Business, if one wants an academic explanation of the word, is about the use of capital and resources (material, machine and human) to generate profit. This listing, Business Today's second annual one of cool companies, shows why that definition is inadequate. The rules remain the same: the company has to be 'with it'; it needs to either be doing something cool or going about an existing task in a cool way; the cool factor needs to be scalable; and the coolness should be something that means profits, right now, or sometime in the future. A team of writers and editors from Business Today met with companies, consultants, analysts and venture capitalists, spoke to shortlisted-companies to understand whether they were really 'cool' or not, and came up with a list of 10, two less than last year. The bonus: A selection of four companies that almost made it and an update on last year's companies.

Plug 'N' Play
Four years and 1,100 cars later, Reva remains India's only alternative car.

REVA ELECTRIC CAR COMPANY
Electric cars are definitely in
FOUNDED: Company in 1995; REVA launched in 2001
REVENUES: Not disclosed (BT estimates: Rs 10-12 crore)

A Dilip Chhabria-designed Reva: Drivers wanted

The last day of august 2005, oil trades at around $70 (Rs 3,080) a barrel in the international market and the REVA (Revolutionary Electric Vehicle Alternative), India's only electric car is beginning to look not just cool, but very very sensible. And Chetan Maini, the 35-year-old Deputy Chairman and Managing Director of Reva Electric Car Company (RECC), a joint venture between the Bangalore-based Maini Group (it makes auto components) and the us (California)-based AEV, seems to have parlayed an enduring obsession-he once raced a solar-powered car from Darwin to Adelaide, a distance of 3,200 km-into a company whose time may well have come. "I think the time for an electric vehicle not just as a concept, but as a mass market reality has arrived."

There has never been any debate over the environmental and economic benefit of electric vehicles. For the record, a REVA's fuel bill works out to 40 paise a km as compared to Rs 4 for a petrol-powered car. Then, there is the thing about driving an environment friendly vehicle being good for the soul. If consumers haven't broken down Maini's doors, attribute it to the fact that the REVA needs to be plugged in for a recharge every 80 km. And attribute it to a middle-of-the-road price tag of Rs 3.1 lakh for the entry-level model. The company has since tried replacing the conventional lead-acid batteries with lithium-ion ones, and claims this will increase the range to 200 km on a charge. REVAs with these batteries are to be launched in 2007; a concept coupe with these new batteries, designed by India's best known auto-designer Dilip Chhabria, sporting a wireless tablet developed by Bangalore-based Encore Software, and boasting a top speed of 120 km/hr was showcased in Monaco, a country partial to solar energy, in April this year.

The car majors, Maini alleges, haven't ventured into this market in India because "they have legacy investments in existing infrastructure". Subsidies provided by governments keen on popularising electric cars will help RECC's cause (in the UK, for instance, where some 250 REVAs have sold, buyers get a subsidy of £1,000 or Rs 79,000, and in Japan, they do $2,600 or Rs 1,14,400). Next year, says Maini, when the company sells 3,500 cars, it will turn profitable. That's something every cool company should aspire to be.

-Venkatesha Babu

The Music Never Stops
Phat Phis; entertainment powerhouse?

PHAT PHISH PRODUCTIONS
Music and movies for the soul; ads for the body
FOUNDED: 1996
REVENUES: Rs 6.5 crore from advertising and Rs 2-3 crore from music (2004-05)

Phat Phish's Surapur: It's good to have a few muses handy

At 32, Anand Surapur has the kind of CV that would make a young entertainment mogul stop in his tracks and exclaim, "Now, why couldn't I have done that?" Which isn't surprising; the man is on his way to becoming India's best-known producer of indie movies and music. And if no one, apart from his clients, knows that he also makes dashed good ad films, so much the better. The CV itself, if truthfully written, would have to include the fact that Surapur ran away from three boarding schools before finishing from the J. Krishnamurthy Foundation-run Rishi Valley School; that he studied electrical engineering at the University of Missouri for all of six months; that he backpacked across the us and ended up at a film school in New York where he spent four years, clubbing the courses he took a fancy to with intermittent extended journeys to places near and far; that he finally landed up at V India around the time the channel was going local with quirky-zeal, and created Udham Singh, a laconic rustic Jat (a hardy North Indian breed that has, over the years, acquired an undeserved stereotypical reputation for its belief in forms of non-verbal, and often violent, communication); and that he diversified into making ad films when Britannia Industries wanted to use Udham Singh in an ad and asked Surapur if he would like to direct it. He said yes, pulled the name Phat Phish out of a hat when the company wanted to write him a cheque (although the name is likely inspired by American jam-band Phish), and quickly figured out that "if there is so much money in commercials, it might be a good business to be in".

