BigBasket In Talks For $400m Round
Finshorts | 29th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
MUMBAI| BENGALURU: Online grocery retailer BigBasket is in discussions to rope in a bunch of new investors like Singapore government’s Temasek, US-based Generation Partners, Fidelity and Tybourne Capital, for a $350-400 million financing round, two people in the know said. The ongoing talks also include at least $100-150 million in secondary sale of shares by early investors, said people close to the matter, who did not want to be identified as the talks are private. BigBasket, which has gained traction on the back of the pandemic as consumers purchase grocery and everyday essential online, is likely to see its valuation gain about 33% to around $2 billion, post the investment, another person privy to the details said. “The non-binding term sheets are in and the round is likely to close in a month’s time. Alibaba’s not participating, which means the company is looking to diversify its list of investors by getting new backers in,” said one of the people cited earlier. Alibaba, which is a significant investor in the Bengaluru-based company with an around 28% stake, is not pumping any new capital in the e-grocer amid a larger anti-China sentiment and FDI restrictions enforced by the Indian government, which have affected Chinese money coming into domestic firms. A source said Alibaba would be cutting its shareholding to 20% post this financing round.
Uber Weighs Purchase Of BMW-Daimler Ride-Hailing Venture
Finshorts | 29th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
Uber Technologies Inc. is considering a purchase of Daimler AG and BMW AG’s ride-hailing joint venture Free Now, a deal that could boost its market share in Europe and Latin America, people with knowledge of the matter said. Uber expressed interest in a potential acquisition of Free Now after the venture’s efforts to attract additional investors struggled to gain traction amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Representatives for Uber and BMW declined to comment, and a Daimler spokeswoman said the company doesn’t comment on speculation. Daimler and BMW merged their mobility operations last year and folded them into a joint venture called Your Now, which comprises five business including the Free Now ride-hailing service. Daimler valued the equity investment in its half of the Your Now venture at 618 million euros at the end of June. Uber has been looking to shed minority holdings in several ride-hailing operations recently, including portions of its stakes in China’s Didi Chuxing and the Southeast Asian ride-share company Grab. Daimler and BMW’s shopping of Free Now reflects their focus on generating cash and improving efficiency within their core automotive operations.
Sales Acceleration Startup SquadStack Raises $5 Million Led By Chiratae Ventures
Finshorts | 29th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
Bengaluru: San Francisco and New Delhi-based startup SquadStack has raised $5 million in a Series A funding round led by Chiratae Ventures. SquadStack helps consumer businesses that sell high-ticket products and services across sectors such as real estate, financial services, education, healthcare, and retail improve their sales conversions and funnel efficiency. “In today’s competitive business environment, organisations need a sales acceleration platform and analytics throughout the sales cycle. SquadStack is helping consumer companies across industries solve the principle challenge to turn prospects into customers faster and more profitably.” says Venkatesh Peddi, executive director at Chiratae Ventures. In 2018, SquadStack launched its sales acceleration platform, SquadVoice in the Indian market. This led to the creation of their offering ‘Auctm’, a business management platform that helps broker teams boost revenue, cut costs, and improve agent training and retention by applying its core principles of data-driven sales acceleration. “We’re grateful to everyone who believed in our mission to create the ultimate sales acceleration and funnel efficiency stack for consumer focused businesses around the world. To our customer partners, we promise that our vision to make your lives easier by providing the best quality products will never change.” Said Apurv Agrawal, CEO of SquadStack. The firm in 2017 had raised $2.1 million in pre-series A funding led by Blume Ventures.
Smallcase Raises $14 Million From DSP Group, Others
Finshorts | 29th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
Bengaluru: Capital markets infrastructure startup smallcase on Monday said it has raised $14 million as part of its Series B financing round led by DSP Group along with existing investors Sequoia Capital India, Blume Ventures, Beenext and WEH Ventures. At present, the smallcase platform is integrated with Zerodha, HDFC Securities, Kotak Securities, 5Paisa, and AxisDirect to help offer stock and ETF smallcases to their client base. “Smallcase is targeting 40 million direct equity investors in India with its innovative, easy to understand, transparent and digital first products. Their rapid growth, exceptional investor retention, unique marquee partnerships across the ecosystem have been key reasons why the Sequoia India team has doubled down on their partnership with the company”, said Harshjit Sethi, Principal, Sequoia Capital India LLP. smallcase also launched its ‘publisher platform’ last year, a business-in-a-box solution to democratise investment product manufacturing. Apart from brokerage integrations and its B2B offering, smallcase also directly engages with retail investors through the smallcase app that enables users to invest and track their investments across different brokerages.
