The fact that India is the second-largest smartphone market in the world — and the fastest-growing one at that — has already brought on the giants of the mobile app ecosystem to the Indian shores. Besides the likes of TikTok, Spotify, Netflix and a host of other internet giants coming to tap the Indian market, global mobile gaming startups are also looking to cash in over the past couple of years. 

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT

How India’s Mobile Gaming Landscape Has Evolved

New-age mobile gaming companies in India are following in the footsteps of Miniclip, Gameloft, Zynga among others, that have always had massive user bases in India, but titles such as Free Fire, Call of Duty, PUBG Mobile, Fortnite, Knives Out, Arena Of Valor, Clash Of Clans and others have ruled the Indian mobile gaming landscape in the past few years. With the Covid-19 pandemic, mobile gaming found a captive audience and growth, but at the same time, some such as PUBG Mobile and other games of Chinese origin have had to deal with the policy challenges. 

Despite this minor bump in the road, mobile gaming in India is poised for a massive opportunity. The Indian mobile gaming market is pegged to be a $1.2 Bn market opportunity by the end of 2020. With this market size, India will finish 2020 in sixth position globally and among the top five markets for mobile gaming in terms of user base. 

Besides user growth, mobile gaming has also seen skyrocketing engagement — three out of four Indian players enjoying mobile games a minimum of twice a day. The latest report by Inc42 Plus — Mobile Gaming In India: Market Opportunity Report, 2020 — delves into this burgeoning space and identifies the brightest spots in the mobile gaming landscape.

Lockdown Lifts Mobile Gaming In India

With the lockdown across the globe, people not only had more time on hand for household chores, but also to delve into their hobbies and passions. Mobile gaming, like many other niche categories, benefitted from this higher engagement time and the demand for discovery of new avenues of entertainment. This is also driving the overall revenue in this sector, which is projected to grow by CAGR 6.1% in the next five years, as per our analysis.  

According to a report by BARC & Nielsen, the number of smartphone game users per week grew from 60% in pre-Covid times to 68% during the lockdown. Similarly, the time spent on mobile games per user per week went from 151 minutes before the lockdown to 218 minutes during the lockdown. 

Mobile game downloads have been steadily growing since April 2020, reaching a peak of 197 Mn in a single week in that month —  a 75% jump compared to the weekly average of the previous quarter. Casual gaming titles Carrom and Ludo King were among the most popular games and grew by 50-75%.

Off the top five apps most frequently downloaded, Ludo King stood in the 4th position with 9.5 Mn downloads between March 25 and April 10. The game’s active daily user base grew from 13-15 Mn prior to the lockdown to 50 Mn during the lockdown.

Further, Paytm’s gaming vertical Paytm First Games saw a threefold increase in its user base in March. The user base burgeoned by 200% and the platform observed 75,000 new users joining daily. The company also witnessed that lower tier cities and rural India also contributed more traffic during the lockdown than before. Paytm First Games’ platform includes casual games such as rummy, ludo, pool, and snake wars.

India Vs The World In Mobile Gaming Arena

India currently stands in the sixth position globally in the mobile gaming market in terms of market size, with China leading the way, followed by the US, Japan, South Korea and the UK.

Despite India being the second largest smartphone market, it had a miniscule smartphone penetration of 36.7% in 2019. This indicates massive room for growth, since the Indian market is way behind than other countries too in terms of user penetration, with a user penetration rate of 10.08% in the gaming segment, ranking 111th in the world.

According to a report by Limelight Networks, India has the highest mobile video game usage, scoring 2.63 on a scale of 0-4 (with 0 indicating the device was never used and 4 indicating the device is used most of the time). In the global scheme of things, India scores much higher than the global average of 2.27 for video game usage.

What’s Driving Mobile Gaming In India?

Along with overseas tech giants and large gaming corporations, India’s mobile gaming market is being driven by domestic innovation. 

Startups Explore New Models

While fantasy sports and games of skill genre have been the dominant segments in gaming in terms of new startup launches, Mumbai-based Gametion Technologies’ Ludo King has been the title with the most traction on Google Play Store. 

Besides Gametion, Nazara Technologies is another mobile gaming company that has seen the market go through various ups and downs and has preferred to go for an ecosystem approach with multiple acquisitions. Having launched in 2000, Nazara is preparing for an IPO and would become India’s first publicly-listed mobile gaming company.  

Among the new-age models are the likes of SuperCric, which is a cricket manager simulation tool, launched in September 2020 and backed by Malta-based company, Nordanvind Gaming. Said to be an AI-powered proprietary cricket simulator, SuperCric uses real historical data to enable better choice-making for fantasy gamers during live matches. It is said to have a 90% accuracy rate in predicting wins for fantasy gamers.

Even ecommerce giant Flipkart has stepped into the mobile gaming arena with the acquisition of Mech Mocha. Founded by Arpita Kapoor and Mohit Rangaraju in 2014, Mecha Mocha has been backed by investors including Accel Partners, Blume Ventures and Shunwei Capital.  The real-time multiplayer social gaming company is among a slew of startups such as WinZO, Mobile Premier League, SuperGaming, Juno, Zupee and others trying to carve out market share and create a wave of loyal users as the market evolves. 

Age Of AR/VR Tech

Besides casual games and fantasy sports, the next wave of mobile gaming in India will see a big role played by augmented reality and virtual reality-based titles. 

AR/VR mobile gaming is poised to receive a significant push with the evolution of existing headsets and smartphones. As mobile gaming devices become more performant and capable enough to support advanced AR/VR content. With greater adoption, AR/VR-capable mobile devices are also expected to become more affordable and attract a large audience.

Besides the likes of Facebook (Oculus) and other niche hardware companies trying to break through into the Indian market, Reliance Jio also forayed into VR and AR entertainment with its JioGlass mixed reality device, which would support up to 25 mixed reality applications on launch, including games. The company is expected to launch the device at an affordable price point for the Indian market. 

The Rise Of The Rural Gamer.

According to a report by the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), there has been a rise in internet users in rural areas surpassing those in urban areas for the first time. As of last November, there were 227 million active internet users in rural areas which is 10% more than around 205 million in urban areas.

The rise in internet penetration in rural areas paves way for mobile gaming in non-traditional demographics, which is seen in the massive adoption for games such as Dream11, Ludo King and other Indian offerings. According to a report by BCG, ambitious users ( comprises 8% of rural users and have an estimated internet penetration of 33%) and late adopters ( comprises 15% of rural users with 16% internet penetration) prefer playing games online.

The Way Forward For Mobile Gaming In India

According to Inc42 Plus analysis, the mobile gaming market in India is poised to take off and reach $1.6 Bn by 2025 owing to the growing smartphone penetration and rising interest in gaming-related spending and engagement. 

While over the past couple of years, the major growth in terms of spending and engagement time has been towards battle royale genre games such as PUBG Mobile — banned but likely to return in December with a new management structure and data localisation — and Free Fire, and is likely to be subdued

Other areas that are likely to see bigger engagement numbers in the future include real money games i.e fantasy sports and games of skill such as rummy and poker. These, however, face the threat of legal challenges and policies as many are alleged to be promoting gambling and profligate spending. 

Beyond this, social gaming is also on the rise with the likes of WinZO, Zupee, MPL and others likely to continue their rise in the Indian market. If Gametion Technologies’ Ludo King has shown anything, there’s still a huge appetite for casual games and non-money games given the right approach to social gaming. 

Know more about the huge potential of mobile gaming market in India in the latest release from Inc42 Plus —Mobile Gaming In India: Market Opportunity Report, 2020

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT

The post Unlocking Mobile Gaming: Behind The $1.2 Bn India Opportunity appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Green Revolution was a path-breaking initiative in Indian history — not only was it strongly linked to India’s storied agrarian tradition, but it also made agriculture a significant contributor to the Indian economy.

