Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and Invest India, the government-backed investment facilitator, have launched a programme to support top Indian startups that have built products using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, facial recognition and cyber security.

Called Tech4Future, the challenge will seek to identify the most promising startups working in these sectors. For the top solution, SoftBank Group will provide the cash prize of $50K and also invite them for an incubation opportunity in Japan for 2-3 months, depending on the quality of the solution.

The Tech4Future Grand Challenge

The challenge is open to startups across all stages i.e. ideation, validation, early traction, and scaling.

Invest India and SoftBank group have narrowed down the problem statement for the startups to find a solution to across the four fields:

• Machine Learning: Crowdsourced platforms/Data processing units leveraging technology to detect and block fake news
• Artificial Intelligence: Leverage technology to solve global mobility problems with a focus on road traffic safety
• Face Recognition: Leverage technology to usher face recognition feature to the next level
• Cyber Security: Leverage technology to secure digital vehicle components and systems to avoid tampering

These solutions can be applied across sectors including marketing, aeronautics, aerospace and defence, AR VR (Augmented + Virtual Reality), architecture, telecommunications and networking, non- renewable energy, renewable energy, green technology and more.

The applications are open till December 31, 2018 and the result will be announced on January 31, 2019. To join the Tech4Future challenge or get more details you can go to the Startup India site.

Invest India And SoftBank: Working At The Grassroots Level

Invest India, which was founded in 2009, is a non-profit venture under the guidance of the government, Department Of Industrial Policy And Promotion and the Ministry of Commerce And Industry. As the first point of reference for potential foreign investors, Invest India aims to facilitate investments in the country.

The agency, which has been trying to foster Indian startups and make them globally competitive, organised the first  Startup India Hub in June 2017. Since then it has partnered with different state governments such as Jammu and Kashmir and Goa, and also established international tie-ups with countries such as Japan and Netherlands.

After partnering with WhatsApp for the WhatsApp Startup Challenge, Invest India’s Tech4Future Grand Challenge with SoftBank will provide another opportunity for Indian startups to access funding and world-class technology and fully develop their product.

Softbank which has invested almost $8 Bn in India’s startup ecosystem, has been exploring more avenues for investments in ecommerce, logistics, and food technology.

In November, the company appointed Sumer Juneja as head of investments for India with plans to open an office in Mumbai.

With India turning into one of its most attractive investments, SoftBank is aggressively looking to find the next generation of disruptors.

The post Invest India Ties Up With SoftBank For Tech4Future Grand Challenge appeared first on Inc42 Media.

India has been aggressively implementing its startup-oriented policies, extending tax exemption, patent grants, and self-certification facilities to startups. These concentrated efforts have enabled the government to recognise 14K startups from across 484 districts of India.

“Out of the $309 Mn (INR 2200 Cr) authorised under the Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS), $226 Mn (INR 1,611 Cr) has been committed to the SIDBI, and, so far, 170 startups have raised catalysed funding of $127.6 Mn (INR 879 Cr) from 32 AIFs under the FFS scheme,” said Ramesh Abhishek, the secretary of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).

Speaking at the Inc42 The Ecosystem Summit held on November 16 in New Delhi, the DIPP secretary enumerated the benefits being extended to startups and shared how the government has been able to reform policies and infrastructure in favour of startups and entrepreneurs.

On January 16, 2016, the Centre launched Startup India, a flagship initiative aimed at building a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation and startups in the country. The programme has helped drive economic growth and generate large-scale employment opportunities in India.

Reiterating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement from the Startup India launch event — “We want entrepreneurs, we want job creators” — Abhishek gave an account of the success of Startup India. He said, “Forty-five per cent of the recognised startups have at least one women cofounder. Women-only led startups are 10%.”

The government had also launched the Startup India Hub (now merged with Startup India portal) — a virtual networking platform that brings all startup ecosystem stakeholders on one platform.

Startup India: Below are some of the updates presented by Ramesh Abhishek

• The 14K startups recognised under Startup India are spread across 484 districts in 29 states and 7 Union territories
• 55% of the startups are located in Tier 1 cities while 27% and 18% are based out of tier 2 and 3 cities
• 1,30,424 jobs have reportedly been created by 11,727 startups at an average of 11 jobs per startup
• About 45% of the startups have women cofounders
• Expecting a 10X increase, the government has committed $223 Mn under the FFS and expects to hike up the corpus of fund available to startups to $2.2 Bn
• 801 applications have already been granted the 80% patent rebate
• 1,226 applications have received the 50% trademark debate
• 1,16,749 enquiries have been successfully resolved so far
• 375 startups mentored and facilitated by the team (in areas such as business advisory, financial advisory, tax and legal support, stakeholder introduction, etc.)

Indian Govt’s Policy Initiatives

At the Ecosystem Summit, the DIPP secretary spoke of the policy reform initiatives in terms of government procurement policies for startups, IPR (Intellectual property rights) grants, tax exemptions, and other compliances.

Relaxation of Public Procurement Norms: Relaxation has been made in terms of turnover, experience, and the Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) condition for startups. All Central Public Sector Undertakings (CPSUs) will have to follow the set procedure and give preferential treatment to startups; DIPP-recognised startups can directly register and sell on the Government-e-Marketplace (GeM) with no minimum turnover and experience criteria. A total of 932 startups have registered on the GeM portal.

Tax Exemptions: Startups can apply to avail exemption under Section 56 and Section 80 IAC of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

Easier Compliances: Inspections against six labour and three environmental laws have been relaxed for startups. They are now allowed to self-certify against laws, easing compliances. An Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board has also been constituted to fast-track exits by enabling startups to wind up operations with a 90-day period as opposed to 4 years earlier.

Regulatory Changes: A total of 22 regulatory changes have been made in the Alternate Investment Fund Regulations, the RBI policy, the Companies Act (MCA), and the Income Tax Act.

In February, the Centre had launched three new tools for states and Union territories for ranking of startups in the country. The tools are: the state and Union territory Startup Ranking framework; the compendium of good practices for promoting startups in India; and the Startup India kit. While 20 out of 29 states have already launched their startup policies, others like Tamil Nadu and Delhi are expected to launch their policies soon.

The post Startup India: 14K Startups Recognised, Over 170 Funded Under FFS, Says DIPP Secy appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In the absence of a regulatory framework, the status quo of cryptocurrency in India continues to be stuck in a stalemate even as trading is limited to crypto-to-crypto as against crypto-to-INR. The 10-member interdisciplinary committee formed by the government is yet to present the draft regulatory framework for cryptocurrency — which is crucial to determine the future of cryptocurrency in India.

Notably, 134 countries and regional organisations from around the world have issued laws or policies on cryptocurrency, according to a June 2018 report by global research firm The Law Library of Congress.

In India, the scene is very different. The fledgeling crypto industry has been nipped in the bud by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s April 6 circular restricting banks and regulated payments companies from extending any services to crypto exchanges.

“We are worried about the RBI’s banking ban on crypto. It has hampered the entire crypto sector of India and the innovations that come along,” says Nischal Shetty, CEO of crypto exchange WazirX. Shetty is of one the crypto entrepreneurs who have voiced their dissatisfaction with the state of affairs on various platforms.

In September, Shetty sparked off a Twitter campaign to seek the community’s support and government’s attention towards regulating cryptocurrency in India.

On the 21st day of the Twitter crypto campaign (September 21), @NischalShetty, who has 55.1K followers, tweeted:

Shetty is also reaching out to lawmakers, fellow crypto traders, as well as investors and urging others to do the same, with a view to fuel the discussion on the need for a regulation for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency assets.

Replying to Shetty’s Twitter thread, @YusufRampurawa7, a civil lawyer, tweeted:

Another similar campaign, an online petition on Change.org started by crypto exchange, Bitbns, also seeks to gather support for cryptocurrencies. It demands the repeal of the RBI circular. As of now, the petition has been signed by 44,634 people and is expected to reach 50K.

One of the arguments put forth by the RBI in favour of the crypto ban is that virtual currencies, interchangeably referred to as cryptocurrencies and crypto assets, raise concerns related to consumer protection, market integrity, money laundering, etc.

Back in 2017, the Indian government had found that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency transactions were being used to carry out Ponzi schemes. Finance minister Arun Jaitley, in the Union Budget 2018, had reiterated that virtual currencies can’t be treated as currencies to buy or sell goods or services.

The Supreme Court has clubbed all the crypto cases, asking the respondents — home affairs and finance ministries and the RBI — to file their responses in the case.

