There are 30,000-plus flirts, over 10,000 crushes and more than 5,000 proposals on Cogxio.com. Established in 2012 as DateIITians.com, the online dating portal has pivoted its business model from catering to only IITians to helping people romance globally with Cogxio.com. It is the brainchild of IIT-Kharagpur engineers Layak Singh and Kinshuk Bairagi and Sarit Prajna Sahu, an MBA graduate from University of Warwick.
Layak, 25, had already established three startups before launching Cogxio, which includes Fullerene solutions and services, which is the holding company for various ventures like DateIITians, Raikins and Living Stylish. His Facebook group, Bootstrap Bangalore, which boasts of around 10,000 members, is an active group where members discuss the nitty gritty of startups. Kinshuk Bairagi, 26, has held various technology positions in Liquidbookstore, MediBeep and Flipkart before Cogxio. Sarit worked as an analyst for six years with Infosys and Accenture before joining Cogxio as a co-founder.
With the incredible interest DateIITians generated, and the traction it gained in the community, the co-founders were keen on taking this idea on a global level and re-branded it Cogxio.com in May 2013. With eight employees on its payroll, they aim to provide a safe, secure and real experience to users. “Users need to give their email id or Facebook account details, phone number and their identity proof to ascertain that they are genuine users of the website and not sex workers or trolls,” says Layak.
Online dating is a two billion dollar industry globally and Cogxio has plans to invest in technology and resources to gain a strong foothold in the industry. “There are more than 7,500 online dating sites globally and Cogxio aims to bring in a lot of initiatives when compared with our competitors, to garner interest,” adds Kinshuk. Along with bringing people closer through its algorithmic matching using quantitative and qualitative data, Cogxio also has premium services such as makeovers, relationship advice, beauty tips and gifting services.
Sarit adds that more than 99.9 per cent of the profiles are authentic in Cogxio. Planning to break even in another year, they are coming up with a mobile app. Other interesting features that are available on Cogxio are 3D virtual chat, inbuilt applications to go for a movie, shopping or travel, apart from their lifestyle and relationship magazine Living Stylish. Learning new things, being passionate about the product and understanding the market dynamics and customers equally well is pivotal to a business, they add.
— mathew.maniamkot@gmail.com