One of the buzzwords doing rounds in the television industry is the concept of a “second screen”. The concept is simple - while watching or engaging with content on one device (typically a television set), additional content can be displayed on a companion device such as a tablet, smartphone or computer screen. But then, this is a concept popular in the developed countries. Not so much in India. But a Bangalore-based company thinks otherwise. Lukup Media is attempting to change the way we watch television in India. It is building a consumer electronics start-up (registered in 2010) with a product conceived, researched, developed, designed, tested and manufactured entirely in India. Of course, some of the products will be sourced from Taiwan, China and the US. When assembled together, the Lukup Player becomes a device that can make watching content on the telly or on the Web even more fun. In the global market, there are products such as the SlingBox, which uses the second screen concept to mirror TV content on other devices and services such as Netflix that provide subscription-based online content. This market in India is relatively nascent. And what Lukup Player is trying to so is merge these two aspects – hardware and content - into one device.
Launch Plans
Although the idea sounds promising, Lukup Player is yet to hit Indian markets. The product will be available in select retail stores from the first week of December. This will be followed by shipments to customers. But the back-end, as one of the founders of the company says, is already in place.
Back-end includes setting up content acquisition, network, engineering, manufacturing operations in India. In line with their plans, there will be at least 35 new TV channels where content can be viewed completely on demand.
Priced at Rs 9,000, the Lukup Player is indeed at tad on the higher side for the Indian markets. But then again, price seems to be no deterrent. “We expect to ship at least 25,000 units of the Lukup Player by March 2014,” Kallol Borah, one of the co-founders, maintains. Initial shipments will start with the over-the-top (OTT) variant that works in addition to existing set top boxes.
Future versions of the product will serve as a multi-screen set top boxes that can receive content directly from a satellite dish antenna or a cable TV head end. Variants of the product that will bring broadband and TV with a single connection will also launch in the near future. Lukup Media had launched India’s first interactive advertising platform on satellite and cable TV platforms in 2011 in partnership with leading service providers and broadcast channels.
The Concept
The Lukup Player is a hand-held device that allows users to search for content from multiple sources, select a screen of choice and then get the content streamed to many screens simultaneously. It will also come with a video-on-demand (VoD) service that will have premium content from around the world in HD. Most of this content which is not available in India otherwise will be packaged into on-demand TV channels that will appear alongside live TV channels.
Coming in a market where digital video recording facility abysmally low, the Lukup Player will allow viewers direct access to content across multiple screens at home. Simply speaking, when connected to an existing set-top box, the offering can deliver content either from live television or from its video-on-demand platform to a second TV at home, a tablet PC or even a mobile phone by using a wired broadband or Wi-Fi.
The Founders
Interestingly, LukUp Media is a brain-child of Kallol Borah (37) and Harsha Mutt (45). Borah is a trained economist from the London School of Economics who found his calling in entrepreneurship. Prior to Lukup Media, he managed Aumega Networks, a company that developed and sold products in the sensor based home and industrial networking, and supply chain management space. Borah built the business in the UK and opened a development center in Bangalore and managed sales both in Europe and Japan.
In 2010, he teamed up with Harsha Mutt, a former techie who had worked with Infosys and HCL Technologies, to start Lukup Media.
Mutt started his career at Infosys during the mid-eighties and rose to become the head of delivery for its Banking and Capital markets practice. An alumnus of Harvard Business School, Mutt is a certified cost accountant from India. He also has an engineering degree from UVCE. Mutt looks after the commercial and operational functions of Lukup Media.
Borah believes India is an important market for Lukup Media. While urban Indian homes are getting busier, the choice of content that can be consumed on-demand is limited. “The ability to use Lukup Player, as an OTT device (something that can be used in addition to an existing set top box), or as a set top box, or as a home gateway that brings TV, on-demand content and services, and broadband using the same cable provides an interesting opportunity,” he maintains.
Interestingly, the country’s broadband numbers stand at 15 million (home connections) as compared to the overall population (approximately 200 million homes). But the opportunity for the offering lie in the 60 million-odd digital cable homes, where broadband connections can be provided. The addressable market in India is around 25 million homes or around 100 million people.
Funding and Challenges
According to Borah, bringing in a new product in any category poses a challenge. Building hardware in India is tough because of shortage in design skills and absence of a localised subscriber base.
“Creating a business that straddles from content acquisition to manufacturing the product, selling and distributing it and also servicing customers is a big challenge for a company. Incidentally, it is even tougher for a start-up where financing is hard to come by,” he adds. Borah and Mutt have so far invested Rs 30 crore in the company and are in the process of raising another Rs 100 crore for scaling-up the business.
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