering spaces,commonly referred to as makerspa-ces, came about to be a place wherehobbyists and serious professio-nals, alike, could make or breakstuff. But, over a period of time,they are not just a place to hold me-et-ups and workshops, they have ex-tended their role to do more for thestartup community.
“Work is evolving the makerspaceand the makerspace is evolving thekind of work. Makerspace becomesa huge playground for startups be-cause all things here are affordable,entry barriers for research is mini-mised, space is provided for theirexploration and different things.Startups find each other helpful.The space enables interactions byits very own nature,” said Pavan Ku-mar, CEO, Workbench Projects.
These spaces, thanks to the net-work and community that they ha-ve built, give access to startups tofind the right team members.
“We have moved from being a tin-kerspace to becoming a communityspace where people are now calling
Cos Get to Play and Build in this Makerspace
Game, Set, Play
Bengaluru: Nazara Games hasentered into a revenue-sharingagreement with Stick Sports, aLondon- and Sydney-based on-line and mobile game developerto create a cricket game featu-ring Indian batsmen Virat Koh-li and Rohit Sharma.
Nazara Games has an exclusi-ve mobile gaming deal withCornerstone Sport, the agencywhich has the digital and ga-ming rights for the Indiancricketers. The game, that willbe launched in September orOctober in both emerging anddeveloped markets, will use anartificial intelligence-based sy-stem to help players acquire
certain skills including stylesof bowling, batting in differentdegrees of difficulty.
“The task and challenges insi-de the game allows you to playas either Rohit or Virat, you canupdate these skill sets as you goalong,” said Paul Collins, CEOof Stick Sports. According toManish Agrawal, CEO of Naza-ra Games, the single player ga-me will see a high level of trac-tion from international cricketfrenzy markets like Australiaand the UK. “The agreementwill focus on Stick Sports pay-ing us for publishing the gamein emerging markets and wemaking a payment to them forpublishing the game in develo-ped markets,” Agrawal said.
Nazara, Stick Sportsto Play Cricket withKohli, Rohit SharmaNazara enters into arevenue-sharingagreement withStick Sports
Virat Kohli. — AFP
Bengaluru: Gaming compani-es Nazara Games, Play Games24/7, Reliance Games, Ga-mes2Win and several otherslaunched cricket-centric ga-mes during the IPL season; thegaming companies are increa-singly looking at live sports asan avenue for launching games,
with football being the next ga-me in mind.
Nazara Games’ Cricbet, a realtime cricket virtual bettingplatform, saw a fairly high levelof traction with up to 15,000 ac-tive users after 1,00,000 downlo-ads. “In terms of retention, aro-und 60% of users came back toplace bets for the second match,and up to 30% of users cameback for the 15th match, this re-al time virtual betting platformhas the potential to be integra-ted into various sports,” saidManish Agarwal, CEO of Naza-ra Games. An individual userplaced up to 38 bets during asingle match, and approximate-ly 1.5% of users converted froma free user to a paid user whileplaying Cricbet. The companyis now eyeing football as thenext live game to introduce vir-tual real time betting for mobilegamers who are football fans;they will reintroduce the gameduring the football English Pre-
miere League.Play Games 24/7 also laun-
ched a virtual real time cricketbetting platform during IPL.However, the company refusedto comment on the traction se-en, but aims to introduce the re-al time betting platform intoother live games, including fo-otball, basketball, amongstother live sports.
Besides the virtual real timecricket betting platforms, othergaming companies includingReliance Games, Games2win,Moonfrog Labs, all launchedcricket-centric games duringthe IPL. “The IPL cricket gamethat we launched resulted inmore than .̀ 5 crore of game playtill date, end users spent an av-erage of 7 minutes on each ga-ming session every day, we evensaw a high number of game in-stalls from other cricket-crazycountries like Australia, SouthAfrica, Bangladesh and evenPakistan,” said Amit Khandu-ja, CEO of Reliance Games.
After studying user behaviourduring the IPL season, RelianceGames plans to increasingly lo-ok at live sports as an avenue formobile gaming. Most of the ga-ming companies claimed that alarge amount of their user basefor the IPL games was urbanmale mobile gamers.
