iZooto announces maiden ESOP Buyback Plan, one of the few from a bootstrapped startup

iZooto announces maiden ESOP Buyback Plan, one of the few from a bootstrapped startup

Noida, November 24, 2021: iZooto, the world’s leading owned audience marketing platform, today announced its maiden ESOP buyback programme worth USD 1.35 million for all shareholders including current and former employees. 

Valued at 40x the issue price, 40 percent of iZooto’s employees with vested options were eligible to participate in this process. Qualifying ESOP holders were allowed to liquidate up to 25% of their vested units based on a specified scheme. As a bootstrapped startup, iZooto has always functioned on the principles of frugality and capital efficiency. This approach has allowed the company to stay profitable for four consecutive years, including in 2020 – the height of the pandemic. Over the last six months, iZootoo has shown a growth of 40 percent. 

Commenting on the announcement, Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Partner at global SaaS accelerator Upekkha, and a mentor to iZooto founders, said, “The iZooto founders have set a new bar for a Value SaaS company, that is building a software product business capital-efficiently, delivering value to customers and as a consequence creating real wealth both for their employees and investors early in their journey. Upekkha is proud to be the only outside shareholder in iZooto and are excited to see them issue dividends and do an ESOP buyback from employees – incredibly rare at an early-stage business.”

iZooto’s unique position as a profitable startup has enabled its philosophy of value creation to extend to all its stakeholders – including its employees – ultimately culminating in its first ESOP buyback programme. Its ESOP pool now covers 72 percent of the organisation. In an additional windfall for shareholders, iZooto announced a dividend of INR 275 per share prior to Diwali. 

“iZooto’s employees have been the bedrock of our success from the very start. Our profitable growth over the last four years has only been possible because of the dedication, diligence, and passion of our entire team,” said Neel Kothari, CEO of iZooto. “We’ve always believed in creating value for all of our stakeholders. Since we found ourselves in the unique position of being profitable so early in our lifecycle, we were determined to give every employee the chance to share in the wealth creation and grow with us.” 

As the world’s leading owned audience marketing platform, iZooto empowers publishers to regain their spot in today’s attention economy. Through its unique business model, the company provides a first-of-its-kind combination of MarTech and AdTech, allowing publishers to drive audience engagement and retention while simultaneously boosting revenue growth. iZooto’s clients portfolio includes some of the largest media brands in countries including India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, resulting in a market leadership position in South East Asia and India. The company also plans to expand its presence in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and North American markets in the coming years.

About iZooto:

iZooto was founded  in 2016 by Neel Kothari, Vivek Khandelwal, Shrikant Kale, and Sachin Grover. Designed to help publishers own, engage, and retain their audience, iZooto works with over 1100 publishers across the world to push approximately 200 billion notifications each month. The platform’s clients include some of the largest media brands in countries including India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, resulting in a market leadership position in South East Asia and India.

Millions in Cryptocurrency Stolen by Scammers in the Last Month According to Tenable Research

Mumbai, India- November 24, 2021: Tenable has today warned users to be alert to fake cryptocurrency giveaways on social media, as fake Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Cardano, Ripple and Shiba Inu giveaways proliferate on YouTube Live. While scammers hijacking legitimate YouTube accounts to promote fake cryptocurrency giveaways are not new, individuals are still being duped, making these scams extremely lucrative. Tenable has calculated that, across a subset of YouTube Live scams encountered over the last month alone, scammers  have stolen at least $8.9 million US dollars.

“Scammers are leveraging compromised YouTube accounts to promote fake cryptocurrency giveaways for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Cardano, Ripple, Shiba Inu and other cryptocurrencies,” said Satnam Narang, Staff Research Engineer at Tenable. “The Bitcoin scams I monitored received $8.2 million in stolen funds, for an average amount of $1.6 million per scam. Ethereum scams received $413k in stolen funds, receiving on average $82,778 per scam. Finally, Shiba Inu scams earned $239k in funds, receiving on average $34,192 per scam.”

Scammers recognize that users place a lot of trust in influential voices so create fake videos featuring the founders and co-founders of cryptocurrencies as well as notable individuals associated with cryptocurrency companies or CEOs of companies who have promoted the use of and/or discussed the purchase of cryptocurrencies for their company balance sheets. Combined with the plethora of existing interview footage featuring many of these notable figures, scammers have developed a formula that adds legitimacy to their efforts and has continued to work for years. Additionally, current events featuring high profile individuals offer the perfect fodder for scammers, as they can count on significant interest from audiences looking to watch livestream footage on YouTube.

Across a number of fake YouTube Live videos Satnam has identified, scammers were using footage of notable figures including:

• Michael Saylor, chairman and CEO of MicroStrategy and a fervent supporter of Bitcoin
• Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder
• Charles Hoskinson, Cardano founder and Ethereum co-founder
• Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple Labs
• Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX

The common thread amongst all of these fake YouTube Live streams is that users are directed to external websites that claim to double a users’ cryptocurrency, whether it be Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Cardano, Ripple or Shiba Inu. This technique is the gold standard for cryptocurrency scams.