Apart from introducing high-yielding seed varieties, irrigation and water management solutions to reduce the dependence on monsoon, the Green Revolution of the 1960s revitalised industrial farming by introducing farm machinery and related technologies for the first time.

According to the data available with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Green Revolution resulted in a record grain output of 131 Mn tonnes in 1978-79. “This established India as one of the world’s biggest agricultural producers. Yield per unit of farmland improved by more than 30% between 1947 and 1979,” TERI says.

Understandably, the end goal was to make India self-sufficient and reverse bad farming practices introduced by the British such as the promotion of cash crops instead of food crops. While the agri economy flourished immediately after the policy change, a few years later, there was a flood of abuse, including overwatered fields and overuse of chemicals and pesticides, which defeated the core purpose of the Green Revolution.

The excessive use of pesticides and the mismanagement and absence of crop rotation not only led to health issues and environmental degradation but also ruined soil fertility in many states. From 1982-87, the water table in Central Punjab was falling at an average of 18 cm per year and the decline rate accelerated to a staggering 42 cm per year in 1997-2002, and 75 cm during 2002-06. It also led to an undesirable loss of crop genetic diversity. About 75% of the rice fields in India contain only 10 varieties of plants, a massive drop compared to the 30K rice varieties which were planted 50 years ago.

Fast forward to 2020, and it is now time for India’s Green Revolution 2.0. India’s agritech startups are looking to solve challenges across the value chain by ensuring strong marketing linkages and redesigning the farming ecosystem. Will technology, the rise of impactful models and exposure to modern tools change the game in India’s agriculture landscape?

In our 7th Playbook, Farming 3.0: India’s Agritech Moment, we will be diving deep into various segments and trends, including opportunities in urban farming, India’s market-linkage startups such as Ninjacart and WayCool reducing links in the supply chain to free farmers from the clutches of middlemen, the limitations within FaaS (farming-as-a-service), startups operating in the agri-fintech space, the effectiveness of precision farming and finally and more.

Explore This Playbook

VC Interest Adds To Agritech Momentum

From large to small and marginal farmers, the farming community today is more open to adopting new-age technologies, given that there is a lot at stake. With farm incomes depleted at the hands of several middlemen in the food supply chain, startups could be the last resort for farmers to keep their farm cycles running and their lands sustainable.

Given this state, investor sentiment radically improved in the past five-plus years after ‘Startup India’ was formalised.

“Agritech was generally a peripheral investment field for venture capitalists and impact investors. They entered the space when a lot of people started looking at it. But from 2016, investment is accelerating dramatically year on year,” say Mark Kahn, managing partner, Omnivore, which started investing in agritech in 2011 and has 25 agritech startups in its portfolio, including DeHaat, Bijak, Fasal, Arya, Ecozen Solutions, Clover and the likes.

Omnivore’s thesis bets that technology will be applied agriculture, which constitutes 50% of Indian’s economy and 40% of the workforce. “We believed that eventually, people would develop new technology to reform farming,” Kahn added.

According to Inc42 Plus’ upcoming report — India’s Agritech Market Landscape Report 2020 — India has over 1,000+ startups in the agritech domain with over 467 Mn+ being raised between 2014 and H1 2020.

Many other top investors such as Omidyar Network, Arkam Ventures, Ankur Capital and Accel Partners have also shown keen interest in agritech for the past six-seven years. Ankur Capital’s first fund (ACF I), launched in 2016, invested in 14 companies with the prime focus on agritech startups such as CropIn. Founded in 2014 by Ritu Verma and Rema Subramanian, the fund has seen several reforms in the past few years which have made agritech more viable for entrepreneurs.

“When we were launching ACF I, we were convinced that India’s agritech sector had a very large opportunity. Underlying changes happening on the ground, which seemed promising to invest in. Sub-sectors such as agri inputs and supply chains were ripe for technological innovations. Ankur had a focus to look at those markets and continues to evaluate companies in that space. In fact, agritech is a global play and Indian talent is capable of developing world-class tech solutions,” said Verma.

Although Omnivore and Ankur Capital were early entrants, most of the investments in the agritech sector happened in the past three years.

Not so long ago, the major impediment for entrepreneurs’ success was the notion that it would take around five to eight years to scale within agritech or reach a turnover of INR 100 Cr. Climate change and the policy risks involved also hurt investors’ confidence. Plus, there was no accurate farm-level data to rely on to make decisions based on numbers.

The easiest option was to solve the challenges which also affected other sectors such as logistics. Improvements in those segments will boost not only food supply but also ecommerce. Then the focus turned to buy directly from farmers, an area that has seen a lot of new investments.

“I would say the majority of investments happened in the past two to three years. There is a bit of inflexion today in the number of deals and the quantum of money coming into the sector,” said Hemendra Mathur, a venture partner at Bharat Innovation Fund.

The VC fund mostly makes deep-tech investments in emerging sectors, including agriculture, cleantech, healthcare and digital technology.

So, What Brought About This Inflexion Point?

While India ranks 103 among 119 countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2018, the country wastes 40% of all harvested agricultural produce due to inefficient cold chain transits. This has resulted in economic damage by incurring a loss of more than $14 Bn every year in lost crops alone, according to reports.

To resolve the same, many startups such as Aibono, CropIn, and AgroStar took the leap of faith early on, even though the sector was not considered profitable. And they proved that agritech could help solve crucial issues such as wastage, land utilisation, market linkage and credit availability while turning a profit. These startups, along with others, not only built economically viable models using tech and data but also scaled across geographies in a short period.

For instance, CropIn, a Bengaluru-based farm management solutions provider, founded in 2010, is now present in more than 60 countries with a 200-plus customer base. The pace of development may not be too evident, but there is a lot going on under the hood to encourage investors.

Agri startups in India have largely explored solutions around robotics, big data, smart equipment, sensors and farm management software, as well as new-age agricultural practices like indoor or controlled-environment farming. Technology adoption is not a far cry, either. With the Internet penetration growing at a fast clip, even poor farmers are more open to paying the right price for the right tech.

The likes of Ninjacart (it is a Bengaluru-based food supply chain platform) played a major role in this value chain. This group of startups have understood the highly complicated structure, especially that of the supply chain, and then got into it while tech has reduced climate risks and other barriers.

“We found a great business opportunity in leveraging technology to build a reliable and cost-effective supply chain from farm to store, on a daily basis. We wanted to add value to farmers, retailers and end consumers in one go,” Ninjacart cofounder and CEO Thirukumaran Nagarajan told us in an earlier interaction.

Encouraging developments, including increased openness from corporates to adopt supply chain tech, business models catering to farmer producer organisations (FPOs), lenders and insurance companies, and significant handholding by enablers such as incubators and accelerators have changed the agritech game in the past four years.

Explore This Playbook

Fence-sitters Join The Agritech Race Post Covid-19

Market factors were already in favour of an agritech boom when the pandemic hit and forced more momentum into the sector. By now, investors and entrepreneurs have realised that the sector has not been disrupted much and how essential it is to the economy as a whole.

Of late, several agritech startups have seen a 10x increase in revenue, consistent across various segments, while cross-vertical models are also coming through. So, those who were fence-sitting and idly watching the space for years have taken the plunge.

“Mainstream investors saw that agritech is resilient. More than half a dozen deals have been closed recently and I am party to some which will be closed soon. With government policy reforms adding value to it, the adoption of agritech will be accelerated. The sector will attract more investments, essentially more VC money and private equity. So, the sentiment has been positive here just like it has been for edtech,” said Bharat Innovation Fund’s Mathur.

