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.
A slew of Indian firms, including Flipkart, Byju's and Zomato, is building a path to profitability and diversifying into newer business segments ahead of mega-IPO plans.
Sachin Bansal, who had co-founded Flipkart with Binny Bansal in 2007, would exit the company
Ola was supposed to expand to the Netherlands, Kenya, Dubai, Israel, and Brazil.
This is the sixth consecutive markdown in the valuation of Flipkart by the US firm.
Flipkart has not been able to process with its plans of getting into the grocery vertical and is stuck on running pilots in select cities.
ShopClues does 1.5 million transactions a month and claims to have 40 million monthly visitors.
Though startups find 17 mentions in the Budget speech of the finance minister, and have been promised tax exemptions, the reality is that only 2 per cent of the 4,648 applications received from startups for income tax exemption had been approved as of February 2019, according to an answer to a Parliament question. As India's startup space bubbles with activity - new, young players are tapping into opportunities opening up - there are local anti-portfolio stories circulating about investors missing opportunities in 'unicorns', or companies that have reached valuation of $ 1 billion, says Vandana Gombar.
Cab-hailing service Ola is on the fast track on the back of a $500 million funding.
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An industry source said the funding was part of an overall $500 million the company is planning to raise, which will value Ola at around $5 billion.
The identity of the new investor could not be ascertained.
A combination of bank guarantees, letters of credit, buyer's credit for computer servers have been provided to the two local operational arms by Kotak Mahindra Bank and Deutsche Bank.
'One good thing that has come out of all this is that it shown people that online ordering is the way forward.'
Smaller Singapore- and US-based venture capital funds, retail associations and trader bodies such as the CAIT and SJM are all planning to approach the government to put pressure on the commerce ministry.
The company did not disclose the valuations at which funds were raised.
Khosla said 85 per cent of Indian e-commerce firms were over-valued.
Home grown chat application, Hike Messenger on Thursday said it has acquired US-based voice-calling company Zip Phone for an undisclosed amount.
Most Indian start-ups and e-commerce are largely funded by foreign investors
Private labels remain big business for e-commerce marketplaces. They comprise almost 15 per cent of the total business of such firms.
With regard to his investment in Ola, Bansal said that on the one hand, the ride-hailing major had emerged as a global force in the mobility space and on the other it continued to build deeper for various needs of a billion Indians through its platform. This is the largest funding by an individual in the app cab.
Flipkart, Jabong-Myntra and PhonePe will operate under this group structure and their CEOs will report to Binny
With Nikesh Arora's exit from Softbank, India's start-ups have lost one of its biggest supporters.
Comment by SoftBank board member sets off talk of Ola-Uber merger.
These days, one frequently hears of consolidation, rollback and even closure from the start-up world.
The new deal will value Flipkart at close to $19 billion on the secondary market, a huge jump from Walmart's initial offer to investors.
Ola Cabs acquires TaxiForSure in $200-mn deal.
Unlike last year, investors turn cautious on e-commerce sector.
In India, where it is tougher to do business, a start-up gets established by the Series-B stage, and it gets expensive for investors.
Help came from Sanjeev Bikchandani, founder and executive vice-chairman of Info Edge, the main investor in Zomato.
The start-up works with 2,000 owners and hosts 10,000 tenants across four cities - Bengaluru, the National Capital Region, Hyderabad and Pune.
The bourse's valuations may get a boost, as it gets set for its OFS of about Rs 10,000 crore.
Dahiya's first internet-based venture to sell insurance failed, but he was convinced digital was the future
US taxi-hailing firm raises the money from Saudi Public Investment Fund to support global expansion.
Grant Thornton reports says total value of deals in 2013 crosses $8 bn, up 34% from the year-ago period, momentum likely to continue
If Sachin Bansal sells his stake at a little over 5 per cent and steps down from Flipkart, as reports have suggested recently, either Binny Bansal or Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart, could be an option for the leadership position.
Where Binny slipped up badly was in gauging the level of transparency and governance that is expected by a global strategic investor, says Indrajit Gupta.
The Tiger Global-backed company says the layoffs would affect all teams.
Amazon has emerged a competition for posterboy of Indian e-commerce Flipkart.
According to sources, employees from marketing, ad-tech, category, digital marketing, engineering team, catalogues, have all been asked to leave.
Homegrown chat application Hike messenger on Wednesday said it will offer free voice calls to its users over 2G, 3G and wi-fi services across the globe in over 200 countries.
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