With a team of 20-odd people, Snafu tries to unearth the rough diamonds from millions of songs. Can AI help look for a needle in a haystack? Ritwik Sharma finds out.
Their startup investments number 13 so far, compared to 17 deals in 2020.
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 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-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.
An overwhelming majority of Indians (84 per cent) feel it is safe to return to their workplaces, according to a Deloitte survey that suggests consumers in India are showing a positive spending intent and brighter outlook towards the future. The latest monthly analysis (wave 220) of Deloitte's Global State of the Consumer Tracker, signals a cautious consumption revival in the country, aided by the decreasing number of Covid-19 cases and an improved vaccination drive. The Global State of the Consumer Tracker is an online survey based on responses from 1,000 people each in 18 countries including India.
For Afghans in India, including medical tourists from the war-torn country as well as migrants and refugees staying here much longer, the safety of friends and families is the biggest concern - particularly for those linked to the now collapsed government or who have had work ties with the US.
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'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.
'Hybrid learning is the future, and test prep is a big segment within the entire education space in India.'
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.
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.
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.
The man with the golden arm could surpass some, if not all, top cricketers -- the demigods who stand well above athletes from other disciplines in India
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.
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