After IPL, GamingStartups Want toPlay Ball HereFirms look at livesports as an avenuefor launching games
Games BeginCos that launched cricket-centric games during IPL - Nazara Games, Play Games 24/7, Reliance Games, Games2Win
3 Cricket-centric games co launched
Games - Gully Cricket, world cricket champion-ship game, and In-dia versus Pakistan
Gully Cricket - Saw high levels of traction
from women mobile gamers
18% Retention rate India VS Pakistan game saw at the end of two weeks
Games2win
IN SHORT
Short format gamesfocused on live sportsis going to be a hugefocus area for gamingcompanies, it’s a large-ly untapped marketALOK KEJRIWALFounder, Games2win
Bengaluru: Rainmaker Ventures,which announced a fund of $50 mil-lion for early stage investments in De-cember last year, has made its first in-vestment in Mumbai-based RaftaarTechnologies which runs the bus ag-gregation platform, Limo. The com-pany had previously raised a seed ro-und from India Quotient and othersin April last year.
The current round of $1million willhelp the firm strengthen operationsin Mumbai. The startup founded bySiddharth Sharma, Anshul Khandel-wal and Vivek Choksi runs charteredbuses for corporates as well as indivi-duals looking at solution for officecommute. Other players focused onthe Delhi-NCR market include Shuttl
and Zipgo. Started by Sudhir Menon and Atul
Hegde, Rainmaker Ventures plans oninvesting in six firms in the currentyear. “We are also looking at invest-ments in logistics, financial techno-logy and digital marketing. The qu-antum will be between $500,000 and $3million. We would go in for additionalcapital when required,” said Hegde,cofounder, Rainmaker Ventures.
Rainmaker Ventures Out in a LimoFirm has made its first investment in Mumbai-based bus aggregation platform
Ride So Far$50 million Fund for early stage investments Rainmaker Ventures had announced in Dec last year
6 Cos Rainmaker plans to invest in this year
$1 million AmountRaftaar Tech raised in current round
Funds will help co strengthen operations in Mumbai
ATUL HEGDECofounder, Rainmaker Ventures
Quantum will be between$500,000 and $3 m. Wewould go in for additionalcapital when required
Tech Trotter
Volvo plans to roll
out its first self-
driving car in just
four years, and the compa-
ny claims it’s going to be
way more advanced than
what other automakers will
have to offer. The car won’t
require a human to super-
vise it. The driver will be
able to do another activity
while the car does all the
driving. — BI
Volvo’sSelf-drivingCar is Coming
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LOOK, WHO’S THERE
Outside interest could potentially expand the investment landscape for startups at a time when funds are drying up from existing bigwigs
They are scouting for mid to late-stage deals, in-cluding in non-tech ventures
$5-7 millionCo-investment deals with other venture funds they will start off with
When they get more comfortable, they would be open to leading the (funding) rounds
This calendar year, a good six-seven funds will likely write their first cheques (in India)
Some newly interested investors are venture funds, private equity funds and fund-of-funds
Investors from Japan, Russia, China, US and EU in talks with venture funds for co-investing in India
MAKERSPACE: WHERE THE ACTION IS
Makerspace becomes a huge playground for star-tups because all things here are affordable, entrybarriers for research is minimised, space is provided fortheir exploration and different thingsPAVAN KUMAR CEO, Workbench Projects
in with ideas and wondering abouttwo things — one, can we do it forthem? And two, can we enable anecosystem that will help them do it?They want our help in putting peo-ple together from different streams.Most of times, we have these peo-ple,” said Vaibhav Chhabra, foun-der, Maker’s Asylum. Startups arenow wanting to use these maker-spaces as the de-facto co-workingspace than the traditional ones.“Startups are saying that I wouldrather pay cost and sit here (maker-space) rather than a regular co-wor-king space, because they constantlyneed access to this type of equip-ment. Real money is coming interms of serious startups,” said Ni-hal Kashinath, founder of IoTBLR.
Makerspaces are also tying upwith corporates and other organi-sations to come up with uniqueevents. For, example, ICRC tied upwith IoTBLR and Workbench Pro-jects to organise Enable Makeat-hon, that was aimed at coming upwith solutions to address disability.Ideas like these help in accelera-ting mere ideas into startups. In-novation is key for these players.
“We are in talks with an archi-tecture college in Bengaluru. Itwill be an architecturally focu-sed space. This will be moreacademically themed withviable outputs. This will es-tablish a new communityfor these architects,” saidCraig D’mello, cofounder,
THE Workshop.The well-known makerspaces are
now looking to expand to tier-II andtier-III cities.
For comprehensive and insightful stories about all things startups and technology, log on to www.ettech.com
Waveform is a graphi-cal representation of variables in the shape of a wave. Generally, a waveform is used for audio signals.
