At a time when the Indian startup space is going through a funding winter, marked by investors tightening their purse strings, angel investments in fledgling firms have maintained their momentum. While overall deal volumes among startups have fallen, investment activity among the country's most-active angel investors have been relatively steady. We Founder Circle (WFC), a Mumbai-based network of angel investors, emerged as the most-active angel investment platform for the second consecutive year in 2023 with 82 investments.
Food delivery major Zomato has received a Rs 401.7 crore show cause notice from the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) over 'unpaid taxes' on delivery charges collected from customers, the company said in a regulatory filing late on Wednesday. The company claimed that it is not liable to pay the penalty for the period from October 29, 2019, to March 31, 2022, as the amount collected from customers is "on behalf of the delivery partners during the referred period."
Something is cooking in online food delivery. After 15 years of grappling with the demands of the business - read cash burn - Gurugram-based Zomato reported its first profit in the first quarter of 2023-24 (FY24). Not satiated, it reported a profit in the following quarter as well: Of Rs 36 crore in the second quarter compared to Rs 2 crore in the first. A year ago, in the second quarter of FY23, it had reported a loss of Rs 251 crore.
'In the next 15-20 years, India will have at least 50 new (AI-driven) billion-dollar companies that are going to solve problems for the largest companies around the world.'
The verdict in the Google versus Epic Games antitrust case in the US has spread cheer among the Indian gaming and app developers. Ending a three-year legal battle, the San Francisco jury found that Google turned its Play app store and billing service into an illegal monopoly. American video game maker Epic Games, best known for Fortnite, had sued Google in 2020.
'With free software on the Internet and apps, creating a deepfake video can take 3 to 5 minutes. Anyone can make these videos.'
'We will continue to build new engines of growth in terms of innovations, enter newer categories, and look at newer propositions.'
Her reasoning is simple, "It's a Tata company. No shareholder will let go of this opportunity," she told Business Standard. When asked if the other reason for lining up for the IPO is the technology sector and the fact that the combination of Tata and tech is happening after almost two decades, she replied: "The name of the company and the group matter. Tata means stability and credibility," she added.
For Lori Beer, chief information officer, JPMorgan Chase & Co, largest banker in the US, India is a big part of the organisation's global technology footprint and is core to its products and services. This is evident from the fact that in less than two months since JPMorgan & Chase chief executive officer Jamie Dimon visited India, Beer has come here to see the recently opened centres in Mumbai and Bengaluru. "What is different for me this year are our new centres and to be able to come and see the vibrancy, and connectedness is great.
'Our Q1 was almost flat, and there was very negligible growth in Q2, but the deal pipeline and the order book have been fairly significant.'
'We will have a strong exit as our third quarter is strong.'
NavIC consists of a constellation of seven satellites and a network of ground stations and is touted to be more accurate than GPS.
TCS saw its headcount reduced by 6,333. Infosys' headcount decreased by almost 7,500, and HCLTech saw its employee numbers shrink by 2,299.
'IT companies do not have a large presence there either in terms of market and team. So, the impact of the war will be minimal. But West Asia is an emerging economy.'
'The World Cup alone is expected to create an additional 100,000 jobs, most of which will comprise gig workers in the delivery space, transportation, hospitality and event management.'
WhatsApp's advantage is that it is the first app millions of Indian check first thing in the morning and innumerable times during the day and night.
However, the second quarter of FY24 is expected to be muted, and, with that, the hope of double-digit growth is now being pushed to FY25. However, analysts are expecting the momentum in the closure of record total contract values (TCVs) will continue, as has been the case over the last two quarters.
The recovering valuations, will lead to enhanced optimism among investors about funding startups.
With over 80 million Unified Payments Interface (UPI) users, Amazon Pay, the payments business of e-commerce giant Amazon, has been growing at 40-50 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), said Mahendra Nerurkar, chief executive officer (CEO) and vice-president (V-P), Amazon Pay India. "Leveraging just the micro peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions on UPI is not a business model. "While we have enabled those features, we do not chase monthly active users based on this.
The Indian startup ecosystem has lauded the inclusion of startups in the New Delhi Leaders' Declaration for the first time ever in the history of G20. Industry stakeholders say that the move will lead to easier access to capital, reduce regulatory hurdles, and may revive funding activity. The Declaration, through the Startup20 initiative, recognised startups as "natural engines of growth" and key to socio-economic transformation by driving innovation and creating employment.