Logistics and delivery firm Dunzo plans to settle dues of former employees in next three months while it is regularising salary for its current employees, sources said. The firm backed by Reliance Retail and Google said that while its co-founder Davlir Suri has decided to leave the company, another co-founder Mukund Jha will continue be part of the strategic leadership team. "In June salary of 85 per cent employees were paid.
Reliance Retail has bought a 25.8 per cent stake in Dunzo, India's leading quick commerce player, for $200 million (around Rs 1,488 crore) as it looks to expand its presence in online grocery delivery business. Dunzo has raised $240 million (about Rs 1,787 crore) in its latest funding round that was led by Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) - the retail arm of Reliance Industries, the two firms said in a statement. Existing investors Lightbox, Lightrock, 3L Capital and Alteria Capital also participated in the funding round.
Quick commerce startups hope to race towards better days. Can they crack the execution code?
'The focus on easier access and faster delivery is creating a new consumption pattern that allows consumers to satisfy their last-minute cravings and restock essentials at the click of a button.'
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
India may get its first unicorn this year as Zepto, which promises 10-minute deliveries, is in talks to get fresh funding that would take the start-up's valuation past $1 billion. The quick-delivery firm is looking to raise $150 million in a series E round, which will take its valuation to $1.3 billion. The round will be led by StepStone Group, a limited partner (LP) of Zepto's existing investor, Nexus Venture Partners, said media reports.
After the Google investment, the company's monthly transactions have spiralled up from 65,000 to nearly one million in just a year. According to reports, the start-up is in fresh talks to raise about $6 million from investors, including Google, says Samreen Ahmad.
Besides growing tech and digital enhancements, the firms are ramping up the hiring of more delivery partners and reinforcing existing Covid protocols.
Tiger Global-backed Koo, an Indian alternative to Twitter, has laid off 30 per cent of its workforce of 260 employees in the last year as the budding firm, like many other start-ups in the country, battles global headwinds. "It's important for businesses of all sizes to adopt efficient and conservative approaches to see this period through. "In line with this, we have acted on some role redundancies by letting go of 30 per cent of our workforce over the course of the year," said a Koo spokesperson.
The first step in Swiggy's local commerce idea is to tie up with supermarket chains, pharmacies, meat shops, pet stores, flower vendors and others. This is Swiggy's evolution from being a food-delivery company to a "deliver anything" unicorn.
However, the tender criteria demands that an entity must be eligible to conduct Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations in order to become eligible. Currently, no drone companies are eligible to do BVLOS operations, reports Arindam Majumder.
If you have seen Zwigato, Param Kumar's story will sound familiar. Laid off from his job as a repairman at a Gurugram-based water purifier provider, he now delivers groceries and food for a mobile-based delivery app, in Delhi. Kumar, who started making deliveries last August, told Business Standard that he is working longer hours than his older salaried job as an RO repairman, and has no paid leaves or health insurance. Kumar is part of India's estimated 7.7 million-strong force of gig workers.
Reliance Industries invested Rs 30,000 crore (around $3.76 billion) in its retail business and added 2,500 stores, taking the total store count to 15,196 in FY22. Besides, Reliance Retail added 11.1 million square feet of warehousing space during the year, nearly doubling the warehousing space to 22.7 million square feet, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) said in the annual report for FY22. In FY22, Reliance Retail added over 1.50 lakh jobs, taking its total headcount to 3.61 lakh.
Microsoft has become the first global Big Tech company to join the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), an Indian government initiative for developing a first-of-its-kind open network for digital commerce. The world's second-largest technology firm intends to introduce social e-commerce via its app in the Indian market later this year. ONDC is expected to open to the public in Bengaluru over the next fortnight as it enters into the next phase of the pilot for further fine-tuning before rollouts in other cities, according to a source in the know.
The country's top three venture debt firms -- Alteria Capital, Innoven Capital, and Trifecta Capital -- combined deployed about $300 million (Rs 2,200 crore) in start-ups such as BigBasket, Cure.fit, Ninjacart, Dunzo and Lendingkart till April end, according to the government's Investindia website.
Swiggy is rapidly scaling up its technology (tech) teams as the food delivery giant is witnessing strong recovery and growth over the past few months. The SoftBank-backed company is hiring across engineering, product, design, analytics, and data science functions in the next two quarters. Building this team, Swiggy is setting up a new development centre in Gurugram. Its rival Zomato, which had a stellar debut on the Indian stock exchanges in July, is also headquartered in Gurugram.
When Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) was conceived last December, the idea was to reduce the dominance of e-commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart. It was also to bring in a level-playing field for small merchants in India's fragmented but fast-growing $1-trillion retail market. However, those goals have changed now as large e-commerce players such as Flipkart, Amazon and Ecom Express are in various levels of talks with the ONDC team. They want to form partnerships like integrating with the network as well as providing their expertise to build it, according to the industry sources.
Their startup investments number 13 so far, compared to 17 deals in 2020.
'Post-Covid world will be different from the pre-Covid world.'
Live commerce, quick commerce, group buying, WhatsApp commerce, dukaantech have made their mark.
'Sure, we are teenagers who are doing this part time, but we feel we are making some sort of an impact.'
Given that people have been reluctant to order cooked food - which worsened due to a couple of cases of delivery personnel testing positive for COVID-19 - food delivery platforms have included grocery delivery as part of their services.
Data from market research agency Nielsen shows that 152 new players entered the hygiene market in March as the lockdown was implemented to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease. The trend is expected to continue, the agency says, as hygiene and health emerge as key themes.
Flipkart Supermart is already live in Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi
Naukri.com's Hiring Outlook Survey for 2020 reveals the jobs and sectors that saw a surge in demand during the pandemic.
Start-ups such as Max Wholesale, Jumbotail and ShopKirana are helping them place orders, maintain inventory, optimise delivery routes and make payments, all digitally.
In the future, publishers will need to think of digital immersive marketing just like marketing a movie or show on Netflix is an immersive experience.
Founded in 2015, Meesho is one of the country's fastest growing social commerce platforms, and provides small and independent entrepreneurs with products and tools to start, maintain, and grow their businesses. Facebook's interest in the digital commerce follows Reliance Industries' entry into the hybrid e-commerce ecosystem.
To make the service a hassle-free everyday option, Daily will allow users to schedule their meals in advance or opt for a daily, weekly or monthly subscription.
Some people are shining through India's gravest health emergency by offering to run errands and home kitchens delivering meals to organisations and individuals stepping in to supply oxygen cylinders, oximeters
Swiggy is following a path that seems similar to what Meituan, one of China's largest O2O (online-to-offline) platforms that delivers food, sells movie tickets and offers hotel reservation, has done so far, reports Patanjali Pahwa.
Apart from the Google team led by AI scientist Manish Gupta, the company will also partner with the research community across the country to focus on tackling challenges in fields like healthcare, agriculture, and education.
Company's revenue rises 3-fold to touch $206 million while total cost jumps over 6 times to $500 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.
Big retailers are openly talking of plans to harness the power of big data, even reporting those in annual reports as part of a long-term strategy.
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