Last month, Jaitley chaired a meeting with an apex-level government body — the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) — discussing the issues and challenges related to cryptocurrencies in India.

The finance ministry later issued a statement, saying: “The council was briefed about the deliberations in the high-level committee chaired by the economic affairs secretary to devise an appropriate legal framework to ban the use of private cryptocurrencies in India and encourage the use of blockchain, as announced in the Budget 2018-19.”

However, the 10-member interdisciplinary committee will decide its fate. Economic affairs secretary Subhas Chandra Garg is heading the committee, formed in September 2017. It includes government officials from the departments of economic affairs, financial services, revenue (CBDT), home affairs, and electronics and IT, apart from representatives of the RBI, NITI Aayog, and the SBI. Members of the crypto industry have not been included in the committee.

Is The Crypto Ban Really An Option?

“So far, there are no technical means to ban crypto,” Shetty replies.

He argues that the government has to regulate cryptocurrencies so that good actors get bank access, and bad actors remain out of the ecosystem.

“But if you ban cryptocurrency, good actors will get out of the ecosystem and the bad actors will continue to do what they have been doing,” he says.

@NischalShetty also tweeted:

China, for instance, has allowed Bitcoin creation through the ‘mining’ process, mainly peer-to-peer (P2P) digital lending. The country’s central banks and payments companies restricted sales of cryptocurrency in September last year. This report cites the cause as “increased regulatory scrutiny.”

In India, with the RBI restricting banking access to crypto exchanges, the latter have shifted to crypto-to-crypto trading, while a few others shut down trading altogether. Currently, India is estimated to have nearly 5-6 Mn cryptocurrency users.

New Hope For Crypto?

The world’s first cryptocurrency — Bitcoin — was launched in 2008, resulting in the invention of blockchain as a distributed ledger technology platform for smart contracts. Since then, numerous cryptocurrencies — Ripple’s XRP, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, etc, to name a few — have emerged. In the third week of November, the global cryptocurrency market cap stood to $182 Bn.

Since cryptocurrency-to-INR trading is currently prohibited in India, crypto startups — WazirX, Unocoin, and Koinex, among others — are facilitating crypto-to-crypto trading and acting as intermediary platforms between buyers and sellers. Crypto exchange Zebpay, which too shifted to crypto-to-crypto trading, has shut down shop, while Unocoin’s founders were arrested, and later released, for running a crypto kiosk.

In such a scenario, lawyers speculate that ‘crypto service tokens’ may work, but ‘payment tokens’ may need to wait until the regulators reveal their position.

To Inc42’s query on the current stalemate in cryptocurrency in India, IndusLaw partner Kartik Ganapathy, said: “There are things that are possible and some things aren’t clear, or may not work as smoothly sans regulatory direction. A model that works within the framework of the Payments and Settlements Act, for example, may be capable of an expeditious conversion to a crypto construct. However, something that seeks to stay true to the crypto code of not relying at all on established structures and regulations may not work as easily.”

Further, various reports have cited a counter-affidavit filed by a government official stating that the 10-member interdisciplinary committee on cryptocurrency will hold meeting in December this year and in January 2019. The Supreme Court hearing has now been pushed November 27.

The RBI too has announced to parley with the users of cryptocurrencies, as the central bank maintains that it is exploring ways to implement a fiat digital currency, with recognition to these new forms of money as a legal tender.

Meanwhile, Shetty plans to continue the campaign on Twitter “till the time the government takes a positive stance on regulating cryptocurrency in India,” he says.

The government has certainly not turned a blind eye to the stalemate. And, hopefully, cryptocurrency will see a new day in India.

The post Twitter Campaign Pushes For RBI Circular Rollback, Regulatory Framework For Crypto appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Flipkart cofounders, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, after ending the decade-long stint with the company, are now struggling to make their way out of the after-effects of the deal. The duo, along with 35 other stakeholders, have received notice from the Income Tax (I-T) department, questioning the total income raised from the sale of their equity stake in the company.

The Walmart-Flipkart deal was announced in May 2018 and the acquisition was approved by the Competition Commission of India in August 2018. The I-T department aims to assess the capital gains that have accrued by the Flipkart founders and the equity stakeholders with this deal. Reportedly, the Walmart-Flipkart deal is expected to help the government mop up over $1.3 Bn (INR 10,000 Cr) in taxes.

The I-T department has been reviewing Section 9 (1) of the I-T Act, which deals with indirect transfer provisions, to see if the benefits under the bilateral tax treaties with countries like Singapore and Mauritius, could be applicable to foreign investors who sold their stake to Walmart.

About the notice, Binny Bansal reportedly said, “There was a query received with regard to the sale of shares and payment of advance taxes. It happened a few months ago and I had already responded to the same.”

However, a media report citing sources said that the founders have not responded to the I-T notice sent to them on October 18, but the responses of other Indian shareholders have started arriving.

Earlier, in May 2018, I-T authorities issued notices to global retailer Walmart and Flipkart seeking the details of the acquisition deal to investigate the tax due from the company.

In a notice served to Walmart earlier, the tax department had asked it to furnish details of 44 shareholders of Flipkart, and how much each of them gained from the deal.

Further, the tax department had also conveyed to Flipkart that there is no escape from the capital gains tax as the General Anti-Avoidance Rule (GAAR) provisions are applicable to its deal with Walmart.

The GAAR provisions have come into operation from the assessment year 2018-19 and the tax benefit on capital gains has been sought by Flipkart for the financial year 2018-19 or assessment year 2019-20.

At the same time, to ascertain the actual beneficiaries of the deal, the tax department is also investigating the complex structure of investments made in Flipkart Ltd (Singapore) by eBay and had sought complete information on the fund flow from eBay and other subsidiaries in Flipkart.

[The development was reported by TOI]

The post Flipkart-Walmart Deal: Income Tax Dept Issues Notice To Bansals, 35 Other Stakeholders appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Ola is looking to go beyond just being a cab-hailing app. The Softbank-backed company is now reportedly planning to showcase its concept electric vehicles (EV) based on the feedback from the company’s EVs project on the Ola platform.

According to reports, the company is also in talks with vendors to get the components such as electric batteries for production of the vehicles.

Meanwhile, Mahindra & Mahindra’s  EV producing unit, Mahindra Electric Mobility, opened an electric technology manufacturing hub in Bengaluru.

The plant will be manufacturing  battery packs, power electronics and motor assembly. The hub has been reportedly set up with an investment of $13.9 Mn (INR 100 Cr)

In China Tesla has now began taking orders for its Model 3 Sedan despite facing problems due to the ongoing trade war between US and China. According to reports, the users can book their vehicles after paying a deposit of $1152 (8000 Yuan). Tesla CEO, Elon Musk tweeted that the delivery of the vehicles in China may begin in March or April.

Here’s a curated rundown of important and related developments on the EV Ecosystem in the 50th edition of Electric Vehicles This Week [November 15-21].

Latest News From Indian Electric Vehicle Ecosystem

Mahindra Electric To Lead Mahindra-Ford Alliance

Eight months after announcing an alliance, Mahindra Electric and Ford have reportedly figured out a strategic partnership to produce EVs. Recent developments between the two indicate that Mahindra will provide the technology while Ford will contribute their platform for the EVs.

Telangana Fixes Tariff For Charging Stations

The Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission has reportedly fixed the tariff for EV charging stations at $0.08 (INR 6) per unit.g stations The state government body has also specified time-of-day charges for four slots in a day. However the regulator directed that these charges will be only be levied on stations with low tension supply.

Mahindra Electric Partners With TWU To Sell Treo Electric

Mahindra Electric has reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bengaluru-based social enterprise Three Wheels United (TWU), which is working to solve the issues in the auto rickshaw ecosystem. The vehicles were launched in the city last week. According to reports, this MoU was signed on November 17. The MoU also stated that Mahindra’s Next Generation Mobility Solution (NEMO) will be the preferred mobility solution platform to be used by TWU.

Latest News On Electric Vehicles From Around The World

Volkswagen To Invest $50 Bn In EVs By 2023

German carmaker Volkswagen is reportedly planning to invest $50 Bn (44 Bn Euros) by 2023 for the development of electric vehicles, autonomous driving, and new mobility services. It also added that it will explore closer cooperation with US-based automaker Ford. The company will transform three of its plants for EV production. It is also looking to strike alliances with the battery makers.

Tesla Interested In Collaborating With Daimler

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the company would be interested in collaborating with Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz for producing an electric version of its Sprinter van. According to reports, Daimler and Tesla had collaborated earlier as well for developing EVs. Tesla was responsible for providing electric powertrains for the first generation electric smart cars at a time when Diamer was a shareholder at Tesla.

