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.
Venture capitalists and seed fund providers receive around 500-1,200 business plans every year. The trend continued even among the student fraternity. Venture firms such as Morpheus Venture Partners and Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship that work closely with students and incubator centres have seen a spurt in activity.
Indian start-ups are disrupting the world and women-based entrepreneurship is one of the vehicles for realising a more equal society, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Monday. Addressing an event organised by FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO), Kant further said India at present has more than 61,000 start-ups and 81 unicorns. "Indian start-ups are disrupting the world especially in new emerging areas of health, nutrition and agriculture," he said.
India will have 30 per cent of its two-wheeler industry turning electric by 2030 as new manufacturers lead the shift, said a report on Monday. Passenger vehicles will be 15 per cent electric and the three-wheeler segment 75 per cent electric by 2030, said the report by BNP Paribas called 'India Autos-Electric vehicles: Minutes to midnight'. "We see FY22 as the year of inflection for the two-wheeler EV industry, with an accelerated EV adoption helped by incentives, wider availability, model launches, rise in crude prices and improved general awareness. We see 30 per cent of the 2W industry turning electric by 2030; the pace of incentive withdrawal presents an upside/downside risk," the report (India Autos - Electric vehicles: Minutes to midnight) said.
PhonePe said on Tuesday it has launched a service that will allow the fintech firm's Indian users traveling abroad to pay foreign merchants using Unified Payments Interface (UPI). 'UPI international' supports merchant outlets in UAE, Singapore, Mauritius, Nepal and Bhutan that have a local QR (quick response) code. Users will be able to make direct payments in a foreign currency from their Indian bank, like they do with international debit cards.
The Lumoid site a is clean and user-friendly e-commerce experience, prompting visitors to select a category, like 'Landscape,' 'Sports,' and 'Student' for recommended custom created kits or 'Shop All Gear' for those who prefer to pick and choose the pieces they need.
India is the second-largest global venture capital investment hub for digital shopping companies, growing by a whopping 175 per cent from $8 billion in 2020 to $22 billion in 2021, according to an official analysis released here on Wednesday. On a global scale, India came in second to the US last year, which attracted $51 billion in investment, followed by China at third with $14 billion and the UK at fourth with $7 billion. Within India, Bengaluru comes out on top globally with $14 billion worth of Venture Capital (VC) investments in digital shopping in 2021, followed by Gurugram at No. 7 with $4 billion and Mumbai at No. 10 with $3 billion.
A large part of the work that CEO Sumit Gupta does is focused on educating users and the larger community about investing in cryptocurrencies, reports Neha Alawadhi.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday unveiled a Rs 39.45 lakh crore Budget with a view to fire up the key engines of the economy to sustain a world-beating recovery from the pandemic. This was Sitharaman's fourth Budget. While the taxpayers were left in the lurch, once again, was she able to cheer Corporate India?
'Advertising this season will help IPL surpass $550 million in ad revenues, across digital and pay TV.' 'It should still represent a steep loss against annualised 2023-2027 IPL rights fees of $1.2 billion.'
'Every educational institution should have incubating centres so that students will get exposed to entrepreneurship early.'
Whether one likes it or not, services constitute the value-addition sector that the country has to build on, using its comparative advantage in infotech and related skills, suggests T N Ninan.
As the FM said, this is a Budget that lays the foundation for the next 25 years, observes Kumar Mangalam Birla.
Google is building voice and text search for over 100 Indian languages and will spend $75 million to support women-led startups in the country, said its CEO Sundar Pichai at the start of his visit to India - a nation that he saw as a big export economy. India, he said, will be a big export economy and it needs to create a balance between safeguarding citizens and enabling companies to innovate with its framework. Pichai first met Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and spoke at a Google for India 2022 event before calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Many of these companies have a waiting period from 6-18 months now, indicating a rise in demand.
Maruti will launch its first electric vehicle (EV) in the next financial year (FY24), and will roll out six EVs in the country by FY30, the automaker's parent firm Suzuki said on Thursday.
UrbanClap's business model is still a work in progress.
Dealerships, too, are going all out to roll out the red carpet for women.
'Remember to pick a mentor, with whom there are one or two degrees of separation.' 'Any more than that, you are wasting time.'
