HyLyt – The pandemic brought almost every business and office online, resulting in numerous business opportunities. Among them is Vadodara-based SocioRAC, which has developed the information management multipurpose collaboration app HyLyt to assist working professionals and businesses in streamlining operations.
HyLyt was launched in February 2020, just before the coronavirus altered our working and living environments.
“That presented a significant challenge for business, but only in terms of developing a more compelling use case for our product,” explains Rajat Singhania, 52, Founder of SocioRAC.
HyLyt is a patented unified information management and collaboration platform for individuals and businesses. It runs on top of the user’s existing apps to “assist them in managing critical information in one place in order to make better decisions while saving time and exerting greater control.”
Rajat says the app brings six products — video conferencing, note taking, calendar, to-do list, file sharing, and collaboration — together along with a unique tool to offer a “Google-type search of your own data”.
He adds that the app helps to save data from anywhere instantly, structure and recall it with ease, and collaborate with teams remotely while protecting intellectual property.
Managing information easily
The founder notes that people spend a significant amount of time searching for, saving, and managing their information while sitting in various locations.
“While email clients, instant messaging platforms, cloud storage, calendars, and browsers all perform admirably as standalone platforms, they make it extremely difficult for users to manage business-critical and relevant information spread across multiple locations. There are no options for interconnecting them, and the challenge is determining how to control who has access to this information,” he says.
This is where HyLyt steps in, gathering and sifting through all information buried in your silos at a single glace across multiple devices.
HyLyt has been granted a patent in the United States and is patent-pending in India; it has also been granted a trademark and the code has been copyrighted. Additionally, it is certified to ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 standards.
Rajat bootstrapped the 12-person startup but plans to raise capital this year to expand the team and product, as well as pursue global expansion.
Getting started
Rajat (SocioRAC), a Delhi native, attended St Columba’s School and earned a bachelor’s degree in commerce from Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC). He began using computers at his high school in 1984 and later won an award for developing an accounting programme.
He went to the United States in the early 1990s to pursue a master’s degree but dropped out due to his mother’s illness.
His family did not have a business background, but Rajat knew he had an acumen for entrepreneurship . He started some traditional businesses, ranging from cement to tech, and shifted to Gujarat for the cement business 20 years ago.
A few years later, a personal pain point became a turning point – resulting in the creation of HyLyt.
In 2016, Rajat was at a convention when a critical piece of information appeared on his mobile screen. He swiped away, intending to return to it later.
“The following day, in the office, I attempted to locate it but was unsuccessful. It was swallowed up by the onslaught of information. In retrospect, I believe something could have been done about it, and as an entrepreneur, I determined not to waste a problem,” he explains.
His research established that the abundance of data creates a significant management challenge. The ability to extract, save, and interconnect unstructured business and individual data stored in multiple silos, as well as manage the rights to this data, are critical problems for improving security and privacy.
Rajat searched for solutions but was unable to locate any on the market. In 2017, he assembled a team and began developing a solution.
HyLyt began as a side project, but during its pilot phase, the product was recognised by TiE as one of the year’s top products. Soon after, Rajat resigned from all of his companies and began focusing exclusively on SocioARC.
Competition and the future
SocioRAC is a business-to-business SaaS provider that charges on a per-user, per-year basis. The consumer app is currently free, but will soon cost around Rs 3,000 per year.
According to Markets and Markets, the enterprise content management market was worth $35 billion two years ago and was growing at a CAGR of 17%, while the video conference market was worth $8 billion two years ago and was growing at a CAGR of 9%.
According to Global Market Insights, the total market size SocioRAC addresses is $44 billion and is expected to grow to $110 billion by 2026. According to Zion Market Research, the content management market alone will reach $120 billion by then.
The pandemic slowed down user acquisition and the company is now working with six clients. However, the pipeline for the next 12-18 months “looks promising with clients across the globe”.
HyLyt competes with industry heavyweights such as Microsoft Teams and Slack for business collaboration solutions, Evernote and other task management apps for task management, and video conferencing tools for video calls. However, the differentiator is that HyLyt adds more value by “not competing with any of these platforms, but rather by increasing the value of the data on these platforms for users.”
Without disclosing financial details, Rajat says the team has invested “three years of time, money, and sweat” to get the product to market.
“I was able to sustain and obtain it until now by utilising a significant portion of my life savings and the assistance of some friends and family.”
The company is now looking at product partnerships and strategic investors to help to acquire clients, and expand and market the product.
According to Rajat, the mission is to be the first product people think of when it comes to information management.
“While the majority of products operate vertically, we operate horizontally – this is our USP. We have a robust roadmap and intend to add AI, location, and voice-based capabilities to further enhance the product’s utility and power for users,” Rajat says.