PG&E Proposes New EV Charging Subscription Plans

US-based utility company Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has reportedly proposed, new rate plans, to the California Public Utilities Commission. If approved, the plans will offer a subscription model for commercial EV charging. This will help in predicting the monthly bill for fleet managers. Under this plan, station operators can subscribe for a certain amount of power per billing period

German-based VARTA To Produce EV Batteries

Germany-based battery maker VARTA has reportedly signed a research agreement to lay the groundwork for mass production of lithium-ion batteries for EVs. The company has signed a deal with research organisation Fraunhofer Institute for achieving the goal. Further, the German government has earmarked $1.1 Bn (1 Bn Euros) to support the companies.

[Stay tuned for the next edition of Electric Vehicles This Week]

The post Electric Vehicles This Week: Ola May Go Electric, Tesla Takes Model 3 To China appeared first on Inc42 Media.

US-based professional networking platform LinkedIn, launched LinkedIn Salary in India, which will provide users detailed salary trends for different professions.

As salary negotiations are traditionally lack transparency, the new feature will help job seekers make informed decisions about the best possible compensation for a job.

The LinkedIn Salary feature will provide insights on best paying locations, top paying companies, salaries based on educational qualifications and industries, regarding a specific job title.

Ajay Datta, the Head of Product at LinkedIn India said, “In India’s competitive jobs market, LinkedIn Salary will help create salary transparency and empower our members with reliable data on what companies are paying today, what kind of compensation packages to expect, and how salaries vary as per industries and educational qualifications.”

Datta added that this feature will help professionals as well as students and freshers optimise their earning potential.

To access this feature, members with free accounts will have to share their salary data, while premium members can access this data without submitting their salary details.

In the runup to launching this feature, LinkedIn, which has over 53 Mn members in India, collected salary data since two months. On the basis of the collected data, Bengaluru emerged as the highest paying region, followed by Mumbai and NCR including New Delhi, Gurugram and Noida.

The results also revealed that hardware, networking, software, and IT services emerged as the highest paying industries, followed by consumer goods, healthcare, and finance.

It also indicated that at present, some of the highest paying positions in the country are director of engineering, chief operating officer (COO), executive director, vice president sales and senior program manager.

Recently LinkedIn has been trying to diversify its products. The company launched a stories feature on its platform dubbed ‘Student Voices,’ initially for the university students in the US. The feature can be used only to share videos and not images. It is mainly aimed to increase the engagement of the youth were they will be able to share short videos which will be added in the campus playlist.

The post LinkedIn Launches Salary Feature, Says Bengaluru Professionals Highest Paid In India appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Bengaluru-based online classifieds and services portal Quikr India Pvt Ltd reported a consolidated revenue of $24.54 Mn (INR 173.49 Cr) for the year ending March 2018, a jump of 95% from its revenue from operations in the previous year.

According to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs filings accessed by Inc42, the standalone performance for the company showed a net loss of $27.87 Mn (INR 197 Cr), down 37.7% from a loss of $44.79 Mn (INR 316.58 Cr) in the previous year.

Some other key statistics for the fiscal 2017-18 include:

• The company’s revenue from operations grew to $21.48 Mn (INR 151.87 Cr), a jump of 82.16% from $11.67 Mn (INR 83.16 Cr) in the previous year
• The company earned $3.75 Mn (INR 26.53 Cr) from lead generation
• Employee benefit expense for the company fell 14% reaching $28.11 Mn (INR 198.72 Cr) from $32.76 Mn (INR 231.58 Cr) in the previous year

In the filings, the company said, “Your Directors are continuously looking for avenues and opportunities in the market for the future growth of the company.”

They further said that the company will continue to work towards its revenues aggressively and minimise the losses. Further, the company said it will achieve breakeven in a year’s time

Founded by Pranay Chulet in 2008, Quikr claims to have a user base of over 30 Mn per month. It is present in 1,000 cities in India and operates across 14 classifieds businesses including mobile phones, household goods, cars, real estate, jobs, services and education.

The filings also showed that the consolidated loss for the year was $33Mn (INR 233.28 Cr). Some of the key performance indicators for Quikr and its acquisitions include:

• Advertising Revenue was $6.89 Mn (INR 48.71 Cr)
• Income from lead generation for the year was $3.75 Mn (INR 26.53 Cr)
• Marketing Service Fee reaped in $8.99 Mn (INR 63.61 Cr)

In a media statement, the company said that it has continued the same growth momentum in the Q1 and Q2 of FY18-19 and is projecting to double its revenues in FY18-19 to about $49.5 Mn (INR 350 Cr), with the annualised run rate for Q4 being in the $70.7 Mn (INR 500 Cr) range.

Commenting on the financial performance, Pranay Chulet, Founder and CEO of Quikr said, “By verticalizing our business and offering consumers completed transactions in these large categories, we’ve unlocked the true potential of our platform. Our combined addressable market accounts for 1/5th of the country’s GDP, and we can see this level of growth continuing for several years.”

The company was reportedly looking to raise between $100 Mn and $150 Mn by keeping its record valuation of $1 Bn.

Till date, the company has almost raised around $430 Mn in over 10 rounds of funding, with the last round valuing the company at $1.47 Bn. The company’s investors include Warburg Pincus, Tiger Global, Norwest Venture Partners Brand Capital and Omidyar Networks.

Rahul Tewari, CFO at Quikr said, “The operating metrics in each of our verticals have been strengthening consistently. Unlike what often happens, this 95% revenue growth has been achieved with higher margins and lower cost of customer acquisition.”

Quikr’s Acquisitions Payoff

Acquisitions constitute up to 55% of Quikr’s overall revenue and the company has acquired 13 startups including Babajob, Hiree, HDFC Developers, ZapLuk, Zimmber, Reality Compass till date. Currently, the acquired startups account for up to 55% of Quikr’s overall revenue.

On the acquisitions front, the company said the acquisitions have delivered strong results for the company. By combining the models of acquired companies with its large supply-and-demand base, Quikr has been able to substantially grow their revenue.

• Quikr continues to operate Commonfloor and AtHomeDiva as independent brands in the market
• Losses of these acquired companies have been absorbed by Quikr and many of them are also profitable at a business level now
• Scaling of Commonfloor, Grabhouse and acquired beauty businesses are good examples of this

The post Quikr Almost Doubles Revenue In FY18, Says Will Breakeven By Next Year appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Mumbai-based entertainment startup BookMyShow announced today (November 22) that it has joined a 16-week programme that helps companies scale up, organised by Grab Ventures, the venture capital arm of Singapore-based GrabTaxi Holdings Pte Ltd.

Grab runs ride-hailing, ride sharing, food delivery service, and logistics services in Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia.

As part of the Grab Ventures Velocity Program, BookMyShow’s offerings will be featured on the Grab homepage feed, enabling users to browse and books services on the Grab app. This will give BookMyShow access to Grab’s customers and deeper access to the Indonesian market as well.

Karan Khetan, co-founder, BookMyShow Indonesia, said, “BookMyShow is excited to partner with the Grab Ventures Velocity Program. Grab is an integral part of almost everyone’s daily lives in the entire SE Asian region and they bring with them extensive market expertise which will be instrumental as we look to accelerate our growth plans in Indonesia and region. We have seen phenomenal synergies with Grab that were win-win for both companies.”

BookMyShow, which forayed into Indonesia in mid-2016, is the only Indian company to be part of this programme, which includes startups such as Helpling from Germany, Minutes and Sejasa from Indonesia, and Tueetor from Singapore.

BookMyShow recently raised $100 Mn in a Series-D funding led by TPG Growth.

The online ticketing platform which operates under parent company Big Tree Entertainment Pvt Ltd, reported a 20% increase in its revenue for the financial year 2017-18.

According to the filings, accessed via Tofler, a business intelligence platform for India, the company’s total revenue for the year was $54.4 Mn (INR 400.71 Cr), against $45.16 Mn (INR 332.38 Cr).

In the online ticketing segment, BookMyShow faces stiff competition from digital payments company Paytm.

Struggling with a declining growth rate, the company is currently trying to scale up its non-movie business to bring it on par with its movie-ticketing business with forays into international events and live entertainment.

The post BookMyShow Joins Grab Ventures Velocity Program With An Eye On Southeast Asia appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Flipkart founder Binny Bansal has reportedly decided not to pursue the complaint against the ex-Flipkart employee who had accused him of ‘serious personal misconduct’.

