Several food and grocery delivery firms witnessed their highest ever single-day orders on New Year eve, December 31. Zomato achieved a record-breaking number of orders on its app. The company carried out nearly as many orders on December 31 as the total for the equivalent day in the period from 2015 to 2020.
With investors asking for a change in the board structure at Byju's, the edtech giant's founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Byju Raveendran, is now asking them to put $300 million into the company for more control. The company has rung up $5.8 billion from investors such as General Atlantic, Sofina, the Qatar Investment Authority, Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners, BlackRock, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Sequoia, Silver Lake, Bond Capital, Tencent, and Tiger Global.
Social media unicorn ShareChat has laid off 200 employees, around 15 per cent of its workforce, in another round of layoffs this year to reduce costs and achieve profitability within the next six quarters. In January, Mohalla Tech Pvt Ltd, the parent company of platforms ShareChat and Moj, fired 500 employees, 20 per cent of its workforce. The same month, company co-founders Bhanu Pratap Singh and Farid Ahsan also stepped down from executive roles.
An online company would show a particular price to the customer and then quickly increase the cost after analysing consumer behaviour or detecting any kind of desperation.
Amphibious drones for maritime inspection... devices that extract pure oxygen from water for patients in need... self-balancing electric bikes...
There's a hint of new competition riding into a sector that has attracted attention for being in a duopoly-like situation. Rapido, a commute app known for its budget-friendly bike-taxi services, on Tuesday announced its entry into the cab market, which is currently dominated by marquee brands Uber and Ola. Rapido's cab foray will be enabled by a software as a service (SaaS)-based platform.
Byju Raveendran, founder of educational technology (edtech) firm Byju's, has injected around Rs 4,000 crore of personal capital into the company in recent months. This move comes as the company grapples with challenges, including securing fresh capital, delays in financial reporting, and legal disputes with lenders. "Raveendran has pledged personal property to assist the company in dealing with the crisis. "He conveyed to employees that despite perceptions of being a billionaire, he has reinvested a major portion of his wealth back into the company," said a person familiar with the matter.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI), climate tech and fintech sectors will be the hot areas for venture capitalists and founders in the next year, according to the prediction by Prashanth Prakash, founding partner of the global venture capital firm Accel Partners in India and the chairperson of Karnataka Startup Vision Group. Prakash said that about $25 billion has been invested into building Gen AI globally. But a lot of that capital has not yet come to India, opening up huge opportunities for startups in the country.
'Considering Pai is putting his own personal money in Byju's, stakeholders in the company can look forward to more governance and transparency.'
As the Men in Blue took on Australia in an intriguing ICC Men's Cricket World Cup final in Ahmedabad on Sunday, the orders on quick delivery platforms reflected the pulsating mood of the nation.
'Byju's financials only reflect the core business. At a group level, they are experiencing substantial losses.'
The Centre is unlikely to offer new direct tax incentives for units operating in special economic zones (SEZs) and may instead allow the grandfathering of previous exemptions that such units were entitled to, according to proposed amendments to the SEZ Act, 2005, people aware of the matter said. The amendments, proposed by the commerce department, will soon be considered by the Cabinet for approval. This represents a departure from the department's earlier plan to introduce these changes through the Development Enterprises and Services Hubs (DESH) Bill, 2023, which faced strong criticism from the ministry of finance.
'Students of Tier-II and Tier III engineering colleges in the south may find 2023 to be one of the toughest years for getting jobs.'
Walmart-owned fintech firm PhonePe said it has crossed 500 million lifetime registered users on its platform. With this milestone, 1 in 3 Indians are now on PhonePe. The company said it is the first Indian internet company to have reached this scale globally. This milestone has been achieved in just over 7 years since the PhonePe UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payments launched in August 2016.
Byju's is in talks with three-four strategic buyers, including Joffre Capital Ltd and language learning platform Duolingo, to sell one of its key assets, US-based digital reading platform Epic, for about $400-$450 million, according to sources. With this, the beleaguered edtech firm wants to meet various commitments, including repaying its entire $1.2 billion term loan B (TLB) within six months. "The binding offers of the bidders to acquire Epic are expected to come in the next few weeks after the due diligence is complete," said a person familiar with the matter.
Commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal is set to attend a two-day meeting from October 23 at the World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters in Geneva, that would focus on finding solutions and giving the 'necessary political push' for at least some crucial global trade issues. Next week's meeting comes ahead of the WTO's 13th ministerial conference (MC13), scheduled in Abu Dhabi in February 2024. It will see participation of senior government officials from all WTO member nations.
India's trade ties with Israel have only strengthened in the years after 2019. The total value of trade rose to $10.5 billion on a rolling four-quarter basis in June 2023 from $5.5 billion in the same month in 2019, shows a Business Standard analysis of data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). A rolling four-quarter number provides a comparable figure across different time periods.
The government has decided to hold off introducing the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for additional sectors until it verifies the efficacy of existing initiatives. Top government officials have received mixed feedback on the scheme, including insights from the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, people aware of the matter said. "There are no new PLI schemes in the offing.
'Building a whole product with the railways was challenging; we had to figure out how to load and unload a train when it stops for only about five minutes at a station.' 'We also helped them understand the revenues this would generate for them.'
Officials from India and the United Kingdom (UK) are working overtime to address the contentious issues related to the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the two nations, in a final push to conclude the deal by the year-end. Commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal was headed to London on Thursday after completing his four-day visit to Brazil. Other key officials from India's negotiating team will be joining Barthwal in the UK capital, hoping to make headway in the FTA negotiations, which started in January last year, a person aware of the matter told Business Standard.
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