The Netherlands has emerged as India's fifth-largest export destination in 2021-22 (FY22), jumping from its 10th position a year ago. Exports to the fifth-largest economy in the European Union (EU) bolted 94 per cent to $12.5 billion in the financial year ended March 31. In FY22, the Netherlands surpassed Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK, Germany, and Nepal to become India's largest export destination in the EU. Germany, which was earlier India's top European export destination (eighth position), has now dropped two ranks to 10th place.
After a recent fall in profit, Masayoshi Son of SoftBank announced that the Japanese tech investor will look at dramatic cost-cutting. Before he does that, investments in India for calendar year 2022 (CY22) will fall radically, observed sources in the know. Last year, the company had invested around $3.2-3.5 billion in the Indian start-up ecosystem - almost 10 per cent of the total investment the sector received. For CY22, the investments may not even touch $1 billion.
As regular promotional discounts and offers rolled out by well-funded apps determine the demand trend, online hospitality aggregators face growing discontent from restaurants and hotels over commissions and pricing power.
With Nikesh Arora's exit from Softbank, India's start-ups have lost one of its biggest supporters.
Falling valuations, slowing funding rounds and faltering investor sentiment seem to have prompted many start-ups to lay off employees in a bid to conserve cash. The latest to do so is SoftBank-backed Cars24, a leading e-commerce platform for pre-owned vehicles, which has laid off over 600 staff, according to sources in the know. The move, they said, is aimed at conserving cash amid cautious investor sentiment and a slowdown in funding.
Unacademy may see a funding dry spell for at least next 12-18 months and even last till 24 months and will cut costs to weather the lean period, said the chief executive of the education technology unicorn that recently laid off more than 600 employees. "This is a test for all of us. We must learn to work under constraints and focus on profitability at all costs. We must survive the winter," said Unacademy's co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal in a letter to the employees. "Winter is here. We are looking at a time when the funding will dry up for at least 12-18 months.
Unacademy on Monday said it has raised $440 million (about Rs 3,270.8 crore) in funding from a clutch of investors including Temasek, General Atlantic, and Softbank Vision Fund, valuing the edtech major at $3.44 billion. The investment is expected to help Unacademy expand its offerings, deepen its presence and compete more aggressively against rivals such as Byju's in the burgeoning ed-tech space in India that has been witnessing strong uptake amid the pandemic. The series H round was led by Temasek, with super pro-rata participation from General Atlantic, Tiger Global, and Softbank Vision Fund, a statement said.
The hospitality sector has been hit very hard by the pandemic. In the past 18 months, it has lost business, first because of the harsh lockdowns and after that because of lack of demand due to the ensuing economic slowdown. Most hospitality businesses have sustained low revenues and losses since April 2020. Is this the classic case of a beaten-down cyclical sector that may be close to bottoming out?
Experts believe more efforts would be needed in future funding rounds.
Internshala is inviting applications from students, freshers across the country.
Apply the 'insurgent' tests on what Ambani, Ramdev and Agarwal have done of late, and you will start seeing the similarities rather than obvious differences of industry, upbringing or social station, says Shailesh Dobhal.
As many as 81 per cent people support having rules for consumer e-commerce, but want more services-based platforms to have more clearly defined roles, a survey by community social media platform LocalCircles has found. The survey asked respondents to answer questions based on the recent draft Rules proposed by the ministry of consumer affairs. The responses found 81 per cent consumers wanting sales of products and services over electronic or digital networks to be governed by a set of electronic commerce rules.
An industry source said the Act would create high-entry barriers for new service providers and limit customer choice
Notwithstanding the challenges posed by the pandemic, the deal street remained buoyant pushing the overall deal value to a three-year high of $90.4 billion during the first nine months of 2021, a 35.1 per cent increase in value over the same period last year, according to an industry report. During the third quarter ending September, total deals grew by a tepid 3.8 per cent, according to the leading provider of financial markets data and infrastructure globally Refinitiv, an LSEG Business. The report also noted that IPOs alone grabbed as much as $9.1 billion of the deal value during the year.
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.
To avoid season pricing, keep a close eye on the calendar and begin planning travel at least 60 to 90 days in advance keeping tentative dates in mind.
