Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal's recent comments on large e-commerce players have reignited the debate about their impact on smaller offline retailers. On Wednesday, Goyal said that the rapid growth of e-commerce in India is a "cause for concern" and is diminishing the market share of small, mom-and-pop stores by offering high-margin products such as consumer electronics and apparel at discounted rates.
With the recent launch of smartwatches, home-grown smartphone maker Lava is looking to secure a strong foothold in the Indian wearables market. The company aims to capture up to 20 per cent of this segment over the next few years, according to a senior executive.
Companies like Flipkart, Amazon and Meesho as well as quick commerce ones like Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart may create hundreds of thousands of seasonal jobs for the coming festival season.
Flipkart's hyper-value e-commerce platform Shopsy is intensifying efforts to tap over half of the 821 million internet users (about 442 million) in rural India. These efforts are being led by Prathyusha Agarwal, who recently joined as business head at Shopsy. The aim is to become the go-to destination for consumers seeking entry-level products across various categories.
At a time when Flipkart has entered the quick-commerce race with a service called "Minutes", executives at rival players said they are in a wait-and-watch mode. They said they would be concerned only once the e-commerce firm is able to succeed in this space. The Walmart-owned firm's quick-commerce service has gone live in some parts of Bengaluru, putting it in competition with firms such as Zepto, Swiggy's Instamart, and Zomato's Blinkit.
Flush with funds, quick commerce unicorn Zepto is planning to relocate from Powai in Mumbai to a larger office space in Bengaluru's Sarjapur to accommodate its imminent new hires. While the company will maintain an office in Mumbai, its primary operations will shift to the new space in Bengaluru. A spokesperson for Zepto confirmed the development
Manish Tiwary plans to take up a new role at another firm.
The Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF), an industry body for startup ecosystem and app developers, on Monday filed a complaint with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) against technology major Google for alleged anti-competitive practices in online advertising. The complaint outlined Google's dominant position and alleged abusive behaviour in both the online search and online display advertising.
Edtech company Byju's parent Think & Learn will challenge the National Company Law Tribunal's (NCLT's) order on insolvency proceedings and may approach the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in the next few days, a source claimed. With the NCLT appointing Pankaj Srivastava as the interim resolution professional (IRP), time is running out for Byju's as the committee of creditors (CoC) begins to be formed.
Developers in India now have expanded access to Google's powerful AI models with the 2 million token context window in Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemma 2, the next generation of open models.
Ola Electric, the SoftBank-backed electric vehicle (EV) maker, is likely to pursue a valuation of approximately $4.5 billion in its upcoming initial public offering (IPO), marking about 18 per cent decrease from its last funding round valuation of around $5.5 billion, according to industry sources. The Bhavish Aggarwal-founded firm aims to file for the IPO by next month, according to people familiar with the matter. "The strategy is to price the IPO attractively for investors, fostering long-term growth and wealth creation," said a source.
A group comprising top tech startups and unicorns has raised several "serious concerns" over a platform-based gig workers Bill proposed by the Karnataka government, saying it would hurt the ease of doing business. They told the state government the Bill in its current form would hamper operations and increase regulatory and compliance burden on the nascent gig and startup economy, according to sources.
Bhavish Aggarwal, founder and chief executive officer of Ola, is encouraging developers to switch from Google Maps to Ola Maps. Ola is offering developers a year of free access to Ola Maps on the company's Krutrim Cloud and over Rs 100 crore in free credits. This initiative comes after Ola replaced Google Maps with its own Ola Maps, leading to annual savings of around Rs 100 crore.
'In the second half of 2024, about 60% of startup jobs will be taken by entry-level candidates with 0-3 years of experience.'
Edtech firm Unacademy has laid off 250 people across verticals, according to people familiar with the matter, reducing its employee strength by 50 per cent from what it was two years ago. Of those, 100 are from core functions such as marketing, business, and product, while the rest are from sales.
In March 2021, Ola Electric founder Bhavish Aggarwal was seen surveying an empty 500-acre land surrounded by shoe factories, temples, bakery shops, coconut trees and dusty roads in Pochampalli town of Krishnagiri district, Tamil Nadu. Many excavators and workers were busy at the construction site to build the Ola Futurefactory for electric vehicles.
Byju Raveendran, the founder of the beleaguered ed-tech firm Byju's, put himself on a pedestal and stopped listening to anyone, said Gaurav Munjal, the chief executive officer of edtech firm Unacademy. Munjal highlighted the importance of 'blunt feedback'. In a post on X, he alleged that Byju's founder stopped listening and failed to have people who could give him the right feedback.
The tide of startup-funding is turning in India, with a rising trend of overall funding while the deal sizes grow bigger. However, the spotlight now is on late-stage startups, many of which are seen to be headed for initial public offerings (IPOs). Record surge in stock markets and consistently improving performances of listed startups are understood to have turned the sentiment for the better, especially for those that exhibit a clear path to an IPO.
Beleaguered edtech firm Byju's has moved the Karnataka high court challenging the order of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) restraining it from going ahead with the second rights issue. The plea is likely to come up for hearing on Monday. The orders of NCLT were expected to be challenged before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT).
Finally, some good news for the Indian startup ecosystem. After four consecutive half-year periods of declining funding since 2022, the first half (H1) of 2024 has shown an upward trend compared to the second half (H2) of 2023. According to the India Tech Semi-Annual Funding Report H1 2024 by Tracxn, Indian technology (tech) startups raised $4.1 billion in H1 2024, marking a 4 per cent increase from $3.96 billion in H2 2023.
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