Paytm Money Now Live With Stock Broking Services And MF Trades
Finshorts | 28th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
MUMBAI: Paytm’s wealth management subsidiary Paytm Money has gone live with its stockbroking service for all customers. The company aims to register 1 million new retail investors on the platform by close of the ongoing fiscal year in March 2021, according to Varun Sridhar, the newly appointed CEO of Paytm Money, leveraging on the demand for equity trading among first-time users. According to a statement shared by Paytm with ET, the platform’s early access version saw 220,000 users registering on Paytm Money for retail stockbroking. Paytm Money faces competition from Zerodha, Upstox and Groww, among startups, and traditional players such as ICICI Securities and Motilal Oswal. In an interview with ET last month, Sridhar had explained Paytm Money’s business model as a mix of commissions on intraday trades, interest income on loan against shares, and subscription income from select services that will be launched over the next few months in a 60%-20%-20% mix, respectively. “The platform witnessed higher adoption from tier 1 cities such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Ahmedabad. Smaller cities such as Thane, Guntur, Bardhaman, Krishna and Agra are also showing high traction,” Paytm said. The Bengaluru-based Paytm Money has also set plans to launch more complex features on the platform, including commodity and derivative trades by next year, Sridhar had told ET..
Vahdam Teas Partners With Byju's To Tutor Children Of Tea Estate Workers; Pilot Launched In Darjeeling
Finshorts | 28th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
BENGALURU: Global direct-to-consumer tea brand Vahdam Teas has partnered education technology startup Byju’s to digitally tutor less privileged children of tea estate workers from about ten tea estates in Darjeeling. By the end of the academic year, the partnership plans to expand to 20 tea estates and cover about 50,000 children across tea-growing regions in India. The five-year-old homegrown tea brand, popularised by international celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Mariah Carey, launched the social initiative in 2018, where it earmarked minimum 1% of its revenues for the education of tea-estate workers’ children. India is the largest consumer of tea, accounting for nearly 30% of global tea production. According to experts, the country consumes tea ten times more than coffee. The premium tea startup added that tea is the second largest employer of organised labour only after railways providing direct employment to approximately 1 million, of whom 51% are women. About 10 million people derive their livelihood from tea through forward and backward linkages.
How This ERP Solutions Provider Is Redefining The Online Education System
Finshorts | 28th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
It has wreaked havoc in the education system with the closure of academic institutions. With everything being virtual, the schools and colleges are leveraging new age technology solutions to empower remote learning for students of all age groups. MasterSoft, a ERP solutions provider in the country takes on streamlining the everyday work processes of schools, colleges, and universities through its integrated cloud-based solution. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the years old conventional system to virtual education models. To implement this seamless transition, MasterSoft features comprehensive ERP solutions that support digital transformation and motivate immersive learning experience. MasterSoft bets on versatile solutions that enable the students and teachers to adapt to the new normal. The secured solution enables the teachers to create competitive question banks, prevent malpractices during the online examination, and provide data-driven reports to identify the learning gaps of the students.
IISc Startup Equine Biotech Develops Affordable COVID-19 Diagnostic Kit, Gets ICMR Nod
Finshorts | 28th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
The GlobalTM diagnostic kit, developed by Bengaluru-based Equine Biotech, got approval from the Indian Council of Medical Research to join the list of made-in-India diagnostic test kits for Covid-19. The kit uses the Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction method of testing. “Our startup has been working on testing for coronavirus infections for many years, even before the COVID-19 pandemic started. This experience has helped us engineer the kit for COVID-19,” said Tatu. This “Sensitive, rapid, and affordable COVID-19 diagnostic kit” is easy to use with 100 percent specificity, meaning there are no false negatives, according to the start-up. The test kit shows results relatively faster than those available in the market, IISc said in a statement. “Equine Biotech is looking to licence the above kit for large scale manufacturing and sale,” the statement added. “The agreement would involve tech transfer and support in manufacturing of kits. We are looking at med-tech companies with experience in distribution and marketing of diagnostic kits,” it further added.