To help thwart the efforts of scammers, Satnam offers the following advice, “It’s really important for users to be skeptical of YouTube Live videos promising giveaways from notable figures such as the ones above and new individuals that may emerge in the future. Never send cryptocurrency to participate in a giveaway, as it’s unlikely to be genuine, and you won’t be able to recover your digital money once it has been sent. It’s also important for viewers to help play their part and report these YouTube Live videos as there’s a chance it might save someone from falling victim.”

Reporting videos on YouTube can be done by clicking on the flag icon beneath the video and selecting the “spam or misleading” category and selecting “scams or fraud” in the dropdown menu.

A blog post detailing Satnam’s latest social media scam research is available here, including details that can help YouTube users identify and avoid falling prey to these cons.

Ohmium ships its first “Made in India” Hydrogen electrolyzer unit to the United States, establishing India as the global hub for hydrogen

24 November 2021, Bangalore, Ohmium International, through its Indian subsidiary, has shipped its first unit of electrolyzer from India to the United States, as a first step towards establishing India as a global hub for green hydrogen generation. The electrolyzer has been manufactured by Ohmium at its Bengaluru plant, India’s first green hydrogen electrolyzer Gigafactory. This was set-up to ensure the availability of end-to-end solutions within the country and reduce dependency on imports for this key equipment (electrolyzer). This development comes as a breakthrough for the startup’s ongoing mission in alignment with the nation’s ‘Make in India’ and net-zero emission commitments.

As announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the recent Climate Summit (COP26) in Glasgow, green hydrogen is a key component of India’s goal to achieve net-zero emissions. India aims to alter the present state of play wherein its entire hydrogen production comes from fossil fuels. It was also reiterated by the COP26 Energy Transition Council (ETC) that an instant and just transition to clean energy would be critical in meeting the Paris Agreement goals. India has voiced its keenness to scale up green hydrogen and mandate its use in industries like petroleum refineries and fertilizer industries. This push towards decarbonisation will lead to several investments in innovation across energy efficiency, renewable energy and emission free green hydrogen.

“The first shipment of a product is a big moment for any company. This is especially exciting for Ohmium as well as all of our suppliers in India because it proves beyond a doubt that both manufacturing and technology excellence in the field of green hydrogen generation are in India’s wheelhouse.  We feel that when we export Ohmium products from India we are pushing the boundaries of the Honorable Prime Minister’s “AatmaNirbhar Bharat” and “National Hydrogen Mission” – in a good way – by expanding the global impact of these programs,” said Arne Ballantine, CEO & Co-Founder, Ohmium.

“We are seeing significant activity in India and around the world in green hydrogen projects.  Ohmium is constantly working towards providing innovative, scalable, profitable, flexible, and safe solutions which can be leveraged to achieve competitive levelized costs of hydrogen, supporting the growth of India’s economy. We are confident of Green Hydrogen as the fuel of the future owing to its enormous potential, numerous applications across sectors and a zero-carbon footprint. Currently, our factory has a manufacturing capacity of approximately ½ GW per year, and we can rapidly expand it to 2 GW per year to facilitate India’s accelerated transition to clean energy systems,” said Ahmad Chatila, Chairman, Ohmium.

Good Samaritans India comes forward to the rescue of migrant workers in need

New Delhi, November 24, 2021: Though it is the responsibility of the government to take care of migrant workers, the contribution and role played by Non-Governmental Organisations like Good Samaritans India “deserves all appreciation” for coming forward to help them by providing food, water, and transportation during the “difficult time” of COVID-19 pandemic. From January 2021 till now, this NGO has successfully rescued 168 people out of which 74 migrants were reunited with their families. Some of these migrant workers were able to reunite with their families after 20 long years of separation.

Mr. A.I. George Rakesh Babu, Founder; Good Samaritans India says that “We are planning to expand our reach throughout India to help more migrant workers. Starting to which we are opening another regional office in Odisha. I want to extend my special thanks to Telangana Government, concerned authorities, and departments for facilitating the infrastructure and other legal formalities.

“Though, we don’t receive any direct funding or monetary benefits from the state government, it always assists us with all the legal aspects and permissions. Thus lending a helping hand to Good Samaritans India. All the government organizations and officials including the District Welfare Office, Welfare Department of Senior Citizen, and Disable, City Civil Court, State Human Rights Commission and police department always come forward to help us when we are need”, added Mr. George.

Good Samaritans India along with its volunteers spares no efforts in helping the needy especially migrant workers. They provide them with “food free of cost” and no fare is charged from any migrant workers for their travel either by train or bus.

The NGO is setting another milestone by organizing a digital Crowd Funding campaign on Milap “Help Provide Needs for the Elderly” to help “senior citizens”. With this campaign, Good Samaritans India is aiming to raise 20 Lakh rupees to provide vulnerable senior citizens a dignified standard of living. Through this campaign, Good Samaritans India urges the contribution of community groups and corporates by extending a helping arm in contributing towards their mission of serving the destitute.