Breaking: ShareChat and Paytm have backed a separate digital competition law for India, opposing IAMAI’s views. PhonePe co-founder, however, thinks it is a bad idea.

One quick thing: The Indian government has introduced a 20% TCS on all international credit card transactions from July 1, 2023, prompting many to cry foul. Here's how the move will affect startups 

In today’s newsletter:

• AWS’ Rs 1 lakh crore India cloud bet
• Swiggy’s food delivery business turns profitable
• ZestMoney founder has no regrets after stepping down as CEO

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If you look at Amazon's investments in India, it appears the tech giant is more bullish about cloud services than its core e-commerce business in the country.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has unveiled its plans to invest over Rs 1 lakh crore ($12.7 billion) in the country’s cloud infrastructure by 2030. 

• This reflects the company's bullishness on the India opportunity, despite the expected slowdown in its cloud services business globally.

With an earlier investment of Rs 30,900 crore ($3.7 billion) between 2016 and 2022,  the total investment by AWS in India is expected to reach Rs 1,36,500 crore ($16.4 billion) by 2030.

• In comparison, Amazon has invested over $6.5 billion in its e-commerce business in India until now.

The investment by AWS in data centre infrastructure is expected to generate around 1,31,700 full-time equivalent jobs across roles such as engineering, telecommunications and construction.

It is estimated to contribute Rs 1,94,700 crore ($23.3 billion) to India's total gross domestic product by 2030, the company said.

“Our India mission is empowering builders and businesses to build a better India. We want to build a customer-obsessed business in India, building relationships which will outlive all of us. We are investing in India for the long-term,” said Puneet Chandok, president of commercial business, AWS India and South Asia.

The AWS country head is extremely bullish about the company's AI bets, which he believes will democratise AI.

“When it comes to generative AI, we are going to do something very different from what’s out there. We want to cut through all the noise, and truly democratise AI. We are making generative AI easy to use, practical and cost-effective for our customers,” Chandok said

He emphasised three key innovations in generative AI that AWS is actively developing. These innovations are AWS Bedrock, AWS CodeWhisperer, and the creation of cost-effective infrastructure.

After nine years of starting food delivery services in India, and about two quarters later than rival Zomato, Swiggy is finally inching closer to serving profits from one of its key divisions.

• Swiggy's food delivery business is now profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis as of March,  CEO Sriharsha Majety said in a blog post.

(Adjusted EBITDA essentially means that a company has not considered certain costs, ESOP costs in Swiggy's case, when reporting its EBITDA results.)

Explaining what that means, a user tweeted,  “If you subtract my body's extra fat, and add the upcoming potential muscles, my ‘adjusted’ physique resembles (that of) John Abraham.” 

Claiming to have pioneered the quick-commerce segment, Majety said that the company made disproportionate investments in Instamart, and now those investments seem to be paying off.

• Instamart will become contribution-margin break-even in the next few weeks, he added. 

With the aim of hopping on the ONDC bandwagon, Domino's has told analysts that it is actively bolstering its tech capabilities to become a part of the open network, staying true to its goal of serving up as many pizzas as possible through multiple channels. 

As the curtain fell on her role as CEO, ZestMoney co-founder Lizzie Chapman left, stating that she had no regrets.

"We played a good game," she told us in her first public interaction after stepping down as ZestMoney CEO a couple of days ago.

• Chapman also sounded extremely optimistic about the business she had just left. She said ZestMoney, as an entity, had never looked 'this healthy.'

But then, why did she leave?

Chapman shied away from giving us a straight reason behind her departure. 

However, she said that it only made sense for her and two other ZestMoney founders to step back and hand over the company to professional managers.

“We're not really going anywhere. We just want to do (run the business from the sidelines) it from a different position,” she said.

Chapman also acknowledged how bumpy the ride was for her and the entire team at ZestMoney, which had gone through a liquidity crisis, a failed M&A, and founders' resignations.

After the PhonePe deal fell through, ZestMoney had no choice but to lay off 20% of its workforce. 

These layoffs, coupled with some more cost-cutting initiatives, have provided the company with a runway of six months. 

• ZestMoney is also raising a ‘small’ internal round as it charts a path to recovery. 

In addition to extending its runway, ZestMoney has streamlined its operations and will be shutting down its insurance and other ancillary programs to prioritise profitability.

 The management at Zest expects profitability in the next six months and is confident that they will not need any further fund infusions beyond that to survive and grow. But only time will tell how ZestMoney shapes in its new avatar.

Read the full interview

The deadlock over the Karnataka Chief Minister post has finally come to an end. 

Although the Karnataka election results were announced on May 13, with the Congress emerging as the largest party, winning 135 seats out of 224 in the legislative assembly, the appointment of the Chief Minister was pending. 

The decision was delayed due to differences between Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar, Karnataka Congress chief, as both were vying for the post. 

After intense deliberations by senior Congress leaders in Delhi, Siddaramaiah's name has been finalized as the new CM. 

Here's everything you need to know about the new Karnataka CM

On May 18, 2012, Facebook (now Meta Platforms) made history as the first US company to go public with an initial valuation exceeding $100 billion.

Although shares closed higher than $38 on that first day, reaching $38.23, they experienced a sharp decline of over 10% on the following day. It took more than a year for the stock to recover and reach the IPO price again.

• A bankruptcy court judge has granted approval for Voyager Digital's liquidation procedures, with the goal of returning cash and crypto to customers by June 1.
  
  
• The SEC has asked Grayscale Investments to withdraw its Filecoin Trust application due to concerns that Filecoin, the underlying asset, may be considered a security.

If you've been away from your Gmail account for quite a while, here's some news you might want to hear. 

Google has announced that it will be deleting inactive accounts that have remained unused for two years. This will also remove the content users have stored on Google Photos and YouTube.

Now, we know what you're thinking: "What about all my precious emails, documents, and photos?" 

Don't worry, they're giving you a fair warning, so make sure to take action before it's too late. Find out more

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