Take, for instance, Kettleborough, a VC firm set up in July 2020 and focussed on investing in early-stage technology startups. “We were really keen on the sector even before launching. Earlier, I was working with Taufel, an early-stage investment firm that invested in Crofarm. Since then, I have been closely watching this space. With the pandemic triggering new developments, we are more confident of taking the plunge,” said Nisarg Shah, managing partner, Kettleborough VC.

There is also a realisation that most models are indigenous and not copied as seen in other sectors. Stakeholders have the confidence that Indian startups can not only build for India but also create models for global markets, especially South-east Asia and Africa.

“I think the pandemic has increased investors’ interest as it is one of the few sectors that is thriving despite challenges. There has been a misconception that investment is slow. But look at the exits. This sector had the maximum exits. We are building ecosystems from the ground up,” added Omnivore’s Kahn.

Businesses Opportunities And Segments Gaining Interest

Recently passed by the Parliament, the new farm regulations aim to bring in large-scale private sector investments to the agri space to help develop modern farming, a robust infrastructure and a national-and-global supply chain. A couple of these reforms allow farmers to sell their produce directly, away from the APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee) mandis and also sign contract farming agreements with agri-businesses or large retailers on pre-agreed pricing. In spite of widespread apprehensions that farmers may not get the minimum support price (MSP) for their produce if they adopt these models, most VCs think the new policy will open up the market and allow farmers to take charge of their operations with the help of startups.

Puneet Sethi, a cofounder of Farmpal Techlogi, which connects farmers to businesses, said the reforms are the need of the hour and probably the most significant step towards helping farmers increase their incomes. Like Sethi, many agritech founders believe that the reforms would especially benefit small and marginal farmers who own and/or cultivate up to five hectares of land) and constitute over 75% of India’s farmers.

The benefits will be many. When processors, retailers or corporates procure directly, it will ensure better prices for farmers, reduce transaction costs (hence, end consumers will have to pay less) and tackle quality issues. Besides, the new format of contract farming may also witness new business models. These may include open-source intermediation, public-private partnerships and bipartite or tripartite agreements where startups could play a valuable intermediary role.

Be it modern farming or building a seamless supply chain, the new models will be backed by cutting-edge technology such as drones, artificial intelligence (AI) and IoT (Internet of Things) devices which might have been unheard of in the agritech space until now. Understandably, technology will play a crucial role in reviving India’s agriculture. However, Ayush Nigam, the cofounder and CEO of Distinct Horizon, thinks direct linkage and supply aggregation still remain the primary focus areas for startups, given the state of the supply chain at the moment.

Nigam launched his startup in 2015 and built an agricultural machine called DH Vriddhi to introduce a scientific method of fertiliser application that would increase rice production by 25%, double the profits of rice farmers and reduce chances of crop failure. DH Vriddhi, the startup claims, uses up to 40% less fertiliser and offers significant environmental benefits.

With the supply chains in complete disarray in the aftermath of the pandemic, monitoring end-to-end operations has also become extremely critical.

“Smart farming technologies can monitor end-to-end supply chain operations and provide right solutions for many pain points of agricultural enterprises,” said Jitesh N. Shah, chief revenue officer of CropIn. The startup has been working in the farm management, monitoring and traceability space since 2010.

Mechanisation in the sector is also resolving the manpower shortage caused by the migration of labour to cities. Besides, there is an increased awareness today about how mechanisation can optimise cost and increase efficiency, thereby paving the way for farming as a service (FaaS).

Also, there is a rise in brands merging fintech and agritech functions to disrupt the traditional way of lending to farmers. These startups are pioneering a data-driven lending approach with the help of AI-led credit and the support of FPOs and governments in the rural sector.

The Changing Face Of Agritech Entrepreneurs

Driven by optimism and entrepreneurial energy, a host of cofounders took the initial plunge to bring about transformational changes in the agritech sector. Did they succeed? Omnivore’s Kahn explains how the profiles have changed in the past 10 years – the three waves, to be precise.

“In the first wave, we saw the idiosyncratic minds. Most entrepreneurs who got into it were considered crazy with no idea of what they were doing. So, they were unique and diverse. When the second wave started around 2016, people from strong corporate categories or serial entrepreneurs joined the bandwagon. Many of them had earlier worked with agritech startups. And the third wave is what we see today,” he explains.

People who grew up in villages or studied there or even trained engineers are now keen to launch agritech startups, creating jobs at the grassroots, says Kahn. There is also a growing understanding that it does not take too many years to become profitable, and hence, the entrepreneurial surge.

The latest trend is more heartening. Several corporate leaders have quit their cushy jobs and switched to agritech to give back to society. These entrepreneurs mostly focus on urban farming and new techniques like hydroponics. Their enterprises flourished even during the pandemic as they made good use of the reverse migration post lockdowns and ramped up their workforce.

“Agritech startups also promote rural entrepreneurship, which is key to tech adoption,” said Bharat Innovation Fund’s Mathur.

“We believe agritech entrepreneurs will drive the change and lead the transformation in Indian agriculture through profitability, resilience and sustainability. We know these brave founders and their teams will leverage innovation, technology and persistence to remake the world around us,” said Kahn.

How Agritech Will Evolve

According to Vision 2030, an agritech report recently released by Omnivore, the key trends which are expected to disrupt the status quo of the Indian agricultural system include precision agriculture, end-to-end automation (from sowing to harvesting), the use of advanced mechanisation for production, predictive analysis for production planning and the use of biotechnology to improve yield while reducing input usage.

Farmers will operate in a highly digitalised ecosystem, receive services and transact via smartphones, and engage more with consumers, thus ensuring product quality and retaining higher margins. Crop choices and production planning will be based on a tech-enabled, market-driven approach.

In brief, the future calls for smart farming – an automated and connected agricultural system that requires a fundamental shift. Consequently, the agritech sector will attract more investments and deliver more.

Success follows success and funding follows funding, says Kahn of Omnivore, explaining why more entrepreneurs and VCs are expected to enter the space. “Startups will also take up new challenges and innovate more. We are not in a bubble. We are in a period when generalist venture investors have realised that there are huge opportunities in rural India as the wave of digital technology can bring its benefits in rural areas.” Kahn believes it is still early days and there will be more activities in the Indian agritech space.

Verma of Ankur Capital concurs. “We have been investing in agritech since 2016 and will continue to do so. Our companies have been resilient during the pandemic, and we still see tailwinds. We will continue to invest in agritech and will not walk away from it.”

Explore This Playbook

The post Introducing The Latest Inc42 Plus Playbook – Farming 3.0: India’s Mission Agritech appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Republic of China has opposed Indian government’s decision to ban more Chinese mobile apps citing national security concerns. The Chinese embassy in India, on Wednesday (November 25), said that it “resolutely” opposes the ban and contended that the move violated the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The development comes a day after Indian government banned 43 apps, including AliExpress, Alibaba Workbench, Taobao Live and TikTok’s counterpart Snack Video. The action is taken based on inputs regarding these apps for engaging in activities prejudicial to India’s sovereignty, integrity, defence, security and public order.

Though Alibaba and its apps are not big players in India’s ecommerce domain, they are popular among motorcycle enthusiasts and small shopkeepers who use it to source cheaper goods. Besides this, Alibaba is also an investor in Indian companies like Paytm and BigBasket, which have a significant user base in India.

Overall, the Indian government has banned about 210 Chinese apps in three separate orders. The first order was issued on June 28, under which 59 Chinese mobile apps were banned including TikTok, Likee, UC Browser, CamScanner and more. Then on September 2, the government banned 118 more apps that were banned under section 69A of the Information Technology Act. Here, the government banned Baidu, Ride Out Heroes NetEase Games, Soul Hunters, and Rules of Survival, along with the popular South Korean game PUBG.