WaveformJargon Buster
Funny to see how ppl love to hate the unicorns and yet cannot stop talking about them! I’d say - give them a break!
NEHA SINGH@neha_ns
Tweet OF THE DAY
Quick Byte ANIRBAN BORA
936 millionActive mobile connections in India in March 2016, says Trai
Panasonic Will Stop Making TV Panels
Tech Buzz
Panasonic on Tuesday said it will close its un-profitable television screen manufacturing business, leaving Sharp Corp as Japan’s sole TV panel maker. The com-pany will stop produc-ing TV screens at its plant in Himeji, western Japan, by September. The plant, where pro-duction began in 2010, has never logged a profit. — Reuters
Scientists have devel-oped an algorithm that uses DNA strands to au-tomatically build 3D nan-oparticles, which may be used in a range of appli-cations such as vaccines, gene editing tools and memory storage. Re-searchers can build com-plex, nanometre-scale structures of almost any shape and form, using strands of DNA. The algo-rithm starts with a sim-ple, 3D geometric repre-sentation of the final shape of the object, and then decides how it should be assembled from DNA, according to Mark Bathe, associate professor at MIT. — PTI
Algorithm to Make DNA 3D Nanoparticles
GRAP
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Make Way for Angels from New Shores
7�WWW.ECONOMICTIMES.COM
Disruption: Startups & Tech
aG Berlin’s Thermondo Scores $26.2 million
Thermondo raised about $26.2 million in series-C funding from Global Found-ers Capital, E.on, Holtz-
brinck Ventures, Investitions Bank Berlin and Picus Capital. The startup installs smart heating solutions.
Germany-based Staffbase Gets $2.25 m
Staffbase has raised $2.25 million in a series-A invest-ment. Funding comes from Capnamic Ventures and Ki-
zoo Technology Ventures. The startup provides employee app for internal communications.
Logistics Startup Lalamove Bags $10 m
Hong Kong-based Lalamove has raised $10 million in funding. Investment comes from MindWorks Crystal
Stream, AppWorks, Aria Group. The startup provides on-demand inter-city logistic services.
Sweden-based PinMeTo Raises $1.02 million
PinMeTo has raised $1.02 million in series-A from Wingefors Invest and D-Ax Corporate Venture Capital.
It is an online service-providing start-up that helps companies with social media presence.
Global Roundup A brief look at what is
happening in the global technology and startup
space, giving you a bird’s eye view of deals,
investments and buys
Globe Trotter
WILMINGTON Michael Dell and
Silver Lake Partners under-
priced their 2013 $24.9 billion
buyout of Dell by about 22%
and may have to pay tens of
millions to investors who
opposed the deal for the com-
puter maker, a Delaware judge
ruled on Tuesday. The fair value
of Dell’s stock at the time of the
buyout was $17.62 per share,
not the original price of $13.75
per share, according to Delawa-
re VC Travis Laster. Scores of
investors who voted against
the deal filed a lawsuit in
Delaware's Court of Chancery,
asking it to determine the fair
value of the stock. — Reuters
‘Michael GotDell BelowFair Value’
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BEIJING Alibaba Group Hol-
ding is investing in Israeli
startup Twiggle to tap its
search technology and solidify
its lead in Chinese ecommerce,
say sources. The company
could help Alibaba improve the
quality of online-shopping
searches as the ecommerce
operator expands in China and
abroad, they said, declining to
be named because the matter
is private. The startup will get
around $5 million to $10
million from Alibaba, one of
the people said. — Bloomberg
Israel’s Twiggleto Get $10 mfrom Alibaba
AR
IND
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MUMBAI With the e-tailing
sector growing rapidly, ecom-
merce has emerged as one of
the key drivers for warehouse
realty after third party logis-
tics operators in 2015, a report
by property consultant CBRE
South Asia says. It adds third
party logistics operators
constituted 30% of the total
demand for warehouse realty
followed by ecommerce at
22%. Nearly 2 million sqft of
warehousing space was taken
up by ecommerce firms in
2015, which is a significant
jump as the share of the sector
rose from a meagre 2%. — PTI
Ecomm DrivesWarehouseRealty Space
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EQUALISATION LEVY Onus of deducting and depositing the equalisationlevy will lie with the advertisers, increasing their burden
New Delhi: The equalisation levy, orthe so-called ‘Google tax’, could wellend up increasing compliance costsand accounting hassles for Indiancompanies, especially startups, at atime when the government is pus-hing the envelope on ease of doingbusiness in the country.
