The Indian startup ecosystem recently celebrated the 100th unicorn milestone. It came after a month of no big fund announcements. Compare this to 2021, when three to four unicorns were being added every month. Nevertheless, the 100th unicorn needs to be celebrated since the first unicorn was announced in 2011 - 11 years ago.
IT consulting and services provider Patni Computer Systems Ltd on Tuesday announced the appointment of Loek van den Boog as an independent director on its board.
Citigroup's private equity arm Citigroup Venture Capital International has acquired 85 per cent stake in retail brokerage Sharekhan for about Rs 470-480 crore (Rs 4.7 to Rs 4.8 billion).
New technologies such as block chain are throwing up new opportunities; so the axe is bound to fall on those who are still stuck in the past and not reskilling themselves, says Shyamal Majumdar.
Koo has so far raised $4.1 mn in Series A funding from existing investors Accel, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures and 3one4 Capital.
Citigroup Venture Capital (CVC) is in talks to acquire 10-15 per cent stake in AnandRathi Securities, the Mumbai-based securities and wealth management firm, for nearly Rs 70 crore ($15 million).
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.
Patent filings in India would be more and more driven by new technologies, which are either kept secret or patented.
The story of Sahara India Pariwar founder Subrata Roy, who died in Mumbai on November 14 aged 75, is the stuff of movies - of a spectacular rise and an equally spectacular fall. Born in Araria, Bihar, Roy was 30 when he set up Sahara in 1978. He started with a capital of about Rs 2,000, a peon, a clerk and his father's Lambretta scooter in Gorakhpur, eastern Uttar Pradesh, writes Tamal Bandyopadhyay in his 2014 book, Sahara: The Untold Story. Sahara was not his first venture.
An Indian born, US-educated, Australian citizen, Tejpavan Singh Gandhok has recently joined as the CEO of Om Pizzas (OMP), the master franchisee for Papa Johns Pizza in India, as well as Chillis, the Tex-Mex Restaurants. His appointment was announced with fresh investments from the existing investor in OMP - TVS Capital Fund.
The healthcare IT sector saw 168 transactions in the second quarter of 2013, higher than 104 in the previous quarter (January-March) and 163 in all of 2012.
'As our per capita income increases and various demographic segments emerge, the need for various kinds of protection and risk covers will become even more explicit.'
The Goa police on Friday arrested four employees of the store.
Xioami, currently the world's third-largest smartphone maker, is now planning to raise about $1.5 billion in its fifth round of financing, media reports said.
Start-ups that did not have a business model and, hence, could not grow or attract new funding, are shutting shop.
The government on Wednesday approved Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) 'Fund of Funds for Startups' to support them with an aim to generate employment for 18 lakh persons.
The ban on taxi aggregators can put at risk investments of at least Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion), made by private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) investors.
Reserve Bank of India has allowed banks to increase their lending to Indian joint ventures or subsidiaries for funding their overseas expansion.
Private equity investments in proptech firms rose 35 per cent to $741 million last year as investors sought to tap huge opportunities amid rising use of technology in the realty sector, Housing.com said. Proptech firms that are providing solution in sales and marketing, and construction management got 69 per cent of the total funds. Inflow of funds into proptech firms stood at $551 million in 2020. Between 2009 and 2021, the proptech players in India received a total of $3.2 billion Private Equity(PE) investments.
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.
As the funnel of good-quality early-stage companies are built, mid-stage and growth capital always follows, says Fireside Ventures founder Kanwaljit Singh.
'In India, most funds have one or at most two platforms, but we are the only one which has four -- growth equity practice, real estate practice, a special situation and credit platform, and infrastructure.'
In 2020-2021, the amount of foreign direct investment into India from China and Hong Kong plummeted to just $200 million -- its lowest in the recent past. In the first half of 2021-2022, FDI investments through these two nations stood at just $36 million.
The company will significantly increase its rate of patent filing.
Eruditus runs on a partnership model with top global universities such as MIT, Columbia, Harvard, Cambridge, INSEAD, Wharton, and UC Berkeley, offering courses in coding, data science, fintech, block chain, and entrepreneurship.
Players such as Kidaara, True North, and Multiples Alternate Asset Management move outside the confines of just being a family-style financial office and become a true PE heavyweight.
Warehousing and logistics segment has been among the most resilient asset classes in the pandemic.
Some examples that show we may be call for introspection, says Ajit Balakrishnan.
The investment is through the asset manager's holding company IIFL Wealth Management Limited.
State Bank of India (SBI) may carry out a planned Rs 10,000 crore sale of infrastructure bonds in the market this week, with the securities likely to be of 15-year maturity, sources told Business Standard. SBI, the country's largest bank, had last week said its board had approved the issuance of infrastructure bonds in the current fiscal year. It, however, had not mentioned the maturity of the bonds or when the sale would take place.
In terms of expansion, a little more than half of the family businesses are open to internationalisation, while 40 per cent are looking at diversification, a PWC survey said. Even Indian family businesses are increasingly looking at diversification and exploring newer markets, it added.
The latest round of funding values the company at $10.7 billion, almost doubling it from the $5.5 billion valuation during the $1.25 billion fund raise in July 2021 when investors including SoftBank, Prosus and Accel pumped in capital in what was the company's biggest funding since its inception. The other new investors in the latest round of funding include Baron Capital Group, Sumeru Venture, IIFL AMC Late Stage Tech Fund, Kotak, Axis Growth Avenues AIF- I, Sixteenth Street Capital, Ghisallo, Smile Group and Segantii Capital, Swiggy said in a statement.
Of the first 189 whose credentials have been probed from the 400 applicants till date, barely 30 make it - and only one qualifies for IPR benefits.
Byju's is raising about Rs 2,200 crore ($300 million) as part of a larger round of new investment as the world's most valuable edtech company focuses on expanding its business in global markets and explores to do more acquisitions. According to industry sources, the new funding may value Bengaluru-based Byju's at $18 billion, up from a valuation of $16.5 billion in June this year. In June, Byju's became India's most valuable unicorn with a valuation of $16.5 billion, surpassing fintech company Paytm's $16 billion valuation.
Fintech companies believe that the impact of Reserve Bank of India's order last week on unsecured loans will be visible in six to 12 months and prompt them to diversify and strengthen their secured portfolio. Fintechs which source funds through banks or non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) are looking at quickly building their secured portfolio options to at least 40 per cent of their total portfolio. "Over the medium to long term, as part of our product strategy, we are evaluating secured products which can be enabled over a digital platform" said Yogi Sadana, the founder of Zype, a lending-focussed fintech.
'Considering Pai is putting his own personal money in Byju's, stakeholders in the company can look forward to more governance and transparency.'
Excerpted from Sahara: The Untold Story by Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
After four years in the making, a band of 20 film-makers were left with 400 hours of footage for what is now India's first blue chip natural history film.