Earlier this month, Bansal was dethroned from his position as Flipkart Group CEO as parent company Walmart believed that these allegations were not mentioned to them in therun-up to the $16 Bn acquisition deal.

“Binny Bansal had filed a police complaint against the accuser for blackmailing and levelling false allegations against him. Following due process, the police informed him that when called to furnish her statement, the woman apologised for making these allegations to Walmart,” said a source to ET.

Binny has however reserved his right to reopen the case if and when necessary. The complaint was filed at Koramangala Police Station last week, soon after the cofounder resigned from his position at Flipkart Group.

What’s The Case?

According to reports, Binny and the Bengaluru-based woman, who was a former employee by then, reportedly began their relationship in 2016 and ended it a few months later. A few media sources suggest that the said woman also demanded certain payments from Bansal, to which he acceded.

It is not clear as to why Bansal did not approach the police on that occasion. Later in May 2018, after the acquisition, she again made a demand for a payment. When Bansal did not heed her demand, she reached out to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon alleging sexual assault in July.

Walmart being the majority shareholder in Flipkart Group (81.3%) started investigating the case as soon as it received the complaint. It also hired international law firm Gibson Dunn to conduct an independent inquiry into the matter.

While the investigation did not find evidence to corroborate the complainant’s assertions against Binny, it did reveal other lapses in judgement, particularly a lack of transparency,  on how Binny responded to the situation, according to a Walmart media statement on November 13.

Is Walmart’s Decision Justified?

By accepting Bansal’s resignation, Walmart showed that it has a zero-tolerance policy for such issues, but taking into account certain factors the decision may be termed as harsh.

• First, the women was not an employee at Flipkart during the span of the relationship
• Second, the women did not file an official complaint against Bansal and there was no court case or FIR filed on the matter
• Third, during the investigation, Bansal received the clean chit
• Fourth, after filing the police complaint, the woman employee apologised for reaching out to Walmart

Walmart, however, said that “Binny has been an important part of Flipkart since cofounding the company, but recent events risked becoming a distraction and Binny has made a decision to step down.”Overall, from a corporate governance perspective, Binny Bansal is facing the consequences of a personal relationship outside the organisation.

What’s Happening At Flipkart Now?

Kalyan Krishnamurthy has continued to be the CEO of the Flipkart, and Flipkart subsidiary Jabong has now been merged with Myntra. Smriti Singh has been hired as its Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), a position which was vacant for about 18 months. Walmart is also bringing four of its key executives to the team leading the Indian ecommerce unicorn.

Finally, the resignation could signal an end to the golden era of for Flipkart – the poster boy for Indian ecommerce – as it now becomes the subsidiary of US-based global retailer Walmart, led by American senior executives.

[The development was reported by ET.]

The post Binny Bansal Not To Pursue Complaint Against Woman Who Alleged Misconduct appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Gurugram-based Samast Technologies which runs hyperlocal discovery platform Magicpin has reportedly raised $20 Mn (INR 141 Cr) in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners US. Following this deal, the platform is now valued at $100 Mn.

The round was closed last month, with participation from existing backer Lightspeed India Partners, the domestic franchise of the Menlo Park-based venture capital firm, and WaterBridge Ventures. Till date, Magicpin has raised around $30 Mn in three rounds of funding.

Lightspeed partners Jeremy Liew and Ravi Mhatre led the round.

Magicpin, founded in 2015 by Anshoo Sharma and Brij Bhushan, provides a platform where merchants and consumers can discover and interact and also transact. It helps drive the businesses of the local retailers across various categories such as restaurant, fashion, beauty, grocery among many others.

According to the official website, at present, Magicpin has over 5 Mn users and is operational in 12 cities including Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Goa, Chennai, and Ahmedabad. It is also looking to expand its reach in other cities.  It also claimed to have grown 5x in 2018.

The platform has over 800K merchants listed on its platform including the local kiranas to established retailers and brands such as McDonald’s, FabIndia, Hard Rock Cafe among others.

Other major investments of Lightspeed in India include OYO Hotels, edtech venture BYJU’S and B2B online marketplace Udaan among others.

[The development was reported by ET.]

The post Magicpin Parent Raises $20 Mn From Lightspeed Venture Partners US appeared first on Inc42 Media.

With ecommerce companies holding sales throughout the festive season, many consumer brands are reportedly up in arms to prevent the sale of their products at steep discounts, which they say not only cannibalises their offline sales but also dilutes their brand value.

Electronics companies like Sony, Apple, LG, Eureka Forbes, and Dyson have already taken action against Flipkart and Amazon for offering deep discounts during the Navratri and Diwali sales in October and November.

Discounts are considered to be a major driver behind high-volume sales and acquiring customer loyalty. Due to this, the ecommerce players in India including Amazon India, Flipkart, and Paytm – all vying for the top spot in the ecommerce market – are now caught up in a competition to offer the same product at the cheapest price possible.

This however has not gone down too well with brands that sell high-end lifestyle products and consumer electronics, who argue that this reduces their perceived value to that of a budget brand. It also increases the chances of customers getting fake products.

To prevent this trend some brands are entering into direct selling agreements with online sellers. This year South Korea-based LG has extended its sales partnership with Amazon and Flipkart to include refrigerators and washing machines to TVs and smartphones.

Sony also has a formal agreement with the two online marketplaces for some of its key products like cameras and TVs. Sony India sales head Satish Padmanabhan told ET that this direct relationship “has facilitated us in maintaining channel parity and foster good growth.”

Meanwhile, Apple has reportedly entered into a direct business agreement with Amazon to allow only authorised sellers to sell Apple products on its website. Industry executives said this step will prevent steep discounts on Apple products in India and prevent fakes from being sold.

However some companies have taken a step further to ensure that their products are not subject to such discounts.

Premium appliances brand, Dyson, has said it will honour its India warranty only when products are purchased are from official authorize sellers. Eureka Forbes, known for its water purifiers, has reportedly taken legal action against 200 vendors for selling its products at deep discounts on ecommerce websites, warning them against making such unauthorised offers because the company has designated online sellers.

The Economics Of Discounting

During Amazon’s Great Indian Sale and Flipkart’s Big Billion Sale held in May and June, discounts of as much as 70% on fashion and lifestyle products, 30-40% on home appliances, and 50% on consumer electronics including mobile phones were common.

The burden of discounting products is borne largely through foreign funding — a point raised by traditional retailers in 2015 when the Retailers Association of India (RAI) and the All India Footwear Manufacturers and Retailers Association (AIFMRA), had approached the Delhi High Court arguing that ecommerce companies had undue advantage as they were allowed to access foreign direct investment (FDI), through which they could provide deep discounts that traditional retailers would not be able to match and compete.

However Amazon India maintains that they do not dictate prices to their sellers and that these discounts are possible due to their streamlined logistics.

An Amazon spokesperson told Inc42  that “ Prices for products on the Amazon.in marketplace are determined by the sellers. We work hard and continually innovate to offer services such as FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon),Easy Ship and Seller flex to sellers on our platform, that enables them to significantly lower their cost of selling and reducing defects as they sell to a nationwide customer base. Sellers pass on these savings as lower prices on the platform.” Flipkart and Paytm did not respond till the time of publication.

In July this year, a government think tank headed by commerce and industry minister Suresh Prabhu prepared a draft ecommerce policy that seeks to regulate predatory pricing online. To address anti-competitive issues, the draft reportedly contains “A sunset clause, which defines the maximum duration of differential pricing strategies (such as deep discounts) that are implemented by ecommerce platforms to attract consumers, would be introduced.”

As an official decree on the issue may take a while, companies like Eureka Forbes are working hard to weed out their products from festive season sales and shutting down online sellers who offer steep price reductions on goods listed on their platforms. However, this hasn’t stopped discounted products from being available on marketplaces till now.

[The development was reported by ET.]

The post Brands Lock Horns With Ecommerce Sites Over Deep Discounting appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Mumbai-based wealth management startup CashRich has raised $1 Mn in equity funding from three UK-based angel investors.

The company plans to use the funds to develop its Dynamic Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) technology to automate important steps of investment management such as asset allocation, portfolio diversification, and rebalancing while personalising the experience for each user.

Founded in 2017 by Sougata Basu, CashRich is a personalised mobile investment app, which focuses on providing index fund SIP. The users can monitor their investments and generate account statements from the app.

At present, the company boasts of around 90,000 users for its app. Prior to this round, CashRich had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from investors in January 2017.

CashRich: Using Dynamic SIP To Invest In Index

CashRich works on the concept of Dynamic SIP which is an improved version of the traditional mutual fund SIP.