While the levy is aimed at indirectlytaxing internet giants such as Goog-le and Facebook for the money theymake from Indian advertisers, as perthe rules announced on Monday, theonus of deducting and depositing thelevy will lie with the advertiser.
Industry insiders said this will notonly increase the accounting hasslesfor Indian companies but may provean added burden on them as they willhave to pay the levy from their ownpockets, though Google has made itclear the internet giant will pay allapplicable taxes.
Nitin Gupta, CEO at PayU Money,said small companies in particularwill find it hard to deal with the ad-ded hassles the levy would bring.“Our processes have become more es-tablished now, but it will be far worsefor a small guy,” he said.
Gupta said he believed the big inter-net platforms will “definitely passon” the additional cost to companies— making it more expensive for Indi-an companies to advertise online —since there is not many alternativesavailable for the advertisers.
A Google spokesperson, however, sa-id, “Google has and will continue topay all applicable taxes and chargesas per local laws in any country weoperate in.”
The government has decided to ma-ke equalisation levy applicable fromJune 1 despite many representationsfrom industry bodies against it.
“It will be a situation of double jeo-pardy for Indian companies. Theywill not only have to pay an extra costbut also do more compliance,” saidSubho Ray, president of Internet andMobile Association of India (IAMAI).
He told ET the body is now seekingclarity from the government on whois supposed to finally deposit the levy.
“As a user, it will be very arduous tokeep track of all the transactions andfile challans of taxes paid,” Ray said.IAMAI had earlier said the levy will“cripple the startup companies” andraise tax obligations by almost 50%.
Specified services covered by the le-vy announced in this year’s Budgetinclude online advertising, provisionfor digital advertising space, and anyother service to be notified by the go-vernment.
While most companies opposed thenew levy, Upasana Taku, director ofmobile wallet player Mobikwik, saidthat the levy will bring much-neededclarity regarding payments to inter-national entities such as Google andFacebook.
“Wiring money to the internationalaccounts of these firms requires a lotof paperwork and rises many ques-tions by the auditors regarding taxcompliance, etc.,” she said, addingthe levy will remove some ambiguityin the area.
“The tax makes sense since India isthe last big open market for thesecompanies. These behemoths are ma-king tonnes of money working in In-dia, so ideally, they should contributesomething by way of taxes to the co-untry,” Taku said.
Milan Shah, director for tax at PwC,said it will be taxing on companies tokeep track of all transactions, deductthe levy and deposit it to the govern-ment. “They will have to keep track ofthe number of transactions whichmay create a lot of hassle for the pay-ers,” he said.
Google Tax will VexLocal Startups More
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BOOKING TROUBLE
DOUBLE JEOPARDY
It will be a situation of double jeopardy for Indiancompanies. They will notonly have to pay an extracost but also do morecomplianceSUBHO RAYPresident of IAMAI
New Delhi: India retained the third spotin consultancy EY’s list of most attracti-ve investment destinations for technolo-gy transactions.
EY’s 14th biannual Global Capital Con-fidence Barometer (CCB) – Technologyreport, based on a survey that covered182 technology executives around theworld including senior level executives,named the US, the UK, India, China andGermany as the top five destinations fortechnology investment in that order.
The report said in the current globaleconomic scenario, companies have be-en revising their strategies to enhancerevenues and protect earnings.
“While 84% of tech executives see astable or modestly improving economy,there has been a 38-point drop (to 1%) inthose projecting strong improvementonly six months ago. Economic and poli-tical instability, including the impact ofthe strong US dollar and weak oil prices,have tempered optimism,” it said.
Technology deals volume rose 2% froma year ago in the first quarter of 2016 to1,002 deals, according to EY.
Globally, there is a shift towards sharedinfrastructure, and that is the main areaof investments in India, said Ashish Ba-sil, partner – transaction advisory servi-ces, EY India.
“India’s reputation as an IT and IT-enabled services powerhouse has recei-ved a great impetus with the heightenedvelocity of the global digital transfor-
mation,” he said. “Indi-a’s domestic technologymarket is picking upand there’s a markedimprovement in our in-vestment climate.”
More recently, theemergence of cloudcomputing has becomean attractive bet, withinvestments in cloudcomputing infrastruc-ture in India touching
$1 billion and major players becomingincreasingly active in this space, he sa-id. However, India scores high on being atechnology hub. “India’s strength is de-finitely in its ability to adopt new tech-nology. Shared infrastructure is domes-tic market focussed, but people also ma-ke investment for exports ,” he said.
