Last year in January at Amazon's flagship event Smbhav, Infosys Co-founder N R Narayana Murthy had to shorten his keynote speech from 20 minutes to about five because the event was delayed by 1.5 hours. "I will try to finish it in five minutes, because I am not used to delays," said Murthy, while addressing hundreds of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) about building businesses that last. In the audience was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Murthy referred to Bezos' prediction that the 21st century will be the Indian century. "That confidence enhances our enthusiasm," said Murthy. The relationship between Murthy and Bezos dates to 2014, when Prione, a 49:51 joint venture (JV) between Amazon and Murthy's venture capital company Catamaran, was formed.
Walmart, the world's largest retailer, is tripling its sourcing from India to about $10 billion a year by 2027, said Judith McKenna, president, and chief executive officer of Walmart International, the segment which includes the company's operations outside the US. "To achieve this, we are growing our sourcing team in India," said McKenna, during a fireside chat with YourStory founder Shradha Sharma at Converge@Walmart, the flagship event of Walmart Global Tech India. "Walmart has a 20-year history of sourcing from India and already exports more than $3 billion worth of Made-in-India goods each year to 14 markets worldwide." McKenna said the company has expertise in processes such as international standards and demand forecasting that businesses need to get ready to export.
Postman, a leading application programming interface platform, has secured $225 million in a Series D round, placing its valuation at $5.6 billion. With this, Postman has emerged as the most-valued software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm started by Indian founders, overtaking web and mobile testing firm BrowserStack, which was valued at $4 billion in June. The valuation of the San Francisco-headquartered firm with offices in Bengaluru, where it was founded, has almost trebled in just about one year and risen multi-fold since 2019. Postman, with team members spread across four continents, had secured $150 million in a Series C investment round led by Insight Partners at a $2-billion valuation last summer.
SoftBank-backed Ola Electric took the wraps off its maiden e-scooter offerings -- Ola S1 and S1 Pro -- for a commercial launch on Sunday. With prices starting from Rs 99,999 (excluding state government incentives, registration fee, and insurance cost), the Bhavesh Aggarwal-founded firm said the e-scooters are designed and engineered in India for the world and will deliver the best scooter experience to the consumer. He suggested that after 2025, sale of petrol-powered two-wheelers should not be allowed.
E-commerce giant Amazon and Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy's Catamaran Ventures have "mutually decided" to not continue their joint venture (JV) beyond the end of its current term. The JV, Prione Business Services, which has been running successfully for the past seven years, was coming up for renewal on May 19, 2022. The JV enabled over 300,000 sellers and entrepreneurs to go online. It also enabled 4 million merchants with digital payment capabilities, providing these small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and merchants access to millions of customers across the country.
SoftBank-backed mobility firm Ola, announced expansion of its employee stock options (ESOP) pool to Rs 3000 crore. Ola is also allocating an additional Rs 400 crore worth of stocks to employees in the run up to its IPO. The allocation rewards Ola's high impact employees and will lead to long term wealth creation for them.
India is currently home to 52 unicorn startups and one of the fastest-growing startup ecosystems.
BlackBuck, India's leading online trucking platform, has closed a $67 million round of equity financing. The round was led by Tribe Capital, IFC Emerging Asia Fund and VEF. Existing investors Wellington Management, Sands Capital, and International Finance Corporation also participated in the round. The investment has made the Bengaluru-based company a 'unicorn,' or a startup valued at more than $1 billion, according to the firm. The company will use these funds to further penetrate the market and launch new service offerings for its customer base.
Nasper-backed fintech firm PayU has started talks to acquire domestic payment gateway major BillDesk, and the deal size could be in the range of $3-4 billion, sources in the know said. "BillDesk has been open to being acquired for some time now, but in the past the valuations that the company was seeking proved to be a hurdle," said a source. "Three years ago too, PayU had approached BillDesk for an acquisition, but things didn't go ahead due to high valuations. "BillDesk had asked for $2-billion value then," said the source.
The proposed amendments to the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, that are envisioned to protect consumer interests, may further compound the impact of multiplicity of regulations on the e-commerce sector, the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) had told the ministry of consumer affairs. IACC, the apex bilateral chamber for Indo-US business, had told the government that the proposed amendments would increase compliance liabilities that risk severely impairing the growth of the sector.
Skylark Drones, a leading drone platform company that counts Tata Steel, Ultratech Cement, Softbank Energy among its customers has secured $3 million in a pre-series A funding round. It would use the funding to strengthen its product offerings and fuel international expansion.
The key demand drivers -- such as low home loan rates and income tax sops, particularly for affordable housing -- that supported the recovery in H2 FY2021, remain in place and will spur recovery again, feel experts.
'We are having an outsize impact not only on the lives of the customers and livelihood, but also the economy of India.'
PharmEasy has acquired Medlife for an undisclosed amount, the e-pharmacy unicorn said on Tuesday. The deal will make PharmEasy the largest player in the domestic online pharmacy sector, with the combined entity set to serve 2 million customers a month.
Banking technology start-up Zeta is the latest entrant to the unicorn club after raising $250 million in its Series C round from SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Sodexo participated as an additional minority investor in the round. Founded by serial entrepreneur and billionaire Bhavin Thurakia, the startup is now valued at $1.4 billion. It is the 14th company this year to cross the $1 billion valuation mark after Meesho, Cred, Pharmeasy, ShareChat, Moglix and others.
Billionaire and Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra along with top Silicon Valley investors Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan are backing space tech start-up Agnikul as part of a new funding round. Chennai-based Agnikul said, on Thursday, that it has raised $11 million in Series A funding round led by Mayfield India. It is the largest funding round for a private Indian space technology company in the country. Existing investors pi Ventures, Speciale Invest and Artha Venture Fund also invested in this round.
'We look forward to providing great customer experiences in India.'
Consultants who help lease these properties say this is the steepest decline at least in a decade.
With scrutiny that comes with a public listing, Deepinder Goyal's leadership could face its sternest test yet.
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