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Oct 06

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SAVE THE DATE: Inflection Point Ventures And MoneyControl Join Hands To Launch Pitch Right

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SAVE THE DATE: Inflection Point Ventures And MoneyControl Join Hands To Launch Pitch Right

Finshorts | 6th Oct, 2020 | 1 min read

Inflection Point Ventures, one of India’s largest and most active angel platforms, and Moneycontrol, one of India’s leading financial news platforms, are coming together to launch Pitch Right. Vinay Bansal, Founder CEO, Inflection Point Ventures, says, “We always stand for the founders as it is them who are fighting for the highest stake in the game. Since March, we have seen the funding tap being constantly squeezed leaving many early stage startups run on a dry cash flow. The macro triggers motivated us to seek a formidable partner in MoneyControl, a brand which is a trusted source of news, to become our co-passenger on this journey to find high potential entrepreneurs and startups and help them in their journey both with capital and mentoring.” Pitch Right will launch on October 8 with an AMA to be conducted with Vinay Bansal, Founder CEO, IPV and Ankur Mittal, Co-founder IPV, and to be moderated by Priyanka Sahay, Special Correspondent, MoneyControl. “India’s startup ecosystem is undergoing sweeping changes, changes that have the power and impact to resolve the complex challenges that the world faces today. Our partnership with Inflection Point will help founders with the most disruptive ideas find a stage that will provide them the scale and the direction to make them big,” said Binoy Prabhakar, Editor, Moneycontrol.

Oct 06

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Sistema Asia Fund Plans $150-175 Million Vehicle For India

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Sistema Asia Fund Plans $150-175 Million Vehicle For India

Finshorts | 6th Oct, 2020 | 1 min read

NEW DELHI: Russian conglomerate Sistema Public Joint Stock Financial Corporation, an active investor in the Indian startup ecosystem through its Sistema Asia Fund, is thinking of raising a larger investment vehicle next year, a senior executive at the Moscow-headquartered fund told ET. The $120 million Sistema Asia Fund counts Rebel Foods, Lendingkart and Licious among its investment portfolio. The fund is targeting a larger corpus – $150-175 million, according to Sumit Jain, senior partner at Sistema Asia Fund Advisory. “It’s a little early to talk about it, but we think we will do a slightly bigger fund next, potentially $150 up to $175 million. We think that for the stage we operate in, and the size of opportunity we’re looking at, actually warrants a slightly larger fund. And slightly larger cheque sizes, as we look at fresh deals from the new fund,” Jain told ET in an exclusive interaction.

Oct 06

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Uni Raises $18.5 Million Led By Lightspeed And Accel

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Uni Raises $18.5 Million Led By Lightspeed And Accel

Finshorts | 6th Oct, 2020 | 1 min read

NEW DELHI: Fintech startup Uni has raised $18.5 million in seed funding led by Lightspeed India Partners and Accel Partners. Uni aims to bridge the gap in the credit card market by making them more accessible to consumers across different regions. “Over the last five years, we have witnessed a 3x acceleration of digital and electronic payment platforms the share of credit card payments has fallen drastically. There is an opportunity to expand the market from 58 million credit cards in India today to 200 million credit cards over the next 5 years by building new products, catering to underserved customer needs and getting new customer segments,” said Nitin Gupta, founder and CEO, Uni. The credit card market in India today is still under-penetrated as compared to digital payments, with just 34 million credit card users having 58 million credit cards whereas there are more than 100 million Indians today who pay digitally and electronically. “Credit cards is a very large and exciting market. It has over $100 billion in annual spends and still less than 2.5% of the Indian population has a credit card today. The opportunity in front of us is truly immense,” said Prayank Swaroop, Partner, Accel India.

