BUSINESS
Mensa Brands undertakes layoffs
So far, the Tiger Global-backed company has acquired at least 17 companies between October 2021 and December 2022 but has gone slow on its acquisition spree after that.
BUSINESS
LaundryMate raises Rs 50 crore from Blume Founders Fund and others, eyes expansion
The Indian laundry services market is estimated to have a total addressable opportunity of $14 billion by 2025, with about 80 percent of the segment being B2C focused, according to analysts at Redseer.
BUSINESS
Atomberg raises $86 million in funding led by Temasek, Steadview Capital at $400-450 million valuation
Atomberg plans to use the funds to boost manufacturing capabilities, support new product launches, and deepen its presence in offline stores in key regions.
BUSINESS
Swiggy’s outgoing CTO Dale Vaz secures $7-10 million in funding for new wealth-tech startup
This move into the wealth tech sector comes at a time when the retail investor base has been growing rapidly.
BUSINESS
Swiggy Instamart begins cafe services in a bid to increase basket size, margins
Instacafe, Swiggy’s latest pilot, will offer pre-cooked snacks in certain pockets of Bengaluru and Hyderabad, much like Zepto Cafe does in Mumbai.
BUSINESS
Swiggy’s food-delivery biz turns profitable in March, excluding ESOPs, says co-founder & CEO
According to Sriharsha Majety, the company’s quick commerce segment Instamart is on track to become contribution-margin break-even in the next few weeks.
BUSINESS
Top-level exits at Flipkart: Senior executives depart amidst company reshuffling
The senior executives will be leaving Flipkart after serving for at least eight years each.
BUSINESS
Why Puma India is unlikely to sue outgoing MD Abhishek Ganguly as he starts his own sports firm
Though Ganguly’s startup Agilitas Sports is a business in related field, Puma India may not invoke the non-compete clause against him. Historically, most non-competes have favoured employees. In fact, the chances of Puma India tying up with Agilitas later also cannot be ruled out.
BUSINESS
More analysts point to ONDC not being a threat to Zomato and Swiggy duopoly
A higher commission model was especially needed because ONDC cannot keep funding discounts for long nor can it forgo its own commissions for software and network upkeep. A like-for-like comparison shows the current commission rates of food techs and ONDC are similar.
BUSINESS
Zomato rolls out its own UPI offerings with ICICI Bank
The Gurugram-based company said users can now complete orders on the same page using Zomato UPI, without being required to open a separate app to complete payments.
BUSINESS
Amazon notifies sellers of revised fee structure, potentially leading to increased prices
While sellers said most of the price increases would be passed on to customers, they feared that their products would be ranked lower on the list of options that popped up under the ‘similar’ tab, largely because of how Amazon’s algorithms work.
BUSINESS
Outgoing Puma India MD Abhishek Ganguly raises Rs 430 crore for his startup
The fund infusion comes at a time when investors are tightening their purse strings and funds flow into Indian startups has fallen at a record low in 2023, falling over 80 percent quarter on quarter in Q1CY23.
BUSINESS
Accel-backed neobanking startup Niyo shifts gear, will become a travel tech platform
Niyo’s travel tech platform will essentially cover the entire spectrum around travel, where users can apply for visas and book travel experiences, concierge services, tour packages, travel insurance, and the like.
BUSINESS
ONDC looks cheaper than Zomato and Swiggy: Decoding the discount war
T Koshy, the ONDC chief, conceded that these incentives are only for the short term to jump start transactions on the network
BUSINESS
Moody’s expects Oyo’s EBITDA to jump 65% YoY in FY24
During a presentation to employees, Ritesh Agarwal, founder and group CEO of the SoftBank-backed company said Oyo had reported an adjusted EBITDA of around Rs 245 crore in FY23. Rating agency keeps Oyo’s parent company, Oravel Stays Private Ltd’s rating at B3 corporate family rating.
BUSINESS
In 2nd markdown in 4 months, Invesco cuts Swiggy’s valuation to $5.5 billion
According to filings, Invesco – which led Swiggy’s $700 million round in January last year – valued the Bengaluru-based company at $5.5 billion as of January 31, 2023, as per the latest filing.
BUSINESS
Meesho to fire 251 employees, says it made judgement errors in over-hiring ahead of the curve
Meesho founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey said an email to staffers that it is now faced with the hard truth of aligning people costs with the new projections for business.
BUSINESS
Swiggy sees two VP-level exits within a month
Ashish Lingamneni, vice president (VP), head, brand and product marketing, and Nishad Kenkre, VP, head, revenue and growth, Instamart, have left the company. Aparna Giridhar has replaced Lingamneni, while Sreeram Suresh has taken over Kenkre’s position
BUSINESS
BluSmart raises $42 million in a mix of equity and debt from existing investors
Over 50% of the total capital infusion came from founders, Anmol Jaggi and Punit Goyal, themselves to increase their stake in the company, people added. This is part of the company’s Series A2 round.
BUSINESS
Zomato-backed Magicpin helps ONDC fulfil 10,000 orders a day
After integrating with the ONDC in March this year, Magicpin brought 22,000 restaurants on to the platform and said it would add 5,000 more over the coming three months
BUSINESS
Swiggy shuts premium grocery delivery unit 'Handpicked'
While Swiggy has shut divisions like Handpicked and meat delivery as they did not yield desired results and also to reduce the company’s overall costs, it is also toying with newer verticals like Swiggy Maxx, its e-commerce-like platform.
BUSINESS
Swiggy starts charging customers ‘platform fee’ on food orders in monetisation push
While Rs 2 may seem like a small amount, it would create a large enough corpus for Swiggy to reinvest back into its business as it delivers over 1.5 million orders each day, analysts said
BUSINESS
Amazon skips India update, warns of slowdown in global cloud business
Amazon has already shut units like Amazon Food in India and also announced that Amazon Academy would be closed down in a phased manner, starting August 2023
BUSINESS
Oyo turns cash flow positive in Q4, ends FY23 in black as it gears up to go public
Oyo, which refiled its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the SEBI under the recently introduced pre-filing route in March 2023, was sitting on a cash reserve of around Rs 2,700 crore, according to the presentation.