Marque Angel Investors Pick Up Stake In Wellbeing Nutrition
Published on 26th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
MUMBAI: Wellbeing Nutrition, a startup founded by Mumbai based Avnish Chhabria, has raised angel funding from marquee investors to scale up operations in the fast growing startup. The investors include Ashutosh Valani and Priyank Shah, the co-founders of Beardo, who had recently sold their company to Marico, family office of Nikhil Gandhi, TikTok India CEO, and well known angel investors Harsh Vardhan Bhandari and Jeenendra Bhandari. “The investors have bought a minority stake in the startup. The funds would be utilised to launch new products, scale up its existing product volumes and to acquire talent,” said a person aware of the development. A spokesperson for Gandhi Investments Pvt. Ltd, the family office of the TikTok India head, responding to an ET query said, “We refrain from divulging any details on our family investments. You may connect with Wellbeing Nutrition for more details. But we can confirm we have made the investment.” The investment comes at a time when many well known angel investors are looking at trends amidst Covid pandemic.
Chqbook Launches Digital Ledger, Lending, Insurance Services For Small Merchants
Published on 26th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
BENGALURU: Chqbook, a fintech startup focused on small business owners such as kiranas, merchants and chemists, has launched a suite of services, including current account for daily transactions, short to long-term business loans and insurance products on its platform. Many of these small mom-and-pop business owners currently depend on manual ledgers to record daily transactions, and some do not even own a bank account, without a which access to credit is almost impossible. Chqbook said it plans to address this gap by opening current accounts and providing financial products such as insurance and credit access to help bring small business owners to the formal economy. The three-year-old start-up already has over 300,000 customers across the top 25 cities and on-boards over 25,000 customers on its platform every month for various products and services catering to small business owners. “Chqbook’s mobile app brings together all the financial transactions a small business owner must handle, now available on demand and at their fingertips. Our ‘financial control center’ aggregates a simple to use current account, traditional khata transactions, lending, and insurance. It brings all daily transactions in one place making them easy to access, so that small business owners can focus on what they do best – running and growing their businesses,” Vipul Sharma, founder, and chief executive, Chqbook said in a statement.
MonotaRO Enters Into JV With Industrybuying, Invests $15 Million
Published on 26th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
Japanese business-to-business ecommerce company MonotaRO is set to invest $15 million in a joint venture with Emtex Engineering, the holding company for Industrybuying. The joint venture will only include Indusybuying’s small and medium enterprise business and the company’s large enterprise supply business will continue to function independently, the company said in a press note on September 25. MonotaRO had first announced the deal in the Tokyo Stock Exchange on September 23. TechCircle in a report said through the deal, MonotaRO will pick up 51.6 per cent stake in the joint venture with Industrybuying. In the press note, the Gurugram-based startup said this deal will help Industrybuying access global expertise and infrastructure in this business. Industrybuying is backed by large VCs like Beenext, Saif Partners, Kalaari Capital and others. Founded in 2013 by Swati Gupta and Rahul Gupta, the platform sells industrial products online for large businesses operating across 40 categories of products.
End Of Loan Holiday Threatens Pain, Defaults For Indian Business
Published on 26th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
Small businesses in India, already struggling amid the pandemic, are now having to repay mounting debt after a loan holiday ended last month. The Reserve Bank of India gave borrowers a six-month freeze on their loan repayments, which ended on Aug. 31, with about a third of India’s $1.8 trillion outstanding loans being deferred under the program. Businesses still trying to cope with a collapse in demand must now figure out how to pay back their loans or face closure. “The Reserve Bank should ask banks to extend the moratorium,” said Philip, managing director of Cosmos Agencies LLP. “Else, I may have to resort to cut capital expenditure and staff retrenchment.” The central bank has provided some relief to borrowers by allowing banks to extend the moratorium and restructure loans, but the process isn’t automatic. Lenders can grant extensions of as long as two years, and have until the end of the year to pick which loans to recast and until June 2021 to get it done. Withhold Payments Banks are against extending the loan payment freeze as they see it as a strain on their finances and an opportunity for borrowers – who have the capacity to repay – to withhold payments.
