A Hyderabad-based start-up, promoted by a former top executive of Microsoft, has built a news app, Veooz, that promises to make it easier for users to get to news that is most relevant to them. Besides offering news, the app also gives users the buzz around top news — what people are saying about it in social media.
Srini Koppolu, who led a small team from Redmond to build a development centre for Microsoft in India, said the start-up wrote algorithms that cull out the most talked about, most current news from a particular geography, to suit users from that area.
Currently available for 40 countries, Veooz can offer news in 10 different languages, including English. “Users can just go to the next news item by swiping the screen or can go to the more detailed version of the story,” Srini Koppolu told BusinessLine over phone from Los Angeles.
Srini, who built MSIDC into an important development centre for Microsoft, had quit a few years ago to pursue his entrepreneurial ventures. He has invested in a few start-ups since then, apart from taking part in activities to build the start-up ecosystem in Hyderabad.
The people
The founders of Veooz included Vasudeva Varma (Dean R&D IIIT-Hyderabad) and Prasad Pingali who are experts in search, machine learning and natural language processing. The start-up has 16 people, all working out of its Hyderabad office.
“With a vision to provide easy access to relevant news to the widest audience across the world, we are making the Veooz app available in 10 languages in India along with the English versions for 40 countries,” said Srini Koppolu, Founder CEO.
“A majority of the people from India can use the app in their language and stay current with important stories,” he said, adding, “Veooz alogirithms skim through the headlines, read a short summary, or the full story. Using the 360 feature, they can get in-depth coverage with related stories, pictures, videos, and live buzz. It can filter out noise and show relevant and meaningful posts from influential people from social media,” he said.
Users can choose from 1,00,000 topics and 1,000 cities to get personalised feed, Prasad Pingali, Chief Technology Officer of Veooz, said. The app is available in Android, iOS and desktop versions.