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Sep 07
0

Google in talks with ShareChat as latter scouts for $150-200 million

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Google in talks with ShareChat as latter scouts for $150-200 million

Published on 17th August, 2020 | 1 min read

BENGALURU|MUMBAI: Google is in talks with ShareChat for investing in the Bengaluru-based social media firm, two people familiar with the matter told ET. ShareChat is looking to raise $150-200 million and is holding discussions with investors and technology companies, as it prepares to battle it out with over a dozen rivals to fill the gap left by banned Chinese apps, including TikTok and Helo. Google is not the only firm that has held discussions with ShareChat, which counts microblogging platform Twitter as one of its investors. In an interview with ET last week, ShareChat chief executive Ankush Sachdeva said the company is seeing a lot of inbound interest and it is talking to everyone, including all the global players. “Given how things have changed, especially after the ban, ShareChat benefits a lot in terms of time spent, in terms of revenue, in terms of daily active users. We are suddenly a lot more valuable than our previously thought valuation. We have got a lot of inbound interest and we are talking to everyone, including all the global players,” Sachdeva told ET. In July, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a $10 billion India Digitisation Fund, most of which will be invested in Indian companies over the next five to seven years.

Sep 07
0

Reliance Industries may buy Urban Ladder, Milkbasket to boost e-tail

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Reliance Industries may buy Urban Ladder, Milkbasket to boost e-tail

Published on 17th August, 2020 | 1 min read

BENGALURU: Reliance Industries is in talks to acquire online furniture brand Urban Ladder and milk delivery platform Milkbasket as it looks to strengthen its e-commerce play, said multiple sources familiar with the matter. The discussions with Urban Ladder have been going on for the last few months and are now at an advanced stage, said four sources briefed on the matter. A deal with Urban Ladder could be pegged at around $30 million, including further infusion in the business and earn-out for the management team, said one of the sources. Milkbasket’s previous talks with firms like Bigbasket and Amazon India haven’t fructified due to valuation mismatch, according to one of the sources. The Bengaluru-based Bigbasket, at the same time, also acquired DailyNinja to boost its subscription-based morning delivery business BB Daily. “It would not be productive to comment on media speculations,” said Urban Ladder co-founder Ashish Goel when contacted by TOI, adding that the company is “Working round-the-clock to rejuvenate the business”. Milkbasket co-founder and CEO Anant Goel did not respond to TOI’s emailed query.

Sep 07
0

Samsung may move part of smartphone production to India, plans to make devices worth $40 billion

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Samsung may move part of smartphone production to India, plans to make devices worth $40 billion

Published on 17th August, 2020 | 1 min read

Electronics major Samsung might move part of its smartphone production to India from Vietnam and other countries. The South Korean company is planning to produce devices worth over $40 billion or Rs 3 lakh crore in the country. As per the daily, Samsung has submitted an estimate to the government to make smartphones worth $40 billion in the next five years under the PLI scheme. Samsung makes nearly 50 per cent of its phones in Vietnam. If Samsung’s plans follow through, it will join smartphone major Apple in moving a key part of its productions to India. “A total of 22 companies have filed their applications under the PLI Scheme. The benchmark for international mobile phone manufacturing companies was to manufacture mobile phones worth Rs 15,000 and above, whereas there wasn’t any such benchmark for the domestic companies. We welcome Apple and Samsung to India. Domestic companies – Lava, Micromax, Padget Electronics, Sojo – are welcome to go ahead,” said the minister. The global smartphone export market is estimated around $270 billion, out of which Apple has 38 per cent market share and Samsung 22 per cent by value.

Sep 07
0

Milagrow expects 15-20-fold growth in robot sales in FY21 due to Covid-19

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Milagrow expects 15-20-fold growth in robot sales in FY21 due to Covid-19

Published on 17th August, 2020 | 1 min read

Homegrown robot maker Milagrow expects a 15-20 fold jump in sales this fiscal with machines replacing humans in various processes due to the spread of Covid-19 pandemic. The demand for floor cleaning and other has picked up as people faced domestic help constraints amid concerns around the pandemic, Milagrow founder and chairman Rajeev Karwal told PTI. “We have seen the market exploding for In the first four months, we have achieved the entire turnover of what we did in last year. In early August we already sold 50 per cent of what we did in the last four months. We expect to sell 1 lakh units this fiscal with an average price of Rs 45-50 thousand,” Karwal said. “At 300,000 units, India market will be around 10 per cent of China market which 3 million units. India market mirrors China market with a lag of five years. I have seen the same for colour television segment, washing machine. This year also dishwashers, robotic vacuum cleaners have gone through the roof,” Karwal said. Karwal said that Milagrow market share may decline this year to about 35 per cent due to various brands coming in with a boom in the market but would again recover in the next financial year to 50 per cent.

Sep 07
0

Trell raises $11.4 million series A

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Trell raises $11.4 million series A

Published on 18th August, 2020 | 1 min read

Mumbai: Indian community-commerce platform Trell announced a $11.4 million Series A round led by KTB Network. After the Indian government banned many popular Chinese apps like TikTok in the country, a lot of Indian brands like Trell, Chingari and Roposo have tried to fill the void left behind these apps. Since the Chinese app ban, Trell claims it has witnessed 500% growth with a total of 15 million plus creators on its platform receiving more than 5 billion monthly views and has been rapidly growing since then. With over 75 million downloads and 25 million monthly active users on its app, Trell claims its has grown 27 times in the last 12 months and has emerged as one of the biggest lifestyle social platforms in India. In March, Trell had announced a $4 million pre-Series A funding round. Trell is a mobile application, where users come together to share 3-minute vertical videos in native languages. Trell monetises through social commerce where the passion-based community of content creators enable users to make well informed and suitable purchase decisions for better lifestyle choices.