However, recently, online multiplayer battle royale game PUBG Mobile is hoping to make a comeback in India by December 2020. The company has withdrawn its association with Tencent Games, and has also registered an Indian entity under the name PUBG India Private Limited.

Earlier this month, PUBG announced that it will be launching PUBG Mobile India to cater specifically to the needs of Indian users with several localised elements in the game.

Besides PUBG, even TikTok is getting serious about coming back and has started looking for various alternatives. The China-based company is currently trying to loop in partner firms for legal, policy, advocacy and communication functions in India.

It is positive that the resolution with the US administration will come through the Walmart Oracle deal, under which these global tech giants will buy around 20% of TikTok Global’s businesses. But TikTok still hasn’t been able to crack its way into India.

The Indian government’s stern action against Chinese apps was an aftermath of the rising geopolitical tensions between the two countries.

The crisis had been escalated after the border clashes between the two armies in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley last June, which are now manifesting in trade and economic ties, with members of the Indian political brass calling for a boycott of Chinese products and services.

The post China Cries Foul After Indian Govt’s Fresh App Ban, Says Move Violates WTO Rules appeared first on Inc42 Media.

This week, a supposedly ‘Indian’ alternative to social networking and microblogging platform Twitter, called Tooter has come to the notice of many netizens, who’ve remarked about the very prominent “Swadeshi” pitch on Tooter’s website. 

The “About” page on Tooter’s website reads, “We believe that India should have a Swadeshi social network. Without one we are just a digital colony of the American Twitter India Company, no different than what we were under the British East India Company. Tooter is our Swadeshi Andolan 2.0. Join us in this Andolan. Join us!”

Interestingly, despite the very vociferous statement mentioned above, Tooter’s ‘Privacy Policy’ says that it won’t provide a user’s data to any person, “unless compelled by a court order issued by a US court, except in cases of a life-threatening emergency.”

Another passage in the Privacy Policy, under the header “Children Under the Age of 18”, while barring those under 18 years of age from use of the website, reads, “California residents under 16 years of age may have additional rights regarding the collection and sale of their personal information. Please see Your California Privacy Rights (below) for more information.”

A user on LinkedIn also mentioned that as of Tuesday (November 24), Tooter’s ‘Terms of Service’ read that in matters relating to the website, any disputes or claims shall be governed in accordance with the internal laws of the State of Pennsylvania, a state in the US. As of Wednesday, Tooter has updated the document, which has now replaced “State of Pennsylvania” with “State of Telangana”, where Tooter Pvt Ltd has its offices. 

It seems like the “Swadeshi” Tooter lifted its “Privacy Policy” and “Terms of Use” from elsewhere, which begs the question, where is the data of Tooter users going? Is the company compliant with existing regulations related to data security and privacy? 

Tooter’s website mentions that it was forked from the Mastodon project, an idealistic open-source movement which began in 2016 and is designed to let anybody run their own social media site. 

Users on Twitter have also been dumbstruck by the near-identical interfaces of Tooter and Twitter. 

As on Twitter, users on Tooter are required to sign up using an @username and their email addresses. Once logged in, the user can post his/her “toots”, follow others, find their friends, like and comment on others’ posts and scroll through their customised homepage feed. While Tooter already has the accounts of prominent Indians such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, some of his cabinet ministers, as well as Indian cricketer Virat Kohli, a look at the source code reveals that the website is scraping its content from Twitter.  

According to data on Zauba Corp, Tooter Private Limited was incorporated in August this year. The company has two directors, namely, Rameshwar Rao Vankayalapati and Naresh Vankayalapati. Tooter’s app on the Google Play Store was launched in September this year and has more than 1,000 downloads to date. 

Since June, when India first banned 59 Chinese apps including popular ones such as TikTok, Club Factory and UC Browser, homegrown apps have utilised the Indian government’s ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ or ‘Self-Reliant India’ pitch to gain significant traction on their platforms. This month, the government banned 43 more Chinese apps, which included several dating apps as well as another TikTok-like short video sharing app Snack Video. In all, the Indian government has banned more than 200 Chinese apps, giving a major facelift to the ambitions of Indian tech entrepreneurs who’ve launched mobile applications. 

Indian alternatives to ByteDance-owned short video sharing app TikTok, such as Mitron, Chingari MX TakaTak, Josh and Moj have capitalised on the ban on TikTok and other Chinese apps to gain users since June. 

Notably, while Tooter was launched in July, another Indian app called “Koo” was launched in March as an alternative to Twitter. Koo, which has more than 1 Mn downloads on the Google Play Store, offers users a Twitter-like interface but with the option of viewing the application and communicating in more than 10 Indian regional languages. Koo was one of the winners of the Indian government’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge launched in August. 

The post Tooter, India’s ‘Swadeshi’ Twitter Governed By State Of Pennsylvania? A Reality Check appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Cyber attacks in India besides becoming common are also getting deadlier. Each strike has taken proportions to drive home the fact that no one is safe.   

Hacker ‘John Wick’, hasn’t spared India’s PM or Paytm. Cyber intelligence firm Cyble which dredges the Dark Web has red-flagged hacking episodes at Truecaller, Dunzo, Unacademy, Naukri.com, Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML), LimeRoad and IndiaBulls.

Picture this, Mumbai-based cybersecurity firm Sequretek, says in Covid-hit 2020, India has seen a 4000% spike in phishing emails and a 400% uptake in the number of policy violations that have grown over 400% as per the latest statistics.

Besides the threat to crucial data, the cost suffered by companies is phenomenal. According to a report by IBM’s ‘Cost of a Data Breach Report 2020’ report, Indian companies witnessed an average $2 Mn total cost of data breach in 2020, this is an increase of 9.4% from 2019.

Another survey by Barracuda Networks revealed that 66% of Indian organisations have had at least one data breach or cybersecurity incident since shifting to a remote working model during the pandemic.

Indian Startups At Mercy Of Cyber Attacks

More recently personal data of 2.8 Lakh WhiteHat Jr students and teachers were exposed, where crucial details of minors have been made available on the dark web. Another major breach that took place this week and exclusively reported by Inc42 was when data of 1.4 Mn job seekers was leaked when jobs portal IIMjobs was hacked.  

Vineet Kumar, the founder of Cyber Peace Foundation (CPF), a think tank of cybersecurity and policy experts, said that with the increased digitisation of companies and their processes, data has become the new oil. 

“You get good money when you sell users data on the dark web. Hackers discovering vulnerabilities and using SQL injections to pull entire databases remains a common practice for hacking,” Kumar told Inc42.

The CyberPeace Foundation says from mid-April to the end of June it noticed 8,98,7841 attacks, July and August saw 64,52,898 attacks. Whereas September and October saw 1,37,37,516 attacks and 18,149,233 attacks respectively.

Speaking to Inc42, Pankit Desai, cofounder and CEO, Sequretek says, “Originally only a limited set of systems were being exposed, now with WFH all systems have to be exposed to the internet as all your processes are enabled remotely. WFH also creates an additional challenge where ‘personal assets are being used for professional purposes’ and ‘professional assets are being used for personal purposes.” 

Malwares like SpyMax, Blackwater are being used as a combination of phishing mails and poorly secured home computers to harvest credentials. These credentials are then used for carrying out attacks. The number of attacks with harvested credentials is already up 30%, the company revealed.

Government data shows that in 2019 alone, India witnessed 3.94 lakh instances of cybersecurity breaches. In terms of hacking of state and central government websites, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) data shows that a total of 336 websites belonging to central ministries, departments, and state governments were hacked between 2017 and 2019. 

