SoftBank-backed internet commerce firm Meesho has downsized its grocery vertical Meesho SuperStore (formerly Farmiso) in an attempt to drive efficiency. The Bengaluru-based firm did not reveal the number of laid-off employees. However, the company officials said that about 150 employees have been laid off.
Food delivery apps Zomato and Swiggy reported a nationwide outage on Wednesday. Both the platforms witnessed technical glitches and were unresponsive for almost an hour. Downdetector, a platform that collects status reports from a series of sources, recorded about 3,619 reports of outage against Zomato at 2:05 PM and about 771 reports of outage against Swiggy at around 2:21 PM. According to the sources, the outage was caused by Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud-services platform, which runs both platforms. Though Swiggy and Zomato are working now, some customers reported that the issue has not been solved completely and they are not able to place orders and there are payment related issues.
Located in a small township in the eastern part of Bengaluru is IBM's new Security Command Centre, which is surrounded by offices of multinational tech companies. This unit is the centrepiece of IBM's multi-million dollar investment to help businesses prepare for the growing threat of cyberattacks across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. This facility is the first of its kind in the region. It helps train in cybersecurity response techniques through highly realistic and simulated cyberattacks.
'Why is the government asking parents to be careful rather than coming up with strict rules and regulations for the companies?'
Amazon has filed a legal challenge at the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) against the Competition Commission of India's (CCI) suspension of the US e-commerce giant's 2019 deal with Future Retail (FRL). Amazon has challenged the CCI order on at least five grounds, and the matter is likely to be listed this week, according to the sources. Parallelly, Amazon's Indian unit has approached the Supreme Court against a halt on an arbitration case against Future Retail's (FRL) asset sale to Reliance Industries (RIL).
Besides growing tech and digital enhancements, the firms are ramping up the hiring of more delivery partners and reinforcing existing Covid protocols.
French IT firm Atos is planning to hire 15,000 people in the next 12-18 months in India, including climate experts, as it moves towards decarbonisation by 2028, chief operating officer (COO) Nourdine Bihmane said. "India is a strategic market for Atos. "We have been present here for the last 30 years, and we have grown organically since. "People and innovation are our two key drivers to build momentum. "India represents one-third of our total workforce," Bihmane said. Atos has around 40,000 employees in India.
Biryani was the top dish on Zomato and Swiggy followed by dosa and samosa.
Fintech unicorn Razorpay has raised $375 million in the Series F round of funding at a $7.5-billion valuation, making it India's second-most valuable start-up in this space, after Paytm. The company valuation has surged over seven times in 15 months, helping it push Walmart-owned digital payments firm PhonePe to the third spot on the country's most-valuable fintech list. Razorpay's latest round of fundraising was led by Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital, and TCV.
IPO-bound mobility platform Ola, said it has successfully raised $500 million via a Term Loan B (TLB) from marquee international institutional investors. This term loan has no impact on the valuation of Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola. The Bengaluru-based firm recently raised $139 million. This is part of a $1 billion funding round for which the company is in talks with investors, increasing its valuation to about $7.5 billion, according to the sources.
The top hashtag in India was #COVID19, as the country grappled with the deadly second wave of the pandemic.
'As the demand for transferable skills that can be remotely applied increases, the need for tech-based courses is on the rise/'
Ronnie Screwvala-led edtech unicorn upGrad, has filed a suit for trademark infringement against another EdTech company called Scaler. The suit has been filed in the Delhi high court for violation of intellectual property relating to upGrad's trademark. It has also sought damages of more than Rs 3 crore. upGrad accused Scaler of using its brand name 'upGrad' through Google Ads to appear on top of search results on Google Search Engine and in turn gaining illicit benefit.
'I can tell shareholders we're going to be very responsible with our capital, we're going to be absolutely execution focused.'
Black Friday sales in India received a good response as brands dropped their prices making customers queue up outside stores where discounts were steeper. Discounts were offered both online and offline. Most of the international brands in India offered discounts under the Black Friday Sale banner. The Black Friday Sale started in the US on the Friday after Thanksgiving Thursday. The day typically marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season ahead of the festival.
US e-commerce giant Amazon has written to the independent directors of Future Retail Limited (FRL), including Gagan Singh, Ravindra Dhariwal and Jacob Mathew, and its audit committee, providing data and alleging that there have been significant financial irregularities to the prejudice of public shareholders, banks, creditors, and third-party suppliers. Amazon has said this warrants a thorough and independent examination of all relevant facts and related-party transactions, including of past financial years, by an independent agency. Separately, Amazon has written to Securities and Exchange Board of India Chairman Ajay Tyagi, seeking the withdrawal of the regulator's conditional approval granted to FRL related to the merger deal between the Future group and Reliance.
'Our proactive detection rate for hate speech in India is close to 97 per cent -- which means that of the hate speech content we remove, we detect 97 per cent of it proactively, even before anyone reports it.'
Even as the gaming industry battles multiple regulations in different Indian states, it has received more than double the amount of investment this year compared to 2020. Industry watchers attribute this to the growing popularity of gaming, spurred by the pandemic, and the innovative business models gaming firms have built. According to data from industry tracker Venture Intelligence, investment in India's gaming sector in 2021 has more than doubled to $794 million, as against a total investment of $339 million last year. In 2019, this number was $176 million. Marquee investors such as Tiger Global (Dream11), Sequoia Capital India (Mobile Premier League), WinZO (Griffin Capital Partners), Tencent (Dream11) and Matrix Partners (Zupee) have pumped money into the sector.
Their startup investments number 13 so far, compared to 17 deals in 2020.
Mumbai-based Dream11, which is run by Sporta Technologies Private Limited, reported a profit of Rs 181 crore (Rs 1.81 billion) in FY2020, making it one of the few Indian consumer-tech unicorns to have turned profitable.
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