Oct 05

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2nd Largest Cinema Chain In U.S. Considers Closing All Theatres

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2nd Largest Cinema Chain In U.S. Considers Closing All Theatres

Finshorts | 5th Oct, 2020 | 1 min read

Regal Cinemas, the second-largest theatre chain in the United States, is considering closing all 543 of its theatres in the country due to continued revenue losses from the COVID-19 pandemic. Regal’s British parent company Cineworld said Sunday it is considering the move. “Fifty Regal locations are expected to keep operating during weekend hours.” In the United States, Regal is the No. 2 chain after AMC with 7,155 screens in 543 theaters in 42 states. They closed in mid-March due to the pandemic, and reopened where they could just prior to Warner Bros.’ release of “Tenet.” Deadline, a leading online entertainment industry news site, reported Sunday that the local cinema was hit by not only fewer viewers who are hesitating to see movies but also studios who continue to delay the release of big films amid the coronavirus pandemic. Large chains such as Regal count on blockbusters like the Bond films to sustain operations.

Oct 05

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Almost Everyone At SoftBank Thinks Going Private Is A Bad Idea

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Almost Everyone At SoftBank Thinks Going Private Is A Bad Idea

Finshorts | 5th Oct, 2020 | 1 min read

Inside SoftBank Group Corp., the idea of going private through a buyout has been discussed off and on for at least five years. Almost everyone except founder Masayoshi Son opposes it, people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Son has been frustrated that SoftBank’s market capitalization continues to fall far short of the value of his holdings, particularly Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Preliminary work on a buyout got under way after a record drop in SoftBank shares in March, but the effort was later tabled as the stock price more than doubled with asset sales, buybacks and media reports about a possible deal, one person said. One theory at SoftBank is that whenever Son gets too serious about the idea, executives leak to the media, so the share price rises and a buyout becomes less compelling. Asked whether there were factions within SoftBank with different opinions about a buyout, one insider laughed and said there’s no group in favor. As a banker, Misra had helped Son pull off the acquisition of Vodafone Group Plc’s Japanese wireless operations in Asia’s largest-ever leveraged buyout and thought a SoftBank buyout was feasible, the person said. After SoftBank shares tumbled in March with the coronavirus pandemic, Son returned to the idea of a buyout.

Oct 05

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WhatsApp: Battered By Lockdown, How Small Businesses Used The World’s Largest Messaging Platform To Bounce Back

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WhatsApp: Battered By Lockdown, How Small Businesses Used The World's Largest Messaging Platform To Bounce Back

Finshorts | 5th Oct, 2020 | 1 min read

“For Sneha Sirivara, a Bengaluru-based entrepreneur running Sambar Stories, popular messaging platform WhatsApp has been a great way to connect with customers.Even during the pandemic, the free-to-download app has been a boon for her as it enabled her to effectively tap into a broader customer base, particularly the older generation that isn’t very comfortable placing orders online.”WhatsApp has been our main channel of contact with our. “Our groups on WhatsApp have helped us immensely in reaching out to the poor. We have created a WhatsApp group called Apni Roti Squad, which is mainly used to share the location of the roti-dispensing van so that anyone who wants to volunteer can come aboard,” says Bikash Agarwal, Founder of the social initiative, Apni Roti. “Small businesses are the heart of local communities and the engine that makes the economy go. WhatsApp cares deeply about the small business community and is playing an instrumental role in helping those across the country connect with their customers, increase sales and grow their businesses. That’s more important now than ever when digital tools can serve as a lifeline for businesses and customers to stay connected,” says Abhijit Bose, Head of India, WhatsApp. Why WhatsApp clicks?Today, despite a plethora of messaging apps available, a majority of users prefer WhatsApp over its other alternatives. Besides the mega deal, Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail, and WhatsApp also inked a deal to support small businesses on WhatsApp.

