Small Enterprise India, had caught up with a few of the Startups during the Headstart’22 event and had an insight into their successful journey. Excerpts from our interview with Ashok Magadum, Founder & CEO, Vidarka Technologies Pvt Ltd.
- Brief intro about you and the company, your team, and your journey so far.
I am Ashok Magadum with 21+ years of IT industry experience and have worked in the field of Video Processing, Cloud Processing, Multimedia, Machine Learning, and Embedded and DSP systems. I have worked in various MNCs: Samsung India, NXP Semiconductors, and Deep Tech startups: Ittiam Systems, Zenverge Inc, and Saranyu technologies.
As today’s internet world is dominated by video and new emerging areas of Meta, HDR, immersive video, and 5G, it demands high-quality, cost-optimized video solutions. We at VIDARKA TECHNOLOGIES Pvt Ltd are focusing on providing video solutions that are high in quality of experience and optimal in cost for video processing and streaming.
We are about 5 months old and so far we are functioning in bootstrap mode. We have a small team of experienced developers in video processing and streaming, cloud technologies, and front-end web, mobile, and TV application development. We have developed two products so far:
1) ML-based Content adaptive video transcoder for Live and VOD applications in the field of EdTech, OTT, and streaming.
2) Live video streaming solutions such as a browser to HLS live streaming, RTMP/WebRTC to WebRTC/HLS streaming.
We have a few customers who have shown interest and are evaluating these products and so far the results are encouraging.
2. What made you become an entrepreneur?
I see my strength as problem-solving, technology, and working as a team. Now with 21+ years of experience in this field, I want to fully focus on building the technology which has a bigger use case where as a team we can bring a differentiation.
3. What purpose does your brand solve? Which industry does it fall under?
We are attempting to solve the problems in Video and Streaming technology which is a fundamental part of many domains like Edtech, OTT, Live streaming, Meta, 5G, Immersive Video, and many more applications.
4. Have you raised any funding earlier? If yes, what was your experience and how many investors did you meet until the final meet clicked?
No, we havent approached any investors so far. Its self-funded.
5. If you haven’t raised any funding, what are your plans for fundraising?
As we are at a very early stage, we want to develop a few products, acquire customers, generate revenue, and want to have successful adoptions of our products. Post that for the growth stage, we will plan for fundraising.
6. Briefly explain your Business plan – Why your brand, competition, USP and how do you see it growing in the next 5 years?
Our planned offerings are Saas-based on Video solutions and SDKs for the B2B market.
There are many solutions in this market segment. Our focus is offering better quality, and reliable solutions at an optimal cost for common use cases like Video processing, transcoding, live, and VOD streaming.
The USP of our products will be improved features and quality, cost advantage, reliability, and scalability.
In the next few years, we would like to build innovative, high-quality, cost-effective, and reliable solutions for Edtech, OTT companies, and other streaming application companies and offer our SDKs and SaaS services to them.
7. How was your experience at Headstart HS.X 2022?
It was my first time hosting a stall and networking with people. HS.X team has done a wonderful job in organising the entire event and making it a successful event for all of us.
8. Please share your advice/suggestion for those aspiring Startups
I fully agree with the HS.X punch line: THE TIME FOR THE STARTUP IS NOW: There will be unknowns, there will be uncertainties, and only by starting a startup and traveling the journey of a startup, will we explore and understand many things. It will give great learnings, great possibilities, and it provides a platform for great networking and making a memorable journey.