For the uninitiated, there are different options available for investments in mutual funds. These include:

Traditional: The investment is structured and maintained to match the investment objectives stated during the choice of SIP for a long-term

Dynamic: Here allocation of funds can be switched aggressively and a user can invest between zero and 100% in equity, depending on the market situation and user’s risk profile

Index fund: Portfolio is constructed to match or track the components of a market index, such as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500)

Talking to Inc42, Basu explained that with CashRich’s dynamic SIP technology, the company is picking up a trend from the West of investing in national Indices such as the BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50.

CashRich’s Dynamic SIP has an option of investing in a low-cost index fund, which makes the average portfolio cost 2% cheaper than a regular mutual fund (1% lower than direct MF).

“This means that an investor with a mutual fund portfolio of INR 1 Cr will earn an additional INR 2 Lakh every year from the 2% cost savings (in addition to the SIP returns),” Basu explained.

Further, at the time of market fluctuation, CashRich’s automated advisor reaches out to an investor to advise them about potential investments, based on their risk-taking abilities and earlier investments

Wealth Management: A Crowded Street

In the last few months, a number of leading companies from different verticals have made their entry into the wealth management segment. The most prominent ones are ETMoney, Paytm Money, as well as INDwealth, the latest venture by Ibibo group founder Ashish Kashyap. A few other players are Fisdom, a personal wealth management startup; WealthTrust, a wealth management application, and Tauro Wealth, a stock market investments platform.

In comparison to Fisdom and the likes, Basu claims that CashRich is more personalised and automated. For example, while these apps ask investors to decide their investment abilities, CashRich’s algorithm performs the same task at the backend and provides options based on an advanced understanding of the investor’s preferences.

“Further, Paytm Money along with some others enable the sale of investments like a marketplace, however, CashRich features index mutual fund, personalised advisory based on market conditions and more,” he added.

According to the IBEF, the mutual funds’ industry in India has seen rapid growth in its total Assets Under Management (AUM). The AUM of the industry increased 25.79% year-on-year to hit a record high of $342.91 Bn (INR 22 Lakh Cr) at the end of February 2018.

The post Personalised Mobile Investment App CashRich Raises $1 Mn appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Indian ecommerce startups are now live in the frantic online shopping event — Black Friday — one of such occasions in which shoppers from around the world participate. Country’s purchasing power is once again being tapped with global brands and retailers cut their prices during this event that commenced today (November 23).

Since its inception in 2015, Black Friday has garnered a huge fan-fare across the US and other european countries, and it coincides between holidays (during or after) Christmas and Thanksgiving. The event has forayed across international borders and reached India in 2017.

In fact during last year’s 4-day Black Friday 2017 which commenced on November 24, Indian ecommerce sellers reportedly shipped over 1.5 Mn products to Amazon’s warehouses in the US, a report cited Adobe Analytics, with total sale revenue of $5 Bn collected from the global audience.

Black Friday 2018, this time has many popular Indian ecommerce companies — Flipkart, Paytm Mall, Nykaa, Tata CLiQ, Koovs, Isharya, GrabOn, Aza Fashions, among others — hosting the event on their respective websites.

For instance, a Mumbai-based ecommerce platform for jewellery, Isharya, launched the 4-day event on Thursday night (Indian time zone). The company has fixed up to 70% sale on its jewellery items, especially targeting US clients.

“We have already seen a 68% rise in the number of online users, and we expect additional 50% spike in sales over the weekend,” Isharya marketing head Nisha Khiani told Inc42.

This Black Friday, Indian etailers are participating, too. Of which, a Mumbai-based fashion retail chain for luxury and designer apparels, Aza Fashions, has opened the sale for Indian ethnic apparels such as Kurta, Lehengas, etc. It expects 3x user traction than its regular online business sale.

Amazon maintains to have over 37K Indian exporters on their platform offering over 120 million products to international shoppers, during the sale. Paytm Mall has also onboarded a bunch of electronics products, while Flipkart has slashed one of the Xiaomi’s smartphones.

Takeaways From Black Friday

Amazon maintains its Indian exporters to have witnessed a revenue growth of over 1.5x YoY (Year-On-Year) during Black Friday 2017, and Cyber Monday 2017 —  two Black Friday events.

Coupons and deal marketplace, GrabOn estimates the popular homegrown ecommerce players to witness close to 20% increase in the number of sales during Black Friday.

“Homegrown ecommerce players are very well on the front foot when it comes to Black Friday sales, leveraging the growing traction by launching new products — electronics and fashion accessories — during the sale period. Cosmetics & beauty, auto accessories, travel, domain hosting are also expected to be among hottest categories,” GrabOn founder Ashok Kumar Reddy said.

For Indian consumers, the event has several multinational ecommerce companies which ship internationally, including India, for online purchasing of products that aren’t easily available in India or may be expensive, however, comes with a shipping cost. This report gives helpful tips to Indian consumers on what they can do during the Black Friday sale.

It is known that many ecommerce companies in India hosts numerous shopping events throughout the year. Of which, in the 2018 Dussehra and Diwali festival shopping events, ecommerce companies is estimated to have collectively recorded $2.3 Bn revenue in GMV (Gross Merchandise Value).

It would be no exaggeration to say that India has an enormous online purchasing power. It majorly attributes to technology-enabled financial services, along with the country’s ability to drive transportation networks, fast logistics, and services delivery, intelligently — in turn, making country’s ecommerce sector rich with $35 Bn and may even touch $100 Bn by 2022, as predicted.

The post India’s Ecommerce Startups Bullish On Black Friday Shopping appeared first on Inc42 Media.

We bring to you the latest edition of Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week.

This week’s biggest startup funding came to Mumbai-based digital lending application InCred which raised $41.9 Mn (INR 300 Cr) in a funding round led by its founder Bhupinder Singh along with some other private equity investors such as Siddharth Parekh’s Paragon Partners.

The company will use the fresh funds to incubate new businesses and also to expand its lending business model, which currently caters to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the retail sector.

In another development, Bengaluru-based fitness startup Cure.Fit acquired mental health platform Seraniti for an undisclosed amount to add to its mental wellness vertical Mind.Fit. Cure.Fit will onboard Seraniti’s team of 15 therapists and its 8,000 customers. With the acquisition, Cure.Fit will have more than 70 centres under Mind.Fit.

This week, $96.64Mn funding was received by sectors including fintech, deeptech, healthtech among others and one startup acquisition took place in the Indian startup ecosystem altogether. (The startup funding calculations are based on the startups that disclosed funding amount.)

Indian Startup Funding Of The Week

DeTect Technologies: Chennai-headquartered Internet of Things (IoT) startup DeTect Technologies raised $3.3 Mn in Series A funding from SAIF Partners, Bharat Innovation Fund, Axilor Ventures, BlueHill Capital Pvt Ltd, and a few angels from the Keiretsu Forum. DeTect plans to use the fresh funds to expand internationally and supplement the core R&D focus of the company.

CashRich: Mumbai-based wealth management startup CashRich raised $1 Mn in equity funding from three UK-based angel investors. The company plans to use the funds to develop its Dynamic Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) technology to automate important steps of investment management such as asset allocation, portfolio diversification, and rebalancing while personalising the experience for each user.

Magicpin: Gurugram-based Samast Technologies, which runs hyperlocal discovery platform Magicpin, raised $20 Mn (INR 141 Cr) in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners US. Following this deal, the platform is now valued at $100 Mn. Lightspeed partners Jeremy Liew and Ravi Mhatre who participated in the round will be joining the Magicpin board.

BillDesk: Mumbai-based payments gateway BillDesk raised an undisclosed amount of funding from global payments technology company Visa to develop new product lines for its payments and loyalty businesses and also expand its footprint into other geographies.

HealthifyMe: Bengaluru-based mobile health platform HealthifyMe raised $6 Mn in an extended Series B funding round which is a mix of both equity and debt. The round witnessed participation from existing investors such as Sistema Asia Fund, US-based early-stage VC Samsung NEXT,  Chiratae Ventures, Inventus Capital, Blume Ventures and Innoven Capital. The company will use the newly raised funds to expand its presence in the international market

Aye Finance: Gurugram-based digital lending company Aye Finance raised $9.8 Mn (INR 70 Cr) in debt funding from Delhi-based social impact fund BlueOrchard. The company plans to use the fresh funding to expand to newer geographies and disburse loans more actively to its existing borrower base.