Phat Phish is now 200 ads old, has produced music videos and TV-promos, but it is as a producer of indie music that the company has really come into its own. After the lukewarm response to his first music release, Surapur scored big time with Rabbi Shergill whose brand of Sufi rock, well, struck a chord with a small, but significant audience (it has sold 140,000 copies) whose frontal lobes hadn't been damaged by music of the head-banging variety and eyes hadn't glazed over with an overdose of the thong-clad women that seem to throng Indian music videos these days. "I am ok with the kind of regression you see in music television, provided there is space for all kinds of music," says Surapur. "We want to sell music without peripherals like girls." Emboldened by that success, Surapur-he feels the company could have marketed Rabbi better-has lined up a clutch of albums: there's one by Bengali rock singer Mou, a folk-music album with Raghubir Yadav (yes, the man can sing and is the voice behind the Sachin-Tendulkar-and-village-boys-playing-cricket-and-drinking-Pepsi-ad), one with Kannada band Antaragini, and one with street children that sing on the Mumbai locals for a living. There are 10 in all and Surapur has it all figured out. "I want to be the platform for different kinds of music," he says. Then, there's the self-financed, self-directed motion pic called The Fakir in Venice, the beginning of a celluloid play driven, again, by the desire to see space being created for "films of all kinds". We'll watch this one.

-Priya Srinivasan

ReaMetrix's Bala Manian: India is the key

Pharma's Silicon Valley
A new paradigm in drug R&D is emerging, courtesy ReaMetrix.

REAMETRIX
Rewriting the rules of pharma research
FOUNDED: 2003
REVENUES: Not disclosed

It isn't patriotism-"leveraging India was not an afterthought; it was a fundamental part of the start-up strategy," says Founder Bala Manian-that earns ReaMetrix an entry into this listing, but the San Francisco-based India-dependant company's business model: leveraging the India advantage, and applying it's Silicon Valley learnings (especially those concerning risk and return) to the business of pharma R&D, one that could do with some help, given that there haven't been any blockbuster drugs launched since Pharmacia did Celebrex seven years ago. ReaMetrix is in the business of developing assays (kits that facilitate the observation of biological activity at a minute level); these are crucial in developing safe (and cheap) drugs. "Insights from assays into the molecular and cellular scale are the foundation of pharma research," says Manian, a us-based serial entrepreneur and brother of ICICI Bank Chairman N. Vaghul, who actually has a technical Academy Award to his credit (in 1998, for his pioneering effort in the development of laser film recording technology). Leveraging the cost advantage (it costs $250,000-300,000, Rs 1.1-1.32 crore to develop an assay solution in the us; in India, it does $50,000, Rs 22 lakh), ReaMetrix has developed a reagent that can detect the presence of cd4 cells (an important metric in aids tests) for just $3 (Rs 132) a pop as compared to $12 (Rs 528) in the us. Eventually, research like this could lead to low-cost aids medication. That would be something.

-Rahul Sachitanand

Jumping Jack-flash
Encore has done more to bridge the digital divide than any other Indian company.

ENCORE SOFTWARE
Access for the masses
FOUNDED: 1992
REVENUES: Rs 3.57 crore

Encore's Deshpande: Tech within every-arm's reach

By some accounts, he is a visionary, one who played a key role in developing the Simputer. By others, he is a dreamer whose visions are often incomplete and, almost always unsuccessful. Somewhere between the two, is the real Vinay Deshpande, Chairman and CEO, Encore Software Ltd. "I could have built one more me-too software services company," he admits, "but we tried to take the road less taken and make a go by manufacturing hardware products with appropriate software for the Indian markets." There's the Simputer, of course, initially developed by Encore and now being manufactured by it under a licence from Simputer Trust, a not-for-profit trust. There's a GPS (global positioning system) version of it. Then, there's Sathi, a mobile communication device developed by Encore that is being used by the Indian Army, and, finally, there's the Mobilis, a sort of PDA-laptop-desktop hybrid priced under Rs 18,000. With India rapidly becoming a hub for hardware manufacture, Deshpande's designs and dreams could well turn into wired (and wireless) reality.

-Venkatesha Babu

A Sula red: Here's to bridging the gap between Nashik and Napa valley

Grape Expectations
Sula has made the Indian wine industry fashionable.

