Peerzada Abrar &Amp; Samreen Ahmad

Stories by Peerzada Abrar &Amp; Samreen Ahmad

Zomato, Swiggy hit by hour-long technical glitch on April 6

Zomato, Swiggy hit by hour-long technical glitch on April 6

Rediff.com   7 Apr 2022

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.

How IBM's Bengaluru unit is priming companies for cyberattacks

How IBM's Bengaluru unit is priming companies for cyberattacks

Rediff.com   27 Mar 2022

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.

Edtech: What Parents Need To Know

Edtech: What Parents Need To Know

Rediff.com   15 Jan 2022

'Why is the government asking parents to be careful rather than coming up with strict rules and regulations for the companies?'

Amazon challenges CCI over suspension of 2019 Future deal

Amazon challenges CCI over suspension of 2019 Future deal

Rediff.com   10 Jan 2022

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).

Ecomm firms ramp up as Omicron forces customers online

Ecomm firms ramp up as Omicron forces customers online

Rediff.com   8 Jan 2022

Besides growing tech and digital enhancements, the firms are ramping up the hiring of more delivery partners and reinforcing existing Covid protocols.

The most ordered dish of 2021 is...

The most ordered dish of 2021 is...

Rediff.com   29 Dec 2021

Biryani was the top dish on Zomato and Swiggy followed by dosa and samosa.

Fintech unicorn Razorpay's value jumps to $7.5 bn; up 7.5x in 15 months

Fintech unicorn Razorpay's value jumps to $7.5 bn; up 7.5x in 15 months

Rediff.com   20 Dec 2021

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.

SoftBank-backed Ola raises $500-mn term loan

SoftBank-backed Ola raises $500-mn term loan

Rediff.com   17 Dec 2021

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.

upGrad files Rs 3 cr trademark infringement suit against edtech firm Scaler

upGrad files Rs 3 cr trademark infringement suit against edtech firm Scaler

Rediff.com   2 Dec 2021

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.

Black Friday Sale receives good response, shoppers throng stores, websites

Black Friday Sale receives good response, shoppers throng stores, websites

Rediff.com   29 Nov 2021

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.

Future Retail guilty of financial irregularities, says Amazon

Future Retail guilty of financial irregularities, says Amazon

Rediff.com   26 Nov 2021

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.

Big Tech invests $1.82 bn in Indian startups so far this year

Big Tech invests $1.82 bn in Indian startups so far this year

Rediff.com   8 Nov 2021

Their startup investments number 13 so far, compared to 17 deals in 2020.

Ola's COO and CFO to exit firm amid its plans to go public

Ola's COO and CFO to exit firm amid its plans to go public

Rediff.com   20 Oct 2021

Mobility company Ola's chief financial officer Swayam Saurabh and chief operating officer Gaurav Porwal are leaving the company. These developments come at a time when the SoftBank-backed company's core ride-hailing unit is planning to go public and for which it raised $500 million from Warburg Pincus and Temasek in July this year. These investment firms had partnered with the company founder Bhavish Aggarwal for this round.

Byju's is raising $300 mn, valuation may touch $18 bn

Byju's is raising $300 mn, valuation may touch $18 bn

Rediff.com   5 Oct 2021

Byju's is raising about Rs 2,200 crore ($300 million) as part of a larger round of new investment as the world's most valuable edtech company focuses on expanding its business in global markets and explores to do more acquisitions. According to industry sources, the new funding may value Bengaluru-based Byju's at $18 billion, up from a valuation of $16.5 billion in June this year. In June, Byju's became India's most valuable unicorn with a valuation of $16.5 billion, surpassing fintech company Paytm's $16 billion valuation.

E-com sales may cross $9-bn GMV this season

E-com sales may cross $9-bn GMV this season

Rediff.com   24 Sep 2021

E-commerce firms Amazon, Flipkart, and others are expected to witness blockbuster festival season sales of around $9 billion this year, surpassing pre-pandemic sales of $5 billion in 2019. The pandemic has accelerated the shift to e-commerce, with more consumers shopping online at a higher frequency than last year, observed analysts. This year's festival sales (gross merchandise value or GMV) are expected to grow 30 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to $4.8 billion during the first week of the season and potentially clock over $9-billion GMV during the whole festival month, revealed consulting firm RedSeer's e-commerce festival season report.

Swiggy sets up development centre in Gurugram, home turf of rival Zomato

Swiggy sets up development centre in Gurugram, home turf of rival Zomato

Rediff.com   10 Sep 2021

Swiggy is rapidly scaling up its technology (tech) teams as the food delivery giant is witnessing strong recovery and growth over the past few months. The SoftBank-backed company is hiring across engineering, product, design, analytics, and data science functions in the next two quarters. Building this team, Swiggy is setting up a new development centre in Gurugram. Its rival Zomato, which had a stellar debut on the Indian stock exchanges in July, is also headquartered in Gurugram.

Ola Electric defers e-scooter sale to Sep 15 due to website glitch

Ola Electric defers e-scooter sale to Sep 15 due to website glitch

Rediff.com   10 Sep 2021

Ola Electric's technology team is working hard to iron out the technical kinks that marred the electric vehicle company's hyped online sale of its electric scooters (e-scooters) - the S1 and the S1 Pro - on Wednesday, said company sources. The SoftBank-backed firm is facing technical difficulties in making the website live for the purchase of its e-scooters. According to company sources, the website couldn't go live as there were integration issues.

Byju-Aakash's Plans for Test Learning

Byju-Aakash's Plans for Test Learning

Rediff.com   9 Sep 2021

'Hybrid learning is the future, and test prep is a big segment within the entire education space in India.'

Amazon asks Sebi to comply with SC order

Amazon asks Sebi to comply with SC order

Rediff.com   31 Aug 2021

US e-commerce giant Amazon has written to Ajay Tyagi, chairman of market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), to take action as is necessary to comply with the Supreme Court Judgment, related to the $3.4-billion merger deal between Future Group and Reliance. Amazon has requested Sebi to direct the Indian stock exchanges to withdraw the Observation Letters related to this deal with immediate effect. In January this year, Sebi had given a go-ahead onto Future Group's scheme of arrangement and sale of assets to Reliance, based on which the Bombay Stock Exchange also granted its "no adverse observation" report to the Rs 24,713-crore ($3.4 billion) deal.

Anita Kishore, Brain behind Byju's Acquisitions

Anita Kishore, Brain behind Byju's Acquisitions

Rediff.com   31 Aug 2021

Byju's, says Anita Kishore, has given the founders of the businesses it has acquired the independence to operate separately and maintain their core culture.