Heydays Ahead For Online Grocery, Market Size To Zoom To $18 Billion By 2024
Published on 25th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
The online grocery delivery market is set to become $18.2 billion in size by 2024, from around $1.9billion in 2019, found a report by Redseer and BigBasket released today. The share of online out of the total food and beverages industry is set to grow to 2.3 percent from 0.3 percent in the next four years, the report titled ‘Online Grocery: What Brands Need to Know’ has predicted. This report highlights that growth will be slow for traditional retailers and aided by Covid and its effects on digitisation online grocery will grow rapidly and eat out a small chunk from the total retail business. While online will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 57 percent, the organised retail segment which includes the likes of Reliance Fresh, Spencer’s, DMart and More will grow at a CAGR of 16 percent. The online grocery space in India, saw heightened activity since 2011 with the first set of players BigBasket, Grofers, followed by new players like Milkbasket, Amazon, Flipkart in this sector and recently others like Zomato, Swiggy and Reliance Jio. Further working urban mothers prefer online shopping because of time constraints and tier two consumers who go online for the varied choices.
ShareChat Raises $40 Million In Pre-Series E Round From Pawan Munjal's Family Office, Twitter, Others
Published on 25th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
Homegrown content sharing platform ShareChat has announced a $40 million fund raise in a Pre-Series E round from Pawan Munjal, the Chief Executive and Chairman of Hero MotoCorp, and Ajay Shridhar Shriram, Chairman of DCM Shriram. The current round of funding will be utilised to drive growth for the company’s newly launched video platform Moj. ShareChat and Moj together claim to having over 240 million monthly active users currently. In April last year, Twitter led ShareChat’s Series D funding round along with SAIF Partners, Lightspeed Ventures and India Quotient. The trio have also been involved with ShareChat as investors since its early days. ShareChat recorded over 15 million downloads in just 36 hours of the app ban. With the new round, ShareChat’s total funding now stands at $264 million.
WeWork Sells Control Of China Unit, Says Unit Got $200 Million In Funding
Published on 25th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
BENGALURU/SHANGHAI : US office-sharing firm WeWork on Thursday said it will sell control of its China division to one of its investors – private equity firm Trustbridge Partners – as it steps back from a competitive market where it has suffered low-occupancy rates. The deal effectively offloads the China unit away from the parent, which has faced fundraising issues since a failed attempt to go public in 2019. WeWork said it will maintain a minority stake and “Participating interest” in WeWork China and that it will receive an annual fee from the unit for use of the WeWork brand. Concurrent with the deal, the division has received $200 million in funding from existing investors, WeWork said. Michael Jiang of Trustbridge Partners will serve as WeWork China’s acting chief executive officer. Trustbridge and Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings Ltd held talks with WeWork’s Chinese unit over increasing their stakes and taking majority ownership, Reuters reported in January. WeWork shelved its initial public offering in 2019 after investors grew wary of its losses, business model and corporate governance, leading to the resignation of co-founder and former chief executive officer Adam Neumann.
Unacademy Acquires UPSC Test Preparation Startup Coursavy
Published on 25th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
Online learning firm Unacademy on September 24 said that it has acquired Coursavy, a platform for UPSC test preparation for India’s civil services exams, for an undisclosed amount. In the last few months, it has also acquired smaller startups such as Mastree, an online tutoring firm in the K12 space, and PrepLadder, a learning platform for medical entrance exam. Solves the challenge of a lack of discipline in learning – the most cited roadblock to a learner’s success, and has replicated the personal guidance and engagement a student received in an offline setup, hence promoting a community learning environment. Through Coursavy, students who completed over 70 percent of their daily targets have witnessed improved learning efficiency and outcomes. Currently, Coursavy has various experts teaching over 70,000 learners through their YouTube channel and platform. The Union Public Service Commission exam preparation has been one of Unacademy’s earliest focus areas and its co-founder Roman Saini is an Indian Administrative Services officer himself. Unacademy was valued at $1.45 billion earlier this month when SoftBank invested, making it India’s second-biggest online learning startup by valuation.