SULA WINES
It sells in France; need we say more?
FOUNDED: 1997
REVENUES: Rs 20 crore

A picturesque 200-acre vineyard, a tastefully done up wine-tasting bar where a regular clientele streams in for its fix of wine and more, you could be mistaken for thinking you are in California's Napa valley. Actually, this is Nashik in Maharashtra, chronicled, for posterity, as India's Napa valley by this very magazine two years ago. That isn't bad going for a place that was once known as being the nearest town to Panchavati (literally, meeting place of five holy rivers), a Hindu holy spot. Rajeev Samant's family hails from Nashik, and it is to the Stanford-educated industrial engineer that credit for putting India on the world's wine map, and reducing the incongruity of using Nashik and Napa in the same sentence should go. That's some achievement: India had a wine industry before Sula, and even today, the company, is only the second largest wine maker in the country after Chateau Indage.

Table grapes have always been grown in the Nashik region, but wine grapes are something else and Samant had to dig out climate records for the region for the previous 50 years from an air force station, understand the wine business and wait for three years while his first crop matured. Today, Sula exports a Sauvignon Blanc to France. It is priced at 13 Euros (Rs 702), and "there are wines that sell for 3 Euros (Rs 162) in France so we are not considered cheap", says Samant who insists that Sula turned profitable two years ago. It has helped that the market itself has evolved into a Rs 250-300 crore one in this time and that a small, but growing breed of Indians has begun appreciating wines.

Samant plans to launch another brand-Sula is a premium brand and the company has been receiving requests for a cheaper wine from department stores overseas-and is also looking to open wine bars across the country as "margins in a front-end customer business are much higher than selling wine off the shelf". All this, he reckons, should keep the company growing at 30 per cent year-on-year. We'll drink to that.

-Priya Srinivasan

Needle-in-haystack Finder
Pinstorm is one smart search-engine based marketer.

PINSTORM
The new wordsmiths
FOUNDED: 2004
REVENUES: Rs 4.4 crore (2005-06 estimates)

Pinstorm's Murthy: On the mark with marketing

Call us biased, but being in the business of words ourselves, we think Pinstorm is the coolest company in this listing (and one whose business needs some careful explaining, so read on). The key to internet-based marketing is key words. Every time a user searches for something on, say, Google, the results page also displays sponsored links on the right. These links appear there because the companies concerned have paid money for them to do so when the searcher uses certain keywords. For instance, a Spanish travel company may have paid big money to ensure that its link is displayed when the keywords cheap and Spain are used in conjunction. Now, here's the catch. Most known combinations of keywords are very very very expensive; Pinstorm promises that its team of mathematicians and linguists can come up with lesser known keywords that are just as relevant to your business and do not cost as much, while, at the same time, bidding just the right amount across hundreds of keywords. Phew! Does it work? Well, Pinstorm has come up with gems such as Nike +Child+Labour (keywords) for Child Relief and You, and Infosys+Results for online brokerage Sharekhan. Founder Mahesh Murthy is so confident of his company's technology that he charges customers a fee based on leads generated, not, as is the practice in the business, a cut on the total spend. That's earned him business from the likes of British Airways, American Express, eBay, Sun Microsystems, Greenpeace and Monster India. Better still, the technology, claims Murthy, can work across languages. The company's technology has actually helped it identify under-serviced segments in the market and it has ventured into two of these, handicrafts and hotel reservations in India (ah, that would explain the consignment of brass handicrafts that arrived along with this reporter at Pinstorm's office), but it is as a search-based marketing engine that Pinstorm would like to be known. That, as we have already said, is cool.

-Priya Srinivasan

Hidesign's Kapur: Clearly, this is leather that weathers

The Original Handheld
Hidesign is the Indian leather brand the world knows best.

HIDESIGN
Home-grown Louis Vuitton
FOUNDED: 1978
REVENUES: Rs 220 crore

There's something about Pondicherry, a Union Territory once ruled by the French. Some of the best handmade paper in the world can be found at Auroville, a commune of individuals from all over the world who follow the teachings of Aurobindo; what is, arguably, India's best public library, the Romain Rolland stands in the centre of the old town; and the UT's many quaint restaurants, many located in buildings that would fit more into the topography of Old Paris than New India, serve everything from original Italian to original Cajun (and everything in-between). Pondicherry is also home to the factory of Hidesign, a company founded by Dilip Kapur, a PhD in international studies who wandered into the leather trade in 1978. Today, Hidesign sells a range of leather garments, luggage, bags and accessories in 15 countries across the world; it has eight stores overseas (and 28 in India), with the first having opened for business in Moscow in 2001. That would make Hidesign the earliest Indian fashion brand to go global. "We are the affordable end of the luxury segment, but the plan is to have a range extending into the super-premium luxury segment too," says Kunal Sachdev, CEO, Hidesign. That would mean handbags priced at $500 (Rs 22,000), garments, at $1,000 (Rs 44,000), and competing with the likes of Louis Vuitton, Mango, Prada and Gucci. Much of Hidesign's global brand equity stems from the product itself: the best hides, eco-friendly methods of treating them using vegetable dyes and original brass fittings. Hidesign has parlayed the strength of its brand into an eponymous hotel shortly to be opened in Pondicherry, but Sachdev insists that this is a one-off diversification and that the company will continue to focus exclusively on leather and related areas like a venture into perfumes. Over the next three years, Hidesign hopes to increase the number of stores it sells out of overseas to around 45-50. When that happens, India's first global luxury brand would have truly arrived.