Sep 07
0

Lightspeed India raises $275 mn

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Lightspeed India raises $275 mn

Published on 18th August, 2020 | 1 min read

BENGALURU : Venture capital firm Lightspeed India Partners Advisors LLP has raised a $275-million fund, its third, as it continues to focus on early- and growth-stage opportunities in startups across the consumer Internet and software space. Lightspeed India Partners III is considerably larger than the $175-million second fund which closed in December 2018. US-based Lightspeed, which is operating in India for 13 years, launched its first dedicated fund for India in 2015. With its new fund, Lightspeed will focus on emerging segments, such as health and wellness, direct-to-customer brands and fintech, besides other consumer internet segments, Harsha Kumar, partner, Lightspeed, said in an interview. Kumar said Lightspeed will continue to scout for new startups, even as valuations saw “Slight” corrections in certain segments that have been impacted by the pandemic. Lightspeed and its affiliates currently manage more than $10 billion across the global Lightspeed platform, with investment professionals and advisors spread across India, the Silicon Valley, Israel, China, Southeast Asia and Europe.

Sep 07
0

Mitron raises $5 million in funding led by Nexus Venture Partners

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Mitron raises $5 million in funding led by Nexus Venture Partners

Published on 18th August, 2020 | 1 min read

BENGALURU: Homegrown short-form video app Mitron has announced that it has raised $5 million, led by Nexus Venture Partners. Launched in April 2020, Mitron is a short-form social video app that allows users to create, upload, view, and share entertaining short videos. According to the company, it has more than 33 million downloads on Play Store and 9 billion video views per month. The company will use the new infusion of capital to accelerate its product development to increase user engagement and hire high quality talent. The company also plans to onboard a wide network of Indian content creators on the app and invest in building Mitron brand. Khandelwal said in a statement, “We have been rapidly improving our product experience and with this funding round, we plan to invest further in hiring top notch product & engineering talent that will help us build a world-class platform that can scale seamlessly.” Pratik Poddar, Principal at Nexus Venture Partners, said in a statement, “We love backing ‘product and tech-first’ entrepreneurs. We believe eventually the best product with long term thinking will win. Focus is to create a high engagement and high retention community. Then only you can be long term partners for creators.”

Sep 07
0

Online trading company Robinhood now valued at $11.2 bn with new fund backing

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Online trading company Robinhood now valued at $11.2 bn with new fund backing

Published on 18th August, 2020 | 1 min read

Robinhood Financial raised new funding at a valuation of about $11.2 billion, as Dan Sundheim’s D1 Capital Partners poured $200 million into the online trading company. The seven-year-old firm was most recently valued at $8.6 billion during its July funding round, before it posted record trading figures for June. The latest investment and valuation were announced by Robinhood in a blog post on its website. D1’s new investment marks a vote of confidence from a prominent hedge fund investor. It was one of the largest hedge fund launches of that year, and he was among an early crop of investors to invest in both publicly traded and privately held stocks. Robinhood recently blocked access to information about the individual stock trades that users were flocking to. The platform has been seeking to attract users to its other offerings, such as Robinhood Snacks, its newsletter and podcast – which now has over 2 million active monthly listeners, according to a blog post.

Sep 07
0

DrinkPrime raises Rs 21 crore led by Omidyar Network India

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DrinkPrime raises Rs 21 crore led by Omidyar Network India

Published on 19th August, 2020 | 1 min read

NEW DELHI: Subscription-based water purifier startup DrinkPrime on Tuesday raised Rs.21 crores in a Pre-Series A round from Omidyar Network India and Sequoia Surge. “We are currently operating in Bangalore and looking to expand to multiple geographies this year. Now with a much more robust product, our customers’ love for DrinkPrime is pushing us to grow rapidly. We aim to reach a million households in the next couple of years and be true to our vision,” said Vijender Reddy Muthyala, CEO and co-founder of DrinkPrime. Founded by Muthyala and Manas Ranjan Hota in 2015 with a vision to provide safe drinking water to all, DrinkPrime uses technology to make drinking water affordable without the hassle of installation or periodic maintenance. It does this by leveraging Internet of Things technology and a seven-stage filtration process that gives its customers access to clean drinking water on tap while being charged on a ‘pay-as-you-use’ model. “We believe that DrinkPrime’s innovative direct-to-consumer business model, which makes quality drinking water more affordable, will help improve the lives of India’s next half billion, i.e. those belonging to the lower 60 % of India’s economic distribution,” said Badri Pillapakkam, Investment Partner, Omidyar Network India.

Sep 07
0

FPL Technologies secures $10 mn in Series A funding from Sequoia India, others

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FPL Technologies secures $10 mn in Series A funding from Sequoia India, others

Published on 19th August, 2020 | 1 min read

Bengaluru: Pune-based fintech startup, FPL Technologies said that it has raised $10 million in Series A financing round from Sequoia India, Matrix Partners India, Hummingbird Ventures, along with angel investors. With this round, FPL Technologies’ has raised a total funding of $15 million, since launch. Further, the company said that it will be leveraging the funds to rapidly scale up its engineering and product teams, while growing the issuance of its card service, OneCard, to more customers. Founded in February, last year, FPL Technologies, currently helps users monitor their credit score and get a credit report on a monthly basis, through its app. Along with this, FPL also focuses on credit education via blogs, quizzes and in-app tips. “We are absolutely convinced about the potential of the Indian credit card market on the back of massive growth of card acceptance, consumer adoption towards digital payments and availability of a large base of risk-scored customers in bureaus,” said Anurag Sinha, co-founder & CEO, FPL Technologies. FPL Technologies isn’t the only physical card startup which has received funding in the recent weeks.