Entrepreneur who sold his first 3 startups launches Uber-like tracking service for all apps

Kashyap Deorah and team. Photo credit: HyperTrack.

We’ve got used to seeing that tiny Uber cab wriggle about on its way to our pickup point. We know how much time it will take to arrive. And, of course, Uber can constantly track all its cars and ensure efficiency.

How come we don’t see similar functionality in an ecommerce or grocery or food app? Won’t they too be more efficient if they track their deliveries in real time?

HyperTrack, a startup based in Delhi and the Bay Area, today launched a service that enables such a function. It will let developers implement location tracking easily in their delivery or other apps.

Kashyap Deorah’s payments app Chalo was acquired by OpenTable in 2013, mobile commerce marketplace Chaupaati was acquired by Future Bazaar in 2010, and his first startup Righthalf was acquired by US-based Stratify in 2001.

HyperTrack’s “location tracking as a service” API (application programming interface) has been in private beta for the past four months. “We are glad to share that over 20 companies are already testing our service on live trips while others are in various stages of rolling out,” says co-founder Kashyap Deorah.

Logistics startup ShadowFax, restaurant delivery service Scootsy, pharmacy delivery service Pharmeasy, and food delivery startups Holachef and Petoo are among the early adopters. Ridesharing app HeyTaxi is using HyperTrack to power Uber-like tracking for its vehicles. Indian craft beer maker Bira is using it to track its draft machines from warehouse to store. Education company Toppr is tracking sales visits, while on-demand services startup Skiwee is tracking service visits.

Clearly, there are a wide range of uses for location tracking powered by GPS chips in smartphones. The HyperTrack team initially created a SendETA app to test the tracking on the phones of friends and family. This later became a useful way to try the service for early adopters, before integrating it into their apps.

It was a service crying out to be provided

HyperTrack co-founder Kashyap Deorah is a serial entrepreneur who sold his previous three startups. Payments app Chalo was acquired by OpenTable in 2013, mobile commerce marketplace Chaupaati was acquired by Future Bazaar in 2010, and his first startup Righthalf incubated in IIT Bombay was acquired by US-based Stratify in 2001.

He started work on HyperTrack nearly a year back when he became curious why other apps were not providing Uber-like tracking. It turned out that it was hard for developers to build continuous tracking with the publicly available tools, which are point-in-time in nature.

“With the user’s permission, the smartphone OS allows apps to get current position. Maps let you plot the position. Cloud services powered by the maps companies let you lookup the address, distance from another address, traffic conditions on the way, etc. But there was simply no API to say “track until it gets there” that just works,” he says.

Ride-sharing apps like Uber built a great tracking experience but restricted its usage to their products. Kashyap figured developers of other products would love to implement this through a cloud service without having to build it themselves.