According to Nasscom’s Data Security Council of India (DSCI) report 2019, India witnessed the second-highest number of cyber attacks in the world between 2016 and 2018. This comes at a time when digitisation of the Indian economy is predicted to result in a $435 Bn opportunity by 2025.

On September 22, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) told the Parliament that Indian citizens, commercial and legal entities faced almost 7 lakh cyberattacks till August this year.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has “reported 49,455, 50,362, 53,117, 208,456, 394,499 and 696,938 cybersecurity incidents during the year 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 (till August) respectively,” the MeITY said while responding to an unstarred question in the Lok Sabha regarding cyberattacks on Indian citizens and India-based commercial and legal entities.

“India also lacks a cohesive nation-wide cyber-strategy, policies, and procedures. Regulations around data privacy, protection, and penalty should be enacted and enforced as these measures will help businesses evaluate their cybersecurity posture and seek ways to improve. Currently, incident reporting is not mandatory. By making it compulsory, there will be a body of research data that can provide insights on threats to India and inform the government on strategies it can undertake to strengthen the nation’s cyber posture,” said Kumar Ritesh, founder and CEO, Cyfirma.

The Internet Crime Report for 2019, released by the USA’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), has revealed that India stands third in the world among top 20 countries that are victims of internet crimes. 

Kumar attributes these numbers to Indian’s lack of basic cyber awareness. However, a poignant point is also the lack of a robust cybersecurity policy in India.  Though the issue was touched upon by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Independence Day speech on Aug 15, 2020, not much movement has happened on that front.

“Cybersecurity is a very important aspect, which cannot be ignored. The government is alert on this and is working on a new, robust policy,” Modi said.

The PM’s announcement was made in the backdrop of the government’s initiative to connect 1.5 lakh gram panchayats through an optical fiber network, thereby increasing the country’s internet connectivity. 

With India pipped to take on the world with its IT prowess and increased digital integration the need for a robust policy is now more than ever. 

The post 3.94 Lakhs And Counting: How Cyberattacks Are A Worry For Digital India appeared first on Inc42 Media.

India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE) privately warned Future Retail it risked regulatory action for not making timely market disclosures about efforts by Amazon to block a disputed asset sale. 

This comes in the backdrop of Amazon writing to markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange (NSE), urging them to take into consideration the Singapore arbitrator’s interim judgment that has put on hold the INR 24,713 Cr deal between Future group and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd while reviewing the proposed transaction.

NSE had earlier asked the Kishore Biyani led group to submit more details of the arbitration order, so that it can understand the possible impact on financials, lenders and the Reliance deal.

Last month NSE questioned the company on why it had not disclosed the commencement of the arbitration proceedings. To which, Future group said that it believed a disclosure wasn’t required.

Future Retail’s Company Secretary, Virendra Samani, answered most of NSE’s queries in a late night e-mail on October 30, saying it was doing so “in the best interest of all stakeholders”, the communications showed, according to e-mails reviewed by Reuters.

The tussle between Amazon and Future Retail has reached the corridors of Delhi high court where former solicitor general and senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Future Group said Amazon wasn’t entitled to object to the deal because it didn’t have skin in the game.

India’s antitrust watchdog, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) is also reviewing the online and offline aspects of the Reliance and Future Group deal and their impact on competition in the sector.

The post NSE Warned Future Retail Of Action Over Disclosures On Amazon Dispute appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Last week’s “Blockchain This Week” had talked about how security risks can persist even with blockchain-based voting systems, as pointed out in a report prepared by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The report had specifically raised questions about blockchain-based voting systems like Voatz, which has been used in the US municipal elections, yet reportedly suffers from data security issues.

Nevertheless, some researchers persist with the claim that blockchain technology could be the answer to many of the concerns raised about prevalent methods of voting during elections. 

The debate about the efficacy of blockchain-based voting systems also picked up pace amid the 2020 United States presidential election, which saw a rise in the number of in-mail ballots due to Covid-19, thus delaying the counting process substantially. 

A blockchain-based voting system works with a distributed network of computers to verify transactions. Once verified, results are recorded in blocks and linked cryptographically to the preceding block. Blockchain-based systems can work well in ensuring against double votes, as also, creating a transparent and yet non-tamperable network for all stakeholders, which could be the election agency, the government and selected groups of people tasked with ensuring free and fair elections.

Maxim Rukinov, head of the Distributed Ledger Technologies Center of St. Petersburg State University, told Cointelegraph that blockchain allows for a system of fair elections to take place within a trusted environment between participants who generally do not trust each other: “With blockchain, you can make voting available and increase the transparency of any election. In a perfect scenario, the results of such a vote cannot be faked.”

According to Don Tapscott, cofounder of the Blockchain Research Institute, within a blockchain-based system, public trust in the voting process is achieved through cryptography, code, and collaboration among citizens, government agencies, and other stakeholders.

Other News 

China’s Xi Asks G20 Countries To Be Open To CBDCs

In a wide-ranging speech that addressed the future of the global economy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s President Xi Jinping said the G20 “needs to discuss developing standards and principles for central bank digital currencies with an open and accommodating attitude.” You can read the story here. 

Digital Yen Will Make The Crypto Market ‘More Lively,’ Says Monex CEO

According to a Reuters report, the CEO of the Japanese financial services giant Monex Inc. is welcoming the country’s central bank’s more proactive stance toward central bank digital currencies or CBDCs. Earlier this year, the Bank of Japan had announced its plans of testing a central bank digital currency proof-of-concept. Read the full story here. 

The post Blockchain This Week: Possibilities With Blockchain-Based Voting System & More appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Bengaluru-headquartered edtech startup Unacademy has raised an undisclosed amount in an investment round from Tiger Global Management and Dragoneer Investment Group.

With its latest round of funding, the company’s valuation stands at $2 Bn, up from $1.45 Bn in September when it had last raised funds worth $150 Mn led by Japanese multinational conglomerate SoftBank and it also saw participation from existing investors Facebook Inc, Sequoia Capital, Blume Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners.

Founded in 2015 by Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh, Roman Saini and Sachin Gupta, Unacademy claims to have 40 Mn registered users and around 3,50,000 paying subscribers. The startup focuses on the K12 segment and also offers lessons for competitive exams preparation. In recent times, Unacademy has also begun offering lessons on skill development and chess.

In February it had last raised funds worth $110 Mn in a Series E round. 

“Our mission from Day One has been to democratise education and make it more affordable and accessible. We have consistently built the most iconic products that deliver high quality education to everyone. Today, I’m delighted to welcome Tiger Global and Dragoneer as our partners in the journey. They are both marquee global investors with a history of partnering with innovative companies that are making an impact on people’s lives,” said Gaurav Munjal, cofounder and CEO, Unacademy.

The edtech startup claims to have more than 47K educators who are teaching in over 14 Indian languages across 5K cities. Over 150,000 live classes are conducted on the platform each month and the collective watch time across platforms is over 2 Bn minutes per month.

“The opportunity to improve lives through online education is enormous because of its sheer accessibility. The Unacademy team has innovated rapidly to build a leading platform that is taking education to the farthest corners of India. We are very excited to partner with Unacademy and look forward to seeing it scale further,” said Scott Shleifer, Partner at Tiger Global.

According to the ‘Future Of India’s $2 Bn Edtech Opportunity Report 2020’, K-12 and test preparation combined will make 66% ($1.3 Bn) of the total online education market size in 2021. Skill development and online certification are expected to account for $463 Mn of the Indian edtech segment, growing at a CAGR of 38% from 2016-21.