Hopscotch Raises $25 Million From Eduardo Saverin's Investment Arm EE Capital, Others
Published on 24th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
Hopscotch, a quick-style children’ clothes model, has raised $25 million from Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin’s investment arm EE Capital, Lionrock Capital, Rise Capital, RPG Ventures and IIFL Seed Ventures Fund, at a time of rising investor in new-age client manufacturers. Angel traders together with Wei Yan, the cofounder of Diapers.com, and Techpro Ventures, the fund owned by Atul Nishar, the founding father of Aptech, additionally participated within the investment spherical. Hopscotch is a youngsters’s clothes model within the up-to-10 age group. “Eighty percent of our revenue comes from repeat moms, we launch 400 styles every day, while most brands launch 800 a year,” Anand, who can also be its CEO, stated. The platform has 3 million moms transacting since inception. Hopscotch plans to maneuver its model past its personal platform to different marketplaces. In 2011-2012, Hopscotch began as a vacation spot the place main manufacturers from all over the world listed merchandise and largely on pre-orders, serving to moms uncover the newest in children’ style from the consolation of their houses.
Bharti Airtel Picks Up 10% Stake In Kerala-Based Startup Waybeo Technology
Published on 24th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
The Waybeo Technology Solutions hit a milestone on September 23 when telecom giant Bharti Airtel announced picking up 10 percent stake in the company with focus on deep AI analytics for cloud telephony. The deal, which is a part of the Airtel Startup Accelerator Programme, would enable the 2011-founded Waybeo earn larger distribution reach, a press release said. The Thiruvananthapuram-based Waybeo is now located in the scale-up space of Kerala Startup Mission. Established to provide assistance to the creation of a startup ecosystem that contributes to Digital India, the Airtel endeavour aims to support growth of early-stage startups in the country. Waybeo CEO Krishnan R V said the tie-up with Airtel would help the telecom company use the startups telephone-based AI services. “We envisage a technology that analyses the feedback of Airtel customers, besides improve automation for the telecom company to perform better,” he said. KSUM is the nodal agency of the Kerala government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state.
ShareChat Adds $14 Million To ESOP Pool
Published on 24th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
Indian social media platform ShareChat on Wednesday said it has expanded ESOP pool by $14 million to $35 million to reward its employees. The company has also announced a 50 per cent bonus for the existing employees holding ESOPs in the company. “This ESOP scheme has also been extended to every employee on payroll, including administrative staff. The decision was taken to recognise their hard work behind the incredible growth achieved by both ShareChat and recently launched short video platform, Moj,” a statement said. More than 300 employees on the company’s payroll as of June 30, 2020, have been the beneficiary of the company’s ESOP grant scheme. The company said existing employees who already hold stock options have been given 50 per cent additional ESOPs as bonus. ShareChat offers ESOPs to its qualified employees, equally vested over four years. When an employee with ESOPs leaves the organisation, the person leaves with the vesting percentage and continues to enjoy the benefit of owning it as ESOPs without any defined timelines, the statement said.
Servify Raises $23 Million In Series C Round Of Funding
Published on 24th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
Mumbai-based Servify has raised $23 million in its series C round of funding led by existing investor Iron Pillar and a host of other investors. All the existing investors Blume, Beenext and Tetrao SPF participated in the round along with new investors who joined the cap table Global Alternatives Investor 57 Stars, strategic investors like Sparkle Fund, SF Roofdeck Capital LLC, Go Ventures and Madhu Kela Family Office. Servify’s existing Venture Debt provider Trifecta Capital also participated in the round. Founded in 2015 by Sreevathsa Prabhakar, Servify offers a digital platform to manage after-sales services for large white goods manufacturers. Currently, Servify counts brands like Bose, Godrej, Panasonic, Croma and most of the smartphone manufacturers like Nokia, OnePlus, Samsung and others as its clients. The company has to date raised close to $46 million through three funding rounds. With most of these manufacturers being global brands, Servify has managed to expand its work outside India too.