-Venkatesha Babu

The Virtual Workforce
Temp-warrior TeamLease has changed the employment paradigm in India.

TEAMLEASE
Because a job is better than none
FOUNDED: 2002
REVENUES: Rs 127 crore

TeamLease's Sabharwal (front) and Reddy: The liquid labour guys

Three years from now, Teamlease, which has 21,000 employees on its rolls, will become India's largest private sector employer. And, any day now, the government may decide to force the company to down shutters: Indian labour laws do not have the words to define a company such as TeamLease, which is in the area of staffing (or temping). The idea came to entrepreneurs Ashok Reddy and Manish Sabharwal, when they were exiting their payroll processing start-up India Life, after selling it to a global hr consulting firm in 2002. Their customers (essentially hr managers) had often bemoaned that India's inflexible labour laws made it difficult for them to hire people when they needed to simply because they couldn't let them go if market conditions changed. And so, the duo founded TeamLease to be a "liquidity provider in the labour market". "Current labour laws protect the interests of eight million workers in the organised sector against those of 340 million in the unorganised one," says Sabharwal, Chairman, TeamLease. TeamLease recruits people and deploys them across clients, moving them elsewhere once the need passes. The business isn't new, but as Reddy, Managing Director, TeamLease says, "We are the first with operations across the country, with 289 customers and deployment at 245 locations." From white-collar deployments, TeamLease has ventured into blue-collar ones. That's treacherous terrain, but Reddy and Sabharwal are convinced it is the way to go.

-Venkatesha Babu

An Astra Micro lab: What's cooking?

Microwavable
Astra is a one-company industry.

ASTRA MICROWAVE
On the profit-frequency
FOUNDED: 1991
REVENUES: Rs 65 crore

That India's defence expenditure will continue to rise is a given; just as it is a given that the Indian mobile telephony market will explode over the next few years ending 2007 (or 2008, depending on which estimate you go by) with 200 million users. One company that can celebrate this number all the way to the bank is Hyderabad-based Astra Microwave Products, one of the leading private sector companies that makes components and sub-systems for wireless communication in the microwave frequency range (it was founded by three technocrats). That immediately puts India's defence and space agencies on the company's customer-list. Till as recently as 2001, Astra's revenues came largely from R&D work it carried out for defence and space agencies, but since then, it has ventured into manufacturing products. Today, around 70 per cent of Astra's revenues come from these agencies and the rest from companies in the private sector, largely telcos. "Getting the right manpower is the main challenge for us," says founder and Managing Director B. Malla Reddy. Coolness, you see, does nothing to address demand-supply imbalances in labour.

-E. Kumar Sharma

From A To B
SatNav has a direction finder for India.

SATNAV
Maps in your hand
FOUNDED: January 2004
REVENUES: Rs 66 lakh (Rs 4-4.5 crore in 2005-06)

SatNav's hand-held device: You are here

Picture this: you are in a car with your wife, completely lost, and (as always), reluctant to ask for directions. Now, picture this alternative: just as your wife is beginning to get a trifle restive, you pull out your SatGuide, an in-vehicle navigation device, and minutes later you are at your destination and the wife is giving you her my-hero look. Such navigation devices have been available in the us and parts of Europe for some time; now, thanks to Hyderabad-based SatNav Technologies they will soon be available in India (actually, they already are in three cities, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai, and will be in seven more by the end of this year). SatNav has developed a proprietary software that can help it map a city at a 50th of the global cost. It is on the strength of this that it has launched a clutch of offerings, including one called a-mantra that handles tasks such as seat-optimisation and transport logistics for business process outsourcing firms; the product has found favour with Satyam, Gecis and ICICI Bank. That may bring in the moolah (over 50 per cent of revenues), but as CEO Amit Kishore Prasad will vouch, the hand-held navigator has more oomph.

-E. Kumar Sharma