BUSINESS
Warburg Pincus eyeing exit from IndiaFirst Life Insurance post 2018 bet
Investment bank Barclays has been roped in as an advisor to find a buyer for the PE major’s 26 per cent stake
BUSINESS
Swiggy to launch Toing, a standalone app for affordable food options
Toing, which will go live in Pune first, aims to tap demand from students, young professionals and will be an extension to Swiggy’s Rs 99 store. It will be the seventh app from the house of Swiggy. The aim is to increase its base of transacting users and maintain the company’s pace of growth.
BUSINESS
Over a dozen AI startups in India set to raise seed rounds amid surge in investor appetite
A bulk of the startups negotiating deals are developing AI agents or are creating tools to facilitate their development. Investors are also spending time on AI companion companies, sources told Moneycontrol.
BUSINESS
Instamart service at all-time high, outlook for quick commerce overwhelmingly positive: Swiggy Group CEO Sriharsha Majety
Instarmart CEO Amitesh Jha told Moneycontrol that Swiggy will run a Quick India Movement sale event later this month. It is likely to rival Amazon's Great Indian Festival and Flipkart's Big Billion Days signalling that the lines between e-commerce and quick commerce are blurring.
BUSINESS
Former IndiaAI mission advisor Aakrit Vaish to launch Activate, an AI fund with a $75 million corpus
General Catalyst, Aravind Srinivas of Perplexity, Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm, Harsh Jain of Dream 11 are among the notable limited partners (LPs) of the fund, sources told Moneycontrol. Activate has already signed its first term sheet.
BUSINESS
Quick commerce firms set to clock 1 billion orders by Diwali this calendar year
The meteoric rise of quick commerce, still a sunrise sector, comes at a time when the Competition Commission of India (CCI) is currently reviewing the operations of companies to assess whether they follow anti-competitive practices.
BUSINESS
Walmart-owned Flipkart appoints former Google executive Balaji Thiagarajan as its chief technology and product officer
Thiagarajan holds nine U.S. patents, an MS degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Syracuse University, and an MBA in Finance & Operations from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
BUSINESS
Kitchens@ weighs acquiring Popo Ventures that runs Pizza Bakery, Paris Panini, Smash Guys for Rs 800 crore
The deal hinges on whether Kitchens@ is able to raise the capital required to fund the acquisition this size, sources told Moneycontrol. The cloud kitchen startup has been looking to raise Rs 2,000 crore for about a year now.
BUSINESS
Flipkart Minutes helped bring 50 million new visitors onto our platform, says SVP Hemant Badri
That is a significant addition especially because Flipkart has around 200 million annual active users and a total customer base of 500-600 million.
BUSINESS
Elevation Capital raises $400 million to foray into late-stage investing via Elevation Holdings
Elevation Holdings will write $20-50 million cheques and focus on new-age companies that are close to a public market listing. It will continue to stay invested in these firms even after their IPO.
BUSINESS
Prosus eyes additional stake in Rapido with $200 million investment
Prosus is also considering a deal to purchase a part of Swiggy’s stake. If that deal goes through, the total round size may increase, sources told Moneycontrol.
BUSINESS
Walmart to appoint Flipkart senior vice president Bharath Reddy to its Global Tech Team
Reddy is an alumnus of IIT Bombay and IIM Calcutta. Flipkart is in the process of appointing a new leader for its IT & InfoSec functions, CEO Krishnamurthy told employees in an internal email.
BUSINESS
Swiggy to rejig structure; appoint finance heads for Instamart, food delivery
Once the move to a new model is completed, Swiggy’s organisational structure will be similar to that of Blinkit, its arch-rival. The two VPs of Finance will likely report to CFO Rahul Bothra, sources told Moneycontrol.
BUSINESS
Swiggy’s Instamart reclaims second spot from Zepto in quick commerce, surges ahead on net merchandise value
Based on NMV, Blinkit had a 52 percent market share, Swiggy was number two with a market share of 25 percent and Zepto was in third place with a 23 percent market share, the data, accessed by Moneycontrol, showed.
BUSINESS
SBI Mutual Fund, Permira, others to pick up Rs 450-crore worth of shares in Urban Company in pre-IPO round
Urban Company is being valued at around $1.8 billion, or Rs 15,500 crore, during these transactions where Accel, Bessemer Venture Partners, Tiger Global and Elevation Capital are all selling shares.
BUSINESS
Swiggy looks to net Rs 2,500 crore from Rapido stake sale
Swiggy looks for a 2.5X return on investment in just over three years. Rapido is being valued at Rs 23,000-26,000 crore ($2.7-$3 billion), a 2.5X jump in valuation in a year’s time, on the back of 120% growth in scale, sources told Moneycontrol.
BUSINESS
Top sellers on leading e-commerce platforms report Rs 72,000 crore revenue, report profit margins at 0.5%
These sellers are part of a broader group of ten entities on leading online marketplaces—such as Amazon and Flipkart—that together recorded approximately Rs 72,000 crore in revenue in FY24, according to filings reviewed by Moneycontrol
BUSINESS
A91 Partners to invest Rs 175 crore in Coimbatore-based Shree Anandhaas Sweets as PE interest in space picks up
A91 Partners’ investment into Shree Anandhaas comes after Motilal Oswal (MO Alts) invested in Lal Sweets as investors bet on a large unorganised industry, and family-owned businesses, in India becoming more organised as an increasing number of consumers alter their purchasing patterns.
BUSINESS
Lenskart co-founder Peyush Bansal's quest for a promoter tag and how he's securing it
Bansal bought a total of 42.7 million shares in Lenskart at a valuation of $1 billion, a steep discount from the $9-10 billion valuation the company is aiming for during its IPO.
BUSINESS
Lenskart IPO: SoftBank, Kedaara and others sell shares at steep discounted valuation of $1 billion to founder Peyush Bansal
Moneycontrol was first to report on July 9 about Bansal’s plans to borrow around Rs 200 crore and fund this share purchase at a valuation of $1 billion, 90% lower than the $10 billion price tag it is aiming for during its IPO later this year
BUSINESS
IPO-bound Lenskart acquires Spain-based Stellio, the parent of Meller, for Rs 400 crore
To be sure, over 80 percent of Lenskart’s revenues come from optometric eye care, which includes prescription glasses, contact lenses and more. The remaining comes from accessories and lifestyle products like sunglasses and more.
BUSINESS
Flipkart’s VP Smrithi Ravichandran set to join PE firm Multiples
Ravichandran will take up an investing role at the PE firm and oversee funding activity, source deals and double down on existing portfolio companies across sectors in her new role, sources told Moneycontrol.
BUSINESS
Lightspeed, Premji Invest in talks to back former HDFC veteran's Weaver Services in Rs 1,200 crore round
HDFC Bank’s former top boss Keki Mistry will also invest some money in his personal capacity, sources told Moneycontrol.
BUSINESS
Nexus Venture Partners prepares to raise $700 million for its eighth fund
Nexus will continue to bet on new-age companies in the artificial intelligence (AI), software, fintech, and commerce markets, as it had planned with its seventh fund a couple of years ago.