Signzy: Bengaluru-based fintech company Signzy raised $3.36 Mn (INR 24 Cr) in Series A funding round led by Stellaris Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital, along with other investors. Angel investors including Rajan Anandan from Google, Dilip Khandelwal from SAP Labs India, and Amrish Rau from PayU India also participated in the funding round. The company plans to use the fresh funds to expand its product portfolio, strengthen its technology stack, and expand overseas. Alok Goyal, partner at Stellaris Venture Partners, will be joining the board of Signzy as part of the deal.

Skillbox: Gurugram-based art social network and discovery startup Skillbox raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from US-based angel investor Sandip Ranjhan. The company plans to utilise the funds for marketing and scaling as well as strengthening the product.

Genius Corner: Noida-based edtech startup Genius Corner raised $283K (INR 2 Cr) angel funding from Ranbir Singh, Mahesh Mohta, Dipak Varshney, Puneet Garg, and Lakshmikantan Sundereswaran. The company plans to use the funds for its pan-India expansion.

Vedantu: Bengaluru-based online tutoring startup Vedantu raised $11 Mn in Series B funding round led by philanthropic investment firm Omidyar Network, with participation from existing investor venture capital firm Accel Partners. The company plans to use the funding to expand its technology and further expand its service in tier 2 and 3 cities.

Other Developments Of The Week

• Gurugram-based ecommerce logistics company Delhivery may soon join the unicorn club with a fresh round of funding from Softbank; talks on the investment are reportedly in the final stage. With the announcement set for next month, SoftBank may emerge as the largest shareholder in Delhivery with a 32% stake.
• Mumbai-based industrialist Akshaypat Singhania has allocated $14.01 Mn (INR 100 Cr) for supporting early stage startups which are operating in the media and entertainment, lifestyle, food and beverages healthcare and other segments. The new fund will invest in the range of $2-4 Mn in early-stage startups looking to raise seed to Series A round of funding.
• Self-styled impact investment firm Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group is reportedly raising $31 Mn (INR 225 Cr) from US-based Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA).  The capital raising will help the group scale up its asset management and lending business as well as fund new strategic initiative.
• Bengaluru-headquartered home rental platform NestAway is reportedly in initial talks to raise $100 Mn and may end up securing $150 Mn given that there’s strong investor demand.
• Speaking at the Inc42 The Ecosystem Summit held on November 16 in New Delhi, the DIPP secretary Ramesh Abhishek said that out of the $309 Mn (INR 2200 Cr) authorised under the Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS), $226 Mn (INR 1,611 Cr) has been committed to the SIDBI, and, so far, 170 startups have raised catalysed funding of $127.6 Mn (INR 879 Cr) from 32 AIFs under the FFS scheme.
• SoftBank and Invest India launched Tech4Future, the challenge which will seek to identify the most promising startups working in AI, Machine Learning, Face Recognition and Cyber Security sectors. For the top solution, SoftBank Group will provide the cash prize of $50K and also invite them for an incubation opportunity in Japan for 2-3 months, depending on the quality of the solution.

Stay tuned for the next week edition of Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week!

The post Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [19-24 Nov 2018] appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) is expected to give a fresh start to formal inter-ministerial discussions on ecommerce policy.

DIPP will put out a draft for the public discussion covering more than 15 issues relevant to the sector after these discussions. However, it will stay clear of the heated discussions on FDI issue so that proposal can be firmed up on other issues, according to the media reports.

After the draft ecommerce policy was made public in August this year, the department of commerce had started consultations on the policy, but that had run into interministerial differences as many departments and ministries saw the consultations exceeding the commerce department’s brief.

In September this year, the government set up a group of secretaries to look into the issues related to draft ecommerce policy chaired by the secretary in the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP). Later, the government transferred the ecommerce policy to DIPP in October.

Inc42 analysed a few debatable pointers in the proposed ecommerce policy framework:

– It suggests the creation of a government-aided ecommerce platform to promote micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)
– Ecommerce marketplaces will no longer be allowed to offer deep discounts through their in-house companies listed as sellers
– The draft Bill recommends a sunset clause on discounts to prevent platforms from directly or indirectly influencing the prices of goods and services
– It seeks to give more control and power to the founders of ecommerce businesses, rather than investors
– An online retailer/marketplace should not be allowed to influence the price or sale of products/services — a move that can completely restrict e-tailers from giving discounts
– Adopt a common ecommerce definition for domestic policy-making and international negotiations
– Granting preferential treatment and imposing customs duties on etransmission to digital items created in India

The time could not be more right for India to finalise its ecommerce guidelines. The Flipkart-Walmart deal, which was finalised in May this year, created repulsions between the different stakeholders of the ecommerce ecosystem including sellers, seller governing bodies and even local and foreign players in the country.

With Flipkart getting acquired for $16 Bn and increased dominance of foreign players like Amazon plus the rise of locals like Snapdeal, Shopclues, Paytm Mall among others, have put the Indian ecommerce on the global charts, as a market touted to be worth $200 Bn.

Further, other South East Asian countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand among others are pacing up their ecommerce market development. Indonesia already released its ecommerce guidelines in November last year.

The post DIPP To Start Fresh Discussions On Ecommerce Policy appeared first on Inc42 Media.

We bring to you the latest edition of Movers and Shakers.

This week global companies like SoftBank and WhatsApp continued to show their commitment to India with the appointment of the head for their Indian operations.

After the central government asked WhatsApp to set up an office in India and appoint an India team, the chat-based messaging company has appointed Ezetap co-founder and CEO Abhijit Bose as head of its Indian operations.

At the same time, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank has appointed Norwest Venture Partners’ (NVP) Sumer Juneja as its country head for India. Juneja comes after nearly decade of experience at Norwest, where he made his first investment in Swiggy in 2015.

Prior to Norwest, Juneja worked with Goldman Sachs in London and Hong Kong as an investment banking analyst, driving several M&A processes such as financial analysis, due diligence, and public and private buy-side and sell-side transactions.

On the other hand, Myntra-owned Jabong may reportedly fire 200 employees more, after announcing in a town hall meeting that almost 250 workers will be laid off as a result of the Myntra-Jabong merger deal.

Here’s a look at other important movers and shakers of the week.

Rooter Appoints Head Of Revenues

Sports fan engagement platform Rooter has appointed Suhail Kapur as its Head of Revenues.

Kapur has more than eight years of experience in marketing and sales across domains as diverse as digital content, hospitality, sports, and advertising. In his journey to Rooter, Kapur has worked with Adidas India as an Assistant Manager – Sports Marketing; Manager of Branded Projects and Content at OML (Only Much Louder); 101India as the Senior Manager – Brand Solutions and Content and entrepreneurship stint as cofounder of Roti, a cafe.

In his new role, Kapurl will be responsible for business strategy, sales analysis and account management, as well as identifying new areas of monetization for the platform.

Rooter has also promoted Ruchika Chawla as Head of Client Servicing. With 14 years of extensive marketing and advertising experience with brands like Aircel and FabIndia, Chawla will now be responsible for servicing and nurturing brand and sports partnerships with close monitoring and increasing value of the investment by achieving Business KPIs.

CapitalG’s Kaushik Anand To Join A91 Partners

The investment unit of Google’s parent Alphabet, CapitalG has bid adieu to its India head Kaushik Anand who is slated to join A91 Partners, an investment firm set up by three ex-Sequoia Capital managing directors.

He is expected to come on board A91 Partners as a partner early next year.

With nearly a decade of experience in the industry, Anand joined CapitalG in its Bay Area headquarters in 2015 and had led investments in CarDekho, an auto classified portal, math learning startup Cuemath and Aye Finance, which provides financial services to micro and small businesses.

Prior to this, he has worked with Mckinsey, Sequoia Capital and has also had entrepreneurship stint with Graminavitas, Greenext Technology Solutions, Kreyada, and Clever Layover.

At A91, he is expected to continue to focus on technology, healthcare and financial services sectors.

Vishal Sharijay Joins Techjockey

B2B IT ecommerce company, Techjockey.com has appointed Vishal Sharijay as the Head of Product and Growth Strategy.

Prior to this, Sharijay was working as Head of Growth at Docquity, a Singapore-based professional network for doctors.

An NIT Rourkela alumnus, Sharijay comes with an experience of serving startups across healthcare, technology, and ecommerce domain. He has also worked with startups such as Tapzo, Docquity, Kraftly and others.

In his new role, Sharijay is expected to introduce innovation in the company’s growth initiatives.

MakeMyTrip Appoints Vipul Prakash As COO

Online travel aggregator MakeMyTrip has appointed Vipul Prakash as chief operating officer for MakeMyTrip and Goibibo.