Oct 05

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Paytm Launches Its Own Mini App Store

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Paytm Launches Its Own Mini App Store

Finshorts | 5th Oct, 2020 | 1 min read

BENGALURU : Digital payments firm Paytm has launched a mini-app store to support Indian developers, in a direct challenge to Google’s dominance in the space. The launch of the store follows the payment app being temporarily removed from Google’s Play Store on 18 September for violating developer guidelines on real-money gaming. While the removal of the app may be a trigger, Paytm’s move is perhaps a direct fallout of Google mandating that developers listed on its Play Store use its billing service. Last week, startup founders such as Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Razorpay’s Harshil Mathur, along with 50 other founders, discussed the possibility of building an Indian app store to challenge Google. “Other app stores have not been able to catch up with Google Play because they lack network effects. Google’s Play Store is mandatory to make use of Google Mobile Services, that includes other apps such as Google Maps,” Manjunath Bhat, senior director analyst at Gartner, told Mint last week. On 29 September, Google said, “Play distributed apps must use Google Play’s billing and revenue sharing system as the method of payment if they require or accept payment for access to features or services, including any app functionality, digital content or goods. This applies only to apps and has been purportedly done to prevent revenue leakages to Google from Google Play from January 2021.”.

Oct 03

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Airbnb Aims To Raise Roughly $3 Billion In IPO: Report

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Airbnb Aims To Raise Roughly $3 Billion In IPO: Report

Finshorts | 3rd Oct, 2020 | 1 min read

Home rental company Airbnb is aiming to raise around $3 billion in its upcoming initial public offering, people familiar with the matter said on Friday, taking advantage of the unexpectedly sharp recovery in its business after the Covid-19 pandemic roiled the travel industry. Airbnb will be one of the largest and most anticipated U.S. stock market listings of 2020 which has already been a blockbuster year for IPOs, featuring the likes of record label Warner Music Group, data analytics firm Palantir Technologies and data warehouse company Snowflake. Airbnb said in August it had filed confidentially for an IPO with U.S. regulators. This would be substantially higher than the $18 billion Airbnb was valued at in April when it raised $2 billion in debt from investors. Shares of U.S. online travel agency Booking Holdings Inc , which some Airbnb investors use as a conservative public market proxy for its own stock, have rebounded more than 35% in the past six months. Reuters reported last month that billionaire investor William Ackman had approached Airbnb about going public through a reverse merger with his blank-check company but that Airbnb was prioritizing going public through a traditional IPO..

Oct 03

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This New Google Maps Update Will Give You A Better Direction Sense

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This New Google Maps Update Will Give You A Better Direction Sense

Finshorts | 3rd Oct, 2020 | 1 min read

The Live View feature implements augmented reality to help show directions to Google Maps users in real time. Now, when the user selects or searches for a place on Google Maps, they can tap on the Live View button to visualize their destination in the real world. Live View will show how far away certain landmarks are from the user and what direction they need to take to get there. Live View can be accessed from the transit tab in Google Maps. While using transit directions, when the user comes across a portion that needs to be crossed on foot, Live View can be used to ease out navigation. The users will start seeing Live View in the transit tab and Location Sharing on Android and iOS in the coming weeks, along with a more accurate pin.

Oct 03

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Amazon Alexa Auto Mode To Roll Out In India: Here’s How It Aims To Make Cars Smarter

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Amazon Alexa Auto Mode To Roll Out In India: Here's How It Aims To Make Cars Smarter

Finshorts | 3rd Oct, 2020 | 1 min read

The new Auto Mode aims to turn the user’s phone into a smart display that enhances Alexa’s in-vehicle voice experience. The company claims that the Auto Mode was designed to help the driver stay focused on the road with easy to read visuals, large touch targets and intuitive features and shortcuts for the most common actions used in the vehicle like navigating to saved locations, placing calls to contacts and Alexa devices, and playing recent media. According to the company’s official blog, the new Auto Mode is rolling out to Android and iOS in the coming weeks and will be available in India, U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, UK, Australia and New Zealand. Auto Mode consists of four screens – the Auto Mode home screen, Navigation, Communicate, and Play – and a persistent menu bar allows users to quickly switch between them. The Auto Mode home screen is designed to provide one-touch access to frequent actions, with shortcuts to play and pause current media source, navigate to home or work, and to make a call. As Alexa reads back the responses, Auto Mode displays a simplified list showing relevant information, allowing input via voice or touch.