India Grabs 3rd Spot in GlobalTech Investment Destinations List
The reportsaid in thecurrentglobaleconomicscenario, cosare revisingstrategies to enhancerevenues
The Real DealTOP 5 DESTINATIONS FOR TECH INVESTMENTS
United States
IndiaGermany
ChinaUnited Kingdom
1,002Technology deals so far in Q1 of 2016
InfrastructureMain area of invest-ments in India
$1 billionRecent invest-ments in cloud computing in-frastructure
52%Expected growth in deals this year
India was not featuredin the investment desti-nations for technology in the last report
2%RISE IN TECH DEALS VOLUME IN Q1 OF 2016 FROM A YEAR AGO
New Delhi: With encryption becoming com-mon and technology changing rapidly, law en-forcement agencies and the legal system willhave a difficult time trying to keep ahead oreven keep up with tech-savvy criminals, saida US attorney who deals with legal assistancerequests from India. Advances in technology,along with India’s requests for a wide-range ofinformation of cyber activity, often leads todelays in responding to them, said Mark Telli-tocci, a trial attorney from the Office of Inter-national Affairs at the US Department of Jus-tice, Criminal Division.
Tellitocci, who was in India earlier thismonth, has a team that focuses exclusively onlegal requests from India, received under themutual legal assistance treaty. ET reportedearlier the average time taken for India to getinformation under a formal request to the USis three years and four months.
The reason for the delay is largely procedur-al because of the wide scope of informationsought about a suspect’s activities on the in-ternet including chats, emails and socialmedia posts. “Almost every one (request) hasa piece of Google in there or a piece of Yahooin there or a piece of Hotmail. None of themsay give me the account information fromGoogle only. I can do that in a month. Butthere’s always a whole bunch of informationrequested from a whole bunch of accounts at awhole bunch of places and a whole bunch ofsocial media sites,” he said.
The majority of the effort goes in narrowingdown requests to a specific time period or be-tween specific accounts.
The US also makes formal requests for datafrom India, including those from internet ser-vice providers, local servers and informationexchanged on Indian chat applications suchas Hike. As criminals become more sophisti-cated and end-to-end encryption assumesmore importance, life becomes difficult forlaw enforcement agencies. “The legal systemis going to have a difficult time changing therules and to keep ahead... even to keep up –we’re far behind,” said Tellitocci.
Blame Procedure forInfo-sharing Delay: US
REASONS FOR DELAY
Advances in tech, along withIndia’s requests for a wide-rangeof info on cyber activity, oftenlead to delays in responding tothem, says Mark Tellitocci
Pune: BlueStacks, a mobile gaming platformthat enables users to run mobile applicationson a larger screen, has seen a sharp increasein user engagement with the launch of BlueS-tacks TV a few months ago.
BlueStacks TV enables gamers to interactwith their audience through multiple meansincluding live-streaming their games, offe-ring tutorials and setting up hang outs. “Weare seeing 2.5 times retention with people whoengage with the audience and stream games,over our regular users,” said Suman Saraf,chief technical officer of BlueStacks.
Launched in 2011, BlueStacks claims to bethe world’s largest mobile gaming platformfor desktop computers.
“We’ve now crossed 140 million downloadsworldwide and India is our second largestmarket with 30 million users who have down-loaded BlueStacks,” Saraf said.
In addition to enabling gamers to connectwith their audience, BlueStacks will also stre-am tournaments and other videos to tap intoan otherwise inactive set of users. “This is lik-ely to boost genres like e-sports where therearen’t too many legacy issues and bring in anew set of gamers,” said Saraf.
Next on the agenda is publishing customisedcontent on the app player in collaborationwith publishers in Europe & Southeast Asia.
Big Picture Works now forBlueStacks as Users Swarm
The Game Plan
140 million Downloads
globally
30 millionDownloads in India
BlueStacks claims to be world’s largest mobile gaming platform for desktop computers
Bloomberg
London: Confused about EUeconomy? Researchers in Fin-land say answers are on the In-ternet. They’re adding voicesto the idea that Google datacan help improve economicanalysis and forecasts in ar-eas like labour market.
By tracking searches forterms such as “unemploy-ment benefits” or “career ser-vice” across the EU, the Re-search Institute of the Finn-ish Economy in Helsinki saysit’s able to predict unemploy-ment as much as three monthsin advance.
While central banks and sta-tistics agencies have alreadyexpressed interest — some al-ready use it — Researcherssays it can now estimate real-time unemployment rates us-ing web searches.
Europe’s Economyin 100 BillionGoogle Searches!