The post Edtech Unicorn Unacademy Valued At $2 Bn With Fresh Funds From Tiger Global appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In a typical law firm, there’s usually a whole lot of activity and perhaps twice as much paperwork. Traditionally, when an attorney prepares a document, it takes about 16 to 20 hours in gathering the data and looking into historical cases that are available on the internet and external data repositories. Once collected, preparing the document takes about one hour. After this, it is then vetted by subject matter experts or chartered accountants or lawyers etc, where the first pass-review accuracy is somewhere around 60-65%. 

Further, due to supply-side inefficiencies, 80% of the tax and legal function’s time is spent gathering data and 20% analysing it, which directly impacts the bottom line of the business. 

Indian lawyers and chartered accountants are still reluctant to adopt AI and automation due to ethical concerns, the fear of losing jobs to machines and past experience of technology that overpromised but underdelivered.  While tech solutions have focussed on data discovery, search and analysis level, and very little has been done in successfully automating the documentation process. Besides Precily, some of the AI-focussed legal-tech startups in the country also include Volody, One Delta, SpotDraft, CaseMine, CaseIQ, Pensieve, and Practice League among others. 

Legal tech startup Precily’s Bharath Rao recalls that five years ago there was this huge fear around automation tools reducing the billable hours for legal firms, which had a direct impact on their revenue. 

At present, Precily claims to help its clients achieve more than 305% in revenue. Rao said that tax and legal firms are facing both supply and demand level pressures on productivity. Precily claims a first pass-review accuracy level of 92%. Pass-review or pass-in-review is a process of inspecting a document multiple times by various authorities or senior lawyers, before the draft or submission is finalised. 

Now with Covid-19 in the picture, Rao, founder of Precily, a legal and compliance automation platform, believes that customers are becoming more responsive to technology that has immediate measurable financial benefits in terms of both cost-savings and opening up new revenue streams.

Rao said that the legal professional services industry alone is a $1 Tn opportunity and with average tech spend of 5% and one-third of tech spend expected on AI/ML platforms. “We see AI-led legal-tech opportunities between $15 to $20 Bn,” he added. 

Tax and auditing firms across the globe are waking up to a new reality where artificial intelligence (AI) is taking over. Nearly 45% of companies in the US and UK are thinking of delegating audit/tax work to technology firms instead of traditional audit and legal firms. At the same time, the Big 4 (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers) have also committed $9 Bn to AI spending in 2019. However, in India, only 4% of Indian lawyers are said to use AI capabilities in their operations.

While there are multiple legal-tech startups mushrooming in the space claiming to automate the redundant process for businesses, legal and auditing firms in India, they still lack the widespread impact or do not effectively address the issues that come up in terms of business outcomes, Rao added.

The Journey Of Automating Tax & Legal Workflow

In simple terms, Precily AI is a text analysis tool powered by AI, NLP and deep learning modules, where its engine is capable of analysing business documents, legal documents, research papers and others. 

Founded in 2018 by Rao, Precily began its journey by summarising tax and legal documents in the initial years. With time, the company started spreading its roots in assessing tax and legal data to assist subject matter experts for faster and more accurate analysis.

Recalling the early days, Rao told Inc42 that three years ago, without any prior tax and legal experience, he faced several challenges in terms of acquiring customers, validating the product and convincing large firms and the Big 4 consulting firms. 

The focus was on strong product offering targeting a core workflow and bringing fundamental transformation or automation in the process. While it could not reveal the names of its clients due to confidentiality reasons, Rao said the company plans to add over 50 more customers by 2021. 

Based in New Delhi and Palo Alto, California, Precily is currently focussed on the US and India market, but in the coming months, it is looking to expand its presence in Australia. Currently, it has a team of about 30 members, consisting of data scientists, engineers and subject matter experts (CA/CPAs and lawyers), and has also partnered with IIIT, Delhi to extend its research capabilities.  

Backed by legal-tech focussed investors including Pune-based VC firm Windrose Capital and Palo Alto-based law firm Inventus Law, the company revealed that in 2020 it has reached $1.8 Mn in ARR, and is heavily investing in ramping up its team, product development and business expansion. 

Impacting The Bottom Line

So how is the company able to achieve this level of accuracy? Explaining in simple terms, the founder of Precily citing the example of tax notice document preparation said that irrespective of the types, be it royalty, depreciation, capital gains etc. 

At the paragraph level, based on the context the user is looking/searching for, its platform leverages natural language programming (NLP) where it is able to retrace information and find relevant data from the internal and the external data repositories within seconds and create a summary document, added Rao. 

It was easier said than done, Precily’s Rao stated:

“As we wanted to give our customers a near do-it-yourself (DIY) AI platform that can be ubiquitous to multiple practice areas of law and tax advisory firms, quickly training data and expanding to adjacent use-cases within tax and legal was an initial challenge.”

However, the company said that it was able to achieve this through automated learning platforms and data training models which are built grounds up for law firms and legal workflows, thus ensuring the platform’s learning and deployment cycle is far shorter for other adjacent use-cases in any legal domains. 

Being a vertical SaaS platform that is targeting legal firms, Precily follows a guaranteed commitment or retainer model ranging from $500K to $1 Mn per customer, besides a subscription model at $50 per user per month, limited to 50 users per company. 

The platform has the capabilities of doing entity extraction, sentiment analysis, text clustering, concept extraction, custom tag summarisation, comparing multiple documents and extracting relevant information and eliminating repeated content, thereby creating a summary of the major points of the original document. Also, its AI platform has the capabilities to make a coherent summary taking into account variables such as length, writing style and syntax etc. 

“The learning platform (Precily Aura) that we have developed actually helps our customers target each and every practice area within the tax and legal firms, keeping research and analysis at its core. Most importantly, help them focus on higher cognitive tasks,” added Rao. 

The post This Legaltech Startup Is Looking To Bring AI-Powered Workflows To India’s Tech-Shy Law Firms appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Ecommerce major Amazon has been fined INR 25K for not displaying mandatory information, including the country of origin, of products sold on its platform. 

Last month, the consumer affairs ministry had issued notices to ecommerce majors Flipkart and Amazon for not displaying such information.

The ministry had also asked states to ensure that all ecommerce firms comply with the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules.

The penalty has been imposed on Amazon as its reply to the notice was not found satisfactory, as per the order issued by the ministry dated November 19.

As per law, Amazon has been fined INR 25K per director for the first offence, a senior official of the ministry said. Flipkart has not been fined, the official added.

An email sent to Amazon on the matter did not elicit any immediate response, reported PTI.

In the notice issued last month, the consumer affairs ministry had said, “It has been brought into notice that some of the ecommerce entities are not displaying the mandatory declaration on digital platforms required under the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011.”

In similarly worded notices, the ministry had said Flipkart India Pvt Ltd and Amazon Development Centre India Pvt Ltd have to ensure that all mandatory declarations are displayed on the digital and electronic network used for e-commerce transactions.

In October 2020 the Ministry of Corporate Affairs had asked why Flipkart and Amazon haven’t followed rules under Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011. 

The letter addressed to Flipkart India Pvt. Ltd. and Amazon Development Center India Pvt.Ltd. by MCA, had specific links to the inventory, which lacked the details, as required under the Legal Metrology.

Over the past months, ecommerce and food delivery firms have had several meetings with the consumer affairs department as well as officials from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), regarding the addition of ‘country of origin’ tag to online product listings.

The DPIIT had said that the government had directed ecommerce firms to comply with this requirement by September 30.

Initially, the government was keen on a 1 August deadline, but the move was opposed by retailers. Ecommerce firms such as Flipkart wrote to the government that they will need at least six months to finish the process.

In July, the Delhi high court had issued notices to Amazon and Flipkart on a plea seeking to display the names of the manufacturing countries for products on their websites. 

The post Amazon Fined INR 25K For Not Displaying Country Of Origin On Products appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Bollywood actor Sonu Sood’s job searching platform for migrant workers Pravasirojgar has raised INR 250 Cr funding from Temasek Holding-backed Goodworker.

