IIM Indore’s alum- Saumitra Agarwal’s (PGP 2005-07) startup—Talkoot has been selected by Facebook for its early-stage startup mentorship programme—FBStart. The startup will receive credits up to $40,000 and free tools and services from Facebook and its more than 30 partners including Amazon, UserTesting, Dropbox, and MailChimp. Besides partners, the startup will also get free access to more than 25 services including open source tools like React Native, FB Login and Account Kit and App Analytics.
Discussing about how the idea of Talkoot came up, Saumitra said, ‘While we buy mobile phones, book hotels and plan travel based on reviews and ratings on social media, I realized that there was no platform in India where investors could connect, discuss and share advice with each other. This is when I decided to leave my job and start Talkoot and help people make more informed decisions collectively’.
Along with Talkoot, over a dozen Indian startups have been inducted into the programme over the past year. These startups will get an opportunity to connect directly with the Facebook team and will be enrolled into the social media giant’s exclusive community of global startups that include Adobe, Coursera, Dropbox, and Salesforce. IIM Indore congratulates Saumitra for this success.
About Talkoot: Talkoot is LinkedIn for traders and investors. Talkoot builds every user’s personalized investment network based on stocks they follow and investors they connect with. Just like LinkedIn, users then get tailor made news and investment ideas from their network. They can discuss and debate impact of news on portfolio or the merit of an investment idea to make better and more informed investment decisions. Talkoot tracks performance of each idea automatically. Users build reputation with each successful idea. Top users can provide investment advice for a fee after completing regulatory requirements.