Founded in October 2014 by Rahul Arora & Sumontro Roy,
Tentacle is owned by Sunoray Solutions Pvt. Ltd, and is focused on becoming the “Everything-Cloud” brand for SMEs; basically a one-stop-shop for any Cloud-based solution for SMEs. Typically, today the market is fragmented with various solution providers offering myriad solutions across Workflow Management, Field-Force Management, Expense Management, Dashboard management, Analytics, Call Recording, Tracking Feet-on-Street etc. On an average, an SME spends close to INR 5+ lakhs per year for these multiple solutions which unfortunately are in silos and do not work together.
Tentacle has solved this problem by offering their unique cloud based solution through a mobile app. In short, an SME can easily manage their entire operations on a mobile regardless of location and on a ‘pay-as-you-use’ model. Furthermore, this solution is available at 30% of their current INR 5 lakh.
About Co-foundersSumontro Roy, COO - A Mumbai native, Sumontro studied and worked in the US for several years, both with a Fortune 50 firm(DuPont Inc.) as well as in a start-up, before returning home in 2011. He has been in the start-up space since, and is instrumental in managing the business end. Vastly experienced in Business Strategy and Marketing, he holds an MBA from The College of William and Mary, VA.
Rahul Arora, CEO - Rahul is a serial entrepreneur with a love for Technology. He has extensive experience in start-ups, having started his career with Nexion (a telecom start-up in the US), later acquired by Fujitsu. He then joined Sycamore Networks, Inc., US, as a founding team member where he setup the Software and Drivers team.
After spending several years in the Telecom industry in the US, he returned to India, to start Gnet, a premier BI solutions company, which he successfully exited in Oct 2014. He setup Sunoray in 2011. Rahul holds a MS in Computer Science from Boston University, and Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering (Electronics and Telecommunication)
Sujata Sangwan Interacts With Sumontro Roy, COO, Tentacle And Spoke To Him
How was Tentacle started? Rahul and Sumontro both worked in large Enterprises during their time in the US (Sycamore Networks and Dupont Inc., respectively). Upon returning home, they saw that the Indian market, with its burgeoning SME market and their increasing need for cloud-based solutions, was primed for products & services with Enterprise-level efficiency but at SME-affordable prices.
Unique key feature/services Tentacle is an innovative end-to-end cloud based SaaS and mobile productivity app which can be implemented and managed by SMBs and MSMEs in real time without the fear of a downtime. It essentially takes away the multiple pain-points that exist in the industry with its “cell-phone-only model”. Tentacle eliminates Capex, IT support issues, the need for landlines and the need for offices & infrastructure. All the executive requires is a cell-phone and the Manager can monitor the entire process from any location. An extremely user-friendly UI allows the executive to capture responses into the phone-screen itself using buttons, and move to the next call. The Manager views the LIVE results on his screen from wherever he is and takes any action needed. Tentacle is a purely “pay-per-month-per-user” solution.
In line with its “Everything-Cloud” for SMEs positioning, Tentacle recently introduced a unique feature called “Feet-On-Street” to track a company’s Field-Force. In studying the typical SME customer’s business process, the company realized that the last mile of monitoring the Field-Force was a “black-hole” for an SME. While other options exist in the market, they are infeasible for the SMEs due to the cost & complexities involved.
How is it different from existing ones?It is radically different from the available options.
Firstly, the available options are On-Premise installed solutions that need several lakhs of upfront investment. That immediately puts it out of reach for an SME. These are more suitable for the Enterprises that form just about 1/3rd of the market. The remaining 2/3rd is made up of SMEs who need Tentacle.
Funding status: Bootstrapped
Monetization model Clients pay on ‘per-user-per-month’ basis. We have different pricing slabs available based on the number of users purchased. Currently, there are three product versions available (Basic, Advanced and Integrated).
Traction details: 150 customers
Future plans Focused on being the defining 360° cloud-solution provider for SMEs. We plan to grow the customer base with the existing products along with adding and maintain a strong product pipeline that is innovation-led.
Marketing plansCurrently, major share of lead generation happens through digital and social media platforms. In the future, we plan to advertise, join industry journals/associations and participate in trade fairs.
Challenges faced Educating the customer is our major challenge that we face today, primarily, due to Tentacle’s significant degree of innovation and disruption.
Market size & opportunity There are close to 55 million SMEs in India with about 25% i.e. 12 million SMEs actively looking for cloud-based solutions to solve their business problems and needs. And Tentacle wishes to reach out to these 12 million SMEs with much affordable cloud based solutions. The SME industry is rapidly growing and is being supported with the initiatives undertaken by the current government.