Prior to joining MakeMyTrip, Prakash has worked as senior vice president – beverage category for PepsiCo-India.

With nearly two decades of experience at PepsiCo, Prakash has worked across geographies, deep understanding of consumer market and expertise in the industry, leading operational practices are truly invaluable.

He holds a post-graduate diploma in management from IIM Ahmedabad and a mechanical engineering degree from IIT Delhi, it added.

In his new role, Prakash will be responsible for developing and executing strategic direction and priorities of the company

Rana Banerjee Joins IDSA As Secretary-General

Indian Direct Selling Association (IDSA) has appointed Rana Banerjee as their Secretary General.

With 28 years of experience in the industry as a seasoned government affair & advocacy expert, Banerjee brings with him a wealth of experience in the area of advocacy with policy-making bodies.

He has earlier worked with various companies and Industry Associations, such as BCC, Remington Rand of India Limited, Herbertsons Limited, ION Exchange India Limited, CII, ICC and PHDCCI.

He was recently worked with FICCI as Joint Director and Head of Jharkhand and Bihar state offices. Rana has also worked with the Government of India, Ministry of Tourism, as Project Director for organising “Global Exhibition on Tourism” in the year 2015.

Stay tuned for the next edition of Movers and Shakers of the week!

The post Movers And Shakers Of The Week [19-24 Nov 2018] appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In late 2016, the VC and PE industry was shocked by SoftBank’s announcement of its $100 Bn Vision Fund. The idea behind the fund was to invest in late-stage technology companies. Riding on its impressive 44% Internal Rate of Return over its 18 years of existence, SoftBank was able to close $93 Bn in commitments within just seven months.

As per publicly available information, investors are expecting to see at least 20% IRR from this fund. If we look at the US Venture Capital ecosystem, all the VCs collectively raised a cumulative of $143 Bn over the course of 4 years between 2014-2017. This is also four times the size of the biggest private equity investment ever raised.

The Vision Fund is composed of a unique hybrid structure of equity and debt. SoftBank itself has made a commitment of $28 Bn in equity. It has raised the remaining $72 Bn from external investors in the form of equity and debt. The debt portion adds up to a sizeable $45 Bn.

As per publicly available information, the debt portion of the commitment is in the form of preferred units. The investing period will be five years and the life of the fund will be 12 years. The high debt portion has its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

If the fund does well, the huge debt at a lower coupon will enable very high equity returns to investors but on the flipside, if it doesn’t (since the debt is in the form of preferred units), it will lead to almost no return eroding the capital.

Source: FT Research

The best thing about this “mother of all” funds is that the staggering cash may well shape the industries of the future. SoftBank’s Vision Fund till date has led huge investments in companies across sectors. It acquired about a 20% equity in GM Cruise, which GM bought in 2016, for $2.25 Bn.

SoftBank, along with the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and Sequoia Capital, invested $535 Mn in food-delivery company DoorDash. Dog-walking service Wag, raised $300 Mn from SoftBank giving it a 45% stake in the company. It also invested $865 Mn in a construction company Katerra. The biggest round of $9.3 Bn investment in Uber, makes SoftBank the largest shareholder in Uber.

The median global round size for late-stage companies in 2017 was around USD 11 Mn. The fund has already spent $30 Bn, nearly as much as the $33 Bn raised by the entire US VC industry in 2017. Within a year, the fund has a family of 24 portfolio companies.

The sheer investing power of SoftBank with large cheques are pushing incumbent VCs to raise large capital. Sequoia’s latest fund of $8 Bn is still small compared to Vision Fund but shows how top VCs are also raising large capital to write bigger cheques. General Catalyst recently filed for a $1.3 Bn fundraise, almost twice the amount it raised two years ago. Other funds that are considering a significant raise include Lightspeed Ventures ($1.8 Bn), Battery Ventures ($1.2 Bn) and Khosla Ventures ($1.4 Bn).

A routine $100 Mn raise in the Silicon Valley is now turning out into a $200 Mn fundraise. Brain Corporation, a robotics company has raised $10 Mn, before raising $100 Mn+ from SoftBank. Similarly, Improbable raised only $52 Mn before closing its $500 Mn round with SoftBank.

These inflated round sizes are making other VCs to either write bigger cheques or drop out. FOMO has led VCs to conserve capital for investing in late stage deals. This has led to a significant gap in Series B/Series C stage investments. However, this has also opened an opportunity for early stage VCs to focus on Series A/Series B investment and look to Softbank for a potential exit.

This competition to deploy capital and grab deals has led to inflated valuations. For example, if WeWork’s valuation was based on the multiple of sales like its competitor Regus, then it will be worth much lower than current valuation of $28 Bn. The investment in late-stage also has a significant impact on liquidity (exit).

Incremental, late-stage capital delays going public and consequently exit. As can be expected, there is no “free lunch”. Our research shows that large round sizes are usually accompanied by non-standard terms from the investor. These include some covenants related to decision making as well as further capital raises, for example.

With the Vision Fund, SoftBank has enabled companies to dream BIG as a resource is not a constraint to hire top talent, for example. Its ability to back companies give founders a fair chance to compete against the likes of Amazon, Google, Facebook etc. Higher establishment and living costs are shackling startups in Silicon Valley and a healthy capital raise helps alleviate these factors.

However, companies will come under increased pressure to show commensurate growth vis-à-vis the capital deployed and justify the premium on valuations. It also puts pressure on the company to raise subsequent funding rounds at a higher valuation.

In its quest to show growth, companies may be forced to burn disproportionate capital without much regard to profitability and grab market share, for example. Sustainability of business models propelled by capital may come under a cloud when the cycle turns and capital runs out before you build a business.

Secondly, by writing large cheque sizes (than the norm), Softbank is trying to propagate a concept that Capital is the biggest moat. While some businesses do need high capital to disrupt traditional business models, attract customers and retain them or change customer behavior, companies flush with excess liquidity often leads to profligate behavior. A culture of respecting capital is also imperative in the early stages of a business and it will be interesting to see how this pans out.

There is also an apprehension among companies (whose business models particularly are capital intensive) that if they don’t accept capital from SoftBank, they may cede space to rivals. SoftBank’s investment in cab hailing companies started with $20 Mn investment in Ola in 2014. It soon invested in Grab in SE Asia, Didi in China and Brazil’s 99 (string of pearls strategy).

Since all companies aim international expansion it may have been the right call for Uber to secure funding from SoftBank. Secondly, since most of these would be a “winner takes most if not all” plays, a common investor like Softbank would benefit.

Recently, Vision Fund also came under scanner (for no fault of their own) for having the Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) as their largest LP, given the incident around the disappearance of Adnan Khashoggi. The PIF had also committed another USD 45 Bn for SoftBank’s Vision Fund II.

Though Masayoshi Son has not made any public statement on his stand vis-à-vis Saudi investment, it remains to be seen how Son deals with international pressure surrounding this. Though companies like Uber and Wework were not part of the FII conference, they got a backlash for being funded by Saudi’s money through the Vision Fund.

Uber had earlier received USD 3.5 Bn investment directly from PIF in 2016. It would be interesting to see whether Softbank can pull off another Vision Fund without their largest LP and whether companies will have reservations accepting capital from Vision Fund.

In conclusion, for capital-starved countries like India, Indonesia and others, SoftBank’s Vision fund is a blessing, which has given significant impetus to several startups like Flipkart, Paytm, Grab, Go-Jek and others. Flipkart, at one point of time, was struggling to raise capital and SoftBank’s timely infusion helped them to consummate the historic deal with Walmart.

Few VC firms can match SoftBank’s global reach. More importantly, when SoftBank invests in 50-70 companies (at steady state), it will have one of the biggest global pools of tech firms valued at multiple billions of dollars. This ecosystem will be incredibly powerful as the strength of any VC comes from the ecosystem it builds.

SoftBank also mentioned its plan to raise Vision Fund II with twice the size of the first fund. Son claims that Vision Funds 2, 3 and 4 will be established every two to three years and will have a portfolio of about 1000 companies in a decade. Venture Capital Funds pride in investing in disrupting businesses. Softbank’s Vision Fund is disrupting the Venture Capital Industry in a manner and scale that is unprecedented. Only time will tell if we are heading towards a one-man bubble or a powerful conglomerate led by an audacious visionary.

[This article is co-authored by Shailesh Ghorpade, Managing Partner and CIO of Exfinity Venture Partners and Mohit Babu, Associate of Exfinity Venture Partners.]