With the fresh capital, Pravasirojgar.com aims to provide jobs and career progression to applicants through upskilling services, financial, healthcare and social security services.

Jobs portal GoodWorker will form a joint venture with Sood and Schoolnet to “reach 10 Cr Indians by providing access to good jobs and career progression through upskilling services, followed by financial, healthcare and social security services,” GoodWorker said in a statement.

Sood catapulted the limelight after he helped migrants in reaching their hometown during the Covid-induced lockdown.

Launched in a partnership with edtech startup Schoolnet India in July this year, Pravasirojgar helps migrants to find skill-based jobs across sectors and has 10 lakh job seekers and employers including Amazon, Max Healthcare, Portea, Sodexo, Urban Company, etc.

“I came in touch with a lot of migrant workers during the lockdown and they all had one concern, how to get a job after the lockdown and support their families. With the blessing of these workers and their families and other well-wishers, I tried to get the right-minded people and partner with Schoolnet for Pravasirojgar.com,” Sonu Sood told ET.

Goodworker provides blue-collar workers with a digital, verifiable profile to make their job search easier than before while making the credentials more authentic for employers to confidently hire them.

“The cutting-edge technology that GoodWorker brings will allow businesses in India to effectively expand their operations by finding the right talent and also allow workers to have control over their data while widening access to digital products and services. With digital transformation accelerating against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, this investment reflects our optimism towards trends in India that are underpinned by technology and digitalisation,” said Pradyumna Agrawal, founding team member and GM, GoodWorker and director at Temasek.

With the investments, Pravasirojgar.com’s scope will be expanded beyond job matching, by building on the combined strengths in migrant outreach, education, skilling and technology, said RCM Reddy, MD and CEO, Schoolnet India.

Mumbai-based investment firm Ekam Advisors is said to have played a key role in bringing all the partners together for the deal.

The post Actor Sonu Sood’s Startup Pravasirojgar Secures INR 250 Cr Funding To Help Migrant Workers Find Jobs appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) has reportedly turned down Future Retail’s plea that it be excluded from being a party to the Amazon-Future Coupons arbitration proceedings. SIAC has ordered that the arbitration process shall continue. 

In October, SIAC had ordered a stay on the sale of Kishore Biyani-owned Future Group’s retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing businesses to Reliance Retail, in a deal reported to be worth INR 24,713 Cr. 

SIAC’s decision had come in response to arbitration proceedings initiated by Amazon, which has a 49% stake in Future Coupons, the promoter-entity of Future Retail. 

Future Retail Limited (FRL) had approached SIAC with the plea that the arbitration proceedings were part of a contract between Amazon and Future Coupons, to which FRL is not a party. The company had pleaded that it be excluded from being a party on account of jurisdiction objection. 

However, according to TOI, which first reported the development, SIAC has decided that the arbitration proceedings will proceed and a tribunal will be constituted in the matter. 

Last week, Inc42 reported that the Delhi High Court had reserved its order on Future Retail’s suit related to its deal with Reliance Retail. 

During the court proceedings, senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Future Retail, had kept up the practice of comparing US-based retail giant Amazon to the East India Company. 

Salve’s arguments to the court seemed to be focused on the fact that Amazon has a 49% stake in Future Coupons, the promoter-entity of Future Retail. And while Amazon also has a 3.58% stake in Future Retail, it is not a controlling stake.

“Amazon has an agreement with FCPL (Future Coupons Private Limited). Then he says controllers are common. The obligation of the promoter to Amazon cannot be attributed to the company. I am not bound by the commitment made by the promoter to the third party,” Salve had said in court on Friday. 

“So Biyani must jump when we ask him to but we have no control.. that is what was argued. This native has to act as per the East India Company,” he quipped while referring to Future Group founder and CEO Kishore Biyani and equating Amazon to the East India Company.

What Happened Before The Case Came To Delhi HC? 

In October, Amazon had served a legal notice to Kishore Biyani-owned Future Group, over the latter’s alleged breach of a non-compete contract with the sale of its retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing businesses to Reliance Retail in August this year.

Amazon, which had last year bought a 49% stake in FCPL, the promoter-entity of Future Retail, has contended that according to its contract with Future, the sale of the business to certain companies, including Reliance is barred.

In August, Reliance Retail had entered into a deal to acquire the retail, wholesale, logistics, and warehousing businesses of the Future Group for around INR 24K Cr. According to the deal, Biyani’s Future Enterprises Ltd (FEL) would have retained the manufacturing and distribution of FMCG goods, integrated fashion sourcing and manufacturing businesses, its insurance joint venture with Generali, and a joint venture with NTC Mills.

The post Future Retail’s Plea To Be Excluded From Amazon-Future Arbitration Turned Down appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In a major setback for software-as-a-services (SaaS) unicorn Freshworks, Chennai and San Fransisco based Zoho Corp filed a fresh case against Freshworks in US court, accusing the rival software firm of intentionally accessing its database without authorisation and getting information through one of the employees.

Zoho has also asked for a discovery process into the “scope of Freshworks’ unauthorised access” to know if any other employees have committed a similar thing or not.

The SaaS startup has further asked for a minimum amount of $5,000 to be paid as damages through a jury trial.

Freshworks was founded by two former Zoho employees, Girish Mathrubootham, who was formerly a vice president of product management at Zoho and Shan Krishnasamy, who was formerly a Zoho technical architect working under Mathrubootham. Both of them had worked in Zoho from 2001 to 2010 before founding Freshworks.

The US Court had asked Freshworks to file its response by December 7 and had asked for further evidence to widen its claims of alleged trade theft against Freshworks.

On November 18, Zoho had filed a complaint against Freshworks’ regional head Mallikarjun Ravikumar which accused him of getting access to Zoho CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to view and obtain contact information for Zoho’s prospective customers.

According to an ET report, Ravikumar admitted that he had uploaded spreadsheets containing information from Zoho’s CRM into Freshworks’ CRM which included over 4,000 “leads” taken from Zoho’s CRM, the company said.  

Earlier in March, Zoho Corp had filed a lawsuit alleging that Freshworks stole confidential information and built a business out of it.

According to the lawsuit accessed by Inc42, Zoho has alleged that Freshworks, since its inception, built its business upon theft and misuse of Zoho’s confidential business information.

In response to Inc42’s email, Zoho had earlier responded, “Recently, compelling evidence has emerged that Freshworks has stolen customer data from Zoho and attempted to contact those customers. We are investigating the extent of the data theft. In order to protect customer data, we were compelled to immediately sue Freshworks to stop their illegal and immoral behaviour. We cannot discuss this further, as it is now a legal matter.”

In a court filing in October, Freshworks had said, “It does not dispute that Zoho likely could allege sufficient facts to support a claim for trade-secret misappropriation arising from Ravikumar’s conduct…However, Zoho plainly has not alleged facts supporting any other claim of misappropriation: by any other Freshworks employee, for any other information from Zoho’s CRM database, at any other time.”

In addition to taking Freshworks to the courts, Zoho is already involved in a similar tussle with US-based sales and marketing platform HubSpot. In this case, HubSpot had issued a ‘cease and desist’ order against Zoho for using the term ‘Marketing Hub’ for one of its suite tools last month.

The post Zoho Accuses Freshworks Of Intentionally Accessing Database appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Bengaluru-based bike-sharing platform Bounce has received all the required approvals for its self-made electric scooter, the company’s cofounder and CEO Vivekananda HR announced on Twitter today (November 26). The company has invited its users living in Bengaluru for test rides of the electric scooter. The interested customers can fill out a form to ride.