As many as 2,000 chips are annually designed in India by semi-conductor and fabless companies, Intel India managing director Prakash Mallya said in a conversation with Business Standard. Mallya was reiterating the importance of India in the semi-conductor sweepstakes. "As much as 90 per cent of the semi-conductor companies have a design footprint in India.
One needs to charge the device every four days, which can provide over 65,000 blood readings and counts.
Walmart-owned digital payments firm PhonePe has decided to halt its proposed acquisition of Goldman Sachs- and Xiaomi-backed ZestMoney, a Bengaluru-based buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform. The deal, which was poised to fetch anywhere between $150-200 million and $300 million, has hit a snag over lapses in due diligence, disagreements over valuation, sustainability of the business, and shareholding structure of ZestMoney, according to people familiar with the matter. The collapse of the deal is also being attributed to a slowdown in the financial technology (fintech) sector in the midst of a funding winter, difficult regulatory environment, and macroeconomic uncertainty, informed other sources.
Begin by creating a household budget. Involve all family members in the exercise and cut costs wherever possible.
If the government seriously keeps out of business, the business world will know about it at a lightning speed; there would be no need for rock show-like events.
Mumbai-based start-up Purple Squirrel Eduventures is helping students decide on their careers through industrial visits
The recent run on the US-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and the subsequent seizure of its assets by the regulators may have sparked a global wave of risk aversion, particularly for start-ups. However, the Indian banking sector is unlikely to be a victim of any contagion effects, said analysts. he bank, which played a big role in financing start-ups and technology players, faced stress after incurring huge losses on its holdings of US bonds, following the most-aggressive monetary tightening cycle by the Federal Reserve in around four decades.
'Even if you fail as an entrepreneur, you can start another business or get a job.'
Group term insurance is far more cost-effective than an individual cover.
Nearly a decade ago, the first fully electric vehicle (EV) caught fire on the road in the US. It was a model from Tesla, the world's most admired EV maker. A metal fragment punctured the underbelly of the vehicle, penetrating its battery pack, leading to a fire. Indian lawmakers and automakers have had nine years to study the incident (in fact, three Tesla Model Ss caught fire in two months in 2013) but seem to have learnt little.
The 4 week online learning programme is available in English and Hindi, and will soon be offered in some regional languages.
"It is a matter of pride for us that India's vaccination programme has been science-born, science-driven and science-based," Modi said.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday held wide-ranging talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov focusing on the Ukraine conflict, bilateral ties and issues relating to the G20 foreign ministers' meeting.
Here's the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to a joint session of the United States Congress, delivered on Thursday.
The job of a prompt engineer does not necessarily require candidates to be trained in "hardcore" computer engineering skills. 'This is one of those rare jobs that opens the sector to the layman.'
Murtuza Rohawala, founder and CEO of Edfin Consultancy suggests a few ideas you can get started with in India right away.
E-commerce players may soon rent out drones, so you can use them the way you book a cab on an app, and test viable use-cases for last-mile delivery.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the much-awaited 5G services in India on October 1, 2022, an official release said on Friday. According to the release, 5G to be launched by the Prime Minister in select cities, will progressively cover the entire country over the next couple of years. The cumulative economic impact of 5G on India is estimated to reach $450 billion by 2035. Capable of supporting ultra-high-speed internet services, the fifth generation or 5G is expected to unleash new economic opportunities and societal benefits, serving as a transformational force for Indian society.
A top management leadership team from SoftBank has been coming to India in the last few days to meet the founders of start-ups and other investors, signalling the country's emergence as a pivotal market for the global investment giant. Based on current estimates, India accounts for nearly 10 per cent ($20 billion) of SoftBank's invested assets under management (AUM) globally. That makes the country its third largest market after the US and China.
That's because India does not have a serious venture capital industry with an appetite for risk, observes T N Ninan.
Alternative investment funds (AIFs) - pooled investment vehicles catering to high net worth individuals (HNIs) - saw a 30 per cent increase in investment commitments during financial year 2022-23 (FY23). At the end of March 2023, the total investment commitments raised stood at Rs 8.33 trillion, up Rs 1.92 trillion from Rs 6.41 trillion at the end of March 2022. A commitment is the money clients are willing to put into AIFs.