Unlike many peers in the VC space, LSE grad Juneja doesn't have an entrepreneurial background but is said to be strong in finance skills
Education topped the table with nearly $1.755 billion as against $379 million last year, followed by real estate which received $754 million.
The net worth of India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, dropped 28 per cent, or USD 300 million a day for two months to USD 48 billion as on March 31 due to the massive correction in stock markets, a report said on Monday. The chairman and managing director of the diversified Reliance Industries saw his wealth decline by USD 19 billion (app Rs 144,400 crores) in the February-March period, taking his global ranking down eight places to 17th, the Hurun Global Rich List said.
Investments totaling over $9.5 billion in Jio Platforms by a clutch of private equity firms, following social media giant Facebook's $5.7 billion mid-April investment in the company, helped overall.
Start-ups that did not have a business model and, hence, could not grow or attract new funding, are shutting shop.
Among executives who have been approached are former president and CEO of IndiGo Aditya Ghosh, Wolfgang Prock Schauer, current president and Chief Operating Officer at IndiGo and Sanjay Kumar, Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer of IndiGo.
'Shape up or ship out' message has been loud and clear across the new-age companies in the stressed market conditions
How many 22 year olds gets the ears and eyes of Yogi Deveshwar, Kumarmangalam Birla, Shashi Ruia, T V Narendran and Naveen Patnaik?
Nikesh Arora has an engineering degree in electronics and worked for a brief period at Wipro, selling computers.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Friday announced setting up of its second data centre region in India in Telangana that will be operational by mid-2022, and will see the tech giant investing about Rs 20,761 crore. While AWS did not comment on the investment detail, Telangana IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao tweeted that AWS will invest Rs 20,761 crore ($2.77 billion) to set up multiple data centres in the state.
Aggregators provide standardised amenities and predictability of services, whereas online travel agents give wider choices and packaged travel deals.
Typically, about four to six weeks ahead of the polls, activity in the property market picks up as politicians begin to pull out their money parked in real estate. But this time, it's all quiet till now in real estate so far.
Taizo Son, SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son's youngest brother, is also planning to enter India.
Education technology, grocery, fashion, food delivery and UPI payments surpassed volumes or revenues of February, in the September-October period.
Indian industry snubbed Google Play's decision to cut by half its commission for developers when they make $1 million in annual revenue for in-app purchases, saying the US tech giant may continue its "abrasive & monopolistic abuse" as it owns the Android system. Google Play said Tuesday that beginning July 1 it would slash its 30 per cent billing fee to 15 per cent for developers globally when they make the first $1 million of their annual revenue.
Over the last 12 months, thanks to bold bets by venture capital firms like Sequoia, SoftBank Vision Fund, and foreign strategic investors like Naspers, pipeline of start-ups with potential to achieve $1 bn in valuation is at an all-time high.
Mukesh Ambani is stringing in new partnerships within the Reliance ecosystem with the best in global business -- from Facebook, Google and Microsoft to umpteen sovereign wealth funds and a soon-to-be-declared strategic partner in a big global retailer, notes Shailesh Dobhal.
$47.6 bn capital invested across 921 deals in India in 2020, despite pandemic.
The warning by the anti-trust watchdog has come days ahead of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' India visit, about which the Seattle-headquartered company has been tight-lipped. Sources in the know indicated that Bezos, coming on a short trip, has sought a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
While the UN report said that FDI inflows rose 6 per cent in 2018 to $ 42 billion, the government's own data for the entire FY19 period has shown that inbound equity investments declined for the first time in six years in FY19.
Private equity firms invested about USD 3.7 billion across 133 deals during the first quarter of 2018 as compared to USD 7.3 billion by way of 200 transactions a year ago.
Others in the top 10 include Uday Kotak at the 6th place with a wealth of Rs 94,100 crore, Cyrus S Poonawalla at 7th position with Rs 88,800 crore assets, Cyrus Pallonji Mistry at 8th spot with a wealth of Rs 76,800 crore, Shapoor Pallonji at 9th position with a net worth of Rs 76,800 crore and Dilip Shanghvi at 10th slot with Rs 71,500-crore wealth.
The ban in India would hit Chinese internet companies that were making headway in the world's fastest-growing mobile market.
Marquee recruiters made premium offers, with consulting leading the pack by making 25.04% of the offers, followed by IT/ITeS (18.59%), e-commerce (10.55%) and BFSI (10.13%).
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