Inc42 has reached out to Bounce and Vivekananda to seek more details about the EV model

The latest announcement comes two months after Bounce received its homologation certification from International Centre for Automotive Technology (ICAT) for its self-assembled two-wheeler electric vehicles (EV).

The homologation certification process approves every part of the vehicles including components like lamps, mirrors, tires and more. The process is applicable on all types of vehicles including EV and fuel-run internal combustion engines (ICE) vehicles.  The certification process also has stringent checks for even the braking mechanism and other electronic fittings.

Even other startups like Ather Energy, Revolt, Okinawa, Tork Motors and others have received the certifications for their electric two-wheelers in the past. However, Bounce is the only consumer-focused bike-sharing platform to receive the crucial certification in India.

The EV in talks is entirely assembled by Bounce, and it designated a separate team of engineers to create this electric-scooter. The company will soon require a manufacturing unit or partners to help scale up the production processes and offer these EVs on a subscription pricing model as well as on a long-term rental basis. In parallel, it will also work with delivery and ecommerce companies to supply scooters for last-mile use.

The company was founded in 2014 by Vivekananda, Varun Agni, and Anil G. It has raised about $214.2 Mn from marquee investors like InnoVen Capital, Accel India, B Capital, Navi Technologies, Chiratae Ventures and more.

Before the lockdown, Bounce was catering to nearly 1.30 Lakh rides daily, but the number had dropped to 15K rides. This is when the company decided to lay more focus on branching out of its bike-sharing business to subscription-based model and logistics partners.

This story is developing and will be updated with more information in real-time. Do check back for an update soon.

The post Bounce Gets Approval For Its Electric Scooter, Test Ride Begins Saturday appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After investing in Nykaa and StyleCraker, Bollywood actor Alia Bhatt has launched a startup called Ed-a-mamma which caters to the kidswear category. It offers clothes for children in the age group of 2-14 years.

Currently, the brand is available on the online babycare store FirstCry with clothes ranging from INR 350. It is expected to be launched on Amazon and Flipkart early next year. Also, the company will launch a dedicated ecommerce website in April 2021.

The startup claims to have naturally sourced and sustainable apparel for children. Last month, Alia Bhatt had invested an undisclosed amount in Nykaa through a secondary transaction. Actor Katrina Kaif, who had launched her own beauty line ‘Kay Beauty’ on the platform last year, invested in the beauty and ecommerce brand. 

Presenting Ed-a-mamma pic.twitter.com/SwXzzQxldL

— Alia Bhatt (@aliaa08) November 26, 2020

Unlike other celebrity brands which are either co-created or have a revenue-sharing model, Ed-a-mamma is Bhatt’s own venture which is fully funded by her.

“Unlike the saturated fashion market for women, we have realised there’s a big gap when it comes to a world-class clothing brand for children which is made in India,” Bhatt told Mint.

She further said that the company has used organic cotton and non-plastic buttons for the clothes. “We strongly believe in the ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ proposition and use the leftover fabrics to make hair ties and potlis. Most of our tees come with environment centric messages printed on it. Every order placed comes with a ‘Seed Ball’ which contains seeds of live plants which motivates young children and their parents to plant trees.”

The company claims to have sold 70% of the range since the launch six weeks ago. “It’s reassuring that the product can sell on its own and as the demand increases we will look into other verticals such as accessories, footwear and toys,” Bhatt added.

The post Actor Alia Bhatt Launches Kidswear Startup With Focus On Sustainable Fashion appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After bringing OTT platforms under the ambit of the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) ministry, the government is planning to file a plea that seeks to bring all the court cases in India against OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hotstar to the Supreme Court.

The government had already informed the Punjab and Haryana high court about its move. 

The government had announced that all digital media platforms, including news media and online curated content providers (OCCPs), would fall under the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry, many fear that this could spell doom for India’s high-flying video OTT space.

Around 23 cases related to OTT content are being heard in different courts of the country, and it will be better if the SC hears them all, ministry officials told ET.

“Our position remains the same in all cases… And if the Supreme Court gives its verdict, the other courts will have to comply,” the official said adding that the decision to file a petition for the transfer of cases to the apex court was taken before the OTTs were brought under the MIB’s purview earlier this month.

The Supreme Court had last month sought the Centre’s response on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) for regulating OTT platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video by an autonomous body. 

The PIL stated that digital content on these platforms is made available to the public at large without any filter or screening.

A bench comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian had issued notices to the central government, I&B Ministry and Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

None of the OTT/streaming platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Zee5, and Hotstar have signed the self-regulation provided by the I&B ministry since February 2020, the plea had alleged.

The post I&B Ministry Seeks Transfer Of All OTT Cases To Supreme Court appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Unhappy with the paltry amount of penalty levied by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs (MCA) on Amazon India, for not providing the details of ‘country of origin’ of products displayed on its platform, pro-kirana stores and small traders’ lobby groups have demanded a 7-day ban on the Jeff Bezos-owned company. 

Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which supports the cause of lakhs of kirana shops and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliate Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) have said that they were not happy with the amount of INR 25K penalty that Amazon has been asked to pay by the ministry.

While CAIT’s secretary-general Praveen Khandelwal has demanded a week-long ban on Amazon, SJM’s national co-convenor Ashwini Mahajan has demanded that the fine collected should be proportional to the loss incurred by the economy due to purchase of foreign goods.  

Amazon was on Wednesday fined INR 25K for violating government’s norms on displaying the country’s origin on products sold on the platform. 

The fine follows a notice issued by the government against Amazon for not displaying such information and a Delhi HC notice to the ecommerce player. 

The notice was issued by the bench comprising Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan to the ecommerce company in response to a petition filed by advocate Amit Shukla, seeking Amazon to comply with the Legal Metrology Act 2009, which mandated the display of ‘country of origin’ on products retailed online. 

Speaking to Inc42, Praveen Khandelwal, CAIT’s secretary-general of CAIT said, “We believe that fine should be exemplary so that mistakes like this don’t  get repeated. But imposing a fine of just INR 25K for not obeying the law is more like compromising with the law. Amazon can go on disobeying the law as for them the amount is very small.”

He demanded the government to impose a week’s ban on Amazon. Khandelwal said, “There has to be an example set. If they are willfully breaking the law, then there is some vested interest.”

Meanwhile, Ashwini Mahajan, national co-convenor of Swadeshi Jagran Manch told Inc42, “The fine should be in proportion to the losses incurred by the Indian economy due to purchase of foreign goods at their platform. The fine imposed needs to be steep.”  

Taking a stern view against ecommerce players, Khandelwal said, “Law should be equal for everybody and other ecommerce players (Flipkart, Myntra) should also face the heat for flouting rules. I am unable to understand why they were not fined.”

The consumer affairs ministry had issued a notice last month which read, “It has been brought into notice that some of the ecommerce entities are not displaying the mandatory declaration on digital platforms required under the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011.”

The ministry had added that Flipkart India Pvt Ltd and Amazon Development Centre India Pvt Ltd had to ensure that all mandatory declarations were displayed on the digital and electronic network used for ecommerce transactions.

Meanwhile, ecommerce companies claim that they have started showing the country of origin tag in the newer listings, while the older listings would take time. Also, there are millions of listings available which eventually will take a reasonable amount of time as a lot of scanning was required. Also, only sellers will be able to update the listings and not the marketplace. 

A senior executive from an ecommerce company had told Moneycontrol, “This happens because of multiple sourcing of a product. So, the product is sourced from a foreign country but is assembled in India. Or also when there is a reseller involved who has bought the product in India but it was originally sourced from a foreign country.”

The post Swadeshi Lobby Demands 7-Day Ban On Amazon, Flipkart For Flouting Country Of Origin Rule appeared first on Inc42 Media.