VidTeq gets 500K visitors a month
By Hitesh Shetty

Bangalore based VidTeq describes itself as having a mission to help with providing driving directions and locating a business.  Their product Video Map is a video clip of the complete route between source and destination with rich features (business logos, background music, turn-by-turn audio overlay, road names etc.) embedded into it. Their site gets 500K visitors a month.

VidTeq website vidteq.com went live in Feb 2009. The website offers free video directions for Bangalore City. 

Techgoss caught up with Chandra Thimmannagari who is one of the Co-Founders of the company.  Like Chandra, the other co-founders, Ravi Narala and Muraleedhara Navada, have also studied and worked in USA before moving to Bangalore

Techgoss (TG): Tell us about your Educational Qualification? What kind of IT have you studied?
Chandra Thimmannagari (CT): I did my BE in Electronics and Communications from Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal, India. I did my MS in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University, Texas, USA.

TG:  How long was your IT career?  Which IT companies and software did your work with?
CT: I am currently the Director, Co-founder at VidTeq (India) Private Limited. I have over 17 years of industrial experience. Immediately after my graduation, I took an offer from AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) as MTS (Member of Technical Staff) Engineer at their Austin Design Center, USA. While at AMD, I worked on their 486, K5 and K7 Microprocessors. I left AMD in 1997 to join Sun Microsystems, Sunnyvale, USA. While at Sun Microsystems, I worked on their Millennium, Phantom, Honeybee and Niagara Microprocessors. I held several engineering and management positions at Sun Microsystems. In 2004 I left Sun Microsystems to join Cradle Technologies to work on their Graphics Processor. In October of 2004 I took an offer from Intel, India and moved to Bangalore, India. While at Intel, I worked on many of their cutting edge Microprocessors. I held several engineering and management positions at Intel, India. In May of 2008 I left Intel to start VidTeq (India) Private Limited. I filed a total of 26 Patents in USA of which 11 are approved and 15 are pending approval. I authored “CPU Design: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions” published by Springer Publications, USA. This is one of the Best Selling Books in the field of Microprocessor Design.

TG: How was the VidTeq Startup idea born? Tell me about the serious challenges that you faced during the entire startup process? Further, how has the 3 year journey with VidTeq been for you till now?
CT: We wanted to do something in the field of Navigation. We knew that the solution that exists in the west (USA etc.) wouldn’t apply for country like India. In countries like USA, just carrying text directions would help you reach your destination but the same thing wouldn’t apply for country like India. The main reason being, most of the streets in India doesn’t carry street names. This is when we said the best solution for India would be to provide a video clip of the complete route. We believe, once you watch a video clip of the route, it retains in your memory thereby helping you reach your destination in a hassle free manner. Once you watch a video, you feel like you have already been on that route once thereby helping you reach your destination in a hassle free manner.

TG: Which place in India has adopted VidTeq Startup the most? Further, tell us about VidTeq revenue model?
CT: To enable our VideoMap solution, we have vehicles with cameras mounted on top of it which go day in and day out and capture raw videos of the roads. There is lot of post processing that happens on these raw videos. These videos get broken down into bits and pieces and then finally get geo-tagged to their corresponding road segments. Based on the requested route (by the user), the individual video elements get picked, they get ordered and then rendered to the user. To the user it looks like one video which plays the complete route from his requested source address to his requested destination address. We also provide the digital map with the route overlay along with the text directions. As the video plays, we clearly show which road segment it belongs to. Also, the user doesn’t need to watch the complete video. He can watch video segment of his interest by using the fast forward tab over the video player or he can select a particular text direction and the video for that text gets played. The experience the user gets is similar to watching a movie (very less user interaction but great stuff).

My 3 year journey at VidTeq has been quite eventful. Had to go through difficult times but liked every bit of it. Today, we are close to raising our first round of venture capital funding.

TG: Tell us about any interesting incidents related to the startup?
CT: Our Video Direction service is currently enabled for Bangalore City only. We generate revenues through our web products and services. Our Web products are - Wayfinder, Store Locator, e-Visit, and VidCorp. Wayfinder is a route map solution for any business which has a website. Store Locator is a store locator service for retail chains. E-Visit is a virtual visit and category search service for the Real Estate firms. VidCorp is a product for the corporate world. All web services work on an annual subscription model. Our key value proposition to businesses - Unique service (VideoMap) to their customers; can increase their customer footfalls.

TG: What are your future plans?
CT: This financial year we plan on expanding to Chennai and Pune / Hyderabad. We also plan on taking our cell application to production.