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Digital lenders may see their expenses rise as the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said that an Aadhaar-based digital payments solution, e-NACH, will be suspended, starting Monday (November 26).

This may reportedly have an impact on digital lenders, especially smaller fintech startups.

eMudhra, a digital identity and transaction management company, had launched its Aadhaar eSign-based National Automated Clearing House (NACH) gateway in 2017, for large and small enterprises to collect recurring payments from customers digitally.

Under eMudhra’s digital signature system, a customer can authenticate a payment process with a one-time password (OTP). However since the Supreme Court curbed the use of Aadhaar-based eKYC by private companies, this product may result in contempt of court if continued, ET reported.

“Digital lending industry seems to be moving in the reverse gear. First, it was the eKYC issue, then liquidity issue and now eNACH is getting blocked.  Time to re-imagine business models considering consumer demand for credit is strong,” PayU India managing director Jitendra Gupta tweeted, following the NPCI order.

The e-NACH authentication system is estimated to save banks about 95% of their transaction-related costs.

“I completely understand and appreciate the concerns of fintechs and banks, since any other alternative may not have the same scale and also raise the cost for mandate substantially. The ecosystem in consultation with the government and the UIDAI need to identify the appropriate solution, till then eSign on eNACH will be suspended,” NPCI CEO Dilip Asbe told ET.

He added that the agency had to take the stand to be compliant with the Supreme Court’s judgement, which disallows private companies from asking for Aaadhaar authentication for eKYC from users.

[The development was reported by ET]

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Bengaluru-based online tutoring startup Vedantu has raised $11 Mn in a Series B funding round led by philanthropic investment firm Omidyar Network, with participation from existing investor venture capital firm Accel Partners.

Vedantu spokesperson confirmed the development to Inc42 and said the company plans to use the funding to expand its technology and presence in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

Founded in 2014 by Vamsi Krishna, Anand Prakash, and Pulkit Jain, Vedantu is an interactive online tutoring platform where teachers provide tuitions to school students over the internet, using a real-time virtual learning environment named WAVE, a technology built in-house.

The company’s name has a special meaning as the company emphasises Veda = ‘Knowledge’ and Tantu= ‘Network’. This means a knowledge network where any student can tap into a teacher directly and learning can happen in a personalised way, anytime-anywhere.

Vedantu claims to have more than 500 teachers who have taught more than 1 Mn hours to over 40K students spread across more than 1000 cities from over 30 countries.

An hour’s group session costs INR 50-150 and a private session costs INR 300-600. On Vedantu a teacher is able to give personalised teaching using two-way audio, video and whiteboarding tools where both teacher and student are able to see, hear, write and interact in real-time.

At present, the company is operational in 80 cities in India as it tutors students from 6th to 12th grade, the company plans to enter into exams categories like GMAT and GRE.

Of late, edtech startups have received significant interest from investors, which is not a surprise. According to a May 2017 Google-KMPG report, the Indian online education sector may witness up to 8X growth in the next five years.

Here’s a quick look at the major players in the edtech segment in India:

– Gaja Capital invested $25 Mn in Ahmedabad-headquartered edtech company Educational Initiatives and acquired a significant minority stake in sports education and training company KOOH Sports for $10.17 Mn
– California-and Bengaluru-based e-learning platform Quizizz raised $3 Mn in a funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners
– Bengaluru-based AI-focussed edtech startup Verzeo secured Series A funding of $5 Mn

With growth stage funding from major investors of the Indian startup ecosystem, Vedantu has a lot of potential to access the untapped secondary markets.

The post Omidyar, Accel Place $11 Mn Bet On Edtech Startup Vedantu appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In a counter affidavit to a two-judge Supreme Court bench hearing a batch of cases on the legitimacy of cryptocurrency in India, the finance ministry defended the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) ban on crypto entities from access to any banking services.

Representatives from the finance ministry submitted that the RBI circular as well as warnings issued by finance ministry on December 29, 2017 and by finance minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech on February 1, 2018, are in line with the first inter-ministerial (interdisciplinary) committee’s recommendations on cryptocurrencies.

Another inter-ministerial committee, led by Department of Economic Affairs secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, is yet to draft its report.

The committee is scheduled for further meetings in December 2018 and January 2019, the finance ministry said.

Inc42 has viewed of the counter affidavit (dated November 19, 2018) submitted to the apex court by the finance ministry.

What Supreme Court Said In The October 25 Hearing

On October 25, 2018, hearing the batch of cryptocurrency cases clubbed with the Siddharth Dalmia case Writ Petition(s)(Civil)  No(s). 1071/2017, the two-judge bench of Rohinton Fali Nariman and Navin Sinha had directed the centre to file an affidavit on the status of the report to be filed by the interdisciplinary committee headed by Garg.

The bench had ordered, “The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the Union of India has informed us that a committee is deliberating on the very matter in issue in the writ petition. Let an affidavit be filed by the concerned officer within a period of two weeks from today giving us the stage at which the committee is deliberating the matter, including the estimated time within which the government will ultimately come out with its policy decision in the matter.”

What Were The First Committee’s Recommendations

Responding to the Supreme Court’s order, the finance ministry averred that, set up on March 15, 2017, the first interdisciplinary committee led by special secretary Dinesh Sharma (now retired) with members from CBDT, Ministry of Home Affairs, MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology), RBI, NITI Aayog, and SBI, had submitted its report in July 2017 and had proffered to ban cryptocurrency across the country with immediate effect.

The committee in its report recommended that warnings should be issued to the effect that cryptocurrencies are neither coins nor currencies and consumers should stop trading in these currencies. It also recommended that enforcement agencies take action against such trades to protect consumers.

After examining the report, and apparently, unsatisfied with the report, finance minister, Arun Jaitley, on November 2, 2017, announced the formation of another committee pertaining to the cryptocurrency trading in India. Led by Garg, the second inter-ministerial committee has held two meetings on November 27, 2017 and February 27, 2018.

The committee has schedule two more meetings in December, this year and January, next year before finalising its draft regarding cryptocurrency regulation in India.

In its 11-page counter-affidavit, the finance ministry maintained that the government and RBI have acted in accordance with the report filed by the first inter-ministerial committee and will take further appropriate action once the new committee submits its report.

After-Report: The Indian Government Statement

While RBI has been issuing cryptocurrency or Bitcoin-related warnings since 2013, Ministry of Finance on December 29, 2017 had likened Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with Ponzi schemes.

The statement issued on December 29 read, “There has been a phenomenal increase in recent times in the price of ‘Virtual Currencies’ (VCs) including Bitcoin, in India and globally. These VCs don’t have any intrinsic value and are not backed by any kind of assets. The price of Bitcoin and other VCs, therefore, is entirely a matter of mere speculation resulting in spurt and volatility in their prices. There is a real and heightened risk of an investment bubble of the type seen in Ponzi schemes which can result in sudden and prolonged crash exposing investors, especially retail consumers losing their hard-earned money.”

Emphasising the risk and illegality involved in Bitcoin trading, the finance department said, “Consumers need to be alert and extremely cautious as to avoid getting trapped in such Ponzi schemes. VCs are stored in digital/electronic format, making them vulnerable to hacking, loss of password, malware attack etc. which may also result in permanent loss of money. As transactions of VCs are encrypted they are also likely being used to carry out illegal/subversive activities, such as, terror-funding, smuggling, drug trafficking and other money-laundering Acts.”

RBI’s Submission In Court

RBI in its submission to Supreme Court in September asserted that: “The impugned circular and the impugned statement neither violate the right to equality guaranteed under Article 14 or the right to trade and business guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution.”

The RBI response added that “there is no statutory right, much less an infringed one, available to the petitioner to open and maintain bank accounts to trade, invest or deal in virtual currencies (VCs).”

“The petitioner cannot seek to exercise the extraordinary jurisdiction of this Hon’ble Court to avail a right which they do not have,” it said.

The multiple petitions filed against the RBI circular alleged that the ban it has imposed on banks barring them to deal with cryptocurrency entities violates Articles 19 (1) (g) and 14 of the Indian Constitution and will lead to the closure of such companies.

The RBI maintained that the impugned circular and the impugned statement have been issued in a manner that is consistent with the powers conferred on the RBI by the law and the same are legal and valid.

In the aftermath of RBI circular, once India’s leading cryptocurrency exchange Zebpay and some other exchanges have shut down their business in India, meanwhile many crypto exchanges have preferred to stick to crypto-to-crypto trading until there is regulatory clarity in the matter. Some crypto enthusiasts and exchanges have also been actively campaigning in support of the cryptocurrency regulations.

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