The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Sunday urged Indian startups to keep their valuation "realistic" and distinguish between the goals of the organisation and its founder. "Startups may strive for long-term value creation rather than short-term valuations. "The valuations of businesses should be kept as realistic as possible," CII said in its Corporate Governance Charter for Startups.
If your goal is to earn quick bucks, start-ups are not for you!
With the rise of ultra-luxury housing in India comes ultra-customised marketing. Developers selling high-end homes, priced above Rs 20 crore, are moving away from traditional marketing for these homes to newer methods, such as painstaking profiling of customers before showing them the property, augmented reality for visualisation of interior decor, virtual tours, and closed-door international shows. There is also marketing through online ads, social media influencers, and exclusive memberships.
With the 21 unicorns collectively valued at $73.2 billion, India is the fourth biggest in terms of unicorns, behind the US, China and the UK, as per the Hurun Global Unicorn List.
Start-ups have their own sub-cultures their language and ways of working.
'The jungles of Doda covers about 250 km.' 'Sleeper cells are providing active help to the terrorists.' 'The terrain and situation is such that it is not possible to keep track of every inch.'
Several start-ups have raised concerns over taxation of angel funds under Section 56 of the Income Tax Act, which provides for taxation of funds received by an entity.
These start-ups include high-growth companies such as Ola, Paytm, Lenskart, UrbanClap and Urban Ladder. Nearly half of these have gone on to raise follow-on funding, a key measure of success for start-ups. A few have become unicorns, the term for start-ups valued at $1 billion or more.
Agri-enterprises are finding it hard to expand due to lack of commercial guidance.
For now, Bounce, Shuttl, Fab Hotels, Instamojo, Zomato, Curefit, and HealthifyMe, among others, are going for salary deductions. Most of the consumer internet start-ups, besides those who are in the grocery delivery, education tech, and video conferencing business, would ultimately lay-off people and cut back salaries.
'India should take up defence manufacturing in a more serious manner and encourage greater private participation.'
Wipro Ventures is currently managed by Biplab Adhya and Venu Pemmaraju and has so far invested in 16 early to mid-stage start-ups. While 11 of these start-ups are in the US, four are in lsrael and one in lndia.
Led by a new generation of entrepreneurs, India's family offices are shifting from traditional investments in physical and tangible assets like real estate to investing in technology, healthcare, and retail stocks. This new wave of family offices is engaging in stock market investments, including pre-IPO placements and secondary market operations. "Born into a world of technology, the next generation, especially those born after 2000, view technology as equally crucial as finance for running a business.
To create a community, the consumer can share the details of the offer with friends and family who want to buy the same goods.
Adani Defence & Aerospace has entered into definitive agreements for acquiring 50 per cent equity stake in agricultural drone startup General Aeronautics for an undisclosed amount. Bengaluru-based General Aeronautics specialises in developing robotic drones to offer tech-enabled crop protection services, crop health monitoring, precision farming and yield monitoring services using artificial intelligence and data analytics.
Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook are both a boon and a bane for angel investors, VCs as well as start-ups. If the Big Tech companies get broken up and their powers to acquire get significantly curbed therefore, the whole ecosystem will need to change, says Prosenjit Datta.
Over 10 Indian start-ups with total valuations of $84 billion (some are planning fresh fund-raising) are bracing to launch initial public offerings (IPOs) in the next 36 months. While the size of their IPOs is under discussion, estimates are that they would together raise a minimum of over $8-10 billion during the initial listing.
Funding Indian start-ups has slowed down.
To seek tax exemption, a start-up will now have to apply, with all the documents, to the DIPP instead of the inter-ministerial board of certification. The earlier requirement of start-up to submit report from merchant banker specifying the fair market value of shares has also been removed.
Think organic food, affordable homes, artificial intelligence, suggests Prof Manmeet Barve.
What made these 10 businesses rise above the rest? Read on to find out...
Start-ups such as Max Wholesale, Jumbotail and ShopKirana are helping them place orders, maintain inventory, optimise delivery routes and make payments, all digitally.
Suchana Seth, CEO of an AI start-up accused of killing her four-year-old son, did not show any signs of mental disorder or psychotic behaviour during a medical examination, the police told a court in Panaji on Tuesday.
Online marketplace majors, e-grocers, Internet of Things firms, app-based companies and transport service aggregators are among those that have had to shut shop or scale down operations. Now, survival skills like upskilling and retraining will determine who makes it.
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.
One of the high points of the proceedings was when Indrani Mukerjea's lawyer smartly utilised Dr Zeba Khan's expert status to pose her A Most Curious Question. He asked her if a skull can grow new teeth, even after the person, who it belonged to, had died, three years before. We can be sure that the discrepancy between the number of teeth discovered in the skull unearthed in 2012 and the skull shown in court in September 2019 will come up soon in Courtroom No 51. Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora Murder Trial.
Indian start-ups and software product companies are trying to attract engineers and programmers who are either stranded in India because of the lockdown or H-1B visa holders who have been laid off.
An initiative of Nandan Nilekani's EkStep Foundation, people+ai on Tuesday unveiled its vision for the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in India, dubbed 'Adbhut India' (Amazing India). It aims to harness AI as a powerful tool to enhance the lives of all Indians. The event marked the rollout of several initiatives by people+ai that are focused on discovering, demonstrating, and disseminating population-scale AI use cases for India.
Even at early stage, start-ups are raising more money faster owing to the rise of a lot of specialised early-stage VCs and emergence of seed-stage programmes.
India's shift towards US companies for technology investments and partnerships fits well with the present government's 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' and 'Make in India' initiatives, say experts.
Indian tax laws offer start-ups ways to save taxes.
Former England soccer captain David Beckham is moving into the virtual world as co-owner of London-based start-up Guild Esports. Guild said in a statement on Thursday that it will launch player academies and run teams in various esports arenas including Rocket League, EA Sports, FIFA and Fortnite.
Proto.in, a support platform for the Indian startup community picked up these young startups
But, majority might be left out, as only those investing in entities recognised by the government could qualify
Four states - Karantaka, Kerala, Odisha and Rajasthan - were in the top performers' category.
Start-ups, especially the e-commerce players, are either staying away from these campuses or recruiting in much smaller numbers than last year
In the past few days, many companies, including fashion e-tailer Nykaa, food delivery platform Zomato, logistics and delivery firm Delhivery, insurance discovery platform PolicyBazaar, eyewear retail chain Lenskart, and edtech and online tutoring firm Byju's, have openly spoken about their IPO plans.
Here's how you can keep yourself and your team high on confidence.
'As they grow bigger, the trail of their pioneering success often leaves behind a causticity marked by deficient human resource practices, negligible focus on corporate governance and rife sexism.'
When things get really tough, it doesn't matter if one has been good strategist managing big companies or if one loves management. It all comes down